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Apr. 2nd, 2016 09:04 amI have two entries I'm not writing.
One is about my social life, how it feels lovely and full and like there's something I'm missing, some clue to adulthood, some backstage pass into a group where everyone knows everyone and they're all invited to each other's shindigs (yeah, I said it, shindigs) and hang out together on the internet, and...I don't even know what it is these mythical people do, I just know I'm not doing it.
I don't think I want more or different people in my life, I'm amazed by my partners,I love my friends, there are already people I miss that I have no idea how to reach back out to. (I get so trapped in the spiral of not responding immediately, which makes me embarrassed, which makes me less likely to respond, until I've worked myself up into a frenzy of never talking to anyone). So I'm not sure what's going on there, just little pangs, like hiccups, when certain things are mentioned, where I read certain bits of social media.
The second is about all the books and novellas I'veread. I didn't post in February, and in March I just decided to flip out and read as many re-reads and novellas as I wanted. So, here's the list..
February contained
Janet Kagan's novel Mirabile, her short stories "Standing in the Spirit" and "Fermat's Best Theorem".
A collection of short stories edited by Celia Tan called Sextopia.
Something I'm not sure what to call titled Don't Make Art, Just Make Something by Miranda Aisling.
Seanan McGuire's Indexed,and I managed to snag a hardcopy of her limited edition, published under Mira Grant, book Rolling in the Deep.
The unremarkable Splintered by AG Howard about a mashup of a teen romance, fairies and Alice in Wonderland. Great concept, not-so-great writing or pacing.
The delightful Blythewood by Carol Goodman. I'm such a sucker for school-fic, and this one started set in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, so I couldn't help but be doubly charmed. (not that the tragedy is charming, but the Judy Grahn poem has always stuck with me.)
The first trade paperback of Bitch Planet, which I've been reading by the issue, but all together was even better, though I missed the essays.
And the devastating, too-close-to-the-bone Cambridge by Susanne Kaysen. There's a bit where she recognizes she'll always be the outsider in her family, and so she decides to be the outsidest outsider she possibly can be, and it felt like a body blow to read.
March contained
Mostly Mira Grant. I re-read Feed, Deadline and Blackout. I finished the Parasitology trilogy by finally reading Chimera. I stocked up on all the novellas and read "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box", "Countdown", "San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats", How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea", "The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell" and "Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus".
Also, Seanan McGuire's short "Daughter of the midway the mermaid and open, lonely sea" and Mary Robinette Kowal's "Forest of Memory."
On the nonfiction front, I read "happiest toddler on the block" which had the central metaphor that caregivers should consider themselvesds ambassadors between toddlers and the adult world, and as such learn to speak toddler, and be able to translate concepts into toddler-ese. It also had the interesting suggestion they called "the fast food rule" which instead of being about bad eating habits, was about repeating what you heard back to the toddler, which meshes well with Tank's parents practice of telling tank when he's upset "You're mad, you're mad, you're mad. you want the phone and kim won't let you have it". Which seems so breathtaking a concept, to have your feelings explained, and understood even at that level.
On the trashy side, I read a Mercedes Lackey Novel called Legacies about yet another magical school, but this might be an evil school that is tithing the occasional student to hell. Or something. Also H2O by Virginia Bergin, about a world in which a meteor has brought some alien microbes to Earth, and they multiply in the rain and live in the water and are wildly lethal. The protagonist is kind of obnoxious, and the premise seems to have some holes in it, about water vapor and such.
In the middle of the range of what I read was Planetfall by Emma Newman. I picked it up because I was intrigued by the premise of a colony on an alien planet primary providing its material needs through 3D printers. It contained what felt like an excellent description of a hoarder (in the sense it was anxiety-inducing to read) and introduced the idea of a hoarder affecting a community by keeping valuable resources out of the waste-stream that the 3D printers got their materials from. But it ended abruptly and with some sort of ascension solving all the problems.
On the holy-crap-was-that-amazing was Uprooted by Naomi Novik . If you haven't read it, go read it. Right now. and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, same deal. Her protagonist Cath was so sympathetic as to also be heartwrenching. To prove it, I will leave you with these two quotes.
" And I’m crazy. Like maybe you think I’m a little crazy, but I only ever let people see the tip of my crazy iceberg. Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept, I’m a complete disaster.”
"“I don’t trust anybody. Not anybody. And the more that I care about someone, the more sure I am they’re going to get tired of me and take off.” "
One is about my social life, how it feels lovely and full and like there's something I'm missing, some clue to adulthood, some backstage pass into a group where everyone knows everyone and they're all invited to each other's shindigs (yeah, I said it, shindigs) and hang out together on the internet, and...I don't even know what it is these mythical people do, I just know I'm not doing it.
I don't think I want more or different people in my life, I'm amazed by my partners,I love my friends, there are already people I miss that I have no idea how to reach back out to. (I get so trapped in the spiral of not responding immediately, which makes me embarrassed, which makes me less likely to respond, until I've worked myself up into a frenzy of never talking to anyone). So I'm not sure what's going on there, just little pangs, like hiccups, when certain things are mentioned, where I read certain bits of social media.
The second is about all the books and novellas I'veread. I didn't post in February, and in March I just decided to flip out and read as many re-reads and novellas as I wanted. So, here's the list..
February contained
Janet Kagan's novel Mirabile, her short stories "Standing in the Spirit" and "Fermat's Best Theorem".
A collection of short stories edited by Celia Tan called Sextopia.
Something I'm not sure what to call titled Don't Make Art, Just Make Something by Miranda Aisling.
Seanan McGuire's Indexed,and I managed to snag a hardcopy of her limited edition, published under Mira Grant, book Rolling in the Deep.
The unremarkable Splintered by AG Howard about a mashup of a teen romance, fairies and Alice in Wonderland. Great concept, not-so-great writing or pacing.
The delightful Blythewood by Carol Goodman. I'm such a sucker for school-fic, and this one started set in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, so I couldn't help but be doubly charmed. (not that the tragedy is charming, but the Judy Grahn poem has always stuck with me.)
The first trade paperback of Bitch Planet, which I've been reading by the issue, but all together was even better, though I missed the essays.
And the devastating, too-close-to-the-bone Cambridge by Susanne Kaysen. There's a bit where she recognizes she'll always be the outsider in her family, and so she decides to be the outsidest outsider she possibly can be, and it felt like a body blow to read.
March contained
Mostly Mira Grant. I re-read Feed, Deadline and Blackout. I finished the Parasitology trilogy by finally reading Chimera. I stocked up on all the novellas and read "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box", "Countdown", "San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats", How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea", "The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell" and "Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus".
Also, Seanan McGuire's short "Daughter of the midway the mermaid and open, lonely sea" and Mary Robinette Kowal's "Forest of Memory."
On the nonfiction front, I read "happiest toddler on the block" which had the central metaphor that caregivers should consider themselvesds ambassadors between toddlers and the adult world, and as such learn to speak toddler, and be able to translate concepts into toddler-ese. It also had the interesting suggestion they called "the fast food rule" which instead of being about bad eating habits, was about repeating what you heard back to the toddler, which meshes well with Tank's parents practice of telling tank when he's upset "You're mad, you're mad, you're mad. you want the phone and kim won't let you have it". Which seems so breathtaking a concept, to have your feelings explained, and understood even at that level.
On the trashy side, I read a Mercedes Lackey Novel called Legacies about yet another magical school, but this might be an evil school that is tithing the occasional student to hell. Or something. Also H2O by Virginia Bergin, about a world in which a meteor has brought some alien microbes to Earth, and they multiply in the rain and live in the water and are wildly lethal. The protagonist is kind of obnoxious, and the premise seems to have some holes in it, about water vapor and such.
In the middle of the range of what I read was Planetfall by Emma Newman. I picked it up because I was intrigued by the premise of a colony on an alien planet primary providing its material needs through 3D printers. It contained what felt like an excellent description of a hoarder (in the sense it was anxiety-inducing to read) and introduced the idea of a hoarder affecting a community by keeping valuable resources out of the waste-stream that the 3D printers got their materials from. But it ended abruptly and with some sort of ascension solving all the problems.
On the holy-crap-was-that-amazing was Uprooted by Naomi Novik . If you haven't read it, go read it. Right now. and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, same deal. Her protagonist Cath was so sympathetic as to also be heartwrenching. To prove it, I will leave you with these two quotes.
" And I’m crazy. Like maybe you think I’m a little crazy, but I only ever let people see the tip of my crazy iceberg. Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept, I’m a complete disaster.”
"“I don’t trust anybody. Not anybody. And the more that I care about someone, the more sure I am they’re going to get tired of me and take off.” "
