Another science fiction person, the writer Aaron Allston, has had to have emergency bypass surgery. fastfwd, has more details here. If you've got a few dollars or euros to spare, this would be a definite mitzvah.

On a brighter note, if you are into handmade soaps, I wholeheartedly recommend the etsy seller heartanddart. I am particularly fond of the Mexican chocolate and the pear soaps (and cadhla, I note that there's a pumpkin scented soap now listed), and I find that they leave my skin feeling smooth and soft, as if I'd oiled it, but without feeling oily. (I will observe that Soren and Comfort (one of his attendants) think that the herbs in the soap make them very very weird, but I like them.) There are samplers available, if you're not sure what appeals to you most.

I shall have to place another order this week, as I'm curious about the pumpkin soap, and lusting after the cinnamon orange one.

No picnic. Too much inertia, and it would have been a good quarter- to half-mile into Prospect Park, up and down hills and grass to the Nethermead, and we weren't quite up for it. Instead, we're mucking about with the computers, and I've shaved us both. Men's chins are hard to shave, I have to say, but so far, I have not cut Soren's throat.

Meanwhile, for myself, I've once again had that lovely moment, a mini-epiphany of sorts, when I've looked into my eyes in the mirror, after most of the hair is gone, and my heart has said, "Yes! This is who I am." I don't have true words for it, but each time, it's a reaffirmation of who and what I am supposed to be. Perhaps in ten years, I'll want hair again, but right now, brown eyes, set ever-so-slightly tilted into this skull, on a naked head, is what is supposed to be in the world.

We might go out to a picnic in Prospect Park this afternoon, but I have to take in a laundry first, because I am completely out of bras for work. So it goes.

Meanwhile, the weekend has been quiet and good; so has the week. My coworkers wussed out on going to the karaoke bar with me on Thursday, so I went alone, and actually had a good time, singing with the other people who were there early, playing with new songs, doing backing vocals... and having tequila shots bought for me (that last was probably not wise). Friday, I moved my cubicle at work, and we'll see how that goes. (I'm now on the south wall, in a small cubicle to myself: less storage space, but huge windows.) Then I did hamster-wrangling, and came home to Soren.

Yesterday was a quiet, domestic sort of day, with music coming from down the hall, and reflection, and quiet joy in the evening. This morning, while wandering online, I found photos of someone from my past, who has grown to look disconcertingly like his father, and who has his soul showing clearly in his face... but, you know, he's not in my life any more. What he's shaped his life into is his choice and his doing.

Sort laundry, wash dishes, do hair, find sunscreen and hat. Enough for a while.

I mentioned The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T a few posts back, didn't I? So I decided to look for the Dungeon of Scratchy Violins sequence, and found it. I still think that Matt Mattox is in it about two minutes and twelve seconds in, but if so, he's uncredited. Still, it makes me happy to think it might be him.

Sometimes, YouTube can rip your heart out. I just refound the video from The New York Times about the closing of Rose's Turn, which probably has the only footage of Soren singing in existence.

We have asked the home care attendants not to come this weekend, so that we can have three days of living at our own pace. This will be lovely.

...and surreal. Soren's discovered a cache of what sounds like late 1950s/early 1960s Okinawan pop-rock, and it's, well, just weird. The internet is a strange and wondrous place.

Meanwhile, I am mulling over the fact that a friend, who happens to be 100% gay, always tells me I look good/pretty/healthy/etc. when I have my period. He generally likes the way I look, but there's a consistent pattern that the compliments are more effusive when I'm least fertile.

I think I shall spend part of this weekend lazing about, and part of it setting up my desk, and cleaning pens. It's time to cull the herd again.

Work should be interesting this week, as I simultaneously prep for the end of the school and fiscal year, and clean up and prepare to move my desk. The idea is to actually cluster my entire team together, and as a result, I will no longer share a cubicle -- I'll have a half-cubicle to myself, at the end of the aisle, much closer to my bosses and the rest of the team, and far away from the person in management who is perpetually grousing about how much stuff I keep on and around my desk. (Mind you, I use about 90% of it regularly, and it's easier for me to keep team supplies at my desk than to have to keep getting up and being let into the locked supply room several times a day; nevertheless, it's "clutter" to her eyes.)

I'm feeling better about the world, more relaxed. I'm sorry I missed one friend's party, but not sorry that I got more sleep and less alcohol in my system this weekend. And Soren and I talked, and walked around, and had a good time, and I realized (I wonder if he has) that he's doing more. At the beginning of the month, he walked around the apartment with the cane all the time; now, he's matter-of-factly walking from one end to the other without the cane, sometimes carrying dishes, without being nervous. This is excellent.

One last sip of coffee, and into the shower....

I spent yesterday doing, well, nothing. Actually, not nothing: I cooked for the two of us, I read stuff online, I washed dishes, and we watched The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, which is one hundred and forty-seven different types of weird, rolled into ninety minutes. (I know George Chakiris is an uncredited dancer in the green men orchestra dance number, and I'm pretty sure that I spotted Matt Mattox in there as well.)

(Yes, I did type "green men orchestra dance number," because I'm not sure how else to describe it.)

I've also been letting my bag, and the edges of my journal, dry out. Somehow, on Friday night, my bag wound up on the floor of Quarter, and there was a spill. Luckily, only the very edges of the journal got damp, none of the pages proper. Still, I'm faintly annoyed about that...

...and a few other things, including being told that I have to read X, Y, and Z. I think it's time for me to point out (somewhat less gently than the last time) that I don't have time and energy to read everything I want to read right now, much less what other people think I should read. (And particularly when their tastes don't match mine.)

Anyway, life's been a mixture of good and irritating, and I'm pulling in a bit, because I don't want to explode over the wrong things, just because I'm on edge. I suspect that I shall spend as much of July as possible trying to catch up on correspondence and writing for myself, just to reorganize the inside of my head a bit.

The thing about fantasies, from thinking about what you'd do if you won the lottery to dreams of flying on a dragon's back, is that they're fugitive things; they come and they go, and they're hard to fix in the mind. In my experience they don't like a narrative imposed upon them, and even if you're trying to dream about winning the biggest prize in sport or, my favorite, hurtling in freefall towards the earth, then all you get are glimpses of images which often replay themselves. To get myself to sleep I often dream of jumping out of an aircraft, but all I can sustain is that first vision of the earth as I exit the plane. I've never gone through to opening the canopy or even held a picture of the jump in my head for more than a few seconds.

The power of the story, either writing or reading or listening to one, is that the imagination is tied to something that makes it go forward. I might not be able to imagine much of jumping out of a plane, but, if I had to write an account of a jump, I'd easily be able to see myself going all the way down to the earth.

From The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange
Mark Barrowcliffe, 2007. ISBN 978-1-56947-522-5

This feels wrong to me, perhaps because all through the book, it's been clear that Barrowcliffe doesn't think highly of his youthful self, or his peers. Part of it may be that he knew few people who balanced D&D with the rest of their lives; part of it seems to have been just what Coventry in the 1970s was like for a non-athletic, non-social boy; and yet...

I read the book, and did not enjoy it. While I think the tone is supposed to be light-hearted deprecation of his youthful obsessions, I read a level of self-loathing for his teenaged heart and mind that was disquieting. As far as I can tell, there was nothing positive that Barrowcliffe got out of his interest in D&D, at any point. (And I note he even blames his sexist attitudes towards women on D&D; it couldn't have been his upbringing, or television/media, of course; it's the guidebooks and the stats that caused them.)

Be that as it may, although he sneaks in one equivocating "in my experience," he makes sweeping statements about how fantasies, fantasizing, and daydreams work -- or don't -- which bear little resemblance to how my fantasies work. (I wish I had my copy of The Motion of Light in Water with me, so that I could contrast it with Delany's writing about the intricacies of his childhood and adolescent fantasies.) Without writing or speaking, I can develop vivid, detailed fantasies; and my daydreams are usually equally detailed from beginning to end.

I shall think about this more, but I'm not going to reread the book. It was not particularly pleasant, and my life is not long enough to read adequately written work that is neither enjoyable nor true-to-life as I know it.

Must unload part of my bag today: there's just too much stuff in it, and my shoulders hurt. Meanwhile, life goes on, fairly well. Work is odd, as we prepare for 60% of my support team to leave, just as it's time to do end-of-year processing; on another team, 45% of the people are leaving, so I'm counting my blessings there. No word yet on whether we get summer hours, but I am hoping.

I have great photos of the Demon Godchild from her kindergarten graduation, and other photos, and never time to put them up. Perhaps this weekend, when I'm not wandering through the neighborhood with Soren, or hamster-wrangling, or emailing good friends, trying, at long last, to unearth my desk. Wish me luck.

Don't take too long to think about it. List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you -- The first 15 you can recall in 15 minutes.

Whoo boy, let's see what comes to mind:

The Bone People
The Broken Citadel
The Chronicles of Prydain
Babel-17
The Changeling
An Interrupted Life
Writing for Your Life
Scholars of the Night
Macho Sluts
Sturgeon is Alive and Well...
I Capture the Castle
Harriet the Spy
Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons
The Haunting of Hill House
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
A Room Made of Windows
Cress Delehanty
Plenos Poderes/Fully Empowered

Week is going fairly well. Had one minor meltdown when the assistant arrived ten to fifteen minutes early yesterday -- I really do need my morning time to myself -- but things are going fairly well. Wish it would stop raining, though.

Last night, I picked up a salad, and Soren cooked chicken thighs with onions, potatoes, peppers, and paprika in the crock pot, so we had a lovely dinner when I got home. This crock pot thing is really nice.

Comfort is already here, so I am going to get ready for work, though I think I'll sneak out and ransom the laundry. Start the day off early and industrious, yeah!

We -- mostly I, this first time, I guess -- made a 16-bean soup in the new crock pot. I want something thick and insulated to go under it, despite the fact that all the reviews say it's perfectly safe for tabletop use.

And the soup? It came out well. Soren tasted it and made some suggestions, which helped, and when he went out for his afternoon walk, he picked up garlic, which I'd somehow forgotten, and that was a major improvement. I will probably add some healthy sausage to the leftovers, and perhaps more vegetables, but it's good as it is, and with rosemary bread with unsalted butter, it made a lovely dinner.

(Beans, for some reason, seem to be my theme for first meals. When we first moved in together, I made rice and beans for our first meal; when I first settled into this apartment, I had arroz con pollo and red beans for my first dinner, and now the first thing cooked in the crock pot. Not sure why.)

Today will be the first day that I go to work and leave Soren at home with an attendant. We're both a little nervous (well, I'm nervous now; he's still asleep), but I think it will go well. I repacked my work bag last night, and have found my favorite pen. Now, if only we could find the remote for the DVD player....

I am not divorcing Soren.

Quick timeline:
I got involved with Mark in summer 1981. He, Paul, and I were in a triad marriage from autumn 1981 through spring 1989, when Mark and I got the State Certified Fucking License, and Paul left the triad. After a number of successful years together, then several years of trying to make it work, I left Mark. The timeline gets weird here, as Mark and I were living together, but the spousal relationship was ending/had ended by the time Soren and I remet each other in 2000. I moved out of the apartment Mark and I shared, and in with Soren in summer 2001; however, Mark and I never got around to the paperwork formalizing the dissolution of our legal marriage until this year.

Does this help alleviate some of the confusion?

I signed the divorce papers yesterday afternoon.

Well, first, I stopped in at the office to pick up the crock pot, which is freakin' HUGE -- at least the box is. Then I discovered that the second program associate in my division of the office has given three weeks' notice, to go off to her dream job. The first one gave notice a week ago today, to go back to school.

I remained serene.

Then I lugged the giant box of cooking goodness over to the office where Mark met me, and signed papers; in a few months, I will be a single woman, legally, at least. A bad cocktail (a root beer float "martini" is a Very Wrong Concept, but I had one anyway) and some intense conversation later, I hopped a cab out to Brooklyn, to meet Soren at Quarter, where we talked and unwound, and Soren and Greg (the fill-in bartender) had a lovely couple of hours of music geekery, while I listened and stayed in my head.

I cannot remember what time I asked Eva to come today, but I hope she does show up, as I've got errands to run. On the other hand, if she doesn't, I'll run them tomorrow. The universe will not collapse in a crumpled heap if I don't ransom the laundry today.

It better not.

admissable state: recovering.

We will have two home care attendants right now: Comfort on Mondays and Tuesdays, and Eva the remaining days of the week. I am adjusting to having someone else in the apartment twelve hours a day -- and after eight months of being alone, it's very odd, and slightly disconcerting.

She's tidied up
and I can't find anything!
Comfort tidied up on Monday and Tuesday, to make the apartment easier for Soren to navigate, and now things are stored somewhere, so I'm hunting every hour for some useful thing that I remember being in this pile, or that box. Well, if nothing else, this will encourage me to buy more storage tubs and such, so that we can label them.

Meanwhile... yesterday, Patrick came over, and set up a wireless router, so that three of the four computers here are online. The fourth -- Mirror, my main machine -- was worked on by the IT dudes in my office to enhance the security, and, as far as Patrick can tell, was configured in such a way that it won't connect to the hourhold internet. Joy, rapture. I need to email someone who knows Windows well, and see if they can convince Mirror to behave like a proper machine.

How am I? Scared, happy, exasperated, nervous. We're adjusting, figuring out what we need and don't need; I'm going to be culling notebooks again, in an effort to clear shelf space; I'm in the kitchen, and can hear Soren's music faintly from the front of the apartment, and if I look, I can see his hand on the mouse (he's configured his mouse for left-handed work, so I am becoming mouse-ambidextrous, occasionally).

Not exactly happy -- there's so much to do, and so far to go, and we're still grieving for what we've lost, and what we'll never have -- but lighter and better than we've been in eight months. We're home, and we're together, and we're going to to take the next steps together.

I leave the apartment in about an hour. When I come back this afternoon, Soren will be with me, without an overnight pass.

I am so full of emotions that I can't speak.

This weekend involves cleaning, bringing home as much of Soren's stuff as I can lug each night, shopping, and possibly an absinthe party tomorrow night. I've not gone to one of those in eight years or so, and, even if I have no elaborate costumes, it could be fun.

Scared, breathless, overwhelmed, and overjoyed. Only three more nights alone.

We made it successfully out to Riverhead, and hung out with a small, congenial group of Soren's friends, and their kids. I decorated cookies, talked about music and movies (and horrified Rob Sheffield by admitting to my Leo Sayer fan status, and then horrified him further with a confession about pretentious British art rock), fed Soren excellent steak, and had a good time. The conductors on the LIRR were very good, making sure that our connections stayed until Soren could cross to them at all times, and that doors stayed open. (On the other, I've given Pacific Car Service three tries, and they've only succeeded once. Waiting for forty minutes for a car to arrive last night was the last straw.)

The only problem with yesterday was mosquitoes. I did not think that they would bite through my tights, but they did. And on my right wrist, just at the points where my wrist supports fit most snugly. That's not so good. But conversation, and friends -- those were excellent.

A trip out to Riverhead with Soren today, to hang out with old friends and new offspring. It's a serious schlep on the LIRR, but getting out of the city for a bit. However, I am stuck with "Change at Jamaica Farewell" in my head, and don't remember who wrote it. (Part of me thinks Marc Glasser, but I'm not sure.)

One fine day I went my way
to meet my wife and family out in Riverhead;
boarded a car on the L-I-R:
"You must change at Jamaica," the conductor said.

But I'm sad to say I've lost my way;
I've been riding for many a day;
been traveling through towns whose names seem awfully strange
'cause when I reached Jamaica
I forgot to change...

Some things never leave your brain...

admissable state: cheerful

I'm going to make it through.

Right?

Rainie and Cindi's (belated) wedding announcement is in theDaily News today:

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/weddings/2009/05/17/2009-05-17_rainie_cole__cindi_creager.html

admissable state: overjoyed

Let's see... my cousin (the one who was at Atlantis, on Soren's floor) died on Friday morning, so that's going to affect my schedule in the next week or so. (I'd poked my head in to see him a couple of times in the last fortnight, but he'd always been asleep when I came by.)

Yesterday, I went to the doctor, to have my blood drained, then picked up Soren, and we spent the afternoon at Ellis. It had started out with the two of us discussing music and bartending with Danielle the bartender, then moved to discussing Isaac Asimov and bookstore ownership with someone who wandered in, then went to discussing cask festivals, bar maintenance, and beers with the manager of the Brazen Head, ao we stayed an extra hour or two.

On our way home, Kris spotted us -- she was in Southside, the new(ish) coffee shop -- and we joined her for a bit. (This was good, as walking uphill is exhausting for Soren, and he needed the break.) Kris is one of those lovely super-competent people, and when she found out that I was somewhat paralyzed with all the things I need to do before Soren comes home, she asked some questions, made some phone calls, checked things on the internet, and now we have a timetable for things like cable and internet access, getting the trash out of the upstairs apartment, getting a full-size refrigerator, having a shower head installed that Soren can use on his own.... I actually think that she could be a short-term life organizer for people; she's got a cheerful, matter-of-fact way of doing it that doesn't make one feel incompetent for being overwhelmed, and she knows where to look for information.

Home, and some housecleaning for me, while Soren chose music; dinner, accompanied by amazing Ella Fitzgerald vocals, then a bit of Beyond the Fringe, before I fell over in an exhausted heap.

Today will be a quiet day, continuing the cleaning and arranging, before Soren goes back to Atlantis. Some serious discussion about furniture, and laundry, and being together. I've got writing to do, but that will wait till tomorrow night.

I posted this in deadbrowalking, in wild unicorn herd check in, and thought it was worth reposting here. RaceFail, and now MammothFail, have been constantly at the back of my mind because of my friends and social circles. You know, it's a few months short of thirty years since I first met a group of fans at the Medieval Festival in Fort Tryon Park, and twenty-nine years since I entered fandom, and I was not the only black fan in the city or at conventions back then.

Black, second generation (at least) science fiction and fantasy reader, from a family of readers and fans. Older cousin is/was a major player in the east coast SCA in the 70s and 80s (Master El of the Two Knives, I believe was his title), another older cousin wrote science fiction as well, immediate family watched Star Trek and HHGG together and argued the science, worked on cons for over a decade, brother and another cousin also worked on cons, favorite niece is a big ol' Clive Barker fan (my fault). Published writer; all my stories (fantasy and erotica) have POC as their protagonists.

There are/were at least twelve of us in my family into the stuff since the 1940s, probably more cousins that I don't know about doing it outside of the NYC area.

I'm on page 24 of the comments, which I take as a good sign (I'd also posted, without details, earlier, but can't find that post). And I am very glad that these conversations are going on, and not sorry at all. If they bore you, or if you don't like thinking about the fact that some of us don't have a choice but to think about these things, go somewhere else, and enjoy your privilege.

Tags: anger, chromolume, fan, race, science fiction
sounds around me: "Black Men Ski" by Stew

After visiting Soren last night, I went into the city and stopped by The Duplex to sing with Greg. Greg was in a goofy mood; evidently, "Sad Tuesdays" are out, and upbeat songs are in. Thing is, of the twenty or so songs I do with Greg, only three are uptempo and cheerful. (What can I say? I sound good on wistful, angry, and sad songs, so I choose them more often.)

Be that as it may, there was a very small crowd early, so he suggested, and I tried "One" -- the Nilsson song -- with reasonable success. We know slightly different versions of it (he knows the Aimee Mann version; I know the Three Dog Night and Nilsson versions), and neither of us knows how to end it, but we had fun.

I was sitting on the long side of the bar, where I could look out the open doors to Christopher Street. A familiar-looking man walked west, all cheekbones and intelligence; about ten minutes later, he walked back east. Some time later, he walked west again, and this time I was sure of his identity, so I grabbed my bag with my journal, and ran out the door. (They know me, and know I wouldn't skip out on a check -- besides, I'd left my other bag and my jacket behind.)

"Mr. Domingo?"

He stopped and turned, and I explained that I'd seen Passing Strange a good seven times or so, that Soren and I had played hooky from work to attend the recording of the cast album, and that I thought he was brilliant... and then realized that I was shaking, and bouncing, and babbling, and had to explain that I'm not normally a babbling fangirl but... and he hugged me, and told me that he'll be doing his solo show in the city in September, and that I was sweet, and he autographed my journal, and omighod I got hugged by Colman Domingo and he's beautiful and sweet and oh dear, I'd better let you continue on your night and thank you for existing, you make the world a better place and I think I'm going to hyperventilate so I should go back inside as you wander off into the West Village...

...and I came back inside, and Melissa (who was bartending) asked me, "Who was that? I've never seen you do something like that before." I explained, but stayed a little bit hyper all night.

(Man, if I ever meet Eisa Davis, I will just pass out.)

elisem is not seling jewelry at Wiscon this year, but is having an online sale instead. If you love jewelry, you should take a look here, and see if anything catches your fancy. A number of things have caught mine, but I'm still thinking.

As many of you know, I wear earrings by elisem almost every day, and have several pendants and one bracelet-and-earring set which I really should polish and bring out again. I recommend her work highly. She also made earrings for the nurses in Soren's emergency room ward, which delighted them and made life easier.

(I have also had incidents where I've bought her jewelry for myself, based on the photos, and, when it's arrived, felt that it belonged to someone else. Very odd, but there you have it.)

I shall edit this post when I'm awake.

I took a cab from the Highline Ballroom over to The Duplex, after the Battle of a Thousand Stevies (I didn't participate, as I was in the balcony, and didn't feel like rushing downstairs to scramble onstage). I dropped my bag in the cab, and stuff, as it inevitably does, particularly when you're tired, giddy, and a little tipsy, fell out. I stuffed the papers back in, scooping everything up off the floor and seat, before I went in to be blonde at Michael and Maria and John.

I took another cab home, got in, opened my bag -- and discovered that I had a bunch of photos and ID and cards that didn't belong to me. Either they'd fallen out of someone else's bag, or been dumped out earlier.

I'm still awake, just long enough to post this, because I called my precinct, and they sent two very nice young officers over to collect the stuff that wasn't mine, after I'd failed to find a phone number for the woman they belong to.

And now, rehydrated, stripped of wig and makeup, and having done a good thing, I am going to fall over sideways.

On the bed.
In the bed?
Whatever.
Sleep is my friend.

I am dressed, bewigged, made up, and ready to leave the office -- and there's a fire alarm going off, firetrucks coming up to the building, and the elevators are shut down.

Hmph, I say.

Well, that's a given. But this is an "I'm insane, I may live on ramen for a week, but to heck with it" sort of insanity.

In other words, I am going to the Night of a Thousand Stevies tomorrow night. Though whether I'm a blonde or a brunette depends upon which wig looks best. Wish I'd put together a costume, but I'll fake it, and be what I am...