Words are inadequate

ETA: forgot I'd seen this awhile ago. Fucking terrible moving company sues for nonpayment, is forced to pay instead. Reminder that 2 Burley Men Moving, based out of Victoria, are absolute shit: no communication, major delays, and broken stuff. Avoid at all costs.

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In A Succession Of Bad Days there's a bit where the sorcery students work with a fire elemental to design and build a house. The elemental does most of the design work. Including the basement, with a hat-tip to Mr Penrose:

The walls are, floor to ceiling, tiled black and white, black shapes like a flat cruciform kite and white shapes like an extremely stylized swallow or falcon or something, nothing to it but pointy wings. ... Kynefrid sounds shockey. "I don't think the tiling pattern ever repeats."

Naturally someone has actually done this, thirty years ago. It looks amazing and I want it. I also enjoy the circa-2000 webpage design. Sad that all the "here's some more examples" links are broken, though. All things come in time to die.

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I went to renew my US passport online last night (it's not up until late '26 but may as well). There's a form you fill out that will pre-fill a PDF form for you, and then you just print out the PDF form and mail everything off. It's pretty great.

It also includes the option for an X gender marker, which was mildly startling. More startling was that you can just select that, or for that matter M or F: no need to provide additional documentation or anything. I poked around a bit more and found the announcement from Sec'y Blinken, from spring 2022. It's... it's exactly what I would want it to be. "We're doing this; we talked to a bunch of people about the best way to do it, and figured that making it as easy as possible was the right call." It made me sniffly, both for its existence as the obviously, simply, right thing, and for the certainty that it'll be torched within six months.

I'm getting one, partly because it feels right and partly because if I draw flak that would otherwise have gone at someone more vulnerable that's all to the good. I considered not: it's got a nonzero, if low, chance of making my life worse. But: fuck preemptive compliance. Also fuck gender data. (Also fuck gender, honestly.)

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I went to see Steph, the day after Halloween. I saw a giant outdoor puppet show and talked a little about Abby. I made pancakes, which an extremely picky small child declared to be the best pancakes. I bought spices and washed a lot of dishes and was generally quietly domestic in loving company for a few days.

I came home Wednesday afternoon, so I did at least get to spend the initial Wednesday-morning shock with someone else.

Had a couple days to re-center now. I'm not angry and confused, like I was in 2004. I'm not hurt and incandescent, like I was in 2016. I'm just sad. Sic transit gloria mundi. Everything dies, and everything flies economy.

Though I did discover Mycopunk Principles (from Mastodon, I think via Charlie Stross), which I appreciate.

Onward, always onward.

Just got done writing a program in Java that encodes a text file using 'run-length encoding'. Simple but kinda interesting. Marred by the assignment's insistence on COMMENTING EVERY LINE (heck with you then, you're getting comments on my open and close braces) and on the class's non-ChatGPT policy: "If you choose not to utilize generative AI tools to assist in completing this assignment, provide a separate reference document indicating this. Also, provide a list of the resources (course materials and/or external) that you did use and how they were used." I USED THE PDFS YOU PROVIDED BECAUSE THAT'S WHY YOU PROVIDED THEM.

Rob's two classes last term annoyed me. Comp in particular felt like he'd done a half-assed job of slapping something together from previous notes and just kind of left it. This (non-Rob) class is making me actively angry. Between the 'generative AI' stuff and the fact that there are only four lectures in a twelve-week course (one week each for midterm and final, which, fine, and the rest are for "group work") I am unclear why I have paid money for this. Apart from credentialism, yes yes.

Spoke with the ADHDoc today. She re-upped the Concerta and we'll talk again in three weeks, which should be plenty of time to decide if I want to up my dosage.

And also books.

What are you reading now?

Beasts of Ruin by Ayana Gray. Pan-African-inspired YA fantasy, sequel to Beasts of Prey. Good worldbuilding and atmosphere, decent characters and plot, okay writing. I'll read the third when it's available but I'm in no particular rush.

Also one chapter left in Polywise, which is unsurprisingly quite good if not as revolutionary as Polysecure.

What did you just finish reading?

Mm. System Collapse, the latest Murderbot. It reads like a coda / second-half for Network Effect. Suspect I will consider those two as a unit, in the same way I consider the first four novellas a unit. Annoyingly this means that I will now be reading Fugitive Telemetry in chron order (before Network Effect) rather than pub order (between NE and SC). Pro: going straight into SC from NE means all of NE is fresh in one's mind, which is helpful since SC really does read like a second half of NE. Con: the ending of both Exit Strategy and FT feature fights with nonsympathetic bots, which feels less repetitive when there's NE to break it up. Oh well.

Murderbot is coming to terms with its massive untreated trauma. I think I liked SC not quite as much as NE but NE was so very good that that's a high bar. Also, with Murderbot hacking governor modules / teaching other SecUnits how to hack them, it feels like we're moving towards some kind of world-shaking tipping point. Very curious to see where things go from here.

Before that, Scholomance 2 and 3. I continue to love these, between El's voice and the way the books make their commentary on modern (western?) crab-bucket society ever more overt. ("Oh, it's Omelas," I said when I got to a certain point in the third book, and then a chapter or two later IT LITERALLY WAS OMELAS.) The third, which takes place out in the Real World and away from the Scholomance, is ... certainly different, and maybe feels overcrowded? Suffering from the corresponding lack of tight focus? I dunno. I'm vaguely unsatisfied by it and I'm not sure why. Will need to reread at some point and see what I think.

What do you think you'll read next?

Nth reread of The March North, because I'm traveling north myself next week and want ebooks, and because it's been too long, and because Rachel Manija Brown wrote a great review of A Succession of Bad Days. "In a world rendered post-apocalyptic by thousands of years worth of warring Dark Lords, a group of adult students attend magic school to learn how to do civil engineering with magic. ... It's the sort of book bound to attract a following whose numbers are inversely proportional to their enthusiasm."

After that, if I don't just keep rolling on the Commonweal, likely either Discworld (Men At Arms) or Craft (Full Fathom Five). Probably not an immediate reread of Scholomance but no promises.

What are you reading?

I am at the very end of a first read of Under One Banner (Commonweal 4). I didn't care much for the first half, aka "Eugenia documents artillery process," but the second half, once they set out for the Eastern Waste to test said artillery, drew me in pretty solidly. The arrival of the Independent Crow is some of my favourite writing anywhere, I think.

What did you just finish reading?

Second and first reread of Commonweal 2 & 3, which I enjoyed substantially more than previous. I'm noticing, and appreciating, how much more I like these books every time I reread them. I finally got around to joining the Commonweal googlegroup (replacement for the G+ community that vanished with G+); somewhere in there Graydon mentions that there will probably be eight Commonweal books, of which two more may be of the "doorstopper" variety. Works for me.

In between I read Sarah Gailey's Magic For Liars, which can be summed up as "Raymond Chandler versus Harry Potter," and which I liked less than I had expected. In particular, I felt like the school was far too small. The only students one meets, even in passing, are the five who become relevant to the murder; ditto staff and faculty, with the (amusing! but slight) exception of the Dude In Your MFA teacher. And the "just happened to look under the right locker to find the notes" plotpoint irritated me. But: the characters and arcs are fantastic, particularly Ivy the nonmagical detective's development and growth and presentation; and I like Gailey's prose. I suspect I'd like this more on a reread.

I also read Nicole Kornher-Stace's Archivist Wasp, which I also liked less than I would have expected. It reads very like an RPG that I might have run: here's a fantasy world with intriguing aspects, here are some characters trying to figure out its rules, bits of it feel exceedingly dreamlike. Apparently this works better for me when I'm on the other side of it. (I had a similar experience with Vallista at the end of the Great Big Dragaera Reread a couple of years ago.) Curious as to how it might hold up to a reread in a year or three, because it's certainly not /bad/; I just didn't respond well to it.

It may be that interleaving other books with Commonweal means that those other books get unfairly clobbered in comparison.

What do you think you'll read next?

Likely going to dive straght into A Mist Of Grit And Splinters (Commonweal 5), to reduce the bad taste in my mouth that other books seem to be giving me.

We've unevacuated. The fire's listed as "contained," which I think means "it's probably not going to break through, unless something really unexpected happens." The evacuation order/alert was lifted on Sunday as Erin & Josh were rolling out from Williams Lake, and the house is getting back into shape.

Relatedly, it's autumn up here. There was fog a few mornings ago, and temps in the lower teens. I miss fall. It won't last long, I expect; the garden's already getting frost at night. Still.

Relatedly, plans for the Great October Nonworkening are afoot. So far all I know for certain is that it starts with Scintillation (successor to Farthing Party) in Montreal over Canucksgiving. Possibilities include MD Renfest, gaming in Arlington with John Kerr et al, and a trip to Blacksburg. (Now if the IRS would just give me my %&$ tax refund so I could start making solid plans...)

I have made pancakes, on a dry castiron griddle even, and they turned out well. (Previous experiments in making pancakes on castiron have tended to involve A Lot Of Oil, because that provides the texture Erin prefers and because when I'm at home I tend to use my nonstickish aluminum griddle.) This, coupled with yesterday's almost wholly satisfactory experiment in grilling cheeses, is likely to result in the elimination of the nonstickish aluminum griddle from my kitchen stock. I'm okay with this; it's had enough sticky burnt onto it that it's a pain to clean.

I did not in fact lose a friend last week.

Poking around looking for covers of Nick Cave's "The Ship Song" other than Concrete Blonde's, whose version I consider definitive solely by virtue of being the first one I heard, and I came up with the Sydney Opera House version. Moving and impressive.

Next Tuesday I will know whether Apple will deign to release another phone with Objectively Correct proportions (the iPhone 5/SE form factor; I explicitly Do Not Want a phone that is difficult to manipulate with only one hand, plus I like my headphone jack), and will be able to take steps to replace my dropped-too-often phone that currently has difficulty with things like "being a phone."

I have Commonweal 4 (Under One Banner) awaiting me on my phone; I have Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire with me here; at home I have the next volumes of Walter Jon Williams's space opera awaiting me. Not to mention books by Kat Howard, Claire Humphrey, and Fonda Lee. I'm continually committing Schopenhauer's error of mistaking the acquisition of books for the time in which to read them, but then I've been doing that for years and years now. It's just gotten worse in the last N.

I have a remarkable number of folks who love me and care about my wellbeing. I am not entirely certain what to do with this information, as "believe it entirely" is somewhat difficult.

Finished my third read of The March North last night.

... I am just about certain that the last chapter contains a passing reference to the old joke about the guy who buys a bunch of roses, eats the petals one by one, and throws away the stems.

*narrows eyes*

This year we're not really celebrating Canucksgiving. We had a quietish weekend at home, since uilos did *not* fly out to the southern tip of the Outer Banks in a hurricane. I am, however, drinking an Orange Julius in YVR and waiting to board a plane to SFO, and thence to DC for a little over twenty-four hours and then to Martha's Vineyard for the VP reunion.

It's a bit sad to miss out on an opportunity to gorge on good foods in good company, though. uilos is already talking about cooking a turkey for Yanksgiving next month. I am not objecting to this plan in the slightest.

The lack of a big celebratory feast makes the holiday feel smaller, more compact, more personal. I'm okay with that. The couple of things I'm most thankful for are pretty personal too.

There's uilos, obviously. I can say "Graydon has spoiled you for epic fantasy, hasn't he?" and she nods sorrowfully and then we spend the next five minutes talking about whether The March North ought to be labeled Book 0 Of The Commonweal. Such people are to be treasured, and you can't have this one because I found her first. (I mean, unless she decides she wants to.) Also, it is now and not seven years ago, and Now Is Not Then (something that perhaps she realised before I did), and while I wasn't looking we seem to have built ourselves a solid foundation for the next while.

"Only another fifty years,"
I say, "and then I promise
to let you go."
--Elise Matthessen, "Response ..."

And if Thanksgiving came in mid-September instead of mid-October, there it would have stayed, with probably some added grumbling about things that aren't as bad as I complain about them to be. Instead I get green-haired Erin, and what seems so far to be exactly the right relationship at exactly the right time. Erin, who patiently wormed her way past my defences, who thrives on touch as much as I do, who has become a Significant Presence in my life far faster than I would have ever expected. I am deeply curious to see the shape that this takes as it continues to develop; meanwhile, I'm thankful that someone who meshes so well with my quirks has dropped out of the north and into my life.

(I am not nearly prepared to quote poetry about Erin. I am barely ready to quote poetry to her.)

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

My laptop hath arrived. Initial impressions: thinner and glossier and about the same weight as Taranis. The Power key is a stupid idea. I miss having both USB ports on the same side: makes it a little harder to charge two things at once. The very very clever battery-power-lights on the side of the case seem to have been dispensed with, which makes me sad. Overall I see nothing to challenge my belief that laptop case design reached its pinnacle with Taranis and it will all be downhill from here.

I haven't done much with it: installed a few programs, made some configuration changes. So I haven't really noticed that it's much faster, or anything like that. The retina display *is* nice: everything just feels a bit crisper, brighter, more solid.

I expect I'll take Taranis with me next week, and then come back and offload all my documents onto the new currently-nameless machine.

What are you currently reading?

John Morressy's Kedrigern and the Charming Couple, book 4 in a series of five slim light fantasy paperbacks from the late eighties. I read the third (Kedrigern in Wanderland) several times in high school / early college and have been carting around the set of five for years; don't know if I ever actually read them or not. I don't think I did. They're utter fluff with occasional bright spots ("Ah yes, the hermit Goode, who lives in the wood that slopes down to the sea") and more than occasional visits from the sexism fairy. Doubt I'll be keeping them.

What did you just finish reading?

Kedrigern 1-3. I don't want to get started on anything serious; I'd rather not carry any physical books with me to Niagara this weekend.

Before that, Philip Knightley's biography of Kim Philby, followed by a reread of Tim Powers's Declare because of course. Knightley paints Philby in a positive light: not sympathetic but definitely admiring, and very critical of the British intelligence service as an old-boys' club and nothing more than a grand old adventure, a Great Game if you will. I came out of it vaguely dissatisfied. It felt too hagiographic to be trusted, I think.

Declare is of course fantastic, although I was less taken by it this time round as well. Powers wrote an excellent secondary female character in Elena and then reduced her to a prize to be won. The interleaving of the timelines worked well, I thought; it's just the wrap-up that felt wanting.

What do you think you'll read next?

Kedrigern 5 if I get to it before I leave on Friday night. Otherwise, since Graydon Saunders's third Commonweal book is out, probably a reread of The March North and then reading A Succession of Bad Days and Safely You Deliver. I've got the third of Kameron Hurley's Bel Dame Trilogy waiting for me, too.