Whistling, For Whatever Value

That’s it. It’s finally happened.

The dishwasher has stopped working again. (No, that’s not what’s finally happened, though it’s the preceding event.) I am not even halfway through my coffee, but don’t fret, my beloveds. I am finally, FINALLY seeing the funny side. (There. That’s it. That’s the thing.)

I was hoping it would happen. I knew there would be some-damn-thing else, because there always is. I was just praying that the next thing to happen would be so absurd my response would be staring at the news for a few moments, my head cocked…and then, laughter.

And what do you know, here we are. “Look at that,” the Princess said, in a tone of wonder coming through text messages. “Three years of plague has even stressed out our dishwasher.”

She was a little hesitant to tell me the damn thing had stopped working again, probably because the previous incidence almost broke me. But the appliance repairman explained the problem so clearly and thoroughly I expected this sooner or later, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise.

Plus, it’s just funny. Three years of plague (not to mention everything else) is too much even for insensate machines. No wonder delicate, nerve- filled meatsacks are feeling a little frayed right now. And yes, it’s a first-world problem of the highest order, I am well aware. Though I’m sure another Well Actually will attempt to tell me so, at high volume, on social media.

That will be funny too, especially after I mash the block button.

The release of internal pressure is exquisite. I have finally, finally reached the point where absurdity has overcome everything else, and I’m Officially Seeing the Funny Side. There was a long period of time where I just…couldn’t, and dear gods that’s uncomfortable.

Sure, the laughter has a screamy edge to it, but it’s better than the alternative. And yes, a certain part of this coping method is whistling past the graveyard, so to speak. No doubt some will mistake my humor–always black and bleak at the best of times–for uncaring, or will take offense at my determination to crack a joke. That’s fine. You cope in your way, I’ll do so in mine, there’s room in the world for both.

I am just so relieved to finally be laughing again. The world’s on fire and the plague continues, yes, and as long as I’m seeing the funny side–however small–I can do my best to help those I care for, not to mention keep some measure of psychic integrity despite the onslaught.

I was waiting to see what would break me, and hoping it would crack in the direction of mordant amusement. Here we are, and it’s a bloody relief.

The dogs need walking, too. No matter what else happens, canine routine and habit must be upheld. It’s subscription drop day, too. And I need to get a character through burgling an arch-enemy’s house, not to mention shift to another book to get a pair of characters out of a pretty-much-destroyed apartment and onto their grand adventure.

I can relax now, for whatever value of “relaxation.” Weapons out, teeth bared, howling laughter filling my throat, I’m ready for the rest of this.

It’s kind of good to be back. Even under these acid-test conditions.

Temporal Slip

I was convinced for most of yesterday that although the day was definitely named Monday, it was Tuesday in all else. Which should surprise nobody, pandemic time being what it is, but it means it was near noon when I realized, “no, the plumbers aren’t coming today, it’s a federal holiday and FURTHERMORE not the day they scheduled,” so…yeah.

That rhythmic thudding you heard? That was the sound of me banging my head on my desk. It’s highly therapeutic, though painful.

I had all sorts of work planned, but nothing happened. Sitting and staring at paying projects is not producing any appreciable wordcount. (The book keeps refusing to write itself, so rude.) The fanfic proceeds better, but I don’t want even that now. I’m pretty sure I’m just in the incubation period for a spate of furious activity once the dam breaks, and this is just a necessary frustration before the iceberg calves.

But it’s so goddamn annoying. And with all the other stress, my nerves are on their very last fibre.

I am hopeful today’s plumber visit will be the very last. They’re very nice fellows and I like them, but strangers visiting in the midst of a pandemic is bad for all of us. If this work could possibly be put off I would–but at the same time, our country is being held hostage by antimaskers and antivaxxers, so this isn’t going to be finished anytime soon. We’re on the third year of this bullshit, so the things I’ve put off “until it’s safer” have now grown several heads and become critically pressing.

“Safer.” What a word. I am beginning to expect that will never happen, and it disturbs me mightily. It’s also becoming harder and harder to keep the pandemic out of my fiction, though publishing lead times means that things I wrote well before are beginning to see the end of the pipeline now.

The lag is fascinating and I’m sure historians will have great fun dissecting it. Enduring it as an artist is much less amusing. Not quite prepared to put this massive trauma into fiction yet, thanks, especially as I am extremely uncertain our household will survive either its primary OR its knock-on effects. And isn’t that a lovely thought for a Tuesday morning?

At least we still have absurdity. The world is mad, might as well laugh in bleak wonder at its manifestations. Fiction has to “make sense,” while Real Life is unendingly fuckered-up and divorced from any such requirement.

Anyway, I’d best walk the dogs. The trio of local crows depending on Boxnoggin for amusement tend to fly away around ten-thirty, having other business in the neighbourhood, and they (plus Boxnoggin) will probably be sad if they don’t get their daily interaction.

See? Absurdity. It’s all absurdity, all the time. Might as well laugh, because screaming takes too much energy and I’m bloody exhausted.

See you around.

Busy January

Selene

Monday is upon us again. Boxnoggin is having difficulty settling even though we’ve had nothing but the usual daily routine; I think he senses the plumbers are due out today–again, for the fourth time–to get the pipes under the sink right. I long to be able to put everything back in its home and further long to free up the very large bowl that’s been catching the drips.

In the plumbers’ defense, the leak has moved–as soon as one thing is replaced, the thing adjacent decides to start being troublesome. Which is a function and feature of many a complex system, let alone a simple one. So it’s not their fault, they are fabulous fellows, and at the same time I really would like this Finished, Thank You.

Miss B could not care less; to her, this is just another day and all she’s concerned about is keeping herself firmly in my vicinity. I cannot be allowed to roam anywhere, even inside the house, without her close supervision. Heaven knows what trouble I might get into, after all. Especially in these benighted times.

I should get her a soft plush toy to exercise all her maternal and supervisory urges on, but Boxnoggin would likely disembowel it. None of us can handle that particular bullshit right now.

The Dark Watcher sale is over, but I decided the last half of January needed something nice too so Selene is on sale for $2.99 across ebook formats until the end of the month. I’ll probably take February off, since the HOOD omnibus also drops the 25th of this month. The paper edition seems to already be out, thank goodness; for Kindle readers, the omnibus won’t be listed on Amazon but you can get a .mobi edition from Gumroad.

So January is very busy, and I’m going to take February off of sales and the like. Come March I should have some more good news.

I am trying to pull myself, hand over hand, out of the abyss. It’s difficult, to say the least, with successive daily retraumatizations. The rate of daily bad-news bludgeoning has slowed down since Papaya Pol Pot no longer has access to the nuclear button and the news cycle has in consequence somewhat slowed, but the massive institutional failure on every level is difficult to live with. There’s no chance to mourn or even catch one’s breath. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

There’s coffee to finish, some breakfast to choke down, the dogs to walk–Miss B is already restlessly eager for that part of the daily ritual–and getting the workspace cleared for the re-advent of the plumbers. (I just want that last thing sorted with, for gods’ sake. Four visits, while natural when dealing with plumbing issues, still seems a bit excessive.) In between all that, wordcount has to be made. Hell’s Acre needs some attention, since I think I’ve finally figured out what Avery’s plan is; the second Sons of Ymre also needs another pass at that damn first chapter to weed out repetitions and up the tension.

If I just put my head down and work, maybe I can get through the day without worry-induced nausea or panic attacks. Maybe.

We’ll see how it works out.

Monday’s Scorecard

haha, no

So the plumbers were out again yesterday. The problem appeared to be fixed. I walked the dogs, took a shower, made lunch, letting the fix sit and think about things.

Maybe that was my mistake.

Because as soon as I washed dishes after lunch I found the problem was, indeed, not fixed. I gather this happens a lot with plumbing, but dear gods and garters, I was unamused.

To put it mildly.

At least the appliance repairman who came out to deal with the dishwasher (an entirely separate problem) proved effective (so far). He listened carefully to my description of dishwasher events, nodding thoughtfully, and said, “I think I know what’s going on, based on that.”

I learned that my dishwasher isn’t plugged in but hard-wired through the floor, and in any case I wouldn’t have needed to take it out to look behind it in order to fix the damn thing. The problem appeared to be some shifting as the door was opened and closed, moving some padding, which put pressure on some wires, and is actually quite a common complaint. “Happens a lot, especially with these new types. Let me just run a few more tests to make sure there’s not another problem hanging out in there…”

Then, when he had run all the tests, he peered at the top of the frame and said, “The installers didn’t…huh.”

“The last guy to own this house was a Do-It-Yourselfer,” I offered, a bit faintly. I couldn’t believe things were going so well, and was braced for disaster. “They didn’t put those screws in because of the countertop, you see how it…”

“Oh yeah, I see,” he said, in a tone half wonder, half confirmed-suspicion. “Seen this before too. Let me just…”

He dug in a capacious assortment of screws, washers, nails, and other tiny bits (all neatly organized in a plastic container), found what he wanted, and badda-boom, had the metal tabs at the top screwed into the underside of the counter, with zero fuss. “Now it won’t tip, and that stuff below might not work loose again. But just in case…” He picked up his phone and started tapping. “I’m gonna add notes to your file, so if the problem isn’t just those wires getting pinched we can replace the whole circuit board under there. Sometimes the wire nuts heat up and things get iffy. Don’t you worry, ma’am. It’s going to be all right.”

Have you ever wanted to burst into tears when a stranger says that? Dearly beloveds, I longed to dissolve into sobs. However, I swallowed them, put on a professional face, and made the fellow some coffee, because as he said, “I love caffeine. Love it. Best thing that ever happened to the world.”

I sent off Jake the Appliance Repair Gumshoe with a quad-shot of espresso, cut with some heavy cream. He was most grateful, and gave me a cheery thumb’s-up before pulling out of the driveway, leaving me to my own devices with a (hopefully) fully repaired dishwasher, at least.

So the score for Monday was: Plumbers 0/2, third game next week; Appliance Repairman undefeated (so far); Yours Truly, don’t ask, I’m trying not to scream.

I know these are first-world problems and others are dealing with far, far more. There’s a load of numbing, crushing in guilt in this being the damn straw that breaks the camel’s back and sends me raving into the desert night. I am trying like hell to find the funny side of this, of anything, because once I start laughing it’ll be all right.

To that end I watched Deadpool again last night, and the cartoon-y violence was 100% what I needed. I feel bad for that being the thing that helped, in however small a dose, but at this point I’ll take what I can get.

The dishwasher seems to be holding up. Each time I press the start button it’s with a whispered prayer. It drains below the leaky portion of the below-sink pipes, too, so that’s a tiny victory. Of course we have buckets to catch the drips, but that’s hardly the point.

Anyway, I’m still fighting. I’m trying to find the funny side in all this, or indeed in anything. At least I can escape a little today, burying myself in work since there will be no strangers visiting. Getting ready for polite social interaction is a burden I can well do without at this point. Just let me burrow into my hole.

So I’m off to get some brekkie and walk the dogs. No matter what else is going on, they need their walkies, dammit, and the rain means we probably won’t see anyone else as we amble. That will be nice.

Hang in there, everyone. Sooner or later things will get better. They have to. I’m not prepared to accept any other outcome.

Over and out.

Anniversary, Nadir

Afterwar

A year ago today, the pandemic was just beginning its second orbit around the sun and my children and I were watching the violent coup attempt in the US Capitol, sickened to the core.

As of today, a few of the low-level insurrectionists have received slaps on the wrist. The ringleaders are still at large, still attempting to destroy our democracy, still profiting from their lies and grifting, still blathering to their adoring fans on Faux News subsidized by cable utility fees, and the pandemic? Still going strong.

The coup attempt is still ongoing, too. The midterms are approaching. Voter suppression laws have been forced through in many states. If they are successful, 2024 could reinstall the Fanta Fuhrer–or something worse–and a nightmare of violent racist authoritarianism will grip the throat of America even more tightly.

The militantly and deliberately umasked and unvaccinated are still allowed to continue risking the rest of us, and the government we voted in with such effort refuses to attempt more than below the barest of minimums to help or to hold the racist, disease-spreading bigots and their greedy, lying leaders accountable.

I wrote a whole-ass book about this in 2015. (Still mad I took out the plague in the first draft of Afterwar because I thought it might be “too much.”) I thought surely it would make some kind of a dent, have some kind of effect.

I was wrong. Very few listened. Nobody cared.

Better minds than mine, much better storytellers than me, all tried as well. It made little to no difference, because…well, here we are.

A year ago I still had some hope. Now…I don’t know. I’m so tired. So, so tired.

The successive retraumatizations hurt more with each hit. I am honestly questioning whether it’s worth trying anymore. What little hope I had is gone, and its dregs are simply bitter endurance.

I keep going because I have no choice. People (and the dogs) are depending on me. But today, my beloveds, I am so tired, so discouraged. I am questioning the use of hanging on more and more lately.

I put a brave face on it, certainly. But I don’t know what to say right now. I already tried and was ignored for years. I suppose I’m at the nadir of “Why bother?”

About the best I can hope for is that today passes without incident. But that will leave us still in the lurch. Maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow, maybe not.

I don’t know. That’s all I can say.

I don’t know.

Victory, Price, Laughter

I should have known that every victory on the first Monday of 2022 would exact a price. It was going so well, too! I finally got repair for the dishwasher and the kitchen sink scheduled, not to mention some actual work on Hell’s Acre and Sons of Ymre #2. I went to bed feeling reasonably content, even if things are not exactly ideal.

Alas, Past Me was apparently an unforgivable optimist. But maybe I’ll feel better about her habit of being hopeful after coffee. I suppose writing while uncaffeinated, as I am currently doing, means a touch of growl seeping into my voice.

The upshot of all this is that there’s errands today. Hopefully I can get them done with a minimum of fuss and retreat homeward, giving ground very slowly and making the year work for every inch it gains. The stage after the loss of sunny optimism is grim determination, teeth sunk into the hide of the monster and my claws working deeper and deeper, seeking a vital hit.

On the bright side, the heroine in Sons #2 is talking. She’s far different than the heroine in #1, which is only to be expected, and I think she’s just exactly what’s needed. But I made a mistake in the very first scene, and it’s such a deep and integral one I have to go back, rip out three-quarters of what I did yesterday, and rework it.

Of course, I’ll probably find out after reworking that said heroine won’t talk unless I have it the way it was originally written, which means I’ll need to throw out most of what I planned for the book itself and restructure from the ground up simply because a single character simply won’t cooperate.

I am not quite complaining about this, mind you. Realizing a mistake earlier rather than later is a gift. Plus, it’s far better than being so stressed the words refuse to come out at all, which has only happened two-three times in my entire life and is so awful I never, ever, ever want to endure it again. I’m trying to find the funny side–I’m arguing with the voices inside my head while my entire career is telling lies (which, let it be noted, manage to show a certain truth if I’ve done my job right) for a living.

Put that way, it is indeed kind of funny. So is the prospect of each individual errand I have to run today. They’re all hilarious if I look at them the right way.

Gods grant me the strength to hold up each one and turn it to the light in order to catch that funny side, however small and bleak. No doubt I’ll feel much better after a morning run, too. Yesterday was my first day back on the pavement in about a week (what with holidays, disasters, and Bad Weather making it Literally Unsafe To Step Outside) and the endorphin hit was most welcome, indeed. Plus it’s been over two weeks since our booster shots, so every single person in the house is as protected as possible.

There’s going to be something funny in all this. There has to be, and by every god that ever was, I will find it. If I must go down nibbled to death by a tidal wave of papercuts, I will go down laughing. Sure, it might be screamy breathless merriment, but merriment nonetheless.

Laughter is one of the 100% reliable ways to banish demons, after all. And now it’s time to finish this coffee, get the caffeine worked into my muscles, and walk the dogs, who could not care less about the rest of the world as long as they get their kibble, snuggles, and other assorted daily rituals.

If you hear a faint, screeching laugh upon the wind, beloveds, don’t worry. It’s just me.

Let the Tuesday games begin.

Brain, Overrated

There are days when having a brain, let alone sentience, is overrated.

Yesterday was for administrivia and grocery shopping–the latter is always a joy since the pandemic arrived, isn’t it. (Yes, that’s sarcasm.) Thankfully the vast, overwhelming majority of people are now in masks, and the few covidiots who swan around with their face-holes open and breathing contagion everywhere are, one hopes, roundly shamed for their lack of empathy, common sense, and just-plain-kindness.

I ran across a Twitter thread the other day explaining Trumpists, maskholes, and covidiots from the standpoint of caste, and it explained a lot. (I don’t normally link to hellsite from here, but in this case, the thread’s so good I’m making an exception, as is my prerogative.) Particularly the bit about “the dominant caste being forced to go out of its way to protect people perceived as lower in caste is a supreme violation of caste rules.”

It’s sad. Among other words, but all I’m feeling nowadays is a great, deep sorrow.

Well, that’s not all I’m feeling, though it is the greatest component when I think about how the US refused to handle the first year of the pandemic, sinking us into a hole we still haven’t found a way out of. Hard to get out when some asshats just keep digging.

The rest of what I’m feeling is the usual post-revision slump. I got three whole manuscripts out the door last Friday, so the feeling is at least tripled, though I feel there’s a solid case for its strengthening exponentially with each book ushered through the gates of Editor’s Email. Consequently, I’m on a rollercoaster of emotional flailing. My brain keeps insisting its absolute inability to settle on anything means I’m broken or lazy, while the faint voice of sanity (or something like it) keeps insisting that I sent three goddamn books out in one day and it’s a miracle I’m still coherent, much less attempting to work.

I know this is just the usual post-revision stuff, dialed up to eleven as a function of scale. The cure is simple, though not easy; it consists of both getting all the stuff I said “I’ll get this done when I send these books in” actually done, and stuffing a great deal of fresh content into my head to refill the artistic well.

There has to be grist for the mill to do its job, after all.

Now it’s time to finish chewing on peanut-butter toast and walk the dogs. They won’t like me leaving to run other errands–lockdown was absolutely fantastic for them–but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Even in pre-plague times it was very rare for them to be left home alone, and they like that rarity reduced to zero. Alas, things aren’t quite so simple. They’ll endure.

Before I go, though–what are you watching/reading nowadays, my beloveds? I know what I’m pouring into my head, but I’m interested in what you’re doing. Tell me all about it.