Getting new tech sync’d to all the things is always a joy here at the casa.. bluetooth wants to hug everything, and I don’t want Rick’s xbox controllers grabbing onto my GPD and vice versa.

The problem this evening, though, was that Rick’s controller didn’t want to sync to ANYthing. After feeding him grilled cheese due to icktummy, I parked myself in my spot on the couch and observed the dance you dance when trying to get tech to behave, offering occasional commentary as he has come to value. Or at least expect.

Or at least, he hasn’t divorced me yet, or thrown the currently offensive piece of tech at my face, so he must get some kind of amusement out of me.

Early on in the process-

Me- When’s the last time you replaced the batteries in that thing?

Rick- Oh, not that long ago, I’m sure.

Me- alright then. /goes back to scrolling the news

Rick- /continues to struggle to force the stupid controller to pair

Controller- /continues to flip Rick off

Me, sometime later- Did you……. turn it off and back on again?

Rick- /glares in my general direction and I see his jaw clench

The man is fucking stoic, I think I’ve mentioned that before. I got up and went to make myself some dinner, himself having had the grilled cheese. Rick continues to putter, I put on Wonderwall cause I’ve had Princess Fucking Donut singing Wondercrawl in my head for three damn days now.

Rick, calling to me in the kitchen- Uh, do we have any batteries?

Me, rummaging through a drawer while keeping an eye on my cheese sauce- Yeah, I got one.

Rick- Do you know if we have another one?

Me- I do not. I do know I have a cheese sauce I’m working on, so how bout you try that and we’ll see?

Rick, grumbling and muttering as he gets the new battery plugged in- Well shit.

Me, turning off the sauce and cocking my head- Oh? What’s that dear?

Rick, mumbling something.

Me, stepping out and observing the now perfectly sync’d and functioning controller- Yup, that’s three words I need from you.

Rick- It’s working now?

Me, grinning- NO, TRY AGAIN BITCH!

Rick- Um. Glad it’s working?

Me- GIMME THE WORDS. Is it SO hard?

Rick- it is when you’re in this mood.

Me, emerging from the kitchen, going into a stance like a Maori warrior about to dance the haka, hands extended and fingers waving in the give it here motion- I WANT THE THREE LITTLE WORDS, SIR COUGH EM UP!

Rick, begrudgingly- You. Were. Right.

Me, nodding regally- Thank you. Was that so hard? And hey, it could be worse. I could be doing the Church Lady dance right now.

Can you believe he STILL didn’t throw that controller at me? Me neither.

Editing to add Wondercrawl, cause why should I be the only one randomly singing Mongooooooooo

https://soundbooththeater.com/webplayer/85736/?guest=1

Because I’m sure I’m not the only one that hit a few bumps in the road today, some reminders-

If you think you’re gonna need a hero, you need to be ready to be someone’s hero.

Stormy weather gives you an excuse to snuggle in with a book.

The wise one will find knowledge everywhere they go, the weak one will find someone to blame.

Time waits for no one.

Tucker Carlson doesn’t have a job.

If you’re feeling down about yourself, do something randomly kind for someone else.

And uh… Tucker Carlson doesn’t have a job. It just kind of bears repeating.

It’s okay to cry every time you hear Carrie Fisher says that no one’s ever really gone- because it’s true. Everyone you’ve ever loved and lost lives on in you.

… and it really kind of is, for a lot of different reasons.

When we first bought the Casa, I was incredibly charmed by it because it has a courtyard. It’s not a huge space or anything, and at the time, it was just a bare cement foyer that stood outside the front door.

But.. a courtyard.. now that’s something you could do something with, right? And we held onto that thought for years, while it served as storage or the place where things wouldn’t grow well in the planters except mint… because mint grows everywhere.

And then, one spring, I got one of those twitches I get. I think Rick recognizes them now, and shudders mildly in despair. You see, when I get a twitch, anything can happen. I may drag Mr. Wellman to the nursery and buy more trees. I may book us on a trip to another world. I may suddenly need to visit the craft store and buy yet more yarn. And I may start writing a new book.

I think, in spite of my antisocial nature when writing, Rick prefers the last one just because it means some peace and quiet with his current favorite video game.

In any case, this particular twitch led to putting up pergolas (one on each side of the courtyard), starting a container garden, and dragging our SCA firepit out into the courtyard for use. It became a peaceful little oasis to enjoy.

We were in our newly oasis-ized courtyard when Jake first reached back out to us. We must have spent two hours texting back and forth on that spring evening, and shared pictures of our new outdoor living space. Jake loved it, and kept coming up with more and more ideas to improve it. Lights, rugs, a bigger firepit/table, sheers to hang, faux leaves over the top of the pergola to give that sun dappled shade, a fountain, and to offer a beautiful screen so you couldn’t see all of this from the street, bamboo in the planters that form the archway.

We did all of those things except one and spent many happy hours by the fire, sipping on wine and just laughing and talking. It breaks my heart to say that I can’t remember what most of those conversations were about, really, I just remember being so deeply contented during what was an incredibly turbulent time. And so very proud of who Jake had grown up to be.

For a while, it made me lonely to sit here without him- but I’m trying hard to hold on to the good memories here and let the sadness go. It was in the spirit of that that I went ahead and did the last thing on Jake’s list for the courtyard.

Yesterday, I planted the bamboo he wanted to order to grow up and offer a cool, green screening effect. We’ll see if it works.

And today I’m sitting here listening to what I think is the best form of audiobook I’ve ever heard.. really what the whole art form should be used for to draw folk into a story. It’s available on Audible.com, called Dungeon Crawler Carl, and I highly highly recommend this. I’m sitting here, listening to this audiobook, crocheting a new, light lap blankie, watching the bamboo leaves play in the breeze, and thinking over some of the happiest moments of my life.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Dungeon-Crawler-Carl-Audiobook/B08V8B2CGV?qid=1682279317&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=XN930DGC2XE2EXE8ZCQ3&pageLoadId=rG9xIcTgfvnI5JQz&creativeId=0d6f6720-f41c-457e-a42b-8c8dceb62f2c

It’s not a bad way to spend a day.

Even if it’s not a very authorly way to spend International Book Day, except one part of my mind tells me it is the MOST authorly way to spend the day- enjoying a story.

If you don’t want to try Dungeon Crawler Carl, I tell you what.. I’ll give a free copy of my latest book, After the End, to the first 3 people to comment on this blog post. Normal rules apply- just never tell me if you hate it.

I know, in spite of staring at 50 years walking around this planet, that I’m still an innocent in a lot of ways. Though I may be growly and cynical on the outside, I still believe in the power of a hug at the end of a long day. I believe that while blanket forts and snacks that are bad for you may not fix everything, they sure can put you in a better place to finding better. I believe you don’t fold down the corners of books, or the ghosts of a million librarians will find you and give you paper cuts.

Lately, I’ve come to better understand the power of both hearing and saying yes.

I don’t say no all that often, and when I do, it’s usually followed by a but. Everything that gets put in front of me is a puzzle, and every puzzle (like every question) has an answer. All that changes are the pieces to solve, in endlessly intricate and fascinating ways that give life zest and purpose. It keeps you on the path to learning and growing, and isn’t that the point of being here in the first place?

I didn’t understand that that is a different way to go about living. The bitter stranger in my head is laughing at the fact that I quite literally watched my own mother say no to everything and I still didn’t manage to pick up that lesson.

I guess I prefer to think of that as being a mark of innocence rather than stupidity.

So what’s my point?

When you feel a no about to happen, ask yourself- is it really no? Or is it no but? Is there really nothing at all you can do? Or is it a case of nothing you will do? If it’s to establish a boundary for yourself, then that’s okay, and really kind of necessary. But if it’s just no because you can say no, and you aren’t offering any path to yes.. you may find the person you are hurting most is yourself.

I truly think I have ‘yes’d and dumb lucked myself into everything good in my life. Yes, I’m going to take this job. Yes, I’m going to keep writing Chapter 5. Yes, I’m going to try something new and weird and wild. Yes, I’m going to share what I know. Yes, I have time for you. Yes, I’m going to push out of my comfort zone.

Yes, I’m going to stay who I am and keep saying yes. Even when I’m tired, even when it’s overwhelming. Because I can find the way, and I’m going to be me.

Every question has an answer. Sometimes it’s not the answer you wanted, and that’s okay, as long as its the answer that works. And if the people around you don’t support you saying yes, you may be around the wrong people. It took me a long time to find my people, the ones that see the yes in me, that value me for it and not in spite of it. And it was worth it.

Well, friends and neighbors, the weekend is drawing to a close. Not really a holiday we celebrate, as it’s not ours anymore- more of a general day in which a lot of things are closed and there’s less traffic on the roads. That’s something we tend to approve of.

What I *do* spend some time doing around this time is puttering around my little courtyard and see how my perennials are doing (honeysuckle, rosebush, willow tree, and the something something I don’t remember the name of with purple flowers are all sending out green shoots this minute) and decide what’ll go in the containers for the new year. I’ve about decided to go with a moonlight garden- meaning the plants will show up nice in minimal light and/or bloom after sunset. Seems like I spend the most time in the nice months in my courtyard at night, taking in the cool air.

I also get a little thoughtful about things. Like love.

Some folk who have met him might think that my mister is a quiet type who doesn’t say much how he feels. In some ways that’s true and in others it totally isn’t.

We’re geeks, and we’re fond of our gear. I got myself (and the mister one of his own cause we don’t share so goodly) this handheld gaming computer called a GPD. Think of a Switch, but with Windows on it, and way more powerful. Well, wouldn’t you freakin know it, the left joystick on mine went out last fall. A little irksome, but it was what it was, and is still useful (it’s what I’m writing this on this minute).

Well. The company that makes GPDs dropped a new model, the Win 4. And the mister just quietly went and ordered us a pair without actually mentioning it til it was a done deal.

On Friday, the first one came in. And you know, without even a word, he handed it to me.

That’s love, people.

I’ve mentioned before a bit about how I’ve started having trouble with my hands. They won’t always hold what I want to hold, and they don’t always let me do all the things I want to do. I was lamenting the Jedi Fallen Order game being just too hard for me with standard controllers.

You know what the mister is doing this minute? He’s going through the process of pairing Switch controllers to the new GPD so I can try playing Fallen Order on his Steam account and see if I can handle it.

Again, that’s love. I don’t need dozens of roses or gaudy jewelry. Eyes that see and a heart that cares… worth a thousand thousand sonnets to me.

I know, I know, you came for the actual conversation, and I won’t disappoint.

Last night, we were mulling over what to do.. it’s been really warm here, and that makes us lazier than usual, so we’d been going back and forth. Suddenly it hit me, while Rick was standing in the den next to the haphazardly organized shelf of games.

Me- That’s it! Grab Something Wild!

Rick, holding two cans of soda- Ooookay.. but what?

Me, blinking at him- the game? Something Wild?

Rick, looking at the shelf and realizing we have three games sitting right next to his hand called ‘Something Wild’ and starting to laugh- I thought you wanted me to pick something at random

Cue the kind of laughter that makes the whole day brighter.

If that’s not worth pondering and celebrating, I don’t know what is.

Not really a fan of putting a company on blast, but since I have more or less kissed $300 bye bye, well, I think I get to do this.

I ordered the mister an ultra cloak on January 2. Confirmation said it’d be about 15 working days. No biggie, they are made to order and all that good stuff.

Feb 2 rolls around, nothing. March 2. Nothing. Emails to customer support are answered, apparently on a whim, but no new information. The ads are nonstop. Finally there’s an email from the CEO asking folks to reach out to him with any concerns whatsoever. I did. No answer.

Basically, I was strung along til I can no longer dispute the charge. No answers, definitely no product. Then I noticed something interesting on their FB page, the transparency portion-

Primary country/region location for people who manage this Page includes:

South Africa (5)

Philippines (1)

Hmmm. Contrast this to what their FAQ has to say-

Where is my order made?

All of our orders are handcrafted in California, USA.

Now, why would you make your product in California and outsource your social media to South Africa and the Philippines? /shrug no idea, but it feels a little funky. Either way, I don’t recommend ordering from these guys and I’m super disappointed.

#Lunafide#wearlunafide

#wearableart#breakboundaries

https://lunafide.com/

Edited- Resolution posted here https://curiousreadings.com/2023/04/29/lunafide-resolution-buyer-still-beware/

It’s been a little hard to take people seriously when they complimented my voice.. but recently, when a bunch of complete strangers started making comments, it got my attention.

One of the many, many tricks I use to try to sleep at night is to listen to bedtime stories for grown ups. And some of the readers are good… and some… aren’t. They may flatten their tone so much as to be clipped (Just Sleep podcast) or have go for a kind of drone (Sleep Cove). And, me being me, I mutter to myself as I’m drifting off that I would do it different.

Do you start to see how I suddenly had the idea to record some Bob Ross style soft readings? And of my own stuff that I either haven’t published or reserved the rights to… well, it just all came together with more reasons TO do it than to NOT do it.

I chatted with a co worker who does some sound engineering on the side, and settled on a Yeti X mike.

And then it was delivered! And I was sick, lost my voice, and sighed a lot, staring crankily at the box. But, even for me, illnesses pass, albeit much slower than I wanted it to, and I was able to record a quick seven minute short, and slip into a video file and get it uploaded.

The next morning, I was going into my office to work, and logged into both computers. Because YouTube is stupid, it started autoplaying the recording.

The voice I heard sounded NOTHING like what I hear when I talk… it sounded warm and smooth and personable. And if you know me, that’s not me. It honestly freaked me out more than a little bit. So I decided it was allllllll because of the magic microphone.

Shoosh, it helps me not feel any weirder than I already do, which is pretty damn weird. It also made me feel better that I sent the clip to my ex-husband, and HE couldn’t tell it was me either.

Vindication.

In any case, since I don’t seem to sound awful, and I’m kind of having fun doing it, there’s a new YouTube channel with bedtime stories for grown ups. I’d like to record at least one new one a week… and it may be my stuff, or public domain stuff… we’ll see how it goes. I do have an idea for a new fairy tale that I think would work best if I did it episodically anyway. If any of this sounds interesting, I hope you’ll check out the channel.

Yay for new projects!

https://www.youtube.com/@TheBinauralBabaYaga-bb7nb/featured

I am not constitutionally suited to being sick in about a thousand different ways. The inside of my head is a space that I already spend too much time in, and when I can’t up and do the things I want to up and do, the trouble is compounded.

Did you know that eventually even your imaginary friends will tell you to go away? At least, mine will- and straight up refuse to talk. How rude, am I right? And how is a nap a guilty pleasure when it’s not really by choice, but more the body saying (in best Cliche/or pick your favorite drag queen voice)- Oh nuh uh honey, you’s gonna be layin your ass down right now, you hear?

You know, maybe I should be concerned that that’s the voice that resonates when I think about my body talking to me. But not today. Today I’m all up in the meaning of life.

Go big or go home, yall.

Everything Everywhere All at Once gave us the message that nothing matters, and that’s been banging around in my brainpan. It’s wonderfully right and wonderfully wrong at the same time… and I think that’s what the Daniels intended. Me, this matter of sinew, breath, and bone.. it’s got an expiration date. We don’t like to think about that, but that doesn’t make it not true. Me, the grubby little essence of mischief, joy, wonder, and chaos, of memories of love, fear, grace, and kindness… well, I don’t think that part ever really ends, it just finds the next evolution somewhere else.

But what stays here, that’s important. I think it’s what unifies us as people when everything else fails. We all want to be thought of, remembered, matter to someone… whether through the work of our hands, the passion of our hearts, the moments of pure connection with another soul. We want to be remembered, and our stories to be known, our songs to be sung.

Really stop and think about that for a minute. Think about how it cuts through what does and doesn’t matter. How it simplifies the important from the trivial, focuses the mind. How would your life be different if you put more importance on the acts that drove that spark and less on the things that.. just don’t matter? If you break down your life to those basic building blocks- moving your story forward and eschewing elements that stop others from realizing their own stories… wow, what a world we could have.

Alright, shutting up and going back to napping now. I just wanted to share that. Oh, and Jared Halley cause he’s freakin amazing.

I’ve written before about the various tensions and unique stresses of living at the casa when Rick happens to be under the weather. Sadly, this has now been the case for about a week now, and this time the germ gremlins gifted my favorite beardly one with the nastiest cough I think I’ve ever heard. He sputters, he grizzles, he hacks, he shakes the whole damn bed to the point where I may have decamped to the couch a time or two.

He did mention earlier today that he was doing better, and hadn’t had any meds beyond cough drops all day.

Cue the conversation… on the couch with Rick net surfing and me playing this horribly addictive puzzle game on my phone.

Me- Do you think you’re going to be done coughing tonight?

Rick- I don’t think I’m ever going to be done with coughing. And hey, sometimes you sleep through it… how do you think I feel? I always wake up.

Me- So great, you cough you wake us both up and then thirty seconds later, your ass is SNORING and I’m still awake and I’m just saying, it kind of makes me want to get out of bed and find your giant combat boot and beat you in the head with it!

Rick stares, silently and judgily.

Me- BUT I DON’T DO THAT! And we call that LOVE, thank you very much.

Rick, snorting- that’s not love, that’s you being too pretty to do time.

Me, flinging down phone- dammit.

Rick- what?

Me, reaching for keyboard- Now I have to write this up.

I definitely have some ideas about what I want to say here, but it’s going to take a minute to say it the way I want to. Especially since, as always, I never want to provoke the knee jerk reactions that saying certain things causes, because there’s words that we all feel bound to say in certain circumstances.

Please keep those reactions, I don’t want them. I’m not saying that you won’t legitimately feel something from what you read here- that’s between you and your feelings. I’m saying I don’t need those knee jerk words, okay? I appreciate that you want to say them, but I can’t use them and I’m not trying to be in any way ungrateful. They just don’t work here, that’s all.

One of the things about traveling around is that you need to have your documents in order. Most of the rest of the country put Real ID into place years and years ago, but New Mexico is the outlier (as in so many ways.. you should see how long it took us to ban cock fighting!), so it’s one of the things I just hadn’t got put together yet. Getting documentation out of California during covid? Yeah, no easy task. Even now, it required an online video notary call, a bunch of paperwork, and just over a hundred bucks.

But you got to have your documents in order.

Day to day life is a highly variable thing on the inside of my head. There’s epic wins and ebbs and flow of time that is mine versus given away to others. There’s so many words that want to be more clever and insightful than they truly are. Realization that there is only one chance at this day, and it will happen whether I’m ready for it or not, whether I am prepared for it or not.

Some days, it’s definitely not. But it’s going to happen anyway, so a deep breath and on goes the fake it til we make it mask. And it helps, because it makes a smile come through my voice when I don’t have one of my own to give. It lends me energy to do the thing when I don’t have it.

On the outside of my head, every day is very much the same. I get up, I run, I work, I talk, and sometimes I even breathe. When no one needs me anymore, I curl into a corner of my safe place and try not to talk because I’m spent. All I have left to give are echoes. I talk to the pups, so undemanding of anything but love. And treats. And play. But so simple in comparison to everything else that it’s a relief.

But some days, the mask is too heavy to hold in place. And I have to sit down and figure out, in the pithy words of my ex husband, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Because we have to keep all the things in order, you see.

Earlier this week, I saw Everything Everywhere All At Once.. if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s incredibly powerful, a really amazing piece of storytelling. And there’s one line that has kept resonating during this whole week. Which is happening all around me, every single day, whether I’m ready for it or not. Whether I want to deal with it or not. Time marches right the motherfuck on, without even considering my opinion.

It’s like that.

And I got my birth records in the mail, too, which I was relieved to see, because it made me more than a little nervous to have something that key to my identity floating around in the US Postal Service. I opened it up, cause it would just be my luck to get the wrong one or some crap.

I didn’t realize it, but I’d never seen the official record before, with all the dates and signatures and blah de blah. I never knew I was delivered by a Dr. Graves. Or that my dad’s name was misspelled.

Or that my mother signed it the day after I was born. Her hand was a little shaky, and it made me wonder what was going through her mind. At that point, she would have seen me, in all my cleft lip and palate surprisingness. Did she know, then, that it was genetic? This little tiny window into a moment that I can never really know anything more about than what I do right now.

Not a thought for the time, fold it back up and stuff it back into the envelope because next call starts in two minutes. Not today, distraction, not today.

And then, the part of Everything Everywhere All At Once that had made me cry came to mind… why was it so easy to let me go? Even if she was here to ask, I’d never get an answer that meant anything real or true. Because there’s all these knee jerk things we say because that’s what’s expected.

Because that’s what keeps us in order, you see.

The bitchy thing about grief is how it will sneak up on you. While you’re busy keeping all the things in order and focusing on how just fine you are thank you very much, it’s there, biding its time. It’s laying in wait for a moment to unmask itself and take you back to the terrible moment that created that divide of before and after in your life. You don’t get to pick which losses do that. You can lie to yourself about how that loss wasn’t so bad, because whatever blah blah reason is in your head. You can even tell yourself that it doesn’t hurt that much because reasons.

Those are the lies you tell yourself to help you keep your documents in order. And, to a degree, you have to tell yourself those lies to keep the mask firmly on.

Doesn’t mean they aren’t lies. And eventually, all the masks will come off.