Day in the Life of an Idiot

Image: Octoquilt! A quilt with lots of octopuses interspersed with colored squares.

I am finally working though all of the leftover sea-themed fabric from Mason's quilt. (A quilt that I still need to finish actually QUILTING, but it is now fully pieced, at least.) Several weeks ago I posted a picture of the colors I was thinking about for this quilt on Facebook and did my usual, "Anyone I know need an octopus quilt?" and I got a shocking number of "Oh! Pick me!" The first person was Nisi Shawl--someone I didn't even realized followed me, though I have admired their work from a distance. So, this is Nisi's quilt.

I am in the process of finishing it. I got it all quilted last night (while finishing a weird donghua called Link Click on Crunchyroll and catching up on the final season of Star Trek: Discovery before my Paramount+ subscription runs out.)  Now I am having a small conundrum. I had planned to sew the edges over the back, but when I do that, I lose a whole octopus. No one wants to lose a whole octopus!  So now I'm trying to decide if I have enough odds and ends of the fabric swatches to build an edge the I can fold over the front.  I may try that?  I also have a coral reef motif fabric in very similar greens to the ones I used that I might just add as an edging. 

Anyway, you will see it again once it's all the way finished. 

The only other excitement around here is that Mason is building a retaining wall (of sorts for our hill). 


Image: Me showing off Mason's handiwork, while Mason stands around looking tired.

After finishing this, he and Shawn decided that it actually might need a couple of more rows, so there is a palate of bricks on my boulevard right now waiting for his return from his uncle Keven's.  Given that our across the street neighbor is having their house painted, the street was really congested this morning when the Home Depot people needed to get in. I would have them deliver in the alley, but 1) I doubt they could get out, once they got in (we have a very sharp, hard T-section at the end of our alley) and 2) we have no place for them to put them because our back is basically a berm and a tiny space next to the garage where our garbage can sits. 

Oh yeah. 

Other fun news. Someone stole our recycling bin. I am extra impressed because it's actually missing its wheels. So someone was really determined when they hauled that away.  I put in a call to the city, so hopefully we will get one soon. We are a big recycling family so it will pile up in the meantime. 

The only other thing is that I attended my friend Ember's funeral on Sunday. It wasn't the official funeral. That will be in her hometown of Ironton in Ohio, but there are a bunch of us who can't make the drive, so we organized (actually Mel, another friend of mine, organized) one for here. It was held at the Loft, which is where I met Ember. She was a student of mine over a decade ago. Mmm, well over a decade at this point. At any rate, that one probably deserves its own post.  The only other thing I will say about that is that Ember's death has me thinking about a lot of people with who I feel close enough to call friends, but yet aren't really ALL THAT close? This may be a Midwestern problem, but I have a large number of people in a kind of close inner ring that I absolutely adore, right? I know them well enough to have maybe been to their house a couple of times, enjoy going places with them, but like there's this weird distance--like, maybe we're just not quite close enough to actually have contact information saved on speed dial.  Someone I can direct message for a get together, but in an emergency couldn't call. Ember was in this class of people for me. I have some really fond, personal memories of her, but we drifted apart when she married and moved to Owatonna, Minnesota.  And, so, I don't know. 

Let's not lose touch, okay??

Today, I am feeling a lot of ennui... or possibly just general malaise.

Whatever I'm feeling, it's definitely French.

It's "What Are You Reading Wednesday" so I'll start with that, I suppose. I have been very slowly reading a book called THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN by C L Polk. It's a funny book because the premise really shouldn't interest me--it's a Jane Austin-esque marry or die, comedy of manners 'oh noz, the social engagement that I am ever so unsuited for, but will totally excel at!'--but then, I'll decide to pick it up and suddenly I've read fifty pages without meaning to, you know?  I think I am enjoying it because it continues to subvert the genre in subtle ways, while also giving fans of it all the things. Courting handsome men! Ball gowns!  Demon summoning!

I haven't finished it yet, however, because I kept setting it down and forgetting about it.  

Is this a recommendation?  Weirdly, I do intend it to be. I need to work on my delivery, I think. I suspect that a lot of my friends out there in SF/Fdom would enjoy it.

Otherwise, like I said, today has been kind of 'meh.' I've been dodging a headache all day. I blame the sunshine. My sinuses react to rapid changes in barometric pressure and the temperature is spiking outside. It's gone from 5 to 18 F (-15 C to -8 C).  I guess that doesn't seem like a huge amount, but I'm pretty sure something has shifted. One side of my face feels filled with cement.

And, I don't know. Do any of the rest of you ever have days when you feel like you're just doing everything wrong and no one likes you?  That's the kind of day I'm having today.

This too shall pass, I know. I at least got a package mailed today along with some postcards. I should probably turn my mind towards some Christmas baking. Chocolate mint cookies are restorative.  They can heal any wound, I believe.

 On Sunday, I got an email containing the copy-edits of Unjust Cause from Wizard Tower Press.

I'm not very far along yet, but I have stetted a number of things that are a matter narrative voice and/or of personal choice. I mean, the copy editor had crossed out "pennies" and written in "loose change." There's actually no need to change what I wrote, and mine is more specific, so... back to pennies, it is. I can see why, in that particular moment, the copy editor might have felt that loose change was more accurate since the earlier scene involves a number of coins that are not pennies. I don't care. I like the sound of the phrase "a rain of pennies" more than "a rain of loose change" and I am the author, so I get final say.

But, I mean, if that's my biggest complaint? It's so much better than the time that one of Penguin's copy editors didn't seem to understand what "Spidey Sense" was. 

Anyone who reads my journal regularly, however, knows how much I, in particular, need a copy editor. So, I might complain, but gods bless anyone who catches all my typos and fixes my overuse of commas.

I'm not sure if I talked about this here yet, but I also have had a conversation with the artist who will be designing my cover. I had to provide something called "an artist's brief" which I have never had to do before in my life, so I just made it into a chatty discussion of what the book is about with images of South Dakota and the kinds of stone eagles that buildings in the US have (since I wasn't sure if my artist was from the UK or not, since my publisher is... )  So, I'm looking forward to seeing that. I will say that I'm probably less picky about my covers than I am about copy edits since I have had some TERRIBLE covers in the past from Penguin.

No one should ever forget noodle appendage lady on the cover of Honeymoon of the Dead.

So, that's what I'll be working on today, I imagine. 

Otherwise, I don't know. I've been feeling kind of low-energy/borderline sad the last few days and I think it's just my body realizing that spring is coming... but isn't quite here yet.  I'm not sure. We are thinking of painting the kitchen finally, so that's a fun project to look forward to... like I said, part of it is a kind of underlying feeling of restlessness to get STARTED on spring things, while knowing I simply have to wait at least until the snow is gone.

Yesterday, when I went to pick Shawn up at the History Center, I saw a baby bunny just sitting in the road, near the curb.  She seemed stunned, maybe?  So I went to try to shoo her back into cover, but it became evident that she was injured.  There was blood near her neck.  Worse, (because it's not a good sign when wild animals can be easily picked up), I was able to scoop her up and get her into a towel filled bucket that Shawn prepared.  We took her to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.  

It was the longest drive of my life. The Rehabilitation Center is actually not all that far away--just on the other side of Hwy36 on Dale.  But, not long ago, I picked up a bird that was stunned and it died while in transport, and... I just.  The world is full of awful things, and I just did NOT want a dead baby bunny in the back of my car.

She made it to the Center, at least. She perked up a bit, once inside, actually. Hopping about a little.  But, who knows what happened to her overnight, if she pulled through, or if I only managed to make her death that much more frightening and strange.  I'm going to hope that my attempt to rescue her will save her.  

Then the news hit about health care and that traitor John McCain.  You know, if this were Ireland, they'd have a song about that guy already, I swear to gods. 

All of this contributed, I think, to this sense I woke up with today. I feel like I'm behind on something or I've forgotten something important.  So I spent much of the morning so far reading something that I promised someone I would--a beta reading thing.  I got that done.  In a minute or two I will hop up and do the dishes. Normally today is a day for me to go to the coffee shop and hang out with the ladies, but I'm skipping that in favor of attempting to do enough stuff around the house to banish this feeling. I suspect what I'm feeling is actually 'political hopelessness' like I did right before the election, and what I need to do is garden or sweep or do something else physical. (I have a feeling that if I were still doing martial arts, this political season would have made me an uber-athlete, because my desire to punch stuff and scream is very high right now.)

It's drizzle raining outside which isn't helping my mood, alas.

Okay, off to banish this feeling by doing something.