kiya

FM is a bundle of anxiety at the best of times, which means I was not precisely surprised when she came and said "Mama, I found something scary in the bathroom, I want to show it to you."

I was surprised, however, when I went up and found that the terrifying item was a handwashing guide (you know how there were thousands of these things going around early in the pandemic with different recitations attached? one of those).

Specifically a handwashing guide printed with the Litany Against Fear from Dune.

I should put in a note that FM had another migraine last week since I apparently chronicled the previous one at the beginning of February so that's just shy of a two-month gap between. Gods know I don't know how to track the passage of time at the best of times which this is not.

My church has been 100% virtual for the past few weeks, including the RE classes I'm teaching and KJ's OWL classes. I have actually been better at socializing "at church" with this because usually after the service I'm either herding the monkey horde or talking with the half-dozen people I know well enough to have a conversation with that isn't hopelessly awkward, but we've been doing virtual coffee hour by breaking up into randomized groups so I'm getting to know more people a little.

The kids are a constant stream of video-based attempts to keep up on their school and activities. ER does not want to pay attention to the music classes she was barely managing to track when they were in-person. KJ's technical difficulties with her flute lesson may finally have been fixed; the tech problems there have been driving artan up a tree. There are like six different computer programs involved and some of them are finicky. The school system is making noises, as this extends, about getting remote learning set up.

(Meanwhile my mother called me asking for tech support because her computer imploded and she's an adjunct and I fret about this uselessly but there is genuinely nothing I could do other than ask synecdochic if there was an ISP that sucked less in Baltimore (no) and get some tech support house call recs from jenett's librarian research skillz.)

Despite everything I managed to get a short story submitted last night for a deadline today, though that was a process of being up until 2 or 3 am for a week straight to have a remote chance of having enough brain time to actually get it written. After editing it came in at exactly 7500 words. (It was a bit shorter before jenett complained correctly that the ending was rushed.)

I need to send more stuff out, I've been collecting one rejection letter and just going "Mmph" and my progression plan on sending one of them out was thwarted by Uncanny currently being closed to submissions and so of course like a good neurodivergent now that the plan I worked out has been interrupted I'm sort of at "bluuuuuuuuuh how do I plans".

FM is wearing one of KJ's plaid flannel shirts and I am wearing a plaid flannel shirt and after that I turned to K and said “The 90s are coming back! It’s all plaid and existential despair!”

In honor of which I've been playing Planescape: Torment, I guess.

ETA: the electrician pulled the aluminum circuit from my room yesterday so now there are holes in the wall and we need to pull the wallpaper but thing. Progress.

artan_eter: Don't poke people with carrots.
FM: ...
artan_eter ... just ... don't poke people. There shouldn't have to be a qualifier for everything. Don't threaten people with vegetables!
FM: ....
artan_eter In order to make that statement more all-encompassing. DOn't threaten people without vegetables either.

Facebook Archive process previously included Facebook only bothering to have me notice a tiny fraction of what I said. So this is some of the rest of it.

Contains kid stories, kvetching, and status updates on the writing process for the Traveller's Guide. Moderately complete archive.

( 2010 archive revisited, April-June )