08/29/21: Library Cards are Cool
TLDR
Update: New semester, job interview, back to virtual gaming
E/C/B: Looking for new menu items
Listening: Throughline about Octavia Butler
End Notes: You can contact me at jadettman@gmail.com
THE UPDATE
I interviewed for a job this week but I don’t think it’s a good fit. It’s 40 hours a week and the pay is low but, financially, we’re doing okay so I’m not feeling a strong urge to start a new job that doesn’t entice me. Which is weird and tough because I’ve been working since I was 11 and it feels odd not to be. But also I have had few jobs that I’ve actually liked. Owning a gaming store was nice but it wasn’t busy enough to really pay the bills (and would have crashed hard had we not had a sweetheart deal for space in a bookstore) and I enjoyed many aspects of being an optician but that work is different here (and I don’t know if I really want to go back to it after 15 years away).
Classes started for Britt this week, which means that the house is even quieter than usual. The cats are mostly napping, I don’t know how they feel about it.
On the gaming front, we decided to go back to playing online with our Friday roleplaying group. It’s a tough choice. I would really prefer to game in person but I also don’t want to put my friends in danger. We’re all vaccinated but we also all go out in the world and deal with folks who’s jab status is unknown.
EATING / COOKING / BAKING
Where does one go looking for new recipes? (Internet obvs) Should I be looking for recipes for things that I enjoy when we go out to eat, like masaman curry or drunken noodles?
I feel like I’m never going to make it as good as I can get out but out is looking tough right now.
Generally, I feel like I’m good at making three things: chili, pasta, and pizza. Doesn’t seem like the best foundation for a diet.
LISTENING
This week’s Throughline podcast had an episode on the awesome SF author Octavia Butler. Her books have been having a bit of a moment lately, mostly because Parable of the Sower, written in 1993, got a lot of things right about our present moment and our last presidency. The word ‘prophetic’ has been used a lot but, really, she was writing about what she saw with the rise of Reagan.
I think the first book by Octavia Butler was probably Xenogenesis when I was around 12; too young to really appreciate how just how different what she was writing was from other SF of the time. The benefits of the Science Fiction Book Club, I suppose. At this point, I’ve read all but one of her novels multiple times and they are worth your time.
Anyway, this week’s Throughline is also worth listening to, if for no other reason than the delight of listening to Nnedi Okorafor tell her story of encountering Wildseed for the first time in a bookstore.
Octavia Butler: Visionary Fiction (2021) : Throughline : NPR
Octavia Butler's alternate realities and 'speculative fiction' reveal striking, and often devastating parallels to the world we live in today. She was a deep observer of the human condition, perplexed and inspired by our propensity towards self-destruction. Butler was also fascinated by the cyclical nature of history, and often looked to the past when writing about the future. Along with her warning is her message of hope - a hope conjured by centuries of survival and persistence. For every society that perishes in her books comes a story of rebuilding, of repair.
END NOTES
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