Day in the Life of an Idiot

Image: newest quilt, dinosaurs and gold & blue squares.

As I wait for some specialty fabric to arrive for the Star Trek gaming/pride quilt I'm making for sabotabby, I started this weird little baby quilt. I'm not sure about it. Is it too busy? Is the yellow right? Will I probably just finish it because I got this far and damn if those squares of squares weren't a pain in the butt to make?

Regardless, tell me what you think. I mean, if it is a baby quilt, I suppose it's fine to be this chaotic.

And I don't hate it. 

Sometimes, I even like it. 

Thoughts?

At any rate, yesterday was kind of a busy day for me. I ran around doing errands--one of which was buying printer ink. Shawn likes to do her reviewing of my manuscript on paper, so I printed out all of Lesbians in SPAAACE (aka Welcome to Boy.net) for her yesterday. Shawn is my Gamma reader (or whatever comes after Beta).  There will be other readers, most notably my editor, but Shawn will be one of the first to correct for spelling and to alert me to any last minute character/plot/continuity errors. 

So, now that the the book is sort of mostly off my plate (at least for the moment), I've been casting around for things to do. Of course, one of my first priorities is to plot out the next Alex Conner book, which is the next thing due at Wizard's Tower Press. But, in addition to that, I've also been goofing around with making the Thirsty Sword Lesbians mini-campaign I ran into something I could offer up as a kind of module on Drive Thru RPG or itch.io or wherever. That's been entertaining, if only because I could create characters and such all day.

It snowed here in Minnesota. I should probably plan something warm and Sustaining (as Pooh might say) for dinner tonight. 

How's by you?
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Addendum. I don't know why I keep having faith in the Internet community. I posted this same picture to Facebook and the MAJORITY of the people there said that they thought it was cute, etc., like you all did here. And, like, it's not that I feel particularly confident about this one, so that was nice to hear. But, the four people out of however many others, who felt the need to tell me how terrible it was... I just... WHY? Two of the four "advice" comments suggested different color arrangements, which is fine, though not helpful advice, really, because this is just my silly hobby. But, the other two who felt the need to point out how sloppily its put together really hurt my feelings. Like, was that necessary? Why would you do that?

I mean I think it comes from a genuine place? Where people who have expertise want to share their knowledge because sewing is something they also love, but I dunno, man, can't you just say, "Hey, nice effort! Glad you're in my fandom!"

The intrnet makes me feel twelve years old sometimes. 

Do you ever have events on your calendar that you look at for a long time and then suddenly it's THAT day?

We've had PSEO Informational Meeting on our calendar since forever, it seems. I also scheduled Mason an campus tour for this morning, but that was more of an informational session for incoming freshmen and he was anxious about his gaming computer (the ROG--it's real name "The Republic of Gaming" ASUS stopped taking a charge,) so we skipped the tour part of the tour in favor of a rush to The Genius Squad. That's part of the reason I fee like I've run around all day, but I'll tell that story next.

The Informational meeting was uplifting, honestly. I kept leaning into Mason and excitedly whispering, "You are SO ready for this" and squeezing his knee with barely restrained excitement. PSEO at the University of Minnesota would basically give Mason access to a college education while still in high school. He can fulfill his remaining high school requirements, at a much higher level. And, because one college semester counts for a full high school year, he could take any number of electives, too. I can't even tell you how excited I am on his behalf. This is really an incredible program and he's such a good fit.

Now, we just need to get him in.

One step at a time, so... first is the on-line application. He's actually already got some other things ready to be sent in, so we're going to give it our best, as they say. Cross fingers for us, please. It's a competitive program.

Meanwhile, with the computer, we dashed out to Best Buy only to be told we needed to schedule an appointment. So, I made one for 8:20 pm, just because I did NOT want to be at all rushed coming back from the PSEO meeting (which was 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm, so I maybe was being a little paranoid). We went BACK out to Best Buy only to have to wait for the one guy on duty while he settled a bunch of people who all seemed to be walk-ins, which pissed off, honestly, because all we needed was for someone to be able to tell us if the problem Mason was having with his ROG was on the power cord end or the machine end. The Best Buy guy was pretty sure it's on the machine end, which was not the answer we wanted at all. Now the question is: is it the mother board or is it the power port. (Or the cord, because, honesty, the guy seemed a little frazzled and I don't entirely trust that he had a similar enough power cord to be certain.) So my job tomorrow is to take it to a local shop which might have the ability to check that power port quickly. If it turns out to be the motherboard... well, I'm not sure what we're going to do.

Mason has recently gotten into an amateur Overwatch League and his team plays competitively. Without the ROG, he's off the team. These are his friends, too. He has a very serious community he's developed with them. But, when we bought this computer we dropped a couple thousand dollars on it.

If we had a couple thousand dollars to spare, we'd have a working upstairs bathtub by now.

Mason is feeling really devastated. As he told me on the way home: it seems like every time we rush somewhere for a prognoses we hear, "it's time to say goodbye" and there's no hope. I can't blame him. Literally, with both cats, we barely even got, "we think we can fix this," but instead it was, "sorry, there's nothing we can do."

And now his beloved, irreplaceable computer seems to be suffering the same fate.

It was a day of highs and lows, that's for sure.

Speaking of other things that have been on my calendar forever, tomorrow is my erotica reading with The Not-So-Silent Plant folks. Check out the event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/347306035861095/

The details are: "The country's only recurring open mic dedicated to speculative fiction returns Feb 19 with a star-studded show devoted to the themes of love, lust, romance and passion, with invited guests Lyda Morehouse, author of the Garnet Lacy series (as Tate Hallaway) and winner of the Philip K. Dick Award's Special Citation of Excellence, Catherine Lundoff, two-time Goldie Awards winner for erotica whose stories have appeared in over 80 publications, and Twin Cities writer/performers Laura Packer and Tom S Tea!

Got some romantic or erotic speculative fiction you want to perform or know someone who's a fan of sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural horror, or tales of alternate realities? Sign up starts at 7:15 pm in the Poet's Corner of Kieran's Irish Pub. Stories, stand-up comedy routines, poems, and musical pieces are all welcome, just as long as the material is speculative fiction and under seven minutes. Sticking to the evening's theme of Love & Lust is strongly encouraged.

$5-$10 suggested donation. Hosted by Ben San Del

This is an adults-only show. "

See you there?

 I've determined today to get a decent start (well, re-start after talking to Wyrdsmiths,) on my proposal for a mystery cozy that my agent was looking for. I'm a four pages in and all I want to do is... anything else.  

In fact, I just got back from running an errand and am eyeing up the dishes. I hate doing the dishes.  The only thing that makes doing the dishes bearable to me is the fact that I usually watch anime while doing it.

I even started the laundry, another job I loathe.

All to avoid writing.

I'm SUCH a stereotype.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned the cozy here before.  There's no real "interest." All that happened is that my agent was talking to an editor (as per her job) and the editor said something to the effect of, "You know what *I'd* love to see....? I'd love to see a cozy mystery set in the craft beer brewing community" and my agent, being an actual decent person who seems to legitimately have my back, passed on this bit of industry gossip. I'm probably the absolute worst person to try to write this. For one, I don't drink beer. AT. ALL.  I grew up in a brewing town and the smell of hops kind of makes me think, unpleasantly, of overly hot, swampy days. So I never bothered to acquire a taste for it.  I've done some home brewing of wines, but never (obviously, since I don't drink it) beer.

HOWEVER, the universe seems to want me to give this a try, because, by absolute chance I met a woman at Minicon who not only is a craft beer enthusiast, but ran her own craft beer brewery.  So, I contacted Kathleen on Facebook and she's agreed to be my expert advisor.  In fact, we got together a couple of weekends ago and talked about the local craft brewing scene. I learned a lot of interesting stuff and immediately got an idea of how the murder could happen.

So, I've been diligently poking at this proposal for several weeks now. I really want to get it done so that I can start on the part that's going to be the most difficult for me: writing the sample chapters.  I should probably just start writing those, too, but [insert typical writerly whine, aka "WRITING IS HARD!"].

Who thought this was a good career for me, anyway?  Oh, wait. I did.

I'm having one of those days when I just want to eat cookies and spend all day surfing sites like this one.

Instead, I have a ton of stuff on my "to do" list. I did get a couple of things ta-done. I went to PetCo this morning and invested in some stuff recommended by our vet to help our cat, Inky, overcome his recent litter box issues. He's a young(ish) cat, and the doctor tested for infections, etc. And not finding anything conclusive -- there was a bit of blood in the urine, but that could have been from the procedure -- she suggested a couple of medical options (a one time asprin for any possible inflammation and some cosquine which, in addition to being good for old cat joints, apparently helps rebuild the bladder's lining) as well as the usual things like the Felaway aromatherapy, but also some new, softer litter and a "bubbler." Apparently one issue that Inky most certainly has is concentrated urine. She really wants him to drink more, and since he loves running faucets, I found a electric water fountain on sale. He went right to it the instant it was plugged in and running, so that's a hit. He also made a bee-line for the new litter, so apparently softer IS his preferrence.

Fingers crossed that this will be a solution.

Otherwise, if he continues to have problems, the doc suggested kitty prozac, which seems a bit drastic, don't you think? Though if the other option is putting him up for adoption, no, not so much.

Also, we are hiring Friendly Face Pet Services to watch over the cats while we are off to Indiana to visit Grandma Rounds in Indiana. So Katherine, the owner, stopped by the place and I introduced her to all the various pets (including the fish and gerbils), and showed her all the sneaky places we stash cat food, cat medicine, paper towel tubes for the gerbils, etc.

But I need to take off in a little bit to take Shawn to the doctor and then I'm off to "folder" again at Mason's school. At some point, I need to change the fish tanks so we are ready to leave them behind in Katherine's capable hands. The car, too, is in desperate need of an oil change, especially after all this driving back and forth to LaCrosse.

Speaking of LaCrosse, my father continues to improve. I've been checking in every day and it sounds like they're working him quite hard with the physical therapy, which is good. No time for lazing about! I told him that once the edema weight comes off, he's going to be like the character in Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron and FLY!

As an aside - The cool part of the above story is that my dad actually introduced me to that story when he gave me a copy of the Junior Great Books. In that same collection was Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt." I feel like there was a lot of other science ficiton in that sampler too, but those two stories really stuck in my head, regardless.

I may still have my original copy of that in the basement. I should dig it out and see if it's something Mason might some time.