slight pause for station identification

Week of Small Mercies

The Princess works at a grocer’s; the store requires all customers and staff to mask up or I would be asking her to quit. There’s no denying her paycheck contributes mightily to the household; she pushed very hard to take over a couple monthly bills–it makes her feel Grown Up, which she is; is also is much cheaper than having her own place by an order of magnitude. Like, ridiculously cheaper.

Those considerations are weighty, true. But when I swung by to pick her up from work yesterday, the place was jammed. Looming lockdown has everyone scrambling, and I have been tentatively broaching, “You know, we can cut some financial corners and make it okay if you quit and stay home.”

She’s having none of it yet; I can’t force her. But dear gods, how I worry.

Masks, temperature checks, and attempts to keep distancing are all de rigueur at the store for employees; there were one or two customers who grumbled about masking but swift action from a couple managers put paid to that. So far we’ve been lucky and I’m not sure if the bug we had months ago was actually the plague, or if my recent illness was a recurrence instead of me just working myself into the ground because stress. It would be nice to have testing capability or a federal government run by actual noncriminal adults, but we make do with a governor (who just won re-election, thank goodness) who is following the science and staying the course in the face of resistance from jackass racist death-worshippers.

Small mercies.

I can’t imagine how parents with toddlers, or with school-age kids too young to be left at home while they’re forced to work, are handling this. I can’t imagine how healthcare workers are coping. The guilt of survival, of having it easier, is immense.

Last weekend I felt some hope. This week seems determined to crush it out of me; I’m checking Is This A Coup? almost daily. I can’t tell if the weight in my lungs is leftover from illness or just plain stress.

At least I’m able to work at about half productivity, which means two projects at once instead of four. So we won’t starve just yet, and we’re extraordinarily lucky that my work is home-based.

Even smaller mercies, I suppose.

Also, since a few of you have asked: No, I am no longer on Instagram. I was going through the settings and found out the platform had been “liking” posts for me.

I never “like” or “heart” or whatever posts on any social media; it’s an anxiety thing. If I like or heart or star or whatever one thing, I start spiraling down a hole worrying that someone else will see it and be hurt because I didn’t see or like their thing, and my feeds move so quickly it’s just an invitation to despair. So I know damn well I didn’t do it, and that only leaves chicanery on Instagram’s part. This chicanery probably cost someone ad money, and I will not be party to this bullshit. So, no Insta for me, though I am still kind of squatting on my name there so no impersonators (long story, I would have thought the world was fed up with merely one of me) can do their bullshit. It’s sad, because I enjoyed doing picture posts, but the Friday photos here will have to suffice; I’m looking into Pixelfed as an alternative.

No mercy in that, small or otherwise. I’m just noting so you guys know what’s going on.

And now, having nattered on and on about nothing very interesting in particular, I shall finish the coffee I almost splattered down the hall on my way to the office this morning and prepare to take the dogs on their daily rambles. Boxnoggin is particularly interested in the prospect of another run today; I think he’s beginning to crave them. Necessary evils can be fun sometimes, I’m sure.

It’s only Tuesday. Time has become as elastic as it was during my sleep-deprived phase of new motherhood, though I haven’t mistaken diaper rash cream for toothpaste yet.

Tiny mercies, indeed.

The Person They Think Me

It’s not even noon on a Monday (though it will be well past when you read this, dear Reader) and already I’m absolutely ready to stab everything in my path. Part of it’s hormonal, part of it’s exhaustion, part of it’s the state of the world, part of–oh, let’s just say there’s a lot of factors.

This morning’s walk was in fine penetrating drizzle; both dogs were damp within minutes. Miss B is sanguine; her coat is all-weather and as long as she gets her exercise she’s fine with just about anything. Boxnoggin has stopped dramatically throwing himself to the (wet) ground when he’s asked to go outside in the rain. It was a tactic with diminishing returns even when he started employing it, but that didn’t stop his stubborn doggy self, oh no.

After walkies, it was time for a run, still in that same drizzle strengthening to actual rain. (We need many more words for types of rain here in the Pacific Northwest. Many, many more.) Boxnoggin was too excited to obey much for the first couple kilometers, but then he settled with an almost-audible thump and began paying attention.

I did try taking him running with B just after he came to us, but stopped when the vet and I realized he was far too young. It’s always a crapshoot figuring out how old dogs are at a certain point, and he is both pure black and also a high-energy boxer-terrier mix. So at the shelter, people would look at him and say “oh, a black pit bull” and pass him over. He’d been returned numerous times in his young life, and I suspected he thought he’d be returned to the shelter this time too, so he was emotionally shut down and do I blame him? Not a whit.

Now, however, he’s been with us longer than all those other places combined. I joke that only the sweet release of death will free him from our care, but he doesn’t seem to mind. It’s been difficult–he had a lot of energy to work off, a lot of bad habits to kindly, gently coax into better paths, and add to that a puppy’s tendency to get mouthy and the fact that I couldn’t really take him running until both the vet and I were certain he was old enough it wouldn’t damage his joints and you have a recipe for a lot of eye-rolling and “Dog, you make the worst decisions…”

They even said at the shelter that he was “shy.” If there’s one thing this dog is not… I mean, he is almost pathologically gregarious, no matter if most of his social reflexes with other dogs (not to mention humans) tend to take the form of a very loud “PLAY WITH ME PLAY WITH ME PLAY WITH MEEEEEEEEE” until I have to drag him away. It will get better as he settles into both running and adulthood, but he’s so high-energy and needy he ends up driving to distraction even those who want to be friendly.

In short, Boxnoggin requires a lot of patience, very firm boundaries, and occasionally being carried by the handle on his harness as if he’s a valise because he does not make good decisions.

He’s also one of the most loving dogs I’ve ever met. Miss B longs to be under my skin all day; Boxnoggin won’t rest until he’s burrowed into your bones. I wake up with his nose in my armpit more often than not, since Miss B has taken to hopping off the bed in the middle of the night in order to sleep on the cool tile floor of the master loo. And as soon as he suspects I’m fumbling towards consciousness, Boxnoggin gets extremely excited at the prospect of sharing another day with his pack, and can’t contain wriggles or sneezes.

A large dog sneezing into one’s armpit is a strange way to start the day, I must say.

There’s no way to be truly angry at the world when I can cuddle a dog, really. We don’t deserve them; they’ve been with us almost from the beginning, and even at their worst, well, they’re better than the best of us can hope to be.

Gods grant me the strength and patience to be even close to the person Boxnoggin and Miss B clearly think me, especially amid all this.

So I wish this for you today, dear Reader–the comfort of dry socks, a measure of peace even mid-Monday, the luck to accept the unrestrained, joyful love of a canine companion. (Or a feline, equine, or what-have-you one.) I don’t know if humanity is worth saving the world for, but dogs?

Yes, they’re worth the effort. May I never forget it.

Now it’s past noon and time for lunch. Maybe some fiery chicken curry will relieve me of the urge to stab everything in sight. I’m sure last night’s leftover bacon will be greeted with much enthusiasm by the aforementioned canine quotient of Casa Saintcrow.

Over and out.

Celebratory Tiramisu

So last weekend, when the news came that the election was no longer in doubt, I double-masked, grabbed hand sanitizer, staggered out, and brought home a celebratory tiramisu.

The tiny local bakery (always my first choice) was jammed with (masked) customers so I didn’t even get out of the car; there was nothing in one supermarket bakery, so back into the car it was. I lucked out in the third, and carried my prize home.

We put a tea light on it, and the Little Prince–as our newest registered voter–got to make a wish for democracy and blew the candle out.

It’s been a week, hasn’t it. The nightmare is not over, but the chances of a coup are slowly–sloooooowly!–receding. We’re not out of the woods yet, but as Churchill intoned sententiously, it may very well be the end of the beginning.

I’m tired, and still a little ill. I know you’re tired too, my beloveds. I have grown to dislike hope over the last five-six years, since it hurts so much when that hope is ripped away by fascism. Still, like a cockroach, hope survives in hidden cracks, and I have been feeling it these past few days.

At that third supermarket bakery, the lady behind the case nodded when I asked if everyone else was celebrating Pennsylvania declaring for the forces of good, too. “Oh yeah,” she said, quietly, the corners of her eyes crinkling with a broad smile behind her mask. “Everyone’s tired, but so happy about it. Want ten percent off?”

Bless you, Bakery Case Lady. Bless you, bless you deeply.

So. Last Saturday the kids and I gorged on tiramisu and hope at once. After a long time in dark hopelessness, we are hungry for the good.

Here’s to hoping, then. (Even I can’t eradicate that cockroach.) Here’s to hoping, and to kindness, and to working together; here’s to a ringing defeat of fascism and its fellow travelers. Here’s to the end of the beginning.

There’s a lot of work ahead of us, I know. And it’s a Friday the 13th in 2020. May Freyja grant us light and strength for the road ahead.

Oh, and cake, too.

Perfect Enough

That brief window of time when your coffee (or tea!) is just perfectly cool enough to drink, and just perfectly warm enough to still be fresh and to slide all the way down your esophagus spreading good cheer, hit your stomach, and radiate in thin lines of oh thank you caffeine.

Waking up to find a dog who missed you while sleeping, who is so happy to see you she wriggles with glee while shoving her nose in your armpit, and then the other dog is on your other side doing the same thing, demanding to be petted and told “who is the best, the very best, why it’s you!” because it’s a brand-new day and they’re excited to share it with their favorite human.

Slipping downstairs to turn the heat on for the day and being greeted by a mad tortoiseshell cat, who demands affection and babying (literally being picked up, cradled on her back, and spoken to in a specific singsong whisper) before you are allowed to retreat towards your coffee.

A brush of rain on the roof, soft drops presaging later downpour, but you’ll be able to come home, peel off your running togs, take a warm shower, and slip into dry clothes.

(Especially socks. Dry socks are a boon and a blessing.)

A line of cedars moving their arms thoughtfully, like a class of dancers listening to the teacher and fixing movements in short-term memory.

Making your own bed, with your own flannel sheets. The bed nobody who made you feel bad was ever allowed to sleep in, the bed you bought with your own money, the bed you put together with your own hands, the bed that has everything you like and nothing you don’t.

Getting your running headphones plugged in for recharge on the first try.

Glass apples ranked along a windowsill, some holding memories and others just beautiful, and nobody knows the difference except you.

The quiet of a house where your children are still sleeping. Knowing they are safe, knowing that for the moment they have no worries, no cares.

For a few minutes, everything is all right.

And now to finish the coffee, and to hope that you–whoever, wherever you are–have some peace today too.

Nadir, Recovery

Yesterday was the nadir as far as physical recovery; I spent most of it in bed. The release of tension, knowing that I don’t have to walk into the sea just yet, is almost as painful as illness itself. I’m still shaky and raspy, still coughing every once in a while, and there’s still so much work to be done.

At least now I can work without obsessively refreshing the election websites, staring through a screen of fever and physical misery, expecting the worst. I know this is the most dangerous time, that the malignant narcissist and criminal cabal squatting in the halls of power are well into the discard phase1, I know that they’re going to break everything and smear ordure everywhere, I know that even in the best case scenario this gives us a mere four years of breathing room I should use for emigration.

For the moment, though, I’m crying with relief at some moments, laughing with mad relieved glee at others, and generally feeling as one might when one is let out of unjust incarceration or realizes, for the first time, that an abusive “family” member isn’t coming back and one is free. The only thing I can compare it to is when the realization I never had to go back to my childhood home, not ever again, truly sank in on more than an intellectual level.

So. I have coffee. The dogs need walking, and since I have to ease back into running (just when I got my mileage back up to a respectable place, dammit) it’s time for Boxnoggin to learn how to keep in his ‘sector’ while jogging with Mum. It shouldn’t take too long, because it uses the same instincts pack hunting does, but I’m so used to running with Miss B instead we’ll have to go very slowly. It wouldn’t be fair to be frustrated with poor young untrained Boxnoggin because he doesn’t have the years of trust and work B and I developed on near-daily runs.

So today will be a good day for me to deliberately be gentle with myself, and with others as far as I can. The adrenaline crash from the last five-six years of constant retraumatization is not done yet. I have some work on HOOD planned today, a little revision on Moon’s Knight, and scheduling/looking at revised wordcount goals for The Black God’s Heart.

Before the election: Chop words, carry words. After the election: Chop words, carry words. But maybe at a slightly reduced pace for a short while. Everything inside me feels breakable, slightly too-stretched, frangible, friable.

Don’t think it’s over, because it’s not. Don’t think everything is fixed, because it isn’t. Don’t think it’s hopeless either, because even with massive voter suppression and the attempt to sabotage the Census, the USPS, and literally everything else, we still sent a ringing defeat to Papaya Pol Pot. We’re all tired, goodness knows.

So take a deep breath, dearies. Get those shoulders down. Hydrate, get a snack if you haven’t in the last few hours, and remember that while it’s not over, we did something great and should celebrate it. We’re not going to erase four years of fascism overnight. We won’t erase it with four years of a “centrist” caving in to regressives’ violent demands, either, but at least said “centrist” has a sense of shame and can be pressured by public outcry.

The big thing is that we’ve all been traumatized, violently, over and over again for multiple years. The release of tension isn’t going to start with relief, it’ll start with the feelings we were too deeply in survival mode to acknowledge, swamping us wholesale. Just… be ready for that, okay? You’re not crazy, you’re Feeling A Lot that you weren’t safe enough and didn’t have energy to feel before. Extend to yourself the same grace you would to a beloved friend–after all, who else do you spend 24/7 with? That’s right–your own damn self, and your own body. Be kind to both of them, beloveds.

And with that, I’m going to go see if I can’t follow some of my own advice (for once). I’m braced for the next disaster, of course, but I’m also going to use this peace to the fullest.

Boxnoggin’s nose it at my knee, and his big soulful brown eyes are weapons of mass cuteness. Time to walk, and then haul us both through a short, easy learning experience of a run.

See you in a bit.

Not the Plague

Five days or so of intermittent fever (my body likes to cook itself at the slightest provocation), coughing (fortunately that’s going down now), body aches (somewhat of a misnomer, I feel I’ve been beaten with a truncheon), postnasal drip (though fortunately I can still smell when the decongestants work).

Pretty sure it’s not the plague, as my digestion (for what little I feel like eating) is ticking right along and like I said, I can still smell. But still, it’s unpleasant. I think my body is in revolt against the bullshit it’s been asked to endure the last four years, let alone the last few months.

I’ve spent a lot of time sleeping since I fell ill. Normally I absolutely cannot sleep during my “daytime”, even if it’s in the middle of the night. (Long story.) It’s hard to let down my guard enough to nap, sleeping requires barring the door and starting a long slide of preparatory maneuvers impelled by habit.

It’s not that I can’t relax. It’s that I need to feel safe to sleep, or simply be so exhausted I don’t care. I haven’t felt safe since waking up in 2016 and realizing what I’d written had come to lurching, terrifying life.

Anyway I have all the subscription stuff prepped for this week. I had about two usable hours of energy yesterday, so I spent it getting that all done up. HOOD needs the end of its third season finished in zero form, Moon’s Knight needs a polish, and The Black God’s Heart is my NaNo novel.

I should set that last up.

I just wish I knew whether there was a chance at us saving ourselves despite gerrymandering and voter suppression (there are no “red states”, just voter suppression states) or if I should walk into the sea now.

I have coffee that I can taste in bursts, though. The dogs are both eager for a walk, though it will be in the rain. Jacqueline du Pré’s cello is coming softly through speakers; the hardest thing will probably be tying my shoes with Boxnoggin’s “help.” He longs to be useful, and doubly longs to be under a dextrous, gentle pair of human hands. It’s his favorite location, even better if he can chew on something.

So I wait to see if the sea gets me. My nerves are shot and my body’s breaking down under the strain. But at least I’m largely sure it’s not the plague.

Yet.

With that silver lining, my friends, I shall leave you. It’s time for a round of decongestants and the aforementioned shoe-tying. Stay strong, drink water, don’t be racist or fascist.

It’s amazing how many people can’t manage the last two, even with all their simplicity. If I was ever optimistic about humanity, rest assured I labor under no such misconception anymore.

That hurts more than the rest of it, but I’m too tired–and ill–to care.

Revisions and Frost

I thought my coffee was taking too long this morning. It was, because I had failed to turn the stove burner on.

Also, I just had to get up and walk out into the kitchen to make sure I’d turned it off, and I am dead cold sober, for God’s sake. Probably going to have to check more than once today, too.

I spent yesterday eyeball deep in revisions on Damage, which isn’t a bad little story. At least, I have enough distance to see if for the trees now, even if I’m reading it as a relic. There’s not a mask or social distancing to be found in the entire thing. Of course, it’s a love song to a particular Matthias Schoenaerts movie, so it was a pleasant respite from the state of the world.

Another day should see the revision done; then there’s two more to get off the plate and the finish for HOOD to write, not to mention The Black God’s Heart. But for the moment, Chopin is playing and I have my coffee.

There was frost last night. The dogs are attempting to sleep under me, which isn’t a change, but it’s better than summer when they try it and shed heat everywhere. Waking up with Boxnoggin’s nose in my ear is disconcerting, but no more so than seeing a toddler loom by the bedside in the middle of the night.

There are Post-its festooning my entire desktop. Quotes, lists, reminders; it’s almost time for a harvest. The trouble is there’s so little energy to address the reminders, because keeping my head above water is taking the lion’s share. I’m tired, dispirited, and long to walk into the sea.

But the dogs need their walk, and the kids need the house. There’s no choice but to continue. I have often been in the position where no surrender or retreat is possible; I don’t like it. I’m sure nobody does, no matter the concomitant relaxation–after all, if one has no choice, one finds oneself doing difficult things as a matter of course.

I’m also watching videos about Civil and Napoleonic War battles while thinking a lot about the Silmarillion and the Fall of Gondolin. I’m not quite sure what that will give rise to, but it’s what the Muse wants and as long as she’s demanding food, it means she hasn’t abandoned me yet.

At least there’s that small mercy.

So we brace ourselves for Tuesday, my beloveds. One more day should see me through Damage, and then it’s HOOD and going through The Bloody Throne to look for bracket notes. Heaven knows there’s a lot of those, and I’m going to be cursing my past self with a vengeance each time I trip over another one.

If I’m working, I’m not weeping. Another small mercy, I suppose, the only kind granted these days.

Stay strong. Survival is victory. You’re probably tired of hearing me say it, but I have to.

If I repeat it enough, I might even believe it myself. And I need that today.