Having come into a bit of money, we're now looking at moving to England. Found a lovely fixer-upper at a very affordable price, and it's probably not even haunted. So... look for big changes (and probably a serious disruption to my writing here) over the next six months or so as we start getting ready for this next stage in our lives.
Where will we be living? Well, take a look!
I didn't take any vacation time off around Christmas or New Year's Day, which means that I had three days of mid-week vacation and my sense of time is absolutely scrambled; I spent half the Friday after New Year's think it was Monday, then went to Dad's Wife's house to celebrate my nephew's birthday. It went well, I think, but we're due to go inter my dad's ashes in two weeks and so that just hit me. Plus, a friend -- the father of Secondborn's closest friend -- is back in the hospital, so there's that. (He's been dying by inches for about three years now, but it looks like we're down to the final month or two; or maybe that's weeks.) Oh, and add to that the moral injury of "We're invading Venezuela under the transparent pretext of overthrowing a dictator so that we can grab their oil" along with, well, everything else the Republicans are doing and the Democrats are too busy being helpless to effectively oppose, and I'm just... tired, even after a solid night's sleep.
Planning would be a whole lot easier if I weren't busy disassociating, basically.
I have two writing projects that are... both coming along at their own speed, I think. One of them might be publishable when it's finished; the other one... I guess technically I could publish it, but I feel like I'd owe an apology to anyone who actually bought it. (Not because it's self-indulgent and the main character is a huge Mary Sue -- though both those things are true -- but because it's sloppy and I lack the dedication to go back and clean it up.) I'm okay with that; I'm writing them more for my own sanity than for any sort of readership or income stream. I've been replaying The Outer Worlds, which is... a good game, if not a great one, and fits neatly with the mood of the primary (publishable) writing project.
The cat spent a portion of Friday night climbing around on top of the shelves in our bedroom, and didn't even have the grace to look guilty when I located him. Which was actually pretty cute; kitten is going to kitten, after all. The dog is keeping me company on the back couch while I'm writing this, and I've still got most of Saturday and Sunday to recuperate -- even if this post won't go up until Monday.
I am not looking forward to Monday. I expect work is going to be crazy-busy, and I've got to put a request for vacation time in for Dad's interment, and after all the work on the upgrades and whatnot I've just kind of bottomed out. Still love the new job, and I really like the people I'm working with, though. Even with the commute, it's a huge improvement. But yeah, I should have taken Friday off and just let myself crash out to get ready for this.
It's a rough time for everybody right now, I think. Take care of yourselves, Gentle Readers, and do whatever you can to take care of each other.
All right, so we've got all the Christmas presents wrapped and sorted. Of decorations, we have absolutely nothing prepared; but beautiful Wife and I have decided that we're both thoroughly exhausted and putting up even a token Christmas Tree is best done after a solid night's sleep.
We hope you have a wonderful holiday -- whichever of them you might happen to be be celebrating -- and a good chance to rest and restore yourself, and as little aggravation as possible.
The Jazz Butcher:
...Because a lot of us are going to have to deal with visiting family in the next few days.
I have said, for many years, that while I do not hate the holidays, I hate the holiday season: that long stretch of October, November, December, and early January where the light grows dim, the traffic grows absurd, and tempers grow short. That is all well and good, but it occurred to me a couple of years ago that in many ways this profound dislike was misplaced. Yes, the holiday season can be stressful, as can the holidays themselves. And yet...
October is not actively trying to kill me. Neither is November, nor December. No, for the past twenty years or more, that honor goes to May. May is the month that wears me down, grinds all my projects to a halt -- sometimes beyond any hope of recovery -- and leaves me in a post-traumatic recovery phase when it finally deigns to depart. May is the month of endings, when everything comes apart. May is the month when everything tries to happen at once.
I'm finding that while it's less so this year, with the new job and some of the old job's responsibilities no longer mine to carry (but, I'm told, left under the supervision of some of the least capable management in the Metroplex and possibly anywhere on the planet) May is still doing its bloody-minded best to kill us. A work conference for me that naturally overlaps with our attempts to get Secondborn through the final few weeks of school (and an emergency room visit), Firstborn packed up and out of his dorm room (he's home now), and Beautiful Woman into some sort of new job; a camping trip that doesn't quite overlap with any of that, but comes right on its heels and right before we'll be attending graduation ceremonies (and also requires a great deal of last-minute re-shuffling); and the gods know what else I might be forgetting.
Some days the only way forward is to keep cutting and hope that your opponent falls first. So, my dear readers, keep both hands on the hilt and press forward with everything you've got. The gods willing, May will fall before we do.
You may be looking at the title and thinking, What, just now? Isn't this a bit late? (Or, I guess, you might be looking at the title and thinking, What, already? --in which case this post probably isn't for you.) But yes, we finally got together with the last piece of the family to have some dinner and exchange gifts, so now Christmas is finally, officially over for us.
Why did it take this long? Well, as usual it was a combination of things, with people being out of town, medical issues, and the logistics of getting someone in a different branch of the family moved into a new apartment. Most of that was not our burden to bear, for which I'm grateful; we just had to work with the timing for it.
In unrelated news, we had a neighbor stop by and ask to use our phone. We're assuming she's a neighbor, anyway; we've seen her once before, and she does seem to be living nearby. Beautiful Wife sensibly handed her the landline rather than her cellphone, then invited her in for a cup of tea.
I did not catch her name, but she comes across as a very-sweet-if-somewhat-daft older woman. We first met her a few weeks ago, when she knocked on the door to make sure we knew that the hose was running in our front yard. (We did. Beautiful Wife was slow-watering the yard.) This was before the election, and she let drop that of the four presidential candidates, only one was actually an American citizen. Which... we pretty much just slid right past that part, because that is a level of batshittery that neither of us was prepared to engage with.
She explained a bit more after using the phone: she's living with one of our neighbors, she's got grandchildren up in Oregon, she's got money troubles -- hence the need to borrow our phone -- but really, it'll all be okay. How so? Well, she put her money in an investment, and after the inauguration that investment is going to be worth a whole lot more. Then she'll have money to pay her bills and help out her family. So what did she invest in? Well, she hems and haws for a moment and then admits that it's Trump Bucks, and after the inauguration she's going to be able to use them as currency.
All of this is delivered with the serene confidence of a True Believer, and I am here to say that neither of us had any idea at all how to respond to that revelation.
Because what we have here, apparently, is a very nice older woman who has no idea that she's been scammed out of whatever remained of her life's savings... Or, a very convincing plant trying to scam us with the hope of getting filthy rich after the election... Or, just maybe, both. If it's the first case, then judging by her demeanor she is never going to believe us if we try to tell her it's a scam. If it's the second -- or the third -- possibility, then she must have been disappointed because neither one of us was even going to touch that topic. Either way, this was a whole other level of batshittery that we just slid right past.
Still, if we do see her again I need to ask who sold her on the Trump Bucks, and at least suggest that she get in touch with the local police; the situation might be a lot more clear after the inauguration. Or, since we weren't interested in Trump Bucks and similar fuckery ourselves, we may simply never see her again. We don't really know that she lives in the area, after all. If she is part of the scam, then I doubt she'll want to hang around long enough to be identifiable -- and having her show up out of nowhere, twice, gets more suspicious the more I think about it.
I've also contacted our telecom to make sure that there aren't any weird charges from that day that are going to show up on my bill at the end of the month, since I can picture a scenario where you borrow someone's phone and use it to call some sort of paid service in exchange for a kickback. No idea whether that's really a thing or not, though. And in in any case, our provider confirms that there aren't any additional charges on the account.
Minor update: So, she showed back up again later in the week, and asked Beautiful Wife if she could pay her to drive her some places. Beautiful Wife told that she had some meetings and couldn't do it, and then politely closed the door. So our current read on the situation is that this neighbor is exactly what she appears to be -- sweet, dignified, and batshit -- and she's zeroed in on us as Those Nice People Who Might Help Out.
2025's going to be an interesting year.
This year I intend to get back in shape, take up martial arts again, and become the ultimate badass. I will reform our political system, destroy our monopolies, and fund local governments and libraries. I will dye my hair interesting colors and punch Nazis. I will hunt down God Himself and kick him in the 'nads for letting His creation get out of hand like this. I will drink so much Irish whiskey that my body will start generating its own, and I will write stories to make women swoon and brave men weep. I will eat at least one salad! I will gather my army of crows and establish a corvid utopia. I will resume bicycling and climbing, and steal fire from the sun to give to mortals. I will abolish the abomination which we call Generative AI, establish a federal privacy law to protect the data of our citizens, and sew more patches on my jacket. I will cook bacon. I will cook so much bacon that the God of Pigs will swear vengeance against me. And I will do it all with a smile on my face.
What do you have planned?
Well, we made it past Christmas and we're on to New Year's Day. To absolutely nobody's surprise, I'm not ready. But hey, here we go!
Got to spend some time with my friends online, which was a huge relief. Some of the family are back in town and others are coming into town -- Christmas is dragging out this year -- and I didn't take any extra time off because we've got a few things that need to happen right at the end of the year. It's nothing near what came up at year end at the last job, though, so I'm grateful for that.
I've been working on a story that's basically a tribute to a lot of my early X-Men/New Mutants/Generation X comic book reading; I still think there was a lot of interesting stuff going on there that never quite made it over to the X-movies.
Meanwhile, I'm reading Jennifer Crusie's Maybe This Time, and I have to say that while I would not have expected gothic horror from her, she's done it really well here. She's also done an excellent job with writing the two kids, and (as always) with the romance.
Onwards to 2025! Here's hoping it turns out better than it looks right now.
The title of the post comes from this clip, from the classic movie Highlander. Damned good thing they never made any sequels to it; that movie was complete in itself.
Well, we're almost there. I don't know if I'm ready, but like so many things it's going to happen anyway. Here's hoping that all my lovely readers have a safe, enjoyable holiday filled with plenty of good cheer in whatever form bests suits you.
With Christmas bearing down on us like a freight train, I'm finding myself increasingly baffled by just how much I do not want holidays. Like, how long has it been since I looked forward to a holiday celebration? When did I move from tolerating them to dreading them? The ones I do enjoy -- like Halloween -- are the ones with basically no social obligations.
Since changing jobs, I've been trying to take advantage of being less stressed out: get my sleep schedule under control, eat better, start getting real exercise again...
What I'm finding is that in order to even attempt that, I'm having to try to roll back what turns out to be a whole bunch of unhealthy coping mechanisms that I've apparently accumulated over fucking years of being low-key miserable. It's hard. It's good, but it's hard. It's like I'd forgotten how to not be miserable -- or, now that I'm not so much so, I don't remember how to stop acting as if I am and need this stuff to get by.
It starts with putting in the work, I guess. (And it's complicated by the fact that I am not looking forward to moving into 2025, but that's -- say it with me -- another post.)
Anyway, Firstborn's back home, Secondborn is finishing up his last school day of 2024, and I -- once again -- am mere days out from the holiday with no idea what we have planned and what I'm going to need to be ready to do. Which is, to be clear, mostly on me.
But I think I'd like, at some point, to get back to anticipating holidays. I'd like to be able to look forward to getting together with family and friends. I'd like to be interested enough to be planning for the holidays, instead of basically hiding from them. I'd like to go into them feeling rested and prepared.
I'm starting to remember that that might be possible.
We still have one more family dinner left, but that one'll be at a restaurant and should be fairly simple. We have some family activities planned, which -- fortunately -- mostly don't require a lot of my emotional investment, so that should be okay too. On the whole, I'm coming into Black Friday (was yesterday Thursday?) feeling pretty good and ready to start watching some seasonal movies.
I'm actually grateful for a lot of things, particularly my family, but for today I'm just going to drop this here because it's seasonal.
(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)
Prompt: If you could create a holiday, what would it be?
This... I... I really don't know. I mean, Halloween already exists; so does National Talk Like A Pirate Day, even if I'm the only one in the office who celebrates it.
But, well, all right... let's set the thing near the end of February, maybe exactly at the end of February where we're just coming out of the long dark of winter and also incorporate Leap Year into the equation. It'll therefore be a moveable feast, but only once every four years. And we'll celebrate geekery: whatever particular hobby or passion occupies your time and consumes your attention.
Festivus Geekiatum is a day to indulge your favorite interests. Work on that knitting project, watch that anime, re-read that favorite book, perform in -- or attend -- that one play. Reconnect with your hobbies, re-engage your interests, work on your projects. Do it alone, or do it together -- write-alongs are a valid form of celebration. So are hootenannies, or flash mobs. Rediscover something that gives you joy, and do it for as long as you enjoy it! Then go do something else you like! Cook for friends, or practice languages, or set up a campfire and tell stories. Costumes are optional, but welcome.
Indulge yourself, and do the things that make you happy.
That's the holiday I want for people.
(I mean, no, not really. That's the everyday I want for people. But I'll take what I can get.)
I'm not much feeling like celebrating Independence Day this year. No matter how instrumental America was in saving the world from the alien invasion -- that is what we're celebrating, right? -- it's just kind of hard to celebrate with our constitutional rights being stripped away in favor kleptocracy and gerontocracy and fascism. We won our independence from England for this?
Land of the Free? Not if you're planning to get an abortion, or any sort of gender-affirming care. Want to fly across state lines? "Papers, please, Citizen." Certainly not if you plan to make money through any sort of sex work. You're free to vote, of course, but if you seem likely to vote for the wrong party then it's going to be as difficult as the GOP can manage -- and if the Supreme Court continues along their current path, they'll put the fix in on that, too.
Home of the Brave? Ye gods, I hope that's still so. I hope we can still rise up and push back against all this. Yes, a lot of damage has been done already, and barring an extreme change it will take years to recover from it. But people in other places have taken extreme measures and produced results that seem unimaginable in present-day America. It can be done; can we do it?
Anyway... things are looking pretty bleak to me right now, and I really don't feel like celebrating -- not until I have something worth being patriotic over.
Amusingly, it's an Englishman who's got the best anthem I've heard for this so far:
For the last two years, I've been taking part in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge over at Long and Short Reviews. (The first link will take you to the list of topics; the second one goes to the homepage, where you can find a post with everyone's responses each week. Feel free to join in!)
This week's topic is "what I thought of Santa as a kid".
Y'all, I... don't remember. I really don't. It's possible that at some point I actually believed that Santa existed. It's possible that at some point I was screaming in terror as someone attempted to take my picture with a Mall Santa. But I was a weird kid. It's just as possible, and perhaps more likely, that Christmas would roll around and I'd have presents, and someone would explain that Santa had brought some of them, and I'd just roll with it because, Hey, more presents! But I also remember thinking of "Santa Presents" as code for "a few presents my parents kept secret and didn't put under the tree until the night before".
My parents weren't real invested in fooling us or "keeping the magic alive".
So yeah, mostly I don't think I had much of an opinion about Santa at all as a kid. I mean, I enjoyed getting presents... but on the whole, I liked Halloween better.
This weekend has been a lot more relaxed than those from the last few weeks. Beautiful Wife and I managed to go see Dune -- with some friends yet -- and then eat together and discuss it afterwards. (I am not having much look persuading people that Dune is clearly a Christmas movie, though. Unfortunate, that.) This sort of thing was rare for us even before the pandemic began, and I'm very much afraid that it's about to become rare all over again as the next waves of the pandemic come around.
Hopefully I'll be wrong about that.
Even so, December seems to be hurtling along towards 2022 at breakneck speed, and I am absolutely up to my eyeballs with projects at work even as the holidays and related vacations make it harder and harder to coordinate with the people I need for those. One of them, at least, we've simply rescheduled for mid-January; it would take one of our systems down for anywhere from twenty minutes to several hours, and we can't afford to do that right now. And I haven't seen any movement on job reclassification or the alternate position I applied for. I know people are aware that I've applied -- it's at least been mentioned -- but my employer tends to handle such things with a speed that might best be described as "glacial".
So taking the weekend and just... not breaking my neck trying to Clean All The Things and Run All The Things and actually just slowing down a bit has been good. Maybe not quite enough, but good. At least I don't feel like I'm balancing on the edge of collapse. It helps that 3/4 of the youth D&D game couldn't make it (finals and projects and grade, oh my!) so it was basically just Firstborn and his friend hanging out for a couple of hours and playing videogames. I took a nap. (A nap!)
And I've got another D&D game tonight (Sunday), rescheduled from its usual Tuesday night. It very nice to feel like I'll get there with enough brain intact to play well and keep up with the math. (It's 3.5, which is a lot mathier than Fifth Edition.) Looking forward to that.
What I haven't gotten back is enough energy and focus to do more than minimal writing. I've added the next scene for Dark Armor for Friday, but the Magic School for Monsters project is essentially stalled. I need to start setting aside time specifically for that, but for that to happen I need to get a lot of things more organized, my sleep schedule chief among them.
Take care out there, my friends. December is shaping up to be wild, and not always in a good way.
I know how I'll be spending mine...
Some things I'm grateful for this year (because I think it's good to stop and look these over):
I am... not entirely happy. It's late, I've done very little of the things I'd hoped to get done while taking a week off -- though it was certainly nice not to be at work. I'm tired, I'm cranky, and I just want everyone to go away. This does not bode well for my Monday.
So, no fiction for today. (Though it looks like we will have DnD tonight, so there's likely to be another mess of game notes tomorrow.) Instead, I'm going to put in a piece of music:
