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So I Saw This Meme the Other Day; or, How a Joke Becomes a Novel by C. V. Walter

freakazoid  –  i am moron !!

I saw this cartoon the day it aired and it tickled my funny bone and my imagination in ways a lot of other things haven’t.

I tend to ask a lot of “what if” questions or answer funny ones when I’m trying to keep myself from doom scrolling through the internet.

I was wasting time on Pinterest a few years ago when I saw a screenshot of a tumblr thread about dinosaurs.

I always love the ones about dinosaurs. I either learn something or get awesome pictures of dinosaurs. There’s not really a situation in which I lose when I click on them.

So I clicked on this one about dinosaurs.

It asked, what if there were aliens and they’ve already been by the Earth but when they were here, there were a whole bunch of these big, scary lizards on the planet so they said “Nope!” and left.

With some of what we understand about the dinosaurs, they might have actually been looking at giant chickens and geese. Which, really, doesn’t make it any less scary if you’ve encountered these animals in real life.

What if they came by the Earth looking for something and thought “You know, that planet would be perfect if it wasn’t for those big, scary lizards.” So, they sent something to the planet to take care of the lizards and left to let things die out and then forgot about us.

And, what if it only looks like a meteor because we don’t know what a terraforming pod would actually look like?

What if they came back, expecting a perfectly terraformed planet to find…us.

How much would we have in common? If they created a planet that was ideal for them to live on, and we’re here, how compatible would we be?

What if they weren’t looking to conquer and destroy but fleeing a psychotic government that was bent on destroying its own people? They’re here, not as examples of peace and advanced technology, but as refugees?

What would we do? How would we handle it?

We have so many books and movies with aliens as the enemy or these beings who are so advanced, they no longer want anything but peace. What if they’re more like us than either of those other options could possibly be?

And there, flying through my subconscious, was the Forward Hope, running away from a crazy Emperor and smack into the Bradbury 12. The only casualty? A whole bunch of supplies and one Molly, a woman who left what most people would have considered a pampered existence to take a blue collar job on a space station.

I couldn’t take another alien invasion, humans are evil, repent because destruction is nigh book. So, I found a hero to pull Molly from the horror of dying in the cold vacuum of space and put her back together, in body and spirit. And, I’ll be honest, he started putting together some of the pieces of my heart that had been broken by the world gone mad that was the pandemic.

The Alien’s Accidental Bride was the story I needed; one of hope, healing, reconciliation and adventure.

The stories after the Accidental Bride explore the best place to hide an Alien, what happens when you suddenly have the chance to be cured of something that has shaped your entire life, the importance of family and networking and adapting cookie recipes to unusual ingredients in outer space.

Upcoming ones are the nature of rumors and the absolute destruction they can cause, fun upgrades to prosthetics, what happens when you outsource your white cells to something that can be re-programmed without your permission and how far dare we take genetic manipulation.

And all that’s happening before I even really get to the dragons.

Because, yes, sometimes when you’re exploring the parts of the maps that say “Here Be Dragons”, you actually find dragons.

Other than a few seconds here and there, this is the first time I sat in front of my computer today.

So, what was I doing? Well, in about five minutes I’m going to be doing what I want to do, which is work on Bowl of Red.

BUT we have a problem with getting to where I roll out of bed in the morning and just write. I MUST have the “essential rooms” functional and unpacked. Normally for me that’s kitchen, bedroom and two offices. Right now they’re all in some state of WTF except my office which is unpacked, etc, but I’m having trouble with ONE cat who likes to pee on my chair. I have the fake leather to re-cover the chair and stop that, but I need to unearth my sewing supplies.

At this point I’m targeting early in the next year for “Sarah has essential stuff set up” and sometime in March for ” house is completely unpacked, and we’re not stumbling into piles of boxes at random. Since that’s also when we’re targeting for #2 son to move out AND hoping house sells, March promises to be very eventful. Hopefully in a good way.

Anyway, what ate today was “Dining room.”

There is nothing STRUCTURAL wrong with the dining room, mind, except we decided not to bring with us the massive entertainment center we were using as a china cabinet. Now this is wise, because THIS dining room is not 15 feet long, so it would not have fit. Oh, and the dining room is small-ish. And necessary.

We’re the kind of people who shouldn’t have dining rooms, to be fair. Most of the time the room is empty and unused. In fact, in other houses we targeted the dining room as my office.

BUT this house’s big defect (every house has one) is that the kitchen is barely functional. We’re working on it by changing some of the cabinetry in the kitchen, and having a rolling kitchen isle, but there is no way we can EAT in the kitchen, so the dining room is essential.

It’s also impossible to paint all in one day, because so far we are on coat 3 of primer. On two walls, because we have to keep the table and chairs and stuff in there, or we don’t have anywhere to eat.

See, normally I leave painting the house for summer, after everything is unpacked, etc. But this house doesn’t have a ton of light. (It has my other requirement: a lot with a ton of trees, which I love and couldn’t get in CO. Well, I could, but we call trees “our little fire hazards,” so….. but these are mature trees that overshadow the house. It gives it a very soothing “green” light i summer, but well…. yeah. “shadow.”) AND some deranged person painted it forest green and mustard yellow, which is almost brown.

Now, Dan insisted we have painters paint the house before we moved the first stick of furniture in. And that’s fine.

EXCEPT (follow the bouncing ball, really) the two rooms in the house that had wall paper.
I mean, we were perfectly willing to have the painters paint them, but they stared at us in horror and threatened to run away. They said you paint, then the wallpaper bubbles up, you pin-prick the bubbles and paint again, in an infinite series.

I told them no, you do a first coat with shellac, which doesn’t make the paper bubble up (this also works with paper-veneered furniture, of which we have two bedside tables waiting to be painted — more on that later) then prime and paint.

Which is more or less what I’m doing, except shellac was unobtainum in both states, so I’m using the specific type of zinzer used on flaking walls, because it glues it down. It works.

Anyway, the two rooms with this problem are the dining room and Dan’s office. I probably won’t be able to do Dan’s office till March (though I might try) because he’s working more or less 24/7 (Okay 16/6 and a half) BUT I need to unpack the dining room, which means putting furniture against the walls, which means not wanting to move it after. Besides, the wallpaper is mustard and beige, with an unpleasant dirty look. (I don’t think it’s dirty, though I suspect it’s at least 30 years old. Just…. looks dirty.) And I’m in there for at least two meals a day. So, it needs to be painted (look, I know it sound frou-frou, but I do need a certain environment to function. Or at least I need it not to be aggravating on a daily basis. Also, I like color and a light and airy look (Though this house IS getting decorated in “Crazy writer eclectic.” It’s the first house we’re not decorating expressly with an eye to selling. We’re not saying we won’t move again, but if this works out, we sell the other house and pay this one off, and hold on to this one and spend at least part of the year here. Or more likely, we live here till we die or go into care, and the kids have the task of clearing it out and selling it really cheap just to get rid of it.)

So– So, it’s on the second coat of KILZ on top of Zinzer on two walls (the other two one is mostly window, so this is like 2/3 the area. Tomorrow I get to give the final coat to those two walls, move everything back, and start on the other two. The target is to have it done by Saturday so I can UNPACK.

On the way there, though, we ran into something….

Look, 25 year old me HATES me.

Why? Well, at 25 we were living in North Carolina, where antique furniture was dirt-cheap at garage sales and flea markets. We were so broke, we couldn’t afford IKEA (still can’t, really) so we took $500 and furnished the house in antiques.

Most of which were painted with like 15 coats of paint. Which I peeled off. (Two of those would be white, and one would be green, and there were INEVITABLY two metallic coats.)

My 25 year old self CURSED people who painted furniture.

Except…. did I mention the house is dark? Or at least not really bright? And the dining room will of necessity be somewhat cluttered.

I hate that these days people PREFER painted furniture, but given the house and the fact most of what we have is really dark…. Heck, I’m tempted to paint our dressers too.

We’re not painting things metallic paint….

Okay, most of what I intend to paint isn’t real wood, like a lawyer bookcase with paper veneer which has been with us 30 years, and is in horrible shape. Honestly, I approve of painting ugly veneered 70s furniture. A lot of it looks good painted, particularly if you pop out all the fake plastic “carvings” on the doors, or replace the doors completely.

BUT one of the items IS real wood, and was one of the first things I refinished. What I should say here is that I also did a crappy job of it, and it’s both too dark and weirdly lumpy (first time refinishing.) Also, it’s a cabinet that I’m not sure what it used for once, but at some point someone cut into a shelf so it could take a keg of beer. So…. you know, if we’re talking desecration.

Most importantly, though, since we’re NOT painting the 18th century China cabinet, a beautiful and delicate piece, or the colonial dining room table, we kind of need to paint everything else, to keep the room from being suffocating.

I’m painting everything white, though I’m open to pale blue.

And it will probably happen tomorrow (AFTER posts here and at MGC) because tomorrow is warm, for the first time in a long time, so I can do it outside and it will dry.

But I’ve given the awkward mahogany cabinet a couple of coats of white and will finish tomorrow. I bought ceramic cloisone knobs to make the whole thing seems fancy. I’m using it for things we want to hide (Mostly? cooking machines that don’t fit the cabinets in the kitchen.) We’re using the lawyer’s book case for glassware. And I might go thrifting or a sideboard or at least a dresser of unusual size, if we can transport it. Failing that I’ll find used kitchen cabinets and hack a sideboard from them.

Yes, I will post pictures, if you really want, when it’s all done.

But believe it or not I’m having a crisis of conscience, because mahogany is a good and rare wood, and…. yeah.

Look, if me today is doing things that me 25 years ago would scream at me for, because circumstances change and we need different things now, what it brings home to me is HOW STUPID it is for total strangers to try to plan what millions of people need.

Anyone with sense would know it can’t be done.

And yet, it’s kind of the underlying creed of centralized government. That other people can decide what you should have, and when, and what your future will look like.

Maybe twenty five year old me can go yell at them instead?

It would make for a change. ;)

Okay, real post tomorrow.

Last year, in our escape from lockdown Colorado, we visited a riverboat museum near Kansas City, and that was….. bizarre.

No, not the fact we went to the museum. Given how starved we were to see human beings, how addicted we are to museums, the weirder the better, and the fact I grew up on Mark Twain, it was almost guaranteed we’d go and poke about the museum.

The museum itself was also not bizarre. It was an interesting snapshot of life just before the civil war. (We incidentally found that one of my husband’s collateral ancestors (they were the only family of the name, in the town, but the name is not in his ancestry, so a brother or cousin of an ancestor) was bringing guns into slave states, in boxes marked “bibles.” Which frankly is no more than we expected. It’s rather annoying we have no idea what happened to that young man.) However, I grew up in a house that had been in the family for generations, and among people who never threw anything away that could still be used. So a lot of the dishes and the glassware looked like the stuff I used every day as a kid. Heck, a lot of the shoes and such looked like stuff you could find poking around the attics and outbuildings of the area in which I grew up. (And of COURSE we did. We were kids.)

I mean, it was interesting, but not startling or revelatory.

What was startling and revelatory was where the boat, which had sank some 150 (? I’m too lazy to look it up. Bear with me) before discovery was found: In the middle of a wheat field.

Apparently rivers, in the great flatlands of America have a tendency to meander wildly. Okay. I kind of get that. But the fascinating part is that no one had noticed. The boat sank in a time of newspapers, and reports, and writing and more importantly property records. And people have been looking for it pretty much since it sank. BUT THEY WEREN’T LOOKING IN THE RIGHT PLACE.

The family that owned the wheat field in which the riverboat was buried, had no clue it had ever been anything but a wheat field in living memory. A river deep enough that a floating palace was lost with all its contents (but no lives, save for a poor mule left tied up) just changed course slowly enough that…. well, it sort of became a wheat field.

Now, I understand that due to modern engineering this doesn’t happen anymore. Or at least it’s not supposed to. But all the same, bear with me a moment.

One of my favorite blogs was casting doubt that the republic still exists.

This is a little…. How do I put it? I love the blogger, but d*mn if you’re more depressive than I am you need to start reality-checking obsessively. (I do.)

The republic is sort of a schrodinger thing. If we’re going on “We only have a republic if it obeys the constitution as written”…. it probably ceased to exist twenty years in.

Of course it didn’t. There are…. meanderings and latitudes given and necessitated by the fact that we’re humans and that frankly tech innovation has thrown us a few curve balls that our founders, also being human and therefore fallible, no matter how amazing, could never have anticipated.

The biggest curve ball, though was mass production, mass communication and generally mass everything, which might have been a logical step in the industrial revolution, but the level to which it went was definitely had to see from centuries before.

The Mass Everything age almost necessitated the antithesis of the constitution: centralization of power, power in the hands of an unelected bureaucracy, all of it aided and abetted by the press covering it up.

If the republic is gone, it has been gone since at least the 30s, probably the 20s. Sorry, but nothing we’re seeing, from political prisoners to outrageous treason of both the People and the Country in the seats of power is new. FDR did it. Woodrow Wilson did it.

What is new and revolutionary is that we’re no longer in the “Mass Everything” age.

The left, who are the natural people — hyper social, power-craving, etc — to ascend that type of hierarchy are in control of the commanding heights of mass communication and bureaucracy, etc.

Their problem is that this is increasingly less relevant. And every time they make a major power grab, like the psy-ops we call the Covidiocy (NOT the virus. Yeah, the virus exists. It’s a severe flu, that fortunately kills very few people under 80. BUT the measures taken around and supposedly because of it, and the fear mongering in the mass media) loses them power. I’m highly amused in the grocery store by the — I’m sure corporate-enforced — announcements coming over the loudspeaker thanking us for wearing masks for “everyone’s safety.” Mind you, there’s usually ONE person in the store in a mask. Someone whose eyes look perfectly deranged and who is often dragging a masked toddler (poor thing). The rest of us at this point are treating it as “Something only crazy people and corporate entities believe is needed, anymore.”

And it will be hard, if not impossible to gin up the next panic. (which is why I’m sure the next grab will be a world war. But that’s something else.)

At this point everything those who belong to the old structures and long for centralized, massed power and communication can do only turns us against them and their obsessions. It’s sort of like…. a vaccination.

Look, America is an idea so powerful that though honored mostly in the breach, it has changed the world. Granted the echo-revolutions abroad were mostly crazy. But the fact that even the worst regimes have to FAKE being elected tells you the power of the idea.

It won’t perish. And we have a chance to ah…. really …. I hate it to say this but we have a chance to build back better, closer to the infrastructure the founders gave us, one better suited to a world of fractured production and communication.

Look at the people who supposedly have power. Note the trail of flames from their hair. No one who is winning is that scared.

But Sarah, you say, then why haven’t we revolted already.

Well — ask anyone on the left — we are revolting. Okay, jokes aside, we are rebelling. In a hundred different ways, we are turning our backs on the idea that “the best people” have our interests in mind, or that even if they did they could be trusted to carry them out, or any of that.

It used to be the institutions no one would doubt were the medical establishment that flew under the flag of ‘public health’ and public schooling. I mean, we screamed, yelled and pointed to abuses (and slow ratcheting thereof) and got told it was still mostly good. Oh, yeah, and the collection of statistics. Even when it was obvious they were lying, they were still used to slap us into silence.

I won’t say that’s a thing of the past but it’s becoming so. And it will become more so faster, the more they struggle.

Most of this type of movement is invisible, until it isn’t.

Today someone shared a meme lamenting that the right doesn’t just have right wing stations, etc. but is creating their own separate structures for information and commerce. Well, duh. The fact this is a surprise for them is amusing. For most of us, though, it’s news. We know we need it, but the movement is as yet slow and if you’re not looking in the right place you’ll never see it.

But it’s like that. This is how society changes. Not from above with fiats. That only distorts it. But slowly, from the bottom up. First almost imperceptibly and then all at once.

And then we forget that there was ever a wheat field there, and return to thinking that things are “as they ever were.” But they’re not. And you can see the signs if you look. The left is looking and getting scared. And scared people make stupid moves, which unfortunately affect us too.

Look, after a hundred years of psy-ops to make us feel isolated and small and like theirs was the inevitable future win, the surprising thing is that the worm is turning at all, not how slow it is.

Yes, we went along to get along, because we really thought we were small and isolated and because in the absence of alternate structures, we had to earn a living in their world.

For many of us it’s still that way. But the water is shifting. The silt is moving in to what was once river bed. Culture is on the move.

And there are far more of us than there ever were of them. And we’re an ornery bunch. Had to be to stand looking at mass-communication, mass-education, mass-entertainment and mass-bureaucracy, and plant our hands on our waists and say “No, you move.”

We’ve got this. It’s slow. Infuriatingly slow, because we’ve been standing (we thought) alone so long. And cold is the brotherless back, as our Dave Freer tells us.

But it’s changing. And it will heal over the break, and function again, at least for a while.

America is not dead. It is asleep. But it’s stirring. And it’s opened one eye. The rising will be swift and startling.

Keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark. And be not afraid.

book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM PETER GRANT: Silver In The Stones: A Classic Western Story of Greed and Revenge

What comes with a silver boom? Backstabbers, claim-jumpers and con men – and that’s just the start.

Walt Ames is working hard to keep his horse ranch afloat and his transport business in motion when silver is discovered on his property. It’s going to take cunning, determination and more than a little luck to investigate the claim while others are trying to kill him for it.

Can he keep his business and integrity intact, or is everything Walt loves going to fall prey to the perils of a silver rush?

FROM ROY M. GRIFFIS: The Thing From HR: a Cthulhu, Amalgamated novel

ON SALE!

A Cthulhian romp that’s equal parts Terry Pratchett and Mel Brooks… and it just might be the funniest novel I’ve ever read.– Upstream Reviews

I laughed far too much…you’ll enjoy dark humor, dry wit, slapstick moments, and elements of romantic comedy. – Amazon 5-star review

What’s a nice Shoggoth like him doing in a dump like this?

Narg was content working as a Damnation Services-10 in HR. Sure, he was related to one of the Elder Gods, but a little nepotism never hurt any Thing. His life was just wailing and gibbering, right up until his Uncle needed a small favor from his nephew.

All Narg had to do was go down among the humans…and pretend to be one of them.

These are not your Grandfather’s tales of Eldritch Horror: this is the untold story of the ghastly, unappreciated (and entirely expendable) minor monstrosities that support the Inscrutable Plans Of Dark Gods And Elder Things Beyond The Knowledge Of Men.

The Cthulhu, Amalgamated series is a comic romp full of action and mystery, including, of course, Sanity-Shattering Horror––and that’s just the paperwork. Even H.P. could not conceive of the Corporate Terrors that await The Thing from HR.

FROM DENTON SALLE: Charms of the Dark: Book Three of the Avatar Wizard

The war between the Light and the Dark continues and Jeremy survives his last adventures to find even the mighty keep of the volkhvy is threatened by foes from within.

Returning with his Master from Galena’s home town, Jeremy, battered and weakened, finds armed warriors massed outside the keep. Later the bird of prophecy sings of deception and enemies within. When Galena is sent away on her own mission, he finds he must cope without her as the Dark exploits his vulnerability.

Will Jeremy falter or will he resist the temptations and charms the Dark sets against him? Will the Dark triumph in its attack on all that which he hold dear?

Return to the world of the volkhvy where the myths of Slavonic legend are real as Jeremy faces hard choices to defend his friends.

FROM DOROTHY GRANT: A Perfect Day, With Explosions.

Jenna Brooks is a welder, and a fashionista whenever she can afford it. AJ is a former Special Forces spacer, who finds himself completely outside his comfort zone with her. However, terrorist bombs can overcome almost any divide – the hard way.

When Jenna stumbles over a corpse wearing an important clue, she’s roped into a high-stakes counterterrorism operation to uncover a counterfeit fashion ring that’s funding the terrorists.

As the trail of blood money and knock-off shoes starts leading closer to home, Jenna’s going to need all the help she can get to stay alive. AJ’s just the man to do that – but he’s after a lot more than merely her safety. It may cost her everything she’s worked for… and also her heart.

FROM DALE COZORT: Char

Char of the Real People walked out of a mud-hole she didn’t walk into, wearing a deerskin skirt and carrying a crude spear. Then the murders started.

Char is a unique blend of police procedural and alternate reality, with county sheriff Francine Hart relentlessly pursuing clues–footprints and blood samples–that point to a murderess who is human-like, but not our kind of human.

Whatever else Char of the Real People is, Sheriff Hart discovers that her quarry is brilliant and supremely adaptable, eluding police again and again. Can even the smartest fugitive escape a modern police dragnet and get back to her own reality?

FROM ROBERT WENSON: Unexpected Tales from A to Z.

Some things you just can’t expect. Among them you will find:

Bartholomew and the Banana Blizzard. The denizens of Burensburg are threatened by the activity of a thoughtless gold-mining operation, until Bartholomew finds a solution.

Esmé and the Eloquent Eggplant. Esmé likes to talk to plants. One of them starts to talk back – but there’s more here than meets the ear.

Hendrik and the Horrible Hollyhocks. First there was one hollyhock on Hendrik’s farm. Then there were two. Now they’re out of control and nothing seems to stop them.

Miranda and the Mesmeric Maestro. The War of 1812 is raging and President Madison is quacking like a duck. Miranda finds that a knowledge of Homer is useful.

Pepy and the Princely Prestidigitation. Pepy’s father and the Prince of Egypt have been captured by the Amorites. Pepy is no sorcerer’s apprentice, but he knows a bit of stage magic. Is it enough?

Ursula and the Urgent Ululation. A pair of train robbers are holding Ursula and her aunt prisoner in a cottage deep in the Black Forest – but they don’t know about Ursula’s friend.

The heroes and heroines of these stories are ordinary boys and girls confronted with problems, from an Argumentative Alligator to a Zany Zoo, that call forth cleverness, ingenuity, and courage.

FROM D. W. PATTERSON: Mach’s Legacy: A Future Chron Novel

The appearance of the shining globes at first was a nuisance. But then the disappearances began. At first small, a fusion ship or a space habitat. Then planets and entire planetary systems started “winking out”. Could the famous physicist Elias Mach and his great-great granddaughter, Emmy Gibbs find an answer before it was too late?

“Mach’s Legacy” is a novel set in the future (2490s) and is the twenty-seventh book in the Future Chron Universe. If you enjoyed “Mach’s Legacy” consider reading the next book in the Future Chron Universe, “Spin-Two”, for more Hard Science Fiction – Old School.

See the author’s blog dwarrpatt.blogspot.com for more information.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Other Rhodes

ON SALE TILL THE 7TH.

Lily Gilden has a half-crazed cyborg in her airlock who thinks he’s Nick Rhodes,
a fictional 20th Century detective. If she doesn’t report him for destruction,
she’s guilty of a capital crime.

But with her husband missing, she’ll use every clue the cyborg holds,
and his detective abilities, to solve the crime her husband was investigating
when he disappeared.

With the help of a journalist who is more than he seems,
Lily will risk everything to plunge into the interstellar underworld
and bring the love of her life home!

FROM ALMA BOYKIN: The Lone Hunter: Familiar Generations Book One.

All Hunters have a Hunting partner, save for one . . . the Lone Hunter, the Hunter in Shadow.

Jude Tainuit Hunts alone. Exiled from the Clan, he watches over Dover County. A twisted beast and rumors of a new, powerful magic worker force Jude to emerge from the shadows.

A Hunter Hunts, even though it cost him his life.

A Familiar Generations short story.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: GRIEVING

So, as I’ve mentioned before, I am an introvert. I can fake extrovert. Though honestly, I think part of the way I fake extrovert is by being so introverted I am “eccentric.” Because see, for normal people seeing you walking down the street rocking a hat made entirely out of feathers (not that I’ve ever done that. I’m allergic to feathers, but take it as a metaphor) means you must be an extrovert AND extremely self-confident. They’d never DARE do that. It never occurs to them you just put the first thing that came to hand on your head because it was cold, and it happened to be the feather duster. (You removed the handle because that was just weird.) It also never occurs to them that you don’t realize they’re all staring at you, because you’re trying to figure out just why your character wants you to write him doing THAT.

So there are certain words that make me stop and look and go “um…. did I put my underpants on my head again.”

One of those words, as used by someone who is British was “peculiar.” As in, she commented on someone’s share of my blog, that I’d gone increasingly peculiar in recent years.

This causes the mental equivalent of patting my head to make sure I’m not wearing a feather duster for a hat. Or in this case that I’ve not been locked in my echo chamber to the point I don’t see how things are outside it.

I– Don’t think so?

And before you say “But you wouldn’t know.” Dude (Dudette and dudekin too), all my life I’ve been subject to suddenly going galloping into imaginary worlds, and then having issues when I have to interact with the real one, remembering that this is the real one. Like “Oh, yeah, cars don’t fly.” (Used to be a big one when I was a teen.)

In the same way that as a depressive, I fact-check reality constantly. For one, if the world REALLY is coming to an end, I’d like to know, thank you very much. Because it would be terrible to be sucker punched by the apocalypse after YEARS of dooming it on not much excuse.

In the same way, I have sort of a built-in mechanism for reality checking my analysis of situations/whatever. Like I’m ALMOST sure that we’re experiencing as much of a “Salida” as an invasion from illegal border crossings. But I’d not stake my life on it. It just has that whiff, but I haven’t found enough data to back it up yet.

However, in a time of corrupted data, it’s hard to be sure of anything. 90% of the reading I do in newsites and blogs is looking for the interstitial spaces and seeing what they show.

Look, I learned as an artist that you don’t really draw the thing, not on initial approach. You draw the blank space around the thing. And to be fair, after that, if working in black and white, you mostly draw the shadows. (Or at least I do. The exception is drawing something living because then I FIRST have to get the eyes right. Don’t ask. It’s like having the right name for a character.) I’ve been reading news like that for years.

Now, are my conclusions often unusual? Sure. But I find I tend to be more wrong when I follow what “everybody knows.”

I don’t want to rag on the person who made the peculiar comment, but she is one of the people on the soft left who are intentionally conventional (also European) and trusts the signals almost exclusively. Like, when she ran a magazine, you could jump out of the slush pile if you’d graduated from Clarion or one of the other accredited workshops. (No, I never made it in.)

On the other hand, she TRIES to be fair which is more than can be said for most on the left, and was one of the few who listened to our side during Sad Puppies. (Even if she didn’t believe us.) Though I haven’t tracked her the last few years (I’m not that social, and I’ve been busy with other things) so I don’t know if she has done the requisite grovel-and-apologize.

I also do know, from when I was in the closet that saying that kind of thing is what you do when you are trying to distract from looking at wrong thought or knowing wrong thing.

However, I took the whole “peculiar” thing and started taking it apart. Mostly because I was doing heavy manual labor while not feeling well at all, and thinking about things is how I forget I’m in pain. (I’m not feeling well enough for thinking of stories.)

I will admit I am peculiar, in that I stick out. I stick out in my position on a ton of things, particularly if you’re the sort of person who values the “authorities” of universities, of governments, of “the experts” — top men, you know?

Then again, when you look at where those authorities and opinions have taken us, you realize they are mighty peculiar indeed.

We now have 100 years of governments, “scientists” (mostly of the “social”) kind and other “experts” trying to push normal people into a system that would work great if everyone, at the same time, lost all our instincts and our culture, and what makes us human, and robot-like worked their prescriptions.

And by worked great you must understand it would mean people living sad lives with no purpose, but according to plan. With NO surprises for the rulers.

Despite commanding the heights of culture and not inconsiderable force, these “experts” have managed …. nothing good.

Mostly they’ve managed to put 100+ MILLION thinking, feeling humans in their graves prematurely, take prosperous lands and turn them into wastelands, distort economies to create gross inequity, then complain about the inequity.

And despite all this, humans, and notably Americans, have managed to work around all this “expertise” and central planning to improve life on Earth, innovate, and create and be happy.

It’s almost like all the narratives the experts feed you are mighty peculiar indeed.

(Adjusts feather duster hat.)
The minute one of their five year plans works as planned, or makes life better for any human for more than ten seconds, I will consider their opinion.

But I will not turn over my thinking/analyzing brain to their consensus narrative. There is a truth. It can be discovered. (Sometimes with much effort.)

I don’t care if it’s contrary to what everyone believes. Reality exists, and it’s worth knowing.

Mostly because reality bites you in the fleshy part of the back otherwise.

If that means I horrify the conventional ants in their conventional anthills, fine. And if they stomp me for it, fine. At least for a brief moment, I’ll have known and spoken truth.

And that’s worth it.

I’m posting this to say I won’t be posting tomorrow. Not really. Saturday is going to be a lot of work. A lot of work. But then by Sunday things should be back to normal-ish and next week I should be human.

So bear with me tomorrow (writing this on Thursday) and I might not post at all on Saturday. And keep me in your prayers. It’s nothing dangerous, but it’s tight scheduling and a lot of work.

Meanwhile, to amuse you: my writers’ group used to have “writing challenges.” Some were very silly. Some were fun.

So what story would you write from the following challenge:

First sentence “The invisible mice were everywhere.”

Make it science Fiction.

The left is at it again, changing the name of its current push. Teh Grauniad, being the idiot children they are ran with it first, but it’s now everywhere.

“The right invented woke to mock us! It was never a thing of the left.”

I’m old enough to remember when they did that at SJW “It was not a thing we called ourselves. It’s a mockery the right created for us.”

You could hear pins drop when we pointed them at games created by their co-religionists about how to be an SJW. In the same way, I’m sure those of an enterprising spirit should be able to capture — now — a ton of their articles and tweets encouraging each other to be “woke.”

I look forward to their ditching “anti-racist” the same way in about five years.

I don’t remember when they ditched “Reality based community.” From my perspective, they just shut up about it when Obama was elected. But it wouldn’t surprise me to find that they also claimed we invented it to mock them.

What they should ask themselves is why they are so mockable. And why each name they attach to themselves becomes ridiculous.

They should ask themselves why, like bad Chinese restaurants, they change their name whenever the effects of what they peddle become known.

Because Marxism is poisonous and it kills. Either fast — in full communist regimes — or slowly by lost hope, despair and slerosis, as in Socialist Europe. It’s a poisonous philosophy in which there is no hope.

It also has bloody nothing to do with reality. For one, its paradise hinges on “everyone should just” — there is not a single instance in the history of mankind in which EVERYONE in the world (or a country, or a village, or a large family) “just” did the same thing. Even perfectly sensible, logical things that don’t go against basic human nature (which Marxism does) and don’t kill your will to live. Heck, in my friend group “Everyone should just stop going off on obsessive research/work, eat balanced meals and sleep 8 hours a day” is the unobtanium.

Marxism ignores the whole…. back brain. Part of Jordan Peterson’s genius — for me at least — was recognizing it exists and we need to negotiate with it. And often it wins.

For Marxists, that — the accumulated instincts that evolution gave us — should “just” stop existing.

The only way Marxism can make sense is if they ret-on history to fit their theories (Which they’ve been doing in academia, officially, for 100 plus years.)

But even so enough sticks out, that if you look at it up close and personal you go “that makes no sense.” To an extent my dive into history started with realizing their explanation for WWI made no sense what-so-heck-ever. (One clue: look not at nationalism, but internationalism, in the form of world-spanning empires. That’s NOT soil-and-blood or “love your land” nationalism. It is by definition internationalism. Particularly when you realize that the “kings” were a multinational (and interrelated) elite, owing nothing to their supposed country.)

Anyway, so, it’s kind of hilarious to see the left don mantles like “Reality based” and “woke” and anti-racist. Not to mention “SJW” which consisted of people afraid to leave their own rooms, and capable of melting into hysterics at being called the wrong pronoun thinking of themselves as “warriors” on behalf of people who didn’t ask for it, and for measures that help no human ever.

In fact, by the way, their entire pronoun crusade is roll on the floor funny, because socialism demands and functions only in absolute uniformity. So their hope of being called some bizarre made up pronoun is sort of like jumping up and down and saying “Socialist Sempai, send me to the camps first.”

Anyway, if you have to keep changing your name, maybe what’s wrong is what’s underneath.

I do appreciate that we’re mean and shouldn’t laugh and point. Well, no. We should. Because the whole thing is so toxic, that humor is the only thing preventing us from getting really, really, really angry.

But they don’t get that. The “reality based” and “woke” ones have so parted with reality that they think if they just change words they’ll create paradise.

May the Lord have mercy on their souls and bring about a true wakening to reality in them.

Before the butcher’s bill comes due.

Yes, I know. By now I was supposed to have the fairytale book out so you could order hard copies for Christmas. It’s proofread, and I need to typeset it, but we’ve been dealing with house in Colorado and issues related to.

Let it rest as proven (trust me) that it’s going to take a couple of months to go back up for sale, until then there’s a couple of things that were screwed up and we’d like fixed. So we’ve been trying to get that set up and since husband is working crazy hours, it’s been me. With the normal issues of setting things up by phone when you’re mostly deaf and have an accent.

I think I have a solution worked out, and we won’t need to worry about it from Sunday on. Well, till time comes to talk to agents and select between two recommended by neighbors we like (and who have a vested interest in our selling well.)

So, what am I hoping to do? Well, not to jinx myself as I did two years ago, but I’m hoping to finish books and start putting them out at speed. And this time I do have a plan not just a deadline. Which is kind of the difference between wanting to get across the river and having a boat.

To wit, I’ve arranged for someone to do the parts I can contract out and don’t enjoy. (The covers I enjoy, by and large. But not copyediting/entering stuff, etc.)

Meanwhile, younger son will be doing “Boxes from Sarah’s Garage” and also selling a bunch of things on ebay which we were about to toss or donate. I.e. he’s been rescuing stuff from our hands all this time, including games and tech from the nineties, which apparently people pay for. Who knew? Yes, he’s also looking for work, but in the meantime, he’ll be making some money. Right now he’s setting up his work and filing space, so he can work.

So, the holidays will be weird. Not that I was ever super mom, or super housewife. (Which made it hilarious when someone in Portugal asks what I do, and before I can answer my mom screams that I’m a housewife, leading me to mumble under my breath “I’d be the world’s worst.”)

For some reason, I usually ended up with a novel due the 20th of December and one the 15th of January, so putting up the Christmas tree on the 24th was a thing, and I usually didn’t bother with other “decor.”

But this year will be sad, since we’re still mostly surrounded by boxes, and unpacking has priority over putting up any decoration. I might put up the 4 foot tree, if I find it in time, but honestly I doubt it. My plan is to unpack the areas we’re most intensively living in — kitchen, dining, offices and bedrooms — by the end of the year, and letting the rest go hang.

I have located my toile fabric, so Sunday will be devoted to making and hanging up curtains, before the cold comes. Again, so next week I should be able to work.

It’s funny — probably — that I just want to do my job and keep getting sidetracked and prevented. But the joke has worn thin.

So, wish me luck. It might be a sad set of holidays — but I have the family and we are okay, so…. — but hopefully it ushers in a better and more productive.

Oh, yeah, Another Rhodes is on sale all this week for 99c. There will be a book on sale every week for the rest of the year. This is this week’s.

What I found most interesting about the guest post yesterday was how much I have in common with Caitlin.

It shouldn’t be so, because I’m a child of the “children of World War II” (my dad was a child during WWII.) The fact that Portugal was a non-combatant doesn’t seem to make any difference. This is the time at which family lost precedence to the state, and the state’s ever-expanding maw devoured more traditional ways of guidance — church, or even civics — and more traditional structures. In fact, the ever-centralizing states (in the sense of nation-states) devoured the differences between sexes, and we all became producers and consumers.

Despite the fact that I was born half way across the world, in a country where sexism was actually very real (married women couldn’t legally work, unless their husband signed a permission form, for instance) by the time I hit puberty, all of a woman’s worth was supposed to be in a career. Wanting to marry and have children was evidence you were stupid. Smart women had careers. And by the 80s we were all, somehow, strangely, supposed to be executives, and get married, and be perfect wives and mothers, and and and.

We could analyze everything that went into that, and also the less than stellar results. If you’re lucky, you’re no worse off than I was/am, being more neurotic than a shaved cat, and constantly feeling like you’re incredibly lazy, because you’re not in fact super woman sailing through life while effortlessly achieving everything. (Mostly because no one is. The very few people who appear to be, usually have a support team.)

The worst outcomes involve multiple divorces with the kids being treated as afterthoughts. (Note I’m not saying everyone with multiple divorces has that problem. I’m saying that’s the worst possible outcome, and considering I know several families where the kids are ultimately “nobody’s kid” it gets really bad indeed.)

And the medium outcomes are often families where each member feels like he is or should be on his own, and like there’s no one watching anyone else’s back, be it in learning to be in the world, or in being able to be at ease in your own home.

Along the way some of us tried to spit out the expectations of “great career” as opposed to/or beside “do it all family person” with mixed success. Some of us forged extended families of friends, sometimes by the use of duct tape for extra-legal adoption. And we tried to raise our kids better.

Squints.

Kids are the product of their time as much as of you family. So that success is mixed too.

Because apparently subsequent generations also thought they should be Mary Sue, for whom everything is automagically perfect, I thought I’d share the few things I learned along the way.

1- Forget quality time. Go for quantity time. Look, kids aren’t supposed to be with you for the few hours you have to pay COMPLETE attention to them. Frankly, paying complete attention to the kids is not natural and probably unhinges their little brains. Yes, we know, that you have to pay attention to the little terrors, because if one of them gets a blister the social workers will think they’re abused.

BUT you train yourself to look for the really serious infractions that might kill them, and otherwise at least pretend you’re not giving them undivided attention.

Your earliest ancestresses minded the kids while gathering edibles and killing the occasional rabbit. You can do it while cleaning the stove, cooking or sweeping. Or sewing, or writing or whatever.

Some of our happiest moments as a family were while driving around on Saturday shopping and doing errands. Some of my best moments with the kids were writing while they played on the floor of the office.

Now, you have to train yourself (and it’s hard to untrain. So, for the first two months when school started, I became antsy at the silence) to the danger signals.

And yeah, you’re allowed to play with them. Younger son and I made epic train tracks that spanned two floors and several rooms, and then ran trains on collision courses. BUT that was maybe a few hours a month. If I hovered over them, the guys started getting worried.

2- Try to figure out the basics. Yes, cooking, but also how to sew a simple seam, how to put a button back on. In a pinch, can you came yourself look fancy on very little, by adding some lace to a sweater or whatever (if you’re female. Don’t freak out the co-workers, okay?) Can you make the house look comfy? Do you know how to make/refinish/find what you need on a limited budget? If not why not? You have youtube and well… the internet in general.

3- Do find something you want to do, whether it’s a “Great career” or not. Yes, being a mom and a wife are challenges enough. BUT if you feel a need to something more, find something you can do while the kids are little that you can expand when they live the house. If it’s something that brings a little cash, bonus.
Look, most people don’t become “executives”. Not even very smart people. But almost everyone has a talent or an interest they enjoy. Learn to make it pay/expand it/etc. Someday the kids will move out (which won’t actually mean you’re done, but–) and you’ll have time to pursue other things. If you have started it’s easier.

4 – Be a good spouse. This means letting your spouse know your relationship is a safe space. In your relationship you can tell each other everything knowing it won’t be used against you. The motto should be “you and me against the world.”

5 – Do the best you can and forgive yourself. (Yeah, I have trouble with that too.)

6- Remember you’re only human. You’ll get sick, you’ll get older, etc. Give yourself permission to do less when those hit. Learn to adapt.

7- Love your family and friends. This means being supportive, but also means allowing them to fail, and loving them even when they do.

8- Do the extra. No, I don’t mean overwork yourself (yes, I have trouble with that) but you know, if you’re doing something and can make it extra nice with little effort, do so. Even if the “thing” is for you. For instance, I love fresh flowers, and for years when I cleaned the whole house, I’d buy a bouquet of flowers (in CO I only managed cutting flowers a few weeks a year) for the dining room table. Because they made me happy while they lasted. Allow yourself the extra, in the limits of cost.

9- You know that thing about no one lamented the time NOT spent working? But people lamented time not spent with family/friends. It’s true. So incorporate time to hang out with family and friends, even if you’re doing nothing much, and you know you won’t deserve it because you’re not perfect.

10 – Reward yourself, even if you’re not perfect. Do something nice for others, even if they’re not perfect. Don’t feel guilty for existing. And never feel like you owe “the state” or “society” or whatever anything. “From each according to his abilities” is an evil fairy tale. Do your best for yourself and those who depend on you, but not for the vast mass of strangers. That’s just useless guilt.

We are in a phase of the great relearning, in more ways than one. Among the things we will be learning are how to rebuild civilization. And won’t that be fun!

But all you can do is all you can do. And you will do it a day at a time, and an action at a time. Even if sometimes that action is cooking a meal. Cleaning a floor. Writing a book (or a letter.)

You do what you can, every day. And you pass the baton to the next generation when you can’t do it anymore.

You love, you teach, you think, you create.

And you hope the world you’re building will be a better one for those who come after.

The Feral Modern’s Guide to Beginning Homemaking –By Caitlin Walsh

I should start this by letting you know I didn’t grow up domestic at all.

If I don’t miss my mark, most of us didn’t, mind–too important to attack the glass ceilings and the implicit biases and all of those things. The idea that you should prepare for a future centered around marriage or children (or, frankly, even be able to exist as a bachelor without a stack of Hungry Man or Michelina’s dinners) was fossilized thinking.

…well, it was a pretty picture they sold us and all, but I’m probably not the only one for whom the dream didn’t quiiiiiite work out that way. And, you know, thank the heavens for that, because I am having a lot better of a time focusing on keeping a household and raising two children than I *ever* did working a string of temporary jobs. It’s to the point I’m not sure how folks missed it: you HAD children, how on EARTH did you miss the idea that THIS was the important work you were doing?

(of course, mine are still two and five; I get the impression the Sheer Magnitude Of It All diminishes a bit when they’re not leapfrogging milestones on a monthly basis or trying with all of their might to ensure their premature demise (for which only Your Heroic Actions could save them). But still. This is frickin’ WILD.) [No. It doesn’t diminish. It only gets bigger all the time. – SAH-from the other end of the process.]

(And yes, I’m sure being a Broadway star or whatever my mom wanted to be would have been amazing, too. But it didn’t happen. Can we please compare against what you actually did instead of the Perfect Unrealized Reality that was never actually going to happen anyway?)

…so everything I learned about What Was Important, What Was Real or not was completely wrong. Of course. Most of us here, we probably figured out ten of those before we reached adulthood, and keep finding new ones at alarming rates despite our general cynicism and ennui regarding the Big Message. What else is new?

Well, what else is new is learning how to live with it.

I know stay-at-home homeschooling moms are supposed to do an awful lot of things. They’re supposed to keep their houses neat (and teach the children to do the bulk of it, in time), they’re supposed to keep the children up on their learning (which more and more seems to be something they do almost despite anything I actually manage or not… nevermind), they’re supposed to keep the family fed with meals better than you can get at a restaurant on a fraction of the Totinos Pizza budget, and only on rarest occasions decide Everything’s Gone Wrong And Just Order A Pizza.

…but, come on. The pizza shop literally called our house to make sure everything was all right when my older sister didn’t order dinner. My dad took all of us children out to a restaurant every bleeding week as a way of staying connected in spite of a divorce. As a young adult I was so unfamiliar with what was involved in putting a meal together that I was *sad* when I stopped being able to find macaroni and cheese with little bits of dehydrated broccoli because I didn’t realize there was a more effective way to have broccoli included.

(…also, it turns out the dehydrated broccoli basically added salt and nothing else. Felt a little betrayed by that, too. Add Reading Labels to the list of things I needed to learn.)

WHERE WAS I SUPPOSED TO LEARN THIS STUFF!?

…

Well, mostly I haven’t, I’ll admit. I spend more than I should, go out more than I should, and still haven’t quite gotten the hang of planning meals that everyone will eat that also provides the vitamins and minerals growing bodies need.

But I’m much BETTER, and I figure I can encapsulate this in a few tips for other people in my situation. Because as dire as I think I painted the picture there… I think there’s a lot of us. We’re in the third generation of acting as though a home and hearth aren’t really things that need to be maintained. That’s going to leave a mark. [From the other end of this – we still eat out more than we should, and I never felt like I was a good housewife. You see, I was going to be an executive and have staff….- SAH]

So what have I learned? Let’s make a list:

1) BETTY CROCKER PICTURE COOK BOOK (1950).

This isn’t a FULL answer, mind you–I still needed to have someone “on the horn” to explain things to me like “What do they mean when they say ‘brown the hamburger’?” But it does go pretty basic! This book is basically aimed at newlyweds who themselves are trying to figure out how to cook for a household, and so it goes pretty far in its explanations, including substitutions, how certain things should be measured, things like that.

But more to the point, the “key recipe” system–where, at the top of the page, you’ve got a key recipe that just has the basic concept (it has a key icon next to it), and the rest of the page is filled with variants to make it the particular item you want. (Thus: Key recipe is “buttermilk pancakes,” and then you can look down for what you need to change to make “sweet milk pancakes,” “blueberry pancakes,” etc etc))–does a REALLY good job of teaching you what the heart of this foodthing is, and what can be changed without issue. And separating chapters by what KIND of food it is (quick breads, yeast breads, cookies, vegetables, meats) instead of by meal type or whatever also makes it a little trivial to understand what’s common about certain classes of food, and what you can mess with.

(Also, it just completely lacks the “trying to impress your friends” element that frustrates me so much about modern cook books. (Or at least keeps it to a few minor sections.) There’s an awful lot of basic ingredients that get reused over and over, and fairly few specialty ones. Symbol of a poorer time? For sure. But if you ARE looking to feed a family on the daily instead of having a fancy dinner party (let’s be honest, the food this book suggests for a fancy dinner party may well not go over right)… well, I think it’s rad.)

Downsides? It’s dated, and there’s a lot of things you’ll probably want to change due to how the price and availability of ingredients has changed. (Add more cheese to the macaroni and cheese recipes. They just don’t have enough.) And some of the terminology is confusing–apparently, when they say “American cheese” in this book, they mean cheddar.

BUT it completely changed my life for being able to cook for my family.

[ROFL. My first step was similar. Two picture books from a Portuguese TV cooking show. -SAH]

2) THERE IS STILL AN AWFUL LOT OF CHEATING YOU CAN DO WITHOUT FALLING ALL THE WAY TO MICROWAVE DINNERS.

Sandwiches are great. Sandwiches are awesome. (They’re also occasionally the only thing containing actual food the children will eat.) Feel a little bad about throwing something on bread and serving it? A minute of frying on each side makes it fancier. Throw a can of green beans on the side (OH WOW if you can find out a canned vegetable your child will eat without complaint YOU HAVE IT MADE. I buy green beans (Daughter) and carrots (Son) by the flat) and it’s even rounded. Hot dogs are probably more of a questionable call, but I’m pretty sure they still wind up both cheaper and taking up less space than a frozen dinner. (…I get free mutton, but kind of a lot at a time, so freezer space is a little dear for me.)

But more to the point, I tend to find if I’m thinking of things as I Must Do Things Right And According To The Plan Always, I tend to fall for my crutches the moment ANYTHING goes wrong. (And that’s one thing about having to share a house with other people: things are going to go wrong. You forgot about ballet class happening when you needed to start the breadmaker*, your husband’s in a grumpy mood and you don’t think the casserole you had planned will go over well, something came up and your husband isn’t going to be home for dinner at all. You can plan all you like, but you can’t eliminate the uncertainty.) Having an In Case Of Trouble backup instead can change things from “AGH EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE I’M GOING TO GO GET HAPPY MEALS” to “okay, it turns out I didn’t turn on the oven when I was cooking the roast, guess we’re having hot dogs.”

(It turns out my kids love biscuits, actually, and I can turn them out in about half an hour from a handful of ingredients. (Also, Drop Biscuits are waaaaay easier than rolled biscuits.) So that’s made my list for Sudden Grumpiness Reducer Plan.)

* BTW, this is kind of ridiculous, but… if you have anything like the space, check your local thrift store for a bread maker. (Or yard sales, if there’s any in your area! Ours were a few months ago at this point, alas.) I don’t know if you’ll get as lucky as I did (there were THREE breadmakers for less than five dollars! Also, this is when Marie Kondo was REALLY popular), but if you arrange things so that there’s a loaf of bread almost finished when your husband gets home from work? The smell just completely hijacks the brain and says HOME, and all you did was dump a handful of simple ingredients in the jar three hours ago. Now, would it be better to have lovingly formed handmade loaves? Yes, and you wouldn’t even need a machine. But I’ll be honest, baking bread scares me a little and I think I’m not the only one. If you think this might be up your alley, see if you can get a used breadmaker for cheap.

3) PLAN TO USE YOUR LEFTOVERS.

I always thought leftovers were where you eat the same thing five days in a row, except that you get sick of it after two and throw the rest of the roast out. NOT SO! It turns out that people who are GOOD at this have a plan from when they buy the item for what they can turn it into over the next week or so. THIS NOT ONLY SAVES MONEY (by not throwing out half of the whatever and have to buy more) BUT VASTLY IMPROVES YOUR QUALITY OF LIFE.

No, seriously. Being able to turn your pork roast into stir fry, meat pie and soup means that you’re eating different types of food (if you’re like me, you tend toward “saminess” in the first presentation) with different foods with it (this also helps you use up your leftover veggies). It feels weirdly fancier to be able to pull the magic act. AND it increases your flexibility (when you’ve assigned a Brand New Meal For Each Day, all you can do is switch them around. But with leftovers scheduled in, particularly in meals with basic ingredients, you get to push things around at the last minute a great deal more.)

I’m also able to fit a lot more meals in a lot less space, if we compare Single Pork Roast And Other Ingredients I Keep On Hand Anyway versus the much more first-run items I’d have to buy without leftovers.

So, yes. Leftovers are awesome. Try and see if you can come up with good methods for using up basic meats and veggies you use a lot. (Soups, stir fries, and meat pies are my go-tos, and they’re pretty awesome. Flexible, too. Try it!)

—

And that is Feral Girl’s Beginning Guide to Keeping a Hearth And Home. Maybe I can write more as I find new tricks to actually trying to behave like a human being in a sane society! (I’m not sure if ‘fake it til you make it’ works with transforming the world, but it’s the best idea I’ve got right now.) And please-please-please let me know anything you-the-reader can teach us, add, or even ask about in the comments. (Most of my tips are obviously for the young mother–I think that there’s a bunch of bachelors here who could use cooking-for-one advice, too, if I don’t miss my mark. Empty-nesters as well.)

Thanks for lending me the stage, Sarah! Let’s all try to make the world a little more cozy tonight, huh?