K. Eason's Blog, page 11

ratless

...because the clothes dryer caught fire on Monday. The rat sensibly decided to move out at that point.

It has been exactly that kind of week.

rat(s)

We have a rat in the laundry closet on the patio. I've seen it, and its droppings, and heard it crawling around back there behind (maybe inside?) the washer frame. The cats have been very attentive in the evenings when the rat is most active, which is when I spotted it last night.

Today, I'm home and pretending to write, so I can let them out to investigate. And oh, there is investigation. I can track the rat's movements by the cats. They're like divining rods: eyes, ears, whole being pointing to its current location.

I hope they scare it enough that it moves house and we don't have to resort to traps.

Meanwhile, I sit here, door open, maybe 3 feet from a wild rat and a very alert Skugga, and pretend to concentrate on the WIP. Guess how well that's going.

to be Faire

I need someone to explain to me why it is that I cannot go to a Renaissance Festival now, in my 40s, without getting eyed and oogled, when I was invisible as a 20-something. Maybe the sun? The heat? Too much alcohol on the part of the hitter? A couple of years ago, I think that's what happened. Drunk dude weaving all over the food court, decided he wanted to drape himself on me and babble about my beauty. I do not have a black belt in martial arts just to hold up my pants, and I deflected him (gently). When he came back around for another go, the Rat, who has many more degrees of black belt, and who is substantially taller, interposed herself, looking stern, and he toddled off.

Anyway, I don't think he was aware of much except there is a female over there and she is smaller than me and oh, I am about to fall down.

And he was an anomaly. One is not generally accosted by strangers, which puts Ren Faire on a slightly different plane than, say, everyday walking down the street in which accosting has always and ever been by strangers: hey baby, wolf whistle, little-girl-let-me-show-you-my-penis (truth).

But Faire, see. (Or Fair; much like the spelling of fairy, there is variation.) There's this thing about Faire, in case you've never been, this element of carnivale, of boundaries strained to breaking. There're some folks who try to be period, and then there are the people who are there to cosplay pirates or Doctor Who or their current D&D campaign or whatever. Mostly the cast is the former, and the dressing-up-public is the second. But point is, there's a lot of skin on display. Boobies, mostly, to the limits of legal. And, you know, great! Yay boobies (and whatever else).

Because of the high flesh factor of a ren faire , there is a corresponding bawdy factor. The sexual innuendo content of your average interaction with performers and cast (and even vendors) is pretty high. This is a ...feature, I guess, of Faire. Which is to say, I don't actually like that aspect overmuch, but without it (or when organizers attempt to suppress it) makes Faire seem childish instead of subversive.


I also realize I started off this post complaining about this very thing. Maybe I don't mind it happening, I mind it happening to me? Or I find it just... weird. Like, come on now. I mean look. Here.  This is a photo from 2015. I have a lot more ink on my right arm now, and less hair, but this is what we look like every year.  

I realize this is a strange, fine line I'm treading. Shit gets said in a Faire that I'd never think was okay in any other setting, ever. It's like we leave the norms at the door: this is how polite people behave. We don't wear corsets. We don't have shelves of cleavage, or people dressed as wenches, or belly dancers, or shirtless men in leather pants, in a general public setting.

Maybe it's consent. (I'm working through this as I write). You go to Faire, you know this sort of behavior's out there, you're...okay with it? Or at least, okay with it being around you. I definitely don't think you should have to interact with anyone's toadshit if you don't want to, and no one should touch you, like, ever. So not consent. Forewarning.

And maybe I, me, the 40-something woman, just want to be able to look at the hand-forged knives without having the shop owner, who is older than my father, trying to flatter me by telling me how sexy I am.  It's weird. Like, dude. Seriously. Stop.

I think maybe it's not about me at all. It's about Nous, and they assume he's the dude and so he's the one who's into weapons and so by complimenting his wife they are complimenting him...? I don't know.

When we go with the Rat and Shan, people stop Shan to take pictures of her--because she has this crazy hat covered with ostrich feathers, yes, but also because she's all curves and you can rest a dinner plate on the shelf of her cleavage. And I get that, but also just gods knock it off. And it is always, always the cis-het guys who do this. You don't see the dykes coming over and going oh, lady I do not know, can we photograph you and your boobies. The straight women and gay men don't swoop down on Nous and make admiring comments or ask for photographs.

Ugh. I don't know. I have loved Renaissance Festivals since I was a teenager. The Rat and I worked at the one in Colorado in college as street entertainment. It was cosplay before cosplay was much of a thing. It was this place where the Rat and I weren't the weirdest people in the room, hell, we weren't even in the top five. It was weirdly safe in a way a lot of our lives weren't at the time.

So maybe my willingness to tolerate and excuse the atmosphere is based in a romantic nostalgia. But even now--there's a certain defiance to the anything-goes attitude. No one apologizes for who they are, or what they look like, or any of the usual shaming weirdnesses. That's great! Let's keep that! The problem, though, is that the cis-het normative harassing bullshit falls into the same category of no shame, and I want it to. Like--y'all have had your time, okay? You still have it, outside the gate, every day. This is the place for the rest of us. Because you can't live out your fantasies and let the rest of us be safe to live ours at the same time.

just don't touch it

It is one of those days when I am absolutely certain I should not attempt the WIP. I'll get in there and start second-guessing everything I've done  and then try and fix it and THEN decide no, I was right the first time and I'm the worst at this, ever, I should just quit.

(Case in point: I have rewritten the opening sentence twice already, and it's in its original form again.)

So I left myself a note along the lines of "fix this relatively minor point b/c" and here I am, because this does not count as writing...well. It does, but it's also something I can do while waiting for the dryer cycle to finish.

It's chemical. As in biochemical, not external additives chemical. I joke about alcohol, but I don't actually drink that much, and then not before, oh, quitting time. I don't deal with the other sorts of chemicals, except caffeine. Seriously. 13 years in Boulder, CO, and I never smoked anything. Anyway, this is biochemistry fucking with me, as it does. Give it a day or so, (or a week, considering the current drafts/commenting schedule) and it'll be okay. In the meantime, I need to work on things with immediate payoff, like baking, or something on which I can see measurable and permanent progress, like knitting.

Or Mass Effect: Andromeda, which is starting to feel like Dragon Age: Inquisition for the sheer size and proliferating side quests and my rising levels of 'goddammit, I just left that region/planet, why are you trying to send me back there again with another fucking little quest?' I don't want the game to be over, but I do want to feel like I'm not just being arbitrarily sent on load-screen-heavy journeys without much story payoff.

Anyway. No writing today. Except this. Which, now that I hear the dryer buzzing, is done.

(belated) National Pet Day (or, Cats! On! The Internet!)

I keep meaning write a real post, and by real I mean about Mass Effect: Andromeda. but I haven't because I have not gotten far enough to justify pontificating and because it's early enough in the quarter I am unlikely to get that far for a while.

So for now, this will have to do.

Here is a parade of Eason animals, since Nous and I first got together, beginning with the dead. You will notice a theme. Black cats are the least loved in animal shelters, and so... we have black cats.


Pooka, on the left, came with me. We lost him in Oct. 2013, at the venerable age of 17.  He was a swaggering badass who feared nothing and no one, ever. Even after he went blind, and then deaf--no fear.

Pixie, on the right, came with Nous. We lost her in Jan. 2013. She never much liked Pooka--always hissed at him, never groomed him--but she always made sure she was in the room with him, too. She was neurotic and fiercely loyal and she loved bacon more than anything except (maybe) Nous.

And then Idris. He still makes me cry sometimes. He was by far the smartest cat we've ever had, but also the most high-strung and unstable. I mean, Pix would lick herself bald sometimes, but with Idris, it was constant stress. He chewed things. Cloth. Fiber. Silicon. That's what killed him. He was also devoted and sweet and playful and awesome, and I miss him.


And now for the living.


 On the right, we have Louhi, the runt of a litter, hand-raised by people who were very patient with a cat who was just not interested in eating (that changed). She's also wicked smart, and absolutely certain she is not a cat, and also that you have forgotten to feed her. The photo doesn't show you how small she really is.

...which is fair, because the photo also doesn't show you how big Skugga is. He's part Maine Coon, smart as hell, but very chill. And very gentle. We go for evening walks together. He has the loudest purr and the tiniest meow.

yellow

Look at that pollen. Just look.
I've been binge watching The Great British Baking Show on Netflix. I don't generally like reality TV, but I do like baking, and I love learning things. (I have learned that I will never try to bake a Swedish Princess Cake, for example. Or baklava from a hand-made phyllo dough. ) I have seen half a dozen baking catastrophes, and learned how to avoid or even repair them. And of course, people get emotional--weeping over a curdled custard or a failed biscuit or brutal feedback from the judges. I sometimes shout at the judges, especially Male Judge, who seems to revel in being scary.

One thing I've learned is that the judges prefer risk to safety. Try big, fail big--and get more points than timidity, safety, and perfect execution. The contestants freak out about that, like the spectacular failure will somehow be worse than the mundane one. And I think, while sometimes simple is just better when one is eating for oneself, in the context of the show, simple isn't better. You're assumed to have mastered simple a long time ago. All the simples come together to make an amazing! Or, if not an amazing, at least a this is a really great idea, but.

The thing to avoid is not trying.

Let's see. How might I make that connect with writing? I sense a lesson.

I am worrying and fretting on WIP (which is not, oh fistful of On the Bones of Gods fans, the third installment. That one's in the proving drawer, waiting for its rise. I write other things in the meantime because, well, I write.). This time, I've got a stage beta-reader. The Rat is reading, chapter by chapter. The idea here is she will catch any horrific failures before they metastasize into 93K words of unsalvageable. This practice also helps me hold onto plot threads myself. But still, you know. I worry. I am teetering on the verge of throwing out a whole chapter, which is really not a big deal (4k? Pff.) but the reason I'm teetering is not that the prose sucks, but that I don't know if I'm doing it right.

Let's ponder that. I don't know if I'm writing my own freakin' story right, with a world that comes out of my head. Who else would know? My problem isn't that I can't write, but that I'm on the edge of having to commit to this world-build. I think, oh jeez, this is boring, this is safe, but it will makes sense.  Then I think, I should try X instead, because it is NOT safe, but it could crash and burn spectacularly.

Then I retreated to Netflix and spinning thread and watching people freak out about patisserie.

There are probably biochemical reasons for this. Like, oh, losing an hour of sleep. Or the coating of yellow pollen (fucking palm trees) all over EVERYTHING.

So today--or tomorrow, if office hours run late or suck my brain out--I will try again. Not the simple option, either. Because I've mastered simple, and I need to try for awesome.

war bandage

So, friend M. is a talented fiber person (tm). She doesn't just knit, people, she processes the wool from its stinky raw state into things of beauty. She dyes. She spins. She weaves. And knits. And crochets. I suspect she also sews, but I can't prove it. Let us say simply,

She does All The Things.

Sometimes, however, the Things do not turn out the way she intended. While she was dyeing for a show last year, she created a colorway she didn't much like. She brought it to our yoga class (this is a frequent thing, that we bring fiber to yoga. It's like show-and-tell. Sometimes we bring fibery things to the pub, too.) M. frequently brings me scraps of fiber, dyed or undyed, so I can practice my spinning. That day, she brought me a big hank of yellow/blue/cream/red.

"This is awful," she said. "I can't sell this. Do you want it? You can practice with it. Then you can throw it out."

"It's not that bad," I told her. "I don't think it's as ugly as you think it is."

"It looks like someone bled all over it," she said. "Like it's a war bandage, or something."

War Bandage. WAR BANDAGE.

How could I not make something with WAR BANDAGE?

Nous had gotten me a kick-spindle for my birthday, and I reckoned I could learn to use it and try to spin something thicker than the spider-silk fine thread-yarn I seem to produce on the drop-spindle. So I spun the fiber (not quite a thick as I'd intended; evidently I have a predisposition to fine spinning). Then I plied two strands and ended up with a mostly-even DK-sportish weight. Then I wound the result into two balls. WB1, top left, favors its reddish roots. WB2, bottom right, looks like a refugee from Sweden (though you can see the red peeking out at the bottom).

I have a set of felted coasters in mind--

--OK, let me explain that. Years ago, we were in some tourist-trap beachside gift shop and we found a set of undyed plain old knit-and-felted coasters and they were something like $20 each and I was mortally offended. Like, seriously. How f-ing hard could it BE?

(I have acquired many skills over the years by saying Oh, I can do that. Notable exception: pie pastry. For that, we have Trader Joe's.)

--anyway, felted coasters, WAR BANDAGE, we're on.

blood in the eye

I woke up today to a burst blood vessel in my right eye. I thought at first, oh shit! Conjunctivitis! But then no, upon examination, that redness had a definite origin-point.

I am not a huge fan of baring personal weakness. (I was going to say in public. But really: at all.) But I'm gonna cop to this one, right now: blood in eyeballs. Bloody eyeballs. EYEBALL BLOOD.

So first thing, no coffee, barely any sentience, and I'm looking at blood in my own eye. I try to look closer, because I'm curious, and I know the eye is not bleeding, not really, and I am not going to die, and I can see fine, and there's no reason to freak.

Reason, however, has little place in my physiological reactions. Almost immediately, I feel nauseous. Two deep breaths later, and I realize the whole breathing thing's getting tough, and also the balance thing, and also there's a freight train in my head.

I am the person who can look at open heart surgery, at my own wounds, at Peter Watts' photo-chronicle of his flesh eating fucking bacteria, no problem. I can gut myself through damn near anything that happens to me, too.

But it's becoming rapidly clear to me that I'm losing this round. All the steady breathing in the galaxy isn't helping. My vision's going all tunnely. I weigh the wisdom of fainting in the bathroom and cracking my skull open on the sink or the toilet  (and scaring my husband to death), or trying to get somewhere softer. I know I should sit down. But on the off-chance this is an actual stroke or a heartattack or something lethal, damned if I'd die sitting on the toilet. Besides. The spouse won't wake up for a while. If I collapse on or near him, he would. So.

I'm sitting there on the edge of the bed next to a snoring husband, all over cold sweat, like soaked, with two hungry and thus very attentive cats circling, head between my knees, hands on the ground, breathing as deep and slow as I can, thinking, what the actual fuck, body! Stop it!

I am also thinking: remember how this feels. This is writing material. 

And so: I have made little flirtatious passes at the mirror all morning. Is it getting better? Is it spreading? Is it worse? Each time, I am forced to retreat and breathe. Now that the spouse IS awake, I can't take refuge where he is. I must slink out here, put my head down, and breathe. (Because while he has sympathy, having experienced vasovagal shock himself once before, he'll say 'why are you doing a thing that makes you want to fall down? Stop it.) He is probably right.

Sometimes I need to remember: however formidable my will, however much control I can exert over my body, I am still a big bag of chemicals, and there are some things I don't get to control. Sometimes the body wins.

Look for all of this in a future novel.

achievements unlocked

Skugga, temporarily earthboundSkugga has discovered the top of the kitchen cabinet. He was eyeing it this morning, mrping under his breath, which is never a good sign. It means he's thinking.

And then--thump, I hear, from my vain attempt to chase wordcount this morning.

What is that? I inquire, and the spouse says, It came from the kitchen.

And lo! Perched 7 feet above the floor, beside the cat carrier (kept high and out of sight, to spare delicate Louhi the horror of seeing it), is Skugga, looking down at me anxiously. Like, I shouldn't be up here, should I? This is like not being on the counters squared, isn't it? Are you going to yell?

I did not yell. I stared at him until, still mrping under his breath, he jumped back down and found somewhere else to be.

The athleticism of cats, man. The counter's already 3 feet off the ground. Then from there, another 4 to the top. I'm impressed. I'm also hoping he doesn't knock anything over up there. The cat carrier is soft-sided, fine if it falls. The extra beer growlers, not so much.

Another achievement unlocked: my SFWA membership was approved. If that seems odd, me writing that under the bit about my cat's jumping adventures, it's because I don't know what to say. I mean, it's a big deal to me. A huge deal. It marks in my mind that I'm actually here, now, a professional in the field that matters most to me. And yet--I am no more, or less, of a writer today than I was yesterday. (Less, actually. Yesterday I managed to get shit written. Today, I am posting pictures of cats. So.) I don't know if I should feel more legitimate or not, but... I do. I also feel like I've gotten myself somewhere totally cool and that someone's going to notice me up there any minute and come stare me back down.

flashing back

Skugga and Louhi are havin' none of your toadshit
Leggings. Half-shirts. Shiny spandex worn in public. I mean, it's so totally the 80s, like, omg! I'm just waiting for the Aquanet hair sculptures to return.Except wait, that's right! Climate change. No more Aquanet.

I understand that folks sometimes get nostalgic for their high school years, and I say that in the same way I'd say 'I understand that some people like brussels sprouts.' I don't get it. It's a phenomena that just doesn't grab me. I occasionally substitute teach at a high school. They're great kids. Artsy and smart and engaged and all that. And I remember, being around them, what high school was like.

(No way in hell would I want to go back to that. No, no. Nonononono.)

I think part of the reason people feel nostalgic for those teenage years is everything seemed, oh, so new. Fresh. First love! First sex! No taxes! No mortgage! It's that teetering point of adulthood without all the adult responsibility (and I recognize here the privilege I assume, but I also don't think people pine for high school who weren't privileged). I met my best friend in high school. Played my first D&D. Still play with that same best friend every other week or so, 1200 miles from where we started. High school kinda marks out who we're going to become. Maybe who we don't want to be. I think there's comfort to be had in going back to that place: with music, with movies, whatever. (With clothes, too, evidently, but never mind that.)

And okay, fine. Look backwards, if that's your thing, and walk butt-first into the future.

But. (Butt! Okay, stop.) Here's the thing about high school. We can't be that person again. We can't go back there, and recreate who we were, and relive all that newness or whatever the hell it was. We can only remember, with all of the imperfection inherent in memories.

The people I do judge are the ones who try to recreate who they were. Like, jesus, just stop already. You can't roll back 25 years of living and reset How Things Were. You don't get a second chance to win the championship or ace the test or be popular or make everyone love you. Whatever anxiety you think being young again's going to solve--well, it's not. Listen to your Def Leppard and put the hair spray down and do not, repeat, not, start singing the school fight song.

I went to high school during Cold War. My dad was military. I spent chunks of my childhood on nuclear missile bases. My dad took my brownie troop on a tour of, among other things, a B-52 bomber. I knew that, should there be a launch, we'd die early. The bases were targets. My mother told me once that, dying immediately, would be better than surviving a nuclear winter. She meant, I think, to be comforting. She and my father also assured me, as I got old enough to start figuring out what was actually at stake in this nuclear stand-off between NATO and the USSR, that WWIII would be conventional. No way, they said, that the Soviets want to destroy the world. The US doesn't either.

That, too, was meant to be a comfort. It wasn't. I imagined international politics like a pair of cats circling each other, arched and fluffed and stiff-tailed and snarling. Mostly noise. Mostly posturing. But maybe not. There could be blood and fur left in swaths on the carpet. Upended furniture. Because who knows, with cats?

This morning, I got out Dream of the Blue Turtles and played "Russians" and "We Work the Black Seam." I felt that old anxiety again. I wondered what jacked-up memory someone must have to want to go back to that. Or what massive, gaping hole of anxiety would be filled by rebuilding a nuclear arsenal.

I watched my cats posture and fluff and circle each other.

And then something happened--some twitch, some signal to which I was not privy--and Louhi bolted. Skugga charged after her. Landed on her. There was rolling, and flying fur, and some snarling on Louhi's part. No blood. Skugga let her go, responding again to some cue or whim invisible to me.

Because who knows, with cats?