review revue

Recovery, Reading

I keep working weekends then being surprised at how tired I am during the week proper. I think the elastic has snapped, though; finishing the proofreader queries for Salt-Black Tree has finally managed to…well, not quite break me, but certainly give me a painful sting on the wrist, like popping a really big rubber band. I’m going to have a welt from this one, I can just tell.

The queries are the very last wicket before a book goes into production. Well, other than the poor managing editor collating the proofreaders’ and my marked-up proofs, wading through a thicket of finicky changes, stets, and occasionally (okay, well, frequently) comments from a long-suffering author who at this point hates the book as much as everyone else who’s had to read it fifteen times and try to stay alert for tiny changes each go-round. This is like being on the last mile of a marathon, with all applicable attendant discomfort.

All the energy reserved to keep a slot on my schedule open for further queries and go-rounds on the duology is about to be rerouted elsewhere, but first it has to settle. I wish there was an easy changeover strategy, but that much mass and momentum is difficult to halt, especially when it’s been going for years. (Years spent writing the books, years spent getting them through trad publishing, this game is never about instant gratification.)

So I’m sort of spark-spinning, waiting for the flywheel to decelerate enough for hooking up to some other project. It doesn’t help the the current stress is also provoking some health problems, but maybe those will ameliorate now that I’m getting a handle on the biggest quandary. All the waiting patiently for schedules to align is about to be over, so at least there’s that.

Anyway, the recovery process is difficult because I can’t simply shift to another project and write away the exhaustion. The artistic well needs filling; I’ve been running on low fuel and low oil for a long time now. So, I’m doing some catch-up reading, and also stuffing other things into my head. I took a spin through wonderful bonkers LJ Smith YAs, polished off the History of Underclothes, got to read an upcoming re-release of Dixon’s (and Macdonald’s) Knight’s Wyrd, took a run through Bukowski’s Post Office because I wanted a little modernity, and finished up a positive blaze of reading activity with E. E. Smith’s First Lensman, which was as utterly bananas as anything written in the sci-fi pulp 50s. Next up is an old paperback translation of The Tale of Genji, though I’d really like a Norton Critical edition, and Davies’s Europe: A History.

Of them all, I’ve probably enjoyed Knight’s Wyrd the most on a purely personal level, since it’s wonderfully structured and just the sort of medieval wonder-tale I dig. I will admit I was expecting it to be a simple sausage-fest, but by the time I got to the first ghost I was both disabused of that notion and all in. First Lensman was posolutely absotively banana-bonkers, and I’m sure that if my own work survives a comparable number of years someone will think the blind spots in it are just as jaw-dropping. Time moves ever on and on, like the Road, down from every door whence it begins.

All of this means I’m feeling ready to get back to work, but I know how this goes. I’ll have a couple good working days, then my body will take vengeance for me daring to re-enter the snakepit after only a token nap and hurried snack. If I took another day off to watch a Cdrama (look, Dylan Wang walking around in velvet robes is a vibe, and I am here for it) I’d possibly escape that part of the process, but I really do have to get some-damn-things done.

There are also birthdays and tax prep this month, both busy in different ways. I’ll be glad when the latter is finally off my plate and I can bloody breathe again. Of course something else will come along to stopper my lungs, I’m sure, and there’s two zero drafts (Rook’s Rose plus Riversinger and Minnowsharp) looking like they want to be finished at about the same time.

I’m sure that will be fun. And Boxnoggin needs his walkies, come hell or high water–but not snow or freezing rain. His tootsies are just too tender, thanks, and my own aren’t happy with that sort of thing either. Fortunately the Early Cherry down the street is making gestures like it wants to bloom, and that will mean spring is assured.

I suppose I’d best get to it as well. The road is difficult, but we’ve got a fighting chance.

Happy Tuesday, my beloveds.

Pride of Survival

Got good news in the inbox yesterday (of a sort, but still a hurrah), a rejection before coffee this morning (not unexpected, minor boo), and I get to write a scene I’ve been planning for well over a year today (major celebration, but performance anxiety ahoy). So, Thursday is a mixed bag, as usual. The most difficult part is moving through all the emotional stages after rejection at high speed while also getting caffeine into my bloodstream.

Fortunately I’m an old hand at that sort of thing, and this particular one barely makes a dent. It merely opens another door.

The monthly sale post has been updated. There’s a lot going on right now. I’m kind of looking forward to taking a break in February, not least so I can get The Fall of Waterstone situated. The river race is about to begin, then there’s the (interrupted, sort of) wedding, then fleeing from OMG ALL THE BAD STUFF, and the fall of yet another kingdom to write too. It’s a big, meaty, sprawling book, and I would be frightened of attempting it if I weren’t so busy. I don’t have time for fear; like spice, the words must flow.

And there’s the matter of a book of short stories to put together. I’ve been kicking around the idea of an anthology of all my shorts (or the shorts so far, since I’m sure I’ll write more) in one place, with some extras. Like the less-than-500-word experiment story, and the Dolly Parton homage, and that one story I know will piss everyone off.

…that last one is somewhat vague, since I’m dead sure a lot of my stuff pisses people off. Occupational hazard, and I won’t deny a certain amount of satisfaction in it either.

I finished reading Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, which was lovely and painful. I’d forgotten how slim a volume it is, but packed tight with sentences polished bright and sharp–I like the Norton Critical editions in these cases because they give sorely needed context. I knew when it ended I’d yearn to read Jane Eyre again, but when do I not? A long time ago, my writing partner’s husband said, in tones of surpassing wonder, “How many editions of Jane Eyre do you need, anyway?”

To which my writing partner and I chorused, “All of them, of course.” Just one more reason why we’re friends.

Now I’m about a hundred-plus pages into John Rechy’s City of Night, which is reportedly one of the main influences on Gus van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho–the non-Shakespeare bits, at least. I’m reminded strongly of the things I actually liked about Bukowski and Kerouac while reading it, as well as a few things I didn’t, and since I spent so long sunk into Anais Nin I also keep thinking “Anais went through the Swamp of Despair so that Rechy and his like could have good careers.” I am also…well, the feeling is somewhere between amazement and surprise at the fidelity to certain aspects of street life, which shone through in Idaho as well. Maybe because van Sant, like Rechy, knew actual hustlers; in Rechy’s case, he was one and it shows.

It’s like turning a corner and seeing an old friend from a previous (uncomfortable, and highly formative) life era. The embarrassment, the pride, the knowledge of someone else understanding exactly what it was like as well as the shame and queasy pride of survival. I’m not sure how I’ll feel about the book at the end, but that’s part of the joy of reading, ennit?

In any case, Boxnoggin has turned his nose up at brekkie and is waiting for me to get my own morning nutriment sorted. I will be full of the scene I have to write today all during walkies, going over and over it so often it might well tear itself out of my head whole and bloody when I am finally able to settle and get the actual writing done. I’m edgy, in a way other writers will understand. This part of the story has patiently (or not so patiently) waited its turn, and now it wants out.

With claws, and a vengeance.

I long to get to it. I cannot wait, so I will bid you a fond adieu. I hope you have something as pleasant to look forward to, my beloveds. It’s always good to have a day full of doing what you were meant and made for.

Almost makes one believe in fate. Almost.

Back to Reading

Spent yesterday doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work–you know, the type of effort that’s necessary to prepare for forward movement, yet at the end of the day leaves one feeling rather like nothing’s moved at all. As a result, I went to bed feeling rather tetchy.

But it’s a new day, and I have exciting things to report. People seem to like Reading with Lili, and I’ve received a lot of requests–mostly polite, thank goodness–for more straightforward readings without the commentary and footnotes as well. The commentary seems to attract one set of viewers/listeners, but there are those who like a more truncated experience, or who would like to hear some of the text en clair, so to speak. So! I’ve started a Great Chapters playlist, where I’ll take the text I’ve dissected in a Reading with Lili session (or something else from the same book/work) and just…read it, straight through. I’ve started with the first chapter of Moby-Dick.

I did a lot of narration and video editing yesterday, so between now and Samhain there’ll be a new Great Chapters video daily to bring us up to speed. Then I’ll shift to doing a Reading with Lili stream at the usual time and shortly thereafter both the livestream and the “just-the-text-ma’am” will go up on YouTube. This feels like a good way to handle things for the foreseeable future.

This week’s Reading with Lili will be an examination of Robert Chambers’s The King in Yellow, which is a fascinating collection, and I might even read a whole short story from it for the Great Chapters segment in honor of this year’s spoopytimes. (I also need to get out to the store and grab a few bags of candy for home consumption, hurrah.)

I only got about two hundred words apiece on both current writing projects, alas, but with everything else out of the way I can spend a little time with Hell’s Acre today, and a whole lot of time with The Fall of Waterstone, which may end up being titled The Elder Jewel. Not so sure about how it’ll eventually be named, which is usual at this point in the process. Getting my Viking elementalist to the throne room, where she will be called upon to give a message to an elvish king and might even pass out from despair, is the name of today’s game.

I’m also able to give more braincycles to just-plain-reading, which is a blessing. I finished Wilson’s The Thirty Years War, which felt like it took almost as long as the hostilities lasted to read, just last week. Last night I knocked off the final bit of Katharine Gerbner’s Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World, which was absolutely illuminating. The connections between Protestantism and white supremacy are deep, especially once the former crossed the Atlantic. One of the points Gerbner relentlessly makes and bolsters with fact is that originally, the term for “free” in the sugar islands (and on the American continents) was “Christian”; once a few transported and enslaved Africans converted and also gained legal manumission the process of creating whiteness as the category meaning “free” instead was kick-started. She also explains, patiently and in detail, how literacy was used by the enslaved to claw back some measure of freedom–with predictably violent responses from planters and enslavers, not to mention a complete abdication of responsibility by European missionaries. All in all, it was a fascinating read and answered a lot of questions about just why current white supremacy finds such a congenial home in evangelical (and even bog-standard) Christianity.

Next on my TBR pile is an ancient paperback of Dick Gregory’s No More Lies, which I’m really looking forward to. You’d think the pandemic would have given me more time to read, but the associated stress simply meant I couldn’t concentrate worth a damn and had to save all my resources for work. The plague isn’t over yet–far from–but I seem to have adjusted, to some degree. (Probably as a function of giving up any hope that people as a whole will Do the Right Thing, ever, unless and until they are forced by a lack of other options.) So I’m getting back into reading a few chapters of something not work-related before turning off the light, and it’s such a huge bloody relief.

I plan on getting Boxnoggin out for early walkies. The timing and the change in weather means we’ll probably miss any other dog walkers (thank the gods) though I’m sure plenty of cats, rabbits, and other prey animals will be out in force, which will mean dropping my center of gravity when the fool dog lunges. I have been half thinking of taking him on easy, gentle runs now that there’s absolutely no danger of him being too young for that sort of exercise, but I can’t trust him the way I did Bailey. He’s simply too reactive, still. Maybe another six months’ worth of patient training during walkies will ameliorate, I don’t know. And certainly the long rambles to wear him out are good for my health as well.

We had a terribly dry autumn, but that seems to be washed away now. About damn time; I hope the rain is reaching the local forest fires. I’m just glad not to be breathing smoke anymore. Of course next summer will probably be dreadful, but I’ve enough to worry about here-and-now without adding that anticipation to my poor frayed nerves. Suppose I’ll just deal with it when the time comes, like everything else.

And that’s my Thursday, beloveds. It’s time for some toast, and for getting the day moving in some approximation of the right direction.

I wish us both the very best of luck…

Zero to Rings

Well, I finished the zero of Sons of Ymre #2 late Friday night, so the weekend was a bunch of piecework I’d put off until that was done. The zero is awful, full of holes and bracketed notes, but at least it’s not awful and unfinished. Future Me is going to hate me for leaving the amount of plot gaps, notes, and the like, but it couldn’t be helped.

Which means I can turn all my attention to the copyedits for Ghost Squad #2 now. Once that’s done it’ll be juggling new text on Hell’s Acre and revisions on Cold North, and once the latter is done I can move to the second in the Tolkien Viking werewolves trilogy. So all my spooky season work is cut out for me. By the time Samhain hits I should be caught up.

Should be. Gods willing, the creek don’t rise, and the news cycle stops chewing at my ankles.

Oh, and in a week, That Damn Werelion Book releases in e-format. I did have serious thoughts about not releasing it in ebook at all, due to massive ongoing piracy; I was argued out of it. But before that, there’s a new Reading with Lili to prep for–buckle up, bitches, because we’re reading Carmilla this Wednesday. I haven’t decided whether we’ll read the whole thing to kick off pumpkin-spice-and-skull season, or just enough of it to give you the experience. Either way, it’ll be fun. I also have plans to read a bit of Dracula to you right afterward, since Stoker was partly in conversation with le Fanu, and then maybe some Varney to finish the trifecta of Victorian Vampire Vichyssoise. (Because it’s cold as the grave, get it? GET IT?)

Look, I amuse myself mightily; some days, I’m the only one who will. At least the weather is cooperating. It does get warm in the late afternoon, but the wind kicks up in the evening and it cools enough that sleep isn’t an impossibility.

Oh! And I watched not only the Wind season of Seven Souls in the Skull Castle, which was great, but also the first two episodes of The Rings of Power this past weekend. My inner nerd was deeply delighted–I’m all in for Galadriel’s “you do not know who you are fucking with” 20s. She was born in Valinor and by the time the First Age ended she was an adult, but still young for an Elf (even if she was tutored by Melian in Doriath) and I can 100% see the scion of two high kings whose mother-name was “Nerwen” deciding that Finrod’s killer (who was indeed Sauron, as Gorthaur the Cruel who held the island of Tol Sirion during Morgoth’s time) needed a dose of the same medicine. Now, Finrod was part of the quest for the Silmarils, so in canon he wasn’t “hunting” Sauron but instead keeping that dumbass Beren alive–but for the purposes of storytelling I’m down with this because it means the television series about the Second Age doesn’t have to drag in Feanor and his bullshit more than glancingly. (I noticed the difference in how Elrond and Celebrimbor treated Feanor’s hammer, which was a nice touch.)

Still would like to see a whole series about That Bitch, Feanor, and His Stupid LEDs. But problems of interpretation would make it super difficult. Anyway, Galadriel choosing to spend her “clubbing 20s” out clubbing orcs is 110% on brand for the Man-maiden. And I love her actress, whose eyelid twitch when confronted with stupid men is a work of art.

I do have one quibble, though. When an attendant comes to tell Elrond that Galadriel’s returned, she says there’s a meeting Gil-galad won’t have him in. “Elf-lords only.” We’re supposed to believe that Gil-galad–let alone any elf-lord who survived the Wars of Wrath–would get snitty with Earandil the Mariner’s son, a descendant of Beren and Luthien through Elwing his mother, and kin to a Maiar (because Luthien’s mother was Melian herself)? That shit simply does not fly. Even if Elrond was young for an Elf (practically a baby compared to even Galadriel) he was still of that lineage, and nobody but nobody would dare suggest he wasn’t of the Eldar, and ELDAR ROYALTY at that. That’s the only thing that jolted me out of the story, frankly.

I loved the Harfoots’ pop-up village–if ever something Tolkien was meant for a Disney ride, that would be it–and I am firmly Team Poppy.

Plus, I’m calling it–the comet was Olorin’s grand entrance, because Curumo would never be caught dead in rags, much less dependent on the kindness of smaller beings. Plus, the dude can’t be Annatar, who would have shown up nice and handsome and in any case was still swanning around Middle-Earth with Orcs, not coming straight from Valinor. (I love the falling-star motif, since basically Manwe and Varda forced Curumo to accept Olorin as part of the deal.) Now, technically and canonically the Istari arrived at the Grey Havens near the beginning of the Second Age, but this is certainly more dramatic and brings in a nice sense of bookmarking–the ancestors of hobbits were kind to an Istari upon arrival, and he remembers that pity (because he was, after all, a disciple of Nienna) for his entire time on Middle-Earth during the Second Age. (There are some suggestions he was there during the First and we definitely know he was there in the Third, but the hints of him during the Silmarillion are just that–mere hints.)

If that preceding paragraph made no sense to you, it’s okay. You don’t have to know any of that shit to appreciate folks playing in Tolkien’s legendarium as he so desperately wanted them to during his lifetime, I promise. It’s great television and fans of the Jackson screen treatments will enjoy the show. Plus the bigots are super mad that it doesn’t prioritize their bigoted little selves, so that’s a powerful inducement to watching it over and over again.

Also, if anything happens to Arondil, we riot. Dude’s a cinnamon roll with a bow, and we all know how I love that dynamic. I am Team Go Bronwyn Go, too. Anyone who says their romance is uncanonical just hasn’t read deeply enough in the Unfinished Tales and other materials, so we can discount their opinion.

Boxnoggin is trotting up and down the hall, and I suppose I’d best get a run in today, too. Back to the word mines; I am told this round of copyedits is light but there still might be a problem or two in there. If I manage to get these turned around in reasonable fashion this week I might not be so behind at all, and that is a glorious thought. Unfortunately I have to hop to and get breakfast down the hatch before anything else is possible. It feels like a Monday since I took Labor Day mostly off.

At least I feel somewhat rested. That’s a lovely change…

Attend to Stitching

Yesterday I freshened up the ol’ eyeliner, got the new microphone situated, and did what I’ve been threatening–a reading of My Immortal. I lasted seven chapters, and though they are very short chapters, the fic absolutely broke me. To be fair it was one of the author’s notes that did me in, and I ended up somewhat helpless with laughter. So now I can say I’ve done it, just like I can say I managed all the way through Eye of Argon.

The next Reading with Lili session will be the first chapter of Moby Dick1, with commentary. I really want other people to know what an absolute BANGER the book is, and offer some commentary. It probably won’t be as popular as the first two reads, but that’s okay. I’m really only doing this to please myself. it might have to be broken up into two sessions, because while it’s only three-four pages in my Norton Critical edition, the type is pretty small and there’s a lot going on.2

The only danger in the reading is that I’ll have to drop the history I’m working my way through and go through Moby Dick again. My headcanon is that Queequeg survived, and reached his own island where he was a king again, dreaming of his lost love. Because he did love Ishmael.3

Ahem. I have strong feelings about the book, which is strange. I’d attempted Billy Budd and Moby Dick in high school, but bounced hard off both. Years later, after coming across a certain Twitter bot, I attempted the latter again and was pleasantly surprised, not to mention somewhat overwhelmed. It’s a wild ride; I can’t wait to enthuse over it with you.

Yesterday was rather warm and today promises to be the same, but–thankfully–not so bad that I’ll have to close up the house and turn the AC on. Boxnoggin loves this weather; the rest of us are waiting (with varying degrees of desperation) for autumn. I’m a pumpkin spice bitch all the way to my core, and I need the rains. It’ll be another month before we have a good soaking, and I’m already fidgety with anticipation.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print this morning, beloveds. There’s walkies to get through and a run to accomplish, the weekly subscription stuff to load, and I was disturbed by rendering aid late yesterday afternoon so I have to spend correspondingly longer today with Sons of Ymre 2. The CEs for the second Ghost Squad book have dropped, and a little bird told me The Dead God’s Heart is now up for preorder. Once I have actual cover art I’ll do up book pages for that duology. My work is cut out on a Thursday; now I must attend to stitching.

See you around.

Up to Us, Drop by Drop

Well, it’s Monday again. My nerves are somewhat re-wrapped, due to a weekend’s worth of reading Anaïs Nin and just generally being a bump on a log otherwise. I have rarely in my life been this low-energy; normally, while I’m awake I’m working, and that’s that.

But several years of ongoing, relentless crisis will wear on anyone, I think. I keep saying “I am full of the world’s pain”; my empathy is battered daily, even when I don’t doomscroll. It’s at the point where I’m numb, which is a great relief from the tearing pain of loss but interferes with work. Having to press through the layers of emotional scar tissue keeping me sane at this point is…suboptimal.

Consequently I’ve retracted, a bruised anemone. I am, after all, only human, possessed of finite time and energy.

I’m on Volume 6 of Nin’s Diary, and while it’s been an awesome ride, I’m glad there’s only about a volume and a half left. (It was surprisingly hard to get my hot little hands on #7, but I triumphed.) Some of her homophobia is jarring, and the terminology of anti-bigotry has changed out of all recognition since her time as well. Her constant willingness to let others, like Henry Miller, take advantage of her also jolts me. I already didn’t like him (despite reading Henry & June several times since my early 20s and still enjoying it thoroughly) but now my distaste for him (not to mention some others) is at white-hot intensity. Naturally my dislike is a matter of seeing myself revealed; I am somewhat known for being a bit of a doormat if I like someone. For me, it’s a holdover from mu boundaries being repeatedly and regularly violated as a child; I had to learn, painstakingly and in therapy, how to enforce them and how to let toxic, abusive people go.

Thankfully, in my mid-forties, I have learned to take a little more care of myself, and have scrawled many an “ANAÏS HONEY NO” in the margins. Getting to this age as a woman is wonderful; learning to give zero fucks and protect one’s space is a gift that keeps on giving. It’s also why our society prizes malleable teenage girls so much and works so hard to make older women feel invisible and unwanted.

But there’s power in invisibility, my friends. Superpower.

One of the interesting things about reading Nin’s diaries is seeing how little publishing has changed. The things she bemoans in dealing with publishers are the things we’re struggling with now, just with jet fuel poured on the bonfire. Even some of the names are the same. They still treat writers as disposable serfs; I think Nin would have bemoaned several parts of the internet but absolutely loved the explosion of self-publishing made possible by its technological advance.

…I could write a whole article about that, but who has the time?

I was also able to settle and watch a movie or two, including 1956’s Forbidden Planet. Seeing a very young Leslie Nielsen was a trip and a half, and the misogyny in the movie was…not a treat, let’s put it that way. It is fully an heir to Shakespeare in woman-hating, especially as a retelling of The Tempest. On the bright side, it makes me want to rewrite the whole thing and do it right, which is a sign that I’m taking in creative nourishment. Filling the well, drop by drop.

Which is good, because I’m parched.

In any case, I should get my brekkie–so Boxnoggin will consume his; he is a very social eater–and take said Boxnoggin on his walkies so I can run. The rest of the day is for a top to bottom reread of Hell’s Acre; that has moved to first on my docket. I’m in the second season now, and as usual, by this point I have an idea of what the next serial will be but have to get this one sorted beforehand. I had such dreams for this serial, but the pandemic really made working on it into acid-test conditions. It’s sad; I wanted to do so much more.

In any case, there’s my marching orders. Oh, and happy Juneteenth Observed! It’s high time for this holiday to be given attention; it should be even bigger than Fourth of July. (And if you have a problem with me saying that, tough. It’s still true.)

Happy First Weekday, my beloveds; be gentle with yourselves and each other. The rest of the world will not, so it’s up to us.

Flood Stage, Numb

Woke up to find out some Reply Guys had found my massive thread1 on watching the Netflix documentary about Warren Jeffs and the FLDS. I really shouldn’t check social media before coffee; my patience for mansplainers, sealions, and red herrings is at an all-time low before caffeine works through my tissues.

Of course, it’s never really high to begin with, so…yeah. I used to respond patiently when I responded at all, but to hell with that. If you’re going to ask me for emotional labor or try to roll a barrel of bad-faith bullshit, you’re going to get ignored OR get the unfiltered response you deserve.

The rain has slacked off a bit, and the river is at flood stage. I think the numbness of grief has passed, and now I’m tetchy. The fact that I have to get back to bloody work doesn’t help. I mean, work is the only thing that’s going to save me, and it’s the only thing making me feel better now…and yet.

And yet.

I have those bloody line edits to get underway–I’m glad I asked for the extra time, good job, Past Lili–and Hell’s Acre needs a great deal of attention, loving or otherwise. The board is set and the pieces are moving there, and today I have to write Rexton (the overt antagonist) visiting the Greatfather of Taurrock. Neither of them are going to be happy with the result of that visit, I think. Of course I could not care less what Rexton feels, but the Greatfather is a tragic case.

Before that, though, there’s walkies and a run to get through, not to mention finishing the damn coffee. On the bright side, my cinnamon tea should arrive today, and depending on when it does I might be able to have a cuppa and see if I like it. And I spent most of yesterday doing housework and reading Way of the House Husband. It’s rare that I like an anime as much as I like a manga, or vice versa, but in this case I find both utterly charming. I can’t wait for Volume 8.

Oh, and Friday’s Tea with Lili is up on YouTube; it’s about hating your heroes and the duty to escape. I’m getting a flood of questions about the Valentine series lately, so I might answer some of those in the next tea. We’ll see.

…I suppose I should bloody well get on with it. The line edits won’t do themselves, more’s the pity, and I need to work ahead on the serial a bit in order to be comfortable. I would like to do a bit more in the Space Werewolves story, but at this point it’s procrastination instead of actual work and I’ve got to Be Responsible. (Bother.) Which means I shall bring this to a close, bolt the last remaining swallow of coffee, and get some bread in the toaster since running on an empty stomach isn’t allowed any more.

As it gets older, the body takes its vengeance. Poor thing, it’s had enough of my hijinks.

Happy Monday, everyone. May we all get through intact. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for…