Day in the Life of an Idiot

If I had to sum up how today was, I think I might use the word: false starts. 

First of all, we (as a family) are trying to cut down on the amount of coffee we drink OUT, by which I mean 'takeout, fancy lattes." So, we have cut it down to two days a week and, for reasons known only to our espresso-starved brains, we decided that Monday was NOT a fancy coffee day. So... let's just say that I already feel like I'm rolling everything at a disadvantage.

Shawn gets me up and going because she has physical therapy this morning... or, I should say SHE THINKS she has PT,  but we'll get to that. First thing that happens is that I go to make a pot of coffee and that thing happens where something is off and the grounds gum up their own works and what comes out into the pot is 9/10ths gross coffee grounds?  So, I have to clean all that up and remake the pot.

I am working to maintain a good attitude, though and I'm rolling with the idea of PT for Shawn because maybe it means a walk for me. A mini-hike. I drop her off feeling like, okay, here's where we turn things around! It's cool out still and a lovely little walk will be just the thing. I'm half-way there when she sheepishly calls and says, "Uh, actually, my appointment is NEXT Monday." 

In keeping with the spirit of the day, I make the very next turn right, thinking I'll just loop around whatever block this is... only it ends in a dead end, and so I have to make a y-turn and I swear it takes me longer to get back to her than it would have if I'd actually taken a walk. But, she's actually in a good mood because she'd been feeling stressed about some stuff at work and now she could go there and have spare time to get some stuff done. Shawn has been going back to in-person office on Mondays and Fridays.

She heads back to full, full-time in-person right after Labor Day.

Can I just pause here and say how I don't entirely understand this. Like, she's a manager? Very little of what she does really, truly needs to be in-person? But, whatever. The bosses are like this in every industry, it seems, apparently even in archives and museum work.

So, anyway, she tells me not to worry about picking her up until 4:15 pm and so as I'm driving home I am starting to formulate a plan for my day, and I decide that since I'm usually best at writing in the early morning I'll do that until lunch and then maybe skip back to Fort Snelling State Park to officially do the hiking club hike so I can log my miles. Just as I'm starting to really get into that idea, it's, "Oh, oops, can you come at 2:15?"

I mean, I'm not even mad? It's just how this day had BEEN, right?

I wanted eggs and toast for breakfast and discovered my bread had gone moldy. And, it's just sort of like this for the rest of the day. I made a lunch that was mostly OK? I'd been hoping to replicate an amazing spicy tofu thing I'd made (intuitively) up at Bearskin, and today's attempt was spicy-hot enough? And good? But just not quite there yet.

I pulled the rocks out of the rock tumbler to see how they looked after their pre-polish phase and... I'm not sure I made the right call.  These were all rocks I'd picked up at Cutface Creek, which has these amazing rocks riddled with little geodes and I thought: "These will look spectacular polished!" and, it might just be today, but I looked at them and thought... mmm, I'm not sure the little tiny pockets survived the way I expected them to?  We'll see. Like I say, it might just be today and whatever weird caffeine-deprived haze the day is under. 

A friend sent along this lovely art idea and... again, I didn't hate what I contributed, but it didn't feel entirely up to par, either?

So, I dunno. I think the lesson here is that I need better coffee? Need to get used to coming down off whatever espresso addiction level I was at? I'm not sure, but I think Mondays are just going to suck for a while.

My online course that I thought was cancelled spontaneously generated four more students, so I am up and running today.

Already, I have two students with assignments pending. They are waiting for at least two more people to post and then they will be able to critique each other. I am already wondering how I can view their assignments, but I suspect that half of this first week will be a little like the first twenty minutes of a Zoom call where everyone tries to figure out how their mic works.... I mean, major learning curve for me since I've never used this particular program before in my life.

I will complain a lot, but I love this stuff? So, just ignore me for the most part.

Because I had thought that class was cancelled, I actually never entirely finished populating the lessons. In some ways, that's good. I can use those empty spaces to be flexible and add things as they come up in class... BUT, they terrify me, also, since I'm not actually that great at writing down the lectures? I'm much better winging it in-person???

To sum up: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Oh! But I do have a few things I can post about what I've been reading because I was catching up on some more short stories with an eye for upcoming lessons this last few days:

In my continued exploration of international science fiction, I've been watching a bunch of short films.

• "Intoxicant," directed by John Hsu / co-written with Duff Chung-Pu Hsiao, 35 minutes, (2008) https://www.viddsee.com/video/intoxicant/, 35 m, a Taiwanese short film about a online forum. The coolest part of this short film to me is the way Hsu envisioned the forum? It's kind of hard to explain, but it involves live action in a very early cyberpunk way? If you've got a free half hour, it is a fun watch. There are subtitles.

• “Welcome to Earth,” written and directed by by Daan van 't Einde, 18 minutes, (2019) https://youtu.be/Nen6uu4IlW4 This is a short film from the Netherlands which is about humanity's extinction, with a twist. Mostly in English, with a few subtitles.

The short stories I read this last week were:

• “Change of Life,” by K. Tempest Bradfort (Podcastle, May 2019)
• “Damage” by David Levine (Tor.com, Jan. 2015)
• “Hungry Daughters or Starving Mothers,” by Alyssa Wong (Nightmare, Oct. 2015)
• “Today I am Paul,” by Martin L. Shoemaker (Clarkesworld, August 2015)
• “Non-Zero Probabilities,” by N. K. Jemisin (Clarkesworld, Sept. 2009)

I'm sure you'll be getting similar lists from me from now on until class is over. The thing about the short stories is that I'm just going to be combing through the past Nebula nominees for stories (and then I will probably start branching off to other awards) that are good representation of things like plot, character, pacing, theme, etc., that are available on-line and that (where possible) have a podcasted option.

The short films are just things I'm offering to my students as fun ways to see what the rest of the world is doing with science fiction. 

Halloween was a crappy day for me, mostly because I spent almost all of it shuttling my various family members to places AND I had to work at the library. I ended up feeling too physically exhausted to carve pumpkins.

Just to give you a recap of all the stupid: In the morning, I had to drop Shawn off at the dentist, come back home and take Mason to school, go BACK to the dentist's to get Shawn, deliver her to work, and get my a$$ all the way out to Shoreview where I worked for four hours, on my feet. Then, immediately after work, I went back to pick up Mason at school and deliver him to his college class, from there, I swung back over to the History Center to get Shawn and take her to her hand PT in downtown, where I sat around and waited in a waiting room. After that, I took her home so she could start handing out candy, went back to get Mason at college, and brought him home. All this, and I forgot to pack my OWN lunch, so I didn't eat for the FIRST TIME until 4:00 pm. No breakfast, and only a handful of chips found in the break room at the library for lunch. NOT VERY SMART, FYI. To say that I was hangry was probably an understatement.

Also? This may be the first time, ever, for me not to have carved pumpkins for Halloween in my entire life. :-(

Halloween is one of my major holidays and I never even dressed up. Mason did, at least, and that cheered me greatly. He feels too old to go out trick-or-treating (which I would argue, but it's up to him,) so he dresses up to hand out candy to the littles who come door-to-door.


Picture: Mason with a zombie mask over his face. His glasses are over the top of the mask making him look like a weird, old man.

He actually mostly wore a devil mask most of the night, but I find this particular mask on him to be kind of hilarious. It was his idea to dress-up in a suit coat, because he's going for the "gentleman monster" look, which I also found amazingly charming. Honest to all the god(desse)s, Mason's whole thing last night was what cheered me up and turned my day around.

The day before, I started trying out some vegan desserts.

As I mentioned previously, we have a contingent of vegans who come for (American) Thanksgiving, a holiday centered around the consumption of MEAT.

To be fair, I personally consider it a holiday to celebrate made-families (to which our vegan friends 150% belong), but, you know, the turkey is still central to many people's conception of Thanksgiving. We long ago discovered vegan roasts for them that I can buy pre-made, so that part is no longer the issue. I also have a number of easy substitutions for many of the sides that I would normally slather in butter, drown in milk, etc. So most of the sides on the table they can eat (without having to be shoved onto a vegan-only table, which, I mean, the point is to make everyone feel welcome...) My French bread is almost vegan to begin with; I just need to not put on the egg wash at the end to make it so.

So... the thing I continue to try to improve every year that they come is the desserts.

Vegan baking is tricky.

You are bereft of most of your leavening (obviously soda and baking powder are still on the table, but eggs are out,) and, of course, chocolate. I did, this year, manage to find vegan chocolate chips. I discovered a recipe for "chocolate and orange vegan crinkle cookies" in a magazine devoted to vegan cooking, which I bought because it was their "holiday special" and promised not only baked goods, but also a vegan egg nog.

On Wednesday night, I tried out the crinkle cookies.

At any rate, I hunted down and assembled all my vegan baking needs:


Picture: all the vegan things in their drab, sad earth-tones.

What I love about the peppermint crinkle cookies that Shawn makes for Christmas is that they're chewy. The top is a little crinkly-crisp (hence the name), but then you get that great "mouth feel" when you bite into them and get all the chocolate-minty goodness that's just so chewy and yummy. It's sensual experience.

I was really hoping that I might be able to duplicate that.

Alas, not so much. I believe the main critique from my family was a very Minnesotan: "They're not bad, but..."

They looked promising all the way through the process. I thought the batter was weirdly fudge-like, but Shawn reassured me that that's how hers are pre-baking.



Picture: very dense, chocolate batter.

I followed the recipe precisely, which is often a thing I'll do the first time I try something, even if, at the time I'm thinking, "Really? That much orange extract??" Because I go under the assumption (possibly a false one) that these things have been taste-tested and perfected in some industrial kitchen and maybe there's something about vegan chocolate that I don't know about that works really well with that much additional orange flavor.

No surprise, my instincts were right. Next time I try these I'm going with a teaspoon less of the orange extract, possibly even reducing it down to just a hint (like a 1/4 teaspoon.) Because, I know from experience that is POWERFUL stuff. One of the other consistent complaints I got from my taste testers (aka my family) was that the orange was "a little weird."

The end result was also less chewy and more granular, which is something I'm not sure quite how to fix. I am considering also trying a little bit of a baking soda/baking powder mix (as offered on a vegan website devoted to "fluffy" baking,) to see if that addition will get the desired consistency. I'm going to freeze all these attempts in separate baggies so that, should they want to play taste tester, too, my guests can try out a sample from each batch. This one is going to be labeled, "too orange-y, cake brownie texture."



Which, you know, isn't terrible. So, I do, at least, consider these a partial success. 

Now the question is, do I subject my family to vegan egg nog, or do we try vegan sugar cookies (which I plan to shape into turkeys, for the IRONY.)

Yesterday was the kind of Monday for me that you might see featured in a Garfield strip. I didn't quite get a pie in my face, but it was a lot like that in spirit.

I should say, though, that it wasn't AWFUL. It was... inconvenient, frustrating, a little messed up -- though never seriously, which kind of made it that much more annoying, you know?

It started the moment after I dropped Shawn off at work. I had a sudden flash of insight. "Uh, Mason," I said. "Did we remember your lunch? Your backpack?" Nope. So we had to make a quick trip back home before getting to school, which we did, with time to spare before the first bell.

As I was leaving school, I thought to myself. Well, that was entertaining. I should call Shawn and tell her all about it. I opened my phone and watched as the battery blinked out. Phone was dead.

At the coffee shop, Facebook decided to flake out. It pulled up, but decided that I'd read everything of interest. At the top of the status update section it proclaimed, "No new updates" and refused to give me anything, not even so-and-so's latest Farmland purchase. I decided it was a sign to go home and work on my revisions (which I did.)

Everything went along fine for a while, but then at lunch I thought I might like some tomato soup. I grabbed a can and pulled the top off. I looked down at it and realized, "Oh crap, it's cream of chicken." I shrugged and added some turkey bits from the freezer, and it was really pretty tasty. Just not what I'd been looking forward to.

I'd been hoping to go to kuk sool wan last night, but Mason came home with a headache.

See, like I said... not TERRIBLE, just sort of "meh."

Last night as I was falling asleep, however, I decided that I'm going to make another New Year's resolution. I'm going to try to get ebook versions of the AngeLINK series out in time for CONvergence. Considering I'm planning to pay to have someone else to most of the putzy work for me, this shouldn't be an impossible task. The big thing I need to do is fix the messy file of Archangel Protocol that I got from Torrent.

It just seems like I may find a few new readers at CONvergence, and it would be nice to be able to point them to e-copies of the out-of-print books.

Also, I'm going to try to be better about having promotional items on hand for my Tate books.

Last night I called my folks, who are wintering in Texas, and one of the first things my dad asked was: "Did you get that German article done?"

No.

But, I still have a couple of days! And, I have to tell you, avoiding writing non-fiction has totally inspired my fiction writing. I've been in a weird kind of daze... the other day I wrote about 4,000 words (some of them transcribed from an earlier draft of RESURRECTION CODE, mind you,) which is still absolutely insane for me.

This has been the kind of writing mode where dishes done get done, the child goes without a bath, and the house generally crumbles around me. But, hey, I'm actually enjoying the process. I was in the car this morning and I found myself doing that annoying-writer thing where I was excitingly extolling various plot points with Shawn... as her eyes are glazing over because there's no context for any of it, but she's smiling at my enthusiasm. :-)

So, not much else to report. I do have to thank all of you for your ideas for the article.... I dutifully wrote them all down and probably at midnight on the 14th I'll break down and write something. Actually, I'm really hoping to get a draft started today, but we'll see. Mouse may take over my brain again.