Hellebore, In Rain

All vivid now…like hellebore in rain…

It’s been a strange, sometimes frustrating week. I had one–one!–very good working day, and it has given me a hunger for more. I should be content that the Sekrit Projekt has not been killed outright, and has indeed passed what I think is the middle of its curve. Well, not really, the true break-point is the death of a major character…but good enough.

I’m still deeply tired of all the bullshit that isn’t writing, and there are two books I want very badly to get to. I just have to finish the two I’m writing now, revise the half-a-dozen in the pipeline, get a great deal of administrative work out of the way, and and and…

No rest for the weary, the wicked, or the writers. Ever, world without end, amen. Thank the gods for coffee.

It’s hellebore season, and I love everything about these plants. I could be content with a mostly-hellebore garden, frankly, save for the irritating fact that slugs consider them a delicacy. And I’ve already got hostas and roses about so I might as well continue with those too. Still, maybe this is the year I’ll get a few more Lenten roses in. It’s nice to think about, as well as the prospect of a blueberry bush or two where there’s now a surfeit of sunlight since the cedars are gone. (Which irks me to no end even now; they were wonderful and someone else’s neglect did them in. Alas.)

At least it looks like we’ll be back to proper rainy weather after a bit of a freeze; I knew we were due for at least one more heavy frost if not a downright east-wind howler. Even the cherry trees are Getting Ideas now, and I can see hints of purple on a few magnolias. The season marches on, and today I have to write an Uncomfortable Declaration of Affection in the Sekrit Projekt.

There’s that to look forward to. And the weekend will see more incremental progress on the short-story anthology. Slow and steady will win my particular race, even if I near expire of annoyance.

See you next week…

Rain-Wet Yellow

Bright spring visitor.

Just as Boxnoggin and I were approaching this small clump of bright flowers, a hummingbird zoomed up, thought about having a snack, saw us, visibly wondered if it should fight, forgot what it was doing, and zipped away.

I stood flabbergasted, having thought it far too cold for such a sighting. (Boxnoggin was more than willing to fight, though somewhat confused at the size of his prospective opponent.) But I guess the birds know best–I haven’t seen a single bee yet, even on the few sunny days where the temperature hits 60F.

Awful cheerful to see jonquils and primroses and cherry blossoms and hyacinth buds. Winter is my favorite season, but this is nice too. The mud feels different and the rain is still piercing, yes–but cold with a promise instead of a sting. I’ve tried my hardest to eradicate all my hope–I hate getting kicked in the teeth time and again, I’d rather expect nothing–but it’s a weed, and this is its season.

Ah well. To all things their due time.

Se you next week, my beloveds.

Bryophyta Courage

Moss. Mycelium. Maybe some lichen too.

I’ve been obsessed with moss lately. I mean, I already liked it, but then there happened along the #Mosstodon tag on the fedi. (There’s also the #LichenSubscribe tag, which pleases me deeply, and let’s not even talk about the donkeys.) So I’ve been happily taking pictures of winter velvet, no doubt also pleasing a few botanists and biologists curious about such things.

Heaven knows there’s never any shortage of moss around here even in summer, though it does tend to get a bit dry and crackly. I won’t run out of subjects to point the cell phone at, that’s for sure.

I finally wrote the river race that’s been knocking around in my head for over a year, and today I get to set up the destruction of an entire elvish city. The elementalist does need to have a chat with the king about his parenting methods before then, perhaps; I’ll get there as the story–and the Muse–wills.

One of the things I love about moss is that it grows in places no other self-respecting plant would find even remotely acceptable. It creeps into cracks, feeds on detritus, covers the garbage left behind. Hell, it’ll even grow on bare rock, especially if its best bud lichen is around. Moss takes adversity as a challenge, like Bugs Bunny takes a thrown gauntlet.

Anyway, this crop is merrily growing on a creosote-soaked railroad tie repurposed to hold back perhaps-contaminated topsoil. It fries in summer and drowns autumn through spring. The locale is terrible for any living thing, but there’s the moss, happily soaking its wee roots, lifting its many green fingers. Some has spread to the rocks and small chunks of concrete below, because even stone is friable when you’ve got the sort of time moss does.

One can learn a lot from dear old Bryophyta. And with that happy thought, I wish you a pleasant weekend.

In Shadow, Green

Finding a way, again.

A jumble of boulders on one of our usual morning-walkies routes is always good for a thought or two. Boxnoggin agrees, although his “thoughts” are mostly of the let’s pee on it variety. He’d climb the entire damn pile if I let him.

Anyway, if you peer back into the shadows, you’ll see green on the left side. Yes, even in that deep crevice, things are living–not just lichen, but actual plants. As late as October they were dead straw, hiding from the heat; now, after a few good rains, they’re happily growing in semi-darkness.

Makes all my own problems seem smaller, I must confess. It feels like I’m jammed in a dark crack, reaching vainly for any scrap I can grab; thankfully, I have opposable thumbs and can move into sunlight. (Always assuming I don’t hiss and melt under its touch. Heh.) Life is still forcing its way into the crevices, taking advantage of every inch. Hope is not some evanescent, helpless waif–she is a Valkyrie with blood in her mouth, scraped knuckles, double black eyes, and bruises all over, spitting a tooth as she rises once more from the floor.

We’ve reached another Friday. It promises to be a good one, but either way it’ll be the weekend soon. I hope you have a fine one, beloveds.

Survival, Temerity

Life…uh, finds a way.

The only green things (that aren’t dusty trees or watered lawns) are weeds at this point in the year. These broad-leaved fellows are everywhere, along with dandelions and thistles. I also enjoy a good thistle–there’s one I am carefully not mowing down in the front yard–but this year, these guys are out in force and I wonder about them. The nice red heart to their broad fanlike leaves, the fresh green when so much else is dust and yellow-dry…

I’ll probably find out it’s some sort of hideously poisonous, invasive plant. Which will just make me love it more, I’m sure. Gotta find the beauty wherever one can.

Life is short. Be a weed, flourish in the cracks. It’s okay to have the temerity to survive.

Go forth and enjoy a lovely weekend, my dears.

A Nice Thought

I’m not sure if it’s the time change or something else kicking my ass. I could not seem to drag myself out of bed this morning, and only the fact that the dogs needed to unload their bladders managed to move me. It feels a little bit like the massive burnout I had last year, when I physically couldn’t force myself upright and spent a good eighteen hours or so per day asleep and the remaining ones wishing I were unconscious.

The thing about the kind of stress we’re all living under is that it’s cumulative and there’s never enough time to undo the damage. We just keep taking DoT while the raid boss laughs and our healers are all out of mana, not to mention on global cooldown.

…gods, I miss playing WoW. If only Blizzard hadn’t been so rancid. *sigh*

I know precisely what would fix me. The only trouble is the world won’t cooperate. Or, more precisely, a selfish minority won’t mask up, won’t get vaxxed, won’t stop bullying, won’t stop being hideous violent bigots. If people would just fucking get along there would be no bloody problem, but that minority of bullying, racist abusers simply won’t. The powerful will not give up what they believe they’re entitled to. So I’m forced to other methods of preserving my stability and sanity–the only trouble is, individual solutions don’t do much about systemic problems, nor should they be called upon to.

Still, I’ve got to do something to re-wrap my nerves. I’ve been making bespoke chocolate edibles (the current batches are cardamom and pumpkin spice, respectively) and building my running mileage base again. I’m experimenting with the recipe for the first (there’s a slight graininess from using cocoa that I have yet to overcome) and making the second a priority though it cuts into time I would much rather be doing other things with. I also have plans for Hell’s Acre–I was just going to do it as one massive book but I think I can get away with a season break after one of the recent chapters.

I also got the grow light for my office, and the plants seem to be rehabbing under it quite nicely except for the castor, which is unhappy with everything. It might be a failed experiment, but I keep talking to it, encouraging it to tell me what it needs or to just take all the light and do something. The jade plant is super happy and the angel trumpet has visibly grown, so at least there’s that. I might have to repot the hen-and-chick succulent soon too.

I also moved a hop vine volunteer to the northern fence. If it takes off it’ll provide a privacy screen there during the summer. Since the kiwi there gave up the ghost during last summer’s heat dome, I’ve been thinking about a vine there. Hops will do.

The biggest trouble with circling burnout this way is the hit my productivity takes. I need to be engaged on multiple projects or we don’t eat. Our margin is very, very slim here at the Chez and I don’t want it to get any thinner. I would desperately like for the world to calm down a bit so I can just bloody well work.

This is me, heaving a deep sigh. But as my sister pointed out last year, the influenza epidemic that started in 1918 took about three years to be addressed, for people to finally stop being dunderheads and take the steps necessary to actually put it to bed. Maybe this is the year the anti-maskers and ridiculous anti-vax asshats will finally be shouted down by reasonable people sick of their nastiness. Maybe.

Silver linings, I guess. I can’t even talk about the other current events. I am brimful of the world’s pain and it feels like one more drop will split me open like an overripe fruit. My guts will go everywhere and the wasps will feast. And isn’t that a cheerful thought.

There’s work planned for today. I don’t know if I’ll get there. Even walking the dogs seems an impossible task, let alone running my own heavy corpse. I’ll probably feel better after both, so I suppose I’d best get started. There’s brekkie to handle too, except the last thing I want to do is eat.

Meh. That’s the theme of today, I suppose: A resounding meh.

I hope your Tuesday is starting better than mine, beloveds. I keep telling myself things like courage and chin up and could be worse, and even I’m getting tired of hearing it. Maybe I should just dive into the edibles and curl up in bed after I wash off the day’s run, and play a mobile game or something. I probably will not do so, since I feel even worse when I don’t work, but it’s a nice thought.

See you around.

Half-Price Candy Eve

I hear there was some sort of sportsball yesterday; my daughter tells me the grocer’s was swamped with angry, excitable people pushing carts of soda and snack food. I often feel like an alien anthropologist–unlike apparently everyone else on earth, I am no great fan of violent male sports. All I can think of is what happens when everyone goes home from the stadium, or when the television is shut off and a man who has no doubt been drinking starts in on the nearest victim.

There was also some kind of halftime show? And today is a Hallmark-induced “holiday” hijacking an ancient fertility festival, where one grand gesture is supposed to outweigh three-hundred-sixty-four other days per year of acting like an asshole. Amazing how many people claim to think a single gesture is better than quietly doing the damn work to be a better person.

I partly jest, for today is really a blessed day: Half-Price Candy Eve, when we make preparations for braving the outside world on February 15th to harvest a largesse of marked-down chocolate and corn syrup. I love the idea of getting a large sampler just for me, eating only the candies I like, and tossing the rest. My own particular celebration of self-affection, let’s call it. The kids have their own preferences; tonight I’ll get a list from them both.

The weekend was sunny and dry, though blessed rain moved in late last night. In other words, perfect for gardening, and I did a bit of cleanup as well as getting some seeds in the ground. It’s February, so I’m really playing roulette, but plenty of the scattered little orbs of potential were cold-weather happy things. They’ll bolt if we get a warm April, but before then they’ll provide groundcover. I am thinking the two south garden beds should just be given over to dahlias; we just don’t get enough sun for tomatoes what with the firs and all. Alack and alas, because I do love homegrown tomatoes, but one must go with what the earth will bear, not with what one wishes it would. And–limericks aside–I like dahlias.

I’m also possessed of enough energy to work at something like my usual pace again, albeit with more days “off” per week than I’ve ever granted myself. I normally like to work on three projects at a time six days a week; now I am forced to do so only four or five days per, though on days “off” I usually do some outlining (gasp!) solely to scratch the hypergraphic itch enough to grant me some peace. It’s basically throwaway work. I’ve never truly outlined before, except in sort-of-halfass fashion about a third of the way through a project which seems to need it. Any form of planning is always merrily thrown out the window slightly after halfway through a book since the Muse and the work’s own organic shape is well underway by then and nothing I do will halt or alter it one jot or tittle.

I say “trust the work” over and over again. Sometimes it’s a warning, other times a comfort–and yet other times, it’s a cri de coeur. Every time it ends up all right, but dear gods the wear and tear on the nerves is uncomfortable. You’d think I’d learn.

Some things never get easier in and of themselves. Only dealing with them gets easier; the distinction is slight but critical and crucial. If you’re expecting the path to get less rocky, it’s not gonna happen. The rocks are what the rocks are, to paraphrase my grandfather. But dealing with sharp scattered stones–learning where they’re likely located, learning how to conserve one’s energy for dealing with the worst of them, learning when to go around rather than over–does get incrementally less difficult with each run.

The coffee is almost done and Miss B is positively beside herself. She wants me to get my damn toast so she and Boxnoggin can have a crust (she honestly would like both crusts but I insist on parity) before walkies. Unlike Boxnoggin, the rain bothers her not a whit. She has a bloody schedule to maintain, and I am not cooperating as fully as she would like.

She is a very managing canine, and I suppose she’s earned the right to be. After all, she is an elderly statesdog and has turned in many years of supervisory and herding service. If she wants to prod me towards brekkie I will not complain. (Much.) And I will also move at my own pace no matter how irate she gets.

Happy Half-Price Candy Eve, my beloveds. I hope your weekend was everything you wanted, and that this Monday will behave itself. If not, well, tomorrow there’s candy on sale, which should help soothe the sting.