lydamorehouse: use for RPG (elf)
If you follow me at all over at Bluesky or Facebook, you have already seen this, but because Dungeons & Dragons turns 50 in September....

YOU GUYS, YOU GUYS, THERE ARE D&D STAMPS!!

A sheet of 20 stamps depicting various monsters and classes made famous in the TTRPG Dungeons & Dragons
Image: A sheet of 20 colorful stamps depicting various monsters and classes made famous in the TTRPG Dungeons & Dragons. Pictured: My character, Idyril (not really, but damn close enough!)


What I did NOT know until someone commented on my post on Bluesky is that THE UK HAS A SET, TOO!!  And, guys, guys... IT'S EVEN NERDIER! THE BRITS HAVE OWLBEARS. REPEAT: THE BRITS HAVE OWLBEARS (and mimics and gelatinous cubes and... just click the link already, you know you want to see them.)


British Owlbears
Image: a British goddamn owlbear. My life is complete.


Even though I have no real use for stamps from the United Kingdom, I have gone ahead and ordered a sheet. They will arrive in an estimated 25 days. Luckily, they will have a perfect place in my stamp collection next to the Game of Thrones stamps the UK issued several years ago.

Anyway, I thought you all should know. 
lydamorehouse: (Default)
 One of the exciting things that happened today that I totally forgot to mention in all my various updatery (Patreon and my newsletter) was that I was interviewed by Cat Rambo as part of the promotion they are doing around The Reinvented Heart Anthology. In a couple of days, Cat expects to have the interview with me up on the Cat Rambo Reinvented Anthology playlist. I will also absolutely drop a direct link when it goes live.

I always feel like I'm rambling? But, Cat says they will clean it up, so fingers cross that I come across vaguely human-ish. 

The interview came at a good time, at least, since I JUST (as in literal minutes earlier) finished writing the story that I'd promised Cat and crew for the next "Reinvented" anthology, called The Reinvented Detective. There is no detective in my story? Though it does deal with crime and punishment, per the submission guidelines. I love this story a lot because it is PRIME Lyda Morehouse weirdness, but I am uncertain that it will actually sell to this particularly market. We shall find out in May, one way or the other.

Other than that, I've been watching at lot of Satoshi Kon movies, actually. The Smithsonian's Museum of Asian Art is in the middle of a virtual film festival of Kon's work, and I've been taking advantage of the free access to finally catch up on Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, and a documentary of Kon's life called: Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist. My anime-turned-C-Drama friend had shown me his Paprika movie early on and I ADORED it. Paprika is 100% the kind of science fiction I strive to write. (I should probably read the novel is it based on, but I'm not sure if it's been translated. I should look.) I have not seen Kon's Paranoia Agent (which is a TV series,) but I have now picked up and read at least one of his manga, which I'll probably talk about tomorrow.  

Anyway, the virtual film festival has proved so popular that they opened up additional viewings of Perfect Blue (which I ran out an snagged a ticket for) and Tokyo Godfathers. It is a weird thing they are doing because it's free, but they make you get a ticket? I think because they are the Smithsonian/a museum, they're just trying to get a sense of how many people would attend a virtual showing, and since they have sold out, perhaps they are limited in terms of whatever they may have spent to be an official venue for these classic movies. Anyway, check them out, perhaps there are seats left: https://watch.eventive.org/satoshikon

So, that's been kind of fun.

The other thing I've been doing is finally going through a box of junk that I got as part of a stamp collection someone gave away on our neighborhood Buy Nothing group. I say junk, but it's basically a box full of envelopes with stamps on them. The stamps are all of one kind, so I am currently just harvesting them off the envelopes for eventual resale. But, occasionally, there are envelopes that have not been entirely stripped of their contents. The most interesting thing that I've found so far is a Japanese Government-Issued Peso, which was a fiat bill that was produced during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in WWII. This one is very specifically a 1942 issued ten centavos. 

A Japanese peso
Image: WEIRD bit of history found in a box of worthless stamps

I was a bit disappointed, after having read the Wikipedia article about these, that this one was not one of the counterfeit bills that the United State government printed in an attempt to destabilize Japan's occupying force. Apparently, those had specific letters printed on them and/or were actually overlaid with propaganda (and then dumped by the bucketful out of airplanes, holy shit)!  

Anyway, I also found a few letters home from 1889, of which only one is interesting because it is clearly in response to an accusation by this person's mother, who is convinced that son(?) talked dad out of an extra $200 loan (on top of the THOUSAND dad had already given him!!) What I found most amusing was the overuse of underlining, which of course made me imagine the whole thing as an ALL CAP email. :-)

The more things change, right?

Okay, I'm off. Hope you all are doing well!
lydamorehouse: (writer??)
I may risking jinxing it, but the writing thing has been working amazingly lately. I entirely credit all the words that I am getting on the page to my hour long Zoom meeting with [personal profile] naomikritzer every day (Monday-Thursday.)  I will be the first to admit that I usually poo-poo the whole concept of "writing dates," even though they have worked for me in the past, particularly with the MinnSpec meet-up.  They seem like they should be silly? Why would I write more just because I am sitting on a Zoom call? YET. I think having someone who is keeping me accountable totally works, plus, with the daily thing, it's a time I know I have already allocated for writing. It is SO EASY to do almost anything else all day long, instead of writing.

Writers: people for whom writing is more difficult than it is for most people.

Anyway, that's a yay.

I didn't post in yesterday's "What are you Reading Wednesday" meme-thingie because even though you lovely folks have nicely chosen my next book to read (We Have Always Been Here), I have not managed to crack it open.  Not sure what's up with that.  I sometimes feel like a fake fan, because I don't read nearly as much as all of the rest of y'all.  I haven't even been watching all that much anime to make up for my geek cred. I've been stuck working my way through campaign 2 of "Critical Role" (while also keeping up on the current campaign 3... ahhhh! Bye, Dorian Storm!!) My anime-turned-C-Drama friend had me watching the "Untamed (陈情令)" spin-off, "Fatal Journey (乱魄)"  the last time I was there. We also watched a few episodes of "Once Upon A Time In Lingjian Mountain (从前有座灵剑山)" and then switched to South Korea for "Hotel del Luna (호텔 델루나)."

I got her to watch exactly twenty minutes of an episode of "Sweetness & Lightning (甘々と稲妻)."

Sigh.

Let's see, other news... well, speaking of anime, my Japanese pen pal sent a letter recently that included a anime-themed stamp:

demon slayer Japanese stamp
Image: Demon Slayer (鬼滅の刃) stamp

As for the rest, you'll have to forgive me. I'm not feeling terribly brilliant today.

The last thing I'll say is that it looks like we're getting an influx of folks who are finally abandoning LJ thanks to the invasion of Ukraine. *waves hello to any newcomers!* 
lydamorehouse: (renji has hair)
 I promised [personal profile] dreamshark  that I would post any pictures of things that I've made from the cookbooks that she gave me from her big clean-out. So, this weekend, I made a rye bread from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.

Lovely, round, very brown loaves of extremely delicious bread
Image: two lovely round, extremely delicious dark rye loaves cooling on an accordion rack.


I followed the recipe fairly closely, except that since I have Vera, the sourdough starter, at my disposal, I hived off a cup of her and added it to the mix. I will admit to being somewhat distrusting of the sour dough, so, where the recipe called for two packages of active dry yeast, I still put in one. I know, I need to trust Vera. Thing is, we had a somewhat disastrous attempt at sourdough donuts on Saturday. They did not rise nearly enough... and so we ended up with fairly leaden donuts. Good flavor, but so chewy and dense as to be ALMOST unappetizing--we still ate almost all of them, of course.

they look like donuts but are actually dense like rocks
Image: they look like decent donuts, but they're secretly trying to break your dental work.


So, I didn't trust. Listen, Lyda's Lead Bread has been a thing of far distant past and I would very much like to keep it that way.

When I first started making bread, I did probably every thing wrong at one time or another, but Shawn (my only family at the time) would still bravely try my failures. We started calling anything I made with yeast Lyda's Lead Bread. It made me laugh enough to keep at it, keep trying. The truth is, now that I'm where I'm at, I am secretly very embarrassed by those early loaves and very proud of my current prowess. So, if this sour dough experiment is to continue, I'm either going to have to keep cheating or abandon it, entirely.

I was tagged on a Facebook post today citing the "cult" of sourdough, as in, someone lumped me in with all the people who are extolling the virtues of wild yeast.  I guess I approach this cult the way I would any new religion, with much skepticism. I'm just not convinced in the miracle of the wild yeast. I am happy to have seen results in my starter, but after that...? I have yet to become a true convert. In fact, I am definitely seeing the down side of sourdough. Everyone is talking about how yeast is basically free, so it's an easy way around the yeast shortage. But, NO ONE is talking about how much flour you have to feed your starter on a regular basis. I'm at the point where I can safely put Vera in the fridge and only feed her once a week, but previous to this? I was supposed to be throwing away half the starter and adding hot water and flour every day. It's starting to be fine, because I've been using the discarded half to make daily bread, but before it was ready I was throwing it away because it wasn't good for anything yet. We have a flour shortage here, too, although I did see flour making a comeback at Kowalskis.

Enough of that.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is the postal service. There is a thing going around various social media platforms suggesting that we all do our part to try to keep the post office afloat by buying postage stamps. I have no idea if that would really be enough to get them through another fiscal year, but I highly recommend this, regardless. There are some really neat stamps out there. [personal profile] naomikritzer  sent me a link to the T-Rex forever stamps and so I will pass it on to you: https://store.usps.com/store/product/buy-stamps/tyrannosaurus-rex-S_479204?fbclid=IwAR0W8EkhwUH3NqoxWzTJ7-zNZX_OrFppwXtfbB9umAPyx21Ne-VyQ66_gZ4 

Also, this is your regular reminder that if you need someone to write to with those fancy new stamps you're buying, I am always willing to be the one.  Just drop me a PM or email at: lyda.morehouse@gmail.com with your snail mail and I will send you a long letter and probably a very weird card. I have a huge collection of greeting cards that I have picked up over the years from estate sales. Not to mention very fun, cute stationary from Taiwan, courtesy of [personal profile] jiawen .   

I was also going to do the pandemic meme that was going around, but perhaps another day.

I hope you all are doing well.


lydamorehouse: (Default)
 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. 
lydamorehouse: (??!!)
A lot has actually happened in the intervening week that I failed to report. A dear friend of mine, Peg Ihinger (known to a lot of readers as pegkerr), lost her husband, Rob, to cancer. His memorial was last Friday. Rob's obit ran in the Star Tribune. His daughters did the most amazing eulogies that broke me down to tears, which, considering that I'm far close to Peg than I ever was to Rob, is something.

Funerals are always awful, though I really enjoyed the fannish wake that was held for Rob in MnStF style. It made me think that something like that is very much what I'd like for... well, I guess what's weird is that I would actually like it FOR ME, which is to say, I'd want something like that while I was grieving, and the only thing that's wrong with that idea is that Shawn, my wife (the one I'd likely be grieving--banish, banish, banish), is not at all fannish. And, throwing a party might seems weird, you know:, "I'm a widow! Party for me!! Bring out the Irish folk music!" No, no.... okay, NO. Upon deeper consideration this is a terrible idea for my family, but it was absolutely perfect for Rob and his.

In completely different news, a friend from Wales sent me a care package of tea (thank all the gods! I was back to drinking Earl Grey, which, I had previously considered OK tea and now realize the errors of my ways), jelly babies, and two sets of United Kingdom "Game of Thrones" themed postage stamps. I'm not the world's biggest GoT fan, and have not, in point of fact, even watched a single episode of the HBO series. However, these stamps were just too cool not to try to get copies of. My friend very kindly obliged... I mean, I made her go to the post office twice, which makes me feel rather badly, but I have offered to return any care package in kind, if we could ever figure out if there's anything America doesn't already import to the UK. (In the past, I've sent her things from the Asian markets around here, because those items were harder to find in small town Wales.)

I have also, speaking of reading, still been slogging my way through the manuscript I'm critiquing for the Loft. I have been working at it, steadily, nearly ever day since I got it... it's just slow going when you're reading at that deep a level, I guess. The good news is that I officially have six weeks to finish it, and I don't want it to be hanging around my neck that long. I'm going to keep pushing at it, and hopefully by this time next week I can report that not only did I finish my work, but I had my meeting with the author.

I also signed up for MarsCON programming, so if you're planning on being there, I will be, too.

Things I have read. I'm currently reading an actual novel that I picked off the most recent Locus Recommended Reading List called The Tropic of Kansas by Christopher Brown. I'm enjoying this one so far, despite the fact that it should give me nightmares as it's clearly a dystopian extrapolation of the politics of the current administration.

I've decided I'm going to try to read as many of the debut books listed as possible, so I also have on my TBR pile: The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss and The Guns Above by Robyn Benis.

Read a number of manga this week, of course, including:

Renai Crown / Crown of Love (Volume 1) by Kouga Yun, and
Haru ga Kita / Spring Has Come by Kome Mochino

My library has had a sale of manga that they've weeded from their collection and so I bought several dozen titles, which I will be reading and reviewing over the next week, no doubt. I picked up anything that had a first volume, so it should be interesting to see the range of things.  I suspect I'm going to be reading a lot more shoujo than I normally would have, but what the heck.  The price was right: 5 for a buck.

How about all y'all?


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