old is new again

The scene: my classroom, students exiting.

Young, hip college student: "OMG, professor, I love your jacket. Where'd you get it?"

Me: [thinking: it was a gift from my mother before I was even dating my husband of 20 years, from J.C. Penney, so where is Colorado but when is the late 90s. But aloud:] "It's older than you are, I'm afraid..." 

Student looks shocked. I am not sure if that is because the nineties are, to her, too distant a past to imagine, or that the idea of a jacket worn by her professor being older than her is just weird. Or both. Student, bemused, exits the classroom. 

Second student, on her way out the door: "OMG, professor, I love that jacket!"

Me: "Thank you!"

At least she didn't ask me where and when it came from.

The jacket, for the record: a boxy black suede (washable, ffs) St. John's Bay blazer with--rare for the era--deep, practical pockets. It was very good (in the day) for adding a layer between me and the Colorado wind when I was stupidly underdressed beneath it, wearing some crop-top tank or whatever I thought was cool, even when it was clearly weather-inappropriate.

The lesson: don't bin your favorite old jackets because they seem hopelessly out of fashion. Just wait.

[insert a title here]

 ...or as my students might do, "a new post", because many of them think a title is the same thing as the name of the assignment/the prompt. And I get it. Titles are hard. How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge began as something else entirely, as did How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse. Only Enemy, Outlaw, and Ally kept their titles.  The manuscript currently on my editor's desk began as Tin Can Fun Fur, which my agent suggested, because it's a genre mash-up. We gave it a more sedate title for my editor, who may or may not like it; since she's the one who prodded us to come up with How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge, I am inclined to trust her instincts. 

I don't blame my students, though. This quarter--which began in October--has seen a pandemic, fire, civil unrest and mass demonstrations, their first national election (and oh, what an election. Guns at polling stations. A president who won't concede and who continues being...I'd say a brat, but he's more dangerous than that. Astonishment at their relatives' voting choices, when it's so clear to them that this can't go on. I feel this last one, students, right there with ya.) And, now, another fucking fire in the area, here in December. 

More personally, I had How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge release in October, with attendant publicity posts (to follow in another post, once I've got 'em all collected), a reading an a panel at World Fantasy, and a merit review observation--which, oddly, is done on the quarter the review is due, which is not a quarter covered in the review. So the letter that recommends whether or not I should get a raise is based on different teaching than everything else in my file. It was also a) remote and b) a new course prep and c) a new curriculum for that course. 

I mean.

And through all that, incredible good fortune, to have a university employer that listens to science and prioritizes the health of students, faculty, and staff; and the ability to work from home; and our collective excellent health (except Murdercat, who has a cavity that must be removed next week, but who is otherwise 13 lbs of solid muscle fine). 

And my students, many of whom are in their first quarter of uni, having just seen their senior year meltdown, are reading, and writing, and showing up in synchronous classes and conferences despite less than ideal internet situations, or homes in which to get quiet time to attend class, or, in at least two cases, sixteen hours of time difference. They're pretty great. 

...this post ended up in a nicer place than I thought it would, so yay? Yay. And I better quit there, while I'm ahead. Besides. I made a pumpkin pie, and I think it's finally cool enough to eat, and I need something to put the whipped cream on.

this year exhausts me

 As I am sure it exhausts most of us. And I recognize that to be exhausted, rather than, oh, evicted, unemployed, evacuated, homeless, sick, or dead is a privilege. I am privileged. I acknowledge that. 

But fuckssake.

This week, the exhaustion has been more physically literal, because it's been stupidly, dangerously hot in my state (which is also on fire). I am not one of those folks who functions well in heat. I can handle it, insofar as I don't get immediate migraines or pass out or sweat excessively. I do get more anxious and more irritable. We are privileged to have A/C, which we try and limit our use of, because the power grid and rolling blackouts and all that. We can survive here on the coast without it (we did, in graduate student housing, which is literally across the street). We turned it on this week, set to 80, and it felt good. Cool.

Climate change, y'all. This isn't weather. The middle of the country blew away with the derecho. (My cousin lost her home.) People are dying of COVID all the fuck over, while other people whine about their masks and their rights and send kids back to school so that... yes, they can get sick and put hundreds into quarantine. The post office is being dismantled.  My state is burning up. People are losing everything. The sky is red. The air up north is black; here it's not so bad, most of the time. But I am aware, with every beautiful, lurid sunrise, that things are burning.

My fall class is about the zombie apocalypse, which seems more applicable this year than it has in a long time. I used to teach zombies because they were trendy. Now, though? It resonates. The end of the fucking world, indeed. We're remote, at least. This university has sense.

The DNC happened. I didn't watch. I mean, they could run a half-eaten sandwich and some moldy cottage cheese and I'd vote for them. I am fine with Biden. I am delighted with Harris (I wanted her for president, or as Warren's VP, so...). Now I fret about whether we will be allowed free elections (post office!) or if we do have them, and we win, someone won't vacate the office. Or, if we win, the people who really do want everything to burn take steps to make it happen. So yeah, I have some hope. But I'm not at all complacent. I think you can't be, if hope means anything. Hope is uncertain, by its nature.

I don't have more profundity than that. Tinycat is demanding her lunch, which she gets now in an effort to get her weight up (which is working, though I don't think we've cleared 7 lbs. Her highest ever was 8. I'd be happy with somewhere around 7.5). So I am going to feed a cat.

le petit chat noir

scattershot

Y'all, I am not a super fast writer of nonfiction, and sometimes I take a couple days to think about how I want to address a particular topic. Except the breakneck idiocy of ::waving hands:: all this is such that the topics pile up until I don't write at all because other more eloquent, and speedy, people already have.

But let us be clear:

Black Lives Matter. Transwomen are women and transmen are men. Science is real. Wear your fucking masks. And this Portland thing? Armed and unidentified federal troops grabbing people in "proactive" arrests? That's straight up authoritarian toadshit. Gods both small and large, vote in November.

...Thus has passed July.

I had a birthday early in the month, in which I turned a firm corner into my late 40s.  It was an odd birthday, in that we went nowhere and did nothing and I cooked (sure, Nous would've cooked for me, but I wanted chili verde and I like making chili verde and so). I even made my own cake, which actually a blueberry buckle (I didn't even know buckle was the legit name of a fruit-pastry thing, but it is). It was in fact a day like most other days around here, which have been divided into D&D night(s), and Borderlands 3 nights, depending on the number of participants.

The Patchwork Terror, 1 year old

The Patchwork Terror also had a birthday. He is north of 12 lbs and still growing. He is as soft and plushy to touch as he looks, and also, that tail clearly belongs to a different cat.

I made yogurt for the first time, which was easy. I have acquired a very tiny ice cream maker, and made good matcha ice cream and fantastic strawberry frozen yogurt and an okay sorbet. Next up, coffee ice cream. I have not had this much full-fat dairy in my fridge in, like, ever. I don't care. I gave up beer except on D&D nights and I will have whipped cream and ice cream and full-fat yogurt if I want to.

I wrote the first fifty pages for one of the books we're going to pitch to my editor at DAW, and I think it's pretty good. We'll see if my agent agrees.

I resigned at the HS. I am sad as hell because I love those students, but I need more time to write. The pandemic has only reinforced my decision, because boy howdy, the reopening of schools is a scary prospect, and also, I cannot take another moment of Zoom.

I have a merit review file due right about the time school starts. Not difficult, but time intensive.

I have decided to teach the zombie apocalypse as my theme for the fall quarter, partly because it's relevant again, and partly because if I have to do a whole new syllabus and prep for a fully remote class, I might as well at least use texts I am familiar with, especially since I have that aforementioned merit review.

I refuse to start either of those last two things until August (although, truth, I have started them both. Just a little.)

still here

You would think, what with all this enforced home-bound-ness, that there would be more blogging. I am not however one of those people bored in my confinement, in need of lists of binge-worthy streaming series. I am probably working more, because online teaching is, in fact, a bigger PITA than one might imagine. There are reasons for this... the transmogrification of one's in-class, group-wide activities into asynchronous, single-person activities that teach the same skills (I tried break out rooms in Zoom for group work...once. And while I am usually a proponent of multiple tests before failure is declared, not this time, because the groups in which there was failure crashed so epically I can't do that to those students again. The end.). This means I end up modeling the writing, and since the uni class is about imitation as a vehicle for learning to write, that works on a pedagogical level in theory. In practice, eh. The writing is probably a little worse this quarter, on comparable assignments. We're about to start the edible auto-ethnography, which has remained stable since F19, so I have a much wider base for comparison. I predict it won't go as well as f2f quarters, but I hope to be surprised.

That said, my uni class surprised me by asking for synchronous classes, which saves me the work of a video, but is still more actual work than standing in front of a classroom. It's like... you know when you watch the late-night comedy hosts doing their shows from home? And there's those beats where there should be audience reaction, and a pause, and you can see the host pretending he's hearing laughter or reaction, and carrying on like he's totally gotten his feedback anyway? But that energy's not there. Colbert or Noah didn't get it. He's... guessing. Faking it. Acting on faith that people laughed and he can just go on without any of the micro-adjustments live performance requires.

Teaching online in Zoom is like that. Oh, you say, but you can see their faces! --You cannot, if their cameras are off, and many of them do that. Even if the cameras are on, you can't really see what is happening. Smiles, yeah, those are nice--but the blank looks, the confusion, when I know I'm not getting through and I need to change tactics--I don't get that feedback, either. I'm performing to a dead room. (Interestingly, even if they won't talk in Zoom, they will chat. So I end up responding to chats out loud. It's so...weird.) But that's what they want, so I hope they are a) learning and b) deriving some sense of normalcy and comfort from the ritual.

It's not all bad, and I am certainly grateful for a job, and I feel for my students. I don't mind my own discomfort if it's helping them (I mean, that's fucking teaching anyway). But I am just not as good of a teacher in this setting. One of my colleagues--another experienced teacher--likened it to publishing your shitty first draft. All the experimenting, no time to revise, no way to fix the ugly bits until next time...while hoping there won't be a next time, and feeling queasily certain there will be. Fall, at least. (I have a new course prep for fall, so that will be double fun. Zombies are about to make a comeback, I think, in my genre-centered syllabus. Most of the horror of them had been stripped out in recent iterations--zombies as metaphors, zombies as characters, not zombies as harbingers and victims of pandemic. Now that fear of infection is back.).

My poor high school class...so the district froze the grades. Whatever they had by March 12 is what they have, unless they raise the grades. We have to provide assignments that will let them do that, but we cannot penalize students for ghosting the classes. The directive from On High is to offer material that they want to show up for, which puts a shit-ton of pressure on us. If we're ghosted, then the failure is ours, right? Be more fun! I am fortunate: my class is D&D, and while we are not going to finish their home-brew collaborative adventures, we are going to do pick-up games for the next month during class time, during which yours truly will DM for whomever shows up. I kinda hope the ghosting continues, because I can do a game with 4 or 5, but if everyone decides to come, I will... um. Fake it.

But I have made some things. That bag of shredded up yarn has now become yarn. Soon it will become a rug. Order from beautiful chaos.

how are y'all doing out there?

Functionally, my life looks pretty normal. This pandemic and its accompanying stay-at-home orders came at the end of a quarter, which means 2 weeks or so at home (grading, planning, recharging, maybe day-tripping) before the next round. I'd've stayed home mostly anyway. The campus--we live in faculty housing--is a lot quieter, but it's like, oh, winter break.

The weird shit is the kids. Or lack of kids. Usually we've got a wild band of Nerf-gun toting 8-10 year olds pelting around the complex, screaming and yelling and generally being kids. Now... now there's no one. Nothing. It's creepy-quiet. There's hazard tape around the playground where the very small toddlers and their caregivers would appear during the day. It flaps and whistles in the wind.

I hear more birds, now. I see more birds, now.

Our Trader Joe's has implemented distance-measures. You wait in line outside for admittance, on your little purple tape X a careful six feet from the next person. Couples can wait together, but they can't go in until two come out. There's stuff on the shelves again, and in the frozen section. Not toilet paper yet, or paper towels. (I have instituted hardcore rag-bag in lieu of the latter. The former, fortunately, we'd just bought before All This Started(tm), so we're stocked.) There was actually flour this week, limit one. I snatched up a bag. It might be time to learn sourdough.

My college classes start next week, officially; we got a "soft start" rollout, which was admin's way of saying 'right, so, all online in two weeks, this might freak some folks out' and indeed, it has, and the people doing the heavy lifting with how to teach people to use Zoom and all the cool features on Canvas and whatnot are being heroes right now. I did not think we'd get a soft start, so I worked from about March 13, with a break for grading, to get my spring classes online (rewrite the prompts, redesign the exercises. how the fuck do I do group-work asynchronously??). Ferfuckssake, y'all, I made videos. Before March 13, I would have bark-laughed at you if you had suggested I put my face on a video, like, ever. Now I'm just doing it. One take. Stupid hair, stupid face, whatever, let's do this.

I'm still freaking out quietly that this quarter will suck, even if I am prepared. I am trying to be chill.

My cats are proving helpful. Everyone likes a cat video. And the Patchwork Terror (formerly known as the Kaiju-kitten; names evolve) is very photogenic.

The stupid yellow flowers are blooming around here. The pine trees are releasing clouds of pollen. Every scratch in the throat, every sneeze, every sinus-induced headache triggers an instant's paranoia, firmly smashed by reason. Nous and I are taking turns being the rational voice of no, you are not sick. You are fine.

The gym's closed, of course. We're running outside. There are a lot of hills in this neighborhood. I will be very, very fit in the next quarter, or I will have aggravated every old injury I ever had and be hobbling around.

I have sewn us masks from truly colorful, terrible cotton. I regret only that I have no more skull-tie-dye print to use.

My concentration is...spotty. Since starting this post, I have darted off to my UCI page, written an announcement, started some class-related housekeeping, forgot I was doing that, and came back here (repeat, repeat, repeat).

I'm glad I'm not trying to write something new right now. Revisions are challenging enough.

This pandemic has made my social circle wider, which is kinda funny. There is more D&D now. I'm running our long-term campaign online, which means we get to play more often when The Rat doesn't have to commute from 2 hours north.  And Nous and I started playing in another D&D game with work-friends; we all knew we played, we just never played together. And now we are, because some of us are over-working and some are underemployed and no one would be able to do this if we had to commute all over Los Angeles. So that's pretty cool, too.

Yeah. So. That's me.

like a duck...

...all serene and floating on the surface of the water
everything's just fine

while under the water

oh shit oh shit oh shit

it's total, churning chaos.

The university went all online for spring quarter early last week.

On Saturday, the high school went all online until mid-April. Fortunately in the latter case, we are in the group-project stage, and the groups can, in theory, collaborate on Google docs together. (Whether or not they do is not up to me. Online learning is bloody difficult, particularly if it is asynchronous).

The uni classes, though. Fuck me running. I had them built for face-to-face. Now I must rebuild and recast. I am not especially afraid of teaching with technology, and I can self-teach pretty quick (which is good, because besides two truly amazing colleagues, the university is largely expecting us to watch training videos and be autodidacts). But the conversion is time-consuming, and I had been rather counting on almost 2 weeks of break to revise the RORY manuscript coming out in October. Now I will be lucky to get one week of break.

(The manuscript is currently sitting in my word processor. I looked at it. I am having extreme anxiety actually doing anything with it, because I have half a class to finish converting (and two weeks to do it, which is FINE for fuckssake, because I converted four weeks of the course in two goddamned days already, except for pre-recorded videos, if I even do those). Anxiety is not rational. I should apply some donuts.)

So the conundrum is--synchronous teaching, which plays to my strengths, or asynchronous teaching, which is a lot more work on the front end but may free up some time later on?

And we had a leak in the bathroom wall this morning. Big old bulging drip in the paint, spreading like some bizarre D&D monster. Amazing how fast the weekend maintenance guys show up when you say "water leak." It was the upstair's neighbors' shower, and easily fixed. Evidently there's no drywall damage, so...good?

And in other positive news, today's Trader Joe's run (after yesterday's abortive attempt, which did net us donuts and cheese, not insignificant) yielded bacon, some sausages, eggs, and frozen peppers (no other frozen veg). I ordered another box from our CSA this week, too, partly b/c they can't do their usual farmers markets and partly because they have stuff in stock. So we're good on healthy stuff. We won't starve. We'll be fine. (The cats won't starve either. Or run out of litter.)

But there is good news. One of my students from fall quarter came dashing into the gap between my last two face-to-face classes this school year, damp from the downpour, to give me a stuffed bunny. She gives stuffed bunnies to her favorite teachers, but she thought I hated cute things (because my desk at work is populated with small rubber and stuffed lizards, frogs, snakes, an a small, plastic Godzilla), so she got me some lovely handlotion from Origins at the end of fall quarter. When she discovered that I do like cute fuzzy things, she promised me a bunny. And when they announced spring distance learning, she made sure to get the bunny to me so I would "have something cute on my desk."

("I did not get you a pink bunny, though, because I know you hate pink."
"I do not hate pink."
"...Oh. Well. I didn't get you a pink bunny anyway.")

And she did not. The bunny's name is Buttermilk, because that is what color she is, and she's currently on my desk at home, surrounded by the stuffed things (I have, among other critters, a krogan and Bill the Cat).

But here she is under my desk with The Patchwork Terror (formerly known as the Kaiju-kitten, but really, PT is more apt) because they both have little pink noses and are stupidly photogenic and maybe I'll just use them as my stunt doubles for live-streaming classes this spring.

Anyway, that bunny and that student were possibly the best thing that happened all year, y'all.

Stay healthy.

ghosting

Ha ha yes clearly doing well at this "post more regularly" business.

I have things I want to say, but prudence dictates otherwise, so I will instead tell you that:

a) the HS class of budding D&Ders survived their first dungeon, having bypassed one whole segment of it with a Clever Plan(tm) that would've gotten them killed if someone hadn't been a little free with the rules and also they hadn't had some crazy-amazing ideas. My ranger(s) got to kiss The Princess (like The Doctor, really). The wizard was reunited with her beloved Bryce. All ended reasonably well. Now they have to write their own adventures (collectively, in small groups) to run for another small group.

b) I have been invited to give a talk about gender, politics, and power in HOW RORY THORNE DESTROYED THE MULTIVERSE at UC-Riverside on April 9 to grad students in English (I am imagining these are mostly creative writers, because I am long past the days of writing and delivering academic papers on any subject, please and thank you). I am responsible for 90 minutes of content, and while I am sure I can read very slowly, I am reasonably sure I'll have to come up with Stuff(tm) to say to round out that time. Which I will. Somehow. Magically. Perhaps by sacrificing to the gods of academic discourse.

c) HOW THE MULTIVERSE GOT ITS REVENGE is scheduled to come out Oct. 6. Cover art forthcoming when it's finalized, but I can say--it's super awesome.

d) because my weekend isn't going to spent doing the thing I had set aside all the time to do, and I hope/pray/exhort the gods that I will be busy with it next weekend instead, I sent a last minute text to the Rat and said "let's game this weekend instead of next!" and she is currently moving heaven and earth to make that happen (she, and her patient and wonderful wife, on whom the burden of childcare falls when the Rat is down here slaying monsters). We're all kinda looking forward to this session--the end of the first major arc, the beginning of the second, and the time we acquire a new character (so that everyone's gonna be playing 2, but that is what happens with tiny groups and big-ass campaigns, and Nous and the Rat are pros) so that we survive what comes next. I feel a little like a cheat running pre-written adventures, but it frees up the bandwidth for book proposals, where I actually do have to know wtf is going to happen in advance.

e) Kaiju-kitten has matured enough that I can spin again without having him attacking the wheel and ransacking the fiber, and so this is happening. The bag of fiber is a bunch of different dye lots and fiber combos (wools only, all from the amazing dye pots of M. at Blarney Yarn) all torn up into little bits, to be spun at random, like a grab-bag of colorful goodness. The results are...double-ply hanks of colorful goodness, that will all probably end up being a throw rug.

So yes. Happy Leap Year. I have a game to prep.

the trials of one's teens

Tinycat will be 13 in February. Since her check-up in June, she's lost almost a pound. That makes her Extra-Tinycat, now, at a mere 6.8 lbs. She's eating (as well as ever, which is to say not enough, but she's also a scarf-and-barfer, so we'd rather less that stays down than more that comes back up). She loves her treats. She's sassy and takes no nonsense from either of the boys. Coat quality is good. Eyes are bright. She's just...shrinking. 

Tinycat has no time for you

Obviously there is something not right, though we have no idea what. We took her in this weekend, because in the last two weeks she'd developed these big red bumps on her chin that seemed to be oozing. At first I thought Kaiju-kitten had popped her in one of their spats, but the proliferating bumps suggested something else. She's had autoimmune problems in the past, and coupled with her weight loss, we expected something dire. 

The vet took one look and said "cat acne" and proceeded to pop them all. She's home with a shaved, scrubbed chin and an antibiotic shot. The cat bowls are all stainless steel, so it's not a plastic allergy. (Well. Maybe. She licks plastic--the laundry basket is not safe--but she's done that her whole life.) The vet didn't seem as concerned about figuring out why kitty-zits as he did in why so skinny, so he drew blood and urine and we await results this week. Last time her bloodwork was done--6 months ago--everything was fine. Maybe that's changed. If not, we may be looking at an ultrasound. Something isn't right in there. Pix was voracious when her thyroid went whack, and she got super gaunt, but Tinycat's not showing the hyperactivity that goes with a hyperthyroid. Could be kidneys, if those numbers have tanked, but they were good 6 months ago. So we don't know. In the meantime, the tiny tyrant has been granted her fondest wish: baby food mixed with her real food. 

But in other teen news... we started playing D&D in the HS this week. We're using the Stranger Things starter-set, so all the characters are premade, magic-using (jhfc WoC. So much fucking magic), 3rd level. Also all good alignments. The kids did some customizing (we have a pet cougar named Tim now), names, genders, sexes, bonds and ideals and flaws, oh my. The idea had been to let them play their characters while taking turns DMing for the group. But attendance in high school is spotty, and I was not at all confident that a designated DM would be in class on their day. Hell, I still have kids who have not chosen a character, much less worked out their spell books. 

So I improvised. 

I grouped them by class and I DMed for them collectively. All the players of a particular class had to agree on an action and a spokesperson, and though there were a couple bumps with the stronger personalities dominating, it went... well. Surprisingly. I did bad accents and funny voices and kept the story moving (it's a pregen adventure that I've test-run before, but it's also pretty skeletally supported). They got to see real-time what happens when a DM has no notes in front of her to cover a player request ("We want to go to the infirmary to interrogate the wounded!" You...okay. Right.)  They cheered when I made the captain of the guard a non-binary human with obvious half-orc heritage named Bryce. The Wizards(tm) rolled at the end of the conversation to kiss this half-orc as a thank you for their help (player made sure to get consent first) and busted out a natural 20. "Bryce is into you," I said, while praying none of the administration came into the room. "With that roll, you can... you know. Whatever."

...which kicked off a flurry of speculation about what Bryce looked like, gods defend poor Bryce. All I said was "Bryce is cut. They're a guard captain and of muscular build." 

I fear for the fanfics I may've inspired.  

Next week: collective combat, while the students absent this week get up to speed on their spells. I have promised everyone they can play their characters individually when the groups write their own adventures to run for other groups, so that DMing duty is spread among all the group members. I look forward to the moment that I can intone, Gauntlet -style, "Cleric is about to die!" even if I'm the only one to get the joke. 

hello, 2020

these reprobates, napping after chaos

I woke up with a headache (sinus and weather, not excess aquavit, though, you know... that could've contributed) and cleaned up cat poop before I even got coffee this morning, so, you know... it's either an omen for the upcoming year or, like, another normal damn day.

I'm going with the latter.

School starts next week, both uni and the high school. I'm pretty psyched about both. The uni comp class has a new theme this year--food, of all things, after years of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Aristotle. The idea was...I want them to write, but I want them to feel like they have something to say. Food does that. Everyone (with one exception last quarter) has some emotional connection/story with a particular food or foods. Most of my students are international, and suffering language culture shock along with oh god, you want me to eat what? There's a lot of loving detail to be mined about grandma's jiaozu or stinky tofu or pie.

I feel guilty that the subject's not harder but... eh. I got some Pythagoras in there, translated by Ovid, and I'm still making them read closely and analyze texts. It's just a little easier for them. And I've gotten some of the best writing I've ever seen, so... I think it's fine. It's also a lot less work on my end. When I taught the hardcore texts, I had fabulous peer tutors attached to my classes. Like TAs, kinda, with dedicated office hours specifically for my class and assignments. Mine were exceptional. Both went on to grad school, one to be an actual teacher (and some school somewhere will be goddamned lucky to get her), and without them, there are not enough hours in the week to teach the hard texts, do all the commenting, and...write.

Because I am given to understand that writing is a job, too, and needs time, even if it sits third in my priorities. It shouldn't, but it has to most of the time. Students, y'all. Also the paychecks that actually pay the bills.

The high school class this semester (they're on semester; uni's on quarter. PITA) is basically D&D, which I have been playing and DMing since, oh, never you mind. AD&D and THAC0 and saving throw tables. That long. It's been a bit of a challenge to learn 5e well enough that I think I can teach it. I expect some of the students will already know how to play. Others will be brand new. It's going to be... totally uncharted territory, for me, teaching actual skills to these kids, instead of trying to expose them to all these different texts they won't get in their normal English classes. But this is going to be the last year, I think, I can teach there. Best I go out with the class I am most nervous and excited to teach.

Because... the writing. It does need more than third place. I have plans. I have ideas. I have so many stories I want to write, and no time to do it. I have one manuscript coming back from my editor Soon I Hope(tm), to be published in October, and another due to that same editor in June (currently with my agent, who said I'd leveled up with this book, which means I didn't underwrite it this time).

But after those...

I have an idea. I'm taking notes on it now. Will I outline? Eh. Maybe. Broadly. But for now I'm in the thinking phase--characters are starting to surface, conflicts, personalities. Themes. I would very much like this one to be a standalone, but we shall see. I need to write it first.

But today, actual New Years... I am going to play Borderlands 3 with Nous and drink imperial stout and eat tamales and probably more pepparkakor because my god that recipe makes a ton of them. Tomorrow is soon enough to work.

Happy New Year.

Summer ends. I grimly face my wyrd.

So.

Murdercat found the sun

The summer of time measured in "X Days Since Last Time I Went Among People" (X=2, but this was a social week) is drawing to a close. The HS starts tomorrow. The uni classes hold off another month, but really, if I am back in front of any classroom, summer's over. I'm having those little surges of panic, like I'm forgetting something, or I've squandered my time.

I translate this feeling to myself as "did not write most of a novel this summer." I'll probably be doing that next year, assuming the apocalypse spares us. I have ideas. They will possibly require research. So I counsel myself to patience.

I did write other things. Two syllabi, two websites for those classes, and I have been listening to Critical Role S2 in prep for the third syllabus (HS S2020) because seeing a rules-oriented D&D 5e game is actually research. I even, gasp, playtested a module. Unheard of in this group of home-brew plots and epics, but it worked out. I am still wrangling with how in five hells I am going to teach a thing I have been doing for 30 years (mostly in AD&D 2e, house-ruled to our eyes) to teenagers who may, or may not, have played before. Or run a game. Or faced the rules. But that's a challenge for which I have a couple months left to prepare.


I also wrote several things for the release of How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse, which is coming out in October and of which I am so damned proud I can't even. There will be a lot more about that coming up.

I've also spun a lot of wool. This batch is made of unrelated bundles of fiber in complementary colors, mixed together and spun at random. There's camel in there, various sheep wools, who knows. It's becoming a rug as we speak.

I have knit several socks in prep for the holidays. The godson is getting 4, none of which will match, at his request. They are also glittery yarn, also at his request. He is almost 5.

 I have rediscovered longsword training, and am pleased that I haven't forgotten my drills and that I've gotten so much stronger since I first learned them twenty-odd years ago. It is also a sadness, because the friend who was my first teacher died from a massive, surprise heart attack a few years ago, just north of 40, and that knowledge still shocks me whenever I recall it.

I have failed to convince my husband that we need another kitten. As Murdercat, almost 4, tries to coerce Tinycat, almost 12, to play with him, resulting in chunks of hair everywhere and a lot of feline yelling, I feel like the argument just sort of makes itself, but... the husband remains unmoved.

blue (balls) and fiber therapy

Grades are done (ish. Still to be submitted, after someone in admin fixes the fuck up so that I actually can submit them.) These fine blue balls are waiting for me. The amazing M, she who has so much fiber her husband does this little cheer when she gives it away to me (she's an indie-dyer, among her many talents, and she's always trying stuff out), gave them to me. Each of those balls is about 8 oz, or half a pound, and Arachne knows how much it'll spin out, but I bet it'll be enough to get me through season 3 Poldark for sure.  And then there's the 4-5 pairs of socks to be done by Christmas. So much knitting. But knitting is therapy. Knitting is "oh look, I am done with a thing, and the thing is objectively A Thing That Is Good."

Which is good, because oh, my various gods, this everything-since-January has sucked for so many reasons. A friend of mine, former officemate for years, died unexpectedly at the end of March. That was total toadshit. She'd just retired last year and while I missed her like hell at work, I knew she was out there being nona to her grandkids and adopting dogs and just, like, having fun and stuff.

Then, fuck you, April, we had two parental surgeries. First: Nous's dad, unexpected brain surgery (he fell. There was bleeding. They figured it out when he kept falling and having trouble walking). Second and third: My mom, knee surgery, the first for the actual fixing the joint, and second because it infected and they had to go back in and scrape things out. We didn't go back because, well, we're adjuncts and however good the benefits (we have them. That's something) and the union (until something crap comes from Janus, it's strong), we don't get actual sick time or vacation, so... anyway.  Nous's dad recovered nicely. He liked his time in rehab; he had a new audience for his jokes (he's the only extrovert in the family, poor guy). My mom is recovering, but her attitude is far wobblier.

The HS students give teacher awards. But I was provoked.

So...  I didn't have much left for students at the HS who were dealing with murdered friends and school shootings all over and general teenageriness. I had even less left for the ostensible adults in uni who sit in my office and explain that they just can't write this boring essay, they just don't do well on things they don't like, it's who they are. (While assuring me it's the class, not me, that they hate. I assured them back: I don't hate you either, okay? But your grade is sinking like a sinking thing, kid, so you better find it in yourself to adult and write the fucking essay. I didn't say fucking. That time.) There are moments when I feel like a crap teacher, which I know is, well, crap, because I'm good at this job and they have to meet me partway or it doesn't work. And there have been amazing students, too, just stellar. They are the reason I keep doing this job, right there.

And, and, I wanted to be done with the draft of the WIP by now, but HA. No. Even making wordcount on the days I scheduled for writing, no. I am at the stage where I am convinced it's totally awful, which, haha, is incidentally the place where I did trash a whole manuscript a couple years ago because it was total shit, so... this feeling is not without precedent or merit, though I don't think it will apply to WIP. I just have a much harder time dismissing feelings of failure with the writing than I do with the teaching.

So yeah. Looking forward to spinning my balls.

but why not dragons?

So over on Facebook I see a post by a former grad-student-turned-HS-teacher, asking how to help a student of hers "transition" from epic fantasy to "more serious" literature, and I am back to being 19 again, in the TA offices, listening to the MFA grad students going on about genre in tones of great scorn, and feeling defensive and defiant. Be proud of me, readers: I did not storm in there and punk-post about judging books by their cover (the student reads books with "dragons on the cover," which is obviously proof of the contents' quality), or get high-handed about how fantasy can be, and often is, serious literature with challenging writing, jesus H, have you read N. K. Jemisin or Le Guin or goddamned Beowulf, the fuck is wrong with you?

Instead, I spent a morning on this post instead of the WIP, but hey, blog posts are still writing, and the WIP needs to percolate a little more, and goddammit.

Once, long ago, I was an undergraduate student who wanted to be a writer. I was persuaded to pursue the literature degree, rather than the creative writing degree, for reasons of practicality, which, had I interrogated them closely, were really based on fears that you can't make a living as a writer rather than any certainty that an English degree would prove more employable. (I should have gone for the astronomy degree, or the chemistry degree, or anything else in STEM. I was dissuaded by Calculus 2, for which I had an abysmal teacher, and a desire to spend my weekends playing D&D instead of in a laboratory.)

I spent much of that undergraduate literature degree reading things I did not like and trying to find ways to read and research things I did like for credit, like the forty-source annotated bibliography on J.R.R. Tolkien scholarship instead of Hawthorne or Dickens or [insert canon author here]. That, in turn, led me to his inspirations and influences, and I discovered Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and All The Medieval Romances(tm) and mythology, which mean going over to Classics for some of my electives (and reading the Welsh and Irish stuff on my own), but whatever. I had imagined that literature was full of dry realism, women seeking husbands and red badges of courage and scarlet As, and instead I found all this magic stuff that looked like D&D. After years of resisting the parental dictates to "read more widely" (which meant: read Dickens and Bronte and put down the Tolkien or Cherryh or the Le Guin) I saw that I could read legit literature and still get my fantasy vibe on.

But I couldn't write it, not in that MFA program, so I kept going with lit in grad school, and after a series of science-grant administrative jobs I ended up adjunct professoring in composition at a big public university. The staff is composed of people like me, lecturers with graduate degrees, and English graduate students in both the PhD and MFA programs. My office shares a hallway with several professors, some in Creative Writing, some in Literature. As one might imagine, I come into contact with a lot of academics. A lot of us like Tolkien. A lot of us are gamers. But for most of us, it's still unserious. Leisure stuff. "Real" literature is something else, something mysterious, that could be universal themes or beautiful prose and universal themes or so much cultural cache we can't get rid of it? (And okay, but why is a goddamned hairy-handed vampire more legit than a dragon, as a book's subject? Dracula, not Twilight.)

Well. In my cynical mood, I'd say what they mean by serious is Not Fun (for me, this applies also to Dracula).

The Facebook poster seems to think that her student's dubious literary analysis skills will be bolstered by Not Reading Fantasy. I think--just based on the kid I was, reading shit I did not like one bit in high school lit classes--that if the student has something to say about the work, her literary analysis will suddenly improve; but if she's bored or disengaged, well. Shitty writing. I learned to fake it, but I had good teachers who let me play with form. My essays were half the time fantastic arguments made in character's voices, weird and recursive and, because I gave a damn about what I was writing, good analysis.

Which is not to say broadening of literary horizons is not a good and necessary thing for cultural literacy and just knowing shit and hey, sometimes we find something we like--I would not have read Virginia Woolf on my own, or any of the modernists, without that graduate seminar--and sometimes we encounter concepts we wouldn't, if we stayed in our comfort zones (Like modernism. Like post-modernism. OH MY GOD, JAMES JOYCE, WHY?) But if we're talking about learning to read critically, then... why not something with dragons on the damn cover? Just because dragons aren't "real"? (Well you know what? Neither is Mrs. Dalloway, or Kurtz or the Artful Dodger. Characters and settings aren't real. They just exist on a scale of scientific-materialist plausibility.)

Here's a thought: if you want someone to be a better writer, let them write about something they care about. Dragons. Or vampires. Or women seeking husbands. Or whatever.  Then make them think critically about why they like it, why the prose is working (or not), what the author's saying. Some writing is just crap, okay! But the way to have someone realize that is not to tell them it's shit and hand them a different book. Teach them to like the thinking, and they'll start looking for writing that makes them think. With or without dragons.

the ninth ring

I actually don't remember my Dante well enough to say  if there even is one that deals with weather in Inferno. If there isn't, there should be. I mean, it was 91 degrees at 6AM in late October, on its way to triple digits. (And in the time it took to write this post, yes, we hit 100).

I just finished the first draft (as opposed to the zero-th) of WIP,* which is not really IP anymore, but also is because it's not finished. But it's tacked together enough that I can send it to Nous, and send it back to The Rat, who read the subzero-th version already, and eventually, to The Mighty Agent. I have, like, 40K in scrap notes, which is what I had for Enemy, too. The detritus of world-building. The ways plot could've gone, and didn't. Still way better than the aborted 93K novel from last autumn. No, WIP is not book three of On the Bones of Gods. That manuscript has a name (Ally) and will be forthcoming in 2018, barring disaster. Expect much fanfare as the details become more clear. Expect the revisions on that to be eating my head soon enough.

I had started to post about the MeToo hashtag--

--which I participated in on Facebook (and not on Twitter), but--well. I didn't have anything to add, you know? There are so many of us, and so much overlap. I was struck by the number among my friends who hesitated to post (myself included) because we didn't think our experiences were serious enough. Catcalls and creepers and men from whom we could walk away without penalty didn't seem legit in the face of the assaults other women reported. That's toadshit, of course. I did not encounter any of the assholes some of the others did--the men whose comments made it about them, the women who said this is shaming, or not enough, or too much, or elevating victimhood, as if we are all asking for pity. And wait, what? I don't feel shame because some dude pulled up beside my twelve-year-old self and exposed his penis to me, or because some guy slapped my ass, or because a guy assessed me as fuckable (or not, depending on the encounter). I feel anger. I always have. And anyone who thinks I should feel something other than that can shut the fuck up--

--but decided I should work on this Tolkien class I just agreed to teach at the high school during the spring semester, which is a particularly long 17 class days of 2.5 hours each and no, we are not watching the LoTR and The Hobbit trilogies in their entirety. (Although that remains an option, I guess. But if I can't get the damned films done in one class, what's the point?) I had been intending to teach Zombie Lit, for which I have a syllabus already prepared, but the students I guess wanted Tolkien, and the boss asked who wanted to do that, so.... I am now researching, finding excerpts, coming up with (or borrowing) lesson plans. These are creative writers. We can do some cool shit. But it's also a lit class, so we don't do a lot of writing, which means I will need to PDF (it is too a verb. Shut up) all manner of things. Eventually. Not today. It's too hot to fight with the scanner today.

I have rediscovered Tolkien fans, though. Whew. Also too hot to get into that right now. But let's say I'm gonna have to watch the 3rd installment of The Hobbit and I intend to have beer and ice cream when I do it. Self-medication at its finest. (I'm going to hope Smaug wins, and write fanfic in my head where he does.)

gratitude

Yesterday was the very first time, ever, that someone has said to me (and to Nous, who was with me), "Thank you for teaching our kids to write. It's important."

My instinct was to downplay it, because I am toadshit at taking thanks, and because I don't think I deserve gratitude for doing my job. I chose this profession. Besides, in context: We were at Trader Joe's doing the Sunday shopping, and while we were checking out (and bagging our own groceries, because that is how we roll) the checker asked how the quarter was going. Not done yet, I said, and the students are over it, and we are over it, and spring quarter's the worst. And then the checker one lane over laughed, concurred (I assume she's a student?) and it became a 3-way commiseration, oh, spring quarter, the cruelest, the worst, wah.

And into that, our checker says what she says, not ironically, not sarcastically, but sincerely.

We joke, Nous and I, that one does not do this job for the accolades. That one should not do any job for the accolades, except jobs for which accolades are the point, and maybe not even then.* Yeah, we get thanks from our students sometimes, and that's great--but the cards or the cookies or whatever aren't motivation. And clearly it's not the money, either. It's just... what we do. What we're good at. And yes, I do it in part because I think it's important work, teaching students to write, but I don't expect anyone else to notice, much less remark on it.

I am used to being professionally devalued by the public at large--teacher unions are evil, teachers whine, you guys get summers off (no! we are paid 9/12. Big difference). And sometimes there are shithead teachers, of course, just like in any other profession. It's also like we're supposed to do more with less, all the time, and we have to keep justifying our existence and apologizing for the assholes among us and defending our actual expertise (because those who can't, teach, amirite? oh har har). It's like...we have to explain to management why adding 4 students to a class is an actual burden of time, and deserves compensation. Because of course we will grade extra papers, and have extra conferences, and do the work like we do no matter how many kids are in the room. They know that. They count on that. They seem offended when we suggest remuneration for labor. And I can guess why that is, where the roots of assuming we just do this because of our feels, so we don't have a right to comment on our workplaces comes from (cough, patriarchy and traditionally female profession, cough). And Nous and I, we're doubly damned: adjunct instructors, not senate faculty. Same degree, half the salary, no tenure, more students.

So yeah, thanks is not something I'm used to hearing, or expecting to hear.

It was nice that someone noticed. Not gonna lie. But also weird and discomforting. It's not weird when a student says thanks, because they're directly experiencing the teaching, and presumably they reap the benefits. But a total stranger who does not (to my knowledge) have a kid in my class? Just a general, objective hey, what you do matters in the world, thanks?

I don't know what to do with that.


*My Nicomachean Ethics are showing again.

who wants to live forever?

We begin this post with a cat picture, as is the custom of the interwebz, and also because Skugga looks very grave and dignified in this instance (which took place about 3 seconds before he decided he needed to gallop around the living room).

It is that point the quarter where, as one can see by the gap in the posts, I've been slammed under endless student drafts. This is because I teach the entry-level college writing class, which means a lot of writing and a lot of commentary to be made on the writing. My students are not good writers. That's why they're there. It's no shame to them; most of them are international students, or generation 1/1.5. That they're taking college classes in a language they've been speaking for 4 years is a testament to their badassery. But they still need a lot of feedback, and that is where my energy goes.

It'd be easy to say my energy goes there because that's why I get paid. I mean, that's true--the university pays me to teach, and by all the good green gods, I will do that. They don't pay me to care, though. I do that for free. And because I care, and because my dedicated peer tutor cares, we spend maybe more time than is union-mandated doing the work for which we are paid. (I have never understood why people go into teaching if they don't love it. It's not a place for people who 'can't do anything else'. It's the place people go when they want to make a difference and get, like, zero fame and recognition for it, except from one's students and maybe one's colleagues.)

I choose to teach because I think the job fucking matters, and because I'm good at it. I teach this particular course and level of writer because I see the biggest improvements and evolution in student writing and thinking. There are other courses that are easier, from an instructor's perspective. This one's a constant push of writing and commenting. But when I read a Boss Fight draft, and see a kid who's gone from omg Nicomachean Ethics and Beowulf I don't get it to a cogent examiniation of courage in poem and philosophy... yeah. Okay. I feel pretty good.

And yeah. Aristotle and Beowulf. Because if it's hard for everyone--and it is--no one feels stupid, and at the end, everyone feels like they accomplished something (because they did). And also...I don't know when or where else a student's going to get any exposure to ethics, unless they seek it out in an elective. People are very good at talking about their hearts, and following their feelings, and jesus, okay, fine. But Aristotle emphasizes reason, and so my kids have to think about that, too: their motives for doing what they do, and whether or not those motives are noble, or under compulsion, or from passion, or whatever.

One of my students observed that a truly virtuous teacher, by Aristotelian standards, would kindly sacrifice her time to her students because it was noble to do so, and because she reasoned her efforts would have some result; the teacher who is kind from compulsion is not really virtuous, even if her efforts also bring results. I joke with Nous that I am the citizen-soldier of teachers, acting for honor's sake, because of the shame I would earn if I did not perform my duty. That's not true, though. I respond poorly to external compulsion of all varieties.

But my gods, if it's internal--if, like, I think I need to finish a project no matter fucking what because I don't leave things unfinished--I can make myself pretty miserable. Like, 93k words of miserable that just keeps going in the wrong direction compounding itself because I will get this done. If this WIP had been a sweater, or any other knitted project, I'd've frogged it. No. I'd've cut the yarn and thrown the whole damn thing out.

So I did.

I could simply pretend this toadshit comes from starting the project when I was carrying an extra course last spring and I proved simply unable to balance Teacher Brain and Writer Brain. There's even some truth to that. And yes, external stress didn't help--isn't helping, thank you election--because I started this story in a dark, low-contrast world of competing political world-views and morally ambiguous characters a protagonist who was not a hero and then I realized--oh. I've read this before. Like 100 times. Am I adding to this conversation about moral ambiguity? Am I elucidating some angle of the non/human psyche, or leveling a critique/observation about the real-world context? Am I just exploring motives and underpinnings for why someone acts like they do, the literary equivalent of making excuses?  I grew to like the characters. I just kinda hated their world. It looked too much like this one, even with aliens and spaceships and cyborgs. It was cynical. I'm tired of cynical.

I had my students read an essay last week discussing the changes made in the 2007 Zemeckis Beowulf movie from the original poem. My students were struck by the difference in Grendel's mother, between poem and film, from (arguably) scariest monster in her underwater lake who almost eats Beowulf, to Angelina Jolie in gold shiny skin with a tail. They liked that movie-Beowulf seemed more mortal, more human, in that he allowed himself to be seduced; but they were pretty convinced he was a damn fool for having done so, and they would never make that mistake. I posed to them this dilemma, then: make a deal now, for success your whole life, your life's dream, and then die, rather horribly, sometime around 60; or muddle along, doing your thing, for the next 80 years with no particular success or failure. Just, you know, middlin'. There were some wide eyes. There were some thoughtful stares. There was a sudden sympathy for movie-Beowulf.

(And I thought--yeah, okay. If you told me--trade the last 20 years of your life so that something you wrote lasted for the next thousand plus years and left a mark on the culture--like Aristotle or Beowulf--I'd have to think long and hard about that bargain.)

A fair number of my students condemn poem-Beowulf because his motive for killing the monsters is always his fame, his glory, his legacy; they want something more pure for his courage than even Aristotle's cold reason. They want him to be brave because it's just right. They want him to be a damn hero.

I think maybe that's the story I need to tell right now. A hero. Not an unproblematic one, maybe; but still, someone who actively tries to do good things because it is noble to do, and base not to do so, and that means a society that isn't so mired in cynicism that public opinion means something.

Maybe that's my fantasy.

Chaucer was so full of it

April is innocent. It's freakin' February.

Okay, Chaucer was all up about the weather, droughts of March, rains, blah blah. I would like to see that rain. El Nino in SoCal right now is a big no-show. I am not complaining (oh, yes I am) about nice weather. I am complaining about summer heat in February. I am not ready to yield up my long sleeves yet! No! It sucks to be a knitter in a place where you can wear a sweater, like, 2 days out of a year. I don't even wear socks most of the time. Fortunately Nous does, so he benefits. And Zero in Toronto gets sweaters.

But weather is not the worse offense, O February. No. That, we reserve for the day job. February is Crazy Times in the quarter anyway. It is the month of All The Drafts of that second paper the necessity of which I acknowledge, while at the same time regretting its complexity.

This quarter, I got a plagiarist. I am not happy. They don't happen often, but when they do, they take a lot of time to handle--means getting my boss involved, gathering documentation, etc, taking time I would rather spend commenting on drafts (oh, be honest: writing non-work things). But really, it's the betrayal. Don't imagine I'm stupid, kid, or that I can't tell you didn't write something. But really don't imagine I won't notice if you stole work from my former students.  And then, for the love of all that is good, don't skip the fucking meeting with me because you're too scared to own what you did.

The worst part of this one: there might be complicity on the part of the plagiarized. Victims...or accomplices. We have no way to know. I can guess, and I can believe, but I can't know. I hate not knowing. I hate that I  now wonder if I must missed some degree of perfidy in those kids during endless conferences and talks about their work, or if their bleeding-on-the-paper honesty was just...bullshit. Bullshit that I believed.

I am angry. I don't like being angry. I don't like being the Green Knight's Axe. I don't like the waste of energy and time. I don't like being reminded that people are shitheads. I mean I know that, but I let myself believe it doesn't happen in my classroom, where we read freakin' Nicomachean Ethics in week one. Clearly the lessons don't stick. (But they do, for many. I see the lightbulbs go off.) There's an intimacy to teaching writing: they come in broken, convinced they can't do this, and you show them otherwise. You encourage and excoriate, you read confessions and heartbreaks and triumphs, you watch their eyes light up when they realize they care about what they're writing for the first time in their lives.

Right. Hold onto that feeling, not the betrayed-sick-I AM THE AXE feeling. Onwards to March.

this week...

...began with two dead watch batteries. Saved because third watch is a thirty-odd year old Snoopy wind-up with a little tennis ball counting off seconds. At least it's on studded black leather band.

8 inches into one panel of Dad's vest, I discover the row is 12 stitches short because I cannot count. Frog it all, begin again.

Broke the red glass flower part of the hummingbird feeder. Made do with a cut-down plastic pen body. Birds did not care.

I made chocolate chip cookies because COOKIES, and because I had a couple days of no student commenting (that ends... now) so I had time.

The Girl Scout cookie supplier was a no-show Wednesday. But we still have chocolate chip cookies, so we will not die.

There will be pub Friday tomorrow, goddammit.

Word-count! Sent to the Rat, because I am driven by deadlines and discipline and other words starting with D.

Insurrection planned in game! Much furious typing!

More word count! Followed by the realization that I don't like writing much. It's hard! Wah! ...and then more word count, weeping and snarling.

From an actual conversation with The Rat:

"Oh, see, I knew all your creepy-ass reading about space ship crashes would come in handy." 

"Indeed. I'm not saying you should compromise the outside, which would do a lot more damage. I'm just saying the bodies should probably be in pieces rather than puddles." 

"Pieces! Excellent."

And now begins the slow trickle of 57 first drafts for comments by Monday. Fuck and damn.

Oh, word-count. It was nice knowing you. At least there will be beer.

For now, coffee. Then yoga. Then Arrow tonight. And maybe, maybe more word-count.

making faces

I have avoided linking my photo to my name for as long as I've been on the internet. In the early days, that was a conceit, because the web was the 'Net from Gibson and we were all (in my corner of reality) half role-playing netrunners anyway. Then it became a matter of paranoia. Self-protection. I shot my electronic mouth off a lot more Back Then, was more willing to engage with asshats on the internet. But I sure didn't want them finding out who I was. Then avatars appeared (oh, livejournal) and one's picture was as much of a communication as one's words, and why the hell would I want to use my own face? When I shifted into Facebook, and for classroom websites, I made cartoon icons of myself, reckoning my students could see the real me every class, but the cartoon communicated something different--the viking-hero version for the Beowulf class, for instance--became a part of the teacher persona.

Now...I have this novel coming out, see, and there's author photos Out There attached to the name, and for the love of all that is good I am on Twitter (somewhere, a pig flies), so it seemed like it was time to make real faces. (Really, at the heart of it, is that I cut my hair and the style no longer matches the cartoon viking-me. I am that...whatever the word is. Particular? Obsessive? You pick.) So I broke out the camera on the laptop and sucked it up and took photos. There were filters! They were fun. And kind to fairly shitty lighting (leave my chair to take a better selfie? No way). And, vanity! Kind to the rest of everything, too. You don't stand in front of a classroom of 19 year olds if you're self-conscious or crippled by give-a-shit, but still, photos on the internet.

I updated my Facebook with one of the first crop (which lived very briefly here and on Twitter, too). And almost immediately, I got a couple of comments about how "very serious" I looked. And I thought wait now. What? The ONLY comment you can make about me is...I am not smiling? Why even comment at all about my expression? Like (or do not like; there is no ambivalence) and go on with your day. Why do I need to be face-policed?

When Nous posts some new version of himself, let me assure you that he is not smiling. He is the Anti-Smile. He is deliberately scowly. Does anyone ever comment on his expression? No. They comment on his hat, or his photo composition, or just say 'nice' or some version thereof. I did not expect nice, because the photos were crap (Nous is a good photographer. I am not. The end.)  Grant: I had no hat. I did have masks and paintings in the background because those are on the wall behind this chair, though I did not expect them to get comments, either. I thought I might get a where the hell did your hair go? or two, from the people who had seen it long, but that was about it.

But no. Where was my smile? Why was I not performing friendly for everyone?

Well, because.

We tell little girls to smile because it makes them pretty, which in turn sends the I am friendly/nonthreatening/approachable signal. I have made the fatal error of smiling at strangers before, only to get sucked into unwanted conversations or get followed around stores or hit on or harangued or whatever. So I learned, you know, not to do that.

Because I'm not that friendly, swear to the gods. I'm a cranky introvert who has no fucks to give about whether you think I'd be prettier if I smiled or whether my refusal to do so means I am a dyke and/or hate men. In my classroom, my office hours, my professional and personal interactions--I can and do smile, because I am happy to be there.

And that, ultimately, was the reason I took down the unsmiling me and replaced her with the sideways smirking me (and also because the light in my office was more conducive to photography).  I do want to be here (though I am still a little ambivalent about Twitter; but I'm ambivalent about Facebook, too). But damn, I kinda miss the days of icons and avatars.

the plan

I turned in the Enemy manuscript, y'all. To my editor. For. Production. The final draft is out the electronic door. And, and! We talked about cover art, too. (The phone call was relatively early, my time, and so I was freshly caffeinated. Might've been more loquacious than usual.)

I'm starting to feel like this writing thing is real, now. Like, it's a thing that I do, like teaching is a thing that I do (not job, because job sounds a lot less fun than writing or teaching, and vocation sounds either religious or romantic and pff). And I know my bio says Writer. Teacher. blah blah blah but there is writing in the dark, and then there is writing and realizing other people--many other people (please, benevolent book gods. Many) are going to read it.

The is awesome in all senses of the word.

Now I am going to defy my superstition about talking about projects before they're written because it's silly not to and besides, I already did. So. The new book is trooping along. I don't feel like I've totally got a handle on these people yet, but it's dialing in. It's a procedural meets an Icelandic saga. I think. If I can manage the procedural part (I know I can manage the saga part.) I have an outline (I never outline. This is weird.) and I'm actually taking physical notes as I go about word forms and made up crap that I am gonna need to remember. I'm planning, for the love of all good things. I only plan my syllabi and my game sessions.*

Maybe that's why I'm feeling like this writing thing is turning real.

*gaming is like real-time novel-writing, and with characters who live in other people's heads, especially my players' heads, I gotta at least try and stay one step ahead.