Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
Image: Bright red Asiatic lilies in full bloom

We've been having a run of days that have been in the parlance of my family, "Stupid Hot." I guess there are people out there that like it when the temperatures are in the upper 80s and 90s (26 to 32 C for my international friends,) but I am not at all fond. Most Minnesotans are not currently officially in a drought but the lack of rain and beating hot sun has left a lot of lawns parched and burned off here in St. Paul. 


Image: yellow Asiatic lily, blooming.

The lilies I'm showing you here are all on the side of the house that is "problematic" even in the best of weather conditions.

When we first moved into this house in 1996 or so, the owners had managed to keep a giant shrub of hibiscus alive right at the corner of the house.  Hibiscus, it should be noted, are native to the tropics. I actually have no idea how the previous owner managed this, since the soil close to the house is also dusty, rocky, and generally poor (despite my constant applications of compost.) We also had a lovely stand of bearded irises, all of whom got blighted on a very wet year, and developed root (technically rhizome) rot and died.  It should be noted, too, that when we first moved here in the 90s, the maple tree at the top of the hill was relatively tiny and most of the hillside was in full sun. 

Not so much any more.

So, what I have on the side of the house (Southern exposure, by the way, should be amazing for growing things,) has been years and years of me trying various things in the hopes they will take. To be fair to the plants that are trying to make a go of it, the eaves of our house work very well. It is difficult for rain to get right up to the foundation AS IT SHOULD BE. 

But, I finally figured out that these Asiatic lilies really, really like the terrible conditions, provided that I am fairly diligent about remembering to water them. 


Image: new this year! Bi-colored (brown and yellow) Asiatic lilies.

What I am not showing you is how scraggily things are in between these lovely patches of successful lilies. I do have some tiger lilies (the big orange ones you see everywhere) interspersed among these, but last year's drought even managed to be unkind to those unkillable orange monsters. In fact, I just moved a few of them from another spot in the yard hoping that they could make things look less... bleak, so we'll see if they manage to establish themselves. 

Every year, it seems I pick one of my gardens and try to focus on it. None of them are exactly where I want them to be yet? With the possible exception of the shade garden in the very back. That one is really finally nearly (or as near as one can be) maintenance free and full and gorgeous.  My woodland garden is waiting for me to figure out what else might grow there to fill in, but at least most of the things I'd wanted to flourish there are starting to do so. 

There's not a lot else to report around the garden. We have a house guest until Thursday, Mason's bestie Gray. Gray is someone Mason has known since junior high school through a shared interest (fandom, really) in an e-sport called Overwatch League. It's always fun to see one's grown children's friends, to see the kind of people they chose, and Gray is definitely one of "our people." They brought a board game that I'm hoping we'll all get a chance to play tonight over brie and charcuterie. 

How's things by you? 

 ...that I spent 9/10ths of my free time today writing not only Star Trek fan fic, but fan fic specific to my role-playing game??!?

The insanely talented bcholmes drew my Star Trek: RPG character for me and it's just too awesome not to want to share with everyone:


Image: Rochester LeRoux, chief science officer, so damn ready for retirement it's not funny.

Indulge me for a moment, will you? There are so many things I love about playing this character. For one, his core value is literally, "Do whatever is necessary to make it to retirement," so far that has included impersonating a god and watching a lot of alien porn (for SCIENCE!)

But, my true all time favorite thing is that I have always loved that in "Space Seed," we discover that there is, on the original Enterprise, a ship's historian.... which immediately poses the question, what other useless jobs could I get on a SPACE SHIP??

With this in mind, I said to myself when creating this character (who I made to replace the one who swanned off with a handsome Romulan marine,) WHAT IF your chief science officer was not, as is typical, cast in the mold of Spock, a "hard" science expert, but one with ONLY focuses in the HUMANITIES?? Thus, the Chief Science Officer of the USS Alan Turing has ONLY skills that would be considered "soft" sciences... or art.

In fact, one of the things I intentionally chose a skill set for this guy? Watercolor. FIRST OF ALL, THE MANUAL GAVE ME THE OPTION. Why would I NOT chose to be a skilled watercolorist?? In fact, I made Ro so good at watercolor that he taught courses watercolor at Star Fleet Academy. In fact, that's how he knows one of the characters from the past (looking at you sabotabby !!)

So, imagine if you will this: in any crisis aboard the USS Alan Turing (of which there are legion, this being an RPG), my character's main job is to gather his very best science officers, get them clipboards, sticky tape, and a white board and... pop popcorn and get the replicators zipping out lots of hot chocolate while shouting out encouraging things like, "Science is cool!" "Your astrograph looks amazing! Love those curves. Don't know what it means, but you could FRAME that it's so pretty!" and generally act as kindly gay space dad to a group of much more science-y people than himself.

He's weirdly proud of his science team and likes to encourage the kind of colligate work environment where officers engage in podcasts about everyone's favorite program "My Space Love."

In fact, the reason he gained an expertise in alien porn is because it was the first thing that actually fell into his scientific wheelhouse. When we encountered a new species running around in the Shackleton Expanse the first thing we picked up about them was their advertising spam, malware, and porn. What's a good anthropologist to do but gather it up and try to extrapolate something meaningful about their culture?? (I will forever love tallgeese for making me spend several hours of my Real Life considering what can actually be LEARNED from ads and porn about what a culture might ACTUALLY value, etc. Mason and I had a fascinating discussion about how you would even begin to interpret a culture completely new to you if this was all you had access to. It has actually made me want to write a first contact story based on this idea.)

Because he's a character of mine, he's also got this elaborate backstory of having grown up on the ice moon of Andoria (yeah, the blue people with the antennae). Even though it is illegal to augment human DNA, speaking of "Space Seed" and Khan, he happened to be born when there was a rescue mission gone awry. His mother, pregnant, was one of the only pilots around when a distress signal came in during a terrible ice storm, she gathers up a crew to go save whoever this is, and they rescue the person but end up stranded themselves. She goes into early labor and it's one of those "we can save the baby or the mother situations," but this being Star Trek and there being a Denobulan doctor along, it's actually "Or both, but with some genetic tinkering, which might be legal for your race, but not for mine!" and the crew all decides in a typically human way, "Welp, we'll sort out the legalities later, provided everyone makes it back alive." ... and everyone makes it back alive and suddenly you have this "illegal" human child who was altered to survive extreme cold, nothing else. Star Fleet is unhappy with this, but it's a baby and the whole crew totally comes clean about the whole thing. Their compromise is that Ro just has to be tested every so often so that no new superpowers develop.

Of course, one of the complications that happened? A new superpower developed. Here he is, READY FOR RETIREMENT, having made it through his whole life without ever mutating (much, but we won't talk about that) and he suddenly develops a spontaneous psychic bond with jiawen's Betazoid first officer.


I will stop there as I am no doubt at risk of becoming that person who starts frothing at the mouth to tell you about their supercool RPG campaign... (OMG, my crew is super amazing! I love the game so hard!)

The point of this post is:   I think BC captured Ro's essences pretty exceptionally, honestly, right down to the personable yet, "oh shit do I have to go on an away team again??" expression on his face.

 Today, as I'm sure many of you know, the Nintendo dropped the SNES.  I spent a good portion of my morning attempting to get one, always arriving as the cashier said, "Sorry, my last one just walked out the door." The worst part being that I could have stood in line at GameStop, which opened later, BUT I had a press showing of Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman to get to at 10 am at the Lagoon Theatre, which I got to go to as part of my gig as a comic book reviewer for Twin Cities Geeks.

I can't talk about the movie until my review goes up, but I can tell you about my movie-going experience.  

At first, I didn't think I was going to make it. OMG. Lately traffic HATES ME, PERSONALLY. In between darting into various Target Superstores and Gamestops between here and Uptown, I managed to screw up my exit. Instead of taking 94 to Hennepin like I'd planned, I was thinking so hard about the SNES that I ended up on 35 W, which local folk will know, is under deep, deep construction.  The exit at 36th was blocked so I had to drive WAY OUT of my way at get off at 46th.  I managed work my way back, fighting Uptown traffic now, to park in the parking ramp behind the Lagoon (which ended up costing about as much as a ticket) and then it looked like no one was going to let me in to the actual theater. It was dark. The doors were locked.  But, eventually someone came and opened the door.  He still looked dubious about letting me in, but, apparently, the magic words were, "Press screening at 10?"

I checked in with the "woman with the clipboard" as instructed and was directed to theatre 5.  I haven't been to the Lagoon in forever. The theaters are small and dim. The seats are old and squeaky.

But it was just me and two other people...

...and that was really f*cking cool.

When I used to review movies for focusPOINT back in the late Cretaceous, I had a really hard time not loving everything I saw. I might be one of the only professional, paid reviewers on the planet who gave a positive review to the Matthew Broderick remake of Godzilla. Probably the thing most people remember about that movie, besides how (nearly) universally it was panned, was its poorly executed "Size Matters" ad campaign.

Anyway, part of the problem, I realized later when I found myself gushing about the Avengers remake (another film all my sensible colleagues panned, and I don't mean the Marvel one, obviously, I mean the one based on the TV series) is that it's just SO SUPER COOL to be the first to see a movie, ANY MOVIE, and it's free, right? So you don't have this whole "Jeez, I paid how much for THAT???!!" thing going on in your head, like, ever.

Plus, did I mention how super-secret you feel, getting in to somewhere no one else does? Way ahead of the official release date?  And, I realize there are people who do this for the Star Tribune, the New York Times or whatever and they've seen it all, and they're all so jaded, but even after a year of doing it for focusPOINT, I was like 'STILL AWESOME, SO, SO AWESOME. I LOVED THIS FILM, I LOVE ALL FILMS!!!"

Yeah, so, I'll have to remember to temper that impulse when I finally sit down to write my actual review.  

I drove home still attempting to find the SNES, but, at this point it was after noon, so all hope was lost.  At one Target they looked up to see who might have SNESs and I called around. The Roseville electronics department just answered the phone without even a hello, only saying, "We are sold out of the Super Nintendo Entertainment Systems." As sad as that was to hear, it still cracked me up.

Such a classic nerd day, though, don't you think?

We've been teasing poor Mason that he needs to have one of those billboards like they do at industrial sites that say: "___ days accident free." So, today, as I dropped him off he waved me away with a cheerful, "One week accident free!"

My poor baby.

Around my household, we refer to these random stumbles, etc., as: nerdspasms. As I told Mason, he comes by it honestly (though possibly via osmosis), as I have a long and sordid history of such events. In my youth, I had been known to just fall while looking up at something in a tree or once, while stopped, I fell off my bike.

While.

Stopped.

We won't even talk about the time I was reading while riding my bike and hit a parked car. (The book was Go Ask Alice).

Speaking of books and accidents, it seems I briefly roiled up the whole discussion about Tempest's reading challenge on Facebook again. My friend and fellow Philip K. Dick award nominee, Minister Faust, is doing a podcast these days and he linked me to his latest, wherein he interviews Ms. Bradford about the reaction she got to her reading challenge.

OMG.

Instantly again.

I've been thinking about this on a more immediate level, because one of the things that Faust and Bradford discussed on the podcast (which is quite good, btw) is WHY does this happen. There are more and more articles appearing about why is it that people instantly freak out in discussions of race, gender, ability, and orientation that happen on the Internet.

In a seemingly unrelated note, I mentioned something innocuous about peanuts on my Facebook feed yesterday as well, and the VERY FIRST RESPONSE was someone admonishing my food choices as decidedly inorganic and politically fraught. Likewise, several months ago I made what I thought was a completely uncontroversial mention of mulching and I got several unasked for SCREEDS about how my mulch choices WERE KILLING ALL THE PUPPIES (that is only a slight exaggeration, seriously.) One person was so upset by the mulch I used that she wasn't satisfied just making her point on my FB feed, but also followed me on to my private message box and tried to continue the fight there.

Mulch.

Which, I think we can all agree is, ultimately, NOT AS PERSONAL as race, gender or orientation...

I've been thinking that, while there are obviously bigger, deeper social-economic/privilege-related issues going on in these discussions, people who use social media frequently, who are not even trying to say provocative things, often get inundated, seemingly constantly (because even when it happens once, it makes a very powerful, personal impact), with these kinds of finger-shakes from strangers. ("Damn it, I just wanted to say how much I loved my peanut butter!")

So there's that picture of Tempest. She's literally shaking her finger at us, the viewer of the picture, and bam! Everything goes down in the flame-y-est flame war in the history of flames.

I mean, yes, of course, a huge percentage of the reaction is from people who really need the rug of comfort/privilege yanked out from under them, but I think there's another percentage who are just unable to cope with finger-shaking without taking it personally. ("But I'm doing my best!" "Peanut butter is yummy!") And, I think even the best of us falls prey to that easily and our initial reaction is some kind of preschooler, "Nyuh-nuh! AM NOT."

I can't even tell you how many people on my feed started their reaction to my posting the podcast interview with, "Well, I haven't listened yet, BUT...."

It was the same when she posted her first article. Most people reacted without reading (honestly, also without thinking.) Kudos to Neil Gaiman who very publicly tweeted that he didn't care if they used him as a poster boy for successful white men. In fact, he encouraged it. He also implied that he could weather this "storm" because, frankly, he *is* a successful white man who is secure enough to let any one who wanted to read other books for a year. Thank you, anyway, but he was going to be fine.

We're all going to be fine.

Thing is, more people who buy books, the better it is for EVERYONE.

Yes, the economy is sucky for booksellers. Yes, as a writer, it's f*cking hard to sell books no matter who you are or what you write. But that's because people aren't buying books. Not because Tempest encouraging people to READ.

Also, it *is* possible not to take finger-shaking personally. It's hard. I can not tell you how IRRITATED I was by the mulch discussion on my FB feed because: OMG.

But the one thing I've learned from my time on the Inter-webs is that the more you let yourself react without thinking, the more you look like a dick. That's not to say you can't say what you feel, but take a breath before hitting "send." Seriously. Or go back and say, like I had to during the first giant discussion that erupted on my FB feed over this challenge, "Mea culpa. That was unnecessarily inflammatory. I mean what I said, but I didn't have to say it that way. I'm sorry."

Of course this is easy to say. So much harder to do. Especially since social media is all about call and response and instant gratification.

Okay, I'm going to shut up about this myself, because it's super-easy to get a rant on. I can't go to bed yet, someone is wrong on the Internet.

In other (but related) news, I finished CHILD OF THE HIDDEN SEA by A. M. Dellamonica (up for a Lambda in the SF/F/H category) and am on to GRASSHOPPER JUNGLE by the currently controversial Andrew Smith.

The weekend at chez Morehouse was delightfully uneventful, even with the welcoming in of the new year.

Mason really wanted to stay up to see the ball drop in New York, so Shawn and I managed to prop our eyes open until midnight. Mason, I should note, had no problem whatsoever. He's actually managed to pull an all-nighter already. As a treat, we ocassionally let him stay up and read as long as he'd like. Mom and I go to bed, and let him do his thing. Just last week, he managed to stay up until 6 am. So staying up was not a problem for little boy, only for us grown-ups. But at the stroke of midnight, we got out the faux champaign (sparkling apple cider,) and put it in these novelity glasses we bought at Walgren's that have lights in the stem of the flute. We gave midnight smooches, toasted, and sang "Auld Lang Syne."

We have two official traditions for the new year. The first is one that Shawn started many years ago, after reading about it in Llwellyn's Witch Almanac, I think. We put "silver" (actually dimes) on our doorstep on new year's eve, and bring it ritually into the house the next morning to symbolize bringing prosperity and money into our house. We add a dime every year we've been doing it (for inflation? fun?) and try to have the dime be minted in the year passing. We couldn't find a 2010 dime this year, so we put in one from 1967, the year both Shawn and I were born.

The other official tradition is that the Christmas/Solstice tree comes down on New Year's Day. So part of the day on Saturday, we spent putting away ornaments and decorations and dragging the tree out to the alley. I managed to break two glass ornaments, alas. Hopefully that doesn't counteract the prosperity magic of the dimes.

We decided on a whim over this vacation, on Friday, to start watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy on DVD. Mason wasn't interested at first, but got caught up when Aragorn fights the ring wraiths and Frodo gets stabbed. When Boromir dies we all wept like dogs, and Mason was totally hooked. After that, it kind of became a thing. We met upstairs in the afternoon and sat down to watch the next one. Which went along fine until Sunday night, when --right at the point when Frodo is stung by the giant spider queen, Shelob -- the DVD flaked. We washed it. We tapped the DVD player. But the disc would spin no more.

So began my quest.

I drove out to Target just up the street on University, but they didn't have it. I called Borders on University, but they only had "Two Towers" in Blueray. Moving northward, I tried Barnes & Noble at Har Mar, called HPB in Roseville, went to Best Buy, called the Borders in Roseville Mall... NO ONE had it.

The guy at Barnes & Noble thought that there might be a copy in Maplewood, but he wasn't sure. I was losing hope. Then, I remembered who I was. I am a proud geek, member of the nerd herd. I got the phone and started calling my friends. Someone that I know must be a fan of the LotRs enough to have a copy! Or at least, maybe they would know someone who knew someone. I mean, come on, this is fandom, I figured I was probably only seven degrees of seperation from Peter Jackson himself.

When I called, naomikritzer happened to be talking to friends who had a copy. I could meet them at their place and they would "but lend it to me." (Remember the scene in Fellowship with Boromir and Frodo? "If you would but lend it [the ring] to me...")

Hooray!

So we were able to watch the end last night. Now Mason is thinking we might do a "Harry Potter" with the Lord of the Rings -- which means read each book out loud and at the end of each book, watch the movie again. I'm totally up for that. I'd forgotten how much I loved the movies and how well I remember the first book. Speaking of fandom, it is my utter shame that I have, in point of fact, never read beyond Fellowship. What can I say? I was thirteen and dyslexic... still, I've always been embarrassed by this and usually deny it, if pressed.

Kind of cool, too, that today is J. R. R. Tolkien's birthday. It's almost like we planned this (only we didn't.)