Well, January wasn’t quite the heroic initial push to conquer the TBR list that I’d hoped… but I think I have a reasonably good excuse for that, ha. I had a vestigial organ try to murder me to death! I’d hoped that the time in the hospital, and the subsequent recovery would, at the least, provide me with extra time to read. Unfortunately, it was sort of the opposite. My attention span and brainpower were basically utterly fried. The first couple days in the hospital I couldn’t even attempt to read, though Alex brought me my book. While I did finish it eventually, I then still struggled to read more than a few pages at a time, even once I was home. Oh well. This at least seems to be improving, though now I feel behind and am trying to chill out on myself a bit, ha.

Ultimately, I finished four books for January:


(A very... evocative cover, ha.)
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
Horror (subgenres: queer, post-apocalyptic, contagion/mutation/zombie, splatterpunk) (f/f, m/f) - ebook novel
3.5/5

Years ago, a virus swept across the world. It caused anyone with a large enough amount of testosterone in them to mutate, turning them into animalistic, violent creatures, driven to attack, rape, kill, and devour everything they can catch.
In this post-apocalyptic world, various settlements have found some sort of balance. Trans women Fran and Beth are “manhunters,” traveling around to kill rampaging “new men” and harvest their organs; one of the few ways they have to get the hormones they need in order to avoid succumbing to the plague themselves. On one of their trips, they also encounter Robbie, a trans man who has been living on his own for years.
More dangerous than the packs of feral men are the TERFs who have started to take over most of the region. They do not look kindly on the trans women who remain, wanting to wipe them out even more than the remaining new men. But one of the only “safe” refuges from the TERFs is a bunker under the control of a wealthy heiress, where everyone is forced to bow to her whims. Having fled there for safety, Fran, Beth, their long-time friend Indi, and Robbie quickly learn that the bunker may be just as dangerous as anything they were trying to escape. As the TERFs escalate their ideological war, there may be no safety left to find.

My thoughts (too many of them), some spoilers, content warnings:

I don’t always do content warnings for books, but this one definitely comes with a content warning. Warnings for blood, gore, moderately-graphic on-page rape, body horror, torture, and cannibalism. Warnings also for a lot of often extremely virulent transphobia: much of this is external, but there’s also a lot that’s internalized, or sometimes directed at trans characters by other queer and trans characters. There’s a lot of dysphoria. Fatphobia, also both external and internalized. Coerced sex work (though there is also uncoerced sex work.) Pregnancy, including experimentation done on pregnant people, and impregnation with monstrous fetuses that leads to violent death.

(With my ratings, I’m now trying to specifically weigh the aspects I liked/found great or good against the aspects I did not like/found to be bad or less good.)

Starting with the aspects I did find pretty great:
This is extremely queer, and I appreciate the amount of queer rage it contains, honestly. (And very specifically trans rage.)
The tension is so excellent. There’s an early scene where Beth has to restring her bow while the men they’re trying to escape are drawing closer, and it had me completely on-edge the entire time. (There are other examples throughout, but man, that early scene set up the tension extremely well.)
The characters are all extremely conflicted and imperfect. Sometimes this is infuriating! But I appreciated all of them.
The TERFs are so much worse than anything else. Even held up against murderous, ravenous, rampaging monsters, the TERFs and their brand of entitled cruelty is the worst thing on page.
The book portrays different types of exploitation really well… it feels weird to call that a thing I “like,” but I definitely did. Exploitation and manipulation happen in a ton of subtle and overt ways, just as it always does.
This book has a lot to say about palatability. What type of queer is palatable or desirable vs. what kind of queer is “gross” or “expendable.” This feels like it’s far too often at the forefront of real-life issues, and the sanitization of queer communities, and respectability politics, and on and on.
As miserable as a lot of the world itself is, and how often communities and individuals fail each other, there is an ultimately hopeful feeling of a queer community winning out, but in a way that to me did not feel trite or unearned or easy.

The stuff that I felt a bit more mixed or neutral about:
This is not an aesthetic or pretty apocalypse. It is pretty unrelentingly grim and miserable… which doesn’t bother me on the whole, but just how unrelenting the misery was got to be a bit much eventually.
The book is extremely body-focused, in a way that verges on sometimes feeling grotesque. But that also sort of made me assess my own feelings on some things, because… is it grotesque? Or is it just focusing on things that are “traditionally” not something considered “desirable”? (There’s a lot of focus on fat, on armpits, on bodies looking/smelling/feeling strange, on flaws being narrowed in on, on the “unattractive” features that a given narrator is focusing on.) I feel like it’s a bit of both.
Of course, it also makes sense that there’d be a focus from several of the characters on their own physical presence. Trans bodies (Fran, Beth, and Robbie are all trans) and fat bodies (Indi is a fat cis woman), are marked. Even in this hypothetical apocalypse, there are certainly understandable reasons that the characters we have would be very aware of their own bodies and the bodies of others.
There were some painfully familiar bits of queer infighting. The most obvious is probably when a character is thinking back to when the virus first struck… how the “you are safe here” completely queer-friendly housing collective, the people who wanted to portray themselves as the most accepting and loving and open-minded people possible… were willing to turn on those less-palatable members of their “community,” particularly the trans women who don’t pass sufficiently. (While, of course, weaponizing social-justice terms to justify it to themselves.) This feels #tooreal, but also…a bit too real. Like it was almost vindictively About Someone. (Though perhaps not! I’ve seen mentions of drama regarding the author, but I don’t know anything about it, and don’t care to look.)

The stuff I was less fond of:
Alas, splatterpunk remains Not My Genre.
I really don’t consider myself squeamish (and it’s not like it made me nauseous, or I had to put the book down, or anything like that), but some of the gore and torture got to be a bit much for me. Blood and guts and gore don’t particularly bother me, but cruelty, and particularly sexualized cruelty does. (The same issue I had with Maeve Fly last year, though I liked this book more.)
I do not know anyone who wants to fuck as much as basically every single character in this book does. (And it really was basically all of them.) I don’t think this is me being prudish, or being weird about what kind of characters these are or what kind of sex they’re having. I’m good with all of that! I just fundamentally Cannot Relate. Too ace to be interested in fucking so much, especially under the circumstances, ha. It didn’t bother me so much as just make me kind of eyeroll with an “again?!” a few times. (And like… yes, I do also read romance and erotica and things by choice, where the expectation is a whole lot of sex. But I know that’s what’s on the menu when I read those genres; this had more of a “come on, time and place!” feeling.)
There was a line near the end that left a sour taste for me. A character watches the TERFs in a final retreat, trying to save themselves over trying to help their so-called “sisters,” having turned to the worst and most extreme violence they could muster in order to root out their enemies—a queer, mostly trans group. The character watches them and thinks, “They’re just men.” And like… I get it. They are the worst of what they said they hated: all the traits they were proud to try and get rid of, the things they claimed were only the immutable purview of evil, culturally-poisoned and inescapably monstrous men, plus the “new men” that are functionally zombies, who truly do only have the instinct to enact violence… It’s pointing out that for all that, the TERFs embody the worst of everything they claimed to naturally be above, everything they were supposed to be excising from the world in pursuit of their cis female utopia. But particularly so late in the book, it rubbed me the wrong way to still have this statement that horrid amoral attitudes belong to men, and if women are displaying those attitudes then they simply are men, actually.

This was the final of the Tor Nightfire Humble Bundle books! Knowing that this isn’t really my subgenre of choice, I don’t know that I ever would have picked it up otherwise… though perhaps I would have, looking for queer horror. I have picked up another book by this author, which is sitting on the infinite TBR.

(I do like the subtle creepiness of one blood-spattered pillar.)
Through Gates of Garnet and Gold by Seanan McGuire
Book 11 of Wayward Children
Fantasy (subgenre: portal) - physical novella
4/5

In Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, one of the rules is “no quests.” When former student Nancy returns through her Door, several of the current students break that rule yet again. When someone finds their Door, they’re supposed to get to go home, to the place that they truly belong. For Nancy, that was always the Halls of the Dead, where she could be a living decorative statue, dedicated to a peaceful and contemplative existence. Now that peace has been shattered: something has awoken and enraged the spirits of the dead in the underworld, causing them to attack the living, hunting and killing her fellow statues. Nancy risks her place behind her Door to come and seek help. Students Kade, Christopher, Sumi, and a newer girl, Talia, agree to help find out what is causing the attacks. As they investigate, they begin to discover uncomfortable truths about how much or how little the Lord and Lady of the Dead have been caring for their servants.

My thoughts, fairly brief, only vague spoilers:

It’s nice to be caught up on this series, finally! (Man, it’s been more than a decade since it started??) One of my goals from last year was to catch up on this series, and I’m glad that I succeeded.

This was a good entry. I was honestly delighted to get to see Nancy again, our very first protagonist from the series. This book also did a good job of, again, showing why her world was appealing to her. Being a living statue sounds horrible to me, but it succeeds in selling why it works so perfectly for Nancy.

There is a reveal midway through the book that I saw coming only as it was approaching the characters finding out, and it was great. Absolutely my ideal way to call something is calling it right before the confirmation.

I really liked Talia and her moths. I don’t know if we’ll have her with us for long. She might be here to fill the party out a bit (since we’ve had a few characters at this point find their Doors as the adventures continue, which whisks them off-page.) She also might be a future protagonist or one of the next to find her Door. (Which is her stated goal; she’s noticed that the people who keep going on the forbidden quests are the ones finding their ways home.)

It’s hard to call it a huge complaint, but sometimes I wish these weren’t novellas. Often it feels like I’m just really getting sunk into the world and the story, and then suddenly the story is over. “I want more” is a pretty mild complaint, but one that I definitely felt this time around.

The ending definitely gave me a bit of an “oh no! But oh yes!” feeling.

(I love the snake.)
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Book 1 of the Alex Stern series
Fantasy (subgenres: dark, contemporary, dark academia, occult) - physical novel
5/5

Alex Stern was certainly not the type to end up in an Ivy League school. She’s a high school dropout and small-time drug dealer, traumatized too many times over to count. After a terrible event, something about her catches attention: she sees “Grays,” or ghosts, a unique and desirable (to some) ability. This grants her the offer of a full-ride scholarship to Yale, with the caveat that she take on a role within the powerful secret societies at the university. She must work for the “Ninth House,” House Lethe, a group dedicated to monitoring and policing the rituals of the other societies, to ensure they don’t go too far.
When her mentor disappears under questionable circumstances, Alex is left even more adrift than she already was. Then a town girl is murdered, and Alex suspects it has something to do with the other societies that Lethe is supposed to keep in check.

My thoughts, vague spoilers, a couple content warnings:

Finally! Something I was looking forward to that I enjoyed just as much as I thought I would!

Content warning: sexual assault, in some cases including substance use to override consent. Blood, violence, gore. Classism. I feel like those are the big ones that stood out to me, but that’s probably not an exhaustive list.

I guess this book (though I initially mostly heard praise) is now “divisive” but. Whatever. I loved it.

I really enjoyed the magic system in this. It’s built off of a bonkers array of different relics and rituals, with everything from extremely minor effects to world-altering ones. In some cases, this sort of system would bother me; I don’t usually like a system that feels too convenient, where every hurdle winds up with an “easy” magical solution. Despite the answer to “is there a spell/relic/magical answer to this problem?” almost always being yes, it didn’t ever feel like a convenience. The costs are often high, or the limitations are strong enough that it introduces new problems, and the wide array of those magical fixes also, I thought, enriched the world a bit. It really highlights the premise that these secret societies have a TON of history—much of it stolen and plundered, some of it gained through their own knowledge or effort—to draw on.

I know I’ve heard a lot of people say they didn’t like the “dark academia” aspects, that they hated the way the societies are portrayed… I did like it. I liked that it leans on the occult aspects as being key to their existence, and uses this to really heavily emphasize the corruption and privilege and nepotism that are inherent in this kind of society in reality. It also emphasizes the very real attitudes that so many wealthy and privileged people hold. Of course much of their magic is stolen in the form of looted artifacts and appropriated ritual; that’s an extension of the mentality that the upper class holds, where anything they want can and should be theirs! Of course “but it’s a funding year” is used as an excuse not to hold someone accountable; that happens all the time! So, so much of what these societies do is… petty. They kidnap a hospital patient to vivisect him and read his entrails… so they can predict the stock market. They utilize a magical drug that compels unwavering submission as a date rape drug. And yep, I fully believe that’s exactly how a wealthy, privileged frat boy would behave if he had access to these things.

I’ve also heard that this portrays the setting really well. It certainly conveyed to me a very strong sense of place, though I have no personal experience with New England. But I’m told by someone who does have firsthand knowledge that it was a very good portrayal. I loved that!

The book weaves back and forth between two timelines: one when Alex first arrives at Yale, and is learning what her role will be from her mentor Darlington; the other when Alex is on her own after Darlington’s disappearance. I thought that the two timelines, while not being very far apart chronologically from each other, contrasted really well. Both involve Alex feeling somewhat lost, but in different ways, and her mentality is different enough in each of them that I never had a hard time tracing which of the two timelines we were in. I thought it also did an excellent job of doling out information: we slowly find out more about the incident that led to Alex being noticed, we slowly find out more about Darlington’s disappearance. Alex gets to serve as a bit of an unreliable narrator, but it never came across to me as her obscuring that information in an unnatural or contrived way.

There are three fairly rapid-fire… I won’t say twists so much as reveals toward the end. One I’d expected. One I didn’t see coming at all, but it did a lovely job of reminding me of the various subtle hints that had been dropped earlier, so it did not feel like an ass-pull. The third I had been hoping for, but was afraid it was a vain hope, and it leads us toward what I expect the second book will deal with, and I’m excited to read it as well.

A lot of what I liked really comes down to feeling like aspects were pulled off well. Several of these things (the availability of magic, the dual timelines, the rate at which we find out information the protagonist does have but does not share freely, the way a twist is handled, etc.) could have felt weak or like a contrivance to me, but in my opinion they were done skillfully enough that I enjoyed them instead.

(Delightfully creepy, and of something specific from the book.)
What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher
Book 2 of the Sworn Soldier series
Horror (subgenres: monster/supernatural) - physical novella
4/5

Alex Easton and kan* retainer, Angus, are taking a vacation, heading to the hunting cottage that’s been in the Easton family for generations. Alex isn’t thrilled with the plan—ka would honestly prefer to stay in Paris—but the cottage provides an opportunity for Angus to invite Miss Potter, the mycologist they met when visiting the Ushers, to visit as well.
When they arrive, they discover that the man who kept up the lodge has passed away after a severe illness. Rumors and superstitions fill the nearby town: that these illnesses are caused by a moroi, a supernaturally monstrous woman who comes in dreams and steals people’s breath.
Alex and Angus hire an older, widowed woman and her grandson to help around the lodge, the only people from town enough in need of the money to ignore the superstitions. Then the grandson gets sick with the same symptoms that apparently killed the previous caretaker. Alex doesn’t put any stock in the stories of the moroi… but when nothing seems to help the young man’s illness, and ka starts having strange dreams of kan own, it starts to seem like there’s something strange happening after all.

*Alex’s native language has multiple sets of pronouns, including “ka/kan,” a set of pronouns used only for soldiers, which supersede any other pronouns that a person may have used before.

My thoughts:

While I didn’t love this book quite as much as I did What Moves the Dead, I did still really enjoy it!

Best aspects:
I still really enjoy the recurring characters. Alex is enjoyable and different enough from the “usual” protagonists that I’m used to reading that I find it really enjoyable to spend time with ka. (Even as kan skepticism frustrated me a little bit, although ka still does a decent job of pointing out that in hindsight it might frustrate ka a bit, too.)
I was happy that Miss Potter came back! I like her and her mix of proper English lady and resentment over not being taken seriously in her field. I’m happy she got to find some interesting mushrooms.
I really liked Alex’s descriptions of the past as a place that is still in some sense real and happening… it’s a thing that really made sense and connected for me. This connects to the way Alex experiences PTSD, which also feels relatable to me. It’s not something that I feel is dwelled on, but it is an aspect of the character that comes up.
The descriptions of Alex’s dream, and how unutterably hellish it seemed also really worked for (and horrified) me. It’s possible that this was in part because I was reading this part while I was in the hospital post-emergency surgery, and had a really awful night that seemed never-ending before I read that part, ha.
The moroi was very creepy. I also liked all the weird little superstitious tricks that the Widow was trying to utilize.

The stuff that felt like a slight drawback:
One of my favorite parts of the previous book was how there were little details that served multiple purposes. Something would serve as a subtle current detail (Alex is feeding an apple to kan horse), while also laying groundwork for something else in a way that didn’t feel obvious (this establishes the presence of the apple orchards that later become relevant.) In this case, there was a similar detail, but it felt more heavy-handed, and indeed I was correct that it was specific foreshadowing. This wasn’t terrible, because ’foreshadowing is a literary device…’ but it didn’t have quite the subtlety that I’d admired the first time around.
I didn’t find the plot quite as gripping as the previous one, but honestly that’s a pretty minor complaint. It was interesting and engaging enough that I always wanted to read more and find out what was happening, but I just didn’t feel quite as attached to this book’s new characters as I did the ones in the previous book. Bors (the grandson) is sweet and I wanted things to go well for him, but I never felt hugely connected to the Widow or the priest.

---

This is a bit belated into February, so I’ve already finished two more books for this month:
- We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2023, a short story anthology edited by Darcie Little Badger
- The Sun Dog by Stephen King, Alex’s and my most recent read

I am currently reading four books:
- Our Bloody Pearl by D.N. Bryn, my ebook side-read
- Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo, my main read
- Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, co-reading with Taylor
- The Illuminated Dead by Caitlin Starling, co-reading with Alex

After this, my plan remains the same for my main TBR:
- What Stalks the Deep (Christmas gift; sequel to What Feasts at Night)
- Point of Dreams (Pride storybundle ebook)
- The Hobbit (Tolkien!)
- The Map and the Territory (Pride storybundle ebook)
- The Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien!)
- These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart (Pride storybundle ebook)
- The Two Towers (Tolkien!)
- Be the Sea (Pride storybundle ebook)
- Return of the King (Tolkien!)

I am a bit sad that this seems likely to take longer than I’d hoped… My most ambitious plan was to have the above completed by the end of March, but I think that’ll be a struggle. More realistically, this seems likely to be the plan into April or even May. I’ll try to find some more reading time and brainpower out to get through more than I have been.

(My favorite place to read is when I’m taking a bath… and I can’t take a bath for another month+ until my incisions are fully healed, sobcry.)

I’ve also had, ahem, a “compelling argument” made to me that perhaps I should just give in to the shoulder devil telling me to bump Heated Rivalry up the list. I haven’t seen the show or read the book, but it’s certainly the in thing right now! I’m never into fandoms when they’re happening! And I do own the first three books as ebooks…

I’ve had Heated Rivalry on my “official” TBR list, where it’s sitting at #212… but I could choose to put it on the “ebook side-read” list instead, in which case I just have to finish that current book instead of… two hundred or so, haha. And I always reserve the right to “promote” the ebook side-read to primary read status if I’m super into it… So that one may be jumping the line, haha.

(I did also give myself the handful of “free spots” on my TBR as “rewards” for when I finish a reading goal, but I won’t hit one of those until I finish LotR, which would still be a few months out.)

The most full and complete TBR list that I have (including all main reads, ebooks, short story anthologies, ebook humble bundles, etc.) is up to 601 books, which is frankly ridiculous.

From this thread at Bluesky - When people ask how to get into GA SF I always say that the right way is via some of those fat "Best Of" short fiction collections.

Long discussion, many comments, mostly agreeing that yep, the way to get people into SF is anthologies, not novels, especially "best of" anthologies rather than whatever theme-of-the-day was popular. Also many people agreeing that many of "the classics" do not hold up today, and "Heinlein juveniles + the Foundation trilogy" is not a good suggestion for a young teen who might be interested in scifi now.

So... if you were building an anthology of The Great Science Fiction, with a focus specifically on non-SF readers who might be interested, what would you put in it?

( Some limitations may be in order )

I've photographed his work a LOT over the past several years, and yesterday I saw him in the wild... or rather leaving his new workshop location. I wanted to repost some pictures of I've taken of his stuff over the years for context, but that's the downside to my main photography folder being 34,154 Files in 517 Folders. That's far from every photo I've ever taken, only select photos go in. I have spent time organizing it, but... not enough?

Anyway, you can get his vibe from these pics I think.



Where the magic happens:




He runs the sticker, keychain and pin exchanges across Portland. He did the Crypto-zoo, Dinotopia, The Portland Aquarium and runs the Wonderwood Springs D&D/RPG themed cafe in St Johns. I know I've posted about that place and can picture the images, but I cannot find them right now. I might need to start a dedicated Mike Bennett folder. Originally known online as Regional Memesmith, he is part of the fabric of the Portland arts scene.

( Wait, remembering his old psued jogged a memory )

* There is now an easter egg on google.com if you search for Heated Rivalry. Rachel's reaction.

* There is going to be a Baldur's Gate 3 TV show! *thinks about this for three seconds* Yeah, there was talk of this when the game was blowing up and everyone agreed it would be a bad idea. Also, it's a continuation so it will be based on one of probably hundreds of possible end-game states and this show will be based on one of the popular ones. And

spoiler title

Astarian is going to be either dead, evil or unable to travel. His non-evil ending is staying in the Underdark because he becomes vulnerable to the sun again. Rather than a game that is about exploring the choices you like, popular or not, it will be tied to what will sell the best. One of the appeals of games is not being tied to that. Even if you would choose to be a male Tav romancing Shadowheart, you are still choosing it not being fed it.

A brain, because that was the only organ sticker I had. But that was probably the bit of least concern while I was in the hospital.

This was a terrible week!

Goals for the week:

• Nothing! I was in the hospital Sunday - Thursday!
• I guess I did technically try to get all my leave stuff sorted out, though I did not succeed
• I guess I could also put "manage to get discharged and go the fuck home" on the list, haha

Tracked habits:

• Work - .5/7 - I worked a half day on Sunday before I went to the ER
• Household Maintenance - 4/7
• Physical Activity - 0/7
• Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7
• Non-fiction Writing - 1/7 - over 1000 words
• Meta Work - 0/7
• Personal Writing - 4/7, though three of those were very short phone updates from the hospital
• Other Creative Things - 0/7
• Reading - 1/7 - I finished reading What Feasts at Night
• Attention to Media - 6/7 - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I watched various nonsense that I couldn't focus on while in the hospital; Friday had some stuff in the background on youtube but still didn't focus on anything; Saturday we watched a lot of news coverage after Alex Pretti was murdered.
• Video Games - 0/7
• Social Interaction - 5/7

Total words written: 3367 words written about my time in the hospital

This is actually all of December and January, which I wrote up for my professional blog.

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo is horror, a genre I read only rarely, but I was completely gripped by the 1930s rural setting. Leslie Bruin, a trans man and veteran nurse of World War One, now works for the Frontier Nursing Service. Sent to the tiny, isolated town of Spar Creek, he is quickly put on his guard by unfriendly townspeople and louring forest, but stays to try and help young Stevie Mattingly, a tomboyish local whom the entire town seems to want to control. The building tension is very effective, and finally explodes in dark magic and violence. Trigger warnings for off-screen sexual assault and some gory justice doled out towards the end.

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh is very excellent. It's a magic school story from a teacher's perspective, which fully demonstrates the ridiculously huge workload of a senior administrator/teacher and the difficulties of having a "human" life separate from teaching. It has great characters and deep worldbuilding, and even shows what graduate school and career paths the students might take. The solidly English middle-class point of view character Sapphire Walden, socially awkward with a doctorate in thaumaturgy, is brilliantly depicted, including her grappling with how to communicate with her students who vary in race and class. This novel read as a love letter to teachers and teaching that also showed their humanity with its mistakes and flaws.

Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn is first in the "Elemental Blessings" series, a secondary-world fantasy with magic and personality types associated with/linked to elements or combinations thereof. The protagonist, for example, is linked mostly to water, which has a relationship to Change; in her case, she's part of major political changes. The story begins just after Zoe Ardelay's father has died. He was a political exile, and Zoe has mostly grown up in an isolated, tiny village. Darien Serlast, one of the king's advisors, arrives to bring her to the capital city, ostensibly to be the king's fifth wife. At this point, I was expecting a Marriage of Convenience, possibly with Darien. This did not happen; instead, the first of several shifts in the plot (much like changes in a river's course over time) sent Zoe off on her own to make new friends. While there is indeed a romance with Darien, eventually, it was secondary to the political plots revolving around the king, the machinations of his wives, and Zoe's discoveries about her heritage and associated magical abilities. I enjoyed the unexpected twists of the plot, but by the end felt I'd read enough of this world and did not move on to the rest of the series.

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett is second in a series, Shadow of the Leviathan, but since my library hold on it came in first, I read out of order. As with many mystery series, there was enough background that I had no trouble reading it as a standalone. This secondary world fantasy mystery has genuinely interesting worldbuilding, mostly related to organic technology based on the flesh and blood of strange, metamorphic creatures called Leviathans who sometimes come ashore and wreak destruction. The story revolves around a research facility that works directly with these dangerous corpses and is secretly doing more than is public. Protagonists Dinios Kol and his boss, the eccentric and brilliant detective Ana Dolabra, are sent from the imperial Iudex to an outlier territory, Yarrow, whose economy is structured around organic technology and the research facility known as The Shroud. Yarrow is in the midst of negotiations with the imperial Treasury for a future entry into the Empire when one of the Treasury representatives is murdered. Colonialism and the local feudal system complicate both the plot and the investigation. If you like twists and turns, this is great. There are hints of the Pacific Rim movies (but no mecha) in the leviathans, and of famous detective pairings including Holmes and Watson and Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, the latter of which the author explicitly mentions in the afterword. (Similarities: Ana likes to stay in one places, is a gourmet of sorts, sends Kol out for information; Kol has a photographic memory and is good at picking up sex partners.)

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett kicks off the Shadow of the Leviathan series. Kol and Ana begin the story in a backwater canton but soon travel to the imperial town that supports the great sea wall and holds back the Titans that invade in the wet season. The worldbuilding and the mystery plot are marvelously layered, and Ana's eccentricities are classic for a detective. I kept thinking, "he's putting down a clue, when is someone in this story going to pick it up?" and sometimes, I felt like the pickup took too long. This might have been on purpose, to drag out the tension. As a writer, I was definitely paying attention to the techniques the author used.

Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher is first in the "Saint of Steel" series, which has been recommended to me so many times by this point that I've lost count. While the story is serious and begins with an accidental massacre, the dialogue has Kingfisher's trademark whimsy, irony, and humor. When the supernatural Saint of Steel dies, its holy Paladins are bereft but still subject to a berserker rage no longer guided by the Saint. The survivors are taken in by the Temple of the White Rat and then must...survive. Paladin Stephen feels like a husk who serves the White Rat as requested and knits socks in his downtime until he accidentally saves a young woman from danger and becomes once again interested in living. Grace, a perfumer, fled an abusive marriage and has now stumbled into a murderous plot. Meanwhile, a series of mysterious deaths in the background eventually work their way forward. This was really fun, and I will read more.

Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher is third in the "Saint of Steel" series and features the lich-doctor (coroner) Piper, who becomes entangled with the paladin Galen and a gnole (badger-like sapient), Earstripe, who is investigating a series of very mysterious deaths. Galen still suffers the effects of when the Saint of Steel died, and is unwilling to build relationships outside of his fellow paladins; Piper works with the dead because of a psychic gift as well as other reasons that have led to him walling off his feelings. A high-stress situation helps to break down their walls, though I confess that video-game-like scenario dragged a bit for me. Also, I really wanted to learn a lot more about the gnoles and their society.

Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher is second in the "Saint of Steel" series but arrived third so far as my library holds were concerned; I actually finished it in February but am posting it here so it's with the other books in the series. This one might be my favorite of the series so far. Istvhan's level-headedness and emotional intelligence appeal strongly to me. Clara's strong sense of self made me like her even before the reveal of her special ability (which I guessed ahead of time). They were a well-matched couple, and a few times I actually laughed out loud at their dialogue. I also appreciated seeing different territory and some different cultures in this world. I plan to read the fourth book in this series, and more by this author.

Wrong on the Internet by selkit is a brief Murderbot (TV) story involving Sanctuary Moon fandom, Ratthi, and SecUnit. It's hilarious.

Cold Bayou by Barbara Hambly (2018) is sixteenth in the series, and I would not recommend starting here, as there are a lot of returning characters with complex relationships. Set in 1839 in southern Louisiana, the free man of color Ben, his wife Rose, his mother, his sister Dominique and her daughter, and his close friend Hannibal Sefton travel via steamboat to an isolated plantation, Cold Bayou, for a wedding.

As well as the inhabitants of the plantation (enslaved people and the mixed-race overseer and his wife), the sprawling cast includes an assortment of other family related by blood or otherwise through the complex French-Creole system of interracial relationships called plaçage or mariages de la main gauche. These involved White men contracting with mistresses of color while, often, married to White women for reasons of money or control over land rather than romance. The resulting complexities are a constant theme in this series, as Ben and his sister Olympe were freed from slavery in childhood when their mother was purchased and freed to be a placée; meanwhile, his half-sister Dominique is currently a placée, and on good terms with her partner Henri's wife, Chloe, who later has a larger role in the mystery plot.

Veryl St.-Chinian, one of two members of a family with control over a vast quantity of property, is 67 years old and has decided to marry 18 year old Ellie Trask, an illiterate Irish girl whose past is revealed to be socially dubious. Even before Ellie's rough-hewn uncle shows up with a squad of violent bravos, tempers are fraught and no-one thinks the marriage is a good idea, because of the vast family voting power it would give Ellie. Complicating matters is the inevitable murder and also a storm that floods the plantation and prevents most outside assistance for an extended period.

Hambly is one of my autobuy authors and I greatly enjoyed revisiting familiar characters as well as seeing them grapple with mystery tropes such as "detective is incapacitated and must rely on others for information" and "isolated assortment of plausible murder suspects." She's great at successively amping up the danger with plot twists that fractal out to the rest of the story, and though justice is always achieved in the end (as is required for the Mystery genre), the historical circumstances of these books can result in justice for some and not others. I highly recommend this series if you like mystery that successfully dramatizes complex social history.

I finished books 1-7 of Dungeon Crawler Carl in two weeks, and more importantly I managed to drag both my gf and DD into it too - I think that's one of my strengths :) I had a great time.
( spoilers )

Slight downside, DD and I haven't started our Hades 2 1.0 playthroughs yet, since we planned to start at the same time and she just got to book 6 of DCC ^^ Hopefully soon though.

Instead I played a few runs of Vampire Survivors again. Good for occasional short play sessions that don't require much brainpower (though it is easy to forget to look at the time...) I don't unlock something every run but almost, which feels very cool and like I'm getting somewhere even though I have no idea what to do/where to go for actual game "progression." I might look it up at some point, idk.

(I also considered exploring the new Minecraft updates - I want to find a happy ghast! And ride a nautilus!, among other things - but I lost one set of good armor/tools in the End and another in the Nether a few months ago, and both are very possible to retrieve but I haven't found the motivation yet to either get one of them or make myself new gear. Possibly keepInventory would have been a good idea after all.)

Speaking of games, specifically board games: in early January with L and two of her friends we played Wingspan, which was a lot of fun, and then we tried out Earth, which we also enjoyed a lot. That one we tried first in single player, and then we decided to try the version where you play in teams but quickly switched back because it gets a lot more tactical quickly. The third long game the three of them played was Forest Shuffle - I detect a theme ^^
We also played a quick game of Pandemic. And this reminds me that L and I didn't get a chance to play Hanabi yet, hopefully soon.

It's also been ages since I gave an update on my group's TTRPG games and our current Stars Without Number campaign! We got to level six, which means I can now do "normal" teleports without Committing Effort and it feels fantastic. And I got some other cool abilities too, like imprinting on a party member to teleport back to their side even when they are out of sight.
( Recent adventures )

I woke up around 4:00 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so went for a social media scroll. I got some absolutely tragic and painful news.

A friend of mine, Mark, died yesterday. I'm still struggling to wrap my head around it.

Alex and I met Mark back in, I think, 2011 (possibly 2010). His band Synapse was opening for Faderhead. We really liked them as the openers, and then ended up chatting with him and the other members of the band for a while after the show.

After that, we made it a point to try and see Synapse as often as we could. One time we even drove all the way up to Steamboat Springs and back to be moral support for a night, because they were booked for a show in a venue that didn't seem like the right type of place, ha.


Here's Alex, Mark, and me. We were wearing our Synapse shirts.

We also hung out frequently at the various goth nights, back in our clubbing days. Eventually we hung out at his house a few times, sometimes as part of a larger party, sometimes just us.

A few years later Synapse broke up, and Mark started up a new project: Voicecoil. We've been to a lot of Voicecoil shows. He also had a side project, Gravity Corps, though we never saw him perform as that project. (I know that he had a previous project as well, Machinegun Symphony, though that project was over by the time we met.)

We were excited to see him as part of an upcoming festival in May, and he seemed excited, too. I'm beyond gutted that it simply... won't happen. We're not going to see him. As many, many times as we went out to see him perform, and as many times as we hung out outside of that... I wish we got to do it again.

Mark was always kind to us, and to so many others on the scene. He was well-known and popular, but he always made us feel like he wanted to spend time with us. He always asked about how we were doing, remembered the things we specifically cared about. Even on show nights, when he was often in high demand, he made time to sit and chat with us, often for long stretches of time. Even at his album release party in 2022, he spent nearly an hour with us. The last time we saw him in person was last May, when he opened for Beborn Beton. It was a great show, and catching up with him beforehand was one of the best parts of the night.


Alex, Mark, and me again. This was either a late Synapse show or an early Voicecoil one.

Today, his Facebook is full of other people saying the same things that I remember most. That he always made so much time to talk to and spend time with so many people, to make sure they were doing all right, taking a genuine interest in them. He mentored our friend Jake in his music. He was always, always so encouraging to other artists.

He had a rough several years. Recently, I know he felt very betrayed by someone... He refused to name names, but someone he'd thought was a friend that he trusted turned out to be saying some extremely cruel and awful things to and about him. Mark was almost completely blind (could see things from one eye within about an inch of his face, and otherwise just faint light and dark, as I understand it.) Apparently this person was being absolutely awful about his disability, and it very clearly bothered him in a way that he was rarely willing to express.

His very long-term partner and he broke up a couple years ago.

Most significantly, a few years ago he lost a different partner to a sudden accidental death. He absolutely never got over that loss. Her birthday would have been on Monday, which was the last thing he posted about, and I think that may be what led to him leaving us.

I'm heartbroken, and still struggling to feel adjusted to him not being here anymore.

Remember how my boyfriend from when I was 17 turned up out of the blue? Well, he dropped in again after doing his NZ tourist trip, and left me a bunch of memorabilia so I could scan it then mail it back to him. The letters (mine) are... written by an over-dramatic teenager with poetic delusions, so I quickly noped out of reading them. The pics are kind of fun, though, despite my terrible hairdo.

( Read more... )

* Once again a promised MMORPG game project has 'failed' and the creators are sailing off with millions. It's a cycle in that space that people throw tons of money at promises rather than play existing MMOs. Josh Strife Hayes has a very harsh video on this saying that people are trying to buy the promise of future community rather than join existing communities. If they are an OG backer of a game, they have baked in, bought and paid for, social relevancy. Some of the promises are literally impossible to fulfill, but the backers will defend the project tooth and nail rather than face reality.

And, he's not wrong. Also, that mentality isn't just in MMO scams. People will die on the hill of defending that a dream rather than face reality, history, take a close look at who is behind things, etc.

* I woke up on the salty side of the bed this morning

Finished Annie Bot for book club, one of my book clubs, and wow I hated this book. The book didn't interest me, but a lot of people in book club were hyped over the pick. Early in the book the bot is reading Jorge Luis Borges, who I love. Also, it's a shorter book this time so early on I was into it.

( Read more... )

Well, I didn't do as many snowflake challenges as I was planning. I ended up spending most of January working on edits for book 2. The exciting news is that I've put the first two chapters up to preview!

You can read them here for free (6k words): https://dl.bookfunnel.com/5i63i06kka

Title:     Chapters 1-2 of Surviving Peace
Genre:  Science Fiction
Rated:  PG-13/Teen for violence and swearing - not more than you would see on tv.
Tags:    No Archive Warnings Apply, Spoilers for my first book The Dementia (so you know what's going on), Captured/Prisoners, Interrogation, Found family, Fresh Dystopia, 





Also also! If any folks out there are interested in being an early reader please let me know!

I'll give you a free advance ebook in mid-Feb, and in the endless chase for reviews, would love it if you leave a review wherever you buy books and/or Goodreads. Surviving Peace comes out March 18. (This whole marketing thing, I swear.) 

The usual sample of some of my seasonal cards. Hopefully they've all arrived by now, or will very soon. This year I decided to paint people freehand (which means they're all a bit wonky) and then name them after less well known minor deities - it's called the Small Gods series. I had fun, anyway - it's always good to get back into watercolours again (although I use them more like gouache), after mostly working in Procreate the rest of the year. Embellished with metallic paint in various colours, gold, and silver, for a festive touch. Hopefully you can see the sheen a little in the way I've photographed them.

God of Circuses	God of Ink	God of Extroverts
God of Dramatic Entrances	God of Jump Scares	God of Drizzle
God of Sweaters	God of Naps	God of Woad
God of Flirts	God of Sparrows	God of Nostalgia

I received word today that an old friend from my Sentinel days, Yvonne McCool, passed away last month.  

I knew she'd been very ill but it still hits hard to know she's gone.

From Aspenhearted's "Just Say No" campaign. The "It's not happening" cappybara was was the vibe for the week. Little did I know just how much.

Ah, the before times. Before I know that my appendix was trying to murder me. I can't really say much about the week as a whole; it was fine, up until the last couple of days where it turns out I was quite vindicated in feeling like I was dying. Work felt rough the whole week, but was actually fine. Got a decent amount of reading done. It was brief, but I even got some writing done.

Goals for the week:

• I did finish reading Ninth House
• I did not have my year-end review at work; we kept running out of time
• I did not do my plant care
• We did get the truck seat covers put on
• I did post about my writing goals for the month
• I did not update my reading page
• I did work on my reviews
• I did work on my WIP outline
• We did go get crickets
• I did stop by my mom's house
• I started reading What Feasts at Night

My tracked habits:

• Work - 5/7
• Household Maintenance - 3/7
• Physical Activity - 1/7
• Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 2/7, both over 500 words
• Non-fiction Writing - 2/7, one day over 500, one day over 1000
• Meta Work - 6/7
• Personal Writing - 6/7
• Other Creative Things - 0/7
• Reading - 7/7 - I finished Ninth House and started What Feasts at Night; Alex and I read some of The Sun Dog.
• Attention to Media - 7/7 - Sunday had on some news coverage; Monday had youtube in the background and later watched some reviews; Tuesday we went to see The Housemaid, and later watched news coverage; Wednesday watched news coverage, storm chasing, and a review; Thursday, more news coverage of protests; Friday had more news in background; Saturday we had something in the background, but I don't remember what.
• Video Games - 0/7
• Social Interaction - 6/7

Total words written: 3391 words; 2211 on non-fic goals and a review, 1180 on my current WIP outline

So after getting out of the hospital, my primary task was to get medical leave approved.

Colorado has a fairly generous required leave (called FAMLI), which is intended to allow basically anyone who is employed to take a fairly hefty chunk of time off if required, for their own health issues, to take care of a loved one with health issues, for maternity/paternity leave, etc. I’ve had several coworkers take it; one for paternity leave, one when he was dealing with his father’s failing health and then death, one for neck surgery.

So I got home on Thursday night, planning to submit my leave application on Friday, so that it was done. My HR department had sent me the information about the company that I would need, and just needed me to submit my application to the state. (When on leave, my company would not be paying me; the state would pay me a percentage of my salary. So I don’t get my full salary for the time that I’m out, but get a portion of it, similar to unemployment wages.)

Cut for length. Nothing gross, except the horrors of bureaucracy:

Friday

I mentioned it in my previous post, but I sat down to get the application filled out and submitted…

Or I tried to. Three and a half hours later, I had not succeeded. I did not remember which phone number out of a list had once been mine (any phone number other than my childhood phone number and my work phone number is not stored in my brain), and so was told I needed to get a notarized attestation of identity form.

After some fiddling, I got a different creepy set of questions that I was able to answer, and it no longer asked for the notarized form.

I hit a dead end at the required medical form, which must be filled out by your healthcare provider. Sometimes this can be done electronically, but the only doctor’s name I had was the surgeon who performed the appendectomy, and she was not listed in their database to send an electronic form to. I would have to print the form and get it signed.

I called the surgical clinic number, hoping they could tell me if someone would sign this form for me. (I was also supposed to reach out to them to schedule my surgery follow-up, however they warned me they were likely out-of-network, so I might either need to reach out to my PCP to follow up with them instead, or to get a referral for the clinic. This was an issue because I haven’t had a PCP in more than a decade.) I did not get a person on the phone, so left a voicemail. Their voicemail message very aggressively tells you DO NOT CALL MORE THAN ONCE, DO NOT LEAVE MULTIPLE MESSAGES, YOUR CALL WILL BE RETURNED BY END OF DAY.

I did not get a call back.

Saturday

I did not work on this. I was very tired, and kind of demoralized, and just didn’t feel up to dealing with it.

Sunday

I went over to my mom’s to borrow her printer in order to print off the forms I needed to have signed. (Grateful that was an option for me, rather than having to pay to do it somewhere.)

Not having heard back from the surgery clinic, I headed over to the hospital where my surgery was done. I went back up to the floor where I had stayed post-surgery, hoping maybe one of the nurses I’d had would still be on-duty. The form does prominently say that any licensed healthcare provider - doctors, nurses, midwives, etc. - can sign the form, as long as they have knowledge of the patient and health condition in question.

The nurse on duty (not one of the ones I’d met) acted like she’d never seen that sort of form before, and sort of scolded me that any forms like this should have been taken care of before I was discharged. (Which… so sorry I didn’t have a computer and printer with me in my hospital room?) She spoke to their “case manager,” who apparently told her that only a medical doctor is allowed to sign it, so I would have to speak to the surgical team in order to get it signed.

She told me that I should just plan on having it signed at my follow-up appointment two weeks post-surgery… but a) scheduling that is the same phone number that I hadn’t gotten a call back from; b) I can’t really wait that long, because that means I can’t even submit the request until the point when my leave is supposed to be ending.

She then told me that I should just visit my PCP and have them sign it instead. So I explained that unfortunately I do not have a PCP.

So she said, all right, I might be able to set up an appointment with the surgical team to sign it sooner if that was what I needed. Of course no one was available at the time (which I didn’t *not* expect; it was a Sunday at a religious hospital, and I’m sure that most of the emergency surgery team tends to be busy doing emergency surgeries rather than sitting around to do paperwork.) She told me to CALL, DO NOT JUST SHOW UP at the surgical clinic on Monday morning. Perhaps their Friday had just gotten away from them, and they’d probably return my call on Monday anyway.

I was still super easily exhausted at this point, and was tired and in pain and ready to be the fuck done. It also started snowing really hard and the roads got bad fast, so we headed home.

(I then did not sleep at all well; partially due to my sleep schedule being janked to hell, but partially because I just stayed awake to worry about this shit.)

Monday

I called the surgery clinic. Got the same voicemail message DO NOT CALL MORE THAN ONCE, DO NOT LEAVE MULTIPLE MESSAGES, YOUR CALL WILL BE RETURNED BY END OF DAY.

I was still just stupid tired at this point, but I turned the volume on my phone up so as to not miss the call back that I would SURELY be getting. I was still anxious about the whole thing, and couldn’t really drop off because I was afraid of missing them if they did call back.

I did not get a call back.

I figured I’d just go to the clinic’s suite number on Tuesday and try to get help in person, despite being told to call, not come in. Calling wasn’t working.

I emailed my HR department, as they were asking if I was still planning to take this leave, or if I was going to use PTO. I let them know that I did want to take leave, just couldn’t get this damn form signed.

I continued to not sleep because I was so damn worried.

Tuesday

At this point I also started to worry that the hospital wouldn’t approve a longer leave than through Wednesday. (Which would be day six post-release from the hospital. The original doctor I had spoken with told me that I was okay to return on Monday, but I do have Mondays and Tuesdays off. Monday had been day four, and I was NOT feeling capable of going to work. I was still having potentially embarrassing races to the bathroom, had functionally zero focus, was falling asleep at unpredictable times, still hadn’t succeeded in eating anything solid beyond a piece of toast soaked in soup…) But because that doctor had given me a return date of Monday, which was on my file, I was afraid that would be the maximum they would give me on the leave form as well. What I *wanted* to ask for was for two weeks post-discharge, so a return date of February 6th. I hoped this would feel like a better amount of time, as well as allowing me to get an all-clear from my follow-up… if I could get that scheduled.

I was also extremely frustrated about not getting a call back, too.

SO! Plan B!

I didn’t have a PCP, but I had been *assigned* a PCP.

I have the cheapest insurance possible through my job, which is United Healthcare’s “Navigate” plan. One of the main “features” of this plan is that they assign you to a PCP, and *all* care must be done through *that* PCP. They must write any referrals to other specialists or providers.

I’d been assigned to the same guy for three years now, I just hadn’t ever gone to see him. So I had no PCP, but I was allegedly this guy’s patient. He was highly rated, and very close to where I live. So I figured maybe I’d just swing by his office; I could go in, and see if maybe I could schedule an appointment with him to do the surgical follow-up, or get a referral back to the clinic for that, and perhaps he’d be able to sign the paperwork (even if I did have to wait for that follow up appointment.)

I verified that the office was open.

We headed out, with a couple errands to run. We got to the office around 12:30.

…Their hours are 9 - 12 on Monday - Thursday. They are “clossed” [sic] Friday - Sunday.

12 hours per week???

Ugh. So, I was frustrated, but figure okay. I’d try again on Wednesday, getting up a little earlier.

Wednesday

We headed out, closer to 10:00, to visit “my” PCP.

The receptionist was… a bit cold. I tried to explain my situation, that this doctor was my assigned PCP, but I hadn’t ever established care. That I had emergency surgery and would need to do a follow-up…

She cut me off with “Yeah, the problem is that he’s not taking new patients. I don’t know why insurance keeps assigning him, but you’ll have to find someone else.”

She did suggest trying a clinic down the street that had multiple providers.

I futilely protested that I’d been assigned to him for years, that the United Healthcare site even said he was accepting new patients, that I *can’t* go anywhere else if my insurance said he was the only one I was allowed to see…

She just sort of shrugged and told me good luck.

I headed out to the car and just… cried for a while. At this point I was just so fucking tired and defeated and frustrated. And still felt like shit! Everything still hurt, I was exhausted, I still wasn’t able to eat anything, and this was not what I wanted to be doing, and EVERYTHING just seemed to be as frustrating as it could be. I was not at my best, having to do the sort of thing I struggle with even when I’m NOT recovering from major surgery, and just… was not having a good time.

After a bit, I went onto my insurance company’s website and was able to switch my PCP to the clinic that the receptionist had mentioned. You’re only allowed to switch once every 30 days, so that was a bit of a gamble, but it did allow me to pick the *clinic,* so as long as they had one provider that would see me, I hoped it would work out.

At this point I was still crying every time I even sort of thought about the whole situation, and tried to get it together well enough to go to the other clinic.

Eventually I held it together enough. The receptionist I talked to was very kind. She got me set up in their system, and told me they could definitely get me in within the week to do an intake appointment. She did tell me they’d have to do that and *then* schedule the surgery and paperwork appointments, which was fine.

She told me there was actually a nurse who could see me later that afternoon if I’d come back.

Yes, I would come back. I just wanted this done, and the promise of MAYBE finally having someone actually help me was at least a small bit of hope.

Went back for my later appointment. The assistant who took my vitals reiterated that I’d have to make a separate surgical follow up and paperwork appointment. My blood pressure was somehow normal, though I am dismally dismayed by my weight.

Finally the nurse came in to see me. She was quite young. But she started off with “So! Welcome to the ‘adult appendectomy’ club!”

The relief I releft, lol.

(She apparently dealt with hers for a *week* in nursing school, feeling like she was dying, before going to the hospital. She kept being told it was just stress, or just being a hypochondriac because of what she was studying! Then hers was almost the same as mine, having already perforated and abscessed by the time they went in to remove it.)

She said she was concerned about my anxiety and depression screening questions… which ask about basically how miserable you’ve been for the last two weeks, which for me was almost entirely taken up by being cripplingly, painfully sick, then being in the hospital, then being stressed as hell about sorting out this leave and follow-up stuff. I had written “there are extenuating circumstances” at the bottom of the forms, lol. She was glad I didn’t think that was actually typical for me.

As we chatted, even though it wasn’t supposed to be more than the intake, she asked how I was doing from the surgery, and she took a look at the incision sites. She told me to walk a lot more to help with the bloating (which is largely from the amount of air that gets pumped in when the surgery is done, and it’s just gotta work its way out.) Otherwise, everything looked good. While it was only 10 days (not 14) post-surgery, she said that everything really looked and sounded like it was healing on the normal timeline. She said that unless something changed, she didn’t think I needed to make another appointment for just a few more days out, and could treat this as my follow-up. However, if I was still struggling in another week or two to get back to a normal diet, then I should make another appointment.

I asked her about the paperwork, and she said yes, I’d have to make another appointment for that. If I wanted to, I could even just drop the form off for her and make an appointment to pick it up.

“I have the form with me, if you want me to leave it now?”

“…Yeah, let me take a look. The only other thing I’ll need is your records from the hospital, which will take some time to get. But once we do, we can have this done by next week, I’m sure.”

“Well… I have my hospital discharge paperwork, if that helps.”

“…Let me see?”

She took a look and said, “You know, this is enough. You’ve been nice to me, I remember how miserable the recovery was. I can just get this signed now, if you don’t mind waiting a few minutes. How long did you want?”

I told her that I was really hoping for through the 5th, two weeks after my discharge.

She said that seemed perfectly fair.

I WAS SO RELIEVED. YOU DO NOT KNOW. NONE of this had been easy, and someone finally helped make something easy.

(She actually ended up signing it through the 6th, though I’ll work a half day that day, just so I have a chance to get caught back up before being with the still brand new person for the weekend.)

I’m not much of a “things work out the way they’re meant to” type… but when I did make another appointment to see this nurse sometime in March to do a regular physical (because I really should get some of the medical care that I’ve neglected for more than 15 years at this point), I was told she works every day except Tuesday. So if I HAD made it to the other doctor’s office the previous day, and they’d referred me to this clinic, this nurse I saw would not have been there.

After, I went back to my mom’s to scan the document, so I could get it uploaded.

At this point, I was exhausted. While I hadn’t been eating much anyway, I’d wound up being out of the house and not eating anything for about 8 hours, and I was wiped. I decided to work on the application the next day, because I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t screw something up, as exhausted as I was.

Thursday

Time to try and finish the fucking application, a full week after I got out of the hospital, after having had to work on getting things nearly every damn day.

…And it told me I needed that notarized attestation of identity document. I didn’t even get the chance to answer questions this time, it just had me take pictures of my ID and a selfie and said it couldn’t verify my identity, so I had to print off the attestation and get it notarized.

So back to my mom’s to print and take it to a notary.

Went to my credit union, only had to wait a few minutes. Got the form notarized, went back to my mom’s to scan it, uploaded it, and FINALLY FINISHED THE APPLICATION.

Friday

…Until Friday morning, when I woke up to automated texts and emails telling me that I had “important communication about my FAMLI leave.”

According to them, there was a notary error on my attestation of identity: the notary’s printed name and her notary stamp name didn’t match. (She didn’t print her middle name. On the world’s smallest blank line that they provide for the name.)

FUCK EVERYTHING FOREVER.

BACK to the credit union, get the same notary. She said she’s NEVER had anything returned to her for that reason, and that the notary standards they claim were broken don’t actually say anything about that. She even showed me the state notary letter, which only talks about the standard being signature matching. She apologized and made sure to include her middle name.

UGH WHATEVER.

Went to fix it, and the upload process was unclear. The spot where it asks you to reupload only has a text box. Afraid of fucking it up, I called their help number. Was on hold for twenty minutes, but finally did get someone, who said yeah, he gets several calls about this per day. You have to enter something in the text box, and then it will allow you to move on to a second page that has a spot to upload the document.

So I finally did that. By that point it was getting near the end of the day, so I didn’t expect there’d be a chance to have anyone look at it again until Monday.

Saturday and Sunday I ignored all of this entirely.

Monday (today):

I didn’t hear anything new from the FAMLI agency. I let my manager know my return date. I let my HR department know that I had submitted the leave application.

My HR rep let me know that I will probably get a denial letter from them at some point, but that it’s not legitimate; everyone has been getting them, and it has to do with the fact we switched from a private insurer to the state system, and they really just need extra info from the company.

So I’m waiting for that.

THIS HAS BEEN SO FRUSTRATING.

I’m relieved that I’ve basically done as much as I can at this point, and that my return date is Friday for just a half day. I hope to get as much rest as I can the next couple of days before I have to go back.

I’m still hurting, but it’s mostly just achey and bruised feeling, nothing sharp or concerning. I’m mostly meeting with success in reintroducing foods, though my appetite is a bit unpredictable. Guts are still not right, but seem to be improving slowly. Going on more walks does seem to be helping, and at least we've had a couple pretty nice days. I’m still very tired basically all the time, which is annoying, but I’m trying to push through.

(I’m also still SO BEHIND ON EVERYTHING. I’m trying to get caught up, but even minor things wear me out and take three times as long as I think they should. I promise, I’m trying to get caught up! I will!)

* A former Leafs forward who is now playing for a team in Scotland was injured after not doing warm ups to avoid wearing a pride jersey.

The team was originally going to wear the jerseys during the game but dropped that last minute due to 'player beliefs'.

The club is facing massive backlash over caving to homophobe. And now that homophobe's hockey career might be over due to injury over refusing to do warm ups.

I have had this song stuck in my head on and off for days upon days, so here is a post to maybe make it go awayyyyy



-Lovers in a Dangerous Time


(also randomly having johnny are you queer in my head but at least that one can be banished if I try hard enough)

Two extraordinary CGI sci-fi vids about the exploitation of a distant alien planet. Extraordinary visuals.

solstice-5 [00.10.37]

solstice-5 forgotten archives [00.11.12]


And a brilliant and hilarious short HR edit that turns the show into a thriller murder mystery.

HR thriller edit

Two hot off the press HR recs, and an older GC one.

cut to the feeling - by Charlotte_Stant, one of my fave authors in HR and HR RPF. For magical realism reasons, 18 y.o. Shane wakes up in the body and life of himself at age 35, married to Ilya. It's brilliant, very funny and just the best "crack taken seriously" imaginable. Also hot as hell. So good.

Torture Me (With All I've Wanted) - by Toomuchplor, also an absolute fave author. 17 y.o. Shane and Ilya end up on a long bus ride together. Under a blanket. Yes, it's super hot but all the details are so lovely, the writing so good. I love it.

And so it's gonna be forever has already been reccd by people and is still a WIP damn it, but it's completely addictive. I just loooove fix-it fics, and in this, Ilya dies in the Centaurs' plane crash but is magically transported back to his teens again, reliving his life with all his future memories intact, determined to get it righter this time - and boy, does he make some changes. I could do without a few of the mystical bits but the majority of this fic is like pure crack to me.

It's run a bit differently to FTH. You donate in one of 3 tiers - $5, $10, or $20. For the lower tiers you don't get much, or any, choice, just an HR fanwork assigned to you as thanks for the donation. For the $20 tier you get a bit more choice and can specify the type of fanwork (art, fic, podfic, vid, etc.), and can give a brief prompt for the creator. But this isn't an auction - you can't put in bids for a specific creator's work. The mod assigns you, like a matchmaker.

Anyway, if you'd like to donate, here's the post: donations form here

To complete the form you'll need to have already donated. I did most of the form then jumped sideways to do the donation to one of their listed orgs, then I completed the form. Seemed to work okay.

Two hot off the press HR recs, and an older GC one.

cut to the feeling - by Charlotte_Stant, one of my fave authors in HR and HR RPF. For magical realism reasons, 18 y.o. Shane wakes up in the body and life of himself at age 35, married to Ilya. It's brilliant, very funny and just the best "crack taken seriously" imaginable. Also hot as hell. So good.

Torture Me (With All I've Wanted) - by Toomuchplor, also an absolute fave author. 17 y.o. Shane and Ilya end up on a long bus ride together. Under a blanket. Yes, it's super hot but all the details are so lovely, the writing so good. I love it.

And so it's gonna be forever has already been reccd by people and is still a WIP damn it, but it's completely addictive. I just loooove fix-it fics, and in this, Ilya dies in the Centaurs' plane crash but is magically transported back to his teens again, reliving his life with all his future memories intact, determined to get it righter this time - and boy, does he make some changes. I could do without a few of the mystical bits but the majority of this fic is like pure crack to me.

Title: Fragile and Unprovable Things
Fandom: Batman: Wayne Family Adventures
Characters/Pairings: Jason Todd, Damian Wayne
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with DC. It's not my toy box and I'm merely playing.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jason tries to cheer Damian up. He wasn't ready to question what he wants for his future.
A/N: Written for Przed for the 2024 Yuletide. Thank you to midnightclarity for the beta. Title is from Coming Home by Mary Oliver. Jason talks about reading Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher.

( Fragile and Unprovable Things )