Just trying not to be washed overboard

[sovay]

I'm still not entirely sure I'm over Readercon. My head has been full of fragments for days. I am not writing anything substantive; it makes me feel fidgety and pointless. I met rushthatspeaks this afternoon at the Diesel; they showed me the cheeriest and most cracktastic path through Hatoful Boyfriend, which if I tell you is a pigeon dating game will not really explain anything. It was amazing. I'm still not sleeping. I don't expect any longer to become so tired, I simply fall over into a restorative sleep for hours, but it would be nice.

1. Courtesy of derspatchel: Don't Walk on Fish. "Hey, scatterbrain, don't cripple your friends!" is an endlessly applicable suggestion.

2. The Library of America is reprinting nine classic science fiction novels of the 1950's. I grew up with seven of these in the house, I think—mostly in the original editions. One of them I didn't read and Rush informs me I really need to. There are some terrific essays in here. Will someone just dramatize Leiber's The Big Time (1957) already?

3. Tom Lehrer on The Frost Report (1966) explains the decimal system.

4. The Guardian profiles M. John Harrison. I haven't seen a copy of Empty Space (2012), but it should be on shelves by now. I still need to read Nova Swing (2006).

5. I will dig through the boxes of my books in the garage and re-read Margaret Mahy's The Tricksters (1986). I wish I had known Sally Ride had a partner of twenty-seven years before she was a widow.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I wish I had known Sally Ride had a partner of twenty-seven years before she was a widow.

A partner who, I gather, is to be denied benefits, thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act. :(

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the Retronaut; I wandered from the safety posters to the Soviet bus stops, and then took myself sternly in hand...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for that obit of Sally Ride. I found it both moving and informative. What a sympathique person.

[selidor]

Ooh, there is a new M. John Harrison? Excellent. Might have to wait for reading it until thesis-submission; I do rather need those brain cells a little longer...

May there soon be some knitting-up for your ravelled sleeve of care.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

One can still dispose of one's estate as one likes, thankfully, and Ms. Ride had been in private business for years; I ardently hope her partner will be well set despite the lack of federal pension. This kind of thing is always so frustrating and sad.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

You went for "Don't walk on fish" over "For God's sake, a statistically unlikely number of you seem to be grabbing live wires" ?

Psh.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

I wish I had known Sally Ride had a partner of twenty-seven years before she was a widow.

Ditto.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I'm still not entirely sure I'm over Readercon. My head has been full of fragments for days. I am not writing anything substantive; it makes me feel fidgety and pointless.

Same here.

[ckd]

One can still dispose of one's estate as one likes, thankfully

True, though estate tax issues caused by DOMA may apply.

(It's amazing; the same Republicans who keep calling the estate tax the "death tax" are conspicuously silent about this case for some reason.)

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

I had known about Sally Ride thanks to the constant Facebook friendslist updates, but didn't find out about Margaret Mahy until very late last night.

The Changeover was tremendously influential on me as a young greenlily, as a writer and a reader and a girl-discovering-boys and a person-considering-becoming-a practicing-neopagan and a teenager-realizing-her-parents-are-human-beings and several other hyphenated things. My copy is packed away with most of my other books until sometime in early September, and now I wish I'd kept it in my Books-Not-To-Be-Packed-Because-I-Might-Need-Them bag instead. :(

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I'm still not entirely sure I'm over Readercon. My head has been full of fragments for days. I am not writing anything substantive; it makes me feel fidgety and pointless.

*gives you a tiny zap gun for taking pot shots at TW who seems to be working overtime lately*

[sovay]

A partner who, I gather, is to be denied benefits, thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act.

This country is not okay.

[sovay]

I wandered from the safety posters to the Soviet bus stops, and then took myself sternly in hand...

I hadn't seen the Soviet bus stops.

Thank you.

[sovay]

What a sympathique person.

She wasn't one of the especial heroes of my childhood, but I knew so much less about her than I would have liked. Like Tam O'Shaughnessy. Like the books they wrote. Someone who isn't me should write them something; until then, link selidor's "Seamstress."

[sovay]

Might have to wait for reading it until thesis-submission; I do rather need those brain cells a little longer...

I love him. I'd bought and read The Pastel City years ago in college or early graduate school, but it wasn't until Light that he suddenly snapped into focus for me; then I found The Course of the Heart and I had an author I'd follow anywhere. His short stories amaze me.

May there soon be some knitting-up for your ravelled sleeve of care.

Thank you.

[sovay]

You went for "Don't walk on fish" over "For God's sake, a statistically unlikely number of you seem to be grabbing live wires" ?

"Don't walk on fish" is brilliant. If it weren't such good advice, it'd be Dada.

(It also benefits, I think, from being the only instruction in the lot that doesn't threaten messy dismemberment or death if ignored. It's just very straightforward. And therefore a bit like that joke shirei_shibolim tells about surrealists and a lightbulb.)

[sovay]

Ditto.

Maybe you could write them something.

[sovay]

Same here.

I haven't even been writing about things like films I've been watching. Frankly, I think I was demoralized by spending most of Thursday on a review that almost nobody commented on. Probably it says more about the slow entropy of Livejournal or my timing (nobody's ever online at ten minutes after midnight) than the quality of the content, but the sort of flat state I spent most of the week in, it didn't help. I don't like this mental space; it feels like one I'll never get out of. I have evidence otherwise, but I spent a lot of time here.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

I bought Empty Space last week, and spent pretty much most of yesterday gobbling it down. I'd say it's very nearly as good as Light, and much better than Nova Swing. Classic MJH, and that's all I'll say for now.

[sovay]

I had known about Sally Ride thanks to the constant Facebook friendslist updates, but didn't find out about Margaret Mahy until very late last night.

I saw her first, nearly as soon as I woke up in the morning; Sally Ride was the late, unpleasant surprise.

My copy is packed away with most of my other books until sometime in early September, and now I wish I'd kept it in my Books-Not-To-Be-Packed-Because-I-Might-Need-Them bag instead.

Libraries!

I read The Changeover so young, I had no idea who'd written it or what most of it was about and discovered it again in middle or early high school with the image of the stamp and the smell of peppermint. It's on my shelf. The Tricksters is the one that haunted me; it reminded me of Diana Wynne Jones, the way identities kept shifting out from underneath the characters at every turn and something about the protagonist's family. I haven't read it in years. I couldn't reconstruct the plot if you paid me. I just hope I can find my copy.

[sovay]

*gives you a tiny zap gun for taking pot shots at TW who seems to be working overtime lately*

Dammit, I was hoping Tiny Richardson had him distracted!

[sovay]

I'd say it's very nearly as good as Light, and much better than Nova Swing.

Do I need to read Nova Swing in order to understand it?

Classic MJH, and that's all I'll say for now.

Fantastic.

Thank you!

[sovay]

This kind of thing is always so frustrating and sad.

I started to write that I liked to think this was a case where the scientific community would step in where the government failed, but we don't even have a shuttle program anymore; I don't know what I was imagining. I just had some vague idea of people not being shmucks to one another. It's not that hard! Or maybe it is, but we should still be better at it.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Look on your own personal bright side; when I shuffle off this mortal coil, you'll be free to make a packet on my literary brilliance.

[sovay]

when I shuffle off this mortal coil, you'll be free to make a packet on my literary brilliance.

Assuming you shuffle off before I do (flip you for it), I'm probably stuck being your literary executor anyway . . .

Hold it; isn't your wife a lawyer? She's got the training, it's her headache. I can stop suffering and write that symphony.