Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 79

Updatery

Even though it bummed me out a bit, I took care of completely cancelling WisCON for myself. Thanks to naomikritzer I even managed to find a desperate soul in need of a WisCON membership, so I officially transferred that over this morning. The only things left are getting a couple of copies of Resurrection Code signed and ready to go down to be given away -- one to the Whedonista folks for their party, and the other to the winner of the bid of my con-or-bust donation. I'm hoping that after a couple of lightsaber battles with Mason (who is still off until the end of Memorial Day weekend), we can head over to Uncles to pick up copies (I've been out of my author's copies for some time.)

I feel really very organized for someone not going anywhere special.

In the good news column, my dad called me out of the blue this morning. Seems that one of the things he's doing to occupy himself while recouperating is catching up on all his journal reading. My dad is a retired psychology professor who writes all sorts of stuff that's way above my pay grade, including this book, which is a standard text in those sorts of classes. At any rate, he was reading one of the journals in the UK that he recently published part 2 of a two part article, and he discovered in the editoral that he'd received a LOT of positive response to part 1 and they were, in fact, proposing to do an entire themed issue on the stuff he was talking about.

I suppose thrat's like writing a short story for Interzone that's so awesome people want to write what amounts to fanfic/other stories exploring similar themes and the editor decides to devote an entire issue to that.

Pretty cool.

But, more to the point, my dad sounded utterly tickled about it. This is good news on a lot of levels. For instance, I know that he's got a lot of the same insecurities that I have, which is to say that we both want to be outstanding in our field, but worry that no one has ever heard of us and, if they do, that our ideas aren't terribly original or noteworthy. On top of that, I think we both fret that an extended absence from the field will equal becoming no longer relevant. I'm glad that my dad is getting hard evidence that's simply not true. Because that sort of thing bouys the spirits, and, no matter what, he could use a bit of that.

Anyway, I need to get some writing done at some point. I should go battle the forces of the evil Jedi and get to that.

Oh, and speaking of writing, it looks like an e-book for Resurrection Code is in the works. Fingers crossed!

WisCon Plans

Normally, I'd post my WisCON schedule this week, but I've decided to cancel my trip. My dad made his move into the recovery wing of the nursing home today, and it sounds like the transition had a few bumps. My mom says they seemed to have no information from the hospital about his specific needs, particularly his diet. I've mentioned before with the month-long diarreha, my dad's stomach is really sensitive. He's been living on protein shakes and bites of very bland foods found mostly in the BRAT diet (or BRATTY, more like, which includes not only the banana, rice, applesauce, toast, but also tea and yogurt.)

At any rate, the call from home stressed me out a bit, because, if LaCrosse hadn't had a tornado on Sunday night, I would have been there to make the transition to the new place with him. I know my mom is very capable, but I also know how nice it is to have someone else to strategize, etc. with when things aren't 100% smooth-going. (Especially in hosptial situations, you know? It's all so kind of scary and unfamiliar, it's nice to have someone else to help you ask and demand and all those things you need to do to advocate for the right kind of care.)

I did call the nursing home myself and talked directly to the nurse. I told her what my concerns were, and I hope that she took them seriously. I'm going to call my dad in a little bit and see how he feels about the whole thing. The good news is that, since I have canceled WisCON, I'll be able to see the place myself in a matter of days. Considering that his c-def is mostly under control, the nursing home shouldn't be able to do too much damage in the intervening time.

In the meantime, life goes on. I, as Tate, got some new cover art for the third (and perhaps final?????) Ana book:



This one is pretty small, but you can see a larger version over at Wyrdsmiths or the Tate blog.

The Rapture/My Dad's 70th Birthday

First of all, I'm very disappointed in the Rapture. Hardly anyone I know either disappeared or turned into a pillar of salt. Sigh.

Perhaps he misread the "maths," as the British would say, and we were supposed to be expecting a few raptors or maybe some captors instead.

So my poor dad spent his 70th birthday in the hospital. For those of you following along, Mort has been in and out of the hospital since a very serious bout of sepis about a month ago. The most recent issue has to do with the fact that he contracted c-def, which, ironically, he got by being in the hospital for so long. C-def is a particularly nasty super-bug that's hard to kill. His other problems were made worse by the fact that c-def causes a lot of diarrhea (a problem he'd already been battling with the sepis). The sepis, which was caused by a kidney stone, has also meant lingering issues with low protien blood level. This has cause fluid swelling and all sorts of nasty side effects.

My dad, in short, is in a very bad way.

However, yesterday and today were good days. My dad, mom and I started strategizing after a particularly unhelpful visit by the nutritionist. I'd asked about foods that might help combat the diarrhea and they didn't have a lot of suggestions. So we went to Dr. Google and my mom thought of probiotics. This morning we talked the doctor into proscribing them (which I guess can be risky in certain situations), and Mort had a nearly-diarrhea free day.

So fingers-crossed.

If he continues to improve, the plan is to move him to what we've been calling a "recovery spa" (really the recovery wing of a nursing home), because this whole illness has made him so weak that he needs extensive physical therapy to get back on his feet (almost literally.)

I plan to stay in LaCrosse until Monday, when he will hopefully make that transition. My mom, who has been the sole care provider each time the hospital dumps him out, has REALLY needed a break -- physically and mentally. I think, particularly for my folks who are both relatively young (and certainly young at heart) and active and normally vibrant, this has been a real blow. It's been hard to keep spirits up. So, one of my jobs here has been just keeping up the pleasant chatter. I've been reading to my dad from the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Huffington Post. I've been encouraging him to check into his e-mail and do other business that keeps him engaged in moving forward and thinking about the future OUT of the hospital. He's been in so long, I think it's been easy to imagine that this is all there is... or worse, will be.

We, I think, have actually managed to have a little fun. My dad does a lot of work internationally, so I had Mason and Shawn set up a Skype conversation this morning. We've had a LOT of undivided time to talk and I've learned about my dad's experiences with the march on Washington (he was almost headed South to join/support the Freedom Riders, but their bus was divereted to DC.) He was once at a wedding with Sein Finn leader Martin McGuinness, which freaking FLOORED *me*, but which my dad admitted to being completley clueless about. And just general discussion about the "revolution" (which my dad would like to start by instigating more "great books" clubs at coffeeshops around the nation) and the meanness of the recent crop of Republicans/Tea Partiers.

But, I would like my dad to get some positive news and measurable forward progress that would make him really BELIEVE he has the strength to beat this thing. Also, Shawn would like me home soon... and I'd like to go too, but not before I know things are more settled.

AWOL

Sorry I haven't posted in days, I'm actually in LaCrosse again. My dad has been having a hell of a time recovering from sepis (thanks to all sorts of other underlying issues, including things he picked up while IN the hospital.)

We had been planning to go to Indiana this weekend to visit Shawn's family, but my mom really needed help here, so I came. I'm glad I did. The doctors are back to sounding confident that my dad is going to pull through, but I think things have been so touch and go for so long that everyone is getting depressed and exhausted here.

Anyway, I'll post here again soon, but right now please just keep my family in your thoughts/prayers/other positive energy sorts of things, if you would.

Baby Owls!

Today, Mason and I went out birding again with the Audbon folks. This time we went to Roberts Bird Sanctuary in Minneapolis (not far, actually, from where I used to live in Uptown.) Of course, this was the one time I decided to leave our camera at home.

We saw two baby great horned owls. Apparently, all the local birders already knew about the owl nest that was just off the dirt trail, because as soon as we arrived there was talk of "do you think we'll see the owlets?" We did. They'd even ventured out of the nest to blink warily at the world. They were SUPER cute.

In fact, they looked A LOT like this:



Mama owl was watching (actually, we caught her "cat napping" -- though I suppose it was owl napping) in a nearby tree.

We also saw a bunch of warblers and another redstart (which is probably one of my new favorites.)



The rest of the day was spent frantically trying to rescue my laptop from a VERY intrusive spyware invasion. I was able to do it, thanks, in part, to the fact that I had another computer (with dial-up connection) from which to read the instructions on how to delete various registry bits. Evil spyware! Anyway, I downloaded Stopzilla to help keep this crap at bay, and I think I'm fairly clean finally. Sigh.

Some days I wish I were Mouse.

My Spring Vacation

In an effort to get Mason to do something other than rot his brains playing video games over his spring vacation, he and I went birding with a group this morning as part of the 2011 Birding Festival. The ironic part of this is that no matter how much "enrichment" stuff I do with him during vacation, he'll end up telling his teacher that he spent his vacation watching TV and playing games.

Sigh.

Anyway, if you're reading this Ms. H., at 8:00 am, we showed up at the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary with other stalwart folks and our grandfatherly guide, Julian. I'm not a big birder, as it were, but I do love hanging out with people who know what they're doing. Julian was one of those people who could identify various bird songs and tell us what we were looking for (or looking at.) We saw cormorants, Caspian turns, Balitmore orioles, American goldfinch, green herons, spotted sandpipers, Tennessee warblers, common yellow-throated warblers, and a bunch of stuff I can't remember any more, alas. There was one bird, in particular, I wish I could remember the name of -- it had a gorgous red/orange and black tail that it liked to spread out. It was a relatively small bird, but Mason and I just happened to be right underneath it and got a good look at the tail.

There were also a bunch of swallows of one kind or another darting about, along with red wing black birds, as this area was a bit marshy and wet. Even though Mason got a bit bored whenever the birders stopped to stare at the trees (which, of course, was the point of the whole excursion), I think I talked him into trying another outing tomorrow. There are two that seem promising -- one at Como at 8:00 am again and another over in Minneapolis at 10:00 at the Roberts Bird Sanctuary. Mason said he wanted to try the later one, since there was a lot of yawning associated with this one. The weather this morning wasn't that great either, though we missed the drizzle by about 20 minutes.

I actually really enjoy wet hikes as long as I have my head covered. I had both a hoodie and a ball cap, so I was nice and snug for the walk. So equiped, I find I really kind of enjoy cold, wet meanders. Of course, I bought coffee, too, so I was well caffinated, which improves the mood considerably.

With any luck, we'll have a little sunshine for tomorrow's hike.

Also, for those keeping track of the various mentions of Resurrection Code, Cheryl Morgan let me know that she mentioned my book briefly (and very positively) at the very end of her post at Salon Futura.

Tonight is kuk sool wan for Mason and I. I'm looking forward to it. Jo Kyo Nim tells me that I will get to pick up *MY* testing form tonight, so that means Mason's reign as ruling yellow belt of the house may soon be over. Bwah ha ha ha HA!

Oh, yes, let's see if the picture feature is working better today. Here's the testing. You can just see Mason's head in the front row. That's Sa Bum Nim leading the exercises:



Here's Mason receiving his new belt:



At home showing off the new belt in dragon stance:

Reviews and Honors

Okay, so I complained vehemently about the guy who reviewed RESURRECTION CODE before, and I was feeling all sorry for myself and all nobody-loves-me. Well, no more! Check out this AMAZING review from Alyx Dellamonica at Tor.com: A Necessary Apocalypse.

Also, xochiquetzl pointed out another one that popped here.

Vindication!

LJ pictures doesn't seem to be working so, y'all will have to wait to see pictures of Mason's yellow belt test.

Meanwhile, I think I shall go do the Snoopy dance of joy.

Weekend Report

I've got a lot to catch y'all up on. Friday was Mason's parent-teacher conference and, no surprise to anyone, Mason is a good student. I only wish he enjoyed school more. You can see in some of his assignments a certain lack of enthusiasm, though this semester, at least, he had one writing assignment he really enjoyed. He's discovered the Warrior books by Erin Hunter, and when asked to write fiction for his writing class, my baby wrote his first peice of fan fic! His story is called "Dusttribe Rising." The best part? He told us that it was the first time that he didn't want to stop writing.

Yay!


On Saturday, my singing went OK. I wouldn't call it great, but, frankly, I blame the weather. It was gorgeous outside, so I suspect some people who might have come decided it was more enjoyable to play in the garden or whatever. I would have too, honestly. Though, as with any signing there were one or two surprise shows -- a parent of one of Mason's friend's came, which was great. I love when I can pull people out of their usual comfort zones into the world of SF fandom. The other was a high school friend of mine (Mary), whose daughter is a big fan of the Ana series.

So it wasn't jam packed, but it was nice enough. I only hope Don wasn't too disappointed. I'm just glad anyone came, given that I had two signings so close together.

Speaking of books, though, I have to make a brief commerical interruption. My friend naomikritzer has a new short story collection available through Kindle.



This one is called Comrade Grandmother and Other Stories and I have to make a special plug because two of my favorite short stories by Naomi are included. The title story, of course, but also "The Golem," which is a story I've taught in my Loft classes. AND, for those of you Lyda Morehouse completeists out there, a short story (novella?) that I co-wrote with Naomi, "The Long Walk" is also included in this collection. So, you really MUST buy it early and often. (Kidding.)

/ad

Saturday afternoon, Mason tested for his yellow belt in kuk sool wan. He did awesome. I plan to post a picture or two later. The funny part about that is that my little seven year old has his very first muscle ache. They did a lot of crunches as part of the train/victory dance (their new location is near the Amtrack station so they do something special every time a train comes along.) Being seven, he'd never experienced this before and I had to explain that he probably actually strained something a little. :-)

Sunday was Mother's Day, which, because Shawn and I are both selfish, we decided could be Shawn's day to lie around like a princess (I get my own in December, on the day I adopted Mason, December 5th). In celebration, we painted our front storm door bright purple. (Look, folks, it's what she wanted to do.) We also had cupcakes and presents and napping. It started out a bit rough, since Mason had almost no sleep the night before, but the nap fixed everything. As naps often do.

So, that's it. How's by you?

One Last Desperate Appeal

If you're in Minneapolis on Lake Street today around 1:00 PM wondering what to do with yourself, please consider dropping by Uncle Hugo's Bookstore (2864 Chicago Avenue) today! I'll be there in my guise as Tate Hallaway signing her second Ana book, ALMOST FINAL CURTAIN.

We can talk Thor...!

Thor Review (No Spoilers)

Even though Shawn thought I was fairly crazy, I went out last night with some folks I only sort of know through the Internet and fandom to the midnight showing of "Thor." More than that, I paid over twice the usual price for movie tickets for the privilege.

But you know what? It was AWESOME.

I need to preface anything I have to say about the film by the fact that I'm NOT, nor have I ever been, a Thor fan. As I said before, I remember looking over my cousin Laun's shoulder at various Silver Age issues of Thor. I vaguely followed the Beta Ray Bill storyline of the early 80s. But Thor was never a title I sought out or bought for myself. Of course, I knew about him from his various interactions with the Avengers and other titles that I preferred.

Part of my inability to attach to Thor as a character is, in point of fact, the whole God thing. I was never a big fan of Superman because I like the heroes that bruise more easily. For me part of being heroic is the courage it takes to stand up to powers much stronger than you are. Thor is a freaking God. Hard to be stronger than that.

On top of that rather major character issue, I was also a snotty kid. I thought the title was full of people with strange names and hard to pronounce words, like, Mjöllnir. Plus, people talked weird (and in a weird font) on Asgard. They had very stylized costumes and Jack Kirby made everyone look square (literally) and kind of grumpy.



The writers of the movie deal with the God-issue very nicely, IMHO. I don't think it's a spoiler to tell you that, in the movie, Thor gets cast out of Asgard for being a self-centered git. Odin strips him of his powers and, he spends the rest of the film attempting to be worthy of Mjöllnir again. For me, that's a classic Marvel conundrum. It's like Spider-Man's "with great power, comes great responsibility" only it's more like, "heroes need humility as well as strength to be truly great." Though, humility isn't quite the right word in this situation. One of the things I love about what the writers explore in the Thor movie is the idea of what it means to be a hero. The turning point in the movie actually stirred me. I cared about Thor enough to care whether or not he came through the other side of his challenge.

That's pretty miraculous, IMHO, since normally I could care less.

It helps, though, that the actor who plays Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is a complete hottie. (IMDB just informed me that he played Kirk's dad in the Star Trek reboot. Cool!)

I also really ended up liking what they did with Loki, who, from my memories of the Thor comic books (which, granted is very sketchy), could very easily have been played as a larger-than-life EVIL villain. What they did in the movie, IMHO, was make him the hero of his own story in a way, frankly, that I found very sympathetic. Both Thor and Loki have serious daddy issues/needs to prove themselves MEN, but they manifest completely differently.



I went to the movie with David J. Schwartz (author of Superpowers) . He was saying that what they did with Loki in the movie is very different from Thor canon. This is one of the moments where not being a hardcore Thor fan probably helped me enjoy the movie more.

Also, my other companion did not like the look of Asgard, but, for me, it looked exactly like something Jack Kirby might have imagined. In fact, all the costuming on Asgard really felt Kirby-esque to me, which could either be a plus or a minus depending on how you feel about his particular style. Though (and I realize this is sort of blasphemy) I normally am not a huge Kirby fan, I thought it really worked in the film.



My last couple comments about the Thor movie is that it seemed clear to me that Kenneth Branaugh is a big, fat fan (very likely of Silver Age Thor). There were lots of "money shots" early and often, including spinning hammers and lightning strikes. I laughed out loud (and sometimes by myself) at a few of the fan insider jokes, including what it probably the best Stan Lee cameo of all the Marvel films.

The biggest flaw in the film was Natalie Porter, who played a revised version of Jane Foster. It was hard to imagine her as a love interest, especially since Darcy Lewis (played by Kat Dennings) is WAY cuter and funnier. I totally fell for her in the movie and could not understand what Thor saw in Jane.

Anyway, for me, it was one of the best Marvel films to-date. Right up there with Ironman (#1).