What I'm Reading...

It's been a pretty much dead time for talking books for me. The books showing up on BARD are often mystery/suspense, fantasy, some flavor of romance, or nonfiction I'm not interested in listening to.

I've gotten tired of mystery/suspense/occult stories. So many today are about the plot and mystery to the exclusion of characters, setting, or anything connecting to the human experience, and so often the characters in them are two-dimensional placeholders who can be summed up in twenty words or less, including articles and the occasional adjective.

Fantasy has its own challenges – I got past any interest in reading anything where the answer to the novel or series is magic, not people and their character traits. I keep my list of fantasy authors I'll read down to a few names – Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Lawrence Watt-Evans, and a couple of others. I can't read Tolkien anymore because each time I read it I dislike it more; I find him way too wordy now, but this is understandable, because my writing style is the opposite from florid – I like my purple on my clothes, not my prose. And until I can get the entire catalog of Pratchett's Discworld novels I'm not going to delve there, because I can find no reason to frustrate myself; also, I've been told they can be somewhat britishy, especially the early ones.

And then there's romance – I started reading them because they're known for characterization and the development of the same, and they do that well because the plot is often pre-ordained by the genre. I doubt I'll pick up another period romance again unless it's written by C J Archer, and those are hybrid between fantasy with romance elements. This week I managed to get a recent issue of the magazine The Week and nothing else until I got to last week's titles in the list and one title interested me enough to give in and download it; yeah, interesting characters, and the tropes (Darkest Hour, Grand Gesture) weren't stuffed down the reader's throat, but the fornicational (note that that is not a portmanteau word, because the recreational friction in it was pretty much old hat to me, so it wasn't educational at all) scenes reminded me of why I don't want to punish myself anymore by reading about a side of life denied to me. And before someone jack-in-the-box's all over me about expectations and rejection of possibilities, note that I didn't write there about it being denied to me from now on – I'm referring to right now along with close to fifteen years of zero interest save for one brief possibility that went nowhere – that might have broken me on the topic, though I hope healing is still possible. So I got a stark reminder this morning that the romance genre isn't a healthy place for me to visit.

Isaac Asimov had an observation he revisited from time to time about how a society reacts to information – "The invention of the automobile predicted the highway system, but nobody back then could predict the drive-up ATM." (sometimes he replaced the ATM with fast food drive-thru's). So when someone I knew sent me a scan of Bill Bishop's book "The Big Sort" I read it and it fascinated me because I saw the societal impacts he mentioned in the book, along with some suspicions about how that was going to play out. That's when I started broadening my data sources – for instance, I listen to the issues of The Week, National Review, The Nation, Smithsonian, Scientific American, and Psychology Today along with a pair of music-focused compilation magazines for the blind community and three magazines oriented toward fiction. I don't think, however, that Bill Bishop's book gave the reader enough to predict Christian Nationalism/Dominionism and the massive step backward the gay and trans communities got hit with. Other things contributed to those backslides in civil rights.

So, this brings up something else – I'm making progress in my focus on accepting the things I can't change in my life so that they don't get me depressed; after a span of time some things become way toxic if thought about too often and too much, and I'm choosing to not wallow in depression. Like Thomas Covenant in the sixth novel by Steven Donaldson, sometimes you have to make the poison a part of yourself or it'll kill you. I'm not interested in suicidal ideation, at least in myself – been there, done that, it was called middle school, high school, and a lot of years after that, and I'm not living that song anymore. I know there are things in my life I can change, and I'm changing those things for the better. But there are some things I can't change, because I don't have self-empowerment in those subjects, and railing against those slings and arrows of misfortune brings up the adage, "It stops hurting when you stop beating your head against a wall."

On a more positive front, we're past the halfway point on the novel we're currently editing, and this will complete the Déjà vu trilogy. I noticed when we were editing on Wednesday that this one has a lot more physical confrontation in it, for several reasons. The first one had the main character stealthed, so there's only one situation she got into where she had to use what she was taught to defend herself. The second one there's only two scenes where she was involved, one of which she used her training again and the other one she was an observer, not an active force in that situation. Plus, she was a major rock star in that novel, so she had security on hand all the time. This third one she is without the security backup and also leveraging her knowledge of how to look her best, so she garners attention; she knows it can be troublesome, but she needs the recognition to achieve her plans.

The third novel also harkens back to the two before it a lot more. I find this understandable, because it's bringing the story to a close (I know how to count, so there are three novels in this trilogy, of course).

I'm also becoming more aware that I have many caretaker characters in my novels and shorter fiction. I'm processing that, because it's sometimes said that when a writer creates a relationship in a story on some level they're creating the kind of person they'd want to be involved with. This brings me to another point – I'm pretty much done with narcissists in my life. My current roommate is one, or at least way self-absorbed, and I can't relate to this person much anymore because we don't share interests, and for the most part never did. I'm also tamping down some resentment because this roommate situation was pretty much forced on me; I'm trying not to let that fester, and the roommate hasn't taken care of the financial side of our agreement. That said, I don't have the resources to make that situation change right now. A major disability tends to get in the way of personal agency, and I'd love to no longer get my nose rubbed in that fact. There are, however, things I *can* do, like choosing who I spend time communicating with, so those folks who seem to think that they are the smart ones and I'm an idiot or a failure or deluded may find that they're no longer given the opportunity to express those abusive perspectives anymore, or at least, I'll no longer have to deal with them any longer, because I'm not a hostage to negative connections. Also, I'm no longer the least bit interested in playing the "I'm Right" game with anyone – my life experiences have made it clear to me that I know far less than I thought I did at a younger age, and I'm no longer convinced that questions have a single answer. I want to expend my energy on those who can benefit from knowing me without either of us having to fight through so much to get a short distance up a hill.

So, I haven't posted in a bit. That doesn't mean everything's quiet here on the Southwestern front.

My brother stopped by on Monday; we got some legal business taken care of, then he bought me lunch at El Fenix and came back to check out what caused the leak in my bathroom. He needs to come back by to remove the bolted on screen, and maybe also replace that entire window. I can cover the cost for that repair, so with luck and a bit of scheduling that can get fixed. We also discussed selling my dad's 1971 De Tomaso Pantera so I'll have the scratch to replace my roof, and maybe also do the floor in the kitchen. I'd like that a lot.

I got an email from my sister-in-law letting me know the step-monster's mother, who was a wonderful and kind lady, did some mortal coil shuffling off that morning. I called her each Thanksgiving and on her birthday, and sometimes before Christmas too. She will be missed. An anecdote: when I got off the road back in 1986, the following Christmas she gave me an electric can opener. It still works, and I used it last night to open a can needed for the dinner I made. It's sort of weak these days, but I think of her every single time I use it, just like how I think of pippibombstalking whenever I use the toaster she gave me.

I spent the morning on the phone today, taking care of stuff I haven't wanted to deal with for a while; one of the sucky effects of a depressive episode is the ginormous ration of tasks pushed to the side, things that will need resolution, sooner rather than later. I think I've got some stuff moving now so I can get some old business resolved and I can move forward.

I joined a com, my first one here on DW; it's a Tron Com, and every single time I think about that pair of terms the jokes start up. I'm still getting close to no traffic here on this journal – if this continues to be the case I'll figure out what needs to change, ranging from joining more coms to the other extreme, taking this journal offline.

A good friend of mine bought tickets for a DSO concert – the music of Danny Elfman from the Batman movies, conducted by the composer himself, on March 15 – sounds like fun, since she got me a ticket too. One of the things I love about catching art music performances with her and her husband is the great conversations we have after the show. This birthday is a milestone for me, on more than a single level.

I'm trying to get in touch with a computer tech I know because the number of things to do is piling up and I'd like to get them reduced if not cleared out all the way.

I know some of you prefer it cool to cold, so you might not agree with me, but this weather is glorious. I love it when my feet aren't cold all the time.

Writing is sort of going on – short stuff is no problem, I can knock out a thousand words or less in almost no time, including spell checking, proofreading, and other editing passes. But I'm not turning out the longer stuff right now for some reason. If nothing else I plan on doing a 30 day novel in April, the third in my Love Meme? series.

I'm about to drop one of the gaming groups I'm in; the GM running it doesn't understand the difference between roll-play and role-play, and I've told him before I don't want to do anymore massed combat things because my character isn't designed for that type of play. He tried to pull something involving her getting charmed to consider the orcs she was facing as her friends – she has no friends, and she's got a deep down burning hatred for orcs and their kin. I pointed out to him that she has colleagues, and anyone who she suddenly starts thinking of as a friend is going to be her first target. So as soon as we get out of the caverns the characters are in she's going to give the game a wave on her way out. This is sort of a drag, she's a 18th level Rolemaster character, and I wanted to get her to at least 20th level, but the level marker is less important than me swearing a lot at this GM. My other three games seem to be going okay, though the long one of the three is starting to reach that level where the human characters are thinking of distractions like spouses, children, and growing old – it's a human thing, my elf wouldn't understand.

So that's about it – if you notice I forgot something let me know.