Day in the Life of an Idiot

Busy Week

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:23:21 GMT

So either I will have a lot more to say over the next several days here on DW, or I will go silent for another long stretch. I'm leaving for the Washington DC area at 2:30ish today. Yeah, I know. It's a very weird time to be headed to DC, but DC is where Capclave is. Technically, Capclave is in a hotel in Rockville, MD. I'm going because naomikritzer invited me as her "comealong" friend. As it happens, Minnesotan author (and friend to both of us,) Marissa Lingen will also be there because she's up for the WSFA Small Press Award for her short story "A Pilgrimage to the God of High Places" which appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue 406 (May 2024). So that will be nice.

Y'all, I have not flown in an airplane since before the pandemic.

My family travels a decent amount, but almost always by car. I'm not necessarily nervous about air travel, but airports in the DC area have not been having the best time lately. So, you know, if you have spare white light, thoughts, prayers, rituals to your dark gods, etc., I would appreciate them. I am taking the travel stone. The travel stone probably deserves its own entry, but the basic story goes like this: once when Shawn was worried about getting lost when I needed to seperate from her, I picked up a piece of gravel from the ground and said, "This is ensure that you make it home safely." She made it home safely. Now, that stone, dubbed "the travel stone" has traveled with us overseas and across country--pretty much any time we leave home. It has even spawned an offspring, since Mason needs his own travel stone now that he's a world traveler of his own.

I am also taking along my whole ass computer. I could get along with just my phone, I suppose, but my phone lately has been very touchy about wanting to turn on when I hit the on button. Plus, I dunno. As I noted in previous journal entries, I have four panels, which is very good given what I nobody I am to the DC area fandom, but Naomi is a Guest of Honor. However, four panels for three days is very light for me, locally. Also I am a morning lark and am often up HOURS before the first panels ever start. I suspect I might have some time on my hands. If that's the case, I will find a nice corner of the hotel or a pleasant coffee shop and give you a con report. I mean, I promised one for Diversicon and then didn't deliver until after it was over. Still, there's something about being far from home an up hours before anyone else you're traveling with that I hope will be more conducive to writing to you. We'll see. Again, send those rituals to your dark gods and perhaps it will happen.

Okay, I've finished my breakfast. No more stalling. I should finish packing up the remaining things (including this computer) and do the light housecleaning that I promised my family I'd do before I left.

Hopefully, I'll write soon, but, if I fail, see you on the flipside!

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Remember the Money Spelll...

Tue, 22 Jan 2019 14:35:00 GMT

...that went down the drain? THIS drain?

Magic works, people. Magic WORKS.

Unfortunately.

I think, at least, I reversed the spell soon enough that it won't cost us the full amount that I had written on the paper, but holy hell.

So, what happened? Well, Mason went to take his bath last night. A wash cloth fell behind the tub. He couldn't reach it, so he thought, "I'll shift the tub a little." The other pipes going into the tub are clearly flexible, so he didn't even consider the 110 year old lead pipe connecting the tub to the drain pipe. SNAP! And a, "Ummmm.... mom? Ima?"

He feels terrible, but we all talked about THAT SPELL, so no one is blaming him. Or me, for that matter. We're all pretty cranky with Llwellyn's spell proof reader, but you know... the truth is, if it snapped that easily, it was bound to happen. My reversal of the spell may have saved us from the "what if" of had Mason not noticed until it was time to drain his bath. That might have cost us a new pipe, a new bathroom floor, and, as this is our second story bathroom, a new kitchen ceiling as well.

As we say here in Minnesota: Could be worse.

Today I was supposed to meet my friend Anna D. at the Science Museum, but that will be postponed until Friday, as I have to ADUT today and secure a plumber. Fun times!

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New Year's Resolution and a Memorial Page

Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:34:35 GMT

The Lap of Love folks have their own memorial page for pets and so I decided to add Ms. Ball. If you'd like to see a bit more about how Ball got her name and came to us, there's a short bit of a story about her under the "about" tab: www.lapoflove.com/pet-memorial.aspx. You are welcome to leave a "candle" there, if you like. (It all appears to be free.)

But, there's no need to make a special effort. I have very much appreciated all the comments left here for her and in support of our family during this horrible time.

In other news, because life goes on, I've decided to take on a rather unusual project for the next year. One of my Solstice gifts was Llewellyn's Witches' Spell-a-Day Almanac. Even though I'm getting a late start, I thought I would attempt to do each daily spell for the rest of the year. I will report on them here, probably a bit like I did with Ms. Ball's update, under a cut, in case my pagan practices aren't terribly interesting to you. But, nearly every year I vow to be "more witchy" and this seemed like a fun project to undertake. Plus, I have long followed the Tarot for Yourself practice of figuring out my personal "year" card, and, by chance, this year I have Temperance.

Image: Temperance (Aquarian Deck)

Which, according to Greer (my Tarot book author) means when applied to the year: "Developing health and haling practices, testing and trying out your beliefs and philosophy, creative combinations." (emphasis mine.) Seems like a good year, then, to try something like this.

I should probably put out there, before I begin this, that I'm very much aware that Llewellyn is in the BUSINESS of magic, and so, I will likely be critiquing some of these spells based on how much their ingredients might cost a newbie who might think they need the exact oils, herbs, soaps, etc., and will be offering cheaper alternatives (or practices that involve buying NOTHING.) I have, myself, been practicing witchcraft since the early 1990s, so I will be taking a lot of these spells with the proverbial grain of salt. If there are ones that I feel are ill-advised I will post about why I think so and see if the previous years' almanacs have alternatives that might work better.

But, even so, there's no harm in trying a project like this. I think it will be a fun away to be more mindful in my practice.Test out my beliefs, think about my philosophy. These are good things.

( Spell-a-Day Project (Jan. 6) )

( Spell-a-Day Project (Jan. 7) )

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Well, That Could Have Gone Better...

Fri, 09 Mar 2018 16:53:43 GMT

Do you ever have mornings where one dumb thing sets you off?

Today, I was a big jerk to my family because, as we were getting ready to leave for the day, I could NOT find the bag that I keep all my pen pal correspondence stuff in. Normally, I wouldn't even be looking for it at 6:45 am, but I had to take Shawn to a dermatology appointment and the idea of sitting in the waiting room staring at the walls annoyed me no end. I thought that if I could at least write a letter or something, it wouldn't feel like wasted time. I have a book I could read, but I couldn't find that either, because... well, probably because last night I gave away one of my lucky coins to the "good neighbors" that stole my pen at Wyrdsmiths last night, but that's another story which I will get to momentarily.

Suffice to say, I was a grouch-bag about my bag the entire way into to school. As it happened we arrived to the appointment early enough that Shawn told me that I might as well do some of the errands I was annoyed at not being able to get a jump on, and I even had enough time to go back home and find the stupid bag.

I got back just as Shawn was finishing, so did I get to write that letter? No. In fact, when I got home and went to take the bag out of the back seat in order to move it somewhere safe in doors, I managed to spill the contents onto the icy street... possibly ruining all the unused stationary.

Yeah, after that I decided I needed to appease some gods, so the first thing I did was post a cat picture to the internet:

And, so, I posted this with the tag line: "Because everyone needs a cat in a basket today." Now, if I saw someone's picture of their cat doing something cute, I would totally write "Wow!" or "Adorable!" or "Kitty!" in the comments. It seems kind of a natural response to me. My friends, apparently, don't think that way. My first comment was a joking tease that maybe bird people don't need a cat in a basket, the second was another tease (a little rougher) with some kind of joke about today, when I could really use a basket! What am I to do with all the stuff that needs a basket? The last comment so far is, "That cat looks pissed."

I mean, I'm getting happy hearts and likes and whatnot, but literally no one can say anything nice about my cat.

So, those are my friends.

When I could use some cheering up and thought to myself, "Hey, I'll post a nice cat picture so people can tell me how great my cat looks and I can feel better about today," I get a bunch of not terribly funny jokes and "That cat looks pissed."

So I'm going to change my luck again. Back to the bit where I gave up one of my lucky coins to the f-a-i-r-i-e. Yesterday night, at Wyrdsmiths, I put my pen somewhere and could NOT for the life of me find it again. I joked that it was stolen by the fairy, but it was weird. Completely gone, it seemed. Naomi said, "To bad you don't have anything shiny to trade." But I always do, I keep 5 coins in that little, otherwise useless pocket in my jeans. It's something some Feng Shui book told me to do once. I never worry about losing them because I figure that when I do, I just need to grab another coin and "change my luck." So, I left a coin out on the table. The instant I did, Naomi said, "Oh! I see it!" I had, APPARENTLY, stuck it in the collar of my shirt.

I took the coin back, which might have been my mistake. I'll have to give them one as I leave today, so make it clear we're square.

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Our Yuletide Miracle

Mon, 25 Dec 2017 22:58:03 GMT

For those of you who don't know, my family is Pagan. We're not always the most observant of pagans and we do also do some Christmas-y things around this time of year. But we do make an effort on Yule/Winter Solstice, the shortest day/longest night of the year.

We've had a Yule Log for years. Shawn and a friend of hers "liberated" (aka stole) a perfect-sized birch log from Eloise Butler Wildflower Preserve. Another friend of ours drilled three holes in it for candles. Every year, we pull it out of storage and I decorate it from pine boughs either scavenged from our tree or from the leftovers at the Y's Men's tree sale (they usually have a bundle we can take for free.)

On Yule, once the sun goes down, we do a very simple ritual of singing a few songs (including Fa-la-la-la-la because it mentions Yuletide) and a lighting of the candles. We normally open a few presents on Solstice under this light--and that of the tree. Traditionally, we try to give the more meaningful, less expensive, non-commercial gifts on Yule, but that doesn't always work out either. This year I gave Shawn her SUPER expensive hair product, for instance, which is neither non-commercial, nor cheap. :-)

Then, once the excitement of all that dies down, Mason and I brave the cold and take one of the candles outside and light a fire in the chiminea. We have a cast iron chiminea in the back yard, and I collect firewood all year for Yule. Last year, we stayed out so long, I actually RAN OUT of kindling. This year our toes got chilly, but we hung out watching the flames and thinking about life, the universe, and everything for an hour--maybe a little longer. Once we felt sufficiently "bonfired," we relit the candle from the chiminea, banked the flames, and came back inside.

We then transfer the flame to a fire-safe glass that we can leave unattended (though we keep it where we can keep an eye on it, in our bedroom) for it to burn all night, symbolically keeping the light going in the darkness. We have this really lovely stained-glass chalice type thing that, when light shines through it, looks a bit like a multi-faceted sun in yellows and light greens. I often use it whenever we do Solar rituals, in fact.

Sometimes, one of us (usually Mason, since he's such a night owl) volunteers to keep vigil for the return of the sun by staying up all night and officially greeting the sun. This year, Mason passed out watching Haikyu! (a volleyball anime) with me in the TV room. So, I tucked him in, shut off the lights, and went to bed. I'd put a 10-hour votive in the little stained-glass thingy so I wasn't surprised it was still going when I went to bed around midnight.

It was still going in the morning.

In fact, somehow, it stayed lit until the next nightfall, almost 24 hours.

My theory is that somehow, I placed the votive exactly on top of an old wick. There was old wax in the chalice thingie, but I thought that the previous candle was completely spent. I'm guessing not. What was especially neat to me was how STRONG the sunlight was the day after the day after Solstice. It was almost like the sun really did absorb all of our Yule energy. :-) Of course we didn't really do that, but it was magical, none-the less.

But... spiritually and metaphorically, I think the world needed more light after give how dark and... awful (politically) 2017 has been. I hope that our small ritual gave the world what it needs to get through, and, in fact, it is my hope that our Yuletide miracle extends to you and your family. If you have been in darkness, let our light shine through.

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