spit out the scorpions
Hey, it’s sure been a couple of weeks, yeah? Feels like no time and all of the time has passed since the last time I sat down to write one of these.
The thermostat in my shop has been broken for over a year now. It’s a touchscreen, and the corner of the screen where you toggle between heat and air conditioning has been mostly dead for months. It’s made for some very, very uncomfortable days, in an old, too-humid building. I’ve reported the problem to the building maintenance dudes over and over, and have basically been told that I’m lying.
This week, it finally got cold enough that I tried to switch the heat on, and instead managed to get it stuck on “emergency.” Emergency heat, as it turns out, is the most expensive kind of heat. Maintenance dude rushed to fix it, only to discover, shockingly, that the goddamn thermostat is actually broken after all! So we’re getting a new one, finally. I had accidentally engineered the one situation that they could not ignore.
Maybe I’m desperate to find meaning in a cruel world, but I’m taking a lesson from this. I have deliberately stayed out of politics for most of my life. I grew up in the shadow of Washington, DC and find conflict in general excruciating, so political discourse and I have never gotten along. But I’m learning to swallow my privilege, put my ear to the ground, and speak up. If you’re American and also want to make things uncomfortable for the people in power, I find that this doc is a good place to start.
Notable Breakfast
Dog Thing
Mixed Media
I am a contrary person. I don’t like feeling pressured to read or watch something, so I dig in my heels and resist. This has historically been even worse when I’m working at a bookstore and a book explodes. I have never read a single Oprah book club book. Or Twilight, or 50 Shades, or Eat, Pray, Love. I was working at 2 bookstores when Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books were coming out, and I could tell I’d probably dig them, but still would not pick them up. That changed a few years later, when I was very poor, living in an isolated mountain town in West Virginia, and–whadaya know–the library had the Percy Jackson books.
I ripped through them.
Percy Jackson is a demi-god, son of Poseidon. He and his demi-god compatriots go on quests, deal with foes both modern and ancient, and, of course, repeatedly save the world. Following the Percy Jackson series is one called Heroes of Olympus, and more recently Riordan has begun a spin-off series about Norse gods, plus an additional series about the god Apollo. He’s a prolific dude, and I devour these books like candy.
The writing is clever and well-researched, the books have an excellent sense of place, and they’re punny but not in an off-putting way if you hate puns (I do). Most importantly, for me, they are incredibly diverse. Riordan is coming from an extremely privileged position: his books are huge, his publisher is Disney, they’ve made movies from his stories, and every single one of his new books is sold in Costco, Walmart, Target–you name it. And he’s using that privilege for good.
The demi-god kids come from a whole host of backgrounds, they fall in love (and not all of them are straight), and in the Norse gods books, there’s a non-binary character and a Valkyrie who is Muslim and wears the hijab. It’s subversive as hell for children’s books and I love it. This week, immersing myself in them sustained me.
The movies are....less good. But they’re fun.
I caught up on Pitch! I’m really enjoying it.
After months of book drought, my reading brain came roaring back to me. In addition to the Rick Riordan books on the top of my pile, The Hammer of Thor and The Hidden Oracle, I finally got around to a book I’d picked up on a whim on vacation: The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. I loved it, and it turned out to be the first in a series about a library that exists outside of space & time, so I bought and read the 2nd book, The Masked City. The next book comes out in January, and I can’t see myself getting tired of the world anytime soon. I also finally, finally, after years of the movie being my favourite thing, read Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle. It will probably not shock you to learn that it’s excellent.
The tracks from the Hamilton Mixtape are slowly trickling out. My current fave is Sia’s “Satisfied,” featuring Miguel and Queen Latifah. I’ve been listening a lot to this album of Joe Hisaishi’s music for Miyazaki films.
I saw Arrival, which I loved. Beautiful, beautiful movie. Rewatched Book of Life, which I still love, and Howl’s Moving Castle, again. (Twice. In one day. Look, we all cope differently.)
Anxiety Pyjamas
Fics I Shouted About
first love, late spring by lehtonen Check Please!, Ransom/Holster, AU. Shitty asks Ranson and Holster to pretend to be in a relationship so he can observe how the team reacts to it. He doesn’t take into account how Ransom and Holster will react to it.
Heart’s Desire by Dira Sudis Teen Wold, Sterek, AU. An old favourite. Stiles and Derek completely fail at having a casual relationship.
These are the practice oaths by lowriseflare & threeguesses Pitch, Mike/Ginny. Mike’s the one who can’t control his feelings, and soon it’s on the front page of every sports section.
all we have to do by aknightly Voltron, Lance/Keith. Keith gets hurt, it’s Lance’s fault, and he completely does not know how to deal with it. Love sad boys sitting dejectedly on the floor outside of medbays.
French Girls by sunsmasher Ace Attorney, Miles/Phoenix, future AU. Miles finds Phoenix’s sketchbook, and frankly it’s ridiculous that it took him as long as it did.
weedhorse69 by unpretty DCU, gen. A textpost on tumblr musing on what would happen if Clack Kent took costume inspiration from porny fanart and the artist recognized it spawned this incredible chatlog between Jimmy Olson and his boyfriend. This had me in tears.
Lastly
There is a museum in Japan devoted to rocks that look like they have faces and I want to visit it immediately.
Here is a polar bear petting a dog.
Subject line is from this poem by Saladin Ahmed.
anyways I love you, be safe!
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