Day in the Life of an Idiot

 Egads, I've been terrible about keeping up here.

To be fair to me, I've been deep in RPG game planning as an antidote for the continual storm of terrible news from the Worst Timeline. As many of you know, I've recently taken the plunge, moving from player to game master. I still play in plenty of games! However, much like my move from reader to writer, I have discovered that if I want a certain type of game, I might just have to run it myself.  This keeps me occupied to the point of distraction, honestly.  I do have to watch my obsessive tendencies, a bit. Given my druthers I'd almost always rather play or plan an RPG than almost anything else.

Otherwise, I had a birthday on Monday.

Shawn typically takes the day off work for my birthday, so we were able to go together to enjoy some daytime shopping, which was nice. Specifically, I wanted to go to Barnes & Noble to windowshop the manga section there and then head off for what is becoming an annual birthday event, shopping for fabric at S. R. Harris.  It doesn't make sense to catalogue the fabrics I got. Just imagine a nice pile of things that appealed to me--bright and cheery solids and interesting and unusual patterns. To be fair, the big excitment of going to S. R. Harris the dizzying array of choices and the fact that they removed biggest barrier to enjoying fabric shopping for me: waiting in line for your fabric to be cut.  You are allowed to cut your own up to four yards. This always makes me feel like a rogue, a ciminal... like I'm getting AWAY with something.

But, since today is "What Are You Reading Wednesday?" I will go ahead and bore you with the details of that shopping trip to B&N.

I only bought a couple of manga from artists that I really want to make sure to support. First, I bought the official fourth volume four of The Summer Hikaru Died.   The way I introduced this series to the readers of my manga review site was, "The Summer Hikaru Died is a poignant, deeply sublimated, barely acknowledged (but definitely queer) love story between a boy and… the monster that returned in the body of his dead friend. A new genre, perhaps? Horror Romance or Romance Horror?" It's not Chuck Tingle and company's "monster f*ckers." This is love mixed with horror--kind of a perfect coming out queer metaphor, perhaps. It's so, so good. If you want to read my spoiler-heavy review of the first volume, you can find it here: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/2024/03/06/hikaru-ga-shinda-natsu-the-summer-hikaru-died-by-mokumoku-rei/

I also picked up I Think Our Son is Gay, volume 5. I described this one to a friend as "I Think Our Son is Gay is, as you might imagine from the title, a manga about a mother coming to terms (sort of side-by-side with the son who is coming out to himself) that her kid is gay. What I love about this manga is that it reads very true to life. There are moments when the son is clearly experiencing his own homophobia and backing away from his own truth and mom is sometimes ahead of him in this area, and visa versa. Though unlike the kid, mom has a part time job in a bakery and has a friendly adult gay man as a colleague who she sometimes works up the nerve to ask questions.  Dad is sort of set up as the antagonist, but he's also literally only around every so often as he has a job that keeps him away from home for months at a time. Dad doesn't mean to not get it, but he's there to represent the usual attitudes towards gay stuff, if you know what I mean?"  Again, if you're interested in my review of the first volume, it's here: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/tag/uchi-no-musuko-wa-tabun-gay/

Otherwise, Shawn got me a couple of blank notebooks (technically "dot-lined") from one of my favorite notebook makers, Congative Surplus. IF I HAD ANY BIRTHDAY MONEY LEFT, I would totally pick-up one or two of their new "Dark Analysis" notebooks that have black paper and these insanely cool covers: https://cognitive-surplus.com/collections/dark-analysis.  Holy crap, these are cool!

Anyway. I also always request that Shawn make my absolutely favorite cake, which is a cranberry upside down cake. The only trauma with this particular recipe is that for some reason Shawn's success rate with it is 50/50. I am happy to reort that this year it was a complete success. In fact, after I finish writing this to you all, I'm going to go have one of the last pieces left for an afternoon snack!

Speaking of 50/50, it seems as though there is a possiblity this weekend's Star Trek game (where I am a player) might be cancelled. The GM, tallgeese is having cataract surgery (I think today!) and so isn't sure if he'll be fully recovered. First of all, I need to say that I hope his surgery goes off without a hitch and that he does feel up to it, and of course I am not so much of a monster that I won't understand if he's not feeling fully recovered. But I will admit that I'll be deeply bummed out if we end up having to cancel again. It's been awhile since we've played. So long, in fact, that I'm not entirely sure we have a December date picked out yet. I should be sure to offer to run my alternate game-- which is basically, "what if all our same characters were somehow all at Starfleet Academy the same year?" I would offer it is as an alternate relaty version of the same group of people (Think Chris Pine vs. Shatner 'verses), so no one has to roll a new character unless they really wanted to. 

Also, I should say that if you are someone who regularly gets postcards from me, I have not stopped doing those... I just got way off schedule due to All The Things. Also, I'll be honest? After the election I considered just sending everyone a black postcard with just "Help!" written on it, and then I said to myself, "Lyda. These postcards were started to cheer people up during the pandemic. No one wants a story where your time/space traveling heroine has been thrown into an abyss, never to return."  But so, when I was at the coffee shop yesterday, I spotted a local artist selling cute little greeting cards of their work and, though it is not a postcard, I will be sending those out this week just to let my postcard recievers know that I am alive and still planning to continue this project.  

I think that's everything? I hope you all are still keeping on keeping on.

 This linear time thing. I am just not used to it.

Since it is, apparently, already Wednesday, I should catch you up on what I have been reading. Some of it is deeply embarrassing, so that should be fun. I can't even tell you why, but for some reason I ended up reading a very racy, rape-y yaoi called Bakemono no Hanayome / The Beast’s Bride by Akihisa Teo. It wasn't even all that hot? The sex was so heteronormative (outside of our heroes basically being furries) that the fox character literally turns into a woman at the end. So, I mean, it was barely even gay. But, you know, in full disclosure, there you have it. My crappy taste in manga.

I am listening (but not yet finished with) the audiobook for Someone to Build a Nest In by John Wisewell. I started it? It's okay so far. Speaking of gay, I like the queerness. I'm a difficult sell on fantasy, but having the point of view character being The Monster works to help mitigate that for me. 

I'm not even sure what else I've been listening to. I've been trying to keep up with Democracy Now (via podcast) because my son shamed me at one point for being too ostrich about news. He was right, of course, but I have such a difficult time, sometimes, consuming the firehose of news that is spat at a person via social media. I do get the physical paper, but then you have to read so much between the lines--I much prefer a news outlet that says, "His racist lies" when talking about Springfield, for instance. "Mistruth" is a gross mischaracterization--it has the word "truth" in there, like some kind of Orwellian newspeak. "Racist lies" is what it is. I like FACTS, thank you very much. 

I also listened to the latest "If Books Could Kill," which is a fun little podcast that does a deep dive on all those kinds of popular/airport books you see, like Love Languages, Hillbilly Eulogy, and, this week's topic, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom. Because these are the kinds of books people talk about all the time, I am glad to have someone else reading them for me so that I can form an opinion without having to buy and struggle through so much tripe. 

I think that's all I've been reading, etc. How about you? Anything to recommend, btw? I'm going need something after Someone to Build a Nest In.

I have been reading and consuming a literal f*ck ton thanks to my new podcast. Once again, I will break things down by category.

BOOKS
SHORT STORIES

MANGA:
I am only just in the B's of the alphabetical list of cyberpunk manga generated for me by Baka-Updates. But, I got through several over the last week:


I also started and didn't yet finish Blame! by Nihei Tsutomu.

THINGS WATCHED:
In amongst all of this cyberpunk stuff, it is also the Japanese Film Festival Online (until June 18) and, while I'm not trying to catch everything (which would be darn near impossible, given that there are hundreds of films available,) I did pick up at least one other film this last week. 


So, that's been a lot. How about you? What 'cha reading these days?

 Out of the blue, I was contacted by the guy who runs the Just Enough Trope podcast on Facebook DM.  He wanted to ask me whether or not I thought a podcast devoted to cyberpunk was viable. I didn't say, but I could have, "Dude, I am currently listening to an Academic podcast about the Emperors of Rome, so I mean, probably? People will listen to almost anybody talk about anything." What I said instead was something far more true and professional which was, yeah, why wouldn't they? I ended up asking him what his hesitation was, why he was looking for advice. He said a bunch of reasonable things, but then threw in, "Also, I don't have a co-host."

So, of course I wrote back to say, "Well, you didn't ask, but how about me?"

He was shocked I was available and we are now writing a f*ck ton of notes for show ideas. Even if nothing else comes of this, I am having an absolute blast thinking about cyberpunk-y things again. 

In fact, I was just glancing through my book collection wondering where all my cyberpunk books went. I swear I had more than what I found. Also, I may have stopped reading cyberpunk in the 1990s and so I am woefully behind on the genre. Do any of you read cyberpunk regularly? If so, what are you reading? What's a book old or new that you'd recommend we know about--and yes, you can list one of William Gibson's. I'm just collecting all the info right now, so even if you think, "Ah, surely she's read this," please add it, anyway. Like, I haven't read Noor by Nnedi Okorafor, should I? Anyone else?

 Today was the first of my volunteer stints with Q-Quest, the Saint Paul Public School's GSA (Gay/Straight Alliance) queer festival. It was exactly the unrestrained chaos I thought it would be? 

I suspected my topic might be popular. I decided to offer a workshop version of a class that I had a lot of success with at the Loft with teens called, "Capturing Kudos: Tips for Improving Your Fan Fic." 

There were well over 30 participants, some coming in in groups, others signally. I was supposed to have a volunteer host who would be helping me manage the chat and letting people in, but that person either didn't show or chose not to be of much help??  I'm going with the first, since it's kinder, but the chaos might have been slightly less if I wasn't doing introductions, while answering the flurry of beeps as more and more students joined the Google Meet. 

So, I mean I feel like it could have gone a little better? But, the fact that the group (did I mention--over 30 students!!??) were self-organizing a Discord for queer fans makes me figure I basically did a good, even if I lost control of the conversation really fairly early. Not that they really had to fight me for it? I asked students to unmute and talk amongst themselves and so they totally did. In fact one of the students decided to self-appoint themselves as moderator of their Fellow Youth (TM) and I stepped-back and let them. As I told them, this isn't a class; it's their time to make of it what they want. If they wanted to spend 45 minutes squeeing at each other about fandoms... GO!

And that's basically what they did and then they spontaneously organized themselves.  

It was actually fairly cool to watch? 

Tomorrow: Middle Schoolers.  I have slightly less faith that they will be as self-directed, but I can hope. if not, I have an actual power point presentation I can deploy. 

I feel deeply organized today, however, because not only did I prep and launch the chaos workshop, but I am also ready for my critique group tonight having read and commented on the two other people (besides myself) who are under the microscope tonight. Our new group finally decided on a name, too. We are now the Pen Dragons, which is a name I am sure others have thought of, but we're going with it for now. 

Oh, and then I also went off to the library to pick up a bunch of books I put on hold. In case you're wondering what's on my TBR pile, it is:

TROUBLE THE SAINTS  by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Tor)
THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN  by C.L. Polk (Erewhon/Orbit UK)
MEXICAN GOTHIC by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey/Jo Fletcher UK)
THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga/Titan UK)
WHAT STRANGE PARADISE  by Omar El Akkad (Knopf)

I even started reading What Strange Paradise... WTH. Who even am I??  SO. ORGANIZED.

Now I just have to try to somehow stay awake until the meeting tonight. Wish me luck!

So, it is Wednesday? What's on your TBR shelf? What have you read recently and enjoyed??

 
Image: void cat on a huge box under the Solstice Tree

Solstice being over, I can tell you that in that big box was a f*ck ton of books. For Solstice, we have settled on giving books. This year, as it is Mason's last at home before college/university, we bought almost everything on his list. There's well over twenty-five new-to-him books in that box.

For myself, I got a couple of Japanese language resources, Genki (the textbook and the workbook) and Japanese for Dummies. I've downloaded all the supplemental materials, so I should be set to make some kind of language break-through this year. (On a similar note, I am also signed up for a Zoom class with my old language teacher Tetsuya-sensei.) 


I also got a memoir that I'd already read but loved and wanted a copy of called At Home in Japan: A Foreign Woman's Journey of Discovery by Rebecca Otowa. I loved this book. I originally took it out of the library, long ago, but it's just a slow-paced, gentle slice-of-life of an American woman who married a Japanese man and ends up living in a small town where his family, among other things, are the stewards of the local shrine. What I liked about it is that a lot of memoirs of Japan exoticize the Japanese and the Japanese way of life, but this one is very matter-of-fact. She's an outsider, looking in, but this is her FAMILY. She sees her mother-in-law as formidable not only because she's a Japanese matriarch, but also because she the dreaded mother-in-law, you know? Likewise, she approaches everything equally as personally. What I mean, by that is when she encounters 'we-ism' or other cultural touch points, she doesn't act like these are universal--just prevalent--attitudes. Everyone she meets is met as a person, not some ambassador of all things Japanese.

I take a lot of umbrage  with people who have seen one thing about Japan and assume that what they've seen (or heard) is True for All Japanese people. I'm just as annoyed when someone says, "Germans are..____"  or "Americans are...___" because there are a ton of assumptions in those kinds of statements. Which Americans are you speaking of? White? Middle class? Rural? Male? Straight? Cis? Young? And all of these questions apply when talking about the Japanese (and DO NOT come to this blog and tell me that the Japanese don't have racial differences--I will merely direct you to Wikipedia articles that explain Mexican-Japanese to you and about how the US occupation left behind a lot of mixed raced people, about how many Brazilians make a home in Japan, and how any immigrant, like here, can apply for Japanese citizenship. Yes, as a whole Japan is less diverse than Americans are, but that is not the same as somehow being a singular culture.)  

/rant

My point is, this book doesn't do that. It's a lovely, personal look at one woman's experience and I highly recommend it, particularly if you're a fan of slice-of-life stories where kind of nothing happens, but you get a lovely travelogue of a cool place along the way. There's also some lovely cultural stuff, and, as I suggest, is done deftly. 

The other book I got was a Picking book called Usha's Pickle Digest, which I had read about in the NY Times because I have been desperately looking for a good Indian pickled carrot recipe.

That's me (plus bonus rant!) What are you reading?

 I have to get up out of the warm blanket and go fetch some kitty food from Menard's. I just don't want to. Did I mention that my blanket it electric? And i had to squeeze my car into a parking space halfway up the block?  

Just another five minutes, then I'll get up.

So, what do I have to report? The most my family did for Valentine's Day was exchange a card or two. Mason had robotics until almost 5:30 pm, which meant I had time to start our "fake" naan recipe.  So, we had a favorite meal, something we call "Indian Butter Chicken" (because that might be what it's called on the box that contains the sauce I make), rice, and naan.  Then, because Mason is a teenager, somewhere around 7:30 pm, he says, "Uh... so, I'm supposed to bring some ingredients to Chinese tomorrow, because we're making dumplings again."  But AT LEAST he remembered to bring them with him this morning. The night before, he'd stayed up late to do some art-type project for AP Human Geology and then promptly forgot it at home. Luckily, I could text him a picture of it, so his teacher would know that it was, in fact, done on time, even if it didn't make it in on time.  

Because today is payday, we're hoping to all go out to Tavern on Grand tonight for fish.  Mason has to be at robotics again, because the wrap day (or whatever they call the day that they have to shrink wrap their robot) is coming up early next week. But, Shawn and I are thinking about hitting Roseville Library to browse the shelves and hang out until he's ready to join us.  When you think about it, that's pretty romantic. Looking for books together at the library?  HOT, am I right???

Also, I have to laugh at myself. You know how I've ALWAYS claimed that the reason I've been unable to write is because I can't write unless I have a contract?  THIS APPEARS TO _ACTUALLY_ BE TRUE, much to my chagrin.  I have an apocalypse story due the first of April, and, yesterday, I wrote almost 2,000 words on it. What the hell, brain. What the H.E.L.L.

One of my pen pals died. I recently acquired a pen pal in Duluth. Normally, I don't like to have pen pals that I don't know that close. (Like, you live in Minneapolis and we've met or we're on social media together and you want to be my pen pal? SURE!) However, this woman took Friend Books. Friendship Books are a very weird aspect of the pen pal subculture, that are fascinating, but also a burden. I've written about what they are here before, but a quick look at Wikipedia might help you understand how they work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_book The point is, I started conversing with this person, mostly so that I had someone to whom I could pass on Friendship Books when I got a bunch of them from the two other pen pals who tend to pass them on to me.  The other day, I got a letter from her daughter. This woman had some 60 pen pals by her own reckoning, but so that might explain the brevity of this note. But, it simply said, "I know you exchanged letters with my mom. I'm sorry to tell you that she and a friend were involved in a head-on collision and died instantly."

But I can't find any information about it. No obit was included. I mean, there's no reason not to believe this, but, wow, what a shock.

Anyway, my eldest cat is staring at me. I'd better get up and fetch her food from the store or she will guilt me wit that amber-eyed stare of hers.

 On social media the other day, I came across someone asking their friends a sort of ubiquitous question, which is: "What book changed your life?"

I've been thinking about that, as you do, over the last few days.  There are a lot of books I've loved throughout my life, but life-changing? That's a pretty tall order, don't you think?  A short story made me gay. Or rather, "A World Well Lost" by Theodore Sturgeon made me consider the fact that maybe gay was another possibility and then, you know, nature did the rest.  But, a life-changing book?

Today, I decided my answer would be Beard on Bread by James Beard. I can say for a fact that after reading that book, my life profoundly changed.  Before I read Beard on Bread, all my yeast breads sucked so much that my family used to call them "Lyda's lead bread." That book was magical. I don't even know that it had anything all that profound to say, but once I read it, I totally understood how yeast was supposed to work (and how to tell if it wasn't working.)

So there you go. My life-changer.  How about you? Do you have a book that changed your life?

I've started following Locus Magazine on Twitter, so I can keep up with the award news as it rolls in. So now I have even more books to add:

According to Locus, "there are several titles of genre interest on the 2015 Baileys Women’s Prize long list":

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel (Picado)
The Country of Ice Cream Star, Sandra Newman (Chatto & Windus)
The Bees, Laline Paull (Fourth Estate)
The Table of Less Valued Knights, Marie Phillips (Jonathan Cape)

This is good news, because Shawn has been bugging me to add Station Eleven to my reading list because she thinks it would make an interesting compare and contrast to "actual" SF (as opposed to what mundanes THINK SF is.) Now I have an excuse. Honestly, I've never heard of the Baileys Women's Prize before, but apparently it comes with a cash prize.

In other news, I started working on a novella today. A friend of mine has been organizing a group of people to write a paranormal project together and listening to them talk about it has made me realize that if I have the energy to do something like that, I should really try seeing if I can write a few Tate one-offs as well.

I'm pleased to report I have about 2,000 words of a new Garnet Lacey novella. One that I intend to self-publish on Amazon. Fingers crossed that I can keep this project going.

Unjust Cause, speaking of other Tate projects, is currently languishing. I'm planning to, at some point this week, pull down copies of all my entries to-date to see if I can wrestle them into something resembling an actual novel. Then I need to read it and figure out where the heck it's going. So I can finish it.

That was an experiment that seems to have floundered. I still think it was important to do, and may very well be salvageable, but... yeah.

Still, it got me started writing on a new original project. Not all is lost! And I'm sure I can fix up what I do have.

At any rate, that's me. I'm also about 124 pages into THE THREE BODY PROBLEM and... well, things are finally starting to interest me. The book starts in a time and place I don't know very much about: The Chinese Cultural Revolution. I mean, I know some basics, and the stuff we see here is very dark. But, the narrative skips forward a bunch and I think we're finally in a thread that I can sink my teeth into. We'll see.

Yesterday was a busy day for me. It started at 9 am, when we took Mason to his final Level 4 swim class of the season. Actually, his final Level 4 class EVER, because he passed the test! (Whoot!) I was glad that I stayed to see his beaming face when he showed us his certificate.



I'd been considering bailing early, because I am Moon-Moon and accidentally scheduled a day of work at the library that was SUPPOSED to start AT 10 am, which was when Mason's class ended.  But, when I realized my mistake, I was able to throw myself on the mercy of my scheduler at the library and she negotiated a 10:30 am start.  Considering I had to work at White Bear Lake, I still didn't think that would be quite enough time.  We had prepared Shawn with emergency taxi money JUST IN CASE.  But, they actually let out class ten minutes early, so, believe it or not, I managed to zip everyone home (mostly, Shawn and Mason agreed to walk three blocks so I could make a quick turn around and get back on the highway,) and myself ALL THE WAY OUT to White Bear in 40 minutes.

I might have considered the speed limit more of a guideline than a law, but... well, I got there with 5 minutes to spare.

The White Bear Library is nice.  It's small and, like Shoreview, doesn't have an automated check-in, but the atmosphere was relaxed...and GRATEFUL.  I guess they had someone quit rather unexpectedly--I know this because a full-time position opened up there.  I considered applying for it, but the hours were a bit wonky for what I needed.  At any rate, I had a lovely time.  I shelved a lot of books....

...which means I came home with a bunch.

I've decided to chronicle my strange book borrowing habits.  So, from the White Bear Library, I bought home:

• GLADIATORS: History's Most Deadly Sport by Fik Meijer.


• THE COMFORT WOMEN: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War by George Hicks.


• LIFE AMONG THE SAMURAI by Eleanor J. Hall (a YA non-fiction)


• HAWKEYE: Little Hits by Matt Faction/David Aja (graphic novel)

I.. yeah, I don't quite know what happens to me in the stacks, but SO MUCH looks interesting.  I started GLADIATORS last night and I haven't learned much that I didn't already know yet, but what the hey?  I may have accidentally picked up the second volume of the new Hawkeye title, but I thought I'd read it anyway.

After racing home, I connected with our friend Andrew from New York who is in town for the weekend.  He came over and regaled us with stories about taking the taxi to our house (which was apparently much harder than you'd expect) and his current life.  I could have happily hung out with him for the rest of the night, but we had a long-standing St. Patrick's Day (observed) party at naomikritzer's we wanted to get to.  So, I took him back to his hotel, and then we all went over.  This is where Mason could have spent his night. He and Naomi's daughter Molly are huge pokemon fans, so they talked pokemon ALL NIGHT.  Meanwhile, Shawn and I enjoyed the company and ate Naomi's husband's fantastic corned beef and veggies.

I was actually an amazingly wonderful day, but, by the end of it, I felt like I'd driven all day long.

I'm looking forward to today, because I THINK I successfully talked Shawn into a pajama day, and I'd really, really love to spend this Sunday lounging around the house.

....Oh, and in case anyone is on tenterhooks, Susan did not eat any of the minnow.  She does seem to delight in terrorizing them by chasing them around, but we still have all seven after all.