Posted on No Comments on A week, interrupted.

A week, interrupted.

I got less than I hoped to get done this week. Early Tuesday morning, a bat got into our room and would not leave, despite the windows being wide open and a couple of humans waving it hopefully towards those windows with the removed window screens. So after ten or fifteen minutes of that, we trapped it in a laundry basket and evicted it from the house.

I came into contact with it while we were doing this.

I have always thought that bats were cute. I still think that bats are cute, but I have picked up, from several members of the health care community, that I should also treat them as if they are flying pieces of raw chicken infested with herpes.

So I started getting my course of rabies shots on Friday. It is (unsurprisingly) a considerably rougher course of treatment than the annual flu shot, and I lost most of Friday to running around and then sleeping, most of Saturday to sleeping and being lightly out of it, and Sunday morning to sleeping. I’m a little worried about how hard the next shot will hit me on Monday, since the work crunch is starting, but I suppose I can cope with that tomorrow

Posted on No Comments on Heading into summer.

Heading into summer.

May was a busy month. In addition to a couple of personal milestones and a chance to meet local writers in person (kind of terrifying, everyone was absolutely lovely), I submitted eight stories and got six rejections (with the one that just came in earlier today, I’ve hit my third centiBrad for the year!), cleared out yet more old books, and started back into physio.

I meant to post something. I did.

Good intentions, and all that.

The next couple of months are going to be interesting. There are two writing/commitment things I’m looking at–all of which would be interesting, some of which I worry would be overwhelming–and I’m thinking very carefully about what I can realistically commit to. (And after the next two months are over, there’s WorldCon in Helsinki, which if it’s anything like the last ones I’ve attended will both be a wonderful experience and a very exhausting one.) I’m hoping to get a plan together this weekend and go from there.

Onwards!

 

Posted on No Comments on Sudden brief update, and hand pain

Sudden brief update, and hand pain

The recent quiet has been due to a lot of things, most recently a lot of things that ended up developing into a tendonitis flare-up like I haven’t had since late 2014.

This one wasn’t quite as bad as that one–I was unable to use my right hand for typing for a few days, but I recognized what was happening and got an appointment with a physiotherapist. I am sure I have bored everyone I have been dealing with with how hard my life has been while I’ve been unable or unpermitted to type.

(On the flip side, my phone’s touchscreen can be navigated with nose-bumps, and I have learned that the text-to-speech recognition on my phone can recognize and render both “:-)” and “kryptonian”. However, it didn’t appear to know “biphobic”. Such are the discoveries we make when discussing modern fiction in this brave new world of 2017.)

I was able to start writing again in short bursts this weekend–I am actually composing this in one of my seven-minute allowed keyboard periods–and it is such a relief to get back. Knowing that a timer is counting down focuses the mind wonderfully, although it does make editing fairly difficult.

Posted on No Comments on Processing.

Processing.

So I was discussing fantasy novels with a co-worker today, and I mentioned The Last Unicorn, and they asked what that was, and I made a noise which is perhaps best described as “glk”. It looks like they might check it out, though, so that’s probably to the good.

Continuing to make progress on my clearing out of stuff; a couple of boxes of assorted smallthings left out for the CDA, and a bag of clothes. I’ve gotten rid of maybe another foot’s worth of books, and am organizing the remainder a little better now.

I feel older. Does that make sense? Realizing that I am not going to use things seems weirdly tied to realizing that I won’t have the time or energy to use them, and that realization makes me feel slower and more run-down. It’s not a bad end result–I am loving the decreasing of clutter–but it’s a somewhat melancholy feeling.

Posted on 2 Comments on There and back again

There and back again

In the last five days, I have

  • cruelly abandoned my cats in a place that is one step down from being a kitty spa,
  • travelled to Ohio (border crossings, dear god, border crossings. And why are the railings on the Ambassador Bridge gently crumbling away into rust like piles of cigarette ash?),
  • caught up with people that I haven’t seen in person in six years,
  • visited a fireworks store in Michigan (for the record, it smelled like bath bombs–not scented or perfumed bath bombs, just the dry and powdery ingredients that seem like they should end with -ate),
  • had a couple of pit bulls be absolutely adorable sloppy cuddle-puppies,
  • had a ridiculous amount of very good food,
  • hit the Toledo Zoo,
  • had a giraffe chew on my shirt (to be fair, he was going after the lettuce I wasn’t giving him fast enough),
  • seen jellyfish and bioluminescent fish and a very boredly dismissive kudu and really they are gorgeous in a very elegantly understated way,
  • learned three new campfire games,
  • stayed up very late playing a homebrew blend of Zombicide and Betrayal at House on the Hill,
  • stopped to have a sushi dinner with a friend I had never actually met in person before (who reads this! Hiiii!),
  • and gotten most of the way back home.

(Not all of the way. Self-preservation and the schedule of the cat boarding place dictated not driving all the way through, so we’ve stopped at a hotel. I am actually typing this last night–I cannot be bothered to wrangle hotel internet RN–so the last four days are “July 1st to 4th inclusive”. I’ll post it in the morning. It’ll still be “the last four days” when I do.)

I’ve also rediscovered that yes, I apparently am a person who gets squirrelly without a certain amount of movement in the day. It keeps surprising me; I never think I’ve been making a concentrated effort to walk long enough for it to have become any kind of habit.

I have brought back a not-to-my-mind-ridiculous amount of Cock & Bull caffeine free cherry-ginger soda, and a small stuffed green tiger from the Toledo Zoo. Whose name is Lymoncello, by the way. I will need to get a photo up.

Turning in, given how soon the alarm is going off. May all the roads you go down be kind ones.

Posted on No Comments on Sic transit gloria

Sic transit gloria

It’s been… odd. Not bad. I have missed travelling in the sense of being somewhere else; I always do. I wish teleportation was a thing; I wish the logistics of being able to leave were not so difficult, and there was more time. (I always wish there was more time.)

But I wish there’d been more time to be in transit, too; while the logistics of being able to travel are a pain (time off! pet care! packing!) the logistics of actually travelling are inevitably relaxing. There’s a fluidity to being able to drop someone a line, decide you can do dinner, know that since you’re in transit you don’t need to be home yet and can drive for a while or stop for a while or just wander. In the UK or the US it feels constantly interesting to me; in Canada it’s more like a larger subtler version of browsing a bookstore. There’s something fascinating about watching the world unscroll outside the window, and seeing the pattern of paint-flaked brick or peach-toned highway (seriously! There were great swathes of both highway and sidewalk that had a distinctly pinkish hue) or trees silhouetted black against the sky repeat itself until you start to get a sense of place. Not recognizing it, but relaxing into it enough that you could begin to describe it.

I didn’t take pictures, this trip. When it comes to the scenery, I am okay with that; I will remember it, and think about it, and pick out pieces. I wish I’d taken a few more of people, but I hope and trust there’ll be other times.

(Also, I got fifteen assorted pieces read for the Hugo voting. So that’s quantifiable.)

Turning in, given how soon the alarm is going off. May all the roads you go down be kind ones.

Posted on No Comments on I missed the pumpkins.

I missed the pumpkins.

Someday I’ll do a proper and full con write-up – by which I mean one that satisfies me – but today is not that day, for reasons of Work and Commitments. I will say, though, that CanCon was lovely and both the panels and the hallway discussions were fun and informative.

(I do wish I’d been able to swing a hotel room. Next year, maybe.)

The time change has been lovely, for the record. I’m going to try to keep my sleep schedule generous this month, especially since I’m trying to hit a NaNoWriMo word count. Whether I manage it or don’t, sleeplessness is not going to make the end result any more useful, nor my coping with stress any more graceful.

(It’s not upsetting, but it is weird enough to make a note of: I think this year is the first time since we’ve had a front porch that I haven’t carved a jack-o’-lantern.)

I think that’s largely it. A pretty brief update, I realize, but there’s still a ton of stuff I need to do tonight.

Posted on No Comments on Ravelling

Ravelling

I went to knitting last night, and I cast on a new project, and I knit–slowly and carefully–until my elbow politely went ping and I decided I should stop.

It did that after a hundred stitches.

For the non-knitters among you: this is not a lot. I ended up producing a swatch of fabric about as long and slightly wider than my index finger.

This is after a month of treatment and a lot of not-knitting. So I think knitting needs to get put away again. At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get back to it in two months, six months, or ever.

The “not ever” option makes me a little sad, but since there’s not much I can do beyond waiting and seeing if treatment and exercise make it better, oh well.

(The number of UFOs I have hanging around will irk me a bit, though.)

On a lighter note, I got the executed contract back for my story “The Gannet Girl”, so that has a home! Expecting it to be out 2016-ish.

Posted on No Comments on Myriad shades of green.

Myriad shades of green.

Morning glory vine climbing one of the gladiolas. If either or both of them were in bloom, it would be lovely.
Morning glory vine climbing one of the gladiolas. If either or both of them were in bloom, it would be lovely.

Several weeks ago, the light of my life and I went out to breakfast after talking about the state of the back yard, and came back past a garden supply outpost in a parking lot, and then there was several hours of digging things up[1] and re-bordering a flower patch and putting in soil and new plants.

I am not sure if I like gardening (which I am fairly sure is usually more complex than what I do), but I found out that I actually really like removing plants I want gone and digging holes in the ground and putting in more and different plants and watering everything. It’s very relaxing.

Over the next week, we also removed half of the raspberry bush thicket and put in some assorted wildflower seeds. And then about a week later, I succumbed to the lure of a box of eight gladiola bulbs placed in the checkout line at the grocery store.

The grass isn’t getting any attention this year, but the two flowerbeds are doing pretty well; everything we planted and transplanted (except for the bleeding hearts) has actually grown. The trouble is that nothing that wasn’t already flowering is really flowering yet. The perennial sage is fine, the sweet tea is finally not dying, and the wildflower seeds are a solid carpet of green. But the only new flowers that have shown up are three tiny white five-petalled things on one of the wildflowers.

Still, it was nice to go out there yesterday and see that the morning glory vine has decided to start climbing a gladiola. I’m hoping one or both of them will still bloom this year.
—
[1] We had hostas, put in several years ago. Taking them out required a pitchfork and a lot of levering. The root balls were not quite the size of my head. I am very proud of getting them out.

Posted on No Comments on If not silence, then rarer posts

If not silence, then rarer posts

On top of being horribly sick on Wednesday (and recovering for two days), apparently I’ve gotten an RSI in my elbow. This is putting a serious crimp in both my typing and my knitting. (And it’s my right elbow, so I can’t even take this as an opportunity to learn crochet, since while I am up for many things learning a new crafting skill with my off hand just does not seem like a productive use of time. I do want to learn crochet, though.)

It’s fairly straightforward to treat, involving an elastic joint support and over-the-counter anti-inflammatories. I’m going to speak to work and see how they feel about my working at home more often, since my setup here is better for me. (I’ll also need to speak to them about getting an ergonomic assessment done on my workspace, but since I’m technically a temp I am not sure if it should come directly from me or from the temp agency. I’ll figure it out.)

Ergonomic assessments are things for which a medical professional hands you a prescription. I was previously unaware of this, but I find it rather neat. I always think of prescriptions as being for things, not for services.

But overall I am doing fairly well, and it’s been a good weekend, and I am having fun playing with the Last Court now that it’s out. I didn’t expect to–I have generally gotten the impression that Dragon Age is a fairly generic fantasy setting–but Failbetter Games has done a stellar job of making it interesting to play as the lord of a small fiefdom in such a setting and not boiling it down to All Those Mechanics I Have Seen Before.