Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 6
December 26, 2016
Faulty Phones
Yesterday, during the ice storm, our phone went out. We couldn't get a dial tone, only eerie silence. We waited for weather to settle down, and when the phone did not fix itself, I called the phone company (using my cellphone, which, of course, I first had to buy minutes for, BECAUSE NOTHING IS EVER EASY.) It was kind of weird being on the line with a robot who then checked our phone to see if it was working. Like, the phone rang while we were on the phone with them, and then the robotic voice said, "Yes, you have a problem on your line. Would you like to schedule a technician?"
I have no idea who says "No" at this point, but the robot then made me an appointment for today between 2 and 6 PM.
Sometime around 3 pm, there was a knock on the door and the technician wanted to make sure things were working. And they were. It was kind of like magic. I'm sure he was expecting 100 year old people to answer the door, because what self-respecting 21st century person still has a landline. But, we have phone service again, so hooray.
But as I was doing all this, I was trying to remember what the heck we did when the phone went out back before we all carried cell phones. It's not like the internet was around, either (although it was an option at one point). Did we go over to our neighbor's house and borrow their phone? What if their phone was out too?
What's weird to me is that I really no longer remember. To be fair to me, this would never have been *my* problem. My parents would have dealt with this. But, still. Why do I have no memory of what we used to do? I swear once a certain technology exists, it's very difficult to even remember how we used to function.
I have no idea who says "No" at this point, but the robot then made me an appointment for today between 2 and 6 PM.
Sometime around 3 pm, there was a knock on the door and the technician wanted to make sure things were working. And they were. It was kind of like magic. I'm sure he was expecting 100 year old people to answer the door, because what self-respecting 21st century person still has a landline. But, we have phone service again, so hooray.
But as I was doing all this, I was trying to remember what the heck we did when the phone went out back before we all carried cell phones. It's not like the internet was around, either (although it was an option at one point). Did we go over to our neighbor's house and borrow their phone? What if their phone was out too?
What's weird to me is that I really no longer remember. To be fair to me, this would never have been *my* problem. My parents would have dealt with this. But, still. Why do I have no memory of what we used to do? I swear once a certain technology exists, it's very difficult to even remember how we used to function.
December 25, 2016
Holiday Traditions
My family has given up any pretense of doing Christmas properly. To be fair, we're pagans, anyway, but we no longer even pretend we're going to wait to open presents until some "decent hour." Yesterday, Christmas Eve day, Mason talked us into opening presents after I went on a coffee and donut run. So, we've had two full days of playing with out haul.
Besides, Santa always fills up stockings and brings a few extra presents for Christmas morning.
As usual, Mason was the big winner. He got all sorts of PS4 games, tee-shirts, and LEGO sets. Shawn mostly wanted some fancy, cut-glass plates and, predictably, socks. (Socks are a traditional gift for us.) I got more stationary and stamps. Pretty much everything a person could want--plus days to play with it all. My stamp album is getting difficult to close, but I'm still finding more and more stamps to put in their various places.
Shawn's (step)-brother Mark is still in the hospital. Sepsis is really hard to recover from. It's the thing that sent my dad into the hospital for months, and it seems to be on course to do the same for Mark. :-( We haven't been to see him yet, because his immune system is pretty crashed and he's not staying awake for more than a few hours. But, when he gets moved to a nursing home/recovery place, the one they're talking about sending him to is literally within walking distance of Shawn's work, so we'll be able to visit a lot. Which will be good, because very likely Karen (Mark's sister) will be headed back to Indiana at some point, and Joe (Mark's partner) is there a lot, but needs breaks, too. So, hopefully, we can help take over the "sisterly" duties.
Our relationship with Mark is much like it is with much of Shawn's family--very laissez-faire. We don't make a huge effort to stay in touch and that's mostly mutual, though with Mark, at least, we have being queer in common (though as a survivor of lesbian potlucks, that's not as much as you might thing. At least Joe is a pagan and a science fiction reader! Those things make up a huge gap).
Even though we had to find out that Mark was in the hospital via Facebook, I think he's always wished we were a little closer. Perhaps this is something we can rectify in the upcoming year. I've been thinking a lot about an article I read about How to Survive in Trump's America. In particular, 11. Make eye contact and small talk. The idea is that not only does talking to people breakdown social barriers--like, hey, so-and-so isn't just some '[ethnic group] menace, but a real person whom I know!," and also that it will be good to know who you can trust. If you never talk to real people, you never know who around you shares your political view. I've been very conscious of maintaining a lot of chatter in my daily life. I've always been the sort who talks to strangers (I'm THAT person), but I've also been thinking about other ways to build small, strong communities. Literally, one way is to stay in better touch with people. This is one of the reasons I've been trying to blog more regularly here, but also why I hope that we'll be able to spend more time with Mark in the future.
Of course, the article also suggests making friends abroad. I still haven't heard a peep from any of my international pen friends. But, then again, I also don't know much about how often people expect to write or anything about the aesthetic of this thing. I may break down and write a second letter to one of my people, though. i've got all this GOOD stationary going to waste otherwise!
The other things that are coming up is: my parent's visit before New Years, a reading at AZ Gallery in Lowertown on Jan. 10 at 7 pm, and a panel discussion on "Telling Our Story: LBGT Writers and Publications" for the Wells Fargo PRIDE Minnesota Team Member Network--which is a closed group, but they've had really good attendance lately (this is a phone-in thing? Skype? Google Hangouts? I'm not sure. Should be interesting, anyway.) That one has me thinking about where I went to find out about GLBT+ things back in the dark ages before the internet.
Hope you all have had a happy holiday.
Besides, Santa always fills up stockings and brings a few extra presents for Christmas morning.
As usual, Mason was the big winner. He got all sorts of PS4 games, tee-shirts, and LEGO sets. Shawn mostly wanted some fancy, cut-glass plates and, predictably, socks. (Socks are a traditional gift for us.) I got more stationary and stamps. Pretty much everything a person could want--plus days to play with it all. My stamp album is getting difficult to close, but I'm still finding more and more stamps to put in their various places.
Shawn's (step)-brother Mark is still in the hospital. Sepsis is really hard to recover from. It's the thing that sent my dad into the hospital for months, and it seems to be on course to do the same for Mark. :-( We haven't been to see him yet, because his immune system is pretty crashed and he's not staying awake for more than a few hours. But, when he gets moved to a nursing home/recovery place, the one they're talking about sending him to is literally within walking distance of Shawn's work, so we'll be able to visit a lot. Which will be good, because very likely Karen (Mark's sister) will be headed back to Indiana at some point, and Joe (Mark's partner) is there a lot, but needs breaks, too. So, hopefully, we can help take over the "sisterly" duties.
Our relationship with Mark is much like it is with much of Shawn's family--very laissez-faire. We don't make a huge effort to stay in touch and that's mostly mutual, though with Mark, at least, we have being queer in common (though as a survivor of lesbian potlucks, that's not as much as you might thing. At least Joe is a pagan and a science fiction reader! Those things make up a huge gap).
Even though we had to find out that Mark was in the hospital via Facebook, I think he's always wished we were a little closer. Perhaps this is something we can rectify in the upcoming year. I've been thinking a lot about an article I read about How to Survive in Trump's America. In particular, 11. Make eye contact and small talk. The idea is that not only does talking to people breakdown social barriers--like, hey, so-and-so isn't just some '[ethnic group] menace, but a real person whom I know!," and also that it will be good to know who you can trust. If you never talk to real people, you never know who around you shares your political view. I've been very conscious of maintaining a lot of chatter in my daily life. I've always been the sort who talks to strangers (I'm THAT person), but I've also been thinking about other ways to build small, strong communities. Literally, one way is to stay in better touch with people. This is one of the reasons I've been trying to blog more regularly here, but also why I hope that we'll be able to spend more time with Mark in the future.
Of course, the article also suggests making friends abroad. I still haven't heard a peep from any of my international pen friends. But, then again, I also don't know much about how often people expect to write or anything about the aesthetic of this thing. I may break down and write a second letter to one of my people, though. i've got all this GOOD stationary going to waste otherwise!
The other things that are coming up is: my parent's visit before New Years, a reading at AZ Gallery in Lowertown on Jan. 10 at 7 pm, and a panel discussion on "Telling Our Story: LBGT Writers and Publications" for the Wells Fargo PRIDE Minnesota Team Member Network--which is a closed group, but they've had really good attendance lately (this is a phone-in thing? Skype? Google Hangouts? I'm not sure. Should be interesting, anyway.) That one has me thinking about where I went to find out about GLBT+ things back in the dark ages before the internet.
Hope you all have had a happy holiday.
December 23, 2016
A Rambling Morning Post
It occurs to me that I never wrote anything about my experience volunteering at Quatrefoil Library.
I got there right on time, having managed to get my package off to New Zealand in record time (considering what the queue looked like AFTER I left the post offic, which is to say: stretching all the way outside.) If you know nothing about Q Library--which I didn't really, either--it's now in a "new" location on Lake Street. They're in the bottom floor of the Spirit on Lake building. There is a small, convenient parking lot behind the building as well as lots of off-street parking. When I showed up, I would have SWORN that the back door was locked, but after going around the building once, knocking on all the doors like a moron, I came back to discover a very confused Brian who opened the door to me and asked, "Did you even try it?"
...
Maybe not?
He gave me an exasperated eye roll, which is literally why I like Brian so much.
Then we had some confused back-and-forth where I had to confess that, yes, I work at the Ramsey County Libraries (RCL), but, no, I'm not a librarian--I don't have a masters in library science. I think this bummed him out, because from what I gathered, maybe they only have one retired librarian doing cataloguing for them? But, he set me to work, anyway. I had to find some potentially MIA books on the shelves, because copies had been donated that could either replace them or replace copies in bad shape.
At RCL, this would have taken me no time. Maybe a bit longer, if I was less familiar with the particular branch's layout, but over the past three years I've become pretty comfortable with how RCL is organized. Q Library baffled me. First of all, their non-fiction is organized via the LOC (Library of Congress) system which is, frankly, utterly foreign to me. RCL uses Dewey Decimal. LOC is just about as intuitive as Dewey Decimal, but it still took a bit of a mental adjustment. I mean, I don't have to understand what the purpose of the organizational system is, I just have to know how the numbers/letters fall in order, you know? Alphabet still starts with A and ends with Z. Numbers still go from 0 up. So, I'm good.
Fiction is alphabetical by author, same as anywhere. But for some reason, I could not fathom how the shelves were working for a while, but eventually I got it down. While combing the shelves, I discovered a HUGE cache of yaoi (in non-fiction, so don't be confused), which, when I left, I borrowed a half dozen of, with plans to take out the rest at some point. I've been reviewing those over at MangaKast. If you're curious about Q's holdings, I made a search term/tag for it, so you can just plug-in "Quatrefoil Library" or if you're afraid you'll misspell it, "Q Library."
After I finished that, I got a very fun task: going through recent donations to see if there was anything among them that should be added to the collection. The criteria is pretty simple: author must be GLBTQ+ _and/or_ a significant character must be GLBTQ+. Any books that don't meet these criteria still help Q Library, though, because they're sold via various outlets--kind of like what RCL does with its book donations. So, that was kind of fun because it was investigative--used my brains and my Google Fu.
Then, because it's that time of year, everyone who was working at the library was invited over to the community room for a potluck get-together for residents and staff. Awkward forced socialization is awkward, but the food was very good. Life came full circle when I met my very first lesbian nun (ex).
I may never have told this story in any public forum, but my first exposure a larger sense of a larger lesbian world was when Phil Donahue
interviewed lesbian nuns on his talk show sometime in the 1980s. I remember watching this pretty raptly. I knew that one of my dad's colleagues at Viterbo was a lesbian, but here were SEVERAL lesbians ON TV. I think my mom, who was watching with me, probably got her first clue that maybe I was queer at this point. It could have been the MASSIVE crush I had on my dad's colleague (Betty? Betsy? Something completely different?) or the Gay Comix I'd bought at the head shop, too.
Anyway, I left shortly after eating, mostly because I was overheated--I'd dressed for a much colder day and didn't have a very good way to shed layers. Q is well heated PLUS they have huge windows that get a ton of sun.
I would totally do this again. It's certainly work I feel comfortable doing and it's enjoyable, if for no other reason that it's something I would NEVER be allowed to do at RCL. Acquisitions is 100% the purview of librarians at RCL, so getting to be part of a decision like that is very cool.
Speaking of things I barely remember from the 1980s, one of the bids for copies of Resurrection Code for Jim Hines' charity went a guy I went to high school with. Honestly? I kinda hated this guy. In fact, the year I was voted "Biggest Women's Libber," he was voted "Biggest Male Chauvinist." But, he has the sort of name that--particularly in the Midwest--is really fairly common and so when I wrote the "uh, so how do you want the book delivered?" e-mail to him, I stayed very formal since I thought it would be much more awkward to act all chummy only to discover I was talking to a totally DIFFERENT person who just happened to have the same name. We're considering getting together to exchange the book, so it will be interesting to see how this guy has changed since 1985. I suspect a lot, given that he just donated to a trans hotline. I remembered him as not only a male chauvinist, but also as a raging Republican. But, then again, I don't even remember the name of my first lesbian crush, so probably he was never any of those things I remember, anyway.
One of the reasons I have not gone back to a high school reunion since my 5 year, is that I have utterly jettisoned all, except the most critical, memories from high school. I hated high school. I mean, I actually enjoyed learning--I always have--but I was not living an authentic life, while also going through a lot of hormones. I barely even recognize MYSELF from those days, much less anyone else.
And, that's the problem. Since becoming a published author, I've had people I knew in high school say "Hey, remember when we did this? Remember so-and-so?" and I draw an UTTER, embarrassing blank. Like, clearly this was a significant moment for the person I'm talking to and I literally don't even know for sure WHO THEY EVEN ARE, much less remember a single detail of whatever they're trying to convince me was the most epic thing we did together.
I blame the fact that I off-loaded my memories every day in high school. Seriously, I was a religious, devout journal keeper. I wrote a diary entry every single day in high school. I poured out all my thoughts, my emotions, chronicled events, ruminated about gossip, etc. So, I think I literally dumped those memories because part of me knew they were stored off-site--kind of how no one remembers phone numbers any more because we all keep them in our smartphones.
But, add on to that the fact that I've always been mildly narcissistic and high school was especially a time that was all about ME--in my own head. I was trying to figure out who *I* was and so I pretty much remember nothing except those things that were critical to defining "moi," as Ms. Piggy might say.
So, yeah. That should be interesting. Probably it will be a lot of "Remember when?" and I'll be, like, "NOPE."
Tonight our whole family has been invited over to Mason's friend Rosemary's house for a night of casual gaming. I'm looking forward to that. I might have to bake some bread or some other treat to take over there, but everyone is on vacation now so there's lots of time. I actually got up stupid early again today... I've been having trouble sleeping and might need to go back to the chiropractor. If I lay on my back for too long, fingers in my right hand go numb--so numb it wakes me up! That doesn't seem right, and, weirder, is the opposite arm than the one I had trouble with earlier this year. So that's a bummer. It might not help that I've been hunched over my stamp collection a lot lately, but the chiropractor can still help with that.
I got there right on time, having managed to get my package off to New Zealand in record time (considering what the queue looked like AFTER I left the post offic, which is to say: stretching all the way outside.) If you know nothing about Q Library--which I didn't really, either--it's now in a "new" location on Lake Street. They're in the bottom floor of the Spirit on Lake building. There is a small, convenient parking lot behind the building as well as lots of off-street parking. When I showed up, I would have SWORN that the back door was locked, but after going around the building once, knocking on all the doors like a moron, I came back to discover a very confused Brian who opened the door to me and asked, "Did you even try it?"
...
Maybe not?
He gave me an exasperated eye roll, which is literally why I like Brian so much.
Then we had some confused back-and-forth where I had to confess that, yes, I work at the Ramsey County Libraries (RCL), but, no, I'm not a librarian--I don't have a masters in library science. I think this bummed him out, because from what I gathered, maybe they only have one retired librarian doing cataloguing for them? But, he set me to work, anyway. I had to find some potentially MIA books on the shelves, because copies had been donated that could either replace them or replace copies in bad shape.
At RCL, this would have taken me no time. Maybe a bit longer, if I was less familiar with the particular branch's layout, but over the past three years I've become pretty comfortable with how RCL is organized. Q Library baffled me. First of all, their non-fiction is organized via the LOC (Library of Congress) system which is, frankly, utterly foreign to me. RCL uses Dewey Decimal. LOC is just about as intuitive as Dewey Decimal, but it still took a bit of a mental adjustment. I mean, I don't have to understand what the purpose of the organizational system is, I just have to know how the numbers/letters fall in order, you know? Alphabet still starts with A and ends with Z. Numbers still go from 0 up. So, I'm good.
Fiction is alphabetical by author, same as anywhere. But for some reason, I could not fathom how the shelves were working for a while, but eventually I got it down. While combing the shelves, I discovered a HUGE cache of yaoi (in non-fiction, so don't be confused), which, when I left, I borrowed a half dozen of, with plans to take out the rest at some point. I've been reviewing those over at MangaKast. If you're curious about Q's holdings, I made a search term/tag for it, so you can just plug-in "Quatrefoil Library" or if you're afraid you'll misspell it, "Q Library."
After I finished that, I got a very fun task: going through recent donations to see if there was anything among them that should be added to the collection. The criteria is pretty simple: author must be GLBTQ+ _and/or_ a significant character must be GLBTQ+. Any books that don't meet these criteria still help Q Library, though, because they're sold via various outlets--kind of like what RCL does with its book donations. So, that was kind of fun because it was investigative--used my brains and my Google Fu.
Then, because it's that time of year, everyone who was working at the library was invited over to the community room for a potluck get-together for residents and staff. Awkward forced socialization is awkward, but the food was very good. Life came full circle when I met my very first lesbian nun (ex).
I may never have told this story in any public forum, but my first exposure a larger sense of a larger lesbian world was when Phil Donahue
interviewed lesbian nuns on his talk show sometime in the 1980s. I remember watching this pretty raptly. I knew that one of my dad's colleagues at Viterbo was a lesbian, but here were SEVERAL lesbians ON TV. I think my mom, who was watching with me, probably got her first clue that maybe I was queer at this point. It could have been the MASSIVE crush I had on my dad's colleague (Betty? Betsy? Something completely different?) or the Gay Comix I'd bought at the head shop, too.
Anyway, I left shortly after eating, mostly because I was overheated--I'd dressed for a much colder day and didn't have a very good way to shed layers. Q is well heated PLUS they have huge windows that get a ton of sun.
I would totally do this again. It's certainly work I feel comfortable doing and it's enjoyable, if for no other reason that it's something I would NEVER be allowed to do at RCL. Acquisitions is 100% the purview of librarians at RCL, so getting to be part of a decision like that is very cool.
Speaking of things I barely remember from the 1980s, one of the bids for copies of Resurrection Code for Jim Hines' charity went a guy I went to high school with. Honestly? I kinda hated this guy. In fact, the year I was voted "Biggest Women's Libber," he was voted "Biggest Male Chauvinist." But, he has the sort of name that--particularly in the Midwest--is really fairly common and so when I wrote the "uh, so how do you want the book delivered?" e-mail to him, I stayed very formal since I thought it would be much more awkward to act all chummy only to discover I was talking to a totally DIFFERENT person who just happened to have the same name. We're considering getting together to exchange the book, so it will be interesting to see how this guy has changed since 1985. I suspect a lot, given that he just donated to a trans hotline. I remembered him as not only a male chauvinist, but also as a raging Republican. But, then again, I don't even remember the name of my first lesbian crush, so probably he was never any of those things I remember, anyway.
One of the reasons I have not gone back to a high school reunion since my 5 year, is that I have utterly jettisoned all, except the most critical, memories from high school. I hated high school. I mean, I actually enjoyed learning--I always have--but I was not living an authentic life, while also going through a lot of hormones. I barely even recognize MYSELF from those days, much less anyone else.
And, that's the problem. Since becoming a published author, I've had people I knew in high school say "Hey, remember when we did this? Remember so-and-so?" and I draw an UTTER, embarrassing blank. Like, clearly this was a significant moment for the person I'm talking to and I literally don't even know for sure WHO THEY EVEN ARE, much less remember a single detail of whatever they're trying to convince me was the most epic thing we did together.
I blame the fact that I off-loaded my memories every day in high school. Seriously, I was a religious, devout journal keeper. I wrote a diary entry every single day in high school. I poured out all my thoughts, my emotions, chronicled events, ruminated about gossip, etc. So, I think I literally dumped those memories because part of me knew they were stored off-site--kind of how no one remembers phone numbers any more because we all keep them in our smartphones.
But, add on to that the fact that I've always been mildly narcissistic and high school was especially a time that was all about ME--in my own head. I was trying to figure out who *I* was and so I pretty much remember nothing except those things that were critical to defining "moi," as Ms. Piggy might say.
So, yeah. That should be interesting. Probably it will be a lot of "Remember when?" and I'll be, like, "NOPE."
Tonight our whole family has been invited over to Mason's friend Rosemary's house for a night of casual gaming. I'm looking forward to that. I might have to bake some bread or some other treat to take over there, but everyone is on vacation now so there's lots of time. I actually got up stupid early again today... I've been having trouble sleeping and might need to go back to the chiropractor. If I lay on my back for too long, fingers in my right hand go numb--so numb it wakes me up! That doesn't seem right, and, weirder, is the opposite arm than the one I had trouble with earlier this year. So that's a bummer. It might not help that I've been hunched over my stamp collection a lot lately, but the chiropractor can still help with that.
December 22, 2016
The Sun Has Returned!
Last night was our traditional all-night Solstice vigil.
To be fair, the tradition has varied over the years. When it's -bazillion out, we tend to go heavy on the SYMBOLIC when it comes to actually sitting outside around a bonfire. But, yesterday was mild enough that we planned to try to stay out as long as we could.
First, though, before the sun went down, we lit the Yule Log and sang "Fa-la-la-la-la," because it's one of the few Christmas songs that is clearly about Solstice/Yule. Then we pulled out a picnic meal and opened Solstice presents.
Solstice presents differ from Christmas presents in that they're personal, simple, and cheap (possibly even homemade.) But, if they're any not those things, then they're MEANINGFUL in some way. Like, for instance, the Solstice Fairy always buys our family a gift--often a jigsaw puzzle because that's a group activity, and this year she found one with the Periodic Table of Elements on it.
In a surprise to no one (but a GREAT JOY to me), I got more stamps.
After we ate and cleaned up and played with our various gifts for a while, we went out to start the bonfire in the chiminea. Normally, I like to light the bonfire from a flame started at the Yule Log, but for some reason the candles I picked this year for the Yule log decided to poop out. But, so I got a fire blazing in no time. Mason made some snow people, because the snow was melty and easy to manipulate. We sang a bit, chatted, and drank hot chocolate. Mason went in and out to stay warm, and I fed the fire until we ran out of fuel for it sometime around 11 pm. At that point, I transferred the flame to a ten-hour votive and brought it inside.
I went to bed. Mason stayed up the rest of the night watching over it. He only just went to sleep after Shawn and I woke up in time in time to join him at sunrise to greet the returning sun.
A good Solstice. The sun is bright and strong this morning. A few minutes ago, I watched sunlight hit the prism we keep in the windowsill and throw rainbow stripes all across the ceiling. (The Solstice miracles besides the return of the sunlight? The tree which hadn't been drinking much water, suddenly sucked up a ton last night! Also? The plows finally went down our block having missed our block several times now since the big snow storm.)
I spent a lot of my time in front of the fire last night just thinking about the up-coming year and the fight we have in front of us. There are a lot of flames we're going to have to tend and guard. Even if the big fire goes out, we're going to have to hold safe any light, no matter how small, that remains.
Even when the darkness is at its strength, when the night is longest.
We will preserve the light.
To be fair, the tradition has varied over the years. When it's -bazillion out, we tend to go heavy on the SYMBOLIC when it comes to actually sitting outside around a bonfire. But, yesterday was mild enough that we planned to try to stay out as long as we could.
First, though, before the sun went down, we lit the Yule Log and sang "Fa-la-la-la-la," because it's one of the few Christmas songs that is clearly about Solstice/Yule. Then we pulled out a picnic meal and opened Solstice presents.
Solstice presents differ from Christmas presents in that they're personal, simple, and cheap (possibly even homemade.) But, if they're any not those things, then they're MEANINGFUL in some way. Like, for instance, the Solstice Fairy always buys our family a gift--often a jigsaw puzzle because that's a group activity, and this year she found one with the Periodic Table of Elements on it.
In a surprise to no one (but a GREAT JOY to me), I got more stamps.
After we ate and cleaned up and played with our various gifts for a while, we went out to start the bonfire in the chiminea. Normally, I like to light the bonfire from a flame started at the Yule Log, but for some reason the candles I picked this year for the Yule log decided to poop out. But, so I got a fire blazing in no time. Mason made some snow people, because the snow was melty and easy to manipulate. We sang a bit, chatted, and drank hot chocolate. Mason went in and out to stay warm, and I fed the fire until we ran out of fuel for it sometime around 11 pm. At that point, I transferred the flame to a ten-hour votive and brought it inside.
I went to bed. Mason stayed up the rest of the night watching over it. He only just went to sleep after Shawn and I woke up in time in time to join him at sunrise to greet the returning sun.
A good Solstice. The sun is bright and strong this morning. A few minutes ago, I watched sunlight hit the prism we keep in the windowsill and throw rainbow stripes all across the ceiling. (The Solstice miracles besides the return of the sunlight? The tree which hadn't been drinking much water, suddenly sucked up a ton last night! Also? The plows finally went down our block having missed our block several times now since the big snow storm.)
I spent a lot of my time in front of the fire last night just thinking about the up-coming year and the fight we have in front of us. There are a lot of flames we're going to have to tend and guard. Even if the big fire goes out, we're going to have to hold safe any light, no matter how small, that remains.
Even when the darkness is at its strength, when the night is longest.
We will preserve the light.
December 19, 2016
Deep-Freeze Weekend Report
Today's breakfast is two eggs over easy (but three yolks, because I got double one!) and two slices of yesterday's cardamom bread. This is a little heartier than normal for me, but I'm bracing myself for a long day at Quatrefoil Library.I'm volunteering with the acquisitions committee. I have no real idea what I'll be doing exactly, but hopefully it will be fun or rewarding or both. I'll let you know how it went tomorrow. I'll be doing something with them from 9:30 am, until 1:00 pm.
I also have to take off even earlier this morning to hit the post office before Q. Not only did I finish off my pen pal list, but I also have a package that needs to go to New Zealand for one of the winners of the charity auction that Jim Hines organized to help fun the trans hotline in Michigan. If you're curious, I raised a decent amount of money considering that there were only three books on offer. I'll be curious to know how this auction is going over all, but fingers crossed that he's raising good money.
Otherwise, the weekend was very quiet. My family intended it to be that way, since, like most Minnesotans, we'd heard that the polar vortex was coming and so basically planned to hunker down and wait it out. I went outside exactly three times this weekend. The first time early Saturday morning to shovel the sidewalk. The second time, I started up the car Sunday morning to move it over to the day plow side of the street (a frustrating exercise since the day plow NEVER SHOWED.) The third and final time was to take Mason over to his friend Rosemary's for their traditional Saturday (moved to Sunday) dinner and movie night. I guess last night they also made a gingerbread house with Rosemary's brother, which frankly looked AMAZING (ours last year was more of a gingerbread shack and kept listing to the side.)
We finished decorating the house for Yule, which, in our case, meant actually getting the Yule Log together and putting various evergreen boughs around the house. Yeah, we decked the halls. Except without holly, since I think holly berries are poisonous to cats... and this year I would not trust our new kitty Buttercup not to eat ALL THE POISON. He already likes to climb up on of of the larger presents under the tree and carefully chose various ornaments to steal and then noisily bat around the room. THIS is why we decided to revert to our "toddler tree" in which we hang absolutely nothing breakable on the lower 2/3rds of the tree.
Solstice shopping is done, but I still have a few Christmas presents to get. The bonus of being pagan is that decided to double up on the gift-giving holidays and we celebrate Yule/Solstice AND Christmas (because, really, outside of this whole birth of Christ thing, have you LOOKED at Christmas? It's completely pagan.) Plus, Shawn was raised Christian and decided she wanted to keep Christmas. Given that none of what she wants involves going to a church, it seemed perfectly fine with me. I will say that I'm just as happy to celebrate it. Easter always gets me, because we celebrate Ostara and it ALWAYS comes early (being one of the points from which such things are counted) and so I end up wandering around on Easter Sunday wondering why the heck all the stores are closed!
Ah, I'd better run. There's sure to be a line around the block at the post office, and I don't want to be late to my first volunteer gig!
I also have to take off even earlier this morning to hit the post office before Q. Not only did I finish off my pen pal list, but I also have a package that needs to go to New Zealand for one of the winners of the charity auction that Jim Hines organized to help fun the trans hotline in Michigan. If you're curious, I raised a decent amount of money considering that there were only three books on offer. I'll be curious to know how this auction is going over all, but fingers crossed that he's raising good money.
Otherwise, the weekend was very quiet. My family intended it to be that way, since, like most Minnesotans, we'd heard that the polar vortex was coming and so basically planned to hunker down and wait it out. I went outside exactly three times this weekend. The first time early Saturday morning to shovel the sidewalk. The second time, I started up the car Sunday morning to move it over to the day plow side of the street (a frustrating exercise since the day plow NEVER SHOWED.) The third and final time was to take Mason over to his friend Rosemary's for their traditional Saturday (moved to Sunday) dinner and movie night. I guess last night they also made a gingerbread house with Rosemary's brother, which frankly looked AMAZING (ours last year was more of a gingerbread shack and kept listing to the side.)
We finished decorating the house for Yule, which, in our case, meant actually getting the Yule Log together and putting various evergreen boughs around the house. Yeah, we decked the halls. Except without holly, since I think holly berries are poisonous to cats... and this year I would not trust our new kitty Buttercup not to eat ALL THE POISON. He already likes to climb up on of of the larger presents under the tree and carefully chose various ornaments to steal and then noisily bat around the room. THIS is why we decided to revert to our "toddler tree" in which we hang absolutely nothing breakable on the lower 2/3rds of the tree.
Solstice shopping is done, but I still have a few Christmas presents to get. The bonus of being pagan is that decided to double up on the gift-giving holidays and we celebrate Yule/Solstice AND Christmas (because, really, outside of this whole birth of Christ thing, have you LOOKED at Christmas? It's completely pagan.) Plus, Shawn was raised Christian and decided she wanted to keep Christmas. Given that none of what she wants involves going to a church, it seemed perfectly fine with me. I will say that I'm just as happy to celebrate it. Easter always gets me, because we celebrate Ostara and it ALWAYS comes early (being one of the points from which such things are counted) and so I end up wandering around on Easter Sunday wondering why the heck all the stores are closed!
Ah, I'd better run. There's sure to be a line around the block at the post office, and I don't want to be late to my first volunteer gig!
December 16, 2016
Little Runaround
That was me today, only in the not sexy way. It's that time of year. PLUS the Midwest is expecting a gigantic snowstorm, and so Shawn had me go to the grocery store and buy ALL THE THINGS.
We are now stocked up on Things, all the edible things--so if somehow we are actually snowed in, we have absolutely no need to go anywhere this weekend.
Yay.
I also stopped by Mischief Toy Store today for the first time ever. Their branding, intentional or not is: geek-queer. I was looking, specifically, for fun stocking stuffers for Mason and Shawn. While I ADORED the store, I was actually kind of bummed that they didn't really have exactly what I was looking for (which is a little unfair of me, since I can't really quantify WHAT I was looking for, exactly.) Now, if Mason was Jack Jackson (the son of our friends), I would have had the stocking completely covered, because they had an AWESOME collection of all the hot new graphic novels (as well as individual issues of certain titles.) There was also a Black Panther plushy that I would have totally bought John (because I'm fairly certain John has dreams of cuddling up to Prince T'Challa.) But, I kind of struck out for my family. I did find a few things--which I can't name, because, you know, while my family actually rarely reads my blog THIS WOULD BE THE TIME THEY WOULD. But, I dunno. I might actually have to take a trip to United Noodle to see if they have any new, exciting Japanese treats that might make good stocking stuffers (and of course if I just HAPPEN to buy a few things for myself, well... finder's fee, am I right??)
Ah, Shawn just called. Even though it's not even snowing at all, she wants to be picked-up early. I love how Minnesotans are both really "heh, we can handle all the cold" and at the same time being all, "It MIGHT snow 12 inches? F*ck it, I'm going home early."
We are now stocked up on Things, all the edible things--so if somehow we are actually snowed in, we have absolutely no need to go anywhere this weekend.
Yay.
I also stopped by Mischief Toy Store today for the first time ever. Their branding, intentional or not is: geek-queer. I was looking, specifically, for fun stocking stuffers for Mason and Shawn. While I ADORED the store, I was actually kind of bummed that they didn't really have exactly what I was looking for (which is a little unfair of me, since I can't really quantify WHAT I was looking for, exactly.) Now, if Mason was Jack Jackson (the son of our friends), I would have had the stocking completely covered, because they had an AWESOME collection of all the hot new graphic novels (as well as individual issues of certain titles.) There was also a Black Panther plushy that I would have totally bought John (because I'm fairly certain John has dreams of cuddling up to Prince T'Challa.) But, I kind of struck out for my family. I did find a few things--which I can't name, because, you know, while my family actually rarely reads my blog THIS WOULD BE THE TIME THEY WOULD. But, I dunno. I might actually have to take a trip to United Noodle to see if they have any new, exciting Japanese treats that might make good stocking stuffers (and of course if I just HAPPEN to buy a few things for myself, well... finder's fee, am I right??)
Ah, Shawn just called. Even though it's not even snowing at all, she wants to be picked-up early. I love how Minnesotans are both really "heh, we can handle all the cold" and at the same time being all, "It MIGHT snow 12 inches? F*ck it, I'm going home early."
December 13, 2016
Fundraiser
I contributed to Jim Hines' on-going fundraiser for Transgender Michigan, one of the only transgender helplines in the country that's 24/7. If you've been wanting to try Resurrection Code but never got around to buying a copy, now you can do it AND support a good cause!
http://www.jimchines.com/2016/12/tgm-fundraiser-morehouse/
As an FYI, there are very few physical copies of this book left. The publisher shipped me the remaining stock after the book went out of print. It also features a trans character. I know a lot of my readers bought this book when it came out, but like I say, this is a chance to help out a worthy charity as well!
http://www.jimchines.com/2016/12/tgm-fundraiser-morehouse/
As an FYI, there are very few physical copies of this book left. The publisher shipped me the remaining stock after the book went out of print. It also features a trans character. I know a lot of my readers bought this book when it came out, but like I say, this is a chance to help out a worthy charity as well!
December 11, 2016
No Racism, No KKK! Donald Trump Go Away
I'm starting to become a protest connoisseur. Yesterday, I attended the Anti-War Committee's march for Human Rights.
Hopefully this photo show up complete with credit (David E Romm). Apparently, WCCO did a short segment about us (it needs flash. I could NOT get it to work on my Apple products, but Shawn was able to watch it on her Kindle.) The TV segment makes us look better than I think we were. It was not a large crowd, in my estimation. As I've said before, I'm fairly bad at guesstimating groups of people, but I wouldn't have thought we had more than 50, but maybe 100?
Also the Anti-War Committee folks are a bit more radical than the previous group. You can tell by the list of sponsors, which include: Natives Lives Matter, Minnesota Neighbors for Justice,MN Peace Action Coalition, UMN Students for a Democratic Society, Veterans for Peace, Welfare Rights Committee, Women Against Military Madness, Women's Prison Book Project, Young Muslim Collective,Black Lives Matter Saint Paul, Saint Paul for Justice, Blue Lies Matter, and Black Lives Matter St. Paul. They were also slightly less organized.
It was REALLY cold out yesterday afternoon--probably 7 F / -13.8 C. I got there only about fifteen minutes to and by the time we actually hit the streets, my toes were throbbing from the cold. The problem was that the Anti-War people, like the Minnesota Immigrants Rights Action Committee, had speakers planned ostensibly to fire us up... but theirs SUCKED. The first one was so depressing that I think we lost some people. I mean, yes, America has been sh*tty on human rights, particularly international human rights, for a long time. But, no one there, except a few crusty radicals, really wanted to hear a speaker dump on Obama and talk about how they'd planned this march initially thinking we'd be protesting Hillary. This is the apocalypse, people. Let's look forward, not back. The police were also blocking traffic already by the time they started with their speakers and a lot of us were anxious to get going. I found myself muttering unhappily when they tried to get us jazzed to chant because no one could hear us besides ourselves with the roads blocked.
But, when we finally got going, it felt good. I really do like the feeling of being in a crowd, no matter the size, and shouting. Does it make any kind of impact? Does it do any good? I think we have yet to see. If protests get coverage like this one did, albeit brief, it still raises awareness, I think. I don't know.
This was the first protest I attended where we had someone follow us and shout rude things at us. No one in our group harassed him. When he shouted out "What would you do to a Trump supporter?" he go no answer. HE was looking for a fight. We were there for human rights. No exceptions.
The other thing that was different from this group than the previous one is that the parade route was a straight line. The MIRAC people had us march back up Lake Street, essentially in a circle, so we were spared a long trek back up Lake Street alone. I mean, it wasn't a huge deal, but we marched 30 blocks down to a church (for more speakers and a warm-up), but I bailed on that, so I ended up trudging the 30 blocks back to retrieve my car.
I guess this is the price for democracy, right? (Sore feet and cold toes).
Hopefully this photo show up complete with credit (David E Romm). Apparently, WCCO did a short segment about us (it needs flash. I could NOT get it to work on my Apple products, but Shawn was able to watch it on her Kindle.) The TV segment makes us look better than I think we were. It was not a large crowd, in my estimation. As I've said before, I'm fairly bad at guesstimating groups of people, but I wouldn't have thought we had more than 50, but maybe 100?
Also the Anti-War Committee folks are a bit more radical than the previous group. You can tell by the list of sponsors, which include: Natives Lives Matter, Minnesota Neighbors for Justice,MN Peace Action Coalition, UMN Students for a Democratic Society, Veterans for Peace, Welfare Rights Committee, Women Against Military Madness, Women's Prison Book Project, Young Muslim Collective,Black Lives Matter Saint Paul, Saint Paul for Justice, Blue Lies Matter, and Black Lives Matter St. Paul. They were also slightly less organized.
It was REALLY cold out yesterday afternoon--probably 7 F / -13.8 C. I got there only about fifteen minutes to and by the time we actually hit the streets, my toes were throbbing from the cold. The problem was that the Anti-War people, like the Minnesota Immigrants Rights Action Committee, had speakers planned ostensibly to fire us up... but theirs SUCKED. The first one was so depressing that I think we lost some people. I mean, yes, America has been sh*tty on human rights, particularly international human rights, for a long time. But, no one there, except a few crusty radicals, really wanted to hear a speaker dump on Obama and talk about how they'd planned this march initially thinking we'd be protesting Hillary. This is the apocalypse, people. Let's look forward, not back. The police were also blocking traffic already by the time they started with their speakers and a lot of us were anxious to get going. I found myself muttering unhappily when they tried to get us jazzed to chant because no one could hear us besides ourselves with the roads blocked.
But, when we finally got going, it felt good. I really do like the feeling of being in a crowd, no matter the size, and shouting. Does it make any kind of impact? Does it do any good? I think we have yet to see. If protests get coverage like this one did, albeit brief, it still raises awareness, I think. I don't know.
This was the first protest I attended where we had someone follow us and shout rude things at us. No one in our group harassed him. When he shouted out "What would you do to a Trump supporter?" he go no answer. HE was looking for a fight. We were there for human rights. No exceptions.
The other thing that was different from this group than the previous one is that the parade route was a straight line. The MIRAC people had us march back up Lake Street, essentially in a circle, so we were spared a long trek back up Lake Street alone. I mean, it wasn't a huge deal, but we marched 30 blocks down to a church (for more speakers and a warm-up), but I bailed on that, so I ended up trudging the 30 blocks back to retrieve my car.
I guess this is the price for democracy, right? (Sore feet and cold toes).
December 9, 2016
Stepping Back
Last night was the board meeting of Quatrefoil Library. Normally, this would have been a Wyrdsmiths night for me, but shortly after I bowed out, a bunch of people chimed in that they had conflicts and/or ENDED UP IN THE ER, (but that's another story.)
The board meeting was fascinating. One of the things I discovered, listening to people talk, is that many of the other board candidates had put in a lot more people-hours into the organization. One of the other board candidates had been an artist in residence; another had helped with an archival project. And, I thought: what am I doing trying to jump in at the top? Especially when I found out that there were a number of committees that a person could join without being a board member.
What I really want to do for Quatrefoil is physically HELP. You know what I mean? Maybe not staffing the desk (because I think the hours might conflict with my existing library work), but maybe to help build/expand content for their social media or review books for their newsletter or other places where I can link back to them to help raise their profile. I can put out chairs for an event. I can set out snacks or help clean-up. I can help recruit writers and readers. Stuff like that.
I made what I felt like was a good connection to the acquisitions board member, and I'm hoping that, though him, I can find the right kind of committee work for me. Ideally, he and I could work together to really raise people's awareness of Quatrefoil's collection... which is HUGE and expansive and I don't know how many people know that much about them, despite how long they've been in the community. So, if you see me talking them up here, that's all part of my overall goal. :-)
At any rate, I just wrote some follow-up emails to my contacts that hopefully made my continued excitement clear, but explained how humbled I was at the meeting and how much I'd like to work my way up to the position of board member... after paying some real dues.
So, that was last night.
Today... today is starting out slowly. Shawn is out with a migraine. I'm huddled under the blankets because it's so cold outside that the radiators haven't managed to catch up. I'm thinking about writing another pen pal letter. I have about four or five left to write on my list. It's been a little frustrating, if only because I'm such a school girl and I run anxiously to the mailbox every day, hoping to find some new treasure from some stranger overseas. I did get the one, but it's been otherwise silent. I wonder if they give you such a big list, knowing that a lot of people aren't going to follow-through? Or maybe I'm just being anxious and I'm the person down on the list, like the last few stragglers are on my own.
The board meeting was fascinating. One of the things I discovered, listening to people talk, is that many of the other board candidates had put in a lot more people-hours into the organization. One of the other board candidates had been an artist in residence; another had helped with an archival project. And, I thought: what am I doing trying to jump in at the top? Especially when I found out that there were a number of committees that a person could join without being a board member.
What I really want to do for Quatrefoil is physically HELP. You know what I mean? Maybe not staffing the desk (because I think the hours might conflict with my existing library work), but maybe to help build/expand content for their social media or review books for their newsletter or other places where I can link back to them to help raise their profile. I can put out chairs for an event. I can set out snacks or help clean-up. I can help recruit writers and readers. Stuff like that.
I made what I felt like was a good connection to the acquisitions board member, and I'm hoping that, though him, I can find the right kind of committee work for me. Ideally, he and I could work together to really raise people's awareness of Quatrefoil's collection... which is HUGE and expansive and I don't know how many people know that much about them, despite how long they've been in the community. So, if you see me talking them up here, that's all part of my overall goal. :-)
At any rate, I just wrote some follow-up emails to my contacts that hopefully made my continued excitement clear, but explained how humbled I was at the meeting and how much I'd like to work my way up to the position of board member... after paying some real dues.
So, that was last night.
Today... today is starting out slowly. Shawn is out with a migraine. I'm huddled under the blankets because it's so cold outside that the radiators haven't managed to catch up. I'm thinking about writing another pen pal letter. I have about four or five left to write on my list. It's been a little frustrating, if only because I'm such a school girl and I run anxiously to the mailbox every day, hoping to find some new treasure from some stranger overseas. I did get the one, but it's been otherwise silent. I wonder if they give you such a big list, knowing that a lot of people aren't going to follow-through? Or maybe I'm just being anxious and I'm the person down on the list, like the last few stragglers are on my own.
December 7, 2016
December Action
I'm thinking about going to another protest.
There's one called "A March Against Trump to Demand Human Rights at Home and Abroad." It's happening this Saturday, December 10 at 1 pm (in Minneapolis at Nicollet & Lake again.) The only potential hassle is that it's also a day that Rosemary and Mason are going to a Harry Potter concert that starts at the same time. However, Rosemary's dad is doing the drop-off at the concert hall (I'm doing the pick-up.) So... it's still do-able. I imagine it's not going to last more than a couple of hours, if that. It could actually work out, actually, since I will already be in Minneapolis for the pick-up. I like these protests that are endorsed by various groups, because they are often the types of folks who did this sort of thing a lot and know what they're doing... even if the event still FEELS like herding cats, there is actually a decent structure underneath the chaos, if you know what I mean. (Like the last one I did? Also sponsored by a ton of people and there were medics and a police escort, etc.) This one has been endorsed by: Natives Lives Matter, Minnesota Neighbors for Justice, MN Peace Action Coalition, sds @ the U of MN, Veterans for Peace, Welfare Rights Committee, Women Against Military Madness, Women's Prison Book Project, and Young Muslim Collective. Also this also means that I might get to hear from a representative from each of these groups (which expands my list of resources for more of these types of events.) It's officially run by a group called The Anti-War Committee and is about human rights, because Saturday is apparently International Human Rights Day.
There is also a protest planned at the St. Paul capitol called "Fight for the Popular Vote" both Sunday, December 18 (from noon to 8 pm) AND Monday, December 19 (8 am to 5 pm). Even if Sunday doesn't work for me, I could totally attend the Monday one at some point during the day. That seems like another possible fit for me. This one seems to be organized (at least on Facebook) by *one person* and has no list of sponsors, which makes me slightly dubious. However, the fact that the hours are such a huge range, I feel like a person could drop by at any point during the day and stay for as long as they like. Which means, that this is the sort of protest I could potentially bring Eleanor to (she'd asked to be a protest buddy at Thanksgiving.)
This protest obviously meant as a rally for those of us angry about the Electoral College system, which... while, I'm not convinced that this is anything that's going to be changed anytime soon (and so the idea of protesting, really is just to protest, not expect change), I agree with the idea that 2.5 million voters should not be disenfranchised because of something invented by a bunch of guys who were not necessarily expecting their country to span an entire continent and beyond. There are not a lot of other countries in the world that use the electoral college system, Italy being the larger/well-known ones after us, along with Burundi, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, Trinidad and Tobago, and Vanuatu. Britain uses a simple majority. I feel like maybe the time has come for us to adopt the same. It's one thing when Gore's margin of win was 825 votes. It's another thing entirely when it's close to 2.5 million votes.
At any rate, those are two actions up-coming for me in the month of December.
Stand up! Keep fighting!
There's one called "A March Against Trump to Demand Human Rights at Home and Abroad." It's happening this Saturday, December 10 at 1 pm (in Minneapolis at Nicollet & Lake again.) The only potential hassle is that it's also a day that Rosemary and Mason are going to a Harry Potter concert that starts at the same time. However, Rosemary's dad is doing the drop-off at the concert hall (I'm doing the pick-up.) So... it's still do-able. I imagine it's not going to last more than a couple of hours, if that. It could actually work out, actually, since I will already be in Minneapolis for the pick-up. I like these protests that are endorsed by various groups, because they are often the types of folks who did this sort of thing a lot and know what they're doing... even if the event still FEELS like herding cats, there is actually a decent structure underneath the chaos, if you know what I mean. (Like the last one I did? Also sponsored by a ton of people and there were medics and a police escort, etc.) This one has been endorsed by: Natives Lives Matter, Minnesota Neighbors for Justice, MN Peace Action Coalition, sds @ the U of MN, Veterans for Peace, Welfare Rights Committee, Women Against Military Madness, Women's Prison Book Project, and Young Muslim Collective. Also this also means that I might get to hear from a representative from each of these groups (which expands my list of resources for more of these types of events.) It's officially run by a group called The Anti-War Committee and is about human rights, because Saturday is apparently International Human Rights Day.
There is also a protest planned at the St. Paul capitol called "Fight for the Popular Vote" both Sunday, December 18 (from noon to 8 pm) AND Monday, December 19 (8 am to 5 pm). Even if Sunday doesn't work for me, I could totally attend the Monday one at some point during the day. That seems like another possible fit for me. This one seems to be organized (at least on Facebook) by *one person* and has no list of sponsors, which makes me slightly dubious. However, the fact that the hours are such a huge range, I feel like a person could drop by at any point during the day and stay for as long as they like. Which means, that this is the sort of protest I could potentially bring Eleanor to (she'd asked to be a protest buddy at Thanksgiving.)
This protest obviously meant as a rally for those of us angry about the Electoral College system, which... while, I'm not convinced that this is anything that's going to be changed anytime soon (and so the idea of protesting, really is just to protest, not expect change), I agree with the idea that 2.5 million voters should not be disenfranchised because of something invented by a bunch of guys who were not necessarily expecting their country to span an entire continent and beyond. There are not a lot of other countries in the world that use the electoral college system, Italy being the larger/well-known ones after us, along with Burundi, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Myanmar, Trinidad and Tobago, and Vanuatu. Britain uses a simple majority. I feel like maybe the time has come for us to adopt the same. It's one thing when Gore's margin of win was 825 votes. It's another thing entirely when it's close to 2.5 million votes.
At any rate, those are two actions up-coming for me in the month of December.
Stand up! Keep fighting!
Lyda Morehouse's Blog
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