I'm 26% into Emma Mieko Candon's The Archive Undying. I would be further, but I had lost my headphones and it took me a while to get some new ones from Menards. I can listen to it out loud, as it were, but Mason is often home during the day these days. He plugs in for his stuff, I plug in for mine. It's what we do. 

Am I enjoying it? It is very weird, but also extremely compelling, so yes. Basically, right now, it's a 100% my cup of tea. It is, however, 18 hours long. So, I may have to take a break from it and listen to System Collapse by Martha Wells, since that just popped up as available--and her books just don't become available very often!

Otherwise, I'm feeling kind of crappy on this rainy day. 

Don't get me wrong, I love the rain. I REALLY love that it's currently 63 F/ 17 C. Talk about my kind of weather. I would live full time somewhere where it never got warmer than this, if I could. I'm not sure there's anywhere on the planet that fits that bill anymore, however. 

Which is part of what I'm feeling crappy about. It's all existential dread. Like, I woke up this morning to an article in our local paper about how St. Paul is considering another property tax hike. And, I love social services! But, we are starting to get priced out of a house we have owned since 1995. The worst part is that things are only going to get worse as states and cities struggle to make up the deficit due to the lack of Federal funds. The stuff I actually WANT my Federal taxes to go to.  I don't want to pay for war or ICE deportations, FFS. I want  foreign exchange students in colleges, lunch programs for pulbic schools, a social safety net for all, and housing for the homeless. All that "woke" shit. 

Trying to fight it feels so hopeless. We don't have the votes in Congress to stop him. The Supreme Court has checkout. There are no checks or balances. It all feels very fucked. 

So, I skipped my PT session for today. I'm not writing at my writing Zoom. I'm just going to make a yummy lunch for Mason and myself, write letters to friends, and try to re-center as the world feels like it's spinnning off its axis. 

I did at least have a really fun session of my Thirsty Sword Lesbians campaign last night. That's something. I need more things like that right now. What are you doing that's good and fun? Reading anything worthwhile? Got any fun plans? Any good news at all that you'd care to share?

For sabotabby who is probably still on vacation and anyone else who might be interested, here's a link to our American Flagg episode of Mona Lisa Overpod: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4yFxNh4m8xcnHhLC3MB38Z  

Speaking of podcasts, I had a very odd interaction with a potential panelist on a panel I proposed for Diversicon. I've been, as you know, gentle reader, fairly obsessed with doing programming committee work for a completely DIFFERENT covention, and so I haven't much talked about the fact that I will be one of the Guests of Honor at Diversicon 32, along with Naomi Kritzer. Diversicon is a local to me (Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN) convention and is coming up soon!  September 5-7!  

So, what happened was this: I got an email from someone in programming connecting me with a potential panelist. The initial email was very straight-forward. This person has been writing radio plays for a podcast down in Florida called the Radio Theatre Project. Sounds like a decent fit, right? But, this person added this to their communication with me, "I'd be happy to talk to Lyda and come up with a presentation" (emphasis mine). I wrote back and said, "Sure! I'm happy to try to figure out a way to combine our similar expertise into a panel of some sort.  My podcast isn't fiction and I do none of the technical aspects of recording, editing, or producing it, but I'm sure there are some commonalities."

Immediately the other panelist seemed to want to back off, however. They talked about how "my audience" might not be interested in the things they were doing and that the two types of writing were fundamentally different. I acknowledged that, but tried to encourage this person, anyway, by saying that, yes, that's true, but podcasts are a thing in general and I'm happy to spend some time on the panel talking about the things they do and the things I do. This seemd to mollify this person, briefly.

BUT then they proposed getting together for a coffee to hammer out our "presentation" or to at least come up with talking points.

I have to admit, y'all? I was very confused by the continued use of the world presentation.

I had to write back and say, "It's a panel discussion, right? Something informal and off-the-cuff?"  I told them I am always happy to pre-consider questions that might highlight this or that, but, like, this is one of those situations, I thought, where "this meeting could be an email." I did, however, try to say this kindly and suggest that while I was not against getting together for a coffee, per se, a panel discussion (if that's what we were having) wasn't probably worthy of something so intense. 

I guess I pissed his person off somehow? I didn't mean to!

But, surprise, surprise, this person has now declined the offer to be on the panel with me.  Which would be FINE, except for the fact that they felt the need to leave with this parting shot: "I listened to your MLOP 27: American Flagg podcast about cyberpunk. It is very focused and detailed. It offered a wealth of information for fans of serious science fiction. I'm not a serious sci-fi fan. I don't have the background and experience to speak about this kind of podcast. I've also found the easiest way to kill the humor in almost anything is to analyze it." 

Like, is that directed at me?  Or is this person saying that they don't want to analyze their own humor for fear of destroying the fun in it? (Their radio plays are humorous, apparently.) I decided to go with the latter, because it does no good to make enemies in a convention pool as small as Diversicon's. So, I told them how sorry I was that they have chosen to opt out and hoped that we could at least meet and chat at the con. 

But the entire exchange was so baffling, you all. I know this person at least a little. Their name is familiar to me. They are NOT a stranger to the local science fiction and fantasy scene. They know what SFF convention panels are. The fact that they kept calling it a presentation has actually made me a little terrified that I'm actually going to be the ONLY person on this panel. SHOULD I BE PREPARING A LECTURE/PRESENTATION?????  I am now a little fearful that maybe I should be!

I wouldn't be paranoid about this, but this has happened to me in the past. 

I once proposed a panel for (I think) MarsCON about manga and manhwa and, when I arrived at the convention and got my hands on the program booklet, I discovered that I was, in fact, the only person talking about this subject FOR AN HOUR. Luckily, in that case, it wasn't until the next day and someone (Anton, probably,) had asked me if I needed any technical support for my panel/presentation and I said, "Okay, yes? Gimme some way to run a powerpoint presentation," and I went home that night and MADE ONE UP. I think I had exactly 5 people in the audience, but they were happy to see the covers of some titles I recommended, etc. 

JFC.

If it is just me... what am I going to talk about for an hour by myself about podcasts? I mostly listen to fiction podcasts, but if people are there, as this proposed panelist suggested for my particular podcast, I don't know that there's enough to actually say about what it is that we do. I mean, Ka!lban does most of the hard work and I just show up and talk about whatever it is we've chosen as a topic. That's it. That's my entire experience. I don't know how this could possibly fill an hour!

I guess I'll find out!

 I'm already having one of those weeks. 

The only good news is that my family and I are getting a lot done around the house. Mason, at 21, has been aggitating for a new bed. To be fair to him, he was still sleeping on the bed we bought him as a toddler. His feet literally hung off the edges as he's grown. Shawn, my incredibly thrifty and clever wife, saw that someone on our local Buy Nothing group was offering up a mattress and box spring. My parents have been trying to get me to come down to LaCrosse for over a month now to pick up an old bed frame. So, clearly the stars had begun aligning. 

Step one, was getting Keven to help us get the mattress and box spring to our house. We don't have a truck or a minivan or anything with any real cargo space, so we have to rely on what my brother-in-law likes to call Big Brother's Roadside Assistance. Mason and Keven went to the Buy Nothing address with the truck on Sunday and hauled it back to ours. Shawn, Mason and I struggled it into the living room because Keven needed to tap out. He says he feels fine since his diagnosis, but it's clear that his strength isn't what it used to be. I mean, he's also 70? So, there's a little bit of all of that going on.

At any rate, we sent Keven home as we always do these days with food. Shawn had made him a nice lasagna from their mother's recipe, but also froze it knowing that Keven's chemotherapy is coming up this week (tomorrow, I think.) And he might want something easy the day of or, even more likely, the day after.

After Keven left, my family and I started to negotiate what came next. Should we try to take apart Mason's bed the same day? Should we wait? What did we need to accomplish the next step? It was determined that Mason--who was up early to do the hauling--nap on the mattress on the living room floor while Shawn and I went to Target and JC Penny's in order to get fitted sheets, etc., for a full size bed. We actually had a full-size bed at some point, so we had SOME of these items, but we didn't have a mattress topper.  So, Mason face planted and we shopped. 

When we came back we still didn't really want to tackle the job of dismantling and hauling everything up our stairs, but Mason wisely pointed out that there was no good reason to wait. Shawn and Mason took apart the bed. I helped haul things to the garage--where we decided to store the old bed in the meantime, with the hopes of also passing it off on Buy Nothing (Shawn had already taken a picture of the stripped bed to show it off.)  I also started dinner while all this was happening because my family gets notoriously cranky when we are hangry. Then, it came time to haul the box spring and mattress up the stairs and I do not know how we managed it, but the three of us did it. Mason is currently sleeping on the box spring and mattress on the floor, but we have an appointment to pick up a U-Haul truck on Friday for a trip to LaCrosse to collect the last item in this scavenger hunt!

Last night, Shawn got a ping on Buy Nothing. A young family was ready to move their toddler into a "big boy bed," and ours looked perfect. We made arrangements (I hauled everything back OUT of the garage and set it up near the alley so it would be easy for them to throw things into their truck.)  We got a reply after delivery from the mom that read, "Thanks again! He just kept saying 'my bed is so huge!' Over and over as he was getting ready for bed tonight." Which makes everything worth it.

As part of all this, of course, we discovered a bunch of boxes we had stored under Mason's bed which we now have to figure out what to do with--but honestly, they'll probably end up in the attic with all the other things we'll need to sort "someday." 

All and all a very productive set of days.

Today I recorded the next podcast with Ka1lban today, in which we talk about American Flagg. As often happens, I wonder what of substance we'll have to say and then suddenly we're having a deep discussion about corporate greed or whatever. Good times!

But, man, all I want to do is nap now!

How was your weekend?