Day in the Life of an Idiot

My computer (who takes its coffee black, since some have asked) seems to have fallen into the "it could be worse," but not exactly 100% solved category. My laptop now has a resident gremlin whom I have named Apostrophe (although it sometimes manifests, not at ALL creepily, as 666). The gremlin's favorite thing to do is to pick a punctuation mark or a number and endlessly repeat it. 

Sometimes.

Sometimes everything is fine. 

So, I am currently limping along with what I have and making back-ups like mad. 

There's still time to get memberships to Quantum-Con, where I'll be a GoH this weekend: https://quantum-con.org/

Despite being one of the guests of honor, I have a pretty light schedule... Good news for you!  That just means there's more time for you and I to hangout and chat! 

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FRIDAY

SATURDAY
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm


SUNDAY
=====================

I am planning to do my usual convention report, so look forward to that even if you can't join me this weekend for what I'm certain will be an INTERESTING time! (I might even be UNIQUE. We shall see!)

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*I have talked to the con com about the fact that my pen name is misspelled throughout the programming page, but as the convention begins today, I suspect that it will not be corrected "in time" (since the time is nigh!)

 I truly love fandom. 

I've been in Bleach fandom since at least 2012 (a date easily checked because that's when I started my AO3 account.)  And, you do not need to immediately comment that you've never read Bleach. I honestly wouldn't recommend it to most people. I honestly wouldn't recommend it to anime or manga fans, either!  For whatever reason, Bleach just happened to be the thing for me that hit me in the right place at the right time. I felt 15 years old again, absolutely caught up in something that I felt desperate to share with other people. That feeling is probably familiar to you, my nerdy friends. So, as I talk, just imagine Your Thing anytime I say Bleach.

I've been really lucky that, over the years, I've had other Bleach fans gift me things. People have written stories for me, people  have drawn amazing art for me, and opalsong even podcast one of my fics ("Hey, Opalsong, if you like Free! you should read my Bleach x Free! crossover," I say for the nineteenth time before I remember that YOU PODCASTED it.) There are so many things people have offered me as part of this fandom that I will cherish forever, but until recently no one has ever offered to share a amateur bound book of my work with me.

Behold!

Image: a fan bound book with the title "Academy Blues" by TSP Bindery. (https://www.tiktok.com/@tsp.bindery).  

This volume actually contains two of my multi-chapter fics. First,"Forever With You Never Sounded So Stupid"and "Academy Blues." Not than most of you care, but both of these fics are part of my emotional process of recovering after the absolutely stupid, rushed ending of the official Bleach manga. I will not get into it (in part because if I start ranting, I will not stop), but suffice to say this is a fix-it that, in my own personal head, is now canon. I literally note which panel to stop reading, because my story perfectly fits canon up to that point. I also actually include a lot of the information gleaned from the official light novels that Shounen Jump commissioned to also try to actually fix the mess Kubo Tite left behind.

Anyway, the cover isn't all that exciting, honestly. But wait until you see the interior....



Interior chapter start, this one featuring Renji from Bleach....

And a second one,

Image: featuring a bone tree from a part of the Bleach universe known as Hueco Mundo, the Hollow World

Also scatterred throughout are some bits of a manga-style comicbook that aysmiro drew and shared with me, while I was writing this particular set of fics.  As I was telling a friend, the pieces of this fan manga are so important to me that I've desperately been saving it on various digital back-ups for years. Now, thanks to this fan project, I have high quality printouts forever. 

 

Image: a fan-drawn manga of a fan work of Bleach.

The crazy thing about this, of course, is that in the past year or so there's been a scammer who has targetted me twice attempting to suggest that they will draw a comic book/manga-style work from my story. (It's usually kind of obvious it's a scam because they'll pick a story where I'm like, "three people have read this. Why?")  I always answer this with, "if you found my AO3 profile, you know I've given blanket permission for you to do this. Have at it!" and then they always come back with, "Yes, but for a commission," and I have to say, "Friend, I write fan fic for free. If you want to do fan art for the love of it, go for it. I am not paying you to make fan art of my fan work." Especially since this book I got? I paid nothing. The book artist wouldn't even let me pay for shipping.

Anyway, fandom is the best. 

 First, I feel that I'll be accused of burying the lead (alternately lede, if you are old school)  if I don't start with this: I got the library job out in Anoka County!!

This is exciting!

And also a hassle!

As I may have mentioned in my previous post about this, there were two jobs available to the candidates. I was sincere when I told the interviewers that I did not care which one I got, if I got one. It is, of course, easiest to say that when actually landing the job seems like a distant prospect. The job I ended up with has, what is quite obviously, the more terrible schedule of the two options. Library work always requires evening and weekend work, but I will be working both Saturdays and Sundays every other week. This is particularly rough for me, as someone who often hopes to attend SFF conventions on the weekends. I am unclear how friendly this workplace will be to me announcing that I can not work some assigned shifts? I won't have to test this until July, when Convergence is going to slam headlong into a "week 2" of my schedule, aka my weekend hours. (I am also GoH, as mentioned many times now, at Quantum Con, but as CHANCE WOULD HAVE IT, that weekend falls on my "week 1" week and thus is not a week I am expected to work weekends.) 

So, it's going to be interesting to work all that out. For the moment, I am excited to be taking on some extra work, especially since the nice thing about this particular schedule is that I will only be expected to work two four hour shifts, every work week. The way everything actually works out, given that week 1 begins on a Tuesday for me, there will, in fact be weeks where I will have worked the previous weekend and then also have to work into the evenings of both Tuesday and Thursday. But then I'll get this weidly long gap before I have to do it again.

I can see why this position was open? I can only imagine people want out of it ASAP. 

Given that we are a one car family, this is also just... a lot of logistics for us. We have solutions to all of that in the works already, however.

Second, since a lot of you got very invested in my phone problems yesterday, I am happy to report that I am already in possession of a brandnew phone. I have not yet moved everything over to it, but that will probably happen tonight. (I may need my wife at home to hold my hand, as Tracfone can be notoriously annoying when activating and switching to a new phone. At least my previous/current phone is still in my possession and I can access it. The worst is when you've lost or totally bricked your previous phone.) In the meantime, the gods have chosen to laugh at me. Yesterday, after spending the day (and notably my patrol) with my phone OUT LOUD sans earphones,* I dropped it. I didn't think anything of it until, without thinking, I went to turn it on with my headphone jack and VIOLA. It suddenly decided to work again. This was, of course, about two second after Shawn had hit the "buy it" button at Best Buy. 

Ah well.

Otherwise, today is Wednesday and I have managed to read almost nothing the entire week. I have a zillion books out from the Ramsey County Library right now. They're even manga, something that I am known to consume at ligthning speeds. For whatever reason, I have just not picked them up. I'm going to renew them one more time, but, obviously, if I can't get through them after that, I'll just have to give up. The same has been happening with my audiobooks. I did start to listen to Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon, but I just couldn't get into it. What I have on audio right now is:

Sunbirth by An Yu
Audition by Katie Kitamura
The King Must Die by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

If anyone has a recommendation of which I should try next, please let me know!

I just hopped over to Instagram and it looks like my mutual aid folks are up and in operation today. I still need to have a little bit of something to eat for lunch, but I might wander over there in a bit and give them some of my time. Also, I am curious AF if Colin actually got enough money to fully fund "distro" or if we're going to be sending out sad little bags of beans and a couple of apples or what. Curiosity and drama. It's what my end of this resistance runs on. 

If people want, I can also give you an anti-ICE resistance update at some point. The short of it is that last Friday I was on a live call while on foot patrol near a local mosque and listened to a commuter attempt to stop an abduction here in St. Paul. According to what I heard on school bus patrol yesterday, there was also another person stolen from their family and their home extra-legally the day before (Monday, also in Saint Paul). The bastards are still doing their grab and go of human beings, many of whom are attempting to follow the legal process of immigration. (And even if they aren't? Masked men randomly hauling a person away isn't how this is supposed to happen.) We, the Resistance, are generally low on commuters and patrolers "post surge," so that isn't helping matters. If we don't get recordings of these events, ICE can lie about them more easily and/or act like they never happened. Luckily, I know for a fact that during the Friday's kidnapping, our commuter was able to get the name of the person ICE abducted. Thanks to being there and his quick thinking, that meant we could follow-up. While I listened, I heard reports of people returning to the scene to try to find family, friends or other contacts to make sure that the abductee's family knew they had been taken and try to get them legal aid, anything else they might need right away.

I can't even imagine what it must be like. To say goodbye to a loved one or your parent or your child as they (or you) head to work in the morning and then.... they just never come home. And you don't know where they went or if they're okay. And by the time you find out, if you ever do, they might be in another state or another country, all alone.  If that happened to Shawn I wouldn't even know what to do, how to go on. To think that my neighbors face this every day is just heartbreaking.

And this is why I pray some of us will never stop fighting.


==
*The live call I join is unvetted and everyone involved knows that they could be overheard. Everyone is very circumspect about locations and events.

 
Image: me in my fancy new Norweigan Resitance hat made especially for me by Paula Rice Beiver

I promised a picture of the hat that Paula made for me at Minicon, so here it is!  As I noted, I really feel like there are some magical ways in which the resistance here in Minnesota operated. The generation and distribution of whistles--you could not walk into a place of business and not see a bowl of them (bookstores, coffee shops, car repair places, restaurants, etc.) People handed out whistles on the street, in little free libraries, etc.. I feel like there are probably people who have a story that goes with "and then I was handed/picked up my very first whistle."

Similarly, the fact that so many people were making these very historically meaningful Norweign resistance hats as a way to promote visiblile solidarity, at one point, we had a shortage of red yarn. 

Up the revolution, y'all.

As for news from today, I may have mentioned that I am currently hunting for a job. The capitalist system is not kind to writers, and especially not to ones who have stalled out on their second novel in a series. So, I drove all the way out to Blaine in Anoka County to interview for a job as circ staff at their library system. It seemed to go okay? I was, of course, stumped by one of those corporate-speak interview questions: "tell us about a time you made a mistake and what steps you took to correct it." I suppose what I should remember is that they're trying to find out if you are the sort of person who handles critique well and I should just make something up so that I can say things like, "Even though I felt ashamed that I had made the mistake, I did not get angry. I was able to listen to my supervisor and cheerfully apply their suggestion!" Because that's what they want to know. Are you the kind of person who punches someone when they tell you that you screwed up. Alas, I fumbled around and, well, NOW I HAVE A STORY ABOUT A TIME I SCREWED UP. :-P

But, that's sort of all I know. There was a lot of rigamorale around the fact that everyone in my family needed to be somewhere this morning and we only have one car. Luckily, naomikritzer was able to loan me her husband's car (he really can't use it at the moment becuase he has a broken arm) and so half my family could go off to their dental and physical appointments, and I could head off for my interview in Ed's car.

As a bonus, we got to chat a bit when she gave me a ride back to mine, after I returned the car this morning. 

I am now trying to decide how energtic I feel. As you know, because I mention it a lot, my mutual aid place, ZCC, is still hopping. Even if I can only go for a few minutes, there is almost always something that needs doing. Since it's only 12:30 as I finish writing this, I think I will wander on over there and do a little good for the resistance efforts. Might as well, since, if I get this job, I'll have a lot less time to devote to things like that.

Image: Minicon Con Suite signage done in intentional 60s/70s style.

Minicon is going to stop putting me on panels. I managed to miss another one yesterday (Saturday.) I would say through no fault of my own, but that would be a lie. I made the very intentional decision that I wanted dinner that was more than a gobbled con suite sandwhich.The only "to be fair to me" part of this equation is the fact that I had a solid block of panels fro 5:30 pm until 9:30 pm and no dinner break. Still, I probably could have made it work with a little inguinity. (Voice over: Readers, she did not.)

But, we'll get to that part of the story in a minute.

I got to the convention yesterday some time just afternoon again. Since the Con Suite seems to be the hang out and find people to chat with place at Minicon, I wandered over there with the secondary thought that more coffee is, for me, never a bad idea.I know many people for whom "more coffee" is a terrible idea or for whom it quickly reaches the level of a terrible idea, but I am one of those lucky souls who can--and do--drink caffeinated coffee right up until bedtime.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the person I ran while looking for coffee wascaffeine! He was sitting with a bunch of folks that I either did not know or did not know well. As it happens, my favorite thing about cons is talking to the people I have not yet me who might be awesome. And they were! Names, of course, now escape me, but there was a mustache that I shall never forget! Very curly! Very Salvador Dali!

I had a lovely chat for a good long while with everyone there about various Apple+ shows we'd seen and now I have a recommendation to try to watch Ascention, a mini-series about a generational ship. This rather highly specific conversation that started because I had brought up the Elon Musk character type that you find in science fiction novels of a certain type, often newer SF/cyberpunk--although, not always, as I would argue the Charlie Stross's Manfred Macx from Accelerando (2005) reads as Musk-like, even though it may pre-date the Real Life version's heyday. At any rate, that got me remembering For All Mankind, an alternate history series that I absolutely adore--at least the first several seasons of. Alas, unfortunately, one thing that hasn't aged well is that it has a Musk analog, though at least the character in For All Mankind is Black. (I have a hard time finding other people who have seen it because Apple+ is not as popular a streaming service, despite the fact that it has a lot of good, originally produced SF like Silo and, of course, Murderbot.)

caffeinemeantioned that he felt I was missed on the cyberpunk panel. He felt one of the panelist was of a type that he thought I would have been a good counter to. Well, poo. Again, it was a choice I made? I can't really regret that one, though. Shawn's 59th birthday comes around only once!

At some point, despite really enjoying the company and the corresponding conversation, I decided I should probably move along and so I wandered off to check out the dealer's room. I ran into Anton P. again and he wanted to introduce me to the bookseller who is going to be at Quantum Con, so we could figure out a way to have some of my books at there. (Look at me, reminding people about this con again!!)

We made our way slowly around the room, stopping first to chat with Greg Ketter, who was staffing the Dreamhaven Books & Comics table. Greg, as you may know, went viral right after Alex Pretti's execution and so one of the things I got from him was a donation for Da'Wah Institute, a local mosque that I regularly patrol (even still.) Da'Wah is having a lot of finanical woes thanks to Operation Metro surge and is running a fundraiser: https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-with-minnesota-dawah-institute-during-a-difficult-time. Greg is not a fan of the GoFundMe model and so we arranged for me to pick up an actual direct donation. He told me a little bit about all the other causes he's been giving money to and how weird it is that people are STILL just randomly sending the store/him $20-$100 bills, sometimes with no note at all.

I managed to not buy anything in the Dealer's Room, despite being sorely tempted by a woman who makes these absolutely incredible spider brooches. I just ran out to the car to see if I was smart enough to grab one of her business cards, but, alas, I was not. If I remember to today, I will, so you all (at least all of you who are not spider-phobic) can look at these amazing objects d'art.

Then, I need to confess that I have some very dear friends, Laurie and Cate, who I run into who at cons, during the resistance, etc... (and I think because god hates me)... I always, ALWAYS flub their names. For some reason, in my head, I always want to call Cate, Cat, and Laurie, Laurel. It's annoying. I tell you this as a confession of my sins in the hope that the universe will absolve me and I CAN START GETTING IT RIGHT. Because I was talking to Anna W. and Anton and they came up to chat. I went to introduce them and completely fucked up their names again. Gods, I love for that to never happen again. (Voice over: Readers, she will do it again, later, in this very story.)

I finally went to my first panel around 4:30 pm and it was "Greg and Naomi are Still F*cking Angry." This was basically a panel for collective healing from the trauma many of us are feeling around the federal occupation that was ICE. Despite (or maybe because) of that, it was a really good panel. For those of you unfamiliar with Minicon or Twin Cities are fandom, there was ZERO push-back. Not one question from the audience of the "but aren't you all domestic terroritsts?" or "but we need to get rid of criminal immigrants, right??" variety. Not one. THIS is largely why the metro area of the Twin Cities was NOT the city/cities to fuck with. It is not 100% blue, but it is REALLY 99.9% blue here.

rant/

As a side-note. I do think it's funny in a sad way that everyone on our side who talks about this tends to forget Saint Paul and suburbs like Columbia Heights (where Liam, the Bunny hat boy is from) and will use "Minneapolis" as a short had for where EVERYTHING happened (sometimes even while filming in front of the SAINT PAUL capitol building), and, ironically, the more inclusive term for all of us is "the metro area" which fucking Trump and his cronnies got right when they called their evil, "Operation Metro Surge."

/mini rant

Anyway, my point? A good panel. Well with it.

Then, I had a panel with Naomi at 5:30 called "Evil Overlords." That one was fun, but I will admit that other than writing about Morningstar/Lucifier, I don't have a huge amount of personal experience writing about Evil Overlords. The good news is that GoH Pat Wrede does. I happen to know thatnaomikritzerproposed this panel, in part, to make sure that Pat had a chance to talk about her newest novel The Dark Lord's Daughter. This panel was also an excuse to introduce a new generation to Peter's Evil Overlord, aka "The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I were an Evil Overlord" list: http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html We almost got off the rails when someone brought up some real life evil (again, why do people do that?) but the heart of the audience member's question was actually about how one DEFINES evil, generally, and so we were able to wrestle it back to true before everyone started to implode over the morality of the bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The panel I skipped in favor of dinner with Lois McMaster Bujold and Naomi Kritzer (the sheer number of Hugo awards I dined with was astronomical!) was "On Writing Badly." As I noted to the two of them, I guess I know a lot about that since my career has utterly tanked? I will have to ask around, but I sort of presume the panel was not about writers who suck at writing, but more about how important it is to allow first drafts to suck, etc.

The final panel of the evening was "Reading Dystoria vs. Living Dystopia" which turned into a very lively discussion, despite the fact that it STARTED at 8:30 pm. Again, Naomi moderated. Adam Stemple andpegkerrwere on the panel with me. Peg started us off in a good direction talking about how writing the fan-project Alternity surprised her by how many responses to an evil overlord (Voldemort in this case) used in the local response to Metro Surge that they predicted. Naomi asked us what we thought dystopia novels and stories got wrong in comparison to Real Life Dystopia and what they got right? A lot of the responses to the first question seemed to revolve around the fact that none of us expected evil to be this obvious and this stupid. Books and other media have prepared us largely for smart and clever evil. I tried to talk a bit about the fact that I feel like one of the things that books about dystopia get wrong is the idea that it takes someone special (or with a special McGuffin, like the One Ring) to resist. This met with some push-back (and not necessarily wrongly) from the audience who wanted to argue that the Hobbits were supposed to represent ordinary people. I agree with that? My issue is that Frodo did inherit the One Ring, so it's not like he stepped up JUST BECAUSE. He was called because he had the McGuffin and had to choose to be a hero. Most of the people I know who faced guns with whistles were ordinary people, some in their pajamas, who decided that evil simply must be stopped right here, right now. I think I made my point better when I suggested that a way to think about it is how different a triology LotR would have been if the first town that the Nazgul stopped at looking for "Baggins" simply grabbed their whistles and formed a human chain saying, "We don't know any Baggins, but we will not let you take them!"

Because that's what happened here, in essence.The Nagzul showed up and we said, "We see evil and we are willing die to make sure that it does not spread."

Obviously, that didn't fully happen yet, but that was what the vibe of our response was.

ANYWAY. That very naturally led to me hanging out in the con suite way too late, drinking coffee with a dear friend who was a former A.I.M. member, and swapping "war stories" from the ICE raids. (Side note: my friend obviously generally has more expreience facting down Federal Agents and it made me feel weird about the work I've done for the resistance. Like? Was I brave enough? Does any of it count if I never saw an ICE agent FOR CERTAIN? Of course, in the morning light, I see that all actions against fascism are acts of bravery, but it is so weirdly easy to turn this into a heirarchy of activism.) 

Right! Well, that got long! Apologies for that. I'm off now to hopefully hang out with a friend who I played a journaling RPG with. I started the project, mailed it to Poland, and then the person in Poland mailed it to this friend who wrapped up the adventure. So, I haven't seen the finished project. I have one panel today that I am moderating called "Second Book in the Series." I'll let you know tomorrow how all that goes!

 For the second time ever, my wife's birthday is conflicting with Minicon. I am probably going to miss a number of the panels that I've been assigned to? But, I think, HOPEFULLY, the only affected panels are Friday night's.  

Here's what they gave me:

 Once again, I have failed to post anything beyond once a week.  Ugh, I suck. Sorry, everyone!

To be fair to me, Ramadan has only just ended (happy Eid to those of you celebrating today). Ramadan has meant several late nights for me, as I've been doing anti-ICE patrols--though one of my groups actually had people patroling in the wee hours of the morning--like, 3:00 am! I wish I were the sort of person who could have done that? I bet the Dispatch calls were fascinating. And, maybe it would have inspired a vampire story or two, who knows?

Part of me will miss this. In particular, I will miss the Night Owls.

The Night Owls (which actually start at the fully normal hour of 8 pm) are an interesting group. It's a group resistance Signal call for anyone up and about until dawn, no matter where they are located. So, I've had people on with me that were coming in from exo-suburbs and even nearby small towns.

The culture of a lot of the Signal calls is that commuters and stationary/foot/bicycle patrolers say pretty quiet and only turn their mics on to do a plate check. This varies from community to community, of course, with some dispatchers encouraging more back and forth or doing round-robin check-ins. It really depends on who your "Guy/Gal/Enby in a Chair" is.  There's things specific to specific groups too?  My hyper-local community always signs-off with "Have a great night, Fuck ICE" in the same sort of casual tone you might tell a partner "Love ya!" before hanging up. I joke that I can always tell people from my area when they show up on the larger calls because they still do this even when its not the culture of the call? Other dispatchers sound a little thrown to hear folks from my neck of the woods just casually signing off with a happy little swear. There are also cool acronyms that I'm not fully privvy to, like some folks from the other side of the river apparently say: SSFI for Stay Safe, Fuck ICE.  I tried to say that today since there are lot of little ears around the mosque during Eid, but my dyslexia was like... UH GO SLOW... so totally outed myself as NOT one of the cool kids, after all. :-)

But the Night Owls are their own special crew. Their chat is actually vetted, but the call is open to anyone commuting, etc., late night. Once daylight savings time hit, my stationary patrols started at 8:30 pm so I joined the Night Owls. The Night Owl folks are just chattier? Largely, I think because it is often the same crew--people who do the late shift UberEats or whatever other driving gigs they might have.... people who are just up all night. They will talk about their favorite energy drinks or talk about the usefulness of jumper cables or sometimes even awkwardly attempt to flirt over Signal voice chat. Ocassionaly, someone will break in with a startled, "Y'all, I just saw the world's biggest rat run across west 7th! And I used to live in Mumbai!" There was a whole discussion that spanned several nights about the ICE agents on Grindr (a gay dating app).   

I got invested, you know?

These people became some Real Life version of my own personal soap opera. I am going to admit that I have clearly formed some parasocial relationships with certain code names. 

That being said, they were really there for me when I needed it. There was an incident that I haven't blogged about a couple of Wednesdays back where my plate check came back hot, or shall we say VERY COLD, possibly even icy if you get my drift. I was stationary (on foot), alone, and dispatch very kindly asked me if I wanted a drive-by from one of the other commuters in the area. This icy vehicle was also stationary? We had clocked each other? Like, they were parked and the three of us had made eye contact. So, my voice jumped an octave higer than I intended and I was like, "Uh, yeah, I would not hate that, dispatch. Thank you!"

Y'all, within MINUTES rescue arrived. 

Rescue was a gender fluid person on bicycle patrol. This fully bearded, beautiful human being rolled up in 10 F/ -12 C degree weather in a skirt and Wicked Witch of the West striped tights. They had a high-powered telephoto lens camera with them and, I kid you not, the sight me--this tiny, fat lesbian on a phone--and  this amazing person arriving on a bicycle caused my icy van to decide THE THREAT WAS TOO BIG (which, honestly, was the most ICE-like move they made). They fled. I reported that my sus van was on the move to dispatch and I could hear commuters everywhere leaping into action. I am sure my sus van had a tail before they turned on to the next biggest throughfare. 

When I had to sign out, I heard the Night Owls making sure someone would continue to swing by to keep an eye on the mosque. I was so thrown by this experience that I didn't remember to text our contact inside the mosque until I got home, but I only live minutes away, so they got the word out for people to be extra careful that evening, too. I don't know, of course, for sure the folks we chased off were who we were afraid they might be, but I'm just as happy to have freaked out any other potential bad actors, you know? I swear that right now, in the Twin Cities, you do not want to be a "local, independent pharmaceutical entrepreneur" because some commuter has eyes on your business!  

So, I think this is why I feel kind of connected. Like, these are my comrades in arms (or by phone, as in the case of the Minnesota Resistance). 

Happy Eid, but good-bye my dear Night Owls! SSFI*!


====
I'll still be doing rapid-response work, but probably no longer at night.

 Apologies for the long silence.

I've mostly just been keeping on keeping on, as they say. I'm still regularly going to my mutual aid place, the Food Communists. Their work continues apace, although Monday was fairly quiet, as such things go. By yesterday, the pace had picked back up, but they're closing today and tomorrow due to renovations at the church they work out of. So I have two days completely off! What will I even do with all that time? She asks, looking around at housework she's ignored for almost two months.

I'm still doing the school patrol (M-W) and mosque watching too. Although, at the mosque we have switched to evenings (and every day of the week) during Ramadan at the request of the imam. I have not been standing outside every single night of the week, however. I signed up to be the point person on Fridays and Saturdays, but am otherwise trying to let other people fill the slots. We are getting some help from neighborhoods outside of our own, so it's looking a little less sparse than the last time I reported, by all accounts. 

I'm noticing some cautious hope during the school patrol, too. More moms are willing to bring their very little (pre-school aged) ones with them when they come to meet elder siblings at the bus stop. Very heartening. It does feel like the cloud is lifting finally.

I'm starting to be able to write a little bit again, which is lovely. naomikritzer and I started working on something together that has lit a fire under me. We'll see what, if anything comes of that, but it's been nice to feel inspired again. Hopefully, that will bleed into the Boy. net sequel (and it should. I tend to be like that. Writing anywhere seems to mean writing everywhere. I am, apparently, polyamorous in my wirting style--I have more to give than to just one project!)

We woke up today to dense fog. Shawn was actually telling me that she hoped it would last all day, because she really wants to go for a walk in it s she can pretend we live on heather-strewn moors.

How've you been?

I guess it is Wednesday? I have nothing of note to mention in terms of things I've read. I've been listening to an extremely boring podcast about the Roman Empire--it's exactly my speed right now, but it's run by a university and I have notice a distinct lack of salacious factoids about what the Romans got up to... ah, well. It helps me get to sleep and that's really what I am using it for.

What about you? Listening to or reading anything fun?

 
Image: A kaiju loon looming over the skyline of Minneapolis. The words say "CthuLoon says, ICE get out!" by Jeremy Brandon.  Not sure why this artist did not include LASER EYES, but hey, ChtuLOON is pretty hilarious in general.

Still sick, so not much to report today. 

While I've been recovering I've been watching the Heartstopper series, which is based on webtoon of the same name. Apparently, there is a Heartstopper Forever finale movie, which I'll try to watch tonight. I stumbled across this a few days ago because I was looking for something that was kind of mindless and sweet. This very much fits that bill!  The show came out in 22, but the finale movie is only a year old, so I don't feel like a complete looser only finding it now. It's basically a love story between two boys at an all-boys school in England, where one of the pair is the rugby captain who has a fairly profound coming out as bisexual. What I really like about it is the whole friend group. I'm particularly fond of Belle, the trans girl, and Issac, the ace/aro book nerd. But, I kind of love everyone in the show, which is rare for me!

Not sure I am recommending it to anyone, however, because it is just sort of sappy, sweet, and fairly low-stakes (though trigger warnings: eating disorder and some body disphoria in seasons 2-3). There aren't even any dragons. But it was sold to me by a reviewer who called it "a hug in TV series form." And I kind of just needed hugs while recovering from this head cold.

Otherwise, I'm thinking I will spend my afternoon finding maps and art and such for my various RPGs.