The Homework AGAIN?

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

There will DEFINITELY be Dark Fate in a few hours.  I ended up having a night of debauch and insanity yesterday, having crashed Milehi con (yes, I know I could be invited for the asking, but I COMPLETELY forgot to fill in/answer the thingy, because of move, cat’s death, son’s move, member-of-family surgery.  Or in fact, because I was trying to figure out why I couldn’t push the novel out by force.)  So we didn’t have badges or panels,a nd I decided I wanted to go up to see L. Neil Smith receive the lifetime Prometheus.  Yes, I have political and philosophical disagreements with him, but let’s face it I have them with everyone, including at times myself.  My younger, male clone, son #2 and I are as close to political allies as it gets around here, and the arguments between us ONLY don’t blow the rafters because he clams up and glares. His fight has — generally — been in the right direction, that of removing the boot stomping on the human face, and as such I think he very much deserved to be honored.  So we went up because I wanted to see it and because I’d never met him, despite being in the same state, which in my profession means “right next door.”

We did meet and got invited to an impromptu celebration dinner, which a fan of Neil’s flew out to cook.  He’s a professional chef and the dinner was amazing, and it was generous and frankly very sweet to add us to the invitees.  Conversation went on (mostly not political) and we ended up staying up till two thirty, which to me is like staying up all night when we’re twenty.  We left there at one thirty, but we had to do shopping on the way home, and then I had to clean the war paint, which, yes, must go on whenever I’m out in public.  BUT if I could have managed it somehow, I’d have stayed on longer.  Only I couldn’t.  I’m a self-inflicted insomniac, in that I HATE falling asleep and not having control for a while, so when I can no longer stay awake it’s sort of like passing out for other people, and at my current avoir du pois, no one COULD carry me to the car, much less home.

It was a very pleasant and interesting dinner, and I’m very grateful to Neil and his wife for inviting us to it.  No, there are no pictures, because I’m what’s known as a dorcus massivus.  The massivus part particularly, which means I recoil from pictures.

Anyway — normally Friday or Thursday, depending on which day we’re free/there’s a lecture — we have our little dorky date night, something we found needed after the kids left because it turns out, uninterrupted, we just work.  Pretty much all the time.

A party was unexpected, and yes, very fun, and yes, very tiring because I’m not as young as I used to be, and youth is wasted and blah blah.

So.

Not fully awake yet, will do Dark Fate when I am.

I had a post from Stephanie Osborn, which I’d shamelessly have put up to avoid work (you know what I’m like) but that post is cursed.  This is the third iteration trying to get it, and each fails to open in a more bizarre way.  So… maybe I’ll ask her for a different one?  It’s one of those things that’s starting to scare me.

And now I go shower and try to write.

PS – Oh, yeah, I got to meet our very own KAries, and that too was a blessing, because I know she works two jobs, elsewhere, but she made the trip to see me for maybe ten minutes.  In this too, I am blessed beyond my deserving.

60 thoughts on “The Homework AGAIN?”

  1. “we had to do shopping on the way home”

    I am SO glad to be living in this era, even with all of its annoyances (from the current presidential campaign down to the phone interruption call claiming to be the call back I requested about some $#!& back brace I supposedly saw on TV.)

    Midnight grocery shopping, ATMs freeing me from the tyranny of banking hours, two forms of ID or even carrying a checkbook. Air conditioning. Indoor Plumbing. All the books I can read, delivered to my door at the click of a mouse.

    And so much of it can be done without talking to a single human being.

    I like being alive in this present,

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      1. I don’t know, I find older, married women to be more entertaining to talk to; especially my own.
        But then, I am Odd.

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      2. I think RES means ‘single personality disorder’. (Which I guess since Multiple personality disorder is now called; Dissociative identity disorder [Some SJW is very proud about this], perhaps RES doesn’t like talking to people with Associative identity disorder.)
        And I concur, it is especially fun to be carrying on multiple conversations at the same time.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. Yep.

            I talk to myself either because I’m talking to the most intelligent person around or because I’m talking to the person most concerned with my problems. :evil:

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      1. Y’all two are setting a bad example, you do realize ;) According to all the best modern literature, marriages are supposed to be tense, and fraught, or filled with enui and alienation and all those other long, depressing words that proper, depressing authors use.

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              1. Dear, I proposed to you at GAFILK with this, so it wouldn’t be the most sappy thing you’ve heard…..

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        4. Bureaucracy, manufacturing, vegetarian, sensibility, procrastination, pyromania, sealing, decapitation, necromancy, sagacity, bloodlust, bedwetting, furnace, weregild, design, autarchy, cartography, defenestration, rocketry, navigation, fabrication, alchemy, computations, apocalypse, cultivation, engineering, remediation, flammability, revanchism, ballistics, spaceflight, toxicity, meditation, decomposition, orientation, explosions, encyclopedic, refining, oxidization, coagulate, legionary, decimation, abrasive, exsanguinate, mediation, stormtrooper, actuary, dismemberment and Absinthe?

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  3. Sounds like a magnificent reason (not excuse) for not having a “real” post. And yes, it sounds like you need either an e-exorcist, or a replacement post.

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    1. Well, there is a geomagnetic storm event going on for the last few days. Could be good old Sol doesn’t want All it’s secrets spilled.

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      1. I keep several extra copies of “The Probability Broach” and “The Nagasaki Vector.” I give them away to unsuspecting victims.

        Those, and John de Chancie’s “Starrigger” trilogy have turned a number of non-readers into steady readers.

        “Here, read this book. It won’t hurt you.”

        Liked by 1 person

  5. It’s very cool that you were able to make it to the ceremony for LNS’ Lifetime award. I’m glad you got a chance to hang out. A catered dinner is pure bonus!

    Liked by 1 person

  6. “I’m a self-inflicted insomniac, in that I HATE falling asleep and not having control for a while” is my perpetual excuse for refusing to go to bed if I can, a disastrous attitude given my condition of needing far more rest than the rest of the human race.

    If you ever find a way to stop it, please post.

    I KNOW I will wake up. And I know I can’t stop death by being awake. But I don’t believe it.

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  7. I intended to ask you to give the Smiths my regards, but I had some kind of wi-fi network connection problem and a low attention span; by the time I fixed the computer problem I had forgotten my intention to email you. Glad to hear all’s well.

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    2. My sympathies on the issues associated with Low Attention Span Tendencies (LAST). I used to suffer from that but have now gotten used to it.

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    2. Maybe I’m just slow, but sizeable swathes of that treatise didn’t make any sense. I would follow for a little while, then the nonsensical buzzwords would take over.
      And a lot of those words seemed to have changed meaning since I last checked.
      Are they rewriting the dictionary or something?
      Maybe it’s just me.

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    3. Could not find the words ‘flying’, ‘sword’, ‘immortal’, ‘pill’, ‘cultivation’, ‘mount’, ‘Tai’, ‘frog’, ‘toad’, or ‘swan’. If the fellow actually anything to do with contemporary Chinese literature, I’m pretty sure he is doing it wrong.

      I have an alternative proposal to reform literature and language. Collect every person with an advanced degree in contemporary literature, or in their own language. Bury each of them in the ground, leaving only their heads exposed. Run over their heads with chariots.

      Writer’s Exercise: Do an eight legged essay on the reform proposals, and evaluate the pros and cons of staying with the status quo.

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      1. A few less pompous buzzword-slingers is always a good thing. Unfortunately, it might take a total civilizational collapse to clean out the current lot. Auntie Ebola and Auntie Zika were supposed to be “it” but they just didn’t measure up to their publicity.

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        1. Nah – the kids always want to rebel against their elders, just need to give a few with literary tendencies their heads… and in some cases, a bit of analysis help on just what their predecessors have been doing.

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    4. A lot of that reminds me of Russian arguments (pre 1917, and then Soviet era) about why Art must serve the People (and the State) and that art for art’s sake, or art purely for entertainment, is at best a naive waste of time and more often subversive and destructive.

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      1. Art for art’s sake, or art purely for entertainment, is decadent and distracts people’s attention to the carrot and the stick. If people begin to imagine they ought be responsible for their own happiness, their own circumstances, they tend to become resistant to the imperative of the state. Subordination of self to the state is what is important.

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        1. Silly. It is well understood that the only thing that can truly make anyone happy is the advancement of the state. To think otherwise is proof that you are unstable.

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    5. “1. Reject Progress Narratives”

      Alright. I reject progressive elements in my narratives. Do I get a cookie? ;-)

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        1. Cookie dough!! *Runs and hides under the bed* Sorry, after the salmonella and listeria problems recently, raw cookie dough is way off the list.

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            1. Apparently even the egg-free versions can have problems. Not often, but there was a salmonella recall last year, and Blue Bell just recalled all cookie-dough ice-cream after their dough supplier had at least one batch test positive for listeria before it shipped to B.B.

              Liked by 1 person

  10. Stephanie is slammed at the present. She’s releasing a new series in January and wants the first four books done, uploaded, and in both print and e-book format before the first goes live. In addition, she’s let me talk her into doing her own audio readings of these and possibly some of her older books as well. Hopefully all or part of this will get her sales up to a near approximation of a living wage.
    That article in question was heavy with graphics and links, which may be the problem. I’ll send it one more time as a pdf to see if that helps any.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Tsk. Already had When Chicken Feet Cross the Highway and The Sweeper and the Storm. I reckon that is a minor matter with the wealth of additional stories and all foe one low, low, LOW fee!

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