So… I don’t think it takes Paul Revere to know that the tarrifs are coming and that right soon. Knowing that, there’s certain large purchases that we have been trying to get out of the way. Our old sectional has been a trooper keeping up with us, but it just wasn’t big enough for a Mouse. P.lus we’re super particular with the way the living room is set up (we each have a 65 inch screen mounted to opposing walls so we can face each other when we game or surf. Yeah, it’s weird, but it’s how we like it.

All of this is to explain why we replaced a 6 piece sectional with two oversized barrel chairs with ottomans. Room for us, room for pups to snug, and opened up a lot of space in our area.

Or, it will once we get BOTH of them.

You see, when I placed the order with Amazon, due to it being large freight, it had to go through a specialized carrier that they stated would set an appointment before delivering.

Days go by, there’s no one calling to set an appointment. After a week, I start calling and chatting up customer service to ask what gives. There’s no real answer, just ‘hey can you be patient and wait for the carrier to call you maybe?’

Fine. I’m a little annoyed cause, you know, four dogs, including one giant puppy that doesn’t always have her brain firing on all cylinders that have to be locked up, plus like.. yall are holding over a thousand dollars of my money and can’t be troubled to be even vaguely useful in finding out where my stuff is.

Yesterday it was Thanksgiving here in the US. Me being me, I had done all the cooking on Wednesday while Rick was working so we’d have the day off with no pressure.

Ha.

Around ten am, Rick’s phone rings. It’s the bloody carrier, telling him they are having trouble finding our house, could we lock up the dogs, move the courtyard gate, and move the car in the driveway to let them bring in our chair?

That’s right, wabbit. Only ONE chair. Rick, being an extremely perceptive and wise man, takes the delivery, puts the chair together and puts it in my spot. I start calling customer service to find out where the shitbiscuits my other chair is.

“Ma’am, I can’t help you, they are closed.” With zero irony. And yes, I did call back this morning, got the same absolute lack of anything remotely resembling help. I’m about a dozen phone calls deep now, no end in sight and I can’t even.

Adjourning to my comfy new chair that has already been thoroughly field tested by the corgi, we settle in for our morning routine and get to chatting like old settled people do.

Me- Well, at least I’m ahead of the game on the holiday stuff, cause all my shopping for you is done. I’m really looking forward to seeing your face when iit gets here.

Rick- Oh? I guess I know it isn’t my chair then.

I told him I was cancelling the order for his non chair goodies.

I lie sometimes too.

Dear and Constant Reader, I hope you are finding what feeds your soul.. yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Happy Holidays!

I don’t want to talk about everything else here, so I’m not going to. You want to hear about my angst around the current political situation, you’ll need to wait for another post.

‘The End’ books I’ve been working on are a pretty ambitious project, at least to me. This is my high epic fantasy gather ye heroes while ye may type effort, and it is proving to be just as full of magic and wonder as I wanted it to be.

To catch up the folks that are just now joining, After the End is book 1, because why the hell should I do anything normally? It is set after a massive cataclysm that robbed the eastern half of the world of much of it’s ability to use magic. It’s grim, dark, with a time gone by feel that I am pretty proud of. We also get a glimpse into life on the western side of the divide, where there’s prosperity, but at a certain cost of personal freedom. All is very regimented.. or is it? (And if you’re curious about how all that goes, feel free to hit Amazon or Audible and check it out.)

For book 2, we’re going back to Before the End and getting a glimpse into the beginning times that shaped the world. I had the damn thing done, then screwed up and went to see Fellowship of the Ring in the theatre again… which exposed some things I wasn’t happy about. The thing worked, but it didn’t soar. It wasn’t getting to my ideal vision of a classic that you keep on the shelf. So instead of releasing a book I didn’t love last year, I decided to pull it back and give myself the time and grace to get it right.

Cue the cuts… three of the character point of views I was working with didn’t please me, so they went to the cutting room floor. Two more weren’t going in a direction I liked, cue rewrites. The funny part is, probably due to the fact that I’ve structured my writing life around Nanowrimo, I’ve conditioned myself to WANT to write in the fall. In the dark, with soft jazz playing and puppies trying to steal my keyboard.

That brings us to where we are now. As of today, I’m pretty sure the core of the book that remains is clocking in around 60k words, and there’s more to go. I’m not even looking for a word count anymore- my goal is to bring this book to completion within the next one month and twenty odd days. That’s writing, that’s editing, that’s everything.

I know I *can* do this, I do. I know it can be the work I want it to be.

Just hope yall like it when it’s done.

(circa 6am)

Zoe- random chatty sounds interspersed with little baby awoo woos

Me, sitting up- I think we’re gonna have to feed them before everyone settles down

Mouse, upon hearing a word that even remotely sounds like ‘food’- bounces on the bed and begins throwing paws like Mike Tyson

Rick, sighing a mighty sigh- I think you’re right

Rick, sterling hero of the hour, rises and pads off down the hallway to feed the pups. Cue random banging noises, happy pup yips, and an extended period of time before the hero returns. I, not being a completely heinous hag, order breakfast.

Breakfast arrives, various snuggles with pups and trying to find warm spots in bed and failing, I finally get up and take a shower.

It’s perfectly, wonderfully, amazingly lava like, which I comment on to Rick as he’s going for his turn.

Me, peeking in as our hero, once again, seems to be taking an abnormally long time- it’s great isn’t it?

Rick- I’ve figured out your little scheme here.

Me, truly innocent- Oh? What’s that?

Rick- you forgot to take out the frozen food for the pups, so I had to run a bunch of hot water to thaw them. Half an hour later, plenty of lava water for the shower!

Me, jaw dropped- OMFG, I wish I was that smart… cause that’s fuckin brilliant!

Rick got his back though… I left the closet door open and Mouse stole an article of my clothing (pretty sure it was mine since it was bright purple) and booked it out the pup door. I guess I’ll find out what it was come spring.

^Look, a Mouse.

I honestly don’t think I believed that we would be here, but here we are.

There’s a thousand words and thoughts I could put down (and who knows, maybe that’s how long the post will end up being) about how wretched I feel. The misogyny is real, folks, as is the racism, and it fucking hurts. I feel less valuable than I did yesterday, less valid, less, less less. I’m afraid for people I love. I’m afraid for people I’ve never met that will suffer now.. in Ghaza and Ukraine and Taiwan and Korea. It hurts to know that over 50% of the population has had the opportunity to look at the blueprints for this presidency and all of the chaos and pain in store and… you know… voted for it anyway.

Today there’s calls to ban abortion, repeal the 19th, get rid of no fault divorce, mass deportation… all of it, all over the place. And my family? It doesn’t meet the criteria of being a valid family per Project 2025. As I was told many years ago, I don’t meet the criteria for being a woman since I gave up my uterus. And that’s exactly how I feel, like a thing. And it scares me to think of what thinghood will mean in a year. Two years. However long this goes on.

Here’s what I know… this horrible numb shock will pass. Maybe anger will follow, maybe just more sadness, I don’t know. What I’m holding on to right now are the individual people I care about, and I’m hanging on tight, cause it’s not just me that isn’t okay. In dealing with this, I’m trying hard to let go of that fear of being rejected and just being open to the people that I know are hurting. I’m drawing lines in the sand of my mind and saying, no, you don’t get to lie and create an alternate reality with your alternate facts. I’m promising myself that I will not let myself become hard and cold and cruel. I will not let them make me hate.

To paraphrase the crawler himself… They will not break me.

To close out and maintain my love of brevity, I’m going to give you words that keep going through my head today.

“You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, not look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.”

― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

More and more I think and read and think some more and read some more and live some more, the more I’m coming to believe this as a core truth: Maslow ain’t wrong about the hierarchy of needs… but he left out a key part.

Love. Why do we want to help those people we call our people be physically, emotionally, and spiritually safe and fulfilled?

Love, man… call it empathy or care or kindness.. it’s a million words that define the most important one, the one that should be at the very core of our existence. We get to have this time here to learn and grow, but key, to love and create and take care of each other. It’s the strongest magic I know, and the one I have the most faith in.

When I look around at our world today, at all the people who will only grudgingly give love if you follow their rules or you accept their twisted version of the world, it’s really depressing.. until I remember something else.

The kids ain’t havin it. They won’t ask for care, they demand it. They refuse to accept what is; they push for what should be. The dystopia isn’t working for them… and their candor, their courage.. it gives me just that little spark of hope that while this is the world I know, it will move on and come to value the things that.. well… foundationally make the world go round. More people freed of expectations and roles that don’t fit, that find a way to be their authentic selves without taking the better part of fifty years to do it.

So what am I saying? Go love. Risk the treasures you guard that are only valuable to you because life is too short. Learn to let go of the stuff that just doesn’t matter and embrace your people. Laugh too long and too loud, so that the mean old bitch at the next table gives you that sour glance, and smile back. Not sneeringly or condescendingly, but with the invitation to find the humor in her own day, that she, too, can throw away the playbook.

Be free. Be you. That’s all we ever get, kids, so don’t be wastin it.

Hey.. I know we don’t talk much. That’s mostly because you’re super busy and 99 times out of 100, I don’t think you’re worth my time. Hopefully that’s not super offensive, I just don’t think you or politicians or even people in general bother to listen to the actual words directed at them.

So, you know, it’s not like personal or anything.

Today I have to say something, though. Cause, dude, you are fucking us over for reasons I don’t even understand. You know you aren’t fit. You have to know you aren’t fit. I mean, you’re almost twenty years past retirement age, which exists for a reason.

The idea of voting for you is akin to chewing on moth balls. You ‘worked across the aisle’ with a supporter of segregation. It’s gross and demoralizing. As the bitter, camphory taste floods the senses, all you can think of is well.. it wasn’t Trump.

Is it pride? Ego? I don’t even know anymore, it just makes me sad. YOU make me sad. You’ve stayed at the game too long, you need to be benched. And it ain’t just for the team, man, it’s also for you. You like to go on (and on and on) about all the years you’ve served and everything you’ve given to this country. Well, I’ve been taught the reward for working hard is a time of peace. So please, go take that peace and let those of us that expect to live another thirty years step up and work to create a world worth living in. Cause, Mr. Biden, I’m going to be honest… I cannot imagine how we can possibly get there from here. And it scares me. I see Project 2025 (which I knew about months ago, btw cause you know, I pay the fuck attention) and it makes me not only not want to live in this country, it makes me not want to live in a world in which the ‘greatest country on earth’ would be so callous and horrible to its people. I don’t see a future right now that doesn’t include that, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s on you, sir.

If democracy ends up dying over this election, from where I am sitting, you are holding the smoking gun. Incumbency isn’t license. You aren’t the chosen one. You’re just an old man who should be getting to spend his golden years in a rocking chair boring the shit out of people with stories you only half remember.

Oh, and take all the other over 65 boomers with you when you quit, k?

You say it’s the decision of the voters and that’s the biggest lie of them all. We are in a land of piss poor choices, because of incestuous system that created.. well… you. And Trump.

Ain’t nothin to be proud of, Mr. Biden. It’s something to mourn.

You are killing the dream of America, just as surely as Trump is. Your way is just slower and more bitter.

It is true, in the here and now, that I’m not okay. I am, in fact, so stressed out that I whipped my smartwatch into a wall when it buzzed for the seventh time in one minute while I was trying to make dinner. I have nerve pain radiating up and down my side from the shingles that never really go away anymore.

This isn’t who I want to be, with all the worries on my mind driving me away from a sense of peace. As much as I care, and violently want some simple answer, there aren’t any that start with just get over it.

Whatever It is.

Voices at war, like nails on chalkboards, driving the itch in my brain to a twitch of my hands until the screams catch in my own throat, raw and swollen with the need to claw free. And another thing and another thing and another thing after that, around and around without end. Reward? More of the same.

What do I want? Useless to ask, no answers to give.

What do I need? What we all need, to be seen, comforted, told everything will be okay again, to know peace of the mind. Suspended in my blanket cocoon, my frump dragony fort with pup cuddled in, I can take this breath, too tired to worry about the consequences tomorrow after tomorrow after tomorrow. For today, I am in the now as I haven’t been able to be in some time.

I do have wishes, though… I wish to be kind. I wish to have air to breathe. I wish to show value and appreciate the qualities of those who move around me. I wish to laugh as myself, not from behind the Everything is Fine mask I’ve been wearing for too, too long.

We call them wishes when they seem unattainable, right? Where are the shooting stars and blue fairies when you need them?

I do know what I don’t want- I do not want to be fixed, for I am not broken. I do not need tools, I need rest. Rest of the mind and the spirit, acknowledging those failures that are mine and those that are not. Acknowledging the weights of responsibility and grief and regret and sorrow that are mine, and those that are not. I don’t want to be treated any differently for being human, as though I was a sick auntie and chicken soup cures all, but be sure to drop it quickly at the door so you can’t contract what I have.

Just let me be me. I will find my way back when it is time, and never love you any the less… there are no masks that would lie in matters of my heart.

The mask only serves to cover the pain and weariness I can’t carry anymore.

No context, just fun.

OK, *some* context, it is from the new book.

“In, in, in, don’t let the heat out shuffling in here, old man!” The voice startled Till, being unlike any she’d ever heard before. It had the ring of steel striking steel, the hiss of a beaten rod being quenched. When she stared up at Grandfa, he just snorted and pushed the door open. 

“Cantankerous old bastard, that’s what you are,” Grandfa replied good naturedly as he drew Till into the room, closing the door firmly behind them.

Except for the glowing embers in the center of the forge, the room was dark, with just the barest edge of a chill. Till looked around, puzzled and wondering who could dare be so disrespectful to the old warrior. She spun around, taking care to keep far from the fire. Seeing the child’s confusion, Grandfa took her hand and laid it carefully on the stone workbench.

Till felt a slight tingle, at once welcomed but with a shaken finger too, for absenting herself for so long. Then, a drawing back as though surprised before the strange metal voice spoke again.

“Liar! This is not my Maddie. How dare you bring another to me!” Away all the good warm feelings Till had been awash with went, and the room was cold and dark again.

“Na na, spirit, if we had our Maddie, you know she’d be right here. But this is Till, and I bet if you will settle yourself down…” Grandfa’s voice was soothing and wheedling in a way Till had never heard before. Grandfa didn’t have to ask for anything from anyone ever. 

Before another word could be spoken, the door whooshed open, and it seemed to Till that she could almost see the faint impression of a leather aproned woman, fist on hip, pointing the way out. Till looked to Grandfa, ready to scurry out as fast as she could. He gently placed his hand on her shoulder and laid a finger alongside his nose.

“Alright, missus, it’s a surprise, I know and I maybe caught you not at your best. It is awfully dusty in here. Mayhap we shoulda gone over to Clan Mareith’s forge, it’s maybe more suited to spotting the gift in the younguns, what with so many Smiths being brought up in the ways, like.” Only then did Grandfa very slowly begin shuffling towards the door, leaning much more wearily on his gnarled stick than he had on the long walk through the passages. “You know, Tilly pet, that’s exactly what we ought to have done, but that you begged and begged so to see the family forge, and with ‘em pretty blue eyes I just have the hardest time saying no.”

Something in Grandfa’s eyes told her this was a game to be played. Acting like she’d received that scolding that Auntie had started, Till hung her head and whispered softly. “I’m sorry to make you come all this long way, Grandfa. The Mareith forge is ever so much closer, you were right.”

The outline of the apparition became more solid even as the firmly set jaw became less so. The owner of the voice had no color, but it looked to be an oddly transparent shape of a woman. She was taller than both Auntie and Grandfa, taller than even the Champion. Her face was long and thin in a way that made Till think of the murals from the before times, yet she was undeniably one of the dwarven people. Even without color, Till could see the spirit was as uncertain as Auntie making up her mind over whether the soup could be stretched another day or not.

“I suppose you did come all this way,” she said, with the air of one considering a great favor.

“Na na, don’t be troubling yourself, we’ll just whisk ourselves out of your way and leave you to,” Grandfa twiddled a finger around the floor, “well, whatever it is you do these days besides sit and wait.” Till noticed he was suddenly able to put on a bit more speed as he nudged her towards the still open door. It wasn’t until she’d put a foot out of it into the hallway that the spirit relented, flinging her hands in the air with exasperation.

“Damn you to seven bloody hells, old man! Bring the child here and set her upon the bench so we can see what’s what.” As Grandfa hastened to obey while hiding a grin, the spirit rummaged through her apron pockets til she found a most unlikely contraption and placed it upon her head. It looked like a warrior’s helmet, only instead of guards to catch and turn aside a blade, it erupted with so many long, thin appendages that it made Till think of a spider.

The mental image was only reinforced when the slender legs began moving of their own accord, becoming more solid and filled with detail every second. One of the legs held a seeing glass to the spirit’s face, and as she peered through it to observe the child, Till gasped to see her eyes were the same blue as Grandfa’s.

The same shade as her own.

Whatever she saw through the glass did not appear to please the spirit much. She drew back, humming deep in her throat, casting dark glances at Grandfa and the banked forge in turn. Meanwhile, more appendages sprang forth from the helm, one pair with a measuring stick, another plucking at Till’s hair before yet another set turned her around on the bench to face the wall while it unbraided Auntie’s work of a week ago. Before Till could so much as blink, her hair was rebraided into a grand coronet, with yet another appendage holding up a mirror for her approval.