Half-Brain, Dishwasher

Robin Hood
© | Dreamstime Stock Photos
I’m bouncing back and forth between an epic fantasy in a preindustrial world and a sort of Robin Hood in Space thing, where Robin is a sniper home from interplanetary war with PTSD and mecha are a thing. Each half of my brain is fighting with a different story, and I’m left standing on my corpus callosum and looking rather baffled.

As long as I don’t cross the sewage treatment technologies, I’ll probably be fine?

One of the things I want to do in the epic fantasy is show things that were hand waved or glossed over in the fantasy books I read growing up as a kid. How does the water for bathing get there? What happens when a woman has her period? I know there’s a chunk of fantasy out there that answers questions like that, and the chunk has been growing all the time, but I want to come up with my own answers. I want to solve the problems in my own way.

And I can’t read other epic fantasy right now. I can’t read in a genre I’m currently writing in, mostly because I don’t want to poison the well but also because it’s exhausting. The same brain-muscles used for creating would start trying to revise and build in other directions, and I’d end up a pile of exposed wires, sparking and writhing.

On the bright side, I finally got a repairman out to look at the dishwasher. The bad news is that at 15+ years old and with no model number, the poor thing is irretrievably dead. (Cue Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch.) This is not, however, the worst news, because it means the home warranty will (begrudgingly, I can only suppose, but we are all helpless in the face of obsolescence) replace the damn thing.

I am overjoyed at this, but the true beneficiaries are the Little Prince and Princess, for they chose the kitchen as their daily chore and once the dishwasher stopped, were initiated into the great mysteries of Washing Up Completely By Hand, otherwise known as The Entire Reason Dishwashers Were Created. Not that they complain, really, since they chose the kitchen as their chore of choice ages ago.1 They split the work according to whoever has the most time off that day, and largely get along without any trouble at all.

They’ll make good roommates or spousal units someday, I’m sure.

I spent a fair amount of time yesterday looking at dishwashers. I had no idea there were so many options. Basically all I want is a stainless steel tub and a filer that isn’t too bloody difficult to clean; but if you have Dishwasher Advice, now’s the time for it.

Speaking of advice, I had to get rid of Disqus as a commenting system. They updated their plugin and broke syncing as well as started hard-selling ads. I don’t want advertising on my bloody site, dammit–you could make the case that it’s already an advert for my books, but I like to think there’s some value added in other parts. Anyway, the look of the comments section has changed, but it’s still the same old field of sweetness, punning, light, and my comment policy. So hit me up with your Dishwasher Advice, my friends.

Now it’s time to get out the door for a long-is run, and block out the next assassination attempt in each book. Technology may come and go, but murder remains ever the same. *sips drink*

Over and out.

  1. No, really, I did not GIVE them the job, they WANTED it, along with doing their own laundry.