Hospice Volunteering Meeting

Oct. 9th, 2025 03:43 pm
lydamorehouse: void cat art (void cat)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
This morning was my meet-up with Ashley, the hospice volunteer coordinator. We met at my favorite coffee shop, Claddagh, on West 7th. The meeting was half paperwork, half get-to-know you interview.

I guess the things of interest are these: I found out that a lot of people never make it through training. They start reading/viewing (most of it is online videos) the material and decide that hospice work is not for them. I told Ashley that could very well be me. I have no idea where I’m going to fall in all this. This did not faze her. Apparently, that reaction is common enough that they don’t even start processing the paperwork until you make it through everything online. Smart.

One of other things I found sort of fascinating is that I’ll need a couple of references. People who are willing to vouch for me. I think a lot of people use co-workers because she noted to me, specifically, that they could both be personal. Also? Drug and health tests/screening. Including, she said apologetically, marijuana. I laughed because a more teetotal person than me you will rarely find. They can ask me to pee in a cup and do a deep background check, but they can no longer legally ask if I’m up on my COVID and flu shots. How screwed up is that? Apparently, you can volunteer your immunization records at least. That one was a head shaker. You’d think that of all organizations that could require people be up on their vaccines are places that work with end of life. How rude would it be to pass on COVID to someone already dying? Make someone extra miserable on the way out. WTF. Worst timeline.

The materials have arrived in my in-box. I’m looking forward to checking them out, but I have to wait for a little while. I’m actually composing this off-line because Mason is taking the last portion of his LSAT right now, the dreaded essay. Cross your fingers for him. His score will determine a lot of his choices for law school.

Also, we're headed up to our frends Ger & Barb's cabin for the weekend. There's a quilt show in the nearby town of Weber that we're excited to see again. Should be a relaxing weekend.

If I don't write again for a while, I hope you all have a good weekend, too! Any fun plans?



===



EDITED TO ADD: As I am posting, I'm obviously back online. I'm going to go peek at the info now!

mrissa: (Default)
[personal profile] mrissa
 New story! What a Big Heart You Have is out in Kaleidotrope. The more I thought about the Red Riding Hood story, the more I thought that the grandmother/granddaughter relationship was pretty sketched-in...and it's been one of the most important ones in my life. Hope you enjoy.

silly body, this is not helpful!

Oct. 8th, 2025 11:07 am
elisem: (Default)
[personal profile] elisem
 Today does not need to be a trigeminal neuralgia day. It really doesn't.

Where is it happening? It's on the right side this time. 

How bad is it? Three instances so far, so I am braced for more, since that's usually how it goes. Wait, four. And it's not super-bad, just the little dungeon map of tiny passages filled with pain, leading outward and upward from my right upper jaw. Much of the upper cheek is involved, with what feel like lines curving downward from the outer right eye, and this time it's also doing the Monocle of Pain trick, where my eye is ringed in a weird hybrid sensation of ache/pain/coldness/tightness/tickling. That last bit is even more annoying than it sounds. 

What set it off this time? Temperature differential (cold). One accidental touch of cold against the right spot was all it took.


We shall see. Meanwhile I am going off to look again at the pattern of the trigeminal nerve in the face, so as to check whether the stuff on the cheek and the lines from the outer corner of the eye match where the nerves are.

Got a decent rest since the last wave, so maybe it will get bored and wander off.

Silly body.

Anybody else deal with this nonsense? Several people in my family have. 
lydamorehouse: (Default)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
Last night, Shawn had a volunteer gig at the Ramsey County Library in Shoreview. As longtime readers know, my wife really doesn't like to drive. She's licensed, but she's generally a nervous and timid driver. On top of that, Shawn has some PTSD from an accident that happened while she was pregnant with Mason. Thus she mostly avoids driving, outside of emergencies (though she did some while I was in DC at Capclave. Go, Shawn!)

Anyway, what this means that I tagged along to the event as taxi driver. Shawn was in her meeting with the Friends for an hour... and I was left alone like a kid in a candy store.

I brought home eleven manga. Like, my bag was literally stuffed with books.

I finished one already: Two Guys at the Vet Clinic / Doubutsu Byouin no Ofutari-san by Sinonome. It's a boys' love/yaoi about a one-sided crush between a veterinarian and his boss. I'd say it's nothing to write home about, but I'll end up writing all about it over on my manga review site which you can check out if that sort of stuff interests you: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/

Okay, onward!

-----
Gaylaxicon, SUNDAY

There are a couple of things that I forgot to talk about on Saturday. One of the coolest things that happened on Saturday is that at the Murderbot panel I ran into a polycule that I'd met at the last ConFABulous. I instantly recognized them because they all wear matching rainbow masks, but also they're half the age of most of the people at our con. Plus, I feel like I would recognize them anywhere they all (there are at least four members of this polycule) because they played in a last minute Thirsty Sword Lesbians game that I threw together last ConFABulous when it was revealed to me that one of their number had come all the way from Chicago JUST to try playing this game (and when they arrived the sign-up was filled.) I still use a term that one of the players came up with for the future social media, which is "Blab" (as a Twitter/Insta/Facebook stand in.)

Anyway, I gave them my contact info and I hope they actually reach out. Three of the four are local and so they invited me to possibly come run a game with them at some point. I hope they actually do reach out. I liked the four of them quite a lot. 

So that was really cool. Plus, I finally got to meet [personal profile] pameladean 's partner Cameron.  She was deep in discussion with my friend Rachel Gold and their partner(? friend?) Stephanie, so I think we exchanged nothing more than a confused back and forth (because Rachel bought a copy of Cameron's book for me, but it wasn't clear who was paying and if the book had gone to me or Rachel.) Still, it was nice. I'm only sorry that Cameron wasn't feeling up for being on more panels. I would have loved to have showcased her and her work more. ConFABulous is less of the kind of con where writers go, but maybe since she'll have a new book out maybe we could consider if she'd make a good GoH (again, if she's up for such a thing.) ConFABulous really doesn't do GoHs, but at least Cameron is local so it's not like it would cost the con a lot.

Sunday, of course, is generally the low key day at most conventions. Anywhere else people are hungover, etc. I, myself, was crispy. That midnight performance meant I got only five hours of sleep. So, I was definitely feeling "Sunday at the Con" in a very traditional way.

I put several "not to miss" panels on early, in the hopes of catching any folks who weren't conned out by that point.  I really wanted to catch "Problematic Favs" at 10:30 AM, because it was a panel that David Lenander suggested and I had initially resisted writing up, in part because Greg Ketter was a GoH. Greg, for those of you who aren't from the Twin Cities and/or don't know, runs Dreamhaven Books & Comics. Dreamhaven was the literal mailing address for Neil Gaiman for many, many years--so much so that the Minnesota Book Awards assumed that Neil actually lived in Minneapolis (he didn't, at the time he was living in Wisconsin, which disqualified him for the award and I was at leat partly responsible for making that clear to the MN Book Awards folks. That, however, is a story for another time.) Lisa Freitag, Greg's wife, had told me at some point that Greg is still very much in denial and won't talk about Neil. So, I started to self-censor myself/the convention, but then I thought, "No. That's not cool." David L. clearly really needed to process some of this stuff, so probably that means a lot of our local community does, too. Also, so many of us in the fannish queer community, particularly trans folks, are still pissed at the active harm that JKR continues to do. So, I decided, no, let's have at it. But, to make it work, I had put [personal profile] naomikritzer in charge because I know that Naomi has the skillset (and the wherewithal) to actually shout someone down and cut off the ramblers--which a lot of people (including myself) often THINK they have, but which Naomi has actively demonstrated on other panels I've seen her on.

Turns out this was a good choice.  

Most of the discussion was high level--there were some real, meaningful confessions and feeling and advice, but, inevitably, someone wants to relitigate this or that. Naomi just wasn't having it. In fact, at one point the person she had to actively cut off was David L., and I'm not sure I'd've been able to do that since he's an actual friend of mine (and Naomi's, to be fair. Also, I hope David is okay and knows it was done out of love.) We also had another guy, who I later found out was also disruptive in the "Superman is WOKE and other Media Malarky" panel, who was apparently wandering back and forth between the two panels demanding to be caught up on what he'd missed while listening to the other one. 

Maybe not the best start to Sunday, but you can't say it wasn't high energy!  *makes awkward face*

Post that start to the day, a bunch of us hung around and debreifed in the little lounge area behind registration. This is where I got a chance to talk to one of our special guests, Blue Delliquanti (https://www.bluedelliquanti.com/  <--if you are at all a fan of graphic novels and don't know their work, here's my recommendation: GO READ THEM NOW.)  It was from Blue and Lee Brontide, however, that I found out that that one guy was bothering both panels. Apparently, the only panel that went off without a hitch during the first hour was "Gay Vikings," which is only hilarious because I heard from both Dax and Eleanor Arnason that they felt unprepared. Adam Stemple who moderated the panel said that they were both so knowledgable and prepared it was almost ridiculously smart. I'm sort of sad that I coudn't be in three places at once. 

I conspired with [personal profile] tallgeese to blow off my final panel of the con, "Ask a GM" in order to finish the Star Trek session we started on Saturday. This was another one of those probably-not-a-good-adult-decision moment for me, but I tried to mitigate it by warning Don K., one of my co-panelist that I was intending not to be there. I totally got the Disapproving Dad look from him, which normally I can't withstand, but the truth was I was so exhausted at this point I would not have made a good panelist. I probably should have explained it that way, but I didn't. Now I have to live with my guilt.

And while that sounds flippant, I do actually feel a guilty even now. I'd put myself on that panel so that there would be a woman GM to represent. I also know that several people were curious what I might have to say about GMing, so I feel like I let them down. 

But, God got me. I was, in fact, punished for my sins.

I decided to try to play a new character at the Star Trek game (a Vulcan doctor) and there was so little for the Chief Medical Officer to do in the third act of that game, that I literally threw her on a grenade at the end of the game just TO HAVE SOMETHING TO DO. 

Despite that, I'd say it was, generally, a really good convention. It helps that I was able to recruit so many skilled panelists. However, I think that, should we do a Gaylaxicon again (and if I lose my mind an volunteer for the programming committee again) I would do a few things differently.
  1. Three tracks of programming was a bit ambitious, I think. I mean, you can't know how many attendees you're going to get, but three tracks is probably best for conventions that are regularly pulling THOUSANDS, rather than hundreds, especially since our crowd was also dipursed into two tracks of gaming as well. So, we essentially had five tracks of programming (if you count the games) and that just split the numbers too much. So, even the most popular panels weren't filling the rooms as much as I'd've liked. Maybe two tracks going forward? Two + gaming, at any rate.
  2. The other really big mistake of mine was my assumption that someone else would've alerted Dreamhaven to the names of our attending professionals. I heard through the grapevine that JM Lee left the convention early (and irritated) because he discovered that none of his books were available in the dealer's room. I will make it a point to--as EARLY as possible--start feeding any book dealers a list of people's books to have on hand and/or alerting authors that they should bring their own books to sell at the signing tables. Joey (JM) was a really early recruit of mine (and he's trad published), so I can see why he was shocked not to see any of this books available. I will complain here, only breifly, that Greg is terrible about answering emails (as is Lisa). I would have had to make a regular DRIVE to Dreamhaven to physically talk to someone in the store, but I should have done it, anyway.
  3. Then, obviously, as much previously discussed, I think the new rule going forward (again, if there is a forward) is no paneling after 7:00 pm. We just don't stay up that late. People can find their own fun the games room if they're late nighters, I guess. Midnight slash panel? Nope, "After dinner hour slash," is more like it.
  4. Plan an actual lunch break for panelists. That way there's no way to accidentally (which I did to both Haddayr and Naomi) book someone over a period when they should go get a food. I had initially thought that the hotel restaurant would mitigate this since we had half hour passing time between panels, but it turned out they were closed at a time when someone could have popped down and grabbed a sandwich to go or whatever.
  5. People really liked that half-hour passing time, though. So, that's a keeper.

Obviously, there were a number of things that I heard compliments about, regarding programming. Adam could not get over the quality of the topics and how amazing his fellow panelists were. I got this note from a lot of people, actually, so that made me feel pretty good. The other comment I heard a lot was that people were having trouble deciding among the topics in any given hour because they were all interesting. Again, I'll take that as a win, actually (though you could read it another way, I suppose. Depending on your preference for these kinds of conventions. There are people who like one-track paneling for a reason.) 

I don't know a lot about how the other departments did. Obviously, I participated in gaming, which, for me went well.  I think the banquet was, at least, a financial success. There were a ton of people there. I talked about some of the issues with the comedy show, but comedy is always a weird one for conventions as far as I'm concerned since, as I noted, humor can so easily fall flat with us neuro-spicy nerd types. The dealer's room seemed full and active, which is good, though [personal profile] tallgeese noted with some shock that we didn't seem to have a single vendor selling dice. Two of the community tables were perpetually empty: the Dungeons, Dragons & Drinks folks seemed to only show up long enough to refresh their free dice packages and Free Mom Hugs seemed entirely AWOL every time I passed their table, which was kind of weird. Possibly both groups thought we were a bigger con? I don't know what happened there.

But, yeah, otherwise, I felt it went off well.

blood draw etc.

Oct. 7th, 2025 05:51 pm
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
I woke up at about 7:30 a.m., had a cup of black tea, showered, and went to my doctor’s office for a fasting blood, which I wanted to do before I see her in a couple of weeks. There was a little bit of annoying delay: Mt Auburn Hospital is being moved to a different MyChart system, and some balls are being dropped. Specifically, the order for my lab work wasn’t on the new system, so they had to copy it from the old system, which is in read-only mode for a few weeks, after which it won’t be available even to medical staff. Carmen said her office is going to be sending an email to all patients, advising us to follow up on existing referrals and orders for lab work before the end of the month. I hope that doesn’t miss too many people, but I made a point of telling Adrian about it.

Once they had my test tube of blood, I stopped at a couple of stores on the same block as my doctor’s office, to buy (frozen) ground lamb and some more cannabis edibles. Then I treated myself to an apple, grape, and brie crepe for breakfast, which I ate at an outdoor table. After eating the crepe, I went to CVS and got a flu vaccine, then took the subway home. I am feeling very accomplished, and a bit tired.

The flu and covid tests I mentioned in my previous post arrived yesterday.
elisem: (Default)
[personal profile] elisem
There's a quick sale going on at https://www.etsy.com/shop/LionessElise where almost everything is 35% off right now and a few things are 50% off. The sale ends when there's enough to handle some bills that need to get taken care of.

Thanks for looking, and for being awesome. Love you all.

The Big Day - Gaylaxicon - Saturday*

Oct. 7th, 2025 10:44 am
lydamorehouse: void cat art (void cat)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse

As the person who did much of the programming planning, I knew that Saturday was our action-packed day. This was intentional. If people buy day passes, it's usually for Saturday only. I wanted it to be worth it for those folks. 


Having ended my night around 11:00 pm, I had a 10:00 am panel the next morning. Last weekend was also the Twin Cities Marathon. It used to be that the marathon only screwed up traffic on Sunday, but now there are a bunch of other half-marathons and such like on Saturday as well. So, I got up extra early in order to drive around all of that and still pick up coffee for myself on the way into the con. I normally am somewhat unhappy to live as close as I do to a highway, but I was grateful for it both Saturday and Sunday because I could just swing around into downtown really easily. 


Was this the morning that I spotted Kyell Gold (https://www.kyellgold.com/news.html) headed off to coffee before the convention started? I think it had to be because Friday nothing started until after noon. Yeah, this makes sense because I had budgeted so much extra time to get around the marathon that I actually ended up at the hotel far earlier than I intended. I saw him leaving the hotel and, of course, tried to shout his name from the car. But that rarely works. So, before trying to text him, I parked--in by the way, the scariest most under construction parking ramp that I've been in, in a long while. Like, it is never a safe feeling to be driving under temporary load-bearing scaffolding. Anyway, Kyell was up for some company and so I agreed to meet him at Backstory Coffee. The coffee shop was about a block and a half from the hotel and--for future ConFABulous reference--is EXTREMELY queer friendly. The signs on their door remind patrons not to use gendered language when speaking to the staff!!  Love this! Also, the coffeeshop had cheap, hot breakfast options. I got myself a bean burrito wrap which, while messy to eat, was extremely good (and way cheaper than anything at the hotel restaurant.)


Kyell and I hung out together and chatted on their outdoor patio, something we could only do this year because who would have expected 80-90+ degrees in October?


Kyell and I walked back to the hotel together and I must have stopped in at the hotel restaurant (I think when Anton waved at me or because I saw Eleanor Arnason or both) because that's when I first discovered that KD Edwards had recruited so many of his own fans to show up for the convention.


My first panel was fantastic. It was one where I'd smooshed together two ideas that were similar. "Writing Queer/Different Stories in Times Like These: Hope A Little Bit Every Day." I mean, it's 2025, y'all. I don't know if you've looked outside, but it's rough out there, especially for trans folks. So the panel basically tackled how we continue to hope, despite what's going on. Dax, our moderator, asked us in our introduction to note where on the hope scale we were, with ten being the most hope. I was the only one who confessed to be hardcore hanging out around 2 most days. I'm not without ANY hope, but this presidential election, for me, felt like an extinction level event. I don't talk about that much because it brings down the room and the human mind needs more hope than I feel on a daily basis. But this panel was about how we go on despite a lack of hope and there were some real solutions that weren't just "go get involved" from the panelists. One of the more fascinating connections that got made was by Kelly Barnhill (and supported by [personal profile] naomikritzer ) which is that anger is just as important a tool as hope. Naomi referenced a recent Locus Award ceremony speech on the same idea: https://stone-soup.ghost.io/hammer-speech/


When I came out of the panel, there was a line for registration. Eventbrite clocked our total paid tickets as just over 200, but I believe that does not include all of our attending professionals (20+), performers (Ms. Shannan Paul, +3), a whole slew of community tables, a few other random badges that were comped for reasons of ad swaps, etc., and five guests of honor. With all those added back in our badge numbers were close to 260, which should probably still be adjusted downward a bit, due to some duplications, but IS STILL F*CKING AMAZING.


The largest Gaylaxicon has been according to its wikipedia page is 350 (in 1994 in Rockville, MD.) So, I feel pretty good about even just the raw number of 200.


 Anyway, at this point I stood around chatting with passing people in the halls and ended up being gangpressed on a lunch outing. If I have any complaint about Gaylaxicon, it would be about the hotel. I love the location and set-up of this particular hotel, I always have. It's been the site of many of my fondest memories, including getting to know [personal profile] jiawen for the first time during, IIRC, a Marscon. But, since becoming an Aire apartment complex as well as a hotel, something has changed. For one, there was a weird amount of fruit flies--that might have been due to the heat, but I had to wonder if it had to do with the fact that more people were LIVING at the hotel and thus creating more garbage and other opportunities for fruit flies. Eleanor told me on Sunday that when she called Patrick to tell him how things were going at the con, she started with "Calling from fruit fly central." I mean, they're harmless? But it was noticeable. Second, as happens at a lot of cons (always to my bafflement), the hotel seemed wholly unprepared for people to want to use their on site restaurant. I think due to its proximity to both the airport and the Mall of America, the Crowne Plaza's management just presumed that people would eat elsewhere and that's probably even true for other mundane conventions. Fans like to stick close to home. I think there's a number of reasons for this, but the most obvious one is that there's fantastic programming and games and dealer's rooms to get back to!  So, you just want to be able to grab a quick bite and get back to the con.


So, the lunch outing became a sort of comedy of WHY ARE CON HOTELS LIKE THIS? Someone had checked in with the front desk to see what was good within walking distance and we were directed to a Mexican restaurant in the office building across the parking lot. Fantastic, cheap and close. It was a little weird to get to as it turned out to be in the basement and, for reasons of weekend, I guess, the front doors which faced the hotel were locked. But we figure it out and... lo, and behold, the Mexican restaurant has a handwritten sign on it that says "Sorry, closed October 3-5"--like, literally the exact days of the convention. Okay, fine. Let's just go back to the Crowne Plaza. We arrived in time to find that they're closing--the hotel restaurant was only open until 1 pm. After that they didn't open again until dinner time. Naomi's blood sugar is dropping precipitously at this point and everyone has a panel at 2:30 pm. So people are arguing things like should we doordash? What do we do? What can arrive in time? Someone has found a pizza place nearby, but they're not answering the phone. Someone--Dax, maybe?--notes there is another hotel, a Hilton just across the street. We all march over there expecting a disaster (or high prices) but, other than aggressive misgendering from the waiter, we finally manage to eat. Luckily Emma has worked in food service before and cleverly told the server to bring our bills out before we even started eating. That way people could leave as a soon as food was consumed.


Everyone finally relaxed and we had this tremendous conversation about life, the universe, and everything.


Then, just as people were starting to talk about what else they had on for the day, [personal profile] haddayr discovered that she's actually supposed to have been moderating a panel that started at 1:00 pm. It's now 2:00. There were panicked tears. I felt bad, too, because I automatically said "don't cry" and, you know what? You can always cry. What is so weird about that impulse is that my son, who is 22, literally never heard me say "don't cry" in his entire life because I never wanted him to feel like emotions were unwelcome. I don't know what came over me, honestly--I think, and I told Haddayr this later, that what I meant to say was "if what you're feeling is shame for having failed a responsibility to the convention, then please don't. The convention will survive beyond what is, ultimately, a small mistake." But, of course, what she was really feeling was responsibility to her idol Eleanor Arnason, because the panel she missed was "Honoring Eleanor."


So that sucked, but we all hurried back to the hotel and I left Haddayr in deep apology to Eleanor. 


Next up for me was "Murderbot: Sec Units and Gender and Sexuality" and that started on topic but ended up being all about the Murderbot Diaries generally. I was the moderator so the off-topicness was entirely my fault, but the room was standing-room only and people just really wanted to squee (or, in some cases, complain or further examine some of the differences between the Apple TV series and the novellas/novels.) That was super high energy and, what was fun (? though somewhat annoying for the audience) is that we could hear the chatter in the hallway, which gave the impression (accurate or not) of a lively, busy con.


I didn't go right away to the Chocolate Symposium, but I did head up there eventually. 


My next big thing was running my Thirsty Sword Lesbians cyberpunk one shot which started at 4:00 and ran until 7:00 pm (with a half hour dinner break, as the con had a free buffet dinner in the banquet hall room.) I was overbooked with 8 players, but one of them couldn't make it, so we had a full table. That was a lot of fun, actually. I was a little worried that we'd be too loud in the shared game room, but I tucked us into the far corner so I think it was fine. I was smart and figured out how to pause the action before the dinner break with a cliffhanger (so people would come back!) Once again, even with only 2 and a half hours, I was able to come to a decently satisfying conclusion by the end. We only ran overtime by about fifteen minutes. My players were fantastic. Once again, however, the plot I thought we'd follow wasn't what the players latched on to--but as I've said a million times now, that's the game and the fun for the GM. Especially a system like TSL. It's 99.9% improv.


But, with an RPG to run, I missed out on seeing a lot of the really cool programming, but so I was able to stick my head in and watch a bit of Jim Johnson's presentation on Star Trek: Adventures and the end of Nghi Vo's North Country Gaylaxians reader discussion group.


So then came the comedy show at 8:30 pm...


As previously discussed, this was apparently past bedtime for a lot of our con go-ers. I wouldn't say that the mainstage room was empty, but neither was it packed. I felt really badly for the performers. We were a seriously TOUGH crowd. First, Miss Shannon wanted us to log into some site to answer some silly multiple choice questions and that took WAY TOO long. For a bunch of nerds, we all struggled much more than we should have. I, in fact, missed getting into the site in time to answer the survey, but, like it wasn't even all that funny of a bit and Miss Shannan clearly decided to just drop it after that, because I never got another chance to participate.


And, then...


There were several times in the first set where the performer was like, "Whelp, that died," like OUT LOUD. I wanted to say, "You don't know that for sure, we're just really bad at this!" but, I think that there were a couple of problems with this comedy show in general. First of all, unlike most cons by this hour, no one was drunk. This is the most sober convention I've ever been to in my life. I personally love it, as I don't drink, but there is not a lot of, shall we say, social lubrication going on. Secondly, the audience--probably for the first time for a lot of these performers-- was 100% queer. So, the "look how funny queer people are" jokes all fell a little flat because, "yeah, we know." There was one moment where the final performer made a joke involving, shall we say, the lady nether lips and it landed to a silent room. She said, "That usually kills in Edina," and I told her afterwards that, yeah, no, it was funny, it's just that your audience is actually sitting there quietly trying to decide if we'd be into that particular kink. People in Edina never think about labial folds. The whole idea that they exist is kind of shocking.


Third, sometimes humor works because we've all bought into what's supposedly "normal" behavior and so many fans, neurodivergent folks, and queers have already rejected that. Like, we know we're weird. So when people say "LOOK, THIS BEHAVIOR IS SO STRANGE! ISN'T IT FUNNY???" we're, like, yeah, I do that, so...?  A surprising amount of comedy depends on people being willing to find weird people weird, you know? And that can be fine if it's done with love and respect and these performers mostly treaded that line, but I do think that a lot of their jokes ended with so much silence because fandom is a special place where weird is wonderful.


Also, sensing the low energy in the room, the final performer tried to get everyone to sing-along, which, again, should work for a queer audience (musicals! ex-theater kids! whoo!) was also really excruciating because a good 75% of us are introverts who really barely wanted to be at the show to begin with because it might be crowded and there might be audience participation just like this. 


On the positive side, the middle performer lit up the room. First, she's a former marine corporal and you could see every lesbian (and bisexual, et al.,) woman in the room sit up and pay attention when she started telling stories about being in the military in what she called "the 1900s." She was sexy and funny in a way that really matched the general vibe of the room. Because her stuff was mostly personal stories, we were not expected to find any humor in a specific punchline. We could be delighted or horrified and when the funny stuff came, it could land bittersweet or out-loud guffaws without note because it wasn't "ba-dum, ba-dum, BUMP!" (cue laughter) kind of stuff. You could laugh when you wanted to. Her style reminded me of my favorite comedian Josh Johnson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Johnson_(comedian)) You might know him as "the Klan ribs" guy. 


I love her, and there were funny stories that got told by the other two, but... we were a very tough audience. I felt so badly for them!


Then I went to Kyell's reading at 10 pm because I needed to be there for the midnight slash slam. After the attendance at the comedy show, I thought, "Oh crap. The place is going to be a ghost town!" Kyell's reading was great. Kyell doesn't only write furry stuff, and so the first piece he read was from a fantasy novel. It was really good and I found out from him later that he sold out of the copies he'd brought of that one. So, that's a win.


The slash panel surprised me by being, for the hour, decently well attended. It is still always just me and Kyell bravely holding forth. One of these years I'm going to get an actual slam where people jump up to an open mike, but I mean, maybe this is just all part of my continued misconception of what conventions are like these days in terms of both attendance and "what the kids are into." 


Kyell started us off and read a very sweet (also rare pair) fic from the Zootopia fandom. I waffled about what to read, almost deciding on some of my original character Star Trek:Adventures fic. But, thanks to a random recitation of tags (and consequential audience curiosity about the tag "weird biology," I ended up reading a Bleach smut fic rare pair (Renji/Urahara) called "The Perverted Shopkeeper and the Beast" which you can find here (https://archiveofourown.org/works/55608391) if you want and at your own risk. 


A surprisingly lively ending to a very long day. I wasn't home and in bed until 1:30 AM.


This gay still parties!


===
I took this elsewhere to edit, so this is the font we get!

*It feels a bit weird going on with this after posting about Terry, but Terry was a big con goer and would have read a con report like this with great interest.

(no subject)

Oct. 7th, 2025 02:28 am
[personal profile] martianmooncrab
the allergy appt was a bust... same old bs

And Portland is not a dumpster fire... the only bad part of town is the block where ICE is holed up with their aggressive goosesteppers and snipers on the roof. This last week they knocked down an 81 yr old vietnam vet and his spouse and they were on the sidewalk. Observing. Oh, and he was using a walker. A veritable threat

I start my biologic shots next week, it was an experience getting my meds from the post office because they lost the refrigerated box. Eventually they found it after over 30 mins of looking, and my post office branch isnt that big. Even with a tracking number it was messed up. And, its 7k a shot, and there were 8 doses in the box. sigh. I also had to get my covid booster at least 2 weeks before starting the new med ... and since the VA isnt giving those out til the end of October, I had hoop jumping to get that done.

Terry Garey

Oct. 6th, 2025 01:47 pm
lydamorehouse: (Default)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
 I noted a few days ago how much I wanted to try to go see Terry, maybe try to make it a regular thing again, like I had when she was at the Walker, but I found out today that she's died.

Oof. 

We lost another great one, y'all. I hope someone lets Locus know or File 770. Terry was never a big name in terms of her writing, but she (and her husband Denny Lien) were a very big part of fandom. 


RIP Terry Garey, 1948-2025

Oct. 6th, 2025 01:08 pm
bibliofile: Fan & papers in a stack (from my own photo) (Default)
[personal profile] bibliofile
I knew Terry a little, mainly from LiveJournal and then WisCon.

She was this amazing person, a good writer, a poet (founding member of the Lady Poetesses from Hell), librarian, and longtime science fiction fan. Formerly of the Bay Area and Minneapolis primarily, and many other places in her youth.

Gaylaxicon Con Report - Friday

Oct. 6th, 2025 09:50 am
lydamorehouse: (Renji 3/4ths profile)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
The problem with local cons is, because I don't stay at the hotel, I don't tend to remember to take the time in the morning before the con is open to write-up the day before. But I'll do my best to try to remember the entire weekend. (EDITED TO ADD: My memory is decent enough and this is getting long enough that I think I will break this up and report on it over the next couple of days.)

FRIDAY, October 3, 2025

What I remember most about Friday was how nervous I was. I really wanted Gaylaxicon to be a success and, of course, so many things can go wrong at a convention including, but in no way limited to, people just not showing up. I knew we had a pretty decent pre-reg, but would it be enough to make the con seem lively or would it be "empty hall syndrome"? As I noted, I did managed to break into the mundane press to let people know about the con, but who know if that works? I wish, in a way, that we either had a post con evaluation form with a question like "how did you hear about Gaylaxicon?" on it, but then we'd still be gathering and collecting all that information and I am feeling just as happy to be done for awhile.

[personal profile] naomikritzer and I went back and forth a bunch of times via text and email about when we were headed out and whether or not Eleanor A. needed a ride... (turned out no) and eventually, unable to hold out anymore, I left for the hotel sometime right after lunch. The first panels were at 1:00 pm. One o'clock was possibly too early for programming on a workday, but my thinking had been that the people who took Friday would be happy to have something to do as early as possible. I showed up and discovered that despite my fears, things were already sort of hopping. Of course, I might have mistaken all the high energy for the fact that Adam Stemple was in the hallway chatting with a bunch of the other panelists/attending professionals who'd arrived. Adam is generally a major source of high energy. But, that worked? One thing I will say is that, throughout the weekend, even when people were scattered there was a lot of energy in the place.

I am trying to remember what I did. The program book reminds me that I either went to "Gay YA and Children's Books: Why Representation Matters (or it Doesn't)" or "Tarot in Media," or "GMing in the Age of AI," but I only remember seeing part of the first and peeking in at all three just to make sure everyone seemed happy and had at least a little bit of an audience.

KD Edwards who was on the "Tarot in Media" panel was a consumate GoH. We had many GoHs? Like, six of them, and all of them were great, but he went beyond in terms of getting the word out to his fans. His books are the kinds that inspire a strong following and he worked his butt off and made sure that as many of his loyalest fans made it to the con. I saw him both Saturday and Sunday morning conducting a clearly organized (but not by us!) breakfast gathering. I asked him about it when we passed in the hall because I wondered if these were all local people or...? He said no, there were a whole bunch of his fans who flew out special to be here. This made me suddenly really happy that we'd made space for some of his more specialized panels. He did a special panel where he and two of his colleagues--one an ancient Rome scholar (and professor, I think,) and the other a good writing friend (neither of them local!)--did a kind of "live" world-building session for the audience. I will admit that I was a little suspect that it would be a draw? But, it turned out both of the panelists he recruited to attend also did other panels for us and, as I said, he clearly brought the fans to the yard, as it were.

Impressive.

This is the sort of thing that makes me reconsider things like a newsletter, you know? I suspect that KD has one and that's how he activated the phone tree, as it were.

But, back to Friday. I had a panel at 2:30 pm "Cyberpunk and Bodily Autonomy," with my friend Lee Brontide. It was just the two of us and we were in the smallest (and, as it turned out, most out of the way) programming room. This did not deter our audience, however. The room was by no means full, but they definitely outnumbered the panelists! I should have counted, but I feel like we had more than five? I just remember thinking that it was pretty good for this early in the convention. Because it was just me and Lee, I told the audience that there wouldn't really be a moderator since I hoped it would be more of a conversation, but, then I ended up basically moderating (or at least facilitating,) anyway. Lee is super fascinating, really knowledgable and I highly recommend (if you're interested in bits and bobs of research, etc.) doing what I just did and subscribing to their newsletter: https://buttondown.com/LeeBrontide

Newsletters again. I am telling you, I am seriously reconsidering my allergy to this sort of thing.

It sounded like the other two panels went well? I had really wanted to see the one that Nghi Vo was on about the things writers end up leaving out of their writing, but, obviously, I had to attend my own panel!

After this, I sort of wandered aimlessly trying to suss out what our attendance looked like. At this point, I think we were hovering around 180 and this sort of depressed me (even though it's actually quite a good number for a small con!) and so I ended up following some folks up to the con suite. I dragged along my friend [personal profile] tallgeese  and we had a rousing discussion with one of the other GoHs, Emma Torsz (rhymes with dirge), Kelly Barnhill, Adam Stemple, [personal profile] naomikritzer , and three or four people whose names I am spacing on. It was a conversation that ranged through publishing woes, religious upbringing, and life, the universe, and everything. My favorite kind of con conversation, actually. I got in a little trouble because Emma suggested that she was really uncertain she wanted to attend opening ceremonies and I told her that she could, in fact, skip them if she wanted. We aren't the boss of her. But, then she got nabbed by Anton and--I mean, I probably should not have suggested she could go because the opening ceremonies are the chance for con goers to be introduced to the GoHs. But, I stood out in the hallway and sort of fumed about it because my feeling is that, while we do compensate our GoHs to attend, it's not a contract written in blood. If someone is tired and people'd out they should get to make adult choices, even if those choices aren't necessarily the right ones for the con. But apparently a compromise had been struck and so Emma skipped out as soon as her introduction was over. So, that's fine. I just feel badly because Minnesotans (and, particularly women) have been socialized to be terrible at boundary setting/self-care and so when asked, "Are you sure it's okay?" The answer is often, "It's fine," even when it's not.

Anyway, I could go on about that more, but in many ways I recognize that I was wrong to have given Emma a promise of an out.  The next thing that was up was the banquet. I ended up sitting at a table way in the back with a bunch of concom folks that I love, James B. (who I accidentally called by the wrong name, twice! UGH. I hate that!), [personal profile] tallgeese , our mutual friend and fellow Star Trek: Adventures player, Erik, and again some other lovely folks whose names are lost to oblivion (which is a bummer as I really rather liked James' friend!)  The banquet was hotel food and was fine and... I won the very last raffle prize, so I now have a Star Wars board game?

Speaking of, I ran off around 7 pm to play a Star Trek:Adventures game GM'd by one of our other GoHs, Jim Johnson (of Modiphius.) That was fun! I had to duck out before the time was over, however, because I had a 10 pm panel where, at least, I was able to apologize to Emma because she was on that panel with me and Kyell Gold. I just wanted to say sorry not only for getting her hopes up, but also in case I'd gotten her into any kind of trouble. That panel went well, but we probably needed a moderator who wasn't me? Ten is WAAAAY past my bedtime, so the conversation which was supposed to be about "When Magic is Queer-Coded" veered so far off topic that we talked about whether or not we dreamed in conversations and if birds had language. That can be fun to watch? But, you know, I also feel sort of beholden to stick to the subject at hand, which we decidedly did NOT and my sleep deprived brain could not summon the spoons to keep us on track. 

So, oops.

Generally, I'm not sure what I was thinking with such late night paneling. I think I was remembering the Minicons of old when there were enough people still up (and we were ALL so much younger) to make those make sense. Again, I will confess? I thought Teh Gayz partied??? The place this misconception was most noticible was the caberet. Like, I thought that room might end up standing room only, but it was barely at half capacity and that was scheduled for Saturday night at 7:30 pm. 

Oh well. Lessons learned. Either I have to actively recruit the youngs or I should just never have programming beyond RPG and board gaming and those sorts of things past the dinner hour. Which, actually, would have been fine. 

Speaking of RPGs and such, I should go back and talk a bit more about the Star Trek game. I have watched Jim Johnson play Star Trek before because Modiphius has a YouTube channel where you can watch all sorts of things about their RPGs including interviews with [personal profile] bcholmes . (Sidebar: we had initially wanted BC to come be a GoH, but traveling to the US was very reasonably out of the question. Jim was actually our second choice, but don't tell him.) 

Jim was a good GM, I thought. I always push a bit for more than a little bit of roleplay, which I did here, as well. Not too much, though. I knew, of course, that a lot of people game at cons to try out new systems so I try not to push TOO hard for roleplay uber allis at one-shots at cons, because I understand that there are people at the table who are solely there for the mechanics. However, I lucked out in that I came early enough to the game room that I had a chance to pick which character I wanted out of the pre-generated sheets. There was an Andorian chief of security that was the right kind of hothead for me and I think I was able to add a little flare to the game without being too disruptive.  

The could-have-been a distaster distruption was to my left, as it turned out. We had a very young, very deep into the spectrum player who was still  learning when it was okay to blurt out actions or thoughts. I will say to Jim's credit he handled this person (a high schooler) with grace and kindness. Meanwhile, it may have helped that I FULLY adopted this player, whom I will refer to by their character's name Lt. Hernandez. This wasn't a rescue to be clear. I adored this young person. Yes, Hernadez struggled with volume control (but so do I when I'm excited) and, yes, their insistence in returning to some elements of their character over and over again could have been (and may have been) more than a little annoying to folks who wanted the game to continue at a pace. But, what ended up happening is that we consciously (as in me and Hernandez) chose to decide that in the world of the space utopia of Star Trek, neurodiversity continued to exist and that, if this was a true utopia, things like ADHD would not only exist, they would be accomodated and cherished. The turning point happened when I, as player, announced that I'd like to spend the momentum to retroactively create a trait in which we had regular security check-ins with the USS Challenger. Hernandez joked that sometimes that character would be bad at responding because they were enthusiastically focused on sciencing. I noted that probably given that this seemed to be a character trait, probably even on the ship there was a Hernendez Protocol so that someone periodically checked-in with Hernandez to make sure she had eaten a food and drunk water. This then became a funny, fully accepted running joke with the crew. And Hernandez leaned into that aspect of role-playing much to their obvious pleasure.

I found the whole thing with Hernandez delightful. 

I'm sure there were players at the table who would disagree with me. But, you know, when you're at a con, you get the players at the table. It's not cool to shun or ignore someone unless what their doing is a disruption more akin to the kind of harassment (sexual or bullying or like) where the GM should then really just tell them to leave the table, full stop.

And, you know, us problematic players need to stick together. I'm atypically problematic because I will push to do as much personal interaction as possible which people tend to see as a positive, but like my Andorian had a pastime of poetry and so at one point, in the shuttle craft, I had him randomly recite a poem I'd desperately scribbed into my notes. And I did so without comment. So, later, when a group of us decided to finish off this episode (which is what ST:A likes to call its sessions) one of the returning players was, like, was that in character or just.. you writing spontaneous poetry? I was like, "Oh, I was just so into character that I didn't remember to explain what the hell I was doing!" So, it totally came off like me randomly blurting out poetry, possibly just as a player??? Hilarious. 

Anyway, the scenario was what it was and it's a preview of one of Modiphius's mission briefs so I won't say too much about the actual events since it would be a spoiler. 

This got long, so I'll end it here.

Rank Puns

Oct. 5th, 2025 06:27 pm
kengr: (Default)
[personal profile] kengr
Private Parts
Seaman Stanes
Corporal Punishment
Cadet Branch
Major Burns
Major Crime
Major Disaster
Major Pain
Colonel Panic
General Disaster
Marshall Law

About to Crash

Oct. 5th, 2025 08:09 pm
lydamorehouse: (Default)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
 But I will have a lot to report from Gaylaxicon.

My favorite thing, however? Thanks to the rain this morning, we got an honest-to-god rainbow over Gaylaxicon's last day.


rainbow over gaylaxicon
Image: photo taken from the hotel by attening professional, Kyell Gold. 

Lovely Angel in the House!

Oct. 4th, 2025 04:32 pm
lovelyangel: (Chibi Yuri)
[personal profile] lovelyangel
Dirty Pair Blu-ray Set & Art Book
Dirty Pair Blu-ray Set & Art Book

A hair over Four Years Ago I signed up for the Kickstarter Campaign to bring the Dirty Pair to Blu-ray. Yesterday, the goods were delivered to my doorstep. Finally!

Last night I sampled the set by watching the first two episodes of the TV series. I have to say that the video is amazingly crisp and saturated with color. I would never have imagined that frames from an anime series from the 1980s could look so good. I’m quite used to seeing the Dirty Pair on VHS videotape. Such a difference! I’m so happy to have the complete series on Blu-ray!

The art book is a welcome addition to my collection. It weighs in at 300 pages. However, I could have done without 140 pages of sketchy storyboards. The other 160 pages are all treasure-worthy.

FYI The TV series is still available at Crunchyroll.

And now it's just Marker...

Oct. 3rd, 2025 07:09 pm
jreynoldsward: (Default)
[personal profile] jreynoldsward

It’s been a little over a month now since that late afternoon when I went to Mocha’s field and discovered…she could barely walk. That moment when it became The Time I Knew Was Coming Far Too Soon.

I’ve finally stopped thinking about dividing the apple slices for horse grain. Noticed how slowly both grain and supplements are getting used, now that I’m down to one horse, especially one who just gets the bare minimum of grain to make his supplement palatable because he’s such an easy keeper (for those who are curious, it’s ¼ lbs grain, ½ lbs supplement. He still does well on that and on hay).

I’ll still glance off at that field on the way back from the ranch, somewhat of a habit from the summer when it was Mocha in that field and I wanted to check on her (and noticed that she knew when Her Truck drove by the field. Of course she knew. She knew the sound of my car when I pulled up at Gregg’s place, and would often be standing in the middle of her stall, where she could see me coming through the door. Sometimes she whinnied at me, but she was always, always looking for me).

Haven’t catalogued her ribbons yet, though that day is approaching.

And…it’s moving on with the Boi. A week ago he had the honor of carrying Miss Rodeo Oregon 2025, Mary Makenna Olney, as part of her Miss Rodeo America 50 Horse Challenge, where they have to ride 50 different horses within a set time period. Despite not having anyone besides me on his back since I bought him in August, 2023, he did well by her. I had a brief regret that Mocha never had this opportunity, but oh well. Marker’s path is different from Mocha’s.

I finally tossed the brushes I have been using on both horses. Surprise, surprise, they wear out faster when using them on two horses. I got a marvelous tail tamer brush and had a brief regret that I hadn’t discovered this one for Mocha’s lush mane and tail. But it was one of those moments when I’m aware things are moving on. That said, I’m holding onto one Mocha brush from Gregg’s day, because it still has a tooth mark from one of his dogs who I was fond of—the Bernese-Great Swiss Mountain Dog cross Cowboy. Two memories to cherish when I see that brush. Right now I have two braids, that brush, a custom bar shoe, a chunk of tooth, and several bits that were Mocha’s and Mocha’s only to remember her by.

But. New brushes, not worn out. I also finally found the right snaffle bit for Marker, a three-piece smooth ring snaffle with a dogbone center and a copper roller. He likes playing with the roller, just like he does with the curb bit. I put it on the old snaffle headstall I got over twenty years ago for Mocha, along with the seven-foot latigo leather reins, and the cavasson from Mocha’s early training. It seems to work for him.

Moving on. Our work this summer has made his canter smoother and more consistent. It’s a lovely rocking-horse type of canter that is easy to sit. Now we’re working on all three types of canter lead changes—simple (walk or trot before asking for the change of lead), interrupted (whoa, then pick up the new lead), and flying (change the lead at the canter). He’s starting to get them.

One thing I really appreciate about the training options this time around (as compared to Mocha at the same age) is that we aren’t locked into an arena. Both going down the road or riding in the hayfield allows for simple, straight-line work, just to build up muscle and provide a mental break from arena work. I’m not sure if that is why it seems easier to teach him things or if it’s tied to conformation and mental differences between the two horses. Or a combination of both. Nonetheless, he really settles into covering a lot of ground at the fox trot, which he seems to like doing.

There are some things I haven’t touched on much in our training, but may do this fall now that I have the snaffle. He’s solid in round pen and lunging work, though when I deviate from a pattern he expects he gets worried (well, we’re doing more of that variation stuff so he adapts). The injury to my shoulder earlier this summer means I’m not working on ground driving. Maybe that will be a winter thing. It’s possible.

He also needs a lot more work with ground poles in box and L backing/sidepassing. Again, probably best done in the snaffle, not the curb. It’s the kind of detail work that is best laid down in a non-leverage bit with some horses, and I think he’s one of them. But oh, he is really getting decent at gates. Not crowding my knee into them, either.

I’ve found that lunging or round penning him before I tighten the cinch eliminates a lot of the tension he’s had around saddling. And getting him to settle into the snaffle means I tie the reins loosely to the saddle while he works, then adding the cavasson after he’s had a few minutes to mouth the bit and settle into it.

So we’re settling into fall. For some reason his fall coat seems to be heavier than in past years—maybe due to the supplement he’s getting. He seems to be more relaxed, and…shows signs of becoming a fully mature horse. Oh, he’s still playful and mouthy, but there’s just that filling in of the front end, and a certain calmness that comes with maturity.

And, perhaps, knowing that he is now the Only Horse.

I miss the old mare, but…he’s doing a decent job of filling her horseshoes, in his own way.


davidlevine: (Default)
[personal profile] davidlevine
You may have heard about the Anthropic AI piracy settlement, in which (some) authors whose work was downloaded and used without permission or compensation by Anthropic will receive a cash payment in compensation for (some of) their pirated works. You may not know that the list of pirated works includes not only novels but short story anthologies.

I have over sixty published short stories, many of which have been collected in anthologies. Fortunately I keep very good records. I have been able to identify 56 published anthologies that contain at least one story of mine. Of these 48 have ISBNs, and of those 14 have copyright registration numbers and are included in the Anthropic settlement database.

My understanding is that if I file claims on these anthologies I may eventually receive a share of the settlement on those titles. Assuming the settlement goes through as I understand it and that my claims are accepted, I may eventually receive roughly a hundred bucks for each story (assuming the settlement per title is about $3000, minus 25% for the lawyers, minus 50% of the remainder for the publisher, divided by the number of authors which I'm assuming for the sake of argument is about ten).

This is in addition to the claims I'm going to file on my two novels Arabella of Mars and Arabella the Traitor of Mars, which may eventually pay off about $3000 * 0.75 * 0.50 = $1125 each. (I think the publisher's 50% in this case will go to Open Road, the current publisher, rather than Tor, the original publisher, but there are still a lot of open questions here.)

Arabella and the Battle of Venus, the middle book of the Arabella trilogy, does NOT appear in the Anthropic settlement database, and I believe this is because Macmillan failed to register the copyright for that volume. However, according to Locus, Macmillan has issued a statement that "If your work was excluded from the settlement for this reason, we will make you whole by paying you what you otherwise would have been paid under the settlement." I've already sent an email to Macmillan inquiring as to next steps.

New Worlds: Greasing Palms

Oct. 3rd, 2025 05:02 pm
swan_tower: (Default)
[personal profile] swan_tower
For October, my loyal patrons in the New Worlds Patreon have voted for a turn toward the field of economics! Though what we're talking about this first week could potentially have gone into the "law and crime" category instead, as we're talking about bribery . . . comment over there!

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/UOvoSd)
lydamorehouse: (nic & coffee)
[personal profile] lydamorehouse
 Of course now that things are underway, it only now occurs to me that I could have easily had a Gaylaxicon icon and then those of you who wanted to skim or skip would have been forewarned. 

I wavered on whether or not I wanted to go to the GoH dinner last night, especially when I found out that [personal profile] tallgeese was not coming because he didn't feel well. The things that propelled me out the door were 1) Mason had planned to make a fancy curry dish for himself and Shawn.I tend to be the default cook when I'm home and I didn't want to come between that; and 2) I'd just been through one of these in Capclave and... frankly? Without the right people it can be fairly deadly.

We met out at Heather's in Minneapolis, a place I have never been before. They had a lovely, long table for us out on the patio. Turns out that Emma Törzs (rhymes with dirge--so, like terrge,) used to work with the Heather of Heather's, so that's kind of cool. I ended up, by accident, sitting in between KD Edwards and Emma, with Jim Johnson at the end of the table on the other side of KD (Keith.)  I should have, as soon as she arrived, switched places with Emma because I was pretty good at keeping the left side of the table entertained and Emma ended up somewhat stuck in conversation with someone who was, shall we say, enthusiastic in a hyperfixated way about a singular subject about which is was unclear that Emma was similarly enthusiastic. I asked her, later, if I should have done more to rescue her, but she said it was enjoyable enough though she did appreciate Bast and my efforts when we were able to pry her back into the larger conversation. To be fair to this person? I do the same thing sometimes?  We're all nerds here, So no shade. 

After a very lovely dinner, where I got to watch KD Edward's shoulders visibly relax when I explained that Minnesota is a blue state and that Minneapolis/St. Paul is so blue it might as well be navy (he's living in North Carolina), we all trundled over to Dreamhaven for the reading. 

I sort of thought that my herding cats portion of the evening was over, but Anton tapped me to do introductions so I jumped up to do that. I probably should have done more "here's a quick bio" of everyone and I managed to stumble over Emma's last name (terrrge! Like dirge!) which sucked, and I think, too, I should have had everyone go in the reverse order that we started with. Ending with Nghi Vo, instead of, like I ended up prompting, starting with her and ending with Jim Johnson. Especially since, unbeknowst to me, despite the fact that Jim is an author of several books, he decided instead to read the introduction to his newest Star Trek: Adventures book--which was... again, let's just say less high energy than spirit cannibals, which is what Nghi started with. 

BUT! The event was super well attended. Dreamhaven ran out of chairs and, really, room. (That bookstore is what you find when you look up cramped and byzantine in the dictionary.) I don't have even an unofficial count, but if I had to guess I'd say over 30. We ended up even getting an on the spot sponsor-level membership for the convention out of the deal. It was by almost all measures a success.

So yay!

Now, before I head outside to do a little more painting on the fence, I need to time one of my stories. There's a woman in-town, Cole, who runs SciFi Reading Hour at the Bryant-Lake Bowl and she's looking for an emergency replacement for their November 2nd show. I don't know that she's considering me for that slot, but she did ask me to time one of my stories when read aloud. So, I need to do that for her in case it will work out.

Then, it's off to the convention this afternoon.

TWICE in October

Oct. 2nd, 2025 04:23 pm
lovelyangel: Sana RTB Special in Japan (Sana Concert)
[personal profile] lovelyangel
TWICE One in a Mill10n Documentary Movie Trailer
TWICE One in a Mill10n Documentary Movie Trailer

This week TWICE announced the North America / Europe Leg of their This Is For Concert Tour. This portion of the tour starts in January 2026, and the group is returning to Seattle!

The expected bad news is that the ticketing is handled by Ticketmaster. Boo! Ticket presale is Thursday, October 9 – and it will be a random and chaotic bloodbath. I’m signed up for the presale and will be among the thousands and thousands of ONCE in the dreaded waiting room. Will I get a good seat? Will I get a seat at all? Who knows?

I’ve done my research on Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, and I know where I want to sit. What one wants isn’t necessarily what one gets. And Ticketmaster hikes their prices for the best seats. Let’s just say I’ll be anxiety-ridden all morning – and perhaps the day before.

On the more peaceful side, the nationwide release of One in a Mill10n (One in a Million) – the 10th anniversary TWICE documentary movie – begins on October 20. (Movie Trailer - YouTube) At my local Cinemark Theater, the movie is showing all week. I bought a ticket for opening night. Can’t wait!

Books read, late September

Oct. 2nd, 2025 05:13 pm
mrissa: (Default)
[personal profile] mrissa
 

Kobby Ben Ben, No One Dies Yet. This is one of the most overtly gay books I have ever read. Gosh is there plot-essential homosexuality going on here. It's largely about the relationships between Ghanaians and the Americans who are visiting for Ghana's Year of Return, and we don't get many books like this in the US and I'm glad that's shifting, but also it means that some books will be quite a lot of "interesting in ways for which I am not the target audience."

Sylvie Cathrall, A Letter from the Lonesome Shore. Second and so far as I know last in its series. Not as strong as the first one. When I say that I like books with established pairings and not just watching people form new relationships all the time, this is not what I mean. It felt to me like the central couple's excitement and nervousness in dealing with each other was the main source of tension/anticipation in the first book in retrospect, because here it was a lot of cooing at/about each other in ways that...if these people were my real life friends, I would be happy for them but I would also want to get back to the subject at hand. Same with this. Ah well, still worth reading and I'll keep an eye out for what she does next.

Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad. Reread. Oh gosh I love this collection. It's one of my favorites, and with each story I reread, I thought, "oh, this one! I love this one!" Yay. Yay.

Paul Cornell and Rachael Smith, Who Killed Nessie?. I like cryptics, and I like Paul Cornell's work, but I probably wouldn't have sought this graphic novel out on my own. But since someone else brought it into the house I was perfectly happy to read it; it was fun.

Ben Davis, Art in the After-Culture: Capitalist Crisis and Cultural Strategy. Kindle. Davis uses the art movements of 20th century crisis eras to discuss different responses possible and how well they work. Interesting stuff, useful for the current moment.

Margaret Frazer, Strange Gods, Strange Men. Kindle. Another of her short pieces, a little farther afield but not particularly substantive. I expected this; I've already read the substantive ones.

Carolyn Ives Gilman, Arkfall. Kindle. This was an airplane double-feature with the Cathrall above; I had no idea that the theme of that flight was going to be "undersea science fiction and getting along with our neighbors," but it was and that was just fine with me. The setting was particularly vivid here.

Matthew Goodwin, Latinx Rising: An Anthology of Latinx Science Fiction and Fantasy. Read for book club. Most of the stories I liked were by authors I already liked, and the amount of sexism was startling considering how old a book it isn't. Not a favorite, I'm afraid, despite having some favorite authors in it.

Tove Jansson, Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll. Rereads. For a mysterious upcoming project. Is it ever a bad choice to revisit Moomins: of course it is not. Unless you have not visited them in the first place, in which case what joy you have ahead.

Selma Lagerlöf, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. Reread. So mysterious. The least of the rereads of this fortnight for me, because its didacticism suits me less well than the other books (and in fact less well than this author's adult works; I'm glad I went on to read them, because they're a different beast). On the other hand: idyllic romantic Swedish landscape writing, am I the target audience for that, sure, absolutely.

Suzanne Levine, Unfaithful: A Translator's Memoir. This is an example of a person who lived an interesting life but did not necessarily write an interesting memoir about it. I would have loved more about her translation work, more nitty gritty, what it was like to work with the notable authors she worked with. Instead it was a not particularly deep, not particularly vivid memoir without most of what made the subject of the memoir interesting to me. I suppose we're allowed to be interesting to ourselves in different ways than the obvious ones.

Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking, Pippi Goes on Board, and Pippi in the South Seas. Rereads. What could this mysterious project pertain to, it is a mystery that is very mysterious. Anyway it had been quite some time since I reread Pippi, and it was interesting which places I had the text so memorized that I could think to myself, "ah, they translated that differently than in the edition I had, they said barley soup in mine." I was actually surprised, given the element of making Ephraim Longstocking "king" of "South Sea Island" that there wasn't more horrifying racism than there was. Granted Pippi lies about people from other countries all the time. But she does lie; it's presented as lies, and it's generally not the shape of lie that reinforces ethnic stereotypes. So okay then, glad to find fewer razor blades than I feared in that lot of Halloween candy.

Linda Pastan, Almost an Elegy: New & Later Selected Poems. These are very straightforward, in places headlong, poems, and they deal with late-life issues for oneself and loved ones, but generally with a fairly light hand. I wanted to connect more than I did, but I'm not sorry to have read them.

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front. Kindle. And speaking of not sorry to have read: oh gosh. Well, I see why this was shocking at the time and redefined a whole direction of literature. It was a harrowing reading experience. Glad I read it, glad I'm done reading it.

Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner, The Fall of the Kings. Reread. One of my very favorites. I reread this for my panel on monarchy and non-monarchical forms of government in fantasy, and it was so good about that, and I loved the shape of ending, I loved how it finally completed a social arc that began before Swordspoint, gosh I love this book.

Rebecca Solnit and Susan Schwartzenberg, Hollow City: The Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism. This is very short and full of photos. I think it's mainly for Solnit completists and people with a strong interest in turn of the millennium San Francisco. I lived in the Bay Area at the time and not before or after, so in some ways my snapshot was Solnit's turning point, which is a very weird place to stand.

Anthony Trollope, The Prime Minister. Kindle. My least favorite Trollope that I've actually finished. The politics stuff is fun and interesting and I like the arc of it over the novel. The other plot, though, oh HELL NO. The Antisemitism! The general, quite intense, narratively supported xenophobia! The convenience of both an infant death and a suicide! I cannot recommend this, and I don't.

Katy Watson, A Deadly Night at the Theatre. When I was reading this, I said to some friends that I felt I'd wished on the monkey's paw for more books that are centered on friendship, only to get this one where the friends can have just as many stupid misunderstandings based on poor communication as any couple in a romance. Sigh. The mystery plot was fine, but I don't actually read mysteries for the mystery plot, so...I hope she figures out other shapes of friend plot to do.

Amy Wilson, Owl and the Lost Boy. Second in its series, and the titular characters are fighting off what seems like an endless summer--in magical form. I like it when people recognize that summer is not infinitely good, and that endless hot weather is in fact quite terrifying in 2025. Also it was a beautiful MG with friend plots that I liked much better than the adult mystery above.

Ovidia Yu, The Rose Apple Tree Mystery. Well, they can't all be bangers. I've really enjoyed this series of murder mysteries set in mid-twentieth century Singapore, and I intend to continue reading it, but the characterization in this was very flat, and the twist was so obvious that I was writhing and yelling at the book for at least half its page count, someone just figure out the thing already.