We blast right through histories, riches, and residue
The reading on Saturday went really well. I got a ride with Larissa who picked me up at Pandemonium where I scored a copy of Yoon Ha Lee's Dragon Pearl (2019) for my godchild and Ian McDonald's Time Was (2018) for me; I read two unpublished poems and scenes from the story then in progress and also told the story of the naming of Vanth and talked about incantation bowls, because that is the sort of thing that happens if you put me in front of a crowd. Turnout was an impressive more than forty people, standing room only in the basement of a credit union. There were even halftime refreshments, tragically for me mostly of the chocolate variety, but the thought does count. The entire experience was a little strangely inflected by having spent the afternoon at a memorial service for the wife of one of my closest friends from college, but it was a good thing for my friend that I was there. One of the hymns was a sea-song I had not previously encountered and at the line I was born upon the fathoms, never harbor or port have I known my throat just closed up, which did not prevent a stranger at the reception from demanding to know why I wasn't in the choir with a voice like that. The conversation ended with me sputtering, "Because I don't belong to a church!" and explaining about A Besere Velt. In the stranger's defense, I gather that saying I was Jewish did not automatically clarify the question of whether I was or was not also UU.
Sunday![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch and I went grocery-shopping with my mother who has a car. We got human food and cat food and litter and paper products. We got flattened. We must have been demonically possessed to come home and clean the bathroom, but that also happened.
This afternoon I met Marc for ramen at Sapporo. We talked a lot about mystery novels and travel; it was nice and the second purely social thing I've done since Arisia. I have been under a rather viral rock. While I was under the rock, Kirk Douglas died.
I have just finished the story to go with the titleashlyme gave me last month. It came out intensely hauntological and angry about gentrification and climate change. I could blame the cold I got in the middle of writing and then the other cold I got on top, but I suspect it is much more directly the fault of living in Boston in 2020.
In less than five hours, I have to get up for another pair of doctor's appointments. I may crawl back under a rock on Wednesday.
Sunday
spatch and I went grocery-shopping with my mother who has a car. We got human food and cat food and litter and paper products. We got flattened. We must have been demonically possessed to come home and clean the bathroom, but that also happened. This afternoon I met Marc for ramen at Sapporo. We talked a lot about mystery novels and travel; it was nice and the second purely social thing I've done since Arisia. I have been under a rather viral rock. While I was under the rock, Kirk Douglas died.
I have just finished the story to go with the title
ashlyme gave me last month. It came out intensely hauntological and angry about gentrification and climate change. I could blame the cold I got in the middle of writing and then the other cold I got on top, but I suspect it is much more directly the fault of living in Boston in 2020.In less than five hours, I have to get up for another pair of doctor's appointments. I may crawl back under a rock on Wednesday.
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When people ask me that about choir, I say, earnestly and in my sweetest voice, "Oh, but I don't like people," and they never believe me, never, but they do stop choir-badgering me. But why are there such choir badgers in the world. Dammit now I'm going to have to put choir badgers as a creature in a story to salve my feelings.
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Thank you!
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Thank you.
Dammit now I'm going to have to put choir badgers as a creature in a story to salve my feelings.
You should! I had not realized they were such a widespread species.
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As a Unitarian Universalist myself, it is in fact true that no, being Jewish does not mean one could not also be UU. (The UU denomination isn't at all Christian anymore. Not since the 70s. Though individual parishes sometimes are more Christian than others. There's lots of individual variation in the churches.)
But anyway, choir badgers oughtn't to badger you, though I understand the urge, given the quality of most choirs.
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(I describe myself as "lapsed UU", which description often generates baffled laughter from current UU folk when they hear it.)
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Very happy to hear about the reading (though I'm sorry about your friend's loss), and go you two, cleaning the bathroom LIKE THE BOSSES YOU ARE.
I rode an electric bus this morning.
(That is your daily non sequitur)
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I hope the doctor's appointments go well.
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I understand why medical appointments come in pairs, and it may even be better than having them singly, but it still seems like kind of a lot.
P.
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Aw$#!7, I am sorry I missed this! though I guess I might not have fit, which is a Good Thing overall.
Good luck with the doctors' appointments; let me know if I should send you soup and/or angsty paladin romances
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Thank you! Both appointments actually went well and provided useful information! I am just now somewhat dead.
(The UU denomination isn't at all Christian anymore. Not since the 70s. Though individual parishes sometimes are more Christian than others. There's lots of individual variation in the churches.)
Understood. The only Christmas services I ever attended as a child were at a local UU church, so I always thought of them as Christian.
But anyway, choir badgers oughtn't to badger you, though I understand the urge, given the quality of most choirs.
I just didn't expect to be headhunted at a memorial!
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Thank you! I hope to be able to find it a home soon.
Very happy to hear about the reading (though I'm sorry about your friend's loss), and go you two, cleaning the bathroom LIKE THE BOSSES YOU ARE.
It was an intense weekend.
I rode an electric bus this morning.
Was it very different from a diesel bus?
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Thank you!
I hope the doctor's appointments go well.
They did, actually! And now I am on the couch with a cat.
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Thank you!
I understand why medical appointments come in pairs, and it may even be better than having them singly, but it still seems like kind of a lot.
It was not the worst number of doctor's appointments I've had in a day, but I think you are correct that the plural of any number of doctor's appointments is a lot.
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That is a bus that needs a rock band inside it.
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I have the Speculative Boston reading at the end of the month! Come to that!
Good luck with the doctors' appointments; let me know if I should send you soup and/or angsty paladin romances
Are these the same as the lesbian necromancers or different romances?
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What do you mean by it?
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No, I was referring to the new Ursula Vernon.
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My partner also (very occasionally) calls herself a lapsed UU. (Mostly she just says she isn't one.) She went to div school, and discovered she's pagan in very specific ways that don't really work with being a UU.
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That's really neat.
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An alternative to the regular choir exists at Follen, in the form of the "No-name choir," which gets together for one rehearsal before occasional specific services. No commitment or musical training expected.