“I wanted one that said ‘black like my heart’,” my writing partner said, “but I figured this was close enough for you.”
She knows me so well.
Lili Saintcrow
Roll for Adulting
I finished Kenneth Stampp’s The Peculiar Institution yesterday, during a break from the Sekrit Projekt. I had to take the book in small chunks, because so much of it is sickening. If one wishes to understand America, one must look unflinchingly at chattel slavery. It’s that simple.
It took a little while, sitting on the deck with my eyes closed, for the nausea to go down. Part of it was that Stampp’s attempt at “balance”–Christ knows he probably wouldn’t have gotten the book published without it–delved into the “moral quandaries” of slavery for the owners. I have long been, and remain, completely unimpressed by the idea that whites were somehow forced to enslave others, and unsympathetic to their moaning about how haaaaard it was to do so. The sheer number of mental contortions they had to perform to convince themselves what they were doing was somehow acceptable is astonishing. It’s akin to the just-as-breathtaking contortions conservatives perform today, both in number and in kind.
Next up: Harrison Salisbury’s The 900 Days. Which is a terrifying book already, since I’m familiar with the Siege of Leningrad from other books on the Eastern Front. I’m only about a hundred pages in, and I can’t look away, the suspense is awful.
In other news, I got 3K words in on the Sekrit Projekt, did an hour of yoga (my hips felt weird afterward) and almost forgot about the new short story up for preorder. It’s one I wrote a while ago, when I was first thinking about doing a werewolf novella. Unfortunately, the narrator had other ideas. It’s not often a short story comes out in a whole, bloody chunk, but this one did on a very cold winter afternoon. Funny how I tend to write winter stories in summer, and vice versa.
Anyway, I’ve a 6km run today, and another push to get the bulk of the Sekrit Projekt done before I have to shift to revisions. The revisions are for a book I doubt the publisher will take anyway, but when professionalism demands, the writer performs. I mean, I’ll certainly bitch about it to my writing partner, but I’ll do it to the very utmost best of my ability. Roll for adulting, +3.
Over and out.
Go Straight Through
In between housework chores yesterday I finished reading Vincent Shih’s The Taiping Ideology. Interesting in and of itself, the book is also fascinating as a snapshot of Chinese studies in an American university during the late 60s. It was published in 1967, so Johnson’s escalation in Vietnam was well underway, which meant Communist China was a bad guy as far as a lot of Americans were concerned. The fact that the party line in China views the Taiping Rebellion as an early attempt at class revolution makes it even more interesting. Teasing out implications and looking for signs of academic one-upmanship is one of my very favorite things.
The footnotes were pretty amazing, too. I love footnotes.
So that was my weekend, other than (finally) laying more concrete for the garden walkway on Saturday. For those curious, we’re using this heavy plastic mold. It takes an 80lb bag of concrete for one, with a little left over, so every fourth or fifth there’s enough for another full mold. The kids and I have our mixing, filling, tamping, and lifting down to an art now. You can definitely tell how we’ve gotten better as we go along.
We laid eight bags of concrete, well over six hundred pounds of lifting and shifting. That’s our upper limit; it took us an hour and a half and we were all pretty much done by the time cleanup was finished. The larger part–the patio extension–may have to wait to be fully finished until next summer, but we’ll get the part around the upper garden boxes done before the rains move in this autumn, just on weekends, six to eight bags at a time.
It’s a good thing we can all work together without killing each other. Kind of like when we painted the loos–close quarters, hot work, tempers liable to fray. But the kids are fascinated by the concrete process, and seeing the end result gives them both a glow of accomplishment. Me? Well, my back is okay, but my arms and legs are noodles after each session. The glow of accomplishment is kind of overshadowed by the need for ibuprofen and the urge to wash concrete dust off in a cool shower.
And today, of course, there’s an 8km run dialed up. I should get out before it’s too warm, and see if my legs have forgiven me for all the lifting on Saturday. There’s a particularly intense scene to write today, too. I’m not sure if my protagonist is going to get a crossbow quarrel in the back, and the only way to find out is to go straight through. As usual.
Over and out.
Big Shape
On our rambles, Miss B and I come across all sorts of things. Sometimes she wishes to investigate them. Sometimes, though, it’s large machinery, and she gives me a sidelong look that says no thanks, Mum, I know better.
Would that humans were as wise as this one shaggy, neurotic little Australian shepherd…
Before Noon
THINGS I HAVE ASKED MYSELF BEFORE NOON TODAY:
* Does it count as six kilometers if you had to drag an Australian shepherd for the last two because other dogs were everywhere?
* …where the fuck is the tofu?
* Did I turn the washer on?
* No, really, where is the tofu?
* Is that dog drool or…you know, let’s just not even ask.
* Did I remember to put coffee in the grounds basket? (Gods forgive me, I hadn’t.)
* WHAT DID I MEAN TO PUT ON THE GROCERY LIST?
* Do I really have to eat something? (I decided eating was bullshit and I had to get the shopping done before the drunks get on the road.)
* WHO MOVED THE FUCKING TOFU?
* Did I turn the washer on? (No, I hadn’t. It was sitting there, with clothes and soap, patiently waiting.)
* Where are the dogs? (“Underfoot” is always the answer. I tripped over one of them and almost fell on the other.)
* Oh. I moved the tofu. It’s already marinating. When did I do that?
* …wait, why do I have the beans on? (It’s chili night. I shouldn’t have bothered with the tofu.)
* Why isn’t that scene working? Who do I have to kill to make it work?
* Did I really just drop that? (Thank God it wasn’t glass. THAT time.)
* IT IS BEFORE NOON ON THE 3RD, WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE DRUNK ON THE ROAD?
* Was that sodden lump of something on the pavement a squirrel or a rabbit? (I don’t know, it was already dead and in the middle of the road and I was going thirty miles an hour, it was hard to tell.)
* Should I figure out how to go back and scrape it up and bury it? (No, I’d get run over. SHUT UP, CONSCIENCE.)
* Am I going to drop this bottle of shampoo/bottle of mineral water/bottle of rye whiskey/package of ten bars of soap/bunch of bananas/any other random thing I’m holding?
* Is that woman going to let both of her young children careen around the grocery store unsupervised while she’s on her phone? (Oooh, ouch, that one just tried to run over an old man…)
* Is that woman on the phone talking about Kenny Chesney? Who talks about him for more than thirty seconds AT MOST, AND ONLY IF FORCED TO?
* Why am I dropping everything I touch?
* When will I hit my absurdity limit and find all this funny? (Hint: it happened at about 11am. Since then, well, you get the idea.)
* Seriously, do I have to wash my bra when I get home?
* WHERE IS THE TOFU…wait, don’t tell me…
* Did I forget my debit card? Please tell me I didn’t forget my debit card.
* Do they suddenly not stock oatmeal here? (No, they do, I was right in front of it and if it was a venomous animal, I’d be dead.)
* SERIOUSLY?
* Huh. Is that pair of small children with tiny shopping carts pretending to be cats or racer drivers? (They tried to take out another elderly man, but he was too quick for them.)
* Wow. Is that woman with them STILL on the phone? (Yes. Yes she was.)
* Is it worth telling the woman on her phone that her hellspawn children are going to get her sued?
* Did I remember tofu?
* What else was on the list? (The list had been left in the car, because it was Just That Kind Of Morning.)
* GOD DAMN IT, WHAT ELSE WAS ON THE LIST?
* …was it mouthwash? (It was. That was my one victory. Remembering the mouthwash.)
* Did I really just use the evil eye on those two small children with their tiny shopping carts? (I did.) Is that woman still on the phone? (She was.) Did the evil eye work? (It did. Until they got to the checkout.)
* Should I put the whiskey back? (Don’t be an idiot, Lili. You’re going to need that shit.)
* Did I just make a Gloria Gaynor reference to my checker? (I did.)
* Did the checker just laugh and knock over a bottle of mineral water? (She did.)
* Did we both stand there laughing like loons? (Yes. Yes we did.)
* Did those children scamper out into the parking lot and get run over by a black Escalade? (Almost. I shouted, another woman lunged to catch the taller/older child almost by the hair, the taller/older child had realized something was wrong and grabbed the smaller one’s arm, and that motherfucking woman with them was STILL on the phone. Didn’t even thank the Good Samaritan. But I did.)
* I only wore my brassiere for an hour and a half, do I really have to wash it?
Fortunately, my clumsiness was funny to me, my patience lasted, I decided I did not need to launder my brassiere, the tofu will keep until lunch tomorrow, I killed no-one, and I do not have to leave the house on the Glorious Fourth AT ALL. And at least the two small children with the tiny shopping carts (and mother STILL on the goddamn phone babbling something Kenny Chesney) were safely in their own car the last I saw.
Now I have to go check the fridge. I am possessed of a completely irrational, sneaking suspicion that the tofu has been moved…
Simply a Screen
My personal readings tend to be bifurcated. I usually blame it on being a Gemini, or having the Chariot as a patron card. At least two great beasts drive me at any particular time, and the trick is to hold the reins correctly and get everyone moving in the same direction.
You can see that here–the Knight going one way, the Queen facing another, and the result in the final card is a bit of a mess. It’s a warning for me to shorten some reins, loosen others, and just generally attend to and be conscious of where the fuck I’m heading.
This brings up something else I used to tell students. The divinatory prop you use is a screen for the precognitive faculty to project upon. Look at the cards and tell yourself a story about the pictures. It’s really that simple. The complex part is being honest about the question you’re asking, and logging your readings so you can see patterns, develop (or excavate) your own symbol-language, and build a relationship with your chosen divinatory method.
You could also say there’s no such thing as a precognitive faculty, and that you’re basically cold-reading for yourself, or using a psychological trick in order to gain self-knowledge. It really doesn’t matter one way or the other as long as it’s useful. Treating it as a faculty and behaving as if it is such works for me. I am interested in results, my particular manner of getting them may or may not change over time, depending on efficacy.
Message, Dream, Philosophy
The other night: The Lovers, Nine of Cups, the Devil. All in a row. It’s been a while since I got such a mirrorlike reading, and such clear message.
Of course, this morning, in the long dark shoals before I had to get up, I was jolted out of a dream of Donnie Yen as my werewolf boyfriend during a zombie apocalypse, but I’m not considering that a message. Especially since the heavy breathing I kept hearing in the dream, which I thought was the zombies, was actually Odd Trundles, who point-blank refused to go back in his crate after a 3am “MOTHER I GOTTA PEE, RIGHT NOW, I KNOW I WENT BEFORE BEDTIME BUT I GOTTA, I GOTTA.” He ended up with his giant face in my neck, and my hair on that side is still damp from his jowls.
He still thinks he’s the puppy who slept on my pillow because I was terrified he’d stop breathing altogether. They never really grow up, our furry friends. I’m on the fence about whether we ourselves do.
I’m still making my way through Facing the Extreme. I am having trouble with a few of Todorov’s base assumptions–like the one that human judges can be impartial or objective. I mean, certainly, a good judge aims for that, but is it really possible? It’s more of a goal to strive for than an actual can-be-done-completely-achieved. On the other hand, the book was published a decade ago, and there have been some advances in understanding bias since then. Another set of Todorov’s base assumptions, his habit of gendering responses to totalitarianism, grates on me with increasing regularity. I rather suspect him of cherry-picking survivor narratives to suit his gender-assumption hobby-horses. Unconsciously, of course, but he seems really invested in women being passive, forgiving creatures even when shoveled into death camps.
You can tell what I think of that.
Anyway, we’re near the end of the book, so Todorov’s making assertions that the front half of the text is meant to have set up and provided proof of varying kinds for, and I just don’t see that the narratives (survivor or otherwise) or logic he’s provided bear out said assertions. Still, it’s not a bad thing to have to stop while reading and think hard about just why one disagrees with a philosopher.
The Sekrit Projekt continues apace. Yesterday was a measly 3.5K words, but I got two crucial scenes done and dragged the man with the gun in, kicking and screaming. (He didn’t want to show up just yet, but it wasn’t his call.) By the end of it, I was exhausted, so his appearance needs some polish in order to make it properly eerie. (And he doesn’t have a gun, but a claymore, I think. Or maybe an axe.) But it’s there, that part of the corpse is on the table, and I only have 20K left to write.
*looks at last sentence*
*weeps a bit*
I suppose it’s time for yoga now, and there’s a run to fit in today, too. Going back to bed, while certainly the most appealing option, isn’t even remotely possible.
Ah well. Over and out.