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I’ve been saying for a long time I was going to make accessories shaped like weapons from yarn, and now I’ve done it.
My shop is neumaker, and I’m planning even now to add a few or my Jayne Cobb Cunning hats and Dr. Who scarves to the plans for more swords and maybe a mace or polearm. Shackles as a scarf with gloves attached? I don’t know, but I’m trying to be a little original in amongst the other things my husband mentions as what to make.
 Jayne Hat, with my face blacked out  Sword Scarf (worn) I haven’t abandoned my other endeavors, though. I’m still working on my RPG application and my various fictional ideas. Too many ideas, man. I’m great at concepts, and seeing “Cabin in the Woods” recently has got me re-enamoured of elder gods and meta-horror.
For some reason, presumably what I’m told was a very mild Winter, sinus/allergies hit me hard early this spring. I’ve been dealing with that for a long time, really. I have problems almost all year round. This was ridiculous, though, and so I decided it was high time I found a real doctor of my own.
It’s harder than it sounds.
The only reason I know it’s easier elsewhere is because of a few friends online from other parts of the country. Even my mom says it’s easier in the part of the state where she lives, but I think that’s because she’s been being passed along a chain of doctors all her life in that area, and never had to wonder.
What I’ve been doing since we moved into our area is seeing a Nurse Practitioner, the same one that gives me my yearly Alien Probing. She’s swell, very nice and gentle and competent. What she isn’t, is willing to prescribe really helpful medication or procedures. I’ve talked to her about PMS and my sinus and allergy problems for several years, and nothing more helpful than Afrin has been offered. So… it was time to try for hardcore medical professionals.
The clinic didn’t agree. Maybe I asked for the wrong doctor. Maybe I give off the sucker vibe. Whatever it was, they kept altering my doctor picks in my requests to the NP I was used to. I kept replying “No, she’s awesome, but can’t or won’t help. Our collective time and my money isn’t served by another visit.” Honestly, I can recover naturally on my own. By on my own, I mean lower the bar for “baseline wellness” and be surprised when some of it recedes. Tradition(!) as the old song says.
My mom said she could get me into a doctor down where they live. Awesome. Then she decided to start looking up where where I live. Double awesome.
I did get in with an awesome new gyno, fairly easily, but GOSH, I had no idea how specialized people were. I’m still on the prowl for final relief for sinus and allergies. I found an allergist that would see me in another month. The best for a regular physician I could do is get waitlisted in a couple of places.
Waitlisted.
I can’t even fully encompass this.
Doctors. Waitlisting you.
It’s not like I have obscure insurance. It’s not like I’ve got a ton of preexisting conditions.
Anyway, the adventure was kind of fun, in a very frustrating kind of way, when I had time to step back.
We’ve been recently reassured that there won’t be a need to rip our floor up in the Underground Lair, so, I’ve been taking time to get The Underground Office back in order. I wish I had some before pictures to share, but the “Middle” pictures would look a little before-like without them. Exercise has been had in the form of bringing boxes of books and office supplies down, as well as some of the shelves and furniture that had been moved back in the previous summer to make room for the half-trained gorillas that put in our waterproofing system. Then we had to fix the drywall and repaint, and refloor.
I really love my new floor. I’m a sucker for the checkerboard pattern.
My husband overloaded the wire-frame shelves in his office, breaking the plastic flanges holding them together. With zip-ties, and a respect for the material, I re-assembled them for at least temporary shelving in the office. They’re working great, now. I have a lot of crate-type shelves, and they now hold my texts and comics and some of my unread books. I’ve got another modular shelf and a fairly epic set of runnered baskets that I’ve got my supplies in, now.
We also got a lot of stuff from my husband’s grandfather and aunt, and some of those are now doing business in here. Most notable are the awesome sewing desk and the more efficiently built stereo cabinet. The desk is crazy awesome with the storage and appearance though I need to alter to hold the newer sewing machine I got for some special purposes. It sits now perpendicular to my computer station so I can just roll around (have I mentioned I love my new floor?). The stereo cabinet is off to the side on the wall with the other outlet. It’s got lots of extra storage for its size and along with the other shelves (that I rather hope to replace with something more attractive later this summer), Most things have a place.I still seem to lack what I call a “pull it all together” gene, because I never do feel like any of my rooms look like the rooms of real adult people with a unifying aesthetic or ability to just “make it look right.” I try, but danged if I just don’t feel like I hit it. Maybe if I was insanely rich, I’d pay a interior decorator to consult with me and help out with the follow-through on theories.
I think, perhaps deludedly, that if I can really make my office satisfy me, then I will be able to kick the rest of the house in the rear and finally feel a little more adult.
Confession, time, I’m far more easy to please than I seem about some things. The basic dissatisfaction that fuels a lot of programming work just doesn’t often come to me. My google-fu usually turns up something that satisfies me. There’s a part of me that wants to just reinvent the wheel so I can say “Look! I did this!” Note my calculator project and the time I made my own Dharma Initiative workstation so I could be interrupted in whatever I’m doing so I can input The Numbers.
[Aside: It occurs to me not that Dharma Timer could be integrated into a fun productivity app, and perhaps I could mess up more things when someone fails.]
In that vein, I’ve always admired the pjj.cc chat rooms. I’d been thinking about trying to make my own version to use privately– because part of me always expects any fantastic site to disappear, and because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I was starting one of these after my php/SQL class when my husband mentioned a site to conduct and coordinate online RPGs– with a database for tables and a virtual game-master’s screen. So chat, messaging, storage. I started trying to reinvent the wheel in earnest.
For the present, the chat portion of this project is borrowed from a freeware chat program. This makes me feel quite bad, but I also include it as a learning experience.
Security will be my primary learning experience, I imagine. Right now, I’m not pretending that I’ve got it locked down. Basic log-ins is most of it.
I’m sticking, primarily, with php and mySQL, so far. My tendency is to take the tool and use it until it breaks and I have to start looking at something else.
My last, currently hiatused, project was a project manager application that I finally decided I should redo in VB or C# for easier file saving and loading. It might get altered and added to the gaming app, or maybe the equally hiatused CMS I’ve been playing with through 3 programming platforms. My ADHD-esque brain runs around from interest to interest, but I’ve managed to document what I want and need to do on this “big” project, and that’s kept me on target so far. The fun of checking items off gets my little brain a kind of high. Accomplishment highs are really keen, and I pursue them relentlessly.
I’ve gotten a little introspective. Analyzing my viewing and reading proclivities has made me realize that I’m “girlier” than I have long suspected that I am.
I like action and sometimes crude comedy and sci-fi, and eschew a lot of the rom-com and chick-flick genre. However, I’m seeing something when I look closer. I like these things to have well-integrated teams at the heart. I like families and organizations. I like them best when there’s a great chase or caper with explosions surrounding them, but I like people involved with people.
I like things with “heart.” For instance, while I find sports and the sports complex ridiculous, I have a serious soft spot for sports movies and stories. Idealized sport and teams overcoming– underdog stories– appeal to me. “Sport” takes a broader sense, because I kind of include Searching for Bobby Fischer in this, as it has the same elements I like. So, given that, true sport-story enthusiasts might find me ridiculous.
On the other hand, I only like “true” stories if they have my elements. I recently read Playing with the Enemy, given to me on loan by my mother-in-law. I was interested in the history and the love for the game, but I kept getting distracted and hit in the face by the epic privilege in the story. Sure, I might not be “allowed” by the internet to use that term, but that’s all I could feel from it. Because one is good at a game, one is given a by in fighting a SERIOUS WAR. Because one is/was good at a game, people forgive a lot of whiny self-indulgence and drinking. This embodies what annoys me about sport and America and makes it just exactly not what I like in these stories.
Scott Sigler’s Rookie-verse stories bring me back every year slavering for more, though. They are most definitely NOT reality, in that they take place in a Sigler-verse future with an amazing about of backstory (Have I mentioned I envy this man’s prolific world-building? I do. So much.) and reminds me more than anything of playing Blood Bowl with my husband. The corruption of sports teams and the owners is covered, but… as an obstacle to overcome. The main character is so unknowingly idealistic that it’s rather adorable.
in 11/22/63, the idea of averting an assassination and time-travel is made personal. The hero has to wait years to accomplish his supposed mission, and that gives time to analyze the complications. It also makes it possible, and necessary, to watch him build a family and life around himself. The team aspect is minimized, but the family aspect slides subtly into the fore. I found myself less concerned, as intended, with conspiracy and more with what the hero might plan to do.
So what does this mean? I’m becoming more specifically aware of what makes me feel connected to a story, and what doesn’t. I feel quietly encouraged when I put down the effort of some successful author that I feel is kind of crap, because I am also becoming more aware of where I’m not coming up to “standard.”
Though I’ve been noticing how few individual stories have more than two or three “real” characters (that get focus and development and do real action) per, I know that teams do need to appear to have development on all characters. I feel this is one spot I’m weak. I’ve always known that I tend to characterize in a more caricature-style. Depth for more than one character is hard for me. This won’t fly for long.
I know, I know, in a series everyone gets a moment, but there are ways to shorthand in a one-shot, or potential one-shot. Look at [i]Inception[/i], for example. They are an integrated team (save for Ariel), but really you don’t see much from anyone other than Cobb. I don’t have to write every moment and give every detail. It’s not bad to HAVE these things in my mind and for my own edification, but it doesn’t have to be letter perfect and presented to the audience.
What I’m coming to, now, though it wasn’t my goal, is that I need to be both harder on myself and easier. GET THINGS DOWN, even the crappy ones. DON’T BE AS ASHAMED of the crappy ones, because the crappy ones can be fixed, and there is every chance that someone is going to love what I’m wanting to hide forever.
What I was starting at, for myself, was that I have doubts about writing “the book you want to read,” because I like things that are outside my realm of experience when it gets right down to it. However, I think it’s not that far out, and if it is, Well, I’ll write what I write. Right?
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
It was pretty much bland romance fare. I wanted to be more excited about the “Creatures” world, but it kind of wrote “humans” off entirely, and that was… annoying. I guess I could go into a trite “I understand discrimination more, now” diatribe, but that’s bull, but still…
Anyway, I imagine I won’t be hunting down the sequels specifically.
Mark this as another book to remember when I think my stories are coming out bland.
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A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This second book, that I’m way behind the curve in reading, brought me more of what I’d come to (pleasantly) expect while reading the first. I don’t even feel ashamed of being inspired to read it by catching a few episodes of the HBO program first.
The medieval-inspired world is raw, and I think I understand what Martin’s going for, there, but I am growing a little tired of the “rape happens” attitude. People have sex. It’s important to humanity. Uncouth, differently trained types take it as their battlefield, or nobility due. Over it, now. Aside from that, I do like the realism that dominates the landscape and throws the hints of otherworldliness into perspective.
The cast of characters is large enough and the point-of-view moves around enough that there’s plenty to like and no harm if you draw away from certain characters. I can see where people might get put off by it, but I rather like it. Following certain characters gives a breadth of story without getting too impersonal. I do hope, though, that some characters (Brienne, for example) get to be POV characters sometime in the future.
I know, as a woman, I’m supposed to be rooting for Arya and I don’t even mind that I’m being set up to identify with this character. She’s the one for people who like plucky girls. Catelyn’s the one for women to admire and sympathize with as an adult. Sansa’s… well I’m not even sure. I digress, though. In spite of knowing I’m “supposed to,” I do like Arya and think about the little threads and mysteries of her small, hidden part of the war most often.
John Snow’s upcoming storyline appeals to me. I always did like “Mother Night” and other deep cover type stories. There’s a frustration in knowing the truth, but watching a character grow through perseverance (or going native, it can work!) is fun– if you like the character, and I do.
I have to say two, petty, things: Good thing Daenerys has the prophecy to keep me interested until she gets interesting again in her own right. Won’t SOMEONE get Ice back to the Starks? It’s getting on my nerves, or maybe it’s just that I’m tired of people thinking about how Eddard used it and was different and blah blah. For a person that does her own share of repetition, I see it too much in everyone else.
I’m looking forward to the library fronting me the next book.
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I’ve been sending my Goodreads reviews through to this blog. I want to start adding a little more thought to what I’ve read (recorded thought, at least). It’s a step up from book a weeking.
The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Yeah. I read a lot of YA books. I’ve been picking up “A Series of Unfortunate Events” off and on for years. They’re short, cute, and have the best little sharp sense of humor and the “hidden” story of Mr. Snicket, our humble narrator, himself [Aside: I always imagined a Lemony Snicket as a sort of lemon drop/black licorice candy or a licorice schnapps/lemonade drink]. I feel like a voyeur or detective reading the books and looking to piece together the Snicket story.
Sadly, though, it’s about time for the series to end, I felt while reading this book. It was the only one that dragged for me and started feeling truly ridiculous and unfortunate. On second thought, in the “darkest before the dawn” sense of these books, it’s fitting to be dragged on by this entry, so… mission accomplished? I salute the author, anyway.
While there have been recurring characters in other entries of the series, this one is unique in having all the characters who are currently alive recur in one way or another. I don’t think anything is forgotten, and I loved that, although I did find it a little ridiculous, even for the world that has been set up.
I know it’s a series of unfortunate events, but I realize, reading this, that I kind of have been hoping for an ultimately happy ending. Poor kids.
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Naked Heat by Richard Castle
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
If you like “Castle” you’ll like this. It’s obviously drawn from the same place, as it should be to maintain that meta-type verisimilitude they have going for them. This one took a while to draw me in, because the novelty of the first one has worn off, and while it’s kind of cute that Richard Castle’s only an adequate writer that doesn’t make for a grabber of a read. I wasn’t into it until I’d gotten far enough in to have theories that I wanted to check.
The aforementioned meta-level had me wondering how much of the Rook/Heat relationship is played out as wish fulfillment against the show. That’s something to think about, and I needed it. It’s a real wonder that these things don’t come up more in the show. Maybe I’m just too multimedia for them.
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