selki | Recent Entries

I stumbled across another piece of under-told British history that would make another fine historical novel/movie, though this one has more of a horror aspect.

The Thomas Overbury affair was the greatest scandal of seventeenth century England featuring a heady mix of adultery, murder and necromancy, and has been described as "one of the most sensational crimes in English history".

As riveting as this read was, it seems to skim over a crucial aspect of the story: The woman behaving badly in it is only thirteen when she is betrothed, and sixteen when she is supposed to take up married life. Her youthful marriage was not atypical for the times, but I'm thinking of the raging teenage hormones that drove a lot of the her actions (no excuse, just upping the drama in a way). The corrupt power-maneuverings of others at court (including royal participation / looking the other way) could add some gloomy texture and modern relevance. It could sweep the Oscars!

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/210535.html

I've been posting mostly-little things elsenet but it's been a long time since I did a general update over here (DW transcribed to LJ).

Work

Finally got a new member of my little SCM team. He's pretty sharp technically, doesn't need exhaustive instructions, and likes documenting things.
December was stressy because a major wait-wait-wait transmorphed into ISNTITDONEYET??!?!? but we got it done.
Holiday parties, potlucks, caroling were fun.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss: reorg time! Got back the boss I had a year-ish ago (not the bad one from 2 years ago). My little team is being uplifted into "Linux Engineering" and we will all supposedly expand our horizons and do cross-training. They've been talking about cross-training for years, of course, and I don't know how my boss will cope with 37 directs without making subteams / task leads, so we'll see how all this really shakes out.

Dance: not much -- one contra the last few months? Sick now, so not soon. Did a lot of walking and some hiking last week, though.

Elections: Friends and most family were a great comfort during debate watches and after the election. Church also a comfort. I'm hosting protestors for the big weekend coming up.

Family

Enjoying having my nearest niece practice and sing with me in the second soprano section.
Didn't lose my temper at Christmas. Thanks to sweetheart and DHS for letting me rant at them long-distance instead.
Was able to put aside aggravations for the most part for mostly-good family time with only occasional silent stews.
Need to make a will. Any Maryland estate lawyer recommendations?

Friends

Enjoyed a museum day with some: http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2016/vanvechten/ and
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2016/brooks/
Saw part of an opera with Stevendj (it wasn't quite all we wanted and we left at intermission)
Saw Garden of Lights with some
Celebrations with some
It was kind of an old friend to take a few minutes at a very busy time and ask, no really, how are you, and listen, and care.

Loving

Happy with my sweetheart. Good New Year's weekend celebration in Philly (those who could make it).
More remote relationships conversational only these days, but nice conversations with future visit possibilities.
I would really like a local relationship.
Flirty party fun is fun but doesn't seem to lead to local relationships.
Accepted a date in December from a guy who kisses well, but wants to play a very wide field and is aggressively pushy. X.

Singing

Had a short solo during one of our church choir anthems which went went well. Enjoyed the Christmas Eve service singing.
Video game orchestra performances in November went well and attended by some friends, family, and sweetheart. Adapting to my new role as tenor -- they seem constantly short on tenors. Some of the notes I sing up and some I fade out on, as the chorus director wishes. Next concert's April 8.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/210368.html

A signed and sung performance of Hamilton's Cabinet Battle # 1 is so cool. I love how how the speakers AND the signers are acting (lots of attitude!). I saw a signed-and-spoken play ("The Dybbuk"?) once and it was great. Also the speakers behind the signers reminds me a little of what I've seen of the staged *The Lion King* with the animal mask-extensions.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/209985.html

A lot of people are wearing Where's Waldo costumes to work today. Some anime hair. A cowboy, a couple of cat ladies, a shark, a Pikachu, Super Mario? a clown. A high Fed is "man cat" (the man pages for the cat command). I'm wearing black (down to my toe shoes) and a pretty coppery green checked mask. Best costume: my fave Fed is the Samsung phone on fire (he was a knight on a hoverboard last year).

I hope to make it to the Glen Echo contra dance tonight. They decorated the hall last night. It should be pretty cool.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/209716.html

"Pearl-clutching" came up recently relevant to WorldCon (a panel moderator ran over his panel with a monologue supposedly about SJW pearl-clutchers), and reminded me that I've been meaning to write about it as a gendered slur for some time now. Generally it's women who wear pearls, and women who are accused of getting "hysterical" (another gendered slur) over small unimportant things. To categorize anyone with concerns over a social issue as "pearl-clutching" is pretty much saying they're brainless over-emotional women. Applied to men, it's also a kind of gender policing.

Just this morning, I responded to someone (in a friends-locked post, feel free to identify yourself) looking for a less-gendered term than "wanking" for someone going on and on in a conversation (monologue). I generally use "wanking" to describe self-indulgent musical solos that go on and on, myself, but I understand the desire for a less-gendered but still punchy phrase. Others had some suggestions. I came up with "broviating" which I realized afterwards is of course every bit as male-centered as wanking, but I still like it.

I remember when someone lectured me on my supposed sexism a few years ago for using the term mansplaining, in reference to a man who had been "explaining" something to me I knew more about than him (dance history). I was unimpressed by her argument, since I don't intend to pretend that it's something women do as much as men, especially since I don't think it's helpful to insist that we blind ourselves to gendered patterns of behavior when we're trying to identify cultural weight that shapes our behavior. Certainly women can 'splain on *other* axes to the supposedly-unenlighted (e.g., privsplaining), but I haven't seen them do it as insistently in the face of evidence the other person is already quite knowledgeable on the subject, thank you. Still, now that I've come up with "broviating" I may start using that instead, since it has the connotation of a certain kind of man. (#notallmen)

Similarly: Years ago, I was happy to come across the term "manspreading" to describe people (generally men) who spread their legs to take up two or three seats on trains, since it seemed much more polite than the term I'd seen, "lava-balling" (their balls are so hot, they have to spread their legs or spontaneously combust!). But someone posted on Facebook last week or so, an illustration from a Victorian newspaper which showed a man doing that thing, and it had an even more polite and gender-neutral term for it. Alas, I can't remember it. Possibly since I've never seen a women do such a thing.

I have strong opinions, but actually am open to discussion on all this.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/209493.html

Home: The neighborhood cookout went well. I finally got new kitchen shelving and I feel much better organized. Also my sweetheart painted the walls so the colors are much better together, got basement plumbing repairs/upgrades, and I got a new refrigerator (old one was 1999 or earlier vintage). My niece got a paying job and moved out, and I de-cluttered and she got bookcases, chairs, etc. Made LN2 ice cream with friends.

Entertainments: improv theatre with LJ's stevendj, Lucia di Lammermore opera in Philadephia, ladies book club, wandering around looking at merchandise and playing old video games after we sang at SuperSmashCon, library book club, got to know orchestra folks better at a cookout, sat at a firebowl, went to Philly for Labor Day weekend (board games and electric bicycle tryout).

Family: I think we've finally worked through the official estate business for my father, although we still have the house to deal with, but LJ's squishydish is living there so no rush.

Service: I helped make dinner at The Children's Inn again, and gave a lay reading at my church for the first time.

Work: We're short-handed, I'm doing a migration this weekend (unless it slips again) and missing the last pool party of the year for it, oh well.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/209195.html

Pretty sure I broke my nose last week and somehow didn't realize it until this morning. Timeline:

Went to NC last week for the annual family summer vacation (at the beach by our hometown). Pretty good time, also had to work some and got some chores done (e.g., got crack in car's front glass sealed).
Thursday? Or was it Friday morning? a fierce wave flipped the boogie board I was hanging on into my nose. It was a fierce smack and I really felt it, but there was no blood, and I even joked with my nieces about it being a near miss for a broken nose. I skipped voicing my internal musing about it almost being like one of those deadly palm-strikes one reads about -- it really had seemed to drive my nose straight back, up from the lip.
Friday late afternoon (but not so late as to be shark time), went swimming again. Felt fine -- jubilant that I didn't get burned this week but got a lot of time in the ocean.
Friday night: trouble sleeping. CPAP fiddly.
Saturday: drove back with my niece-housemate. Still not noticing anything.
Sunday: Slight headache, low energy.
Monday morning: woke up and nose hurt. Assumed my CPAP had been on too tight. Nose tender all day, but busy first day back at work.
Lunch: Phil met me for sushi. He didn't notice anything. I didn't think to say anything.
Monday night: hurt to put on CPAP, even with looser fastened headgear. Pulled off old nose seal, got a different size out of supplies to put on, hurt a bit less. Slept.
This morning: ow ow ow. Felt all around and noticed a bump about mid-way up on the bridge of my nose. Tender. Looked in mirror. My nose now seems to tip slightly to my right, from the dark patch mid-way up my nose.
#*O(T%UW@$P@(*&U@(&

If it is broken, it's probably already partly "set" and would take surgery? to fix. Is it possible I just slightly damaged it last week, and then did something else to break it all the way on Sunday?

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/208413.html

I went to a gorgeous play in May, a production of *Journey to the West*, a Chinese literature classic which has been adapted in many forms. Years ago I acquired a sheet of playing cards based off a Chinese mini-series of it. Last week a friend of mine got a very short comic book adaptation of it as a freebie with some shipment. I saw the fun and musical production with LJ's stevendj; we had a good dinner before at Rice (Thai).

One of my nieces moved in with me in May. She just graduated college and has an internship in DC through (most of) August, and is hoping to find a permanent job up here. We're getting along fine, each trying to respect common space (not leaving things lying around), sharing groceries (I've gone vegetarian for my home meals while she's here), chatting when our schedules work that way, and the place is big enough that we can each hermit when we need to.

Balticon was fun. LJ's squishydish came up for it,

dhs came down for it, I saw a bunch of friends and went to good programming, and I got to dance a lot. The schedule disappeared from my phone app sometime after the con, but I remember enjoying a panel about utopias and optimism, and Fran Wilde's last-minute kaffeeklatsch.

Having gotten a taste for dancing again, the next weekend when my sweetheart visited, we went to two/three dances, depending on how you count them:

Ballroom dance at Colvin Run in Virginia: nice double-sprung wooden floor, small stage for live bands, around the same size as Oella. Dance community-owned converted schoolhouse. Reasonably friendly crowd, around my age (some older, some younger), more Latin dances than I'm used to, no noticeable vintage.
Swing dance at Glen Echo, part of the folk festival
Contra dance at Glen Echo, part of the folk festival

Last weekend I went to a benefit concert and practiced my charitability when the guy seated next to me kept tapping his knees All. The. Way. Through. I was reminded of that bit from the first Master and Commander book when the captain meets the doctor at a concert and the doctor is aggrieved by the captain's ... enthusiasm for the music. The next day I relaxed at a friend's party with fresh strawberries and gave myself a henna job on my troubled thigh ("painting" water and flowers along the muscle which keeps giving me problems).

After 3 rehearsals last week (including an extra sectional and a "dress rehearsal", in which we dressed up to the nines in colorful clothes / cosplay), the geeky Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra I've been rehearsing with finally performed in Virginia. What an experience! Next week's near-to-me performance (Saturday night) is coming up fast. It will be even better! It's so wonderful for all our hard work to pay off with great music.

This morning I was the liturgist for the taize' service (meditative, lots of chanting), with three days' notice (the pastor emailed me to ask if I could do it). I remembered how my dad took his readings very seriously, and would go over all the words beforehand, and I did review them, if not quite as much as he would have -- next time I would actually practice reading them aloud; it's different from just reading the words with my eyes. Still, after the service, several people told me how much they appreciated my readings, and my singing the chants along with them. The music director who had played the piano for the service gave me a hug and told me with a grin, "You know what the reward for a good job is..." and I smiled back and told him I'd enjoyed it.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/208235.html

Accidentally said that to my choir director last night. We were taking our tea break, and he mentioned leadingly, the church will need some soloists this summer while the choir's off. So I mentioned my sister's spasmodic disphonia (I'd been thinking about telling him), and that my voice sometimes "jumps like hell"
oops, this is the choir director, and he regards his job as a ministry...
"Uh, sorry, I mean ... it jumps a lot. Still, even after I've been singing regularly, though I admit I don't practice scales every day."
He took it calmly, and offered contact info for an ENT who works with singers. My sister ended up having to see more than one specialist (including a neurologist), but I may take him up on that. It may just be that I'm not practicing enough/right, or damage from acid reflux I had a while back, or something like that.

At the end of the evening when we were sharing news and concerns, I mentioned the gamer symphony orchestra that I'm in, and our concerts coming up in June (in Virginia and Maryland). I mentioned that the video game industry makes more money than movies these days, and that was where a lot of the serious money for composers is going these days. One of the tenors behind me said something about how we're (America?) going to hell if more money is going to music for games than for church. I *think* he was joking ... I hope. I think there are more obvious reasons for America to be going to hell (if it is).

Coincidentally last night, my sweetheart was watching a play about a Christian church, identity, and a pastor's grapple with conscience.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/207876.html

Some three or four years ago, I pampered myself with my first-ever pedicure. I kind of wanted to get a green glittery polish for Penguicon, but my language skills weren't up to it. It might have just been a clear polish; I don't remember. When I got my second pedicure a year ago (more pampering, a few weeks after my dad died), I went with what seemed like a fairly benign pink color. Once on my feet, the color looked SO weird! I startled myself every time I saw my bare feet. It's gradually worn/chipped away except for on my left big toe, where the top third or so still has that garish pink.

Three weeks ago, I got my first-ever manicure, in prep for a sort of promotional interview at a different business unit at my employer (I haven't heard back, may have fizzled). I went with a clear polish because I didn't want to startle myself again and I didn't want my nails to be too flashy, but I did want to look polished. What I wasn't expecting was how weird my fingernails would FEEL to myself. So slippery, almost bionic/robotic/alien. It's been interesting to see the progression of the chipping-away this time. It's not too obvious to others since it's clear (at least, no one's made comments). Little sections still feel glossy, and they sort of shine unevenly.

Last Saturday, I went over to my neighbour's (the one who cuts and occasionally colours my hair) and we had some wine and watched the Kentucky Derby together. That was fun. This afternoon, I'm going over to her house for a Mary Kay party -- I expect I'll buy some moisturizer cream or something, but who knows? I'm going for the general festiveness and because she asked me, but maybe I will let myself be talked into something more. Not a facial, though -- I got one of those a few years ago and it hurt, I made them take it off almost as soon as it went on, even though it was supposed to be "our gentle version". I have very sensitive skin.

Tomorrow is the ladies' [ex]co-workers book club at my house, so I have some chores to do now!

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/207636.html

A few weeks ago, I straggled into a store. I thought my hair was in need of a cut, kind of sticking out from my head, but the woman behind the cash register thought it was great, and told me so in a kind of rushed quiet voice, "Love your hair!" or some such. Maybe it looked punk-on-purpose or something. :-) I thought *her* hair was gorgeous, with braided loops, but I was a little flustered and just said "Oh, thank you!" That was so kind of her, to make a point of saying that to someone she didn't know. On my way out, there were other staff around, they were busy, and I thought it might be weird to compliment her hair out of the blue, but I did smile at her and wish her a good evening as I paid and left.

I won a little prize for charades at a friend's birthday party, a little Game of Thrones raven statuette. I don't watch, but it's an impressive raven. I hadn't warned the party folks about the cut-throat charades we played in my family.

The cherry trees sure were pretty this year. I've only braved the crowds at the Tidal Basin a few times, but there were some lovely ones up here, and I had a nice walk outside on the peak Saturday. I should call a tree person to strip the ivy from the one in my backyard, and trim it back where it's brushing up against my chimney. I thought I had a bunch of cherry saplings in back (growing from the roots of the big one), but only one seemed in evidence when I went back there during the bloom.

A house guest broke a toilet seat and I was pleased that I was able to take out the old one and select and put in a new one without much trouble. I'm not mistress of all home repairs, but that one I can do. Also I cleared a clogged sink using a "Zip-it" tool (long plastic strip with teeth) I picked up at the same time.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/207176.html

I like my neighbor, but I'm not impressed with her architect boyfriend, and neither is Verizon. FIOS and phone restored with temp overland wire. Tech told me my neighbor took out at least 4 people and she's going to be fined for not calling "Miss Utility" when her boyfriend put in the steps that go down from her backyard. Verizon will be in my backyard and others' over the next 2 weeks marking (spray paint on ground) and then digging and laying more fiber underground, and then I will need a "compliance technician" to come back and connect that with my house. None of this will cost me, yay.

I wonder if I should hire the landscapers to clean up my backyard before then, or wait until they're done. I'm leaning toward the latter.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/207083.html

Choir practice Wednesday night was a little nerve-wracking, with me as the only soprano*. I made some mistakes, but we got through it and it was overall helpful that I was there. Helped me, anyway! :-) The director, as ever, was kind to all (he's demanding, for the music, but in a very constructive and encouraging way).

I went to my first official practice with the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra -- it's nearby on Monday nights. It's an 80-musician group (including ~23 singers) that performs original arrangements of video game music. I attended their last spring concert, I like the music they do (lots of variety, not afraid of dissonance), and LJ's Silmaril recruited me. There was some griping among the singers during practice about some of the music, which surprised me -- I guess I'm spoiled by choir. People were friendly, though.

In addition to singing 3 times a week (WMGSO practice, choir practice, and church service). I've also been doing some treadmill lately, which should help with breath control. I kind of feel I have to seize the chance to sing while I can, since one of my sisters has the same voice problem radio host Diane Rehm** has, and has to get botox shots in her throat to be able to talk (she used to love to sing). There's no evidence spasmodic_dysphonia is genetic, and probably my voice is shaky sometimes just because I haven't sung regularly for years, but it unnerves me and so I'm singing a lot this year. Both singing groups will take a break over the summer, and I'll see how I feel about it all come fall when they start up again.

* There was only one alto, too. Probably a combination of the sleet, rain, and tornado watch, and no anthem for the coming Sunday, but I'll miss practice next week due to another certification class, so I wanted to make this one.
** Rehm says she's retiring after the 2016 elections.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/206781.html

Hamilton the musical was great! Seeing it with LJ's SquishyDish was great! I scored a great hotel deal by waiting until the last minute (oops), and the weather was great, some friends of mine (including LJ's ElissaAnn) met us for a delicious birthday brunch, and we also lucked into two good meals on our own by a little online searching and wandering around a few blocks from Broadway (one a nice tapas restaurant and bar, and one tasty Moroccan restaurant).

The Hamilton cast album has been running through my brain, brain, brain, INCLUDING at a Western Swing dance and a salsa lesson and dance I attended last week, and even our pastor's cadence during the Sunday sermon got me going again.

I sang at what I think was my first ever Ash Wednesday service tonight -- nearby Lutherans asked our church choir to help them out. They have a pretty church, but our choir had over half as many people as were out in the pews. It was a quiet, respectful service, with good thoughts and meditations, and only a bit of jarring with the He/Him/His language (our church uses words like Creator and God rather than Lord and other gendered terms). Thankfully, no Hamilton intrusions during tonight's service, although Cabinet Battle #1 has been saying hello in my head since I got home. Pushing back against it is the choral a capella version of Du Hast (Mich).

It might have been prudent to wait until after my LJ-free sister's wedding and then my next professional certification/exam in March to join another singing group. However, I've enjoyed the music of the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra, and a friend of mine in the soprano section recruited me, I auditioned, and I'm now a member. I join the regular rehearsals in a couple of weeks. Part of how I talked myself into this is, my voice will likely do better if I'm singing three times a week regularly (WMGSO practice, choir practice, church) than only two. You might think it would have been easier just to do daily scales/practice, but I don't seem to have been doing that. Sort of like the difference between going on walks with friends v. the exercises I don't do much on my own. Anyway, I'm having fun singing new music with new people.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/206575.html

I was really ready to get back into the office yesterday, after teleworking Ths&Fri last week and then being snowed in. The vegan superhero neighbors were great, helping others clear their cars too. Other neighbors shoveled snow into my cleared walk and on top of someone else's car. Guess which neighbors got a homemade dessert thank-you from me.

While buried in snow, I listened again to the Hamilton cast album. My twin SquishyDish and I are really going to see the show! We can't waaaaaiiiiittt!!!

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/206219.html

Sportsball is" , some diss is talking to it a lot (mercifully, less some other dudes showed up), and another guy talking OVER the game on his phone, but at least it was in another language. I noticed my car was overdue for oil change by 1000 miles, oops, so took off from work to get it done before the weather hits. Have run through work email and social media except full Twitter feed which I only ever dip into a few screens at a time. Incidentally, I listened to "Wait For It" from Hamilton about 10 times this weekend.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/205875.html

Family: Went to NC for Columbus Day and Christmas weekend, very nice visits. Been Skyping with the sibs. Also various Asylum visits back and forth.

Dance: Ballroom here, contra sonic there, but I want to dance more.

Home: Got stuck with the HOA treasurer position for 2016, oh well. Also got my front yard fixed up and hung some of the art I've gotten, looking good, now looking at painting and plumbing to be done.

Professional: Obtained another ITIL certification, and presented at USENIX. The company merger went ok. I'm a little grumpy about benefits changes and related poor communication (e.g., where's my new prescription card?), but no serious issues. The contract reorg has also been going ok. I did get a new manager, but she's been ok so far. She has her hands full and our sub-team more or less runs itself (well, with my leadership). We're expecting our team's workload to ramp up again soon with the new year. We'll have a lot of new tool/process changes to adjust to, as well. Keeps things interesting. :)

Books and related media/experiences:

The Ladies' Ex-Co-Workers book club continues (just 4 women right now) at a leisurely pace. We had good discussions of our last couple of books, *The Watchmaker of Filigree Street* by Natasha Pulley (British Victorian steampunk? time/memory sf), and *Tales from Rugosa Coven* by Sarah Avery (New Jersey pagans). Coming up in a few weeks: *The Martian* by Andy Weir -- I enjoyed the book, haven't seen the movie.
Local library book club: I really liked *The Dog Stars* by Peter Heller. No one else did; I don't think they're used to post-apocalyptic novels. Next book is some emo thing which I'm happily missing because <lj user=stevendj> and I will be seeing "Best of Storytelling" in DC that night.
Enjoyed Chessiecon.
Moby Dick: I have only read sections of it, but I did enjoy the related movie *The Heart of the Sea* (I don't understand the bad reviews: I thought the characters were nuanced, I rooted for the whales but the movie conveyed these whalers doing a dangerous, difficult, sometimes disgusting job, and the FX were good but not too in-your-face, mainly giving depth, e.g., waaaaaay up in the rigging). And last weekend, I enjoyed a game of "Dick", a Cards-Against-Humanity style game with interesting quotes from the book (e.g., lots of sperm whale stuff) to fill in the blanks.

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/205585.html

*If He Hollers Let Him Go*: I'd been meaning to read more Chester Himes since I learned he was the author of *A Rage In Harlem*, which was turned into an under-appreciated movie in the 90's. My local library had a copy of this book, set in 1940's LA, centering on a black defense dock worker. I held off from starting for a while because I was dreading it being grim, but actually it was highly readable for as far as I got (the library wanted it back). One of the things I liked was how rich it was in showing things that not all the characters got (though dialog, not POV-switching). Other black people assumed our narrator was ignorant because he was from the South, and just flat-out missed the meaning of some things he said that showed he wasn't. He, on the other hand, missed the intelligence and POVs of the women he was with/pursuing, upper and lower class. And, of course, the white people were overlooking a lot that was going on. Himes got a lot of flack at the time for showing the friction between different black people/communities, and the ongoing seething anger of some black people. This guy is just angry all the time, understandably, even though he also feels other things too. Another thing I liked was the view of LA and blue collar work of the time. I haven't fetched it back from the library because things WERE starting to go downhill for our narrator, but I'm glad I read what I did.
Bootlegger's Daughter mystery series by Margaret Maron: Here's another series that shows multiple POVs, but by POV-switching, set in NC over the last couple of decades. My mom and several sibs have read a lot of these, so I picked up a couple the last time I was home, and then a couple more from the library. I almost stopped with the first of these (not the first in the series), *Killer Market* (furniture / house decorating shenanigans), because the heroine Deborah was so foolish (despite being a judge), including lying to the police and excusing herself and assuming no one would find out. However, the next from the house, *Slow Dollar*, had a lot going for it: family feeling, loyalty, carnival life. The next from the library had a good example of the POV switch: Deb's casual, smug contempt for an older woman who "really let herself go" (30 pounds overweight and didn't much care what she wore, no wonder this woman's husband was running around on her!), versus when Deborah's husband runs into this woman and sees her strength and he doesn't especially notice her weight or clothes. So the author, at least, is aware that our heroine isn't perfect. I made it through another book set in my hometown (not bad), and have stopped there (there are several more, but I think I'm done).
*The Dog Stars* by Peter Heller: Well, *I* loved this post-apocalyptic tale of a pilot who's survived the pandemic, but doesn't always think so good anymore, who loves his faithful hound, and is still trying to remain a good person in spite of his misanthropic neighbor (they watch out for each other against roving bandits). However, no one at the library discussion group did, though some appreciated certain aspects of it ... and some didn't even finish it. Oh well!

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/205377.html

If you want to sing some carols but don't know where, tomorrow my church is singing at the assisted living center in Asbury Methodist Village, open to all! This is a More Light, transgender-friendly church. All are welcome to sing with us.
Schedule:

11 AM: meet at Rockville United Church . 355 Linthicum Street, Rockville, Maryland 20851-1539 to run through the carols (most are familiar but some have different/extended arrangements)
Noon: drive (carpooling)
12:30-1 PM: Sing at 201 Russell Avenue, Gaithersburg, MD 20877

( Song list )

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/205114.html

My sweetheart alerted me to the story of a fight between handlers at the London Zoo, possibly over a winsome llama keeper, or possibly because the meerkat keeper dissed the llama keeper (hypothetical paraphrase: "no rebounds, I don't want him, ewww") to the monkey handler, per the write-up to this odd YouTube vid. The fight wasn't actually at the zoo, but at their Christmas party. Christmas parties, man, source of much office drama. Not many end in allegations of one person nearly pushing another off a balcony or glassing, though. The reason this is in the news now is because the court judgement came out. Anyway, I theorized that surely someone had made a filk or a mash-up vid about this zoological phenomenon, and not much later he replied,

To the tune of "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)"

( trigger warning: violence )

And now I'm off to a church dance, which I expect to be relatively tame. :-)

Crossposts: http://selki.livejournal.com/204805.html

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selki

January 2017

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Page generated Jan. 26th, 2017 09:09 am

ephemeral entries

Recent Entries

Historical romance and horror

2016 Wrap-Up

Signed, Sung, Delivered

Holiday wear

Mildly gendered slurs

At home and out and about

Broken nose?

Journeys, Housemate, Balticon, Dancing, Music

"Hell", eek

Girly

Kindness, charades, cherry blossoms, competence

Verizon 1, neighbor 0

Singing up a storm

Song and Dance Woman

Snowy Waiting

Waiting room

2015 Wrap-Up

Unfinished books I have things to say about

Christmas Caroling mid-day tomorrow (Saturday)

A meercat, a monkey, and a llama walk into a fight