New Post on Cooking With Delagar

One of Dr. Skull's recipes!

Dreams

So I had this terrible nightmare last night in which I'd had two children and I had both forgotten to love them and lost them.

These were very real children. I could draw you their pictures now, and in the dream they had names, though I can't remember their names now. I was very upset in the dream because I didn't love them -- I'd forgotten the part of parenting where I was supposed to bond with and fall in love with my children.

And then I realized I had no idea where they were. I couldn't remember if they were at a friend's house, or at school, or if they were visiting their grandparents, or what I had done with them.

Then I woke up in sheer terror and lay there for maybe a full minute, trying to remember where my children were, before I remembered I had one kid,who was in the very next room, sound asleep.

I think this is my new version of my anxiety dream. I used to have anxiety dreams in which I'd forgotten to attend a class all semester, and now it was time for the final, and once I became a professor, for awhile I was having dreams in which I'd forgotten to teach a class all semester and now it was time for the final. Now that the kid's 20, apparently I'm going to have dreams in which I've forgotten to raise kids all their lives and now it's time for the final.

Dinner

...by the way, was chicken piccata, a broccoli and cheese casserole, French bread, and a nice Sauvignon blanc.

No pics today, sadly.

Conversation at the delagar Household

Me: Hey, dadzo is making dinner tonight

The Kid: He better.

Me: Yeah, I told him how sad you were he didn't last night.

The Kid: Yeah.

Me: He's gonna make that broccoli cheese casserole.

The Kid: Oh, worm?

Me: ... ... ...

The Kid: You know what that means, right? Oh, worm?

Me: Yeah, no.

The Kid: (Big sigh)


We need a Duolingo for 21st Century English, y'all.

Reading for Research

For some time I've been thinking up a story about a family of time-travelers, and last week I finally started to write it. For reasons I won't get into here, part of the story involves an encounter with Mary Wollstonecraft.

When I reached that point in the story, I realized I needed to know more specifics about Wollstonecraft's life -- details, facts, how she would react to things my characters said.

No problem, I said. The library has a biography, and look here, Amazon has another that is cheap on Kindle. Couple of hours of quick reading, and back to work.

Three days later, I'm still reading. This is not so much because I need to learn more as because Wollstonecraft is fascinating. Also, one of the books, Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley, by Charlotte Gordon, is excellent. I knew a little about Mary Shelley and her life with Percy; and I knew a very little about Wollstonecraft's life (that she had written Vindication of the Rights of Women, and that she had died giving birth to Mary Shelley); but this book is a revelation.

What Gordon does is, via alternating chapters, contrast Wollstonecraft's life and writing careers with that of her daughter's, detailing the events that shape them, and how they react to and resist these events.

This is a long but excellent book. Unless you're an English professor, or interested in the Romantics or feminism, it might not be for you. If that's your jam, though, snap this one up.

Happy 4th

Happy 4th from mine to yours:

From left to right, the Kid, me, and Uncle Charger. Not pictured: Dr. Skull, who is taking the photograph.

Le Menu: smoked lamb, chicken cacciatore, grilled asparagus, peach ice cream, and French bread with butter or sauce. Choice of Ginger ale or regular ale. Peach ice cream with homemade Maraschino cherries (bottled with last year's cherry crop) for dessert.

Also!

The Year's Best Science Fiction: 35th Annual Collection is now available, with a certain story from our favorite author in the TOC.

(You can Look Inside to see me. I'm on page iv of the TOC.)

ETA: Watch out, apparently there's a glitch when you try to buy the Kindle version. You get the 5th Annual Collection instead. Maybe wait a few days?

Links for Your 4th

If you haven't seen this, you HAVE to see this

Grandmothers matter

Ortberg translates Sappho

Stonekettle

Fact v Opinion (I scored 100%, but then I better have)

It me

I know we're sick of Jordan Peterson, but...

Yes, we do have alternatives

D'aw:

My Guilty Secret

I know I'm an English professor, but the minute I read in a review that someone's prose is "lush" or "ornate," I roll my eyes and cross that sucker off my list forever.

Cats Love Fault Lines

Cats love Fault Lines.

H/T to Heebie-Jeebie

Also to File 770, where Cats Sleep on SFF is a Thing.

This, on the other hand...

I don't even know what to say about this



UNACCOMPANIED:  Alone in America from Linda Freedman on Vimeo.

Something to Cheer Us Up

This is pretty wonderful:

(H/t https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/ )

This Happens Literally All The Time

And it happened again today.

It usually happens on social media, but sometimes IRL as well.

We'll be talking, some man and I. It is (almost*) always a man, and always a white man, and always a straight white man. Not always a conservative man, either. Often enough, this is a progressive man, or at least he calls himself progressive.

We'll disagree about something.

Now according to the rules, you see, the rules of how woman and men discuss things, I am allowed to disagree with him. But I should tinkle with deferential laughter and cringe and duck my head and hedge everything I say with sweet little girl phrases like "don't you think" and "well, maybe" and "I don't know, I just wonder if" and "I'm just a ignorant little nuffin, but don't you think" and essentially make him feel like a big strong man who is graciously allowing me to be in this big boy intellectual conversation at all.

I stopped doing that particular dance when I was about 25, when I became a feminist. Now I just say what I mean, backing up what I mean with facts and evidence, as if I were a human being in the same way he is a human being.

Not all men by any means, but some men* interpret this as an attack.

These men interpret it as an attack on their manhood. "You're not doing your cause any favors by being such a bitch," one of them said.

Or, "It's women like you who cause men to hate feminists," another said.

I've always blogged under delagar, as all y'all know, and for years many people thought "delagar" was a man. Some people still do. Interestingly, I never got (and never get) reactions like this on those occasions.

I didn't used to believe in fragile masculinity. But these guys have been making such a case for it, it's hard to not to these days.

*Some women interpret it as an attack as well. These are women who think any sort of discussion is "arguing." They also think everything is an "opinion." So when someone points out that what they're saying is factually incorrect, well, that's me imposing my "opinion" over their "opinion" which is just rude.  How dare I claim that Trump has put children in cages? Their opinion is that he has not! My "opinion" that he has is no more valid than theirs! It's rude to say they're wrong!

Hot and Horrible

It's been miserably hot here over the past week -- close to 100 degrees every day, with a heat index of 107 or 108 each day -- and also I picked up some virus at school. Vomiting and aching while being hot and cranky is not a good mix.

The virus is gone, at least, though the heat is not. Weather guy says temperatures will stay near 100 for the foreseeable future. Bah.

Plus the political news continues awful. It's almost funny, in the bleakest, most horrific way, how one horrific thing after the next happens.

It's like slapstick disaster theater, if you see what I mean.

Or, you know, it would be funny, if it weren't happening to the country I live in and want to be proud of.

As it is, sweet Jesus. No wonder I projectile vomited for 12 hours straight. The wonder is we aren't all doing so.

What I'm Reading

I've been teaching two summer classes, as I noted in the previous post, plus actually writing again (two short stories and I've started another Velocity novel) so my time for reading is limited; but nevertheless I persist!

Here's what I've read over the past month and half or so:

Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St. Mary's. 

I read a review of the first book in this series, Just One Damn Thing After Another, by James Nicholls over on his review site, which I recommend highly if you like SFF, by the way. It sounded like exactly my jam, a time travel series in an academic setting, with a woman main character. I bought the first one, and I was hooked.

These are indeed time travel novels, but also historical romances, but also comic novels, and also delightful. Hard to describe without spoilers, but if you want fiction that's not too stressful and also extremely addictive, this is for you. Also there are lots of them -- nine, with another due out soon, plus a book of short stories. Oh, boy!

Barry Unsworth, Mortality Play, The Quality of Mercy

These I read on the recommendation of Athena Andreadis, who mentioned them on Twitter on day -- or mentioned one of them. They're historical fiction, and very well done. The first is about a group of players who stumble into a murder mystery in a small town during the years after the Black Death; the second is about the men and women working to preserve and to fight against slavery in England.

Mortality Play also won the Booker Prize.

Books about complex moral questions are also totally my jam, and these are very well written. Highly recommended. My library only has these two, but I'm thinking of buying the others.


Charles Stross, Saturn's Children

For some reason, I never got around to reading Charles Stross. As I recall, I picked up one of his books (I forget which one) which was in the middle of a series, and couldn't really understand what was going on, put it down, and never picked up any of his books again.

This one, Saturn's Children, seems to be a stand alone, and is pretty good. It's far-future, in a universe in which all humanity has died out. Only the robots survive. They miss humans, who they were built to serve, but are carrying on.

The worldbuilding is great, and the robot characters are wonderful. This one is a lot of fun and also filled with ideas -- what science fiction was built to be. Highly recommended.

I might even give Stross's other work another chance. :D