gwyn | Recent Entries

My house is redolent of anise and molasses and sugar and all the good spices from baking cookies all day. I have this ancient recipe from my mom's side of the family for these anise cookies that almost no one likes, and I used to make them with Dad all the time but I find it intimidating at the best of times, and these days aren't exactly the best. But I had to type it up a few years ago for someone on metafilter, and so I decided to try my hand at them on my own with a little help from mlyn, and while it didn't go great, it also wasn't a total disaster, so I figured I'd try again this year because I've missed them. There's just really nothing else out there like them, and much as I like pfefferneuse, it's not nearly close enough, though that's really the only thing in the spice/uncommon-in-America flavor profile cookie I know of. Also since I never really know if I'm going to be around in a year, I wanted to enjoy them while I could.

Back a few years ago when I made them, I asked

musesfool, baker extraordinaire, for some advice on the recipe, because baking is just a mystery to me and I'm quite bad at it. She had some really good advice, but did I go look at it to refresh my memory before I began starting on the dough? No, I did not. So I made a lot of mistakes. Dad and I found it was best to let the dough sit in the fridge overnight, and the baked cookies are better when they sit for a day or two before icing, so it's kind of like a three-day extravaganza, and with my fatigue issues, I also have to constantly sit down. I am just fucking exhausted now and I still have more to do!

It makes so many cookies (and that was after my dad cut the recipe down three times!) that you're just baking and baking and baking. I had to shut the oven off and go sit for a while, in between big batches. But now they are baked and I will try to ice them all tomorrow, or at least as many as I can handle, so I can share them with the only people who wouldn't hate them. They don't taste terrible for all that I fucked up, but I can really tell I messed up mixing the early ingredients, and wish I'd read the instructions and musesfool's advice before I started. What a dumbass. Also, it's really a lie that turbinado sugar or succanat can substitute for white sugar. I didn't want to go out just to get sugar, which I thought I had enough of, but it does not turn out the same without white sugar and they are liars.

I bought myself some stuff to make a little Christmas dinner for one, but my stomach was roiling today for most of the day, and ended up just eating a bagel and some of the cookies that caught and were too burned to give away to anyone.

Now that I am so exhausted and the house smells so good, I think I'm going to head to bed early--I stayed up too late last night anyway, because it's my tradition to always watch It's a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve and then I was poking around in the Yuletide archive for far too long. I was so shocked that it opened in the middle of the day yesterday! I didn't see a whole lot that looked intriguing, since I'm so out of the loop on fandoms these days, but there's definitely some stuff to read and I was really thrilled to see that Rose Lerner's book True Pretenses had a fic written for it this year! So I had to read that one immediately.

Anyway, I hope you had a great holiday if you celebrate, and a very nice Thursday if you don't, and I will respond to all your kind comments on my last post soon, I promise.

Current Mood: exhausted

Happy Christmas Eve Eve, if you celebrate! I had big plans today to take advantage of the fact that there was no rain predicted for once (if you're unaware of the recent horrific weather in the PNW, check out some news to see the flood and wind damage we've experienced for weeks now) and go up to the clinic for a blood draw, since my primary care physician wants to see how my thyroid levels are doing now that I've been on the thyroid medication for a couple months. But I've been trapped here waiting for UPS to come to deliver my main chemo drug; I have to sign for it so not only can I not leave till they come, I can't even take a shower.

I'm extremely unhappy with UPS now for a lot of reasons, most of them still including the fact that I'm out $700+ because of the returned laptop that some asshat didn't bother to scan in. There are no options that will help me--everything requires that the tracking number be in the system, which is the very problem I have. The pickup person didn't put it in the system. And the company that it's supposed to be returned to won't do anything, either, so I'm just...screwed. And now I'm stuck here in my house waiting for my meds, which were supposed to be here this morning (they always wake me up early). Booo UPS.

I was feeling pretty low last time I posted, and I think I haven't really improved in terms of my mood. It's mostly the financial issues, but also the health stuff, and what next year will bring. I've been trying to find out about financial assistance for my chemo med that costs $23k a bottle (the one I'm waiting for) but it's looking like I won't qualify because of how much I messed up my taxes this year, or at least, I've been looking at the thresholds and it seems like because of what I screwed up on, I'll probably be just over the limit. I did sign up for the Medicare thing where they cap out of pockets/copays to $2k and allow you to spread it around over time, but I also signed up for that last year and the Part D drug insurance I had never did that. I basically blow through all my deductibles and copays right away, because when I get that first bottle of obscenely expensive Pomalyst pills, the $3k copay wipes out all the remaining balances. So I'm not sure what to expect in '26. And also I have a feeling, since that two thousand dollar cap was put in place under Joe's administration, they're going to do everything they can to get rid of it. America!

Sometimes I find myself feeling so bitter about all the lucky people I know who are able to get out of this country. There's nowhere for me to go, no place that would take me since I'm not rich (which would overcome my disability and age issues), and I just wish so much I could go somewhere else more sane. But I also think, good for them, get out while you can.

And while I was dealing with all the money stuff, it was like, I got a notice that my Dreamwidth account was expiring, and then my Editorial Freelancers Assn. dues were...um, due, and I was like, sure. Why not. Of course. But some really lovely person out there gave me six months of paid time, and I wish so much I knew who you were so I could properly thank you. It really came at such a perfect time, just struggling with that hopeless feeling, and reminding me that there are so many nice people out there. Thank you so much, friend! I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.

I know I should not be putting more stuff on my credit cards, but I have decided that I'm going to Escapade next year again. Fortunately it's not ridiculously early like this year, and hopefully I won't have to drive home from the airport in a blizzard, but while I'm still physically able, I want to at least see some of the folks who will be going and just be in Southern California again. There wasn't a lot for me to do fannishly this last time, but just being around folks is enough.

For a while I wasn't able to continue with my reading, which bummed me a bit since I had been excited about catching up on books, but I'm back to it at least for a while. I left off The Golem and the Jinni about 1/3 of the way in, so I restarted that, and I'm also hoping that even though I'm not doing Yuletide again this year, I can go through the archive this time and find some fun stuff to read (last year, I somehow missed reading Yuletide entirely). I'm not doing anything as usual on actual Christmas, except I'm going to try to bake the ancient anise cookie recipe that no one else likes that Dad and I used to make. It's very challenging even when you're healthy, and I found it very physically taxing last time I did (2 years ago), but I feel determined.

mlyn helped me with the cutting out and baking part, but since it's the actual holiday, I figured I'd be doing it myself. It could be very interesting.

And then I need to schedule an appointment with the endodontist after the holiday, because my worst fear came true and I will have to have a root canal for the tooth I had a crown replaced on last year. She warned me it might be a possibility, but still...everything was going great till a few months ago. The oncologist has stopped the infusions of zometa because of the necrosis of the jaw risk, but NGL, that whole thing still scares the shit out of me! Though I managed to walk out of chemo a couple weeks ago without getting my new chemo schedule, so I don't even know how soon any of it can happen!

I hope those of you celebrating this holiday have a great time. Thanks for listening to me whine this year, I really hope things will be a bit brighter this year for all of us.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Christmas Wrapping-the Waitresses

Every time I think of posting, I'm so overwhelmed by how shitty my life is right now and how nearly suicidal I feel that I can't do it. I'm just too depressing. It just seems like it's never-ending and I'm literally throwing money in the toilet and I feel so alone and hopeless. It's funny, I've never cried over the cancer diagnosis (diagnoses, I guess, since I'm being stalked by it), but I'm literally sitting here sobbing in front of my computer because of all the things. It's just. All the things.

A short list (it looks long, but it's the short list): I bought a new used laptop from Back Market when my old 2012 workhorse started having these weird spasms and would shut down. The new one, a 2020, I picked specifically because it had an intel processor instead of the new M1 chips, because I had a couple older programs that are crucial to my work that I wasn't sure would run on an M1. It went great until last month, when it wouldn't boot at all. I sent it back to the refurbisher and they said they couldn't repair it (a lie, I'm positive) so would send a replacement. Unforch, it wasn't what I ordered (it had an M1), so I had to mail it back via UPS last week (before turkey day).

Even more unfortunate, apparently UPS "never picked it up" from the mailing center, it's not in the system, so they won't give me a refund. Back Market forced me to do the refund option instead of sending me a replacement again since that's their policy. So assuming I would have a refund coming, I bought an entirely new 2020 just like the first one.

But now I guess I'm completely screwed out of over $700. Which I really don't have. Because I cannot prove a negative, and the mailing center dropoff of course doesn't give receipts for prelabeled packages. Which, even if I'd scheduled UPS to come to my house and pick it up, I wouldn't have a receipt either, if I didn't think to like wait by the door or something and make sure he scanned it. So there is nothing apparently I can do, because no one has this tracking number and I can't prove I sent it. Maybe it was stolen, maybe the UPS guy was a fuckup, who knows. All I know is Back Market won't give me my refund. They were like "bye, Felicia."

Even better, I cannot get the new 2020 laptop I had to buy to work, by installing from my backup so I can port over all my crucial programs. Mr.

minim_calibre helped me with my first install problem when they came by on thanksgiving for min's annual drive-by pieing (she makes the best pumpkin pies, just like I would make them so now I don't have to make them myself!), and then again when I was having a completely new issue and he solved it, the day min and I went to see Wake Up Dead Man (which is cute! although the lack of a comma in the title is beyond irritating!). So those issues solved, I have attempted at this point to use migration assistant to get my old macbook air stuff over to the new one now probably 12 times, and it never works. The boxes are all checked, it says it's taking an hour or whatever to install from the backup, and nothing. Nothing in the restored files or any other folder they could exist in.

Apparently, you cannot use the apple genius bar for this type of thing. I was hoping to go there today but this isn't an issue they will assist with. They send you to articles, all of which I've read, and all of which tell you steps I have indeed taken. I did not have this problem with the laptop in April, which is making me even angrier. On top of losing over seven hundred bucks, I'll have to probably pay someone to help me be able to use this laptop, or maybe--I'm seriously considering this--send back the new one (with receipts this time so that means drive all the way to the nearest UPS store a half hour away and watch them while they scan it), then get a refund for it, and buy another one somewhere else. At this point I almost don't care about the programs and should just get an Mwhatever number they're on because getting a refurbished on is turning into such a nightmare. I keep thinking I might semi retire, but now I need money so I don't know. I just am not sure what to do.

Because on top of all this misery, my furnace was making dying noises and so I had to suddenly replace that. Furnaces are expensive, y'all. It was not a great time, but when they showed me the condition of the old furnace, I knew it had to go. It's beyond its lifespan, I knew that, but till now, it had been a pretty decent performer. The only good thing was that the new one has the same footprint as the old one, so they were able to put it right on top of the metal base, and use the existing pipe work for the gas and venting. It makes noises, but I was assured they were normal, though when it's blowing the air, it's quieter than the old one.

But of course, nothing ever goes right for me (seriously, this has been a longstanding joke with my friends, that I'm a walking Murphy's Law and whenever something can go wrong, it will, when it involves me), they charged me the full amount of over 8k on top of the 50 percent deposit I'd already given them, and when I called they were like "oh no! we'll refund it of course" but it's going to take 5-10 business days. I have to pay interest on that, since I put it on my credit card because I wanted to get the points, figuring I'd just move money over right away from my line of credit. It stings, since I will be paying for the roof for a while, and now this on top of everything...just so not what I needed. Financially, this has been a catastrophic year.

All my hopes of getting a new car (I love my Beetle, I do, but she's 20 years old now and there are parts of her that are literally falling apart and sometimes can't be replaced) have vanished now. I don't know what to do about the new laptop yet, I'm just sick and sad and hopeless. I'm taking a new drug because I guess my thyroid is hypo now?? which everyone is like, could just be normal happenstance, could be related to chemo, shrug, but I'm not super fond of some of the side effects. I'm supposed to talk with her about it at end of December after I've been on it for two months. But it sounds like one more drug I'll be on for life, however long that is.

I've been trying to not make this horrible list longer, but I may have to have a root canal, but won't be able to do it for quite a while despite tooth pain (still have to get to the dentist but ya know, funds) because one of the chemo drugs I get infusions of has a major side effect called necrosis of the jaw. Like. It's horrifying. If they do dental work that goes into your jaw bones, zometa can cause the jaw to become necrotic (dead) and your teeth come out, etc. See? Horrifying. Someone in my support group lost a huge section of his jaw and all his teeth to it, and had to have everything rebuilt. They say that they now know a lot more than they did years ago, so if you stop the infusions for 3 to 4 months or something, and don't have them for a month or so afterward, it should be okay. But I'm not sanguine about my chances.

Anyways. I'm sorry for so much doom and gloom. I did have a lovely birthday, so there was that! It was an exceptionally rare sunny day birthday--I can count on one hand the number of times it's been sunny on my birthday so it was extra nice because I treated myself to a mani-pedi and was afraid I'd be out walking in flip-flops in bare feet in pouring rain. (Tho as it was, I stepped off the curb and my foot was immediately covered by mushy leaves and cold water, so ha ha, it happened anyway.) Then my friend Keith and I went out to a pricey seafood place I really wish I went to more often (should fix that), here in West Seattle, and they do all this nice stuff for your birthday including giving you the really good tables with the spectacular views across Elliott Bay to downtown Seattle. Their special that night was lobster, and I am nuts for lobster, so perfect timing.

I think I might try to find somewhere in the budget (ha ha ha ha) to get a mani-pedi more often. One of my meds has ruined my hands and feet, my skin is like slick paper and the edges of the nails peel away all the time. Not necessarily for polish, but just to have someone help me maintain them, because it's hard on me at this point, especially my feet. We'll see, I guess.

Current Mood: depressed
Current Music: Heroes - Tove Lo

I made it! I don't know how I did considering the amazing disaster that my life has been this year (I keep tempting fate by thinking things can't get worse and then they do!), especially the past couple months. (Perfect example was yesterday, where I was sweating like a pig from putting up some decorations and wiped out from fatigue and also couldn't get my new replacement laptop to work and so I was sitting there sweating and crying from frustration. My life, man. Sweating and crying. What.)

Anyways, I finally finished the WIP I started five freaking years ago, posting as a WIP because in the past, that kept me on track and I was worried about finishing so I wouldn't let things slide. And then I did anyways! But it is now done, and just in time for my annual birthday fic posting. I don't imagine anyone reading this at this point, but in case one person does, well, here you go.

Reverie (58115 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 10/10
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Shuri
Characters: Steve Rogers, Shuri (Marvel), James "Bucky" Barnes, Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov, T'Challa (Marvel), Ramonda (Marvel), Ayo (Marvel), Nakia (Black Panther), Okoye (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Virtual Reality, Dreamscapes, Dreamsharing, of sorts if you squint hard, Wakandan Technology, Wakanda (Marvel), Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Black Panther (2018), Friendship, Family, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Protective Steve Rogers, Action/Adventure
Summary:

“Exitus!” Steve shouted, slamming his hand against the door where the mandala should have been, and suddenly he was on the chair in his room, gasping. In this world.

Steve lowered the glass to his lap and looked up at Shuri. His heart was beating way too hard and fast. “You were right,” he said, sitting up. “He’s glitching. I don’t know if I can get him out.”

Current Mood: exhausted

Frankenstein made me sick! Not because of the gore or anything, but for the first time in six years, I caught a freaking cold. I mean I knew it was a matter of time before I picked up covid or a cold or the flu if I was insisting on going to the movies, because I cannot go to a theatre and not eat popcorn. It's simply not possible. So I end up unmasked for most of the running time. But I had forgotten how terrible a cold can be, and it's lingering and lingering for me (yes, I've tested many times, and while I know that home tests show false negatives all the time, I'm pretty sure the tests are right and it's not covid). I'm so sick of the coughing and snot.

All that on top of surgery on my back for melanoma (a word I've dreaded my whole life, what is it with me and cancers starting with M?) in situ. Which isn't as bad as it could be, but is still fairly bad and scary, and the biopsy site on my forearm is "something we have to watch" and got infected, so that was fun. I have to go in to the dermatologist tomorrow before chemo because I have a "spitting suture" on the back. But otherwise, she said the surgery margins were good and they got all of it, so I just have to cross my fingers that the spot on my forearm doesn't get worse. Cancer just stalks me.

Anyway. I thought I'd try to do that alphabetical list of fics that's been going around as a distraction. I just picked things mostly at random, not for any real reason, I guess. (And following the rule that A and The don't count as first letters.) I have learned through this that I have an inordinate amount of stories starting with I and L and W. I should work on that.

A: And the Whirlwind (Logan, Laura)
B: Better Left Unsaid (Buffy, Spike/Buffy)
C: Cellies (MCU, Captain America, Thor, Bucky & Loki)
D: Dipping Toward the Light (Sunshine (2007), Mace/Robert Capa)
E: Every Picture Tells a Story (Captain America, Steve/Bucky)
F: Five Cakes Marcus Thought Were Bombs and One He Knew Was Fire (The Bear, Marcus)
G: The Gift of Forgetfulness (Pacific Rim, Herc Hansen/Stacker Pentecost)
H: Heliotrope (Buffy, Spike/Buffy)
I: I can't remember how this started (but I can tell you exactly how it ends) (Captain America, Steve/Bucky)
J: Just Passing Through (Schitt's Creek, Captain America, Bucky Barnes, David/Patrick)
K: Knight-Errant (The Expanse, Amos Burton/Chrisjen Avasarala)
L: lucida/ obscura (Captain America, Steve/Bucky)
M: The Moon Cannot Be Stolen (Life (tv series), Charlie Crews & Ted Earley)
N: Not My Cross to Bear (The X-Files, Skinner/Scully)
O: On Beds of Sorrow (The Fast & the Furious, Dom/Brian)
P: The Perfume of Kismet (Buffy, Spike/Buffy)
Q: nothing!
R: Reverie (Captain America, Black Panther, Steve/Bucky) OMG I'm almost finished finally
S: The Sun Was the First Star We Knew (Sunshine (2007), Mace/Robert Capa)
T: There Must Be a Joke In Here Somewhere (The Middleman, Captain America, Wendy Watson & Bucky Barnes)
U: Urban Legend (Captain America, Steve Rogers)
V: The Valorous Vampire (Buffy, Angel & Buffy & Spike)
W: Welcome to the Party, Pal (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Captain America, Steve Rogers & Jake Peralta)
X: x=y (The X-Files, Mulder/Scully)
Y: You Can Have the Town, Why Don't You Take It? (What's Your Number? Ally Darling/Colin Shea)
Z: nothing!

Current Mood: sore

A while ago,

minim_calibre asked me if I'd read any Kate Atkinson and I said I had, but it was very long ago--I read Behind the Scenes at the Museum and the first Jackson Brodie book after I fell in love with the Case Histories TV series with Jason Isaacs. She ended up buying me two books she'd read, Life After Life and A God in Ruins, and I finally had the chance to start on the first one, which is like four inches thick so felt pretty daunting. I'd been so busy with work (some truly awful, awful books [mygodihateYAsomuch] and one really good one that I wasn't sure I could do it, but I really wanted to keep my reading streak going. It's been so wonderful to reclaim the reading part of my life, I can't even tell you. It's also hugely inspirational to my own writing when I'm reading really good fiction--or heck even nonfiction.

If you've never read Life After Life, I can highly, highly recommend it. It'd be easy to say it's essentially a time loop story/multiple timeline tale, where little decisions or events have history-altering effects both personal and global, but that barely touches on the story. I just loved it and I'm looking forward to the related book about one of the characters, I hope it's as un-put-downable as Life After Life.

I discovered there was a BBC four-part limited series of it a couple years ago, on Prime in the US, and it was...okay. It should have been at least six episodes, though, because a book that sprawling requires a lot more time--there were significant cuts to the story that I think any fan of the book would be a bit twitchy about, and a major change to the ending. Still, a lot of good actors and it was nice to see some of the characters come to life.

It's just so nice to feel like I can read again after all these years. Like when I have my nose in a screen, it's because it's something that adds a little value in my life, rather than the horrible garbage of everyday life.

Yesterday, a friend and I went to a pumpkin patch and U-pick farm, because she's very into the gourds and cucurbits for art, and I wanted to have a nice outing. We lucked out and got the most spectacularly perfect, sunny day in the 70s, and I found a couple of beautiful pastel pumpkins (one kind of a mottled salmon and blue-green and the other a pale blue) as well as a starfish-shaped gourd to buy, even though I've never been into Halloween at all. I'm not sure if I'll put them out on the back porch or the front, the front's pretty crowded and small, but I think that's the "obvious" place for a Hallloweeny decoration. I also bought some apples from the farm's produce side, and the best sweet corn on the cob I have ever tasted in my life. It was so good we were texting each other about it. If I didn't live over an hour away, I would have driven right back there for more corn.

Everyone always says fall is their favorite season, but I think if you live somewhere where it is relatively dry in October, and the leaves change early, sure, it'd be fine, but in the PNW it's just suddenly cold, super wet, and miserably gray. The leaves are just soggy masses, so you don't get to wander outside in piles of dry leaves, wearing your woolen sweaters and scarves, feeling the sun on your face while you drink your punkin spice bullshit drinks. Nope, instead you have to wear your Gore-Tex jackets and waterproof shoes and hope your street won't flood when the heavy rains have nowhere to go because everything's clogged with slimy leaves. Bleh. Give me spring any day.

My numbers have been holding steady at a place where it looks like remission, though no one wants to say it is. I could have a bone marrow biopsy, and may still do that, to determine whether I really am there, but honestly, then I'm just going to be doing pretty much the same thing I'm doing now, because I'm essentially doing what Dr. Li does for maintenance on people who've gone through stem cell transplants or the new hotness, CAR-T cell therapy. I am sure there'll be some fiddling with drugs, but considering the nightmare of the insurance situations right now, I don't know what will happen.

I had a mammogram today and a DEXA scan (which just seems so nuts to me, as it's for osteoporosis and I feel like having bone marrow cancer means that osteoporosis is kind of a silly thing to worry about), and next week I go to the dermatologist, and hopefully I will get some of these things done before the nazi pricks can take everything away.

As always happens, at the mammogram, the technician, who was nice and did a pretty good job of not hurting me, mentioned knowing someone with multiple myeloma who's had it for 18 years now. I cannot tell you how often someone tells me about their family member/friend/co-worker who has it and who's lived with it for X years, and I just...I have to smile and say oh wow. I HATE IT.

It used to be a death sentence, but until just recently, there were new drugs being approved constantly so the survival rates and times have been increasing constantly, but it's by no means an easy survival for most, and there is no such thing as a "cure" where it disappears completely. It always comes back, and I've been confronted a lot lately with that because some people in our support group have died, both of whom had lived with it for a long time, going back into treatment each time it returned. It always does. Ugh, I wish people would shut the fuck up about it. I know they think they're being positive for me, but it's just not as simple as they think.

Otherwise, I just keep plugging along. Blues is definitely getting pretty frail and fragile, but his appetite is great, so I'm hoping he hangs on for a while longer. He has a concerning thing on his lower jaw that might be a cyst or might be cancer or anything in between, but it's in a tricky spot, so all we can do is watch it for now.

I know there are other things I wanted to talk about--including my rewatches of everything from the X-Files to the Good Place--but I'll save that for another post, this one's long and boring enough!

Current Mood: contemplative

WorldCon was fun! A lot of the things I was stressed about were things that turned out to be totally okay, and I think the con comm and the venue both did a great job of setting things up for people with disabilities, although I do want to send some feedback about a couple things if I can figure out where. I definitely overextended myself in terms of trying to make it to panels and events and meet up with friends, considering I'd limited my attendance to just Friday and Saturday. But I got to meet up with Caroline Stevermer and a very old friend of mine named Tim, as well as

mecurtin and

seekingferret and of course

wickedwords, and

mizmak ventured over the mountains to meet up with Caroline, which meant we also got to spend time with her (not at the con), so it was like having some of the Media Cannibals gang back together. And I ran into

kormantic while she was minding a table in the dealers' room.

Of course, there's never enough time to really spend with people at a convention, and WorldCon is ginormous so it seems even harder to get together with them (probably easier if you're staying in one of the hotels). I was intending to go to dinner with

mecurtin, but somehow, standing in line at the restaurant, this overwhelming fatigue came over me (more than my usual incredible fatigue) and I ended up having to bug out. (I'll spare you my Lyft nightmare story but suffice to say there was definitely some time there where I thought it's a really good thing I don't carry deadly weapons on me.) Fortunately, she was generous enough to come over to my part of town to have lunch with me Tuesday, which was awesome.

My biggest problem was that I was constantly overheating because of my chemo drugs, which make me insanely sensitive to heat, and so I was always ducking into the gender neutral restrooms to mop at all the sweat drenching me. What an unbelievable drag on your fun that is, to just have water dripping down you and being damp all the time (moist, the most hated word), it's just so fucking awful. I did find myself, in all the panels about writing and such, kind of thinking more about the final chapter of my Bucky and Steve in a virtual world WIP, and I think I'm at a point where I can really tackle it finally. (Of course, as I've said previously, every time I'm ready to try to write, I manifest work, and sure enough...I manifested a proofread that arrived today. Clearly I should not be allowed to possess this power, and I would love it if someone else would harness the power instead.)

The new Summit convention center building is light years better than the original convention center, which was built in the late '70s/early '80s. We haven't had any real rain for months here, so of course it rained hard on Friday, but at least most people weren't given only rain as their Seattle experience, since it cleared up by Friday night. I would have loved to attend the masquerade, as that's my favorite event, Friday night, but I watched it streaming and it's just...not the same, you know? It was fine, but it just doesn't compare to being able to really see the cosplayers on stage and get the full range of what they're doing. I've heard there's some whining about the Hugos, as usual, but I didn't watch that.

Highlights were definitely hearing

marthawells reading from Queen Demon and the (May 2026) new Murderbot Diaries book Platform Decay, as well as her Q&As, and a really cool panel on queer representation in SF that included Matt Baume, whose videos I watch a lot where he discusses the history of queer people in TV and movies. There was also a neat panel on dystopian fiction that looked at how in the global south, it's not future fiction, it's been part of their lives for a long time, which unfortunately I couldn't stay for the whole thing for because I was sweating so bad and the room was packed and just...ugh. But what I did hear was great.

I also literally ran into Martha Wells in the art show--I totally thought she'd be surrounded by a phalanx of security or something, so I was all awkward and stupid and just like completely blanked-out on what to say and I'm sure I came across as a total moron. But I knew going in I wouldn't be able to handle anything like a book signing line, so I never expected to be able to just say a quick hello. (I mean, yes, it's a con full of world-class nerds, but still. There's awkward and then there's awkward.) And I kept running across a couple of authors I sort of vaguely knew from my days of going to Norwescon more often, and it almost got to be funny, just kind of waving at each other but not really saying anything, over and over.

I only had a couple of interactions with people who were kind of crappy and a little ableist; and I even was able to make the trek to the Taco del Mar over at the old Convention Center, where I used to get lunch every week back when I worked down there. I miss that place so much and we don't have any of their shops near me anymore, so I revved myself up and hiked over there on Friday, and on Saturday went to Starbucks, because the in-building options weren't great for me. I wish I could have worked things so I had more time to have meals with folks and chat, but at least I know that next time, if I can go again, I have to allow for more time for everything. The art show was pretty cool and I found an artist I really want to buy something from.

All in all, my first WorldCon was a success, and I'm seriously thinking about trying to talk my BFF into going to next year's if I'm able and the cancer isn't too bad. I sincerely doubt after Anaheim, the con is coming back to the US for a good long while, not with so many people afraid to cross our borders.

Current Mood: hot
Current Music: chappel roan

I don't think I've mentioned before (well, because I never post, so how could I have) that I'm going to WorldCon this month, because it's in Seattle and I figure this is the only chance I'd ever have to do that. I don't have any particular interest in the Hugos or things like that, but I've been going to SF cons since attending my first Norwescon back in 1983, I think, although that definitely tapered off after I discovered what we used to define as "media fandom" back in the day. It was a way to separate SF cons, which were primarily literature based in the olden dayes, from the kind of fandom as we know it now, which encompasses a much wider array of stuff, especially TV/movies. I'm so old, I remember the sneering way the gatekeeper wannabes talked about people who were at cons for Star Wars and Trek or even Road Warrior or whatever. Kind of ridiculous, when you think about it.

ANYway, I'm actually pretty nervous about it. I'm only going on Friday and Saturday, and of course it looks like a lot of the panels I want to see are in the late afternoon/evening (especially

wickedwords ' fanfic panels). So that means I'll be basically without any place to rest or relax (I don't know, maybe they'll be better than Emerald City Comic Con, but there was literally no place to sit and rest if you were less than perfectly abled, or even sit and eat most of the time, and there will be a couple thousand more people at WorldCon than ECCC) except on a floor or what have you, and since I live here, I'm just going to take a lyft in or maybe the water taxi. And my fatigue has been through the roof lately; I've been trying a new drug and it's making things actually worse, plus this month is turning out to be just bananas crowded for me. I just need time to regroup but there isn't any.

I thought about getting a hotel nearby, but I'm not sure it'd be much better; when I hurt, I hurt. The room blocks are all sold out, too, so anything would be pretty pricey, plus I'd have to wait to check in, and then check out, when I'd be doing con stuff, so it seems fairly pointless.

I do wish I could go to some of the other days' events, since

marthawells is the GoH this year, but, well, cancer always has other ideas. WorldCon does seem kind of different in that they don't frontload all their best stuff on Fridays and Saturdays; it's a long con, and I would love to go to a couple other days, but that's not in the cards. I also wish so much I could go to nighttime events, especially because I love masquerade contests, but I know my limitations. I will have to look into whether having a day pass for Friday will allow me to see the streaming masquerade event...

I'm hoping to see

mecurtin, and I think a few other fellow fans here on DW are going, so if you might want to meet up at some point (I honestly don't know what to expect about going through reg on Friday, I had a horrendous experience with Sakura Con years ago, where I was trapped in line for six fucking hours and it left my body broken in a way I've never recovered from, but WorldCon does have an accessible line so fingers crossed), I would love to see people, just because I'm afraid of being lonesome--and also, being able to see people will help with the stamina part, I think. And of course, if you want someone to roam the dealer's room, I will definitely be looking to do that.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: welcome to the boomtown--david & david

Ugh, there's nothing like having to get a new roof on your house. Just the whole thing: the heinous cost, especially at a time when tariff bullshit/supply chain/tanking economy makes that 100 percent more devastating, the having to get multiple bids, then the having to tell people you went with someone else when they're awesome too...it's like something specially designed to make me miserable. I ended up getting bids from some great roofers, and it came down to two and it was so hard to make a decision, they were within a few hundred dollars of each other and they both had 4-star ratings everywhere and lots of good references. But I'm such a coward, the part where you have to tell the one company that you went with the other one is just excruciating omg.

Anyways, in about a month to six weeks, I'll be getting a new roof on the house. Poor Blues will be a wreck, but I don't know where I can really take him so he doesn't have to deal with the noise. I didn't have him when I did the kitchen remodel/addition, and Olive was the chillest cat you could ever have and she was fine with the construction (she literally slept through jackhammering my old concrete back stairs out), but my little sick, decrepit old man Blues will NOT do well in this situation. Home ownership sucks sometimes, so much.

I've been doing small things sporadically here and there--a tiny bit of writing, a bit of reading, lots of watching things. It doesn't feel like I ever accomplish much of anything; some days, the side effects are just awful enough that I don't really have the wherewithal to get much done. I'm trying to do accountability buddies with

belmanoir to force myself to walk at least a few days a week, but if I'm having a lot of side effects, even that can be hard to make myself to do.

I *have* been watching things on TV, though--I signed up for a couple months of Disney and Max so I could watch a couple shows there, even though I couldn't really afford it. But the most important one to me was Andor, and so I can't regret spending the money.

Andor season 2 was just...wow. Holy crap. SO FUCKING GOOD. I mean, I can always find things to quibble with or critique, but when something is that amazing, it's just easy to handwave the details. What an incredible series, what an incredible season, what an incredible showcase for good writing and real production values instead of plastic manufactured crap filmed in that giant egg thing they call the volume. The costumes, the sets, the acting, it's all astounding and adult in the best way. I want to talk more at length about it, but I'm still digesting it all, and I need to sit down and rewatch it again, really take it in now that I know where it's going.

While I had HBO Max (or just max or whatever the fuck it's called), I figured I'd try The Pitt, even though I swore off hospital/medical shows a long time ago (I think anyone who knows my history, especially with regards to my sister's death, knows why). But I couldn't escape it on tumblr, and so somehow ended up deciding to give it a whirl, and...well, it is definitely as good as most people say. I do hate the medical show thing where everything has to be ramped up to 11, like, regular medicine in an emergency setting isn't dramatic enough, no, we have to have a mass casualty event. Okay.

I liked most of the characters, and while I've never cared about Noah Wyle, I will say that as Dr. Robby, he was much more appealing to me: I simply can't resist the broken, damaged, compassionate, competent guy who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, fuck my life. And also, *of course* I fall for the piping hot mess of a dude that is Langdon--he has a total WWII Bucky thing going on with his looks (tell me he couldn't be Bucky's double in First Avenger), so it just figures. I *had* to go for the guy with Big Problems who's a little bit of an asshole underneath the really good doctor veneer. I absolutely loathe Santos, every minute with her was torture, and I couldn't stand Javadi, either, with her perpetually wide eyes and grimaced mouth. They are both awful. Lest this sound like I just hate women characters, everyone else I loved, especially Mohan and McKay and Collins and OMG Dana. I adore Dana, I am really hoping she's coming back. And Dr. Ellis, I think was her name? at the end there, please tell me she's going to be front and center next season. It's funny, too, that I despised Shawn Hatosy after Southland, like, he was just the *worst* character ever and so obnoxious that it seemed like it had to be because of the actor, so color me shocked that I kinda...love him? on this show as Abbot. Very weird.

After Andor, I went over to Netflix to find something mindless and soft to watch, and checked out Mike Shur's latest show with Ted Danson, A Man on the Inside. It was very cute, but I couldn't get over the fact that this retirement center, which was very much like my dad's luxurious retirement center (in that it had the same apartment-->assisted living/memory care-->nursing facility progression structure), had only 100 residents and all those incredible amenities. Like, there is just no way to run something that incredible (it made my dad's place look like a dump) with so few residents, especially in the middle of downtown San Francisco. It would cost like $10,000 a week. It's a charming show, but I just could not stop thinking about the financial structure the whole time I watched. But if you're looking for something soft and short, it's a good show, especially if you enjoyed The Good Place.

And as so many people are, I'm enjoying the hell out of Murderbot. I really side-eyed the casting of ASkars as SecUnit, but I have to say, his inherent weirdness and goofiness is really turning out to be an asset. Some of the changes to the stories threw me a bit, but when I went back and rewatched the eps knowing what the changes were, it felt a little less jarring, and now the show really feels like it's hitting its stride. I am excited about Friday nights! I love the casting for Dr. Mensah and of course, the glimpses of Sanctuary Moon are just the fucking best. And anytime John Cho is on my TV is a good time.

Current Mood: crappy

Hey, if you are going to theatres to see movies these days, I can highly recommend Sinners, with Michael B. Jordan, Wunmi Mosaku, and Hailee Steinfeld. It's about twin brothers (played by Jordan) who return to their town in Mississippi in 1932 to open a juke joint, and run up against vampires. I'm not much of a vampire person at all, but I think this would probably satisfy both the vampire loving crowd as well as the crowd like me, because the whole first hour is mostly a slow build of who the twins are and who the people in their lives are, and what's happened to them to make them what they are (not the least of which is of course generational trauma from racism), and also background for the character who becomes central to both their story and to the vampires' story.

The music is fucking off the charts amazing (Ludwig Göransson does the soundtrack and a lot of the music stuff) and worth it alone. There are two music sequences that left me kind of gobsmacked. I've never seen anything like it.

There's definitely gore and jump scares, but overall I didn't find it too horror-y, more like a modern monster movie in terms of the violence and such. It was definitely R-rated, with some very sexual scenes. Anyways, if you were considering it, I loved it. (It was directed by Ryan Coogler of Black Panther fame.)

Somehow, every time I make space to finish my WIP or read a new book (eeee, I am finally reading things I got years ago and have never been able to tackle and I am excited!), I manage to manifest new work. Every single time. And of course, I cannot use this manifesting power for anything like money, which I am in desperate need of because I fucked up my taxes big time this year and things are gonna be pretty dire, plus my IRA and such are in the toilet because of the fuckwads in power. So I do need the work (I actually had to say no to a book because of another project, but I was glad to be able to because it sounded like extremely hard work since all the YA fantasy I get from them is utter garbage and I haaaate working on YA), but I would also like a little time to do fun things, and the deadlines I usually have are ridiculous.

I feel like I am kinda semi-retired; I don't want to take on as much work as I used to and that's fine for me. But now...with the disasters in the thing that sadly rules our lives, the stock market, and the threats to Medicare and Social Security, as well as the cancer treatment, I constantly doubt myself and take work on I shouldn't necessarily. Plus I have to get a new roof. So that's (ha) literally hanging over my head. I suppose I will just keep shoving on.

Speaking of work, I had a fun thing happen a couple months ago. I never go to LinkedIn, I don't care about it at all, but I had read of a setting change that I did not like, so I went in one night to reset things, and it seemed to be perfect timing because there was a direct message from someone sent a few hours before I logged in. I don't get notifications so I would never have seen it otherwise. She was a reader of the magazine I used to work for till they ditched me in '23, and had been a copyeditor for years in different publications, and so she started by complimenting me on my work for them for all that time (like, it wasn't insincere at all, she really did pay attention to how well edited it was and I loved that because I too pay attention to mastheads and stuff) and asking if she might be able to find out a little bit about the job listing for an editor to work on the magazine.

I'd known that the publisher, J, had lost his editor (he'd asked me a few times to be more of a managing editor type, but I never wanted to) to a full time job, and I was stepping in that month to help him get the next issue out, but I hadn't realized he'd posted the job on LinkedIn--apparently you can list a job for free for three days, and he was deluged with applications even though it's just a part time freelancer type gig, you're not really employed by them per se. Anyway, I wrote her back and said I'd be happy to to tell her anything, and the more we talked, the more I realized she would be absolutely perfect for the role, that she couldn't be more like me in the way she approached copyediting and proofreading, and she personally was a musician as well and it's a music magazine, so she's a subject matter expert.

I didn't know if my making a rec for her would help, but J seemed interested and happy to have something like that, and out of the four or so candidates he'd talked to with the best credentials, the personal rec from me helped seal the deal and I think he knew that yeah, she couldn't have been more perfect. So she got the job, and sent me a sweet gift after even though I told her she shouldn't. I miss the magazine, but I guess I don't miss the flakiness of J and the designer, both men (insert eye roll here) who I had to treat like I was herding cats sometimes, but you know, editing stuff about the history of sunburst Fenders or the history of Prince's fave guitar were kind of awesome. I do miss that. But I told her if she ever needed any backup, I'm always around and happy to help and since I sort of created some of the style guide, it's not like I don't know the ins and outs. I guess as long as I'm healthy anyway.

The guy who leads our multiple myeloma support group had some bad health stuff recently, and was going through a pretty grueling treatment to try to get him back to remission. But he told us today that he is in hospice right now, and so things are ending for him in his efforts against it. Every time we get an announcement that someone from the group, past or present, has died, it's like a short sharp shock that this thing is just...really fucking awful. There is no "cure" per se, just remissions, and it always comes back, and some people go through multiple treatments and get into remissions. Every time I've told someone I have this, they go "I know so and so has it and they've had it for 11 years and they're fine" and I'm like, you don't know what getting to fine is really like. But people are so casual about it, because most of us in treatment or remission look fairly normal. Not like movie cliche patients.

Anyways, that's made me ridiculously sad. I have treatment this week and I'll find out what my oncologist thinks about where we are. My fatigue has been through the roof, I'm wiped out all the time. I know that's partly why I'm on the fence about Worldcon, just because...what am I going to be like in August? I never know, this whole two years has been such a fucking weirdass roller coaster. Ugh, sorry to be maudlin. I do get this way sometimes.

Current Mood: drained
Current Music: monsters and angels - voice of the beehive

The past month has been kind of nutty, both medical wise and work wise and even fandom wise. Too much activity, I am always fatigued and I cannot handle everything happening so much. And some of my dear friends are really, really going through it in their lives, and I have so little help to offer.

This time of year is always tough on me anyway. Wednesday marked the 20th anniversary of my twin sister's death, to the exact day even (she died on a Wednesday night, I'd been in her hospice room just talking with her, holding her hand, telling her what was happening on the TV because it was Alias night and she couldn't see well, so I was describing stuff for her, and then before it ended, she was gone, because she wanted to do something she wasn't physically capable of doing and it took the last life out of her). It's left me feeling very shaky. By Saturday of that week, we'd had a get-together at her house, which was way too many people, but friends of hers who'd moved away flew out just for that "service," a couple even coming from the East Coast on 24 hours notice.

So I always feel very bad as it is-- and it doesn't really end until after April, because Dad and I had to keep going down to San Diego to deal with the estate, get the house cleared out for sale, etc. I think the estate sale/garage sales we had were the worst, but there was a special hell afterwards where I had to clear out her office, which had at least a hundred photo albums full of people I didn't know, and I had to throw them in the trash. It was beyond awful, and Dad wasn't much help because of his physical limitations. Anyways, I wrote about all that back when it happened (on LJ, but the posts have been imported here), so I won't repeat everything, just that...20 years feels like nothing. Like I can see all the things clear as day and they still hurt just as much. There's a void in my soul I can't ever fill or see around.

I've had people tell me I just don't want to get over it. I don't know how to explain what being a twin, and losing one, is like to people who are single-birth folks; I don't understand what it's like to not be born with someone else, so I'm clueless about how to respond to those comments. They're just incredibly cruel.

When I had to go on Medicare, I lost my therapist, so it's been months since I've been able to talk to someone. I won't say he was the best therapist, but I still literally don't know what you're supposed to get out of it anyway, beyond having someone you can just complain to for an hour. But he left the group he was practicing with since they got bought out by the evil Optum (subsidiary of United Healthcare, whose CEO got shot in the street), and called me recently to tell me that the new group does take Medicare and he is now certified for that. I have no idea what Medicare will pay for, it's super confusing about mental health, or the supplement I have. But I have an appointment with him next week, so I'll see how it goes.

I thought I might have to have hand surgery because of arthritis in my thumb/base of my thumb, but for once the doctor (who I'd seen way back at the beginning of the pandemic for my left hand extreme arthritis pain, though he's now at a hospital instead of my old clinic: I guess the entire orthopedics department just up and moved over the Swedish hospital orthopedics when Optum came in, bless them) said "I have good news!" It turned out to be tendonitis--there's definitely arthritis in the joints, but in this case it was the tendons and sheaths being inflamed in a big way. He gave me a (very painful) shot in the joint at the base, and within a few days I was starting to be able to hold on to things again and actually turn the car key in the ignition. Yay! I had really been braced for the worst because that's almost always what happens.

Treatment continues apace. I've been down on the major number they look for, so it's possible I could get to that mythical remission stage, but who knows. To be honest, with the state of the world, I kind of wish the cancer wouldn't be so painful to just let me go off into that good night. The world's a shitshow. They're going after everything that will literally keep me alive. But I've never seen anyone I loved die without immense, horrific suffering, especially my sister. She suffered so horribly, as did Sandy, and I just don't know how or why those people who are said to "die peacefully surrounded by family and friends" get there, because it'll be painful for me, I think.

Every time I have plans to sit down and finish my Steve and Bucky in Wakanda WIP, I get an editing job with a terrible deadline. It's like some kind of summoning spell. I carve out time, the publisher writes me about a job, I need money, so...there it goes. I am fucking determined to finish this soon.

Current Mood: sad
Current Music: how deep is your love-calvin harris

I guess I neglected to tell a lot of people I was going to Escapade this year, because quite a few people seemed very surprised to see me. Oops. It was kind of a last-minute decision; I'd been waffling about it because I haven't traveled in five years and of course the cancer, but I really wanted to see people, only a lot of folks wouldn't be able to go due to the really early date they'd set (just...January 31, not a great time). But when they mentioned they were having trouble meeting the financial obligations such as room blocks, I decided just before Christmas I'd go. At least I would see my darling

killabeez, which is enough reason! And

kerithwyn and

hafital were there, and from my Seattle crowd,

wickedwords, so I was really happy to just lounge around and yak. Seeing people's actual faces in person is just...there's nothing like it, especially when it's folks like

cesperanza and

cathexys, who I haven't seen in yonks.

It was...very hard to get in the travel groove again. I've never traveled with a cane, of course, and that took some getting used to, but only a few people were dickish to me for being slow, and a lot of people were helpful. I went down on Friday so I missed a hefty portion of the con, and left on Sunday afternoon, so if I go again I think I will definitely not do that. It's just so...expensive. Everything is so much more expensive for less return now, hotel rooms being the best example of that. But I did get to see a lot of people I like and this year some extra special guests came, and that was wonderful spending time with folks I haven't seen in absolute ages, and hanging out in people's rooms or going to Starbucks or whatever. And of course, talking about fic and vids, or fandoms (I only went to a couple fandom panels, since I arrived too late for Star Trek, but it was fun to listen to people talk about Deadpool and Wolverine).

I got weirdly busy with work right beforehand, too, which maybe was good in the sense that it kept my mind on something else besides traveling and also the state of the world. I have been so anxious since the election that my oncologist is concerned, because my blood pressure is sky high when I go in and that's not a good thing with the main drug that's keeping my cancer at bay. While it was nice to have something else to keep my focus on at the con, as well, it was hard to avoid, especially when everywhere you go someplace has multiple TVs blaring news and you cannot escape it. I tried to avoid political conversations, but inevitably when you're in a population that is so hugely affected by hate, it takes over the spaces.

Something fannish that was fun was that I got a related work notification while I was in LA--someone had done a podfic of one of my Sunshine stories. I don't have a lot of podfics so it's always such a thrill when someone does that, especially because I love the way fans continue each other's fannish creations and make new things. And it's a lovely podfic too, I love the reader's accent and the way she handled so many things in it. If you enjoyed the movie Sunshine (where science ice prince Cillian Murphy and military hothead Chris Evans [to steal from

bond_girl] play enemies to friends to lovers across the stars--okay, WE think they do, they think they just hate each other) and you like podfics, it's really good. Dipping Toward the Light [podfic] is here.

And last but not least, I read another book! I know, I know, it's ridiculous, but it's just been so long since I've been able to read! This time it was a graphic novel and it was really fascinating. It's about an AU version of our world, where wishes are a thing that can be mined and bought and sold, and they don't always have the obvious effects the person making the wish expects, especially if they buy third-tier wishes. It takes place in Cairo, and there's a glimpse into a world that most of us don't know much about, and it's insanely creative. The writer did so much research and created such a dense, layered world, it's kind of astonishing. It's called Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohammed and the title basically means "your wish is my command."

Current Mood: indescribable

Hey, would any of you know why a bunch of my Dreamwidth icons suddenly won't load? I noticed it a few days ago when replying to someone's post, and the icon I chose just had a question mark in the middle and didn't seem to show up, even after I hit post. It's happening consistently with certain icons, and when I went in to look at my list of icons, a bunch just don't show up or they have the question mark. There's nothing different about them, I have a paid account and am under the icon limit, but they just abruptly don't work.

When I first went freelance, I did all the sosh meeds you're supposed to do to make sure your business is out there where people can find you. Of course that included twitter, but I always hated it and only kept it so that I could read a few people's pages, especially after they started making it hard to read without an account or being logged in. When that fucking slime mold took over, I wanted to delete my account, but they made it impossible for me, and for months I've been trying to get into it so I could remove it. I finally got in and deactivated it, and did set up a bluesky account, although I'll probably only use that as much as I used the bird site. I just don't love having this tiny character limit, and it's such a noisy interface compared to the aspects of tumblr that I like. The less said about FB, the better.

But anyway, if you want to connect there, I am under my wallet name, and since someone beat me to my preferred handle, it's not as simple, but it's my first name + the first three letters of my last name + B. (I used the B--or b, since everything's lowercase I guess?--because when my sister and I were born, we were going to be adopted, so for about five days, our birth certificates were just Baby A [her] and Baby B [me]. I still have these, and there was a period where I couldn't find my named birth certificate, but I had to replace my license and boy howdy, did no one like the fact that it just said Baby B. That was an ordeal, let me tell you, even with my social security card and everything else.) I'm definitely wary about that space, and I'm only following a few people so far since I don't know who all is over there. But if you are and want to connect, I'm there!

Current Mood: sick

Ricardo Tubbs says my subject line to Sonny Crockett in a Miami Vice episode, and my friend and I have been saying it to each other for what, like, 40 years now? It's the perfect retort for when someone is shocked that you know some weird fact.

Anyway, I read a book! You guys are probably thinking so what, big deal, especially those of you who post every Wednesday what books you've read that week. But ever since I went freelance full time, and especially so since my freelance work became 95 percent fiction editing, I have not been able to read for pleasure. It's worse than a busman's holiday, it's just been a mostly joyless experience when I tried to read any books, even nonfiction, just because I cannot turn off the copyeditor and worse, I can't focus on something that isn't work. So much of what I read for work, too, is really terrible garbage writing, which has sapped the pleasure out of the whole experience.

To be honest, I think it first started when my sister died--I found myself really struggling to do anything that required concentration for longer than, say, the course of a magazine article. For a few years, I couldn't write, either, and mostly seemed able to only vid or do something short for Yuletide. My focus was shot. Then the freelance meant my focus was like a laser beam on my projects, which often came in at the same time and I'd find myself editing a bunch of magazine articles or proofing a 128-page issue, editing a huge travel guidebook, and editing a romance book, and I'd be sick with overwork and my hair would be falling out from stress. Freelance is like that, it's the feast or famine thing.

Anyway, a few years ago, I was taking a bit of a break and I read Song of Achilles and The Martian over the course of a couple months, but that was it. I never got back in the habit of being able to switch off work and read again, no matter how many books I bought through my Nook app or at Powell's or whatever. I kept thinking I would buy them, and that would make me feel like I had to read them, but it didn't work.

You just get so tired of fiction when you literally read it for a job. Especially because the really good authors are far and few between, and I'd find myself having the will to live sapped out of me by some of the unadulterated, pure shit I was seeing daily. I don't understand how some of these writers get contracts. It was especially noxious that it spilled over to nonfiction for me, because that was always a refuge when I would get tired of fiction in the past.

A lot of my clients have either stopped publishing, or found someone (usually cheaper) else, or just plain disappeared, and I haven't been in the mood since my diagnosis to chase after new work. I should, don't get me wrong, but I just don't care much these days. So I started thinking to myself, maybe I should give myself a nonfiction book to read, just as a treat. I'd watched John Oliver's episode of Hot Ones and he had so wildly, enthusiastically recced a book called Say Nothing, about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, that I went looking for it at the library, because I love him and I figured it'd be a safe bet to be good. I was like one thousandth in line but it eventually came up, right in time for the Hulu limited series of the story to show up.

And you guys, I finished it! I read a whole huge thousand-page book! (In my reading settings, anyway.) Well, about 350 of those pages were end notes, but still! I did it! And I'm now reading a fiction book I bought ages ago, The Golem and the Jinni, although that's definitely slower going and since I don't have a timeline, I'm reading less speedily. (That's my other issue--due to the nature of my work, I'm the slowest reader in the world. It's very hard to turn the dial up and remind myself I don't have to spot every punctuation detail.) Plus I still want to get back to the physical book I took to the Silent Book Group meeting, especially if I go to the meeting next month.

I know it probably seems silly to people who read all the time. I used to--my ex even commented on that, saying "you used to be a voracious reader" and it's true, especially when I was bus commuting to downtown Seattle, when I would read a book or two a week. But when I returned the ebook of Say Nothing, I felt so accomplished! Ridiculous too, but hey.

Current Mood: accomplished

Today is steroids day, which means I won't be sleeping till at least 5 a.m. if I'm very lucky. Even doubling up on my lorazepam won't help, so since I have been bad about updating, it seems a good time to do it.

It still feels so weird to not be doing Yuletide this year! I'm on the pinch hit list so I see them fly by and every once in a while I think "yeah, i could maybe do that" but then when I see details, I realize that I'm all Principal Skinner and like "no, it's they who are wrong and I was correct not to sign up." I just wouldn't have been able to do the characters they wanted, because most of them have been focused on characters I wouldn't have offered. Tragedy!

I'm also getting used to my new chemo schedule--the only once a month thing feels so weird after a year and a half of weekly visits. I won't bore people with the details of trying to get financial assistance for chemo, but the switch to Medicare was such a clusterfuck last month and now with the dread of the incoming "administration" I'm pretty scared for my future on it, but eventually I was able to get my drugs all worked out, and now I'm just waiting to see if any of my treatment from the 5th, or my upcoming treatment, will be denied or approved.

Unfortunately, I think all that time trying to solve the issues may have contributed to my number markers going back up--I was plateaued at 0.2 on the magic number for months, and then I got some movement, and Dr Li started me on a new drug to see if we could shake it down to remission and I was pleased that before I even started it, I'd had movement down to 0.1. But my blood work on the 5th showed I was back up to 0.2. Bleh.

For some time, I have known I needed a new car; I love the Beetle but she is nearly 20 years old, and for a few years the passenger door had stopped responding to the electronic key opener, and then last year, the damn driver door stopped. So when I get in I have to lock/unlock manually, and if I have a passenger, I have to reach over and open the door. It's super inconvenient for things like groceries, and would have been intolerable if I was still fostering doggos.

I finally decided to take it in to my mechanic when one of the signal lights went out, and at first, I thought it would go okay, but I took it in Tuesday and it's still there. Apparently, they had to get the driver door part again because they were sent the wrong one, and that was after it took them most of the day to diagnose just where the failure was (it was apparently fine in terms of the signal going through but the latch portion was eroded and failing, so the signal wouldn't do anything). Then it turned out that there's a part of the latch apparatus that simply isn't made anymore.

There were never a lot of Beetles on the road anyway; it was never VW's biggest seller, which is why they keep cancelling them and stop making them. So there aren't any around of this little part, and VW doesn't offer them to shops, so...the guy spent like the whole day trying to find it at places that part cars out, and had no luck. The owner is going to try to make it himself this weekend, I guess. I...am not feeling hopeful.

The shop is small, and I had to park on the street when I brought it in, and when they move cars around in the bays and the little lot, they park on a busy street. Which is fine, but...this time not so much. I guess someone hit a bunch of cars, including mine, and tore off my drivers side mirror. I love the Beetle's mirrors because they have defrosters and shit on them, plus they're that kind that fold back. I wish someone had folded mine back.

Their insurance will take care of it, and they've already ordered a replacement, but it will drop my trade-in value to have had a major feature replaced, which bums me the fuck out since it's not a high sale or trade-in value in the first place. You'd think the fact that Beetles are kind of rare now would help the value, but I guess not. The mirrors aren't painted, so they will have to paint it after Christmas. I was trying to be philosophical, and I could hear the almost fear in his voice when he called me on Friday about all of this, but I seriously almost cried.

The only funny part was that I asked him "I know this is a really weird thing to ask--" and he was like "no, no, whatever I can do, please let me know" and I said "but I have this Jack in the Box antenna ball on my antenna, could you take it off and put it in, like, the cup holder or something? Even if it's behind the locked gate over the weekend, I just feel like someone would steal it and they're not being sold anymore, so you have to pay bucks for them on eBay and it's always been my--" and then I burst out soblaughing when I said it was my good luck charm. (I had actually had to replace my old ratty Jack ball earlier this year, which is when I learned how hard they are to replace. Antenna balls aren't a big thing anymore because most newer cars don't use antennas that stick up like that.)

I know I haven't been in any kind of emotional state for sadness since the election, but this whole thing has left me unbelievably down. Being without a car sucks in a city where you can't easily get places on public transport--my ex offered to loan me their Subaru, which they loan to their neighbors all the time so he's eager for me to take it, but I feel weird about it. He took me to the store far away Friday, but of course I forgot something crucial, and I just hate Instacart because they always fuck up my order, although the guy who did it Thursday was pretty good.

Anyways, if my car survives, it'll cost me a fortune and then I have to figure out how I can afford a newer car and pray that this tariffs shit takes a different turn. My head hurts just thinking about it all. Plus it's a new year soon, with all the insurance deductibles!

Christmas is soon and I will probably just be here on my own, hopefully finding some things to read in Yuletide. Blues seems to alternate between peppy and troublesome and listless and pained, and I do often wonder if we're getting to the end stages, but he is hanging on, so I will get him some special treats or cook something that he loves to beg for. I hope if you celebrate, you have a lovely day, and since Hanukkah starts on the 25th, if that's your holiday, I wish you love and light.

Current Mood: depressed
Current Music: Christmas Wrapping -- the Waitresses

I kind of can't believe I made it--it's been so hard to write and yet I managed to eke out a chapter for my WIP of going on four years now, Reverie. SO EMBARRASSING. But I didn't want to miss my annual birthday fic tradition.

Reverie (52148 words) by gwyneth rhys
Chapters: 9/10
Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Shuri
Characters: Steve Rogers, Shuri (Marvel), James "Bucky" Barnes, Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov, T'Challa (Marvel), Ramonda (Marvel), Ayo (Marvel), Nakia (Black Panther), Okoye (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Virtual Reality, Dreamscapes, Dreamsharing, of sorts if you squint hard, Wakandan Technology, Wakanda (Marvel), Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Black Panther (2018), Friendship, Family, Bucky Barnes Recovering
Summary:

“Exitus!” Steve shouted, slamming his hand against the door where the mandala should have been, and suddenly he was on the chair in his room, gasping. In this world.

Current Mood: accomplished

I would really like to send holiday cards this year, I think it might help a little with this depression. If I've sent something to you before, I probably have your address, but if you want to receive a card, I'm screening comments and I would be delighted to send you one. I still have some leftover cards from last year, but I hope I won't send repeats, though that's a possibility! Some of them are definitely Christmas themed, but if you would like to make sure to get a more generic one, please do let me know.

Current Mood: exhausted

It's been so long again! I swear I am going to do my Bear season 3 and Grand Unified Theory of Season 3s soon! Really, I will! Today is not that day, though.

It feels so weird to not be doing Yuletide this year. I literally don't understand what to do with myself, because this time of year is always spent with 1) birthday fic panic and 2) Yuletide panic. But this year, I was up against the dreaded "there is nothing I want/can write that anyone else wants/offers" and I'd either end up not being able to get matched (this has happened to me before) or having to find something popular that I could match on and being stuck.

Also, last year was one of those rare years where I got my dream assignment (I've had those a few times and it's so fucking great), and it was also kind of my dream assignment because I'd wanted to write it for a looong time and one of my dearest friends requested it, so I knew all of her happy places and it just worked out so perfectly... Those have been my fave Yuletide fics, I look back on them so fondly because I not only got to write someone else's dream, but my own came true as well. And those years, so so rare, where you not only get to write your dream but someone else writes you your "someday, my prince will come" true love fic?? Hard to top.

So in a way, that kind of helped me make the decision to skip this year, but it just feels so wrong after so many years! I have to see if I can find some way, somehow, to actually write a birthday fic. My b-day is on Thanksgiving this year, and it's a milestone one, so I was feeling...incredibly weepy about it. I used to love Thanksgiving, not because of the meaning of the day (with its baked-in colonialist racism) but just because of the food and I always loved it when sis_r and I had our birthday on it, because it was like best food AND birthday cake. I'm ashamed to say I got super weepy about being alone this year, knowing I'd be sick because I have chemo the day before, in front of my ex, and he texted me a few hours later and said "It's official and there's no arguing, you're coming over for thanksgiving." His wife is an amazing cook, they live a few blocks away, so...it's something. I won't be lonesome all day, at least. It's not the same without my sister, of course, but what is.

I am starting a new drug regimen today (copyeditor life complaint: WHY can no one get this right? It's regimen, not regime (system of government) or regiment (military unit); this drives me nuts), some of which is forced by my insurance, grrr, but I've been plateaued on my most important number marker for whether I can achieve a remission for over seven months, and my oncologist told me about stuff we could do. I chose this new drug (it's also a thalidomide analog, but I guess a kind of next gen one that is supposed to knock residual myeloma cells out) first, and said if that doesn't work, we could escalate to the next treatment, which is less ideal, and so on. I'm a little scared, I took my first pill today and it has some more intense possible side effects than Revlimid, but I'm keeping my Apple watch on in case I like, keel over or something.

They won't accept the most-used drug for multiple myeloma first-line treatment, Velcade, which I've had injected into my tum-tum fat weekly for over a year and a half, so now I guess I will only be going once a month to the clinic, which is odd. I mean, it's okay, in that I'm so tired and have been waffling about stopping treatment because of being le tired, but at the same time, I finally finally had movement on my number and it was so close to the magic zero for remission standard, and now I don't know what will happen.

Plus it took forever because at first insurance denied coverage of the thalidomide-based pill, and so I haven't been taking the other most important drug for these few weeks, which means I don't know what will happen now to my M-spike number. Arg! I hates it so much, precious. I had been hoping to talk with my doc about getting rid of dexamethasone, but it's a requirement for insurance coverage of this new drug.

And it might all be moot anyways! I have to go on Medicare Nov. 1, and I'm in limbo till I get my Part D and Part G information. That has added a lot to my stress, since I had a deadline of October 31 to get this new medication, and it costs 18k a bottle for a three-week supply. America! There's a new Medicare law that starts in 2025 that will help me with this (well unless Assface wins the election), but for November and December, I'm not certain how I will be able to pay for it, because most of the financial aid has been given out in January and February. That's a future me problem though.

I've been so lonesome and bored that I decided to try out this thing I'd read about, where people go to cafes and bars and read books for an hour--it's basically a reading club, but you can read whatever you want. This one is an offshoot of a larger group called Silent Book Club. I went to a coffeehouse near me and it was super crowded, so I ended up in a corner by myself and didn't have anyone near to talk to, so half the fun of it was mitigated, plus I felt weird and awkward as hell. But it was nice to get out of the house, and OMG, get back to reading for leisure instead of work. I haven't read a book of my own choosing for years and years, since I started copyediting fiction basically. It's such a busman's holiday, but I'm getting less and less work these days so I really wanted an impetus to get back to reading for pleasure. I recommend it, if you're looking for something to prod you to get out.

Funnily enough though, one of the major clients who ditched me last year has suddenly come back in need of my services. Right when I had a book proofread that's due on Monday. Ha ha ha.

I have been rewatching so many older shows. So many of them, I'm like, man, I almost wish I hadn't revisited this. But I'm in S2 of Fringe and that's definitely not the case with this one--the ep Jacksonville, which I watched last night, is still my fave and even though I felt the show really fell down by S3, especially when they seemed to change the focus from Olivia to Peter (and also kept killing off characters I adored), it's still so good and I wish so much there'd been more support for it. Also wish they could have kept filming in NYC because it all felt so different when they moved to Vancouver. Excited to be coming up on White Tulip!

Dropped my ballot in the drop box (we're all mail-in in Washington) the other day, on my way to see Venom: The Last Dance. Happy about the voting, but wow, the movie was...not so good. I'm glad for the people who love the Venom movies, but they have just not done it for me at all. I was happy to see Mrs. Chen again, though.

Current Mood: drained

Ugh, god, I was so looking forward to sitting down and sorting out my thoughts on The Bear, especially season 3, and writing out my (as

minim_calibre called it) Grand Unified Theory of Season Threes, and then this weird technology hell vortex swept me up and spit me out somewhere I had no access to the interwebs.

I got fiber optic a number of years ago when it first became available--I hopped on it immediately, like the sales people came to call and I was just like "yes, now, set an appointment immediately" and they were baffled and didn't know what to do without spieling their spiel. Century Link put in this giant hole in the side of my house, where the cables ran through into this big, heavy black box, which I never really knew what it was. I just thought it was the box that gave me internet. The first weekend, because I'd moved the black box slightly to clean up the mess the hole in my wall left, I lost internet because it turned out they used this janky, old-style system of like...speaker wire, if you know what that used to be: little copper lines all twisted together, covered by plastic, and then you twisted the uncovered copper end around a screw that carried the signal from your amp or whatever, or you poked the copper ends into a hole and locked the speaker line in.

The black box had about eight of these janky little teeny tiny microscopic speaker wire-type lines, and a bunch of them came loose that first weekend, so I had to have a repair guy come out and fix it. That should have been my first clue, I guess, that it was unreliable and chintzy, but all these years, I just was super careful never to touch that black box unless I had to, and it's such a short cable coming into the house anyway that it was easy not to move it, because I almost really couldn't.

But a little over a week ago, the box started beeping at me every 13 minutes, and I kept pressing this button and it would stop, but resume at the 24 hour point. So I decided to look at the box and despite how heavy it is and the super short cable, I could see that it was saying my battery was dying, but there was no way for me to change it. Unforch, by examining it, I pulled--you guessed it--the stupid janky wires loose and I could not for love or money put them back in. So I was only able to use my phone for cell data, because everything else in my house, including my iPad, is WiFi only. I asked minim if her spouse, who is an A/V god and has helped me before in weird situations, knew of any tricks, and they ended up coming down that night after dinner, and he brought his nifty incredibly tiny tools and this magical lighted magnifying visor, and put the wires back in, and I had interwebs again! They are honestly just the best. ♥

I also found out that heavy black box is actually a battery backup itself--and there's no way a regular person can change out the battery, which is basically like a car battery. He also told me that CLink stopped using it as the conduit for the fiber cable, because their household didn't have that when their fiber line was installed, even though he'd done all this prep for it.

But lo, the next day, the hellscape universe I live in decided that the line was going to stop working altogether. So CenturyLink, because they suck, told me, after over an hour waiting for customer service, that they would have a tech out in 9 days. I was supposed to just survive without internet for 9 days. The thing is, it used to be a luxury, but it's no longer something you can call a luxury, especially when you are self-employed and have no one to rely on for IT help. It's basically your life blood. Someone told me about hotspots, but I didn't totally understand it, so I set about trying to understand the concept and how to use my cell phone as a personal hotspot (the library checks them out, yay! but the Hold list to check them out is over 1,200 long, boo!).

And I could have happily gone to the library or Starbucks for a lot of things (I didn't have any new fanfic on my iPad! All my books had somehow been subsumed back into the cloud instead of downloaded! Tumblr on mobile sucks because it's a resource hog and I don't have xkit or adblockers on it!), and because I have been lazy as hell, I still had DirectTV satellite so I could at least watch some TV since streaming was out. Except...my iPad sucks for typing on and even if I use a bluetooth keyboard, it lags and is just generally awful, and of course, the night min and her hubs came down, my laptop had died.

Or at least, it was trapped in an install loop, which had happened to me once when I first bought it and it put High Sierra on and apparently there was some kind of problem for a lot of people where it would just try to install over and over again, but never get there, and you couldn't do anything to stop it. For some reason, even though I'd only set it to install a couple of minor, minor updates, it decided to reinstall High Sierra and was stuck there. So I couldn't take my laptop anywhere to get WiFi and do some basic stuff, including some unusual work stuff. I wasn't sure how well my desktop computer would do with a personal hotspot phone, but I was going to try when...it magically started working.

All of a sudden, the WiFi was working (just after the little IT-business guys I use when things go haywire came and took my laptop away). Like, I just didn't understand--all the lights were still lighting on the black box, etc. I was like, okay, well, I will wait to cancel my appointment until the day before, and just be good with that, but then as soon as I got my laptop back (all nicely updated on the OS as far as it would go for that much older model I have), and settled in to finish the streaming movie I'd had interrupted and scroll through tumblr, it went out again. The modem was lit up with all the right lights, everything seemed like it should work, but it wouldn't. So back to personal hotspotting, but at least now I could go to the library or Starbucks and use theirs, if my gastrointestinal issues would allow me out of the house. (That's been honestly one of my biggest problems: something I'm getting as chemo is just causing constant GI problems, and it tethers me to the house in ways I really hate because I can't always trust I'm not going to have a humiliating accident.)

Anyways, it annoyed me that the lights on the modem indicated things were okay. So eventually I unplugged it, and of course, as soon as I plugged it back in, things worked again. I'm keeping a weather eye out for it all, though. I did cancel the appointment for the tech person, because at the beginning, when I found out it would take them nine fucking days to get here, I called Quantum Fiber, which CLink is forcing customers to move to eventually anyway (I found this out after a whole other customer service issue a month or so ago, CLink sucks), just to see if they could come install a whole new thing anyway and skip the CLink drama, and they had the same time frame. But I was so disgusted and upset that I decided to go ahead and just do the Quantum thing, so they'll be here on the 3rd. It's not ideal, if this keeps going in and out, to be stuck like this for the next week, but at least now I have different workarounds and my precious old laptop is back.

I warned the Quantum people about the big black box, and I really don't think they understood what I was talking about, so a part of me is kind of...doubtful, I guess, that it will really be installed, but if I can pay less for slightly faster fiber optic and get out of this fucking shitstorm with CLink, that's what matters. It's amazing how hard it is to rely on cell data only (even if you have unlimited, they will throttle you over a certain amount of use) when you're trying to do video calls to your doctors or therapy or whatever, or hope there's nothing interfering in your signal when you live in an area that's notorious for cell problems.

Anyways, I still plan to sit myself down and write up a conversation about The Bear (and my Grand Unified Theory of Season Threes), but man, I am just...I am le tired. So, so tired, both emotionally (I literally burst into tears when the customer "service" person said nine days!) and physically (everything about treatment is just draining the fuck out of me). I am way too Old and non-technical to be dealing with this shit.

Current Mood: drained

Profile

gwyn

Chez Gwyn

December 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Base style: Modular by branchandroot
Theme: Andúnë by nornoriel

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jan. 29th, 2026 01:31 am

somniloquence

lube & ire

Recent Entries

Already in the oven, nice and hot

It's RSVP, no thanks, no party lights

all we're looking for is love and a little light

Fic: Final chapter of Reverie

Just a memory of your face

Love's such an old-fashioned word

h-o-t-t-o-g-o

Welcome to the boomtown

Every picture tells a story, don't it?

Movie rec

There's a peacefulness and a rage inside us all

Is it like the ocean, what devotion are you

Oh, the places you'll have gone

Iconography

Read a book sometime

so deck those halls, trim those trees

New fic chapter

The holiday noose is tightening

All I need is a miracle

Best-laid plans of mice and women