davidlevine | Reading

Nearly all of the essays for the New Worlds Patreon this month are going to be talking about genitals or other explicit topics, beginning this week with circumcision. You have been warned; now comment over there!

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/hYcOsz)

elisem

At our house, Opportunity Food is defined as what you can make when you can't stand up that long today.

Currently, is Bowl o' Cronch:

take bowl
spread some nut butter on bottom/sides of bowl (note: INsides, not OUTsides) - today is peanut butter
throw some dried fruit at nut butter if you got some - today is raisins and some crystallized ginger
put in puffed brown rice (or whatever you got)
add milk, or if no milk, a couple really big spoonfuls plain yogurt
anything else you got that seems appetizing
get big spoon
eat

elisem

We are still getting through COVID.
We are still resting LIKE POTATOES.
(Still funny. Every time.)

A helpful person pointed out it is still open enrollment time for health insurance.
Well then.

Have inquired with health insurance broker.
(It doesn't cost anything. If you are in Minnesota or Wisconsin, and need one, I have references.)
There are things that can be done, it looks like.

For right now, though, my tasks:

Wash a few dishes - DONE
Have brekkie - IN PROGRESS
Take meds - IN PROGRESS
Sit Up because it helps breathing - IN PROGRESS

OK. Onward.

P.S. Love all of y'all. You are still the best.

lovelyangel

Two Photography Books from Rocky Nook

A week ago Rocky Nook offered customers 40% off its entire book catalog. Rocky Nook has the best photography books; I haven’t seen a bad one yet. So I did look around and ended up buying two books: Wedding Storyteller, Volume 1 by Roberto Valenzuela and The Natural Light Portrait Book by Scott Kelby. I have Photoshop books by Scott Kelby; he’s an excellent teacher.

Anyway, the books were delivered today. I flipped through them, and both are outstanding guides. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to read them now, and they become the latest guests of the new tsundoku stack. 😑

(And, yeah, I’m already starting to stress the new but nearly full bookwall. I sort of expected this.)

redbird

I had my twice-a-year appointment with the neurologist. All the low-tech neurology stuff was fine, with little change from the previous exam. We are reducing my dose of gabapentin, which we talked about last time, and I told him I want to give that a try.

lydamorehouse

It's been a day for weird email interactions.

First up is Silent Book Club Singapore. Silent Book Club Singapore contacted me about "highlighting" Unjust Cause (a curious choice being the second in a somewhat unpopular series) for their November 15 gathering. Of course, the inital email mentions no fees, but I could smell it on them. There are plenty of legit places that will offer to have you Zoom in to a club meeting, so I was a tiny bit hopeful. Hope springing as it does, eternal, I wrote back and said, sure, tell me more...

Alas.

The second email was immediatly, "for the low, low price!" ($100, not actually low, friends.)

So, fellow authors? Beware. They're not legit.

Next, when I should be working on the sequel to Boy. Net, I wandered over to my ancient Hotmail account to clean it up. It occured to me that I actually have a lot of mail from many years ago on just stilling unread on Hotmail (now Outlook, but it still functions) and it behooved me to start trying to clean that stuff up. So, I'm clicking away, registering names only long enough to determine whether or not the email is worth saving, and there, in the middle of 2020 is an email from an old high school friend. The email came to me shortly after George Floyd's murder and it's from the one high school friend that I really, really wanted to have reconnected with. I had two besties in high school and one of them completely disappeared on me... and here she was, reaching out FIVE years ago. She wrote to ask after good places to donate post-the uprising and, I guess to make the email feel worth it, tell me about how her children (and dad and dog) were surviving the pandemic and lockdown.

Both of these emails were deeply demoralizing.

I sent my old high school friend a "hey, I guess I ghosted you five years ago? Hey, awkward, but I didn't mean to," email from my real gmail account, but I'm not expecting a reply. I've actually tried to reconnect with this particular friend several times over the years and have gotten zip. I suspect that I was just a sudden "Oh, I know someone in Minnesota I can ask about good charities" stray thought and not a real desire to reconnect, since... well, I did write several tims over several decades. And, maybe those also ended up in email accounts barely checked? But, also? I'm not actually hard to find. I mean, I guess Googling "Lyda Morehouse email" you do get directed to my Hotmail, something I should figure out how to correct that, but dang.

Anway both interactions I kind of made me feel... I don't know, not "used," but definitely not loved for myself.

lcohen pointed out last night when we were chatting that I have been posting a lot of things lately that make it seem as though I'm down on myself (or my writing career,) and I just want to assure you all, I'm doing fine. There is, alas, an ebb and flow to one's writing career and I've been in the ebb (whichever one is the lowest) for a long, long time now. So, that does wear on me? But, it's also just where I am. Tomorrow or in five years, maybe I'll be back in the flow. You never know.

But sadly, the ebb is where all the scammers find you and try to prey on you.

And I dunno, missing an email from my friend just sucks.

swan_tower

On November 12th, 8 p.m. Eastern (5 p.m. Pacific, 1 a.m. UTC), I'll be the Guest of Honor for a session of the Electric Sheep online reading series -- for poetry! Yep, I'll be reading my Hugo poem, "A War of Words," and possibly something else if time permits. But I won't be alone: my fellow finalists Mari Ness, Ai Jiang, Angela Liu, and Oliver K. Langmead will be joining us, along with Brian U. Garrison (the president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association) and Brandon O'Brien, who was Poet Laureate for the Seattle Worldcon. So it's a heck of a lineup!

Attendance is free, but you do have to register in advance, and space is limited. If you're interested in joining us, sign up now!

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/DgpOvt)

lovelyangel

Things are just crazy here. The library project requires my attention and continual work. Also, I have a photo processing backlog from a visit to the Portland Japanese Garden and three days of Kumoricon – with corresponding journal write-ups needed for those activities. I’m also late on annual photo calendar layouts. Plus, I have commitments to friends and community. My days are fully scheduled, and it’s unclear as to when I’ll get caught up. Continuing to work out of my bedroom isn’t helping.

elisem

Have had food. (Soup!) Have had meds. Vented on Bluesky, where I am

lionesselise. Am about to rest again for a while. LIKE A POTATO. If a potato could crochet, anyhow. I'm in a mood for a little crocheting before sleepage.

Love you all.
You are the best.

redbird

The three of us voted this afternoon, then went to the supermarket, where we had to deal with a pushy person who wanted us to sign dodgy-looking petitions: he said they were for same-day voter registration, but I noticed that the page he wanted us to sign didn't say what we were signing for. There are dozens of possible state ballot questions for next year, so it could be almost anything. (The procedure in Massachusetts, as I understand it, is people or organizations say "I want to put this on the ballot," and then the attorney general vets the proposals, and either OKs them or explains why not. After that, they can collect signatures.)

The only thing on the ballot in Boston today was city council seats, after the incumbent mayor's main opponent formally withdrew after coming in a distant second in the primary. Happily, I had a choice of five or six good candidates for the four at-large city council seats.

Addendum: there are in fact forty-seven "petition initiatives" on the state website, including a few that are labeled as versions A, B, or even C of the same thing. The list is on the state website: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/ballot-initiatives-submitted-for-the-2026-biennial-statewide-election-proposed-laws-and-2028-biennial-statewide-election-proposed-constitutional-amendments

elisem

Because I recently turned 65, there were changes in my insurance.
I now have Blue Cross Blue Shield, which I used to have some years ago before I got switched to a different insurance.
They have now denied a med that is a cornerstone of why I am feeling better and breathing better these days.

The switch happened after my August birthday.
All the other meds are (allegedly, and I do believe them) on the way from the mail order pharmacy (who were good when I used to use them).
This med has been denied by insurance, which is BCBS. Even after special authorization, which they told me I needed, they denied it.

Am almost out.

(Yes, this is the med that the other insurance company kept only filling for one month, despite my doc writing a three-month scrip every frikkin time. Yes, this is one of the things I worry about running out of, because it matters a lot.)

Also you may imagine bitter laughter as various med and scheduling people explain to me that the insurance is apparently requiring the patient, me, go in to meet with the doc. The agoraphobic patient, these days. Though we did get to "virtual visit is acceptable," which is good, before we got to "the first virtual visit possible is a while after patient runs out of meds" which is not.

This stuff is what I was already making calls on and trying to handle before I got COVID. The two together is just a really horrible coincidence.

(Even if we did try to switch me to the insurance that was fine with it before (like Blue Cross Blue Shield was actually fine with it a few years ago when I had it!), there's no guarantee we won't run afoul of some new rule.)

There are options being looked into, for which details will be scant and the passive voice, for the moment, will be employed.

I do not have words that will cover exactly how I feel about this insurance bullshit. However the person just now taking the note to give my doc did write down faithfully that "patient is worried that without this med, she may not be around to keep this appointment," which is at least something I guess.

I am hungry. (I am the king now and I want a sandwich?) Actually what I want right now is soup. I wonder if I can stand up long enough to microwave some. Gotta put some food in or the meds might bounce, and it's meds time.

Grrrrr.

lydamorehouse

Image: sunlight through yellow maples at Afton State Park

Yesterday, Shawn woke up with a migraine. She gets these a lot, but there must have been something about this one because, even though she decided to go to PT, the rest of the day was a wash. The PT was even touch and go. She and I sat in bed a couple of extra hours debating the merits of going or not. She felt that having not quite mastered the most recent exercise meant that she should postpone and reschedule. That sounded valid to me, but then I also asked what would be the benefit in going... and she talked herself into the idea that maybe the physical therapist would have some mini-steps she could practice so that she *could* figure out the exercise.

So, I grabbed a bit of extra coffee for the road, turned off the coffee maker, and we headed out.

I sort of thought that this late start would be it--the end of a nice little break to the rushing, workday routine. But, lately Shawn and I have been taking detours on the way to work to look at the early morning sunlight through the golden, orange, and blazing red maple leaves. At this point, Sunday's wind took down a lot of the showiest displays, but there are still plenty of trees here and there that are in their full glory. At one point, when we were admiring a tree, I jokingly said (as I often do, keep in mind) that if she was feeling poorly, she could just skip and we could go on a leaf peeping adventure. Maybe a drive down to Red Wing? Maybe all the way to Wabasha?

She wasn't sure she was up for that, but then, to my utter surprise, she said, "But how about Afton State Park?"

So we went.

Afton never has really spectacular fall colors, though. Afton is largely prairie, oak savvana, and oak woodland.

oak trees in the fall

Image: The Wisconsin Bluffs from the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River, very oak, much brown.

But it was a really, really lovely sunny morning and the view down on the picnic area's dock was absolutely spectacular.

St. Croix River from Aspen State Park

Image: the azure expanse of sky and river on the St. Croix (from Aspen State Park)

All this touching grass, though? Very much exhausted the migrainer. So, we came home, had a little bit of a lunch and faceplanted until dinner time. I would normally be chagrined to have slept so long in the afternoon, but between the gig last night and the fact that Mason was flying home from Oklahoma City at 12:30 AM (that's in the morning!) I figured it was fine. I was, in fact, able to stay awake until he was deplaning around 1:00 am.

For those of you just tuning in, Mason has a romantic partner, Jas, down in Oklahoma. They are doing the long distance thing very well so far, but they do like to punctuate it with actual togetherness as much as they can afford. Next planned trip is to try to coax Jas up here for... Minnesota WINTER.

Wish Mason luck. I think he's gonna need it.

lydamorehouse

Bryant-Lake Bowl (Vee Dang photo credit)

Image: (Photo credit Vee Dang). Me, being dramatic at the show at Bryant-Lake Bowl

First, for those of you hoping to get a chance to see/hear this, I was initially excited to know that Cole usually video tapes and records these. When I asked after getting a copy of it this morning, Cole said that the video cut out about 45 minutes in and the audio has some kind of horrible background hiss. There is some hope for the audio recording, but it's going to take some cleaning up and I don't know how much time/energy/expertise Cole has to devote to that. :-( Sorry, y'all. If I get it, I'll post it. If not, c'est la vie.

Especially since you missed a great show!

Me and Scott at Bryant-Lake Bowl 2025 (Gerriann Brower)

Me and Scott at Bryant-Lake Bowl 2025 (Gerriann Brower)

Image: (photo credit: Gerriann Brower) Me and Scott Keever at Bryant-Lake Bowl.

I have to say that I'm impressed that in both of these shots (taken by different people at different times, obviously,) I am actually looking up from my reading. In Ger's picture, you can see that we managed a decent crowd too, which is impressive given that it was technically a "school night," being a Sunday evening and a lot of folks have work the next morning.

As an extrovert, there's this thing that happens to me when the spotlight hits me and I feel eyes on me. Rather than get nervous, I blossom. As soon as the first laugh come back from the audience, I lose myself completely to the moment. So, the reading went really well. There was only one moment when, looking up from my podium, I accidentally picked a middle distance to stare at that included the spotlight? So, when I looked back down at my page I briefly had to try to read around the big silver "burn" spot on my eye! JFC, what a dummy. I did not do that a second time!

Speaking of missteps, if there were anything I could do over it would be the interview.

Interview - Cole Sarar's SciFi Reading Hour (Ger Brower)

Interview - Cole Sarar's SciFi Reading Hour (Ger Brower)

Interview: (photo credit: Gerriann Brower) From left to right: Lyda Morehouse, Cole Sarar, and Scott Keever

I should have had time to consider my answer since Scott went first, but my mind was fully blank. Cole asks this wonderful set of questions that are based on the idea of "what do you love about yourself or your community?" (and then "how about in 5 years? How about 40?") I wasn't sure which community I wanted to talk about (queer, nerd, gamer, writer?) and so I kind of nattered on about the writing community that I've cultivated over the years and I kind of feel bad about making a joke at

naomikritzer 's expense about how I hoped "people in my life" would stop winning so many awards so I could stop being jealous/envious. And, I didn't mean to put her on the spot and I certainly didn't want to make things awkward, but I kind of maybe did? I don't know what entirely possessed me. My only excuse is that I was fully exhausted and unprepared for this interview. (And to be clear, Universe, I want my friends to win ALL the awards, all the time!)

What I wish I'd talked about instead? How LLM/AI are going to affect the writing/creative community in the next five years. I mean, I don't know the answer as to how we are going to be able to save what we love in the face of AI/LLMs, but it would have been 100% LESS AWKWARD.

Ah well, live and learn, I suppose. [Insert joke about how at least I didn't randomly bring up Hitler!]

I was super-prepared for the show--though at least two people asked me very specifically if we'd rehearsed. The second time I had to ask, "Did it seem like we didn't??" But I think people were actually responding to how polished we were--at least that's what the second person implied. If anyone has ever been to one of my readings, they'd have known I rehearsed because normally I can't help but editorialize. I managed only one aside. So, that should tell you everything you need to know! We definitely rehearsed! Three times, actually!

Anyway, it was great fun. 10/10 would again.

elisem

Still have COVID.
Still continuing.
Still resting like potatoes.
(With the caveat that I do get up and sit in a chair for a while each day, because my body needs that for some things.)

Today's things included talking on phone with multiple people at new insurance/pharmacy/et cetera.
Cried twice.
This is harder than it actually needs to be.
Told them, when they asked if med was medically necessary, that I like breathing and wished not to give it up.
(I DUNNO, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU GUYS THINK, IS A MED THAT HELPS WITH MY ALLERGIES AND MY ASTHMA POSSIBLY IMPORTANT WHEN I AM IN ACUTE COVID RIGHT NOW? WHY COULD THAT POSSIBLY MATTER, RIGHT GUYS?)

Paxlovid mouth-taste is evil.
Only have to get through tonight and tomorrow and however long the aftertaste lasts.
Am combating it with gummy candies.
Decided why the heck not.
About to open bag of jelly turtles that tells me they are from Spain.
O jelly turtles from Spain, I put my hope in your benevolent tastiness.

Thank you all for being here.
Good words help a lot. Maybe tell me something good from your life today?
I like hearing about good moments.

I do have plans.
They are not vengeance unless vengeance is making really good art.
I just have to get well enough to realize them.
Meanwhile, jelly turtles from Spain, and also some weird blueberry planets that are freaking huge.
And you all. I like you people. Hello, people!
I may be slightly giddy again.

redbird

After several days in a row of being able to walk more than is now typical for me, and also doing PT, yesterday my ankle hurt enough that I stayed put as much as possible. I took a naproxen around lunchtime, which made no descernible difference.

I'm doing significantly better today, in terms of ankle and other joint pain. I didn't go for a walk, but did go outside to take out trash and spend a few minutes outdoors during daylight, and then started on what has turned out to be a lot of PT exercises. We're back on standard time as of this morning, meaning the sun set in Boston at 4:35 (we're near the eastern edge of this time zone).

elisem

The "rest like a potato!" protocol continues
and so do we.

martianmooncrab

The new medication make me sleepy or not sleepy depends on the day, but my skin is healing up-

Orycon was the last, and its done. sigh.

Just been overwhelmed by many things up to and including getting my van bumped last night by a person making a right turn on red while I was transiting the intersection. seems to be minor damage but I cant open my passenger door, I think I have part of her bumper jammed in there, stuck behind my fender guard. Well part of one of her running lights. I will see when I get back outside and can see the damage in daylight. Now the joy of the electronic file circus.

Have a sleep study scheduled for next month on a take home device, but, they want it back the next day between 8-10am Which is not going to work, because for me to do that I have to stay up ... so no sleep.. sigh.. I am going to negotiate with community care about a late fee I will be hit with if I try to do it my way, otherwise its going to get cancelled.

too many little things breaking my back as it were.

elisem

Juan and I still exist. We are still resting like potatoes, as the delightful advice I was given has it.

Paxlovid is quite something, and I see how people are tempted to overdue activity once it kicks in. Me, I will be sitting up long enough to have breakfast (my wake-up time had precessed around to 2-3 p.m. anyhow), taking morning meds including the aforementioned Paxlovid, sitting up for my body to do things that being upright facilitates, and then I will go back to assiduously RESTING LIKE A POTATO.

Still funny every time.

athenais

shewhomust asked about my version of the Book Sin meme, so here is my reply.

Lust (books I want to read for their cover)
I can be swayed by a cover if the plot sounds good, but otherwise this isn't my kind of sin. Which is kind of how sexual attraction works for me, now that I think about it.

Pride (challenging books I've finished)
Oh, gosh, everything I ever had to read for English Literature courses. I generally didn't want to read them, let alone analyze them, but I certainly like being able to say I have read them. Have I ever reread any of those books? Other than Austen, Brontë, and Alcott, no.

Gluttony (books I've read more than once)
Everything by Patrick O'Brien, Georgette Heyer, Katherine Addison, Caroline Stevermer, Kerry Greenwood; I reread fantasy novels and historical fiction a lot for comfort and because I often get something new out of the experience.

Sloth (books on my to-read list the longest)
I still haven't read The Anglo-Saxons by Marc Morris, published in 2021. Why did I buy that? I don't care about the Anglo-Saxons. Well, not much. Not enough to read a fat history of them, I guess.

Greed (books I own multiple editions of)
Three versions of Georgette Heyer's romances: hardcover, paperback, digital. Same for Sherwood Smith's Inda series.

Wrath (books I despised)
Despised is a strong word, but of the zillions of books I've read I complain most about Middlemarch, Lolita, and Even Cowgirls Get The Blues.

Envy (books I want to live in)
Jo Walton's Lifelode, a domestic fantasy set in a high-magic world. I loved that novel. Almost any Georgette Heyer romance novel where I get to be rich; I think The Masqueraders would be my first choice.

mrissa

Philip Ball, The Water Kingdom: A Secret History of China. A history of China through its rivers. And other water, but really mostly rivers. Gosh they're important rivers. Some of it was more basic than I hoped, but the part where he talked about the millennia-long conflict between the Confucian and the Daoist views of flood management--that's the good stuff right there. That's what I need to think over.

Lois McMaster Bujold, Testimony of Mute Things. Kindle. A neat little murder mystery fantasy novella, earlier in the Penric and Desdemona timeline than most of the others in the series. I really like that Lois is feeling free to move back and forth in the timeline as fits the story she wants to tell.

Traci Chee, A Thousand Steps Into Night. Demons and time loops and complicated teenage relationships with oneself and others, this was a lot of fun.

Max Gladstone, Dead Hand Rule. The latest in the Craft sequence, and hoo boy should you not start with this one, this is ramifying its head off, this is a lot of implication from your previous faves bearing fruit. I love middle books, and this is the king--duly appointed CEO?--of middle books, this is exactly what I like in both middle books generally and the Craft sequence specifically. But for heaven's sake go back farther, the earlier Craft novels are better suited to read in whatever order, this has weight and momentum you don't want to miss out on.

Rebecca Mix and Andrea Hannah, I Killed the King. A fun YA fantasy murder mystery, better as a fantasy than as a murder mystery structurally but still a good time with the locked room and the suspects and their highly varied motivations. Are we seeing more speculative mysteries? I kind of hope so, I really like them.

Lauren Morrow, Little Movements. This is a novel about a choreographer who gets a chance to work slightly later in life than would be traditional, of a group of Black artists who deal with insidious racism, of a woman who has miscarried and is trying to put her life and identity and romantic relationship back together. In some ways it's a very straightforward book, but also it's a shape of story I don't think we get a lot of, the impact of being all of the people in my first sentence at once. It's a very intimate POV and nicely done.

Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, Our Dear Friends in Moscow: The Inside Story of a Broken Generation. The authors were journalists in Russia early in the Putin era and had a front row seat to watching people they respected and trusted become mouthpieces for Putin, and this is that book. Unfortunately I think some of the answer to "how could they do this" was that many of them--as described by Soldatov and Borogan!--were already those people, and Putin gave them the opportunity to be those people out loud. I was hoping, and I think they were hoping, for more insight on how someone could become that person; what we got instead was insight into how some people already are and you don't necessarily know it clearly. Which is not unuseful, but it's not the same kind of useful. Anyway this was grim and awful but mostly in a very grindingly mundane way.

Serra Swift, Kill the Beast. Discussed elsewhere.

Amanda Vaill, Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War. Amanda Vaill does not like Ernest Hemingway any better than I do, bless her, but when she picked her other subjects in writing about a group of journalists and photographers in the Spanish Civil War, she was apparently kind of stuck with him. Did that mean she learned to love him? She sure did not, high fives Amanda Vaill. Anyway some of the other people were a lot more interesting, and the Spanish Civil War is.

Jo Walton, Everybody's Perfect. Discussed elsewhere.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

David D. Levine

New Worlds: Circumcision

Opportunity Food

Health Natter: still resting like a potato. also, possibly useful bureacracy

Tsundoku Addition

neurologist

Weird Email Day

Electric Sheep online reading!

Angel Underwater

Health Natter: COVID, and continuing to REST LIKE A POTATO

voted

Health Natter: insurance switchover bites me hard: stuff already in progress has bad timing

Skip Day, Autumn Break

About Last Night...at The Bryant-Lake Bowl

Health Natter: COVID: Jelly Turtles from Spain

(no subject)

health natter: "rest like a potato!"

(no subject)

Health natter: Still COVID, still restine LIKE A POTATO

Memery

Books read, late October

Profile

October 2025

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags