A Curious Encounter

So from time to time -- as many of you do -- I comment elsewhere in the blogosphere.

When I do so, I comment under my blogosphere name: as delagar, in other words. This is a name with no apparent gender. Often enough, out in the 'sphere, people assume I am male. (Go figure!)

A Very Late Valentine

...which I'm stealing from the kid's Tumblr, because I love it so much:

Apparently this blog is become all pics, all the time.

Special Edition: Cat Picture

Here, to cheer us up while Trump destroys our country, a cat picture

My Junti cat, being a sexy cat. She'll be here all week, y'all!

Spring Break: Here at Last

Everyone else in the country has already had their Spring Breaks, I believe. But ours is next week -- well, really it starts tomorrow for the kid, since the public schools get Friday off for a teacher training thing.

As the kid is in her last six weeks of high school and literally counting the minutes until she never has to go back to high school again, this extra Friday is all that stood between her and doom.

Only messing a little here. It's never been so hard to get this child off to school as it has been this past month. "Here's an idea," she tells me, frequently. "What if I drop out of school, right now?"

"That sounds like a fine idea," I say. "Then you can get a job at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is always hiring."

"But you are missing the point. Then I would never have to go back to high school, ever again."

Our plans for Spring Break: sleep a lot. Write a lot. (Do a lot of art, on the kid's part.) Go hiking at Devil's Den. Go up to Crystal Bridges at least once, to see the new exhibit, even if it is Roy Lichtenstein, who is the kid's mortal enemy. Take the dog to the dog park. Sleep some more.

The weather has been cold as balls here, but next week looks lovely.

Trump, meanwhile... sweet Jesus.

A perfect illustration of the American South. This was posted on my FB feed. A local store has this display up for the Easter Season, and many, many people were thanking Jesus for the store and its "bravery" in witnessing for Christ.

The fact that this is a marketing plot -- and a fairly heretical one -- has not entered their minds. This is because no one in the South, and very few people in America, are willing to admit that the real religion of America is not Christianity, but Capitalism.

Once you realize that, of course, this display makes perfect sense.

Buy more soda, affirm your witness to the one true God.

This is the Future Liberals Want

My cat climbs into my lap and butts her head against my shoulder (her signal that I should carry her to her food dish and give her food).

I ignore her, since I'm in the middle of working.

She butts a little harder, and then claws me gently on the ear.

Me: Hey! Not acceptable!

Cat: (Claws a little harder.)

Me: (Capturing cat and looking at her eye to eye): That is not appropriate behavior. Do I claw you when I want something?

Cat: (Sullenly) Mwar.

Me: No, I don't. So you don't claw me.

Apparently I am trying to teach a cat ethics.   #LiberalBehaviorGoesTooFar

(The meme referenced in the title, in case you have been on Mars and missed it: This is the Future Liberals Want.)

What I've Been Reading (and Seeing) Lately

I'm still reading so much. It's better for me than Xanax and Vicodin, which if either of those were available, believe me, I'd be gulping them down in pints. Probably both at once.

The kid and I also went to see Lysistrata at the university theater last night. It was a production in modern dress, which made me a little uneasy at first, but turned out to work really well. All student actors, and almost all of them wonderful. Great comic timing, good actors, and did an excellent job bringing the hilarity of the play across the centuries. Walking back to my car, the kid said to me, "Why are the Greeks so modern? That was great!"

(She also loves Euripides, who she's only read.)

What I'm reading:

Jane Steele, by Lyndsay Faye

I'm extremely fond of Jane Eyre now, though I hated it as a child and an adolescent (I was forced to read it in the 10th grade, just as my child was forced to read it last month, in AP English). And I love books that are written in response or as fan fiction, more or less, about books I love, as long-time readers of this blog might have noticed. So no surprise I gave a small squee of glee when I saw a review for this book on NPR.

Also! My library had a copy. Oh boy! I didn't even have to buy it. I put in a request and had it the next day. Then I stayed up all night reading it. (Luckily it was a Friday night.) It's great. I love it at least as much as Jane Eyre, though Jane Steele is not much like Jane Eyre.

The two Janes do live at about the same time, and the rough outlines of their lives -- their general plot, as it were -- are the same. They both have mean-spirited aunts, they both go off to boarding school at nine, that boarding school is run by a vicious headmaster. They both end up as tutors to a small foreign girl, and they both end up in love with her guardian -- Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre's case, Mr. Thornfield, in Jane Steele's case.

Because I Know You Need to Waste Time

...just as much as I do, here's a lovely way to waste time.

Image-to-Image

The Edges2cats is especially fun.

My cats:

Important Post

Nicole and Maggie are doing stellar work with the resistance.

Read their post today -- go here.

Nice Comment

Over at Tor.com, I read a comment by a fella named Dylan Tullos, who I don't know at all -- and clicking on his profile gives me no more information than his name -- which I like a great deal, and which I think deserves to be read further:

Allowing the government to create hoops that citizens have to jump through in order to vote strikes me as an impressively bad idea.  Instead of having citizens who choose their government, the system allows the government to choose its citizens.  The government gets to decide what tasks make people “worthy” of citizenship, but the first duty of every good citizen is to not let the state tell you what good citizenship is.

It's part of a larger comment, which you may find here.

(If anyone knows anything more about Dylan Tullos, I'd be glad to learn more!)

Exciting News on Valentine's Day

Or, well, exciting for me.

Y'all remember that in August 2016 I sold a story to F&SF -- well, today I got the proofs for that story, and C.C. Finley tells me it should appear in the May/June 2017 issue.

The story, The History of the Invasion Told in Five Dogs, is one of my favorites; and of course I've been trying to sell a story to F&SF for, oh, I don't know, 30 years now? So yeah, I'm pleased.

Look for it at your local bookstore and news stand; or you can order it online. I'll post links!

What I'm Reading Now

Even though we're in the thick of the semester now, bearing down on midterm, I am still swallowing books whole. I think this is my way of dealing with the horrors of the Trump regime. Literary Xanax.

Anyway! Here's some of what I've gobbled over the past month:

Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

I forget how I found this book -- maybe the NYTimes recommended list? However I found it, the rec was right. This one's excellent. Told from the point of view of the mother of five children who is also a doctor of emergency medicine when we first meet her, the writing here is great, and the characters, including of all five children, AND their friends, so well developed they all become real to us. Wonderful use of setting, also -- we move from Wisconsin to San Francisco to Thailand in the course of the novel, and Frankel gives us each place perfectly.

What's it about? Yeah, that's another reason to love it. Rosie and Penn have five sons -- except their youngest son, Claude, begins telling them when he's three that he's a girl. (Penn is a stay-at-home dad and a writer, by the way, though he's not the one writing this book.) The novel deals with their struggle to understand what to do -- and not like that, they always try to do the right thing -- and to deal with the fallout of their decisions. This is a great book, and not just about having a trans kid. It's a great book about being human.

Words That Will Make Me Stop Taking You And Your Argument Seriously

This is a fact. When I hear these words* come from your mouth, or when I see them in your paper, or in your comment, or in your post, I immediately know you are arguing in bad faith, or you are incapable of honest and careful thought.

I stop taking you seriously at that point -- well, in fact, I stop listening to you at all in that point. Life is too short to listen to liars and fools**.

Here's the list!

• SJW
• feminazi
• politically correct/PC
• virtue signalling

Update on My Belly

So y'all remember that they cut on me awhile back.

I'm pleased to relate that I had my follow up with my surgeon (this was almost a month ago) and he "released" me, meaning unless something changes, I am cured.

An Important Message for These Dark Times

Also a link.

The message first:

As usual, Hank is well worth the 3 and a half minutes it takes to watch this. About halfway through, he'll tell you about some posters you can buy -- proceeds to go to various immigrant groups. Here's a link to the site: DFTBA Buy posters here

Also, this, which I saw at Nicole & Maggie's site.

Don't despair, y'all. Take action. When we fight, we win.