Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 80

Health Updatery and More

I just got back a few minutes ago from a clinic in Edina that does blood work on a pay-basis. So my doctor, whom I affectionately refer to as Dr. Arugula (because his name is VERY Finnish), will soon be able to tell me exactly how healthy I am.

Also, when I went to his office last Thursday, I got a perscription for an albuterol inhaler to use before exercise. I used it for the first time last night before kuk sool wan, and I have to tell you -- it was amazing. I got all sweaty (gross!), but didn't have any trouble breathing (horray!) This means my problem really *is* excercise-induced asthma, and I now have a solution for it.

Last night after I came home I was positively giddy. It was really amazing to work hard and not feel like I couldn't breathe. This bodes very well for my whole Captain America by 45 program. HOWEVER, last night after karate, I was talking to one of the other members and I was telling him about my upcoming signing at Uncle Hugo's (don't forget: THIS Saturday, May 7 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm) and we got to talking about various other things and he made me realize that I am NOT 42 this year, but 43, which means in November I'll be 44 -- Yikes! That's only one more year to achieve my goal. I'd better get cracking.

Speaking of superheroes, there is some talk of trying to make the midnight show tonight for THOR. Alas, the prices have been jacked up, so we may all decide to wait, but, if I end up going, I'll let you know what I think. I'm psyched about it, even though I'm not a huge Thor fan, generally. I suppose that, for once, I won't spend the entire film muttering about how in issue #431 this or that happened.... and that could be a good thing. I can see the film like most people do for once, without a whole lot of previous knowledge. My understanding of the Thor mythos covers only the barest bits from the 70s and, of course, some of the Beta Ray Bill arc in the early 80s. I did read the first 8 issues of JMS's reboot of Thor, so I suppose I'm not a complete newbie.

Speaking of fandom (and comics), this didn't take long. :-)

Otherwise, today is my busy day. Fish need a'cleaning and the mice (gerbils, actually,) need their bedding changed, and I need remember to go folder at Mason's school. Stuff to do!

Selflessly Promoting Others

Just so's ya know, I might talk smack about my fellow writers, but, at the end of the day, we're the same tribe, dig?

To that end, I'm pleased to announce that my friend and fellow writer, kellymccullough 's newest series' first book is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. It's called Broken Blade. How shall I describe it? It's awesome, first off, but you should expect that from anything by Kelly. It fantasy, but it's noir, kind of like "Burn Notice" meets Thieves' World... only even better.

So, go bookmark it. I know you spent your money for new books on me yesterday, but you should consider buying it ASAP.

Tate's #2 Launch

Today is the official launch date of the second book in my vampire princess of St. Paul series, ALMOST FINAL CURTAIN.

The back cover copy says:

Craving the spotlight is in her blood.

Ever since high school student Anastasija Parker discovered she was vampire royalty, her life has been sort of crazy. The half-vampire- half-witch just wants some normalcy, and trying out for the spring musical seems like the perfect fix.

But when the ancient talisman that stands between vampire freedom and slavery to witches is stolen, Ana has to skip rehearsal and track down the dangerous artifact before someone uses it to make this year's curtain call her last...

And, you can read the first chapter here: www.tatehallaway.com

-----

/ad

In other news, Shawn and I had fun yesterday shopping for crafty (Crafty?) things at Michael's. We've been putting together a new family altar in the sunroom (which the cats have instantly adopted as a new favorite perch, so it already has good energy.) I've been having fun doing a little fabric painting on various colors of altar cloths. Plus, we bought some "modge podge" just because it's fun to say, and I was pretty sure I could find projects to do with it. When we get it all together I'll post a picture or two.

The sun is finally out, so I may try to plant a few containers or expand Mason's garden EVEN MORE. We kind of went "hog wild" at Menards, so we're going to need a lot of room for all the veggies he picked out. Luckily, I'm terrible at growing grass (probably my reluctance to fertilize,) so I don't feel badly tearing up sod to make room for something more useful -- like spinach.

Whole Foods actually has some blueberry plants for sale that they claim don't need acidic soil or other of the usual requirements (like male and female plants.) I'm going to look up the scientific name of what they have on offer and see how much of that is true, and if they're right that these are relatively low-maintance, I'm thinking of building a raised bed for a couple of blueberry plants. It would be COOL to have home-grown blueberries.

Otherwise, I got jack done on the new novel. I hope to do better today, but, man, that sun is calling my name....

The weekend retort

I started to type "The weekend report," but my fingers slipped. Then I thought, "Weekend retort" sounds much more interesting, even though I have nothing to refute, alas.

My weekend was really fairly uneventful. It was cold here in Minnesota (there were snowflakes falling from the sky both yesterday and today,) so the family sort of hunkered down even though yesterday was Beltane. Minneapolis, of course, has their big May Day celebration and last year I dragged Mason off to see it. This year, I'd fully intended to do the same, but after a short trip to Menards I turned into a complete weather whimp. Of course, this year their theme WOULD be crows -- one of my all time favorite birds. When I was in college I nearly got a tattoo featuring a crow, but I never had enough money. I suspect that was probably a good thing, not because I necessarily might regret it now, but because I have a really strong nickle allergy and might have had a lot of problems with the black and white inks (which were going to be the major colors) because, at the time, most of the dyes were formed with metal. These days, of course, there are soy options for a lot of tattoo colors.

At any rate, we did a few Beltane related things, though mostly we resolved to be better about celebrating stuff. Traditionally, at my house, Beltane is a prepare the gardens/planting time, but the weather just hasn't been nice enough to allow that this year. So, instead, we went on a seed buying extraveganza and spent much of the day huddled inside flipping through books about container gardening and dreaming. That was nice.

Also, we bought some cheap bird seed at Menards which resulted in these early morning visitors today:



There was a lot of cracked corn in the mix, which is what I suspect excited the ducks. Also, I spread some grass seed so this morning our back yard was pretty much visited by every veggie/seed nom-ing animal native to Minnesota. We had a bunny on the picnic bench, squirrels dashing about happily, and birds of every kind.

Ah well.

In other news, Tate's Ana #2 (ALMOST FINAL CURTAIN) officially hits stores tomorrow. As I mentioned, if you're inclined to buy, please do. My editor will be making the decision about whether there will be an Ana #4, #5, and #6 based on how well #2 does over the next week or so. (#3 was delivered on time last month.)

Meanwhile, I need to hunker down and get started on Tate's PRECINCT 13, which is the book that Shawn dubbed the "cow mutilation mystery." I've only got until August 15 to finish that, which is, yes, only about four months away. Yikes!

Just Cranky

I had a lovely time watching the royal wedding, and then woke up this morning to discover that the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill to changed the MN constitution to ban gay marriage.

Irony, anyone?

Shawn and I have never had any plans to get married. What we have works. HOWEVER, I find it such blatant bulls*t that relgious people get all bent out of shape about this. Since when has marriage had anything to do with god? It has ALWAYS been a legal issue, mostly regarding property and inheritance. If it were a purely religious insitution, how is it that my parents could get marriage by a judge? Why is paperwork required at all? Because GOD doesn't make the marriage, the freaking STATE does!!!

Even the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had to go off and sign papers, people! Even if several billion people see you stand up in church, you ain't married until you make it LEGAL. So, you can have God or YHWH or Allah or the Flying Spagehetti Monster bless your union all you want, it's *not* a religious insitution.

/rant

I'm also irritated today because my career is hitting another bump. I was smart this time and wrote Ana #3 as if it were the last book in the series because I've gotten bit in the a$$ by not assuming the worst (see the end of the Garnet series). However, my agent talked to my editor and told me that Anne might be interested in seeing more proposals. So I worked my butt off -- it was one of the things I finished while I was freaking out about my dad being in the hospital, in fact. I wrote three ten page proposals. And, yesterday, my agent tells me that Anne is going to sit on them until the sales figures for Ana #2 come back. Which, as my agent pointed out, is a huge bummer because it means the sales for #1 weren't good enough.

Luckily, they can't fire me yet. I still have a book contracted to write (my "cow mutilation mystery" as Shawn dubbed it,) which is due at the publisher in August of this year. Even if they pass on more Ana books, which seems VERY LIKELY, I have another chance. If that book does well, my career at Penguin might keep limping along.

If not... well, I suppose my agent and I will have to put our heads together. We should probably do that sooner rather than later, since it would be good to get a jump on this rather than be left holding the bag, as it were.

And the people at my writers' group harrass me for being jealous of other's success! Sigh.

Time Wasting on the Interwebs

Okay, so this morning one of the articles making the rounds on the Intertubes is a spoiler for Action Comics #900 in which Superman renounces his US Citizenship.

My partner sent me the link from Boing-Boing and I saw it again on a conservative "friend" on Facebook, and then, after watching a beautiful, moving, impassioned speech by a YouTube vloger named Baratunde about his reaction to Donald Trump's response to the President. I was struck by the irony.

Superman is the ultimate illegal alien. The guy isn't even from EARTH and, though the DC Wikis all claim he's a "naturalized" citizen because the Kents adopted him -- but it's totally fraudulant, actually, since there can NOT possibly be a birth certificate there. They picked him up in a cornfield, for crying out loud!

Anyway, Clark would need a birth certificate for a social security card, passport, etc. I insisted all that would have to be faked, though my friend JPJ asked what the rules about home births, etc, were back when Supes was "born" -- He says, "Clark/Supes was a fully grown man when he first shows up in 1938. Which places his arrival here between 1905-1910. I suspect record-keeping was not too strict in the rural hinterlands where the Clark's resided. Home births were probably the rule rather than the exception on those farms."

My partner, who jumped into the discussion on FB, points added, "As JPJ says, many early 1900s birth were not officially recorded at the time of birth. But, Clark could've applied for a delayed birth certificate, which requires affadavits and submission of documents like baptism certificates and school records. Surely Clark could cook up the documentation necessary to get one of these after-the-fact certificates."

Which makes the Kents pretty good at the whole deception thing. I liked too that my friend Jon Hansen pointed out that the canon is that the Kents came up with an elaborate cover-up story invovling a home birth due to a blizzard. Shawn wondered how Martha (who is always shown as pleasantly plump, but not overly so) hid her EIGHT MONTH pregnancy from all her friends in a SMALL TOWN so small that it's actually named SMALLVILLE!!!!!

Anyway, I find it all so fascinating, because I love these kinds of intellectual debates about the "real" issues with fictional characters. And, it's quite the controversy considering all the hoopla around the president.

Also, Bryan Thoa Worra turned me on to this awesome comedy sketch called Maritress v. The Superfriends, which pretty much makes a funnier point of this issue. It's NFW, entirely, but you MUST watch it. It's laugh out loud while sitting alone in the house funny.

Recovery!

I'm going to tell this story in order, but I want to preface this with the note that my dad is making a full recovery. He might even be completely out of the hospital by this coming Saturday (fingers crossed!)

On Friday morning, my mom called with the message that I should come down. She told me that things were going south fast, and that the time to visit was now. I was so unprepared for "the call" I was beside myself. I only delayed going about an hour or so -- long enough to pack and to stop to get Shawn and Mason ready for an extended absence (ie a quick drop off for them at a used bookstore while I ran to the grocery store for food Shawn could make easily.)

I cried nearly the entire drive down. I was especially freaked out when I saw a flock of trumpeter swans circling the marshland, because there was something about white wings in the air that just called to mind death.

When I got there, Mom told me that they were preparing my dad for a risky procedure, which involved attempting to revive his failing kidneys by draining off the fluid. He had three doctors on his team in the ICU and the procedure was so dangerous that one of them voted against it. But, at that point it really seemed like my mom's choices were take the risk or watch him slowly decline.

I gave him a kiss and told him I loved him before they wheeled him away, and my mom, my aunt and I spent the next hour keeping ourselves company while trying not to think about the fact we might not see him alive again. When the doctor came back without him, we nearly all had heart attacks but the news was good. The procedure went according to plan and now it was just a matter of watching to see if he made it through the night.

When it seemed as though things were going okay, I talked my mom into going home and trying to get some decent rest. I stayed. It was one of the longest nights of my life. At points, my dad was awake and we talked, but at others, when he was drifting in and out of consciousness, I talked to myself or thought a lot of hard, intense thoughts. When my dad finally fell into a restful sleep around two in the morning, I followed suit. But we were both up by six, as they had other tests they wanted to perform -- one of the complications involved the fact that the sepis triggered a number of here-to-for undiscovered conditions. Also it took going into the kidney to perform the scary procedure for the doctors to figure out that the sepis was probably caused by a kidney stone that my dad somehow never felt (which they still need to remove, but they're waiting until he's at full strength.)

At any rate, after that night things began to steadily improve. I decided it was okay to leave the bedside some time around Sunday afternoon, even though he was still in the ICU/CCU (Critical Care Unit). He had made such vast improvements, we kind of became the "fun" room, in that the nurses would sit in our room to do their "paperwork" on the computer. Mom and I kept a steady stream of the kind of conversation that we'd normally have while sitting on the front three-season porch at home. My dad would perk up enough to throw in his observations or comments before drifting back to sleep. That probably still sounds pretty awful, but the difference was astounding. He was hungry and eating food, and starting to complain about how irritating it was to be stuck in bed. When I heard from my mom on Monday that he was asking for his laptop, I knew he was very, VERY likely to be okay.

My dad is in the middle of revising a book of his own, though his is non-fiction and probably has something to do with qualitative research, psychology or any of his other areas of interst. Anyway, the fact that he was ready to get back to work is truly heartening.

In the meantime, I've been trying to get back to my own life a little. I helped my martial arts studio move house a little yesterday, which was great fun, actually. My muscles are sore from the lifting and whatnot, but I got to see a video of my head instructor in his college days (with hair!) in which he battled a pipecleaner (stop-motion art project type thing). It was AWESOME.

At any rate, now I have to decide what to work on. Probably, I should figure out how to write the cow mutilation story that Penguin bought. :-)

Hospital Again

My mom called about an hour ago. Some time yesterday, my dad was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Apparently, the stomach flu they both thought he had was sepsis (where the blood system is overwhelmed by bacteria). He's getting heavy doses of antibiotics now, but, at his age, the big question is: has any of this damaged major organs. My mom said something about the doctors having drained fluid from his lungs, and, it's very clear, that if she hadn't gone with her gut instinct that something was seriously wrong, my dad would be dead.

She's going to keep me informed, but recovery looks good right now. He is still in critical care, however, until they can identify the exact problem and make sure everything is still in good working order.

This is exactly the thing that kept Mason in the hospital when he was about six months old for ten days. It's incredibly serious because the bacteria can pass into the brain and the spinal cord. Mason's was identified as having started as a urinary tract infection that spread to his kidneys and then out into the blood. The doc told us that with pre-verbal infants, usually they see cases like that when it's already become meningitis.

The news about my papa completely freaks me out. I want to drive down to LaCrosse right now to be with him and my mom. But, Mom tells me he's in good hands and the doctors kicked her out today so he can rest.

I know a lot of the folks that read this blog aren't as familiar with my Garnet Lacey stuff, but I realized today that her tendency to clean when she's worried or otherwise freaked out is me. I just did the dishes, changed the kitty litter, took out the garbage, finished a proposal, and nearly started bread (only I discovered we were out of yeast.) Next is fish tank cleaning and then off to Mason's school to volunteer.

Also, I know most of you have never met my dad, but he's awesome. He's a college pyschology professor, recently retired from Viterbo University (though he picked up a few classes again this last semester) and a lot of who I am, verbally and intellectually, comes from him. When I lived at home, we used to go out to breakfast before the Unitarian Fellowship meetings on Sunday to have a big breakfast and "talk smart." He taught me to sing "Red Fly the Banners, O" on road trips, and he damn well better be okay.

Here's my family at last year's Labor Day parade in LaCrosse:



This is also one area in my life where it becomes very clear to me the ways in which I was broken by Ella's death. (For those of you who don't already know, Shawn and I lost our first baby, Ella, who was stillborn.) Before Ella, I don't think it would have ever occurred to me that my papa could die. I would have so much faith in the universe that, even freaked out, it really wouldn't penetrate my optimism that fate could simply be cruel and take him without warning. Now, I have a hard time believing things will be okay.

But I'm going to keep fingers crossed and knock on wood and hum "Four for the Founding Fathers: Marx, Engles, Lenin, Trotsky!"

A Quick Note...

I should be working, but I realized that I neglected to mention that a dear friend and fellow writer, naomikritzer has a new e-book out. It's called Gift of the Winter King and Other Stories and it's available for the Kindle (though she has plans to put it out in other e-formats as well.)

Review First, Catch-Up Later

I spent the day yesterday herding cats -- actually, I was tapped to chaperone again for a field trip with Mason's class to the Minnesota Zoo. I'll write about that later today or, perhaps, that failing, tomorrow. In the meantime, I leave you with this:

I just finished reading LIKE HEAVEN AND HELL: EROTIC TALES OF ANGELS AND DEMONS (edited by Tabitha Dulla and Cecilia Tan). If there were a book written more expressly for fans of slash of my universe, I don't know what it is.

All the stories in the collection are fascinating explorations of the sacred and profane – plus the bonus of tons of hot queer sex. Not all of the tales deal with creatures traditionally found in Judeo-Christian angelology; there are appearances from Japanese fox demons, as well as half-breed angel/humans existing in a world wholly (and amazingly) imagined. Each, however, is well-written and engaging. Normally, there are at least one or two stories in an anthology like this that make me say "meh," but I found something to like in each one.

Thus endith the official review (So Sayith the Lord!) Under the cut, I'm going to go through my in-depth impressions of the six stories in the anthology. Some parts may be a bit spoilery and others completely tangential, and all of it will be a reflection of my own personal experience with the angelology/theology/world-building presented by each author. Assume that I found the sex hot, because I did. Please note as well that the review is totally safe for work, because the stuff that gets me the most hot and bothered is all the theological stuff. I just put it under the cut because it's long and potentially a bit spoilery.

In my universe, angels are multi-gendered in nature (like God), but when they come to Earth they get bound into a flesh template that's male. In KJ Kabza's "Switch" the angels have true freewill in this regard. Our hero/ine, Corusc has been sneaking down to Earth in order to experience its multitude of sensational delights – including sex. S/he has been passing as a demon, but s/he has a secret desire in heaven, another angel named Nix.

A couple of things intrigued me in this story. There's an appearance of Metratron (the voice of God), which, of course, makes me happy because I always envision Metratron as Alan Rickman, thanks to his role in "Dogma." But, I also really kind of liked the fact that whenever a person invokes the name of God, angels appear ready to defend, etc. This seems like an awesome story concept for all sorts of follow-up stories, including humorous ones where angels flash into existence at drunken frat parties because people keep saying "God help me" or whatever. I enjoyed the fact that Nix comes so rarely to Earth that s/he doesn't quite "do" gender correctly, and Kabza's take on heaven with its golden chastity belt-like "reminders" is fairly awesome. "Switch" is probably one of the most romantic story in the collection.

"Give and Take" by Karen Cobb takes on another one of my favorite ideas, one that Neil Gaiman introduced me to in "Sandman: Seasons of Mist," which is that angels are, in point of fact, in charge of Hell. The point of view character in "Give and Take" is exhausted and drained from his time punishing the damned and needs the kind of redemption that can only be found in utter surrender to a higher power, as it were. Who the two angels turn out to be is kind of a mystery, but I guessed, at least, the identity of Hell's angel, and the other one was a surprise that made perfect sense.

Tanya Ashbury's "Messengers" is the first story to step slightly outside the Judeo-Christian mythos in that the main character is Huli Jing, a fox demon for the Jade Emperor on a mission to try to uncover the secrets of the new temple being built in the village. Who is this new god with child-brides? One day, she spies a beautiful woman with wings that remind her of a stork. Though Huli Jing is usually the seducer in her fox form, something about this woman awakens a deep passion. It becomes obvious to the reader that the stork-woman is actually an angel of God. The cross-cultural exchange between to the two lovers is really fairly Unitarian. I especially enjoyed that of all the angel/demon love affairs in this book, this one is only star-crossed because the two lovers have jobs with different gods and can't contrive to meet but once a year. YWWH is actually decent in this story; that's awesome.

The angelic trope of "Breathing Brimstone" by Theodorian D. Graves is the eternal warring between angels and demons -- another one of my favorites. I've always loved the whole militaristic aspect of that, and the main character, Hael, is a battalion commander who spared the life of a demon the last time they met and now he's facing the consequences. I think this story also has one of the more visual transformations in it that's lovely to read.

Then we have "Seduced" by Kate Vassar, which is a fun romp between a very Morningstar-like Sammael and Gabriel. Of course, this is one of my favorites as all of the things I love about Satan are explored here – his longing for heaven, his profanity/irreverence, and all of that. Gabriel, too, is nicely realized as a religious poet-inspiring Muse.

The final contribution to the anthology is "At the Crossroads" by Monique Poirier. It is the only story that takes place in a completely original fantasy universe. There are angels and demons and references to "The One Who Is," but what that means here is not contingent on any specific Judeo-Christian myths. In fact, at one point the half-angel main character Makhamir refers to his job as a demon-slaying soldier as an "Archon" and I looked it up on Wikipedia because I wondered if it was an actual theological reference that I wasn't familiar with. It's not. And I think that's cool. I was utterly intrigued and captivated by the Gray City's sprawling brothel and the city and universe implied beyond. I found myself hoping that the author might return to this world for any number of stories, erotic or not. Despite being the least "traditional," in terms of its presentation of angels and demons, I think "At the Crossroads" ended up being my number one favorite (which is saying a lot since I enjoyed all the stories in the collection tremendously.)

Thus endith the rambling observations. Hopefully, they weren't too spoilery and you will go forth and purchase a copy for your own enjoyment.