That’s a thing about weather

Summer thunderstorm season is here.

When you fly this summer, remember that planes Do Not Go Near Thunderstorms. Remember that thunderstorms in North America form lines that can run from Winnipeg, in Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico. When your flight is delayed, and you are stuck in an airport for six hours, remember that we are prioritizing safety above efficiency when a choice must be made.

In related news, planes intending to fly over Kansas do not like being re-routed over Minot, North Dakota.

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May 10 2013

Happy birthday, J!

Today my family is in town, to see K’s circus show. See you all next week!

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May 1 2013

1. I am not merely planning what will go in this year’s garden, I am planning next year’s garden. I may have a problem.

2. The tv series DaVinci’s Demons is a weird, weird mix of historical and supernatural. It’s not bad, except for the supernatural elements. Overall the show may be too much in Lost territory for me.

As for the sexual representation that was so promising in the first episode? Never mind. Nope. It’s all hetero all the time.

3. Wiscon is in a month! Who’s going to Wiscon, hm?

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London Falling, by Paul Cornell

London Falling is a gritty, tense, occasionally horrifying crime drama. I strongly recommend it to folks who like Luther or Red Riding. But Paul Cornell has done something else here, something more than merely deliver a great, compelling read. He has made heroism out of some somewhat atypical character traits.

When I was younger I liked books about people who were special, who found a home and family with other people who recognized the special heroic-ness of the protagonist. This was the narrative that held meaning for me — it’s what I wanted, with all my heart. I wanted my Terrific Special Wonderfulness to be acknowledged by the world.

The theory I’m currently operating under is that everyone is special and important, which means it’s not something you get prizes and parades for. It’s just life — a life in which everyone is important. So anyone is a protagonist, whether they want to be or not.

The four leads of London Falling are just regular people. Flawed, oh, god, yes, flawed. But they have regular strength, too. The First Major Set Piece With Villain was horrifying. In it, the police officers — the coppers, as they call themselves — are totally flummoxed as to what is happening. It’s business as usual to be totally in the dark. It’s a terrible sort of usual, but good coppers grit their teeth and go on solving crimes anyway.

This ability to persist is at the heart of London Falling. Terrible evil springs from persistence. But so does the good that comes from stupidly stubborn hope. Both the villain and the protagonists grit their teeth, put their head down, square their shoulders, and just fucking get on with it already.

Stubborn, mule-headed endurance of character is not the sort of story I think I would have appreciated when I was younger. But I devoutly appreciate it now. My life is not a life of flashy battles, of tasks accomplished and put behind me. My life is a life of doing the same things every day, of teaching school and letting out the dogs and doing the dishes and going to work. I do these things in service. I do these things because I believe that in ten or fifteen years time the accumulation of my acts will leave palpable good in the world. I will have given animals a good home, I will have seen tens of thousands of pilots safely to their destinations, I will have helped produce competent, ethical adults who go one to further the future of humanity.

It’s a long game. And it’s built of everyday persistence.

I loved London Falling. I am eagerly, anxiously, awaiting the sequel.

Thank you, Paul. I appreciate what you have written.

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Recent media consumption

1. Doctor Who has resumed. I am enjoying the episodes so far, though I am not enormously invested in them. I don’t care much what The Great Mystery of Clara Oswin Oswald is one way or the other, I’m merely looking forward to finding out. And the actress is very good.

2. Game of Thrones is back! As far as I am concerned, this show is actually titled The Women of Game of Thrones, Plus Some of the Dudes Who Help Them. So I am very happy with the episodes so far.

3. Bomb Girls season two is quite fun. I am given to understand that the show was not renewed, so I hope they wrap it up gracefully.

4. Once Upon a Time is on hiatus for another week. I was explaining to some people this weekend that OUaT is really 30% of a good show, 40% of a perfectly acceptable show, and 30% What the HELL Were You Thinking. Moreover, the show either does not keep a comprehensive bible, or they don’t consult it often enough. But I am looking forward to new episodes anyway.

5. I tried watching more of Heroes this weekend. When the show aired I stuck out the first two seasons, despite a vast, simmering indifference towards over half the plots and characters. But this was SUPERHEROES on TELEVISION, and I am a person who not only watched every episode of Misfits of Science, I own bootleg dvds of same. So, you understand, it takes a LOT to make me stop watching a super-powers television show.

I watched Great American Hero, for pity’s sake.

I have watched Manimal.

Heroes is on NetFlix, so I am giving season three another try. I swear, though, Suresh and the Petrelli boys put me right to sleep. They may be even more tediously uninteresting that Fitz on Scandal. (Whose scenes with Olivia I now fast-forward through.)

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The 2013 Hugo Award Nominees

This Saturday the 2013 Hugo Award nominees were announced.

Tor.com has the full list.

Here is the list.

Best Novel.

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
Blackout by Mira Grant (Orbit)
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (Tor)
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed (DAW)

Best Novella.

After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications)
The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications)
On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats by Mira Grant (Orbit)
The Stars Do Not Lie by Jay Lake (Asimov’s, Oct-Nov 2012)

Best Novelette.

“The Boy Who Cast No Shadow” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Postscripts: Unfit For Eden, PS Publications)
“Fade To White” by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld, August 2012)
“The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi” by Pat Cadigan (Edge of Infinity, Solaris)
“In Sea-Salt Tears” by Seanan McGuire (Self-published)
“Rat-Catcher” by Seanan McGuire (A Fantasy Medley 2, Subterranean)

Best Short Story.

“Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld, June 2012)
“Mantis Wives” by Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, August 2012)
“Mono no Aware” by Ken Liu (The Future is Japanese, VIZ Media LLC)

Note: category has 3 nominees due to a 5% requirement under Section 3.8.5 of the WSFS constitution.

Best Related Work.

The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature Edited by Edward James & Farah Mendlesohn (Cambridge UP)
Chicks Dig Comics: A Celebration of Comic Books by the Women Who Love Them Edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Sigrid Ellis (Mad Norwegian Press)
Chicks Unravel Time: Women Journey Through Every Season of Doctor Who Edited by Deborah Stanish & L.M. Myles (Mad Norwegian Press)
I Have an Idea for a Book… The Bibliography of Martin H. Greenberg Compiled by Martin H. Greenberg, edited by John Helfers (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box)
Writing Excuses Season Seven by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler and Jordan Sanderson

Best Graphic Story.

Grandville Bête Noire written and illustrated by Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse Comics, Jonathan Cape)
Locke & Key Volume 5: Clockworks written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
Saga, Volume One written by Brian K. Vaughn, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
Schlock Mercenary: Random Access Memorabilia by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton (Hypernode Media)
Saucer Country, Volume 1: Run written by Paul Cornell, illustrated by Ryan Kelly, Jimmy Broxton and Goran Sudžuka (Vertigo)

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form).

The Avengers
The Cabin in the Woods
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Hunger Games
Looper

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form).

Doctor Who: “The Angels Take Manhattan”
Doctor Who: “Asylum of the Daleks”
Doctor Who: “The Snowmen”
Fringe: “Letters of Transit”
Game of Thrones:“Blackwater”

Best Editor (Short Form).

John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Sheila Williams

Best Editor (Long Form).

Lou Anders
Sheila Gilbert
Liz Gorinsky
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Toni Weisskopf

Best Professional Artist.

Vincent Chong
Julie Dillon
Dan Dos Santos
Chris McGrath
John Picacio

Best Semiprozine.

Apex Magazine edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Jason Sizemore and Michael Damian Thomas
Beneath Ceaseless Skies edited by Scott H. Andrews
Clarkesworld edited by Neil Clarke, Jason Heller, Sean Wallace and Kate Baker
Lightspeed edited by John Joseph Adams and Stefan Rudnicki
Strange Horizons edited by Niall Harrison, Jed Hartman, Brit Mandelo, An Owomoyela, Julia Rios, Abigail Nussbaum, Sonya Taaffe, Dave Nagdeman and Rebecca Cross

Best Fanzine.

Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
The Drink Tank edited by Chris Garcia and James Bacon
Elitist Book Reviews edited by Steven Diamond
Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Chris Garcia, Emma J. King, Helen J. Montgomery and Pete Young
SF Signal edited by John DeNardo, JP Frantz, and Patrick Hester

Best Fancast.

The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Presenters) and Andrew Finch (Producer)
SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester, John DeNardo, and JP Frantz
SF Squeecast, Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, Lynne M. Thomas, Catherynne M. Valente (Presenters) and David McHone-Chase (Technical Producer)
StarShipSofa, Tony C. Smith

Best Fan Writer.

James Bacon
Christopher J Garcia
Mark Oshiro
Tansy Rayner Roberts
Steven H Silver

Best Fan Artist.

Galen Dara
Brad W. Foster
Spring Schoenhuth
Maurine Starkey
Steve Stiles

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2011 or 2012, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).

Zen Cho
Max Gladstone
Mur Lafferty
Stina Leicht
Chuck Wendig

***

You will note that this is a fantastic slate of people and works. You may, like me, note that you will be hard-pressed to choose within certain categories.

You may also note that my name is buried somewhere in there.

Chicks Dig Comics has been nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Related Work.

I am torn, incredibly torn, between a gracious, professional response and a wildly enthusiastic profane response. Those of you who have talked to me in person may recall that my first response to excitingly good news is blank affectlessness. I have spent a great deal of time pondering the nomination with blank affect.

The nomination is a wonderful acknowledgment of the stories of the contributors to Chicks Dig Comics. Those of you who nominated the book, I thank you for noticing how fucking amazing those essays are. (I did mention enthusiastic profanity, did I not?)

The nomination is also part of a broader pattern in the Hugo nominees this year. Women. People of color. Queers. I am pleased and proud to be a part of a Hugo slate that represents in some small way the diversity of SF/F that has always been here — but is not always seen.

Fuck Yeah Hugo Nominees. My congratulations to each of you, heartfelt and sincere. Congratufuckinglations.

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March 28 2013

1. My son looks ADORABLE in his bug mask. This fits in well with his current goal of being an independent scientist working towards unconventional goals.

In a lair.

With minions.

And death rays.

2. The curtains are still up and work just fine.

3. I found myself at the Y yesterday morning, mentally competing with another woman lifting weights. This is silly for a whole HOST of reasons, the most important of which is that we are not competing. But I lifted somewhat heavier things somewhat longer and with more vigor than I perhaps otherwise might, and this morning I have ow.

4. I am really excited about the forthcoming Game of Thrones season. Moreso than I am Doctor Who, to be honest. Though I will enjoy both.

5. I’m watching the tv series Bomb Girls on NetFlix. It’s about a WWII Canadian munitions factory and the women who work there. The character of Betty McRae is my main interest in the show. Betty describes herself as not right, not a role model, not fitting in. She is personable, and a great worker, and attractive, and an excellent teacher for new employees. She is liked by everyone. Yet she insists that she isn’t a good model, that people should not want to be like her.

Betty is played by Ali Liebert. Ms. Liebert does a fantastic job with the character, and it’s all in body language and stance and a slouchy sort of leaning against doorframes. Good work, Ms. Liebert. Well done.

6. It was brought to my attention yesterday that the forthcoming Ant-Man movie will, obviously, be about Hank Pym, not Scott Lang and his daughter Cassie. This hadn’t really occurred to me, and I am somewhat sad. I had presumed it was going to be Scott Lang.

It’s curtains

The kids are out of town at my mother’s for the week. J and I have cunning plans to Get Things Done while the kids are away and we don’t have to teach school or run them to all their classes. This is a fine, fine plan.

We have needed new curtains for … a while. A quick internet search reveals that the curtains over the front picture window were probably installed around 1988. They have holes. They are filthy. They are covered in aggressively adhesive cobwebs. They have permanent stains from where my now-deceased hound drooled on them for ten years.

We need new curtains.

Over the last few weeks, J and N have done some preliminary curtain shopping. To our initial surprise, no-one in creation makes the sorts of curtains that go on the hook-and-pulley-track system anymore. (I remember, distinctly, when those curtains were THE HEIGHT OF LUXURY, and all the families in the subdivision had them, and we moved into a parsonage that had them and I was like NOW WE HAVE ARRIVED.) Apparently pulley-track curtains are a relic of the distant past, like having sixteen feet of lace at the bottom of your curtain that drapes on the floor for the maid to launder, demonstrating to everyone that you can afford both lace and maids.

At any rate. We needed a new curtain rod.

For reasons I shan’t go into at this juncture, J had in her possession a gift certificate for Restoration Hardware. Restoration Hardware is a lifestyle store. If you furnish your home with their things, they assure you, you will own a well-behaved Weimaraner, your tortoiseshell cat will not shed, your sweaters will be appropriate for all weather, and your lover will give you charming, quirky gifts from the little shop you both saw in Provence six years ago. This … this is not the life I have.

But we had a gift certificate. Which could not be cashed out. The money had to be spent there, on something. So we got a glorious brass-finished curtain rod.

At this point I should mention that the window is 122 inches wide. (3.1 meters, for the sensible rest of the world.) Apparently, since pulley-track curtain rods have gone the way of all flesh, such windows are Simply No Longer Done. (Okay, that doesn’t actually make sense, since the house, and presumably the WINDOW, was built in 1916. I do not know why curtain rods have shrunk in a hundred years.)

Not to worry, the Style Consultant at Restoration Hardware assures us. (The Style Consultants walked around the store in casual clothes that cost more new than everything I was wearing, including winter coat and boots. I cannot imagine that the clerks at RH make enough money to actually buy the things they need to support the fiction that they can afford the lifestyle they are selling. I hope they get their clothes on deep discount, or secondhand.) We understand that fabulous old home sometimes have inconvenient windows. You simply buy two curtain rods and thread them together with the connector provided. Simple!

We bought the two curtain rods. Now we needed curtains.

The distance from the only place we can mount the curtain rod to the floor is about 74 inches. A little over two meters, for the sensible rest of the world. Ready-made curtains are sold in two lengths: 63″ and 84″.

J and I briefly discussed the possibility of custom curtains. When we finished laughing we wiped our eyes and decided on the lesser of two evils. We would get curtains that brushed the floor — we could always, if we got SUPER-AMBITIOUS, hem the curtains — rather than curtains that did not cover the window. After further discussion, we decided on some perfectly decent beige panels from Target. They wouldn’t clash with anything and were an amount of money we could both stomach spending on home decor.

The curtain rods arrived in the mail. The curtains were acquired. The children were away. It was time to hang the curtains.

I would like to pause here for a brief poll. Have any of you, in the history of ever, embarked on a home repair or improvement project with all the tools and parts you need at hand, a plan in mind, and subsequently executed that plan in order with no stalls, hitches, or do-overs? Ever? Has anyone EVER done this?

You see my point.

We took down the old curtain rod, whose fasteners had been painted over and whose screw-heads stripped out as soon as they spotted a screwdriver. Not to worry. We found the vise grips and got everything out of the wall.

We read the installation instructions for the new curtain rod. It called for drilling 1/4-inch holes in the wall. This seemed … excessive. (It was clear that the instructions presumed one was using the drywall anchors, which we were not.) On the grounds that you can always make holes bigger, we used a smaller bit. The hole was still too big. Not to worry. We have wood putty, which mends a HOST of ills. We found the correct drill bit and proceeded.

The cord on the drill did not reach. Not to worry! We have a properly-rated extension cord.

We assembled the rod. It … it had a connecting screw for the join in the middle. However, one of the two rods had a threaded join for the screw, and the other did not. … Well, we fitted it together as best we could, and proceeded.

The rod was mounted! The curtains were hung! The rod fell apart at the middle join if one so much as glanced harshly at it!

We searched the packaging. Nothing. We read the instructions. They all read, “the two rods can be connected with the screw.” This was less than helpful.

Not to worry! We lit on the happy thought that we had purchased said curtain rod from a poncy store of the sort than is committed to relationships between Style Consultants and customers. We called Restoration Hardware.

A conversation ensued, in which one party was trying to describe different holes in a tube, and the other party was looking at pictures of the tube on the internet and trying to figure out what the first party meant. To wit, curtain rod tech support proved about as helpful as internet tech support, with a strong implication of “that can’t be right, what are you talking about.”

After much, much conversation, J and I decided to remove the curtain rod from the wall and drive it across town to the store, where all parties could look at the same object at the same time. As which point J and I did something we had not done yet, but in hindsight really ought to have.

At J’s suggesting, I whacked on the offending curtain rod with a screwdriver.

The missing third of the rod, with the necessary threaded end, fell out.

We blinked.

We gingerly approached the rest of the curtain rod, sensing that this might be a trick.

It was not a trick.

We assembled the curtain rod. We hung the curtains.

Three hours after beginning the project, and six weeks after beginning the quest for new curtains, new curtains are to be had.

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Insomnia thoughts

Is the kids’ handwriting going to be good enough for their needs in the future? I mean, I know it’s kind of terrible, but how much do people really hand-write things these days?

I have to do my taxes. I have to at least LOOK at doing my taxes. Come on, Sigrid, do your taxes.

Remember to put asparagus on the grocery list for next week.

It would be really nice if Chicks Dig Comics got nominated for something cool this year.

[Person] didn’t respond to the email I sent. I wonder what wrong thing I said?

Put asparagus on the grocery list.

[Person] added me on Facebook. My Facebook profile CLEARLY STATES to NOT CONTACT ME ON FACEBOOK, and gives my email and blog and Twitter. What are they trying to say? Is this some passive-aggressive thing? Considering that it’s [Person], yes, it’s passive aggressive bullshit. I should just keep ignoring it. Yes. Just keeeeeeeeep on ignoring it.

It would be really nice if that story was accepted by [place I just submitted it].

Asparagus.

Did I proof the story enough before I turned it in? I mean, I know I proofed it AGAIN, but was that enough? Maybe I should have sent it to [treasured beta reader] one more time. Except I think she’s gonna kill me if I make her read it again.

I hope [child] changes [behavior redacted to protect said child].

Asparagus and tomatoes. Did I get bay leaves last time? I did. What was it that M said we needed to put on the grocery list? Dammit.

I need to get rid of my comic collection. Or, most of it. I should figure out where to send it. Oh, right, NIU will take it. So I just have to sort out what I want to get rid of. And then figure out how I am going to get the damn mess to Illinois. I wonder how much shipping would be on twenty longboxes of comics?

I wonder if the furlough days are going to interfere with Wiscon. God, I hope not. I really, really hope not.

Did I do my Spanish homework yesterday? I did. Phew.

Tomatoes and an avocado. Aguacate y tomates! El aguacate y los tomates! I remembered some Spanish! … Dammit, what was it I was going to put on the list? It wasn’t aguacado. I mean avocado.

Dammit dammit dammit.

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Can’t blog, I have Shattered Pillars

Yesterday was unexpectedly full of things. Nice things! Things I liked! But things. And all of my free time at the moment is occupied with reading Elizabeth Bear’s new novel, Shattered Pillars.

This is the sequel to Range of Ghosts. It is fantastic. It is compelling. It is immersive. It is rich and wonderful and occasionally horrifying. I like it a lot.

And I’m not finished reading it yet.

See you later –

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