slight pause for station identification

Back In (Oven) Business

My kingdom for a filter…

Since several of you have asked, this is what an oven vent filter looks like! The filter itself is the honeycomb-looking thing; it’s made of rough ceramic and so far as I can tell functions a bit like a smokescrubber, catching particles. An oven needs a vent for proper heat circulation, and that vent needs a filter so cooking smoke doesn’t taint the food–even a small amount can ruin a whole meal. You can use your oven without the filter in the vent…but I wouldn’t recommend it for stuff that could produce even a little smoke. (Like bacon. Mmmm, bacon.)

We found out we needed a new filter as the Princess was baking a cake, when the old one literally fell out. The vent tube itself is held by a couple screws and that flared lip–in this picture the tube itself is upside down, it’s supposed to be fixed to the roof of the oven interior. There are ways to get the filter back in if it’s just cracked, but unfortunately ours was too broken by its trip through the wire racks. So a whole new vent tube/filter was necessary; there are tabs on the inside that hold the ceramic disc and, wouldn’t you know, a new disc wouldn’t fit.

Cue about two hours’ worth of weeding through useless AI-tainted swamps before finally finding out what precisely we needed, then a trip to the manufacturer’s website for the precise part number and ordering info, another half-hour of drilling through that mess, and finally I found the part number…only to discover it was out of stock. A month and a half later it was finally back in stock, and it took another long while to be shipped.

Guess how long it took to take the old vent tube out and put the shiny new one in? Less than seven minutes. It would’ve been less than five if I’d been able to take the oven door off like I once saw the appliance repairman do, but I felt like that was just a way to create more problems. And now the oven is back to full use.

I absolutely needed the dopamine hit from this victory; it’s been a heckuva week. And I still have a character to kill in the Sekrit Projekt today–it would’ve been yesterday, but so much intervened. And to be honest I wasn’t ready to let go. This particular fictional person deserves better than what they’re getting; sadly, that’s life. Even in fiction.

See you next week, my dears.

Morning, Chopped

We made appointments, answered questions, filled out all the paperwork online, got out the door Tuesday morning…and an officious Walgreens “pharmacy tech” refused our entire family the Covid vaccine we qualify for (since we haven’t been boosted since 2022). Which was upsetting in the extreme–I could not sleep the night after, heartsick and vexed. I’m hearing anecdotally that this is happening to a lot of eligible people, being refused lifesaving and disability-fighting vaccines by pharmacists using “religion” as an excuse or who seem genuinely unaware of CDC guidelines and best practices. It’s fucking maddening. Perhaps the reason vaccine uptake is “low” is because our public health infrastructure has completely failed, mostly due to business interests gutting it because they want the serf class–no matter how sick or disabled–back at the mill for exploiting.

Anyway, I’ve filed complaints and we’re making arrangements to go elsewhere. Plus, I’ll never step in another Walgreens again so long as I live. And that’s all I’ve to say about that, because most of what I’d add is unrepeatable blue words.

I don’t know how long it will last, but it looks like the Gallow & Ragged trilogy is discounted in ebook. (I wish I were alerted to these things more consistently.) The first volume, Trailer Park Fae, is $2.99 for Kindle–again, I don’t know for how long, but I thought I’d mention it.

I finished Emily Wilson’s translation of the Iliad and it was marvelous. She makes the Greek sing through the English and her notes are a delight. Next up is her Odyssey translation. I am smacking my lips in anticipation–after a moment spent with Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human, which I first read in a Junji Ito adaptation.

I was in bed this morning with the Dazai as Boxnoggin got his cuddles, and happened across a particular passage where the protagonist talks about how, when people say, “Society won’t stand for it…” what they really mean is “I won’t stand for it.” If someone says, “Society will ostracize you,” what they really mean is, “I will ostracize you.” The force of the passage, addressing a “you” since the book’s in first person, was like a thunderclap. I had to set the book down and think about things for a bit–which Boxnoggin adored since it meant chest-skritches, always a favorite after a long night spent snoring in comfort.

Of course the protagonist is a bit tiresome, but the feeling Dazai describes of being an imposter in one’s own life, of clowning to hold back the despair, of utter alienation beginning in childhood, is extremely familiar. I sought out the book after Ito’s adaptation because of that definite, echoing familiarity–nausea in the Sartre sense, I’d call it. I’ve the urge to watch Breathless afterward, just to see if the existentialist throughlines I’m seeing hold.

It’s good to have some bandwidth for reading again; not-reading is almost as uncomfortable as not-writing. For a short awful while I was so emotionally and physically exhausted by the struggle around a certain series I couldn’t manage more than a paragraph before passing out at night; thankfully, the commitment to protecting the work (and myself) in this Year of the Real is paying off by granting me a little breathing room. Funny how that works out, ennit–when one starts enforcing one’s boundaries, one finds out rather quickly who was taking one’s kindness for weakness, and one acquires far more energy to spend on one’s own affairs.

It’s been a chopped-up sort of morning, as you can see by the separators. I’m about to begin another push to get the Sekrit Projekt past the point of no return, where its own momentum will take it over the finish line…but it’s rough, and various other considerations might intrude. The month of April’s going to hit like a freight train, since I’m rather behind, what with so much time eaten up by health concerns and struggling to get That Particular Series born. At least the stress nausea (I’m detecting a theme, and a rather unpleasant one at that) is receding bit by bit.

It’s not the end of the battle, but I can see it from here. And that is a welcome development indeed, my friends. The relief is damn near depthless.

Stubbornness Roll

Roadtrip Z

I only got 3k words on the Sekrit Projekt yesterday, but on the other hand I tested a butter chicken recipe for the Instant Pot and it turned out well. With a few tweaks it’ll be one of our go-to dinners–not too often, because that’s a lot of butter and heavy cream, but the kids can now request it as a fave.

The Roadtrip Z sale is going on today and tomorrow; Season 1 is $.99USD in ebook and the rest are deeply discounted. There are plenty of other price drops, all listed on the Monthly Sales page. (Don’t forget to check the dates!)

I’ve a chance to get a Covid booster today if the stars align, so that’s…not pleasant, but I’m hopeful. I don’t want to die in the hospital drowning in my own sputum, and I also don’t want to roll the dice on lifelong disability. I mask religiously but I can’t really afford the price-gouging for boosters and vaccines, so I’m crossing my fingers and wishing hard. I want to try to get a morning run in as well, in case the booster wallops me tomorrow.

Along with that, there’s an uncomfortable conversation to be had in the Sekrit Projekt, a bit of tweaking on the upcoming serial chapter, a tranche of correspondence (my inbox is a mess, but when is it not?) and Boxnoggin to walk. All these chainsaws to keep juggled, and if I miss a single one it’ll be unpleasant. Good thing my dexterity modifier is sufficient to most disasters, and when it isn’t my stubbornness rolls come into play.

Those tend to be epic indeed. Is stubbornness a constitution roll? (I wish I could still play D&D, I miss it.)

Of course I’d feel a lot better about this if the Sekrit Projekt didn’t have to be so sooper-sekrit, but I simply can’t risk opening the door yet. Protecting the work has its drawbacks as well as benefits; I’m just glad the latter outweigh the former by several orders of magnitude.

Dawn is a thin line of gold in the east, shading up ombre-style through a pale rose, an almost-white, and into the blue of morning fading through Night’s last veil. It’s gorgeous and makes me conscious that I’m about a hundred pages from the end of the Iliad. Patroclus is dead, Achilles is raging, Scamander is about to be heavily inconvenienced, and I’d love to simply polish off the rest of the poem in a blaze of coffee and birdsong. Maybe I can have it as a lunchtime reward, if I get the booster and clear a bit of wordcount.

Something to look forward to on a Tuesday, at least. Away I go, juggling roaring implements of destruction. At least I’m not on a unicycle; that would be concerning…

Whatever Flavour of Great

Roadtrip Z

Happy Monday! Cotton Crossing is $.99USD in ebook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo; the entire Roadtrip Z series is deeply discounted in ebook until 3/22. (Details and links are on the Monthly Sales page.) A little bit of madness in March, as they say, and She-Wolf and Cub is still a Kindle deal for the rest of the month as well.

The weekend was…productive, at least. Another couple short stories brushed up and formatted for the anthology, which is coalescing quite nicely, and I even got some serial wordcount in. I managed to detach and spend Sunday afternoon on the couch with Emily Wilson’s Iliad translation, which is absolutely wonderful. Greek is singing through her English, and it’s marvelous. I’m glad I held off on her Odyssey until I could finish this one, which won’t be long. I wish I could find something comparable for the Aeneid, but my Loeb will have to do.

In fact, I’d love to retreat to said couch with the last quarter of the Iliad, but there’s work to be done. I’ve got the protagonist of the Sekrit Projekt in a bit of a pickle, where they’ve been all weekend, and it’s time to get that sorted. I’d love to do a bit more of the serial today, since there’s about to be another knives-in-the-dark moment. I think it’s time for someone other than our favourite sellsword to get wounded, which will scare the stuffing out of her.

Always a good time.

The backyard is quiet; I am uncertain if Deathwish Bunny is the parent of the nest Boxnoggin found in one of the ferns. At first I thought he’d found a rabbit corpse, since it was before dawn and I was pre-caffeine; however, I glimpsed something moving in the depths after dragging his snoot from the hole and realized what was going on. The dog is quite upset that I won’t let him Be Great, for whatever flavour of “great” requires him attempting to eat newborn rodentia. The tender-hearted may rest assured that we’re keeping him away from the nest; if the kits are still in there, they have remained unmolested. I did notice that something or someone covered the hole back up, so I’m assuming Deathwish (or some other bunny) has attended to whatever’s going on inside. In another week or so I’ll check the hole again, hoping to find it vacant.

In the meantime, Boxnoggin will just have to suffer. He also got a bath this weekend since the weather was warm enough to permit him drying in rapid order. We make do with dry or damp-towel scrubs during the winter since he is slick-coated and suffers the shivers if he gets chilled, but climate change has given us a few very warm sunny days so we’ve made the best of it. Of course, he’s quite upset that his familiar stink is missing and doubly put out that I washed the comforter on my bed so he can’t regain said stink from it, but we all have our crosses to bear in these trying times.

…this post has turned into a Doge Report, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He was an utter goofball this morning, requiring more than the usual cuddling and bellyrubs before deigning to let me get out of bed. Possibly he felt the dual inconvenience of bath and refusal to let him snack on bunny-nests necessitated a great deal of Speaking to the Manager, which would be me. Alas, he will remain unsatisfied upon both points, at least until he reeks of dog instead of the fancy anti-allergy oatmeal shampoo.

I’d better grab some toast and get going. The biggest decision will be which ankle to put the brace on; getting older is full of such quandaries. At least once I return from shambling about there’s a prospect of more coffee, and I can get a few plot twists ironed out while moving.

And awaaaaaay we go.

Life, ah…

…finds a way.

One of the reasons I love moss is how it provides a bed for other plants upon inhospitable surfaces. Moss quietly goes about its work, an advance guard enduring terrible conditions which would either rot or parch lesser warriors, terraforming bit by bit. Moss is very patient, and after it often comes the weeds–also ignored and maligned, surviving despite it all.

The work goes on, ever and always. Life creeps in just like hope; while I often dislike the latter for its habit of kicking me in the teeth once I allow it purchase, the former is beyond my small feelings. It will continue no matter what I think.

Sometimes I find comfort in that.

Anyway, it’s the Ides of March, or as we refer to it around the house, Happy Stab-a-Dictator Day. The Republic was a bloodbath, the Empire somewhat worse, and both were afflicted by murderous power-greedy bastards. Wonder if there are a few lessons to be learned there–oh, I’m sure humanity will ignore them, I just wonder if they exist, hmm?

On that cheerful note, I shall be sailing into the weekend. This week has been…odd, indeed. I’m hoping for a chance to take a breath.

Win Or Sledgehammer

The dog started the day by demanding many a bellyrub and cuddle before he would deign to leave a warm bed–which, honestly, fair play and I did not mind. However, he followed it up by attempting to stamp on every hyacinth and daffodil in the backyard, forcing us to trudge around in circles while he sought the perfect place to pee as the temperature hovers near freezing.

I don’t even know. Then there was the Coffee Grinder Incident and I began to despair of ever getting some goddamn caffeine. Fortunately the Moka pot didn’t make me wait too long and now I am safely in my office, shivering with the aftereffects of Boxnoggin’s frigid bathroom break but grateful for the cup of java I’m finally managing to get down my poor sleepy gullet.

I have Flo Rida’s My House running through my head; it’s a supremely danceable tune. Yesterday it was fighting for supremacy with DNCE’s Cake By the Ocean, which starts out sounding like Uptown Funk to a degree which makes it mash with several other tracks on my skull radio. However, it is also supremely danceable, so I didn’t mind. Still, I’m glad to have just one song plaguing me at the moment–when I get three or four going, it’s usually a sign I need more work to keep the ol’ thinkmeat from consuming itself.

Yesterday was all administrivia and video meetings. Honestly I don’t know why anyone talks to me–I mean, sure, I’m hilarious, but I’m also A Lot and a crotchety misanthropist to boot. I got into publishing because it was a job I could handle from home while caring for toddlers (childcare costs would have eaten the proceeds from any other) and now I’m so used to setting my own schedule and arranging things to suit myself I’m largely unfit for not only any other career but also interacting with what one thinks of as “normal” people.

I get weird early, I stay weird, and it’s not gonna change.

Anyway, the Ides of March are tomorrow and the second tranche of sales and price drops for the month are coming ’round the bend. Today there is a cake to bake, plus wordcount to catch up on since I got barely 400 yesterday and I suspect they all have to be thrown out. I may have to reserve one day per week for goddamn bureaucratic nonsense so I can protect the rest of my working time. I need this book done and if I’m going indie at the rate I suspect (developments are underway) I also need a few other things in place.

My patience for incremental effort is being severely tested. I need a win or two. Maybe I’ll get one during walkies, or today’s run. If that doesn’t work, there’s a sledgehammer sitting to the right of my desk, and I’m sure I can find a way to use it around the yard for a bit.

…honestly, the prospect sounds more and more enticing the longer I think about it. Thursday got the first few hits in, but I’ve got a plan for the war entire.

Time to get swinging.

Books and Connotations

Catkins are coming off the magnolias and I saw an actual cherry blossom yesterday, though not on the tree down the hill who’s usually first past the post. I suppose I might be able to relax a bit instead of dreading a sudden cold snap? (HAHAHAHAHAHA WHO AM I FOOLING.)

I got to a major character death in the Sekrit Projekt last night, broke down crying, and decided it was time for bed. Going back over the raw text today will be uncomfortable–up until the very last moment, I thought this character would make it. I always do, I’m always pulling for them even when I know it’s impossible. This one’s going to wreck me even more badly than it does the protagonist, but that’s pretty much always the case as well. Sometimes I even mourn my dead villains, because I know precisely what made them what they are.

Anyway, getting to that particular plot-knot means that I am definitely past the halfway point in this particular book, which means there’s a bit of a slog before the slipsliding race to the finish. I know a lot of things will have to be expanded in revision, but that’s a completely different problem. Now it’s me and the book trapped in a cage, and only one of us will emerge victorious.

Technically we both win–it gets born and I get another notch on the belt–but at this stage it always feels an awful lot like a zero-sum game. And after this week I have to split working time so I’m not solely focusing on pushing this bloody great boulder up the hill, Sisyphus-style. It will also mean I say a more definite and thunderous no to a great many things people have grown accustomed to demanding from me, always a fun time.

I finished Amitav Ghosh’s Smoke and Ashes this morning, listening to the rain on the roof as Boxnoggin’s nose was buried my armpit. (Don’t ask me, our dog is a weirdo.) It’s an eye-opening read, and I particularly enjoyed both Ghosh’s careful tracing of how a great deal of colonialism was built on opium as well as the connections between that trade and the fossil fuel addiction leading to climate change. His positing of the humble poppy as a force in and of itself is extremely valid as well. All in all, a fantastic read, A+, absolutely recommend.

Next up, Emily Wilson’s translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, since the Princess wants to read both as well and talk about them. She’s loved the Odyssey since childhood–Odysseus is, in her words, a picture-perfect explication of “that fuckin’ guy”, and not in an entirely pleasant sense either. As in any household, in ours there are a few terms whose connotations are completely dependent upon tone and context, and that’s one of them. It’s said with extremely loving and positive overtones when it’s, for example, “that fuckin’ chocolate guy“; however, when it comes to certain political figures it’s overwhelmingly negative.

I can’t wait to hear her takedown of Achilles, frankly, who I always found a bit of a jackass.

Okay, a lot of a jackass. I kept reading the Iliad going, “Wait, this guy is supposed to be a hero? But he’s a douchebag, Hector’s much better!” My feelings on both Helen’s husbands are a bit unrepeatable, as well, and don’t ask me about either of the Ajaxes. (Ajaxi?)

This is going to be amazing. I can’t wait.

The rain is taking a bit of a breather, so I should probably amble into the kitchen for some toast. Before then, though, I’m going to absorb the last half of my coffee in something approaching peace.

Pushing the boulder another few inches can wait for a bit while I do so. It is, after all, a Tuesday.