Day in the Life of an Idiot

 So, I don't even want to tell you how much of the Loft malarky I have continued to have to deal with. It feels ongoing in a way that is starting make me lose sleep.

Since I started here I should probably give you all a little wrap-up of the newest twist in this DRAMA. After actual pressure from media outlets, the Loft finally decided to talk to me in order to "set the record straight." The executive director called me and because MN is what is called a "single-party" state, you don't need permission to record calls, I planed to record it, and I did. (Side note, I have a terrible phone that could not handle any of the apps? So, I ended up putting her on speaker phone and just holding it near my computer so that Audacity could pick up both sides of the conversation. It worked okay, but, man, the quality of sound when she is talking is BAD.) 

I actually did this for a couple of reasons. My memory is bad--in a way that I think is typical of a lot of people? I don't remember things perfectly when the conversation is difficult, heated, or I'm otherwise worried, etc.. Like, this is why I often want Shawn (and usually visa versa) to be with at the important doctor's appointments, so there are basically two people with the information. So, I wanted a recording for my own sake, in case, at 4 am I wake up wondering: "Oh no! I did I say something rude?" or "Wait, did she imply what I think she did??"

Also, I'm still not sure I don't want to pursue this via some legal channel and having a recording of the conversion would be useful, if I do.

Okay, so the Executive Director planned to call me at noon, and OF COURSE, in a super corporate business "power move" called at 12:05 pm. I literally found this hilarious? Like, wow, already showing your insincerity. 

She starts by saying that the Loft likes to keep these sorts of conversations private and confidential. Then she stops speaking. She clearly waiting for me to agree that that's what we're having. The silence stretches. I finally say, "uh, so...?" And, she has to give up and asks if there's something I'd like to start with. I lead with my main question which is, "Why did the Loft tell me one thing about the reason I was fired and then turn around and tell my students something that cast me in the frame?" (This is paraphrasing.)

There is another awkwardly log pause and the director clearly starts reading a statement. Even at the time, I knew she was reading because she stumbled over some words in a way you just DON'T when you're speaking spontaneously and off the cuff. This statement is full of corporate double-speak in a way that I'm actually sort of having trouble parsing it. There are words like "open dialoguing" and god knows what all else. (I did not, in fact, listen to the whole thing again. I did replay certain parts for Shawn, however.) She finally drops the "bomb."

She tells me that, in fact, there have been complaints about me. She says that I (and in re-listening, I notice this is actually not concrete but a list of OPTIONS, like maybe she is trying to cold read me?) either gave feed back, written comments, or said to the critique client something that the client found offensive to the GLBTQIA+ community. I was not expecting this? I didn't exactly scoff, but I broke in and said, "Wow! Really? That's surprising given that I'm a lesbian." 

Shawn and I counted.

There is a good TEN SECONDS of utter, astonished SILENCE.

They didn't know. The Loft had no idea that I'm a lesbian. It is so clear that the director has no idea what to do with this twist because after pulling herself together, she starts rereading her script. She never really address this, or the fact that a conversation in community between two queer folks should not be treated the same way as one between a queer person and an outsider to that community. (I can call my friends dykes, but the straights better not call me that. We all understand this. It's code-switching. Something she is likely to be familiar with as a Black woman.) 

But, okay, I get a chance to speak and I say, something to the effect of, excuse me, but when did you receive this complaint? She checks her notes, she says 8/9/2023. I say, "Well, that's impossible, I haven't had a critique client in over a year." She then makes mumblely noises about how, "Oh, that's when it came to light.. uh... at that time," seeming to admit on tape (unknowingly) that they clearly spent time in early August digging up information with which to fuel some kind of retaliatory action like this.  Because the last critique I did for the Loft was in October of 2022, I believe. It did have GLBTQIA+ content and I do remember having a complex discussion with the client. So, it is possible that the client, who is also queer, did take something I said as offensive. I will never suggest that just because I'm queer that I'm absolved of the possibility of homophobia or what have you. 

None of this really matters, because its very, very clear that in many ways, this is bull. If the Loft is so concerned about creating GLBTQIA+ safer spaces AND there was a complaint against me that suggested to them that I was problematic in this regard (and let's even give them the benefit of the doubt and believe, which I don't, that their stated reason that it took over a year for someone to approach me about this is because somehow the previous Education Director was blocking "justice" being served) they should have been GOOD ALLIES to the queer community and come at me hard. Say it! Write the email that says, "Dear Lyda, it has come to light that you are a Bad Actor and known to be anti-GLBTQIA+ and we don't stand for it!"

If someone in my community is a bigot, I shout bigot! That's what allyship looks like!!

Why, instead, write an email that says, "there are some programming changes happening, including phasing out the program you're using wet.ink and la, la, la about strategic and budgetary concerns, good luck with your future endeavors, Love, the Loft" ?? (Obviously paraphrasing here. I believe I quoted them directly in my previous post if you want to re-read the actual communication)

When I asked them that, they said, well, it says in the email "participant feedback" among this long laundry list of other, very innocuous reasons. WHICH it does say, but as an organization of writers, it should also be clear to them that sliding in to a list of words that otherwise are entirely about strategic planning and programmic shifts, does not, in fact, give connotation of "we heard something bad about you from a student" but instead, "we surveyed our general student body and they're looking for other kinds of programming." 

And if you are so sure... WHY BURY THAT?

Also why all the insistence that this is private. If I'm a bad actor and you are sure of it, should you not be willing to say that out loud and on the public record!!

So, again. This is clearly all been manufactured to some extent AFTER they received pressure from the Star Tribune and (possibly) MPR. I told them that was clear. And this is when they tried to insist that I never speak of this again out loud because this is a private and confidential conversation and I said, "You can't actually ask me not to talk to anyone about this because you made it abundantly clear that I no longer work for YOU. There is no non-disclosure part of your contract, anyway, and, even if there were, I am no longer bound by that. I am a free agent who can speak to whom I like, about what I like." (That is nearly a direct quote. I believe I actually also said something about how I would use social media to talk about this as my conscious deemed fit, but I get poetic like that under pressure; I blame my theater background.) 

But, it is, in effect over because they have an accusation that I can never truly counter because they refused to give me details. They wouldn't say what I said or whom I said it to, nor even when exactly I might have said it *(other than the date it "came to light.")

So, that's the end of this ugly business. If there is one thing I wish I had said it's this: "If the Loft is truly committed to making itself a safer place for GLBTQIA+ folx, then I hope they are extending that to their teaching artists as well. If they will not stand up for their queer teaching artists then it's not a safe space and without queer teachers, the queer students will NOT feel safer."

Yet, it so painfully clear, this is not their real agenda. Not as an institution, nor in firing me. 

One quick addendum. The whole teen summer issue: The same person who used to give me manuscript critiques is the same person I had feelings at.  She recently was promoted to the position of Education Programming director--thus, finally in a position to make a decision to pull my class.

So... mmmm.

[BIG BREATH] Letting it go now.

 Um, so, remember when I was like, "Ah, I guess the Loft is okay? They accepted my class!"

They just pulled it randomly. LIke, it was supposed to start on Sept. 20, and I got, instead this e-mail, this morning:


I was immediately suspicious since listing me as a manuscript critiquer/editor literally costs them nothing. I mean, outside of whatever they pay to keep their web server running. I can't see how NOT offering a class improves their budget, although I suspect that Wet.ink does cost them to continue. Likewise, I have very rarely had an evaluation that could be considered lukewarm, even. Most of my evaluations (unless there are some they have not shared with me) have been glowing. The other two things "programmatic priorities" and "strategic engagements" sound like CYA corporate-speak to me, so I mean, I guess I could be in violation of those, since they are nonsense terms.

But, then I get a panicked email of a friend of mine that has signed up for the class who is concerned that either I, or my wife, has had an accident and/or is in the hospital, because this is what they wrote to my students--making it seem as though I have chosen to cancel the class.


THEY LIED. They very much implied that I cancelled this class. There is no teaching artist conflict, unless that covers "we fired this teacher vindictively" as a conflict which they do, in fact have, since they created it. 

If you have been following along you know why this happened. 

If not, I will try to tell this story briefly. I did make a thread of it on BlueSky, but I know not everyone is there (or even wants to be.) The short of it is, I yelled.

To be clear, OVER A YEAR AGO NOW, I yelled at some Loft staff because, two weeks before I was set to teach a class for teens, they informed me that I had a co-teacher. You heard that right, a CO-teacher. Someone whose name, I suddenly realized, had been appearing on all the advertisements for this class! Someone I didn't know. At all. Someone who does not, in fact, write science fiction--although might have been working on a YA novel with some fantasy elements?

When I asked what was going on, I was told that this other person (K) would be taking over the second half of the day, because their market research showed that parents of teens want full day classes, not the half day I'd proposed. This change? Not reflected in my contract, btw. They also "assured" me that the other person wouldn't be trying to teach science fiction and fantasy, that was still MY job, but they'd just do activities to fill in the rest of the day.

Okay, so I was mad.

I told them flat out that if I were a parent (or, worse, a nerdy kid) who had signed up for a class on writing science/fiction and fantasy, that's NOT what I'd want? Not one half what I signed up for and one half busywork. I also told them that they had to change the website to reflect what they were really offering and not make it look like K was a legitimate co-teacher, because co-teacher implies that she designed the course with me and she did not. I also aske to see what kinds of activities K was doing so that I could maybe build on what she'd planned so that we could have something that felt more like a unified and planned course? I also told that that while I was mad at them, I was most angry on behalf of my students, to whom I felt I OWED the experience that they had paid good money for.

In the end, my part of the class was not the best I've ever taught. I will admit that. Even though my evaluations came back mostly positive, I know that having K waiting in the wings (though I only saw her once, even though I asked if we could maybe debrief so that we, again, could have a unified sense of the temperature of the class that day) eroded my confidence in my abilities. However, I have taught at the Loft for a long time and figured this was just a bump in the road.

Until I got called into the main building for a "chat" with the Director of Education (an ally, it turned out) but who did tell me that I was persona non gratis among much of the education committee because of the stink I'd raised.  Even though, at the time, the person who just sent me this e-mail y(and who is, incidentally, the person I yelled at) praised me for my professionalism in the end. 

The good news is, as you all know, I have been expecting this? I was, in fact, surprised that my class was approved since the Education Director who was my ally quit and went on to work elsewhere. So, now I have to get serious about figuring out how to teach (if that's what I want to do) on my own, without the Loft. 

It all seems easy until I get to the part where I have to collect money from people. Like, I know how to advertise and use Zoom or rent spaces if I want in-person. But, the financial aspect scares the crap out of me. I don't even balance my own checkbook because I'm THAT BAD at math and finances. 

 A little context: a month or so ago, I decided to check in on my ancient, but still functional, Hotmail account. I would get rid of it entirely, but back in the Late Jurassic I printed my email in the author's bio portion in Archangel Protocol (and all of the subsequent AngeLINK books.) Every so often, I still get fan mail to that address.

It turns out that my webpage (until a month ago!) also directed people to that old address. (Yes, it has now been fixed to send inquiries to my gmail account.)  I found this out, of course, because buried under all the spam was a email from a former teen student of mine, asking if I might be interested in coming to speak to Beloit College's writers' club. They meet on Saturday evenings at 5 pm Central and I could come in person or via Zoom... and there would be a stipend.

A rather generous stipend.

As has been discussed.

I knew this student was in my teen class, because she mentioned it by name. "More Than the Zombie Apocalypse." I only ever use that title for my teen classes. I've never changed the title either, because I've discovered something YA authors have long known: teens talk to each other and recommend things to each other. So, that was kind of a little ego boost, particularly after the disaster which shall not be named over the summer. SOME of my teen students still remember me years later. Ha! Loft! SEE!

At any rate, there was the usual back and forth and it was decided that I would speak via Zoom on May 22, last Saturday. Despite my panicking, the potential funeral, and the rest, it went great. I did take people's advice and put together an actual PowerPoint Presentation. I feel a little silly about this, but later, when I finally saw the contract (more on that in a second) I'm glad I did. The contract stipulated a "workshop" and there's something about a PowerPoint Presentation that feels more workshop-like than me babbling incoherently for an hour and a half. 

I showed up ten minutes early, like you do, and chatted with the half dozen workshop members who'd already arrived. I thought, "Oh, this is a nice small group, maybe I can ditch the presentation and..." but, at the clock hit 5 pm, window after window after window started popping up and I was like, "Oh. Oh, DAMN." 

Not, mind you, in a bad way, but more of a "Wow, okay, they did some publicity. I'm actually going to have to PERFORM."

And so I did.

I mean, I still always feel like I am a dancing monkey, babbling like an idiot, and/or punch drunk while doing these things, but people seemed genuinely appreciative and asked good follow-up questions. So, it seems as though all is well. In fact, I heard from one the of attendees a few days later because I offered that I could answer further questions via email and it seems as though I was generally a hit. 

SO YAY.

So about that generous payment I'd been all worried about. Well, I had literally heard nothing from their finance office despite one email from someone saying "I'm connecting you with ____." Well, ____ never said boo after that. In fact, by Friday (the day before) I was kind of starting to get worried that they'd baulked at the amount they'd agreed to pay me. I did one subtle, "So... is there anything you NEED from me before my workshop tomorrow?" query that seemed to not have the desired affect, so I went with the less subtle on Sunday, the day after the event, which was, "Say, I haven't heard a peep from your financial department, should I have??" 

Forms were belatedly sent, one of which I actually have MAIL back, but whatever. The payment is being processed, your check is in the mail, yada yada.

Oh, and about the funeral that we chose not to attend.... Shawn's brother said it was the best decision we have ever made. He and his wife considered bailing in the middle of the funeral service because it was so fire and brimstone and sin, sin, SIN in a way that made his fairly centrist to lightly conservative head explode. Shawn has two brothers. One old leftie and one kind of very middle of America (which is decently to the right, as you all know). This was the middle one? And, so if he was having conniption fits, the service was BAD. 

I can only imagine it would have been worse if ACTUAL sinning lesbians had been in the family pews.

 
Image: empty classroom awaiting young minds to warp

I thought I should continue the saga of my on-going class of young, middle school writers. I am beginning to suspect that Kelsey is actually far, far more prepared than I am. The problem with letting the class self-direct is that sometimes we are fairly directionless until I pull us back into focus.

Every time I ask my students about their afternoon, it sounds quite creative and lovely, honestly. The only complaint I get is that it's really not about science fiction or fantasy, only about writing in general. (WHICH, yes, Loft, I could have told you that kids are savvy enough to notice this!)  At any rate, apparently, yesterday afternoon, my rival had several clever prompts centered around working in all five senses into writing. There are a number students that clearly appear to favor my rival, (two girls, specifically,) but I have made peace with that because, honestly, it's good that everyone is getting SOMETHING that they are enjoying out of this class.

I'm pretty sure that if the parents sat in on my half of the class and compared it to the second, they would also prefer my rival's style. As I heard the first day, after all, her style is "more like school." Mine is, "okay, but WHY are stories satisfying? How do you make 'and they all died' into the kind of ending you would actually want to read in a book?" (These were the questions we tackled today.)

Also, when my students complained that they wanted far more than twenty minutes to write and I asked them, "Well, how long do you want?" at 10 am, they said, "Can we just write the rest of the class?" Looking around to make sure that was, in fact, the consensus, I only saw desperate nods and pleases...

And so I said yes. Yes, of course we can.

I set aside everything else I had planned, we all hunched over our various writing implements, and wrote for an hour and a half. I am pretty sure parents looking in on that would be thinking, "I paid how much for this??" 

I also copied down a cooperative story that the class wrote yesterday in my half of the day. (We actually had two rival stories. The red, serious one, and the blue, crazy one. My challenge tomorrow is to write down the much longer, much more nonsensical blue story.) I contributed one line, though not the first. (I will highlight my contribution below.)


Image: The story that came from amazing (warped) minds.

Here's the transcription:

So basically, this was written by everyone, each person getting to write one of the lines. If you ignore the bile filling the room, it's actually quite clever. I was fascinated that this particular team chose to get consensus. They talked to each other about what could be happening with the flowers, "Was it a curse? What were they doing? Why was she changing?" and this is what they spontaneously decided.

I love these kids.

 I have been meaning to write my "author's newsletter," which at this point I should probably just plan for Valentine's Day. Not that I have a lot to report. Still, it's supposed to be a monthly thing, and I don't know that I remembered to report anything in January. 

I woke up this morning, like I often do, intending to Get A Lot Done.

I have a new critique client from the Loft who has sent me a novella that really shouldn't be taking me this long to read, but I am trying to give detailed commentary. I should be well-motivated to read it, since I will get paid for it as soon as I write up my full critique. Even so, it's just been very slow going. I want to blame the weather, but it's actually been warm for February in Minnesota (It's currently 22 F / -5.5 C) Maybe it's the quality of light that has me dragging? It has been quite overcast for the last couple of days.

Maybe if I go to the post office? I probably need to get out of the house for a bit. I will do that as soon as I finish this.

Anyway, thanks to the couple of folks who offered their opinions/suggestions on what I should read next. I actually managed to finish the non-fiction book I've been reading last night (I forgot that non-fiction has citations, and so I was surprised to find myself at the end with so many pages left.) So, I will be starting up on these library books sooner than I thought. 

Yesterday was National Pizza day, so Shawn convinced me to make pan pizza for dinner last night. 


Image: Homemade deep-dish pizza in a cast iron pan (you can see my library book pile off to the right. We believe in reading a the dinner table!)

 For reasons known only to the Loft (probably cost saving,) they host the back end portion of their Zoom classes on Google Classroom. I find Google Classroom to be somewhat opaque and annoying, but what has me stressed this morning is a problem that came down late last night. 

I got a panicked email from a student who had been diligently working away on an assignment in Google Docs. As she herself said, she is very familiar with Docs and how it works and so she didn't bother saving it... because Google Docs does that for you. Even so, she had noticed it doing its usual "...saving" thing. Right, so, she put in all her work on the assignment (a critique of another student's work) and closed up. Having had a secondary thought after that, she went to add it... and no longer seemed to have access to the document she was working on. She couldn't, in fact, find it AT ALL.

This stymied me for a long time until I remembered that the way I create assignments is that I upload the critique piece into the shared Google Classroom Folder and then send it out to each student by having Google Classroom's mechanism create a copy for each student. I thought, "Ah, my student doesn't realize that her work is being stored in the shared classroom folder and not on her personal Google Docs. I'll just go find it for her and point her to how to retrieve it."

EXCEPT.

When I went to open up the Classroom's Google Folder, I found myself barred. At least on the instructor's end, I got a message that said, "This folder has been moved to trash. To access files, have the owner of the folder restore it." I was initially like... WHO THE HELL IS THE OWNER, IF NOT ME?? Turns out, the answer is: a Loft staff member who no longer works at the Loft.

I wrote a very panicked email myself now, to the Loft, begging them to have that former employee restore the folder and for god's sake NOT TO DELETE THEIR ACCOUNT because it would end my access to probably everything that's on the cloud as well, since they are the owner of it all, not me.

I woke up to a reply from someone who is supposed to be out of the office until tomorrow, so apparently I write panic very well. They didn't quite understand my problem because I don't think that other instructors use assignments the way I do. I like to protect the anonymity of my students wherever possible and Classroom can send out copies to everyone without me having to generate an email (which I would still bcc everyone one, but you know, it's another layer for people who want/need that sort of thing.) But, obviously, there are work arounds if they can't restore the folder to us. It doesn't seem to affect any documents that I have stored on my own Docs, so no class materials generated by me are affected. The only thing we wouldn't be able to do is use Classroom to generate assignments.

It's probably never come up before because I suspect most Loft teachers don't even use Classroom, much less do a deep dive like I do into all the functionalities. I guess this if only because the Loft is forever sending very simple "how-to"s on what Google Classroom EVEN IS whenever I say, yes, please, I would like a Classroom set-up for me. I do wish they'd let us do it ourselves, but we also have to use their Zoom license, and I guess the point is to teach through them, after all, and not just GO ROGUE which is what I'd honestly like to do.

At any rate, the Loft is, at least, working to have it restored, one way or the other. I am hoping they can transfer ownership to someone who is not the FORMER employee, but honestly if that person could just keep it out of their trash until Nov. 3 when the class is over is really all I need.

So, that's been MY MONDAY! How's by you?

I should probably take some extra time to prepare for this Friday night, because I just got a gander at my class list and there are ten students signed up for my master writing class!

TEN!!

I don't normally get ten students when we can meet in person~!!!!!  

I suspect what caused this is that I have been teaching for the Loft for about 20 years, but I have never, in all that time, actually offered a class of a higher level than intermediate. Part of that is that I like working with newer writers--I love that moment when I can explain that out there, not that far away, your people are having conventions and getting to meet other SF writers and editors and agents and IT'S AWESOME. I feel like some kind of fannish Bible-thumper, asking, "Have you heard the Good News, Fellow Nerd!?"  I mean, more and more the younger writers already know about fandom, at least the small-f version, and, of course, locally CONvergence, in particular, has done a great job of finding the young kids and getting them interested in cons and capital-f, Fandom.  Still, I always reach a few new souls and THAT FEELS GOOD.

Anyway, my point and I did have one, was that I suspect the class filled up so thoroughly because I have lots of former students, but many of them have taken all of the levels I have previously taught.

In other class-related news, my speech went well in Japanese class. I, as you saw from the video, practiced, and practiced, and practiced until I could ALMOST sound natural. Apparently, I was one of the few who put this kind of effort in, which.... I mean, I guess it all depends on WHY a person is taking Japanese. Obviously, I am taking Japanese in order to make a complete prat out of myself. I would actually like to attempt to blather to barista and shop clerks and people at the train station about the weather and manga and stuff, should I ever actually be allowed to visit Japan in person, ever again. So, for me, conversation is part of what I am in it for.  But, I mean, if you're more into wanting to be able to read it or understand it, it probably isn't as critical to you to work on sounding natural-ish.  

Also, I am an extrovert and the class clown, so it was important to me to make Tetsuya-sensei laugh--which I managed! 

In fact, he seemed very impressed and said, "Wow, Lyda, you should put that up on your TikTok," and I was like, "Sensei, I am a 53 year old woman. I don't have a TikTok... though, thank you??" ('Cuz, I mean, my instructor is a very snarky guy, so he could actually have been telling me I sounded like a complete weeboo. mmmmmm, the more I think about this.... mmmmm, nice shade there, Sensei.  Now I feel both hurt AND proud of my performance.)

Next week, much, I am sure, to your horror, I will probably be posting one of my better takes of me practicing talking about my family. Be warned, Tetsuya-sensei told us to "be creative."

I apologize in advance for my excessive use of Japanese onomatopoeia. 

 As you all know, my friend Kate and I are teaching a zoom class on BIPOC and Queer SF/F for readers called "Reading the (Whole) Room: Race and Queerness in Science Fiction and Fantasy."  Kate has managed to score a live guest author for our next class, Nino Cipri, so I quick read everything of theirs that I could find on the interwebs.

So, this week, I read:

• “The Shape of my Name” by Nino Cipri (Tor.com, 2015)
• “A Silly Love Story” by Nino Cipri (Daily SF, September 2012)
• “Better Girl From Broken Parts,” by Nino Cipri (November, 2014)
• “Let Down, Set Free,” by Nino Cipri (Crossed Genres 2.0 #29, May 2015)
• ‘It Happened To Me: My Doppleganger Stole My Credit Card Info, and then My Life,”by Nino Cipri (Fireside Magazine #39, January 2017)
• “It Happened To Me: I Melded My Consciousness With the Giant Alien Mushroom Floating Above Chicago,” by Nino Cipri (Fireside Magazine, March 2017)
• “It Happened To Me: I Was Brought Back to Avenge My Death, But Chose Justice Instead,” by Nino Cipri (Fireside Magazine, April 2017)
• “Which Super Little Dead Girl™ Are You? Take Our Quiz and Find Out!” by Nino Cipri (Nightmare Magazine #62, December 2017)
• “Dead Air,” by Nino Cipri (Nightmare Magazine #71, August 2018)
• Odontogenesis, by Nino Cipri (Fireside Magazine, October 2018)

I just posted on FB that I'm surprisingly busy for a pandemic.  

Wednesday this week will mark the opening of the LAST week of my asynchronous writing class at the Loft. I spent a good part of today doing some last minute video lecture recording and editing. I still have one lecture to write, because I am the Queen of last minute deadlines. 

I found out on Saturday that Thursday of this week will be the opening of my FIRST week of a four week Zoom class for the Loft that I'm co-teaching with Kate Johnston for readers called, "Reading the (Whole) Room: Race and Queerness in Science Fiction and Fantasy." Luckily, I've been doing some of the reading prep for this class since summer or I'd be in full panic mode right now.  

This new class is part of the Loft's new "night owl" program and STARTS at 10PM and goes until midnight. I may die. I, my friends, am a morning lark.

Then, I lost my mind an proposed a master level class for the following semester, so.

Meanwhile, I am trying to finish a story that I'm overdue on for an anthology. I tacked on a crap ending just to have AN ending knowing that I will not be able to stand that and will go back and fix it tomorrow. I still need to plot something due in February.

I'm not normally this busy when there's not a plague on. 

Plus, I've had to try to squirt this little yahoo with antibiotics every day. 


Image: Void cat, having recovered from her needle incident, continues to blend into The Dark.

And, y'all, I don't know if I managed to say, but  we have a new president. 

 I got an email from my contact over at the Loft.

So far, they have exactly ONE student signed up for my SF/F class that starts at the end of this month. It's called The Final Frontier: Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy in the Modern Era. It's the same class I always teach, but the Loft does these "themes" and this year it's "Boundaries & Borders." At any rate, I'd love to teach again this year, so if you know anyone who could make it to a class in Minneapolis and would like to learn from me, please pass this on to them. I will be the first to agree that the price is steep, but the Loft does offer scholarships to at least one of the attendees, so that could be you (or your friend).  Just be sure to ask for a scholarship application. 

Otherwise, my life continues apace. 

My family spent the weekend mostly chilling out, though Mason ended up having to go to robotics on Saturday. Normally, he would have been at work, but his KAYSC team decided not to make anyone come in because of the snow storm. We were predicted to get anywhere from 6 to 12 inches, but we probably only got 6. Nothing to write home about, alas, but Mason's work cancelled the night before, so as to give people time to make other arrangements and whatnot. Mason was really looking forward to sleeping in and having a pajama day, when his robotic's folks texted with the "Are you coming in???" messages. He was VERY unhappy, but also felt like he couldn't say 'no,' since with his college class schedule and work, he doesn't make it to robotics very often.

Sunday, Mason spent most of the day with his friend Dalton.

Monday, there was more robotics. He told me this morning that he was weirdly happy to be getting back to his regular schedule because all this social stuff was wearing out my little introvert. I sympathized, because, even though I'm extroverted by nature, my introverted family has taught me the value of spending a weekend (or longer) doing absolutely nothing.

For Shawn and I, the three day weekend was pretty relaxing. We finally got around to seeing "Inception," which I am surprised to say that I feel dumb for not having seen before now. What a good film! What excellent science fiction!  We also watched the first "John Wick," which was... a lot of shooting. In fact, I got kind of tired of the violence? Also, for some weird reason, I'd gotten it into my head that the franchise involved magic? Like, I don't know why I thought that? Maybe I just thought a guy named John Wick sounded like he should be a magical boi/wizard, and, at any rate, I am here to tell you I AM VERY DISAPPOINT. All guns, no spells makes John Wick a very dull movie! 

Otherwise, I did a little "stamping" and a lot of fic writing. 

Shawn did a bunch of cutting, sewing, and looming. 

All around a good weekend, I'd say. I can't believe it's Tuesday already, however. That part's crazy.