"Bad Books" at Round House Theatre

Content warning: brief gun usage, off stage death of a child, off stage injury, reference to abortion.

"Bad Books" is a timely play about a mom who comes to visit the librarian about a book that she recommended to the mom's teen son. 

The play is done in the round, with the stage slowly rotating. The set had books around the edges of the stage, and in a circular overhang. All of those books have been banned or challenged. 

The book the mom objects to is fictitious, but the title and cover, since the mom admits she didn't finish reading it are - juicy - enough to make it clear why a parent might have concerns. 

The show is done without intermission, and has several book references, including "Charlotte's Web". Hilariously a spider dangled from the ceiling in front of my and my friend's seat during part of the show. 

The show is done with two actresses, one who plays the Mother throughout, and one who plays the librarian, the boss, and a fellow parent. 

Some of the big things happen off stage, the mob spear headed by other concerned parents whipped up by the mom's social media posts, attacks the library, but much of that is recapped later. I still teared up at one point, but it does rely on the audience's investment in the two performances to get to where they've gotten emotionally. 

It's easy to nitpick, but as someone who has librarian friends, I thought there wasn't enough mention of the schooling and training that librarians go through. Though in my possibly biased opinion the librarian does prove her bona fides in other ways. 

I've talked before about conversation plays, plays designed to provoke conversation after, and I think this show has a very clear conclusion it isn't afraid to make. But it might also spark some great conversation in the ways any great story would. 

Three Interesting Things

1. I happened upon this fascinating look into the woman who invented at home pregnancy tests.

2. The UK cartoonist who was placed in an ICE prison has given an interview about the process. 

3. James Roday gave a wonderful account of how Val Kilmer's character Chris Knight inspired his portrayal of Shawn Spencer.

Orientation

I went to university in Scotland, and at the time they did an overseas student orientation. I mention this for two reasons. One, foreign students in the US right now are being treated badly. For me, as a DC resident, with no state school option, going to the UK was actually one of my cheaper options. (DC residents have a few more options these days.) 

One thing that's worth noting is that foreign students pay not only full tuition, the foreign student rate is between two and three times the regular student rate. (For those of you wondering how that was cheaper for me, well, the UK student rates have gone up a bit post Brexit, but also, have you seen US tuition rates?) 

So universities often rely on some foreign students, both for diversity of thought, and also the higher rate they pay. 

But one of the targets of this anti-diversity pro-segregation movement is orientations that single people out based on who they are. 

So, in my orientation, I met other new students, including one who turned out to be from near me. I got a tour of the town, got some info on some of the students' traditions, and got to hang out and eat some food. 

I got kicked out bright and early on dorm move in day, so ended up hanging out with the RAs as they checked everyone in because what else was I going to do. Which means I met most people in my dorm as they rolled in.  

So when my roommate, who had grown up just an hour away arrived, who had several classmates she'd gone to high school with at the university and in the dorm arrived, I was already there. She later told me it seemed like I already knew so many people and so much stuff. 

Did those two days give me a huge advantage? Not really. My roommate learned her way around pretty quickly. And we all found our people for the most part. The friends from university that I still keep in touch with are all Scottish. 

But, those days helped me settle. Gave me some faces that when I ran into them later I could say hi, and chat. Two of the Americans I started with the same year ended up leaving. One of them skipped orientation and ended up leaving because he was lonely and didn't feel like he fit in. One hit some academic snags. 

The orientation wasn't the whole reason I succeeded. But it helped give me a start. Helping people find others who have similar backgrounds isn't just so they can only hang out with those people. But goodness, some days after you've been told the third patently untrue thing about the States, knowing where to find someone who will roll their eyes on your behalf is useful. 

The idea of the melting pot assumes that everyone wants to end up tasting like everyone else. (Okay, that metaphor got a little weird, but work with me here.) Sometimes people are somewhere, a job, a university, to do their thing the best that they can, emphasis on their thing. They can learn without melding or changing into some other thing. So finding places they can find others who appreciate some culturally specific things helps them succeed. And helps the institution hang on to the knowledge, and let's face it the money, it needs to keep going. 

The Labeling of Things

One of my favorite things about people is the way we feel personally victimized by the weather. (Why yes, there is rain in today's forecast.) Humans have created years, and then subdivided years into quarters, and assigned each quarter a season. Are there any studies that say that seasons last three months in every single part of the globe, or even any? Not that I'm aware of. But once we assigned these things, we then are consistently affronted when the weather does not cooperate. We track highs and lows. Create charts and data visualizations, and judge whether the weather has fallen into our expectations. 

It is spring where I am. We have had warm days and cool days. The cool day that follows a warm day always feels so much cooler. On one such day a gentleman on a street corner yelled, "The weatherman lied," at the sky. 

Everyone seems sure the weather where they live is more unpredictable, more changeable than the weather everywhere else. Climate change has, of course, affected when and how weather changes. 

But given there's a Mark Twain quote about weather changing unpredictably, it seems weather has been befuddling us all for at least a century or two.  

Hope the weather is within expectations for you today. 

What game are you playing?

There is a family story that goes along with today's but of overthinking about the phrase playing chess not checkers. 

Many summers we would go visit my grandparents in southeastern Connecticut. That stretch of Connecticut required fancy antennas and/or cable to get more than two TV stations unless the wind was blowing a certain way. One of the two channels that came in pretty well was PBS, which meant my grandparents were happy enough since they could watch their nightly news show. 

For us children used to a larger diet of TV, this led to a lot of boredom. So, in an attempt to stave this off, there were a lot of evening games. We played Taboo, gun, gin rummy, double solitaire, crazy eights, and once or twice hearts. (One of my cousin's relatives tried to teach us bridge. I called it reverse hearts and she was not pleased. We did not play enough for me to have retained much.) 

So one night we are playing crazy eights. And my mother lays all her cards down and yells, "Gin!"

We all stared stunned, hoping this was a not very funny joke. And then realizing our mother is basically sleepwalking at this point, so we just kept playing around her. 

So when people say someone is playing chess not checkers, I understand that the point is chess requires generally more long term strategy than checkers. But I also wonder. It hardly matters what chess strategy you are using, if the game you are actually playing is checkers, you are going to lose. 

7 Things I Learned From "Real Genius"

Two notes before we start. One, this was inspired by the news that Val Kilmer passed away this week. His loved ones are in my thoughts. 

Two, "Real Genius", while progressive in some ways, has some problematic sexual consent situations. 

1. Being smart is kind of like power. 

2. Smart does not equal cool. It can.

3. Burnout is bad. Sometimes learning how to have fun and relax is just as important as knowing how to study. 

4. It is not nice to prank your fellow students. But it might be funny. 

5. When people admire your brain, they may only care as long as they can use it for their purposes.

6. Figuring out the utility of the problems you've been asked to solve is important. Because it would suck to discover they had you making part of a weapon. 

7. Breaking into a military site to make a giant popcorn house may not be nice, or wise, but it will be funny. 

Tara Kennedy

Note: If you are reading this outside of your normal work hours, feel free to hold off response until your work hours.  

~To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now. 

"Hadestown", book and lyrics by Anais Mitchell

The End of an Era

I've talked about NaNoWriMo a lot over the years.  The good.  The bad.  And now NaNo has announced that they are shutting down.  I am sad.  I found the ways they chose to address the issues they had more problematic than helpful.  But I want to say something that doesn't just apply to NaNo.  Anything that you learned how to do, with NaNo, you were the one that did the work.  The framework, the doodads, the camaraderie, all of that helps, but you did the work.  We often fail to honor our elders, our teachers, our ancestors in this society.  But I think we also often over attribute some organizations with helping us become something when we did the work.  Now I think my English teachers in the acknowledgements of each of my books even though I wrote those books with my hands, my brain.  I had some great English teachers, truly great.  And well, I had some not so great ones.  I can acknowledge that all of them helped me, but also recognize that they helped me be a thing I was going to be if I put in the work. 

I read a news story about some pro-athletes that are doing a thing that is basically fancy pilates.  It isn't called pilates of course.  Because the people who run the program want to have a different brand, and have their own I'm guessing well trademarked machine.  And it doesn't matter if the bend and stretch program you are in is called yoga, or pilates, or bend and snap, if it works for you, cool.  If it doesn't, also cool.  (And also, I know there are differences between yoga and pilates.  I am not saying there are not.)  But in the end if you move carefully, well, and regularly, you will see changes in your body.  You will develop flexibility or strength or both.  But only if you put in the work.  It doesn't matter how many classes you sign up for if you don't go. 

And yes, I know people who published their NaNo.  I have published some on my NaNos.  I have also not published some of my NaNos. 

So in the end, I am thrilled for all the people that were able to find their writing groove.  Sad for everyone NaNo failed to properly care for.  

And now, I need to get back to my writing. 

Bloom at Your Pace

In DC we have the cherry blossoms and the countdown to peak bloom. One of my coworkers was saying she had never been to see the ones downtown. I have. And it's not that they are old hat now (another saying) or not worth seeing. But there are blooming trees all over the city. I walked over to an event this weekend and passed three different kinds of blooming trees. Some were at peak bloom. Some were already shedding petals. Some were not quite there yet. 

And the thing is, they were all gorgeous.

There's a tendency to assign value to peak bloom when it's a phase of the process. Kind of like full moons. Other moons are not lesser moons. They are just different parts of the process. If you see the trees and there are flowers, then yay. 

Projects, writing or otherwise can be like that to. There are iterative parts. Places we all have to get to or through. But the places we mark along the way are often not random, but no more or less important than the steps before and after them. It's just the part we decided to note. 

And because this time of year I constantly quote Hannah Carmona, let's also reference her note about cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms only bloom once a year. They don't expect more of themselves than this. They plan all their stuff around one bit of blooming and then they cycle into the next phase. 

Your project may not allow for that pace. But if you've been trying to be a rosebush or an azalea, and it isn't working. Maybe you're a cherry blossom. 

Knowing What You Want

Early in my cat life I bought her a catnip carrot. The carrot was fabric, stuffed with stuffing and catnip, with a few green faux feathers acting as the carrot top. It was an immediate hit. Cat people know cat toys are a lot of hit and miss. I brought home other catnip vegetables. They often got sniffed, occasionally even licked, but nothing was as successful as the carrot. 

So I just bought a catnip carrot every month when I stocked up on food. Until one day there was no catnip carrot at the store. I found some online, but they were from a different company. I ordered them anyway, but my cat deemed them uninteresting and ignored them. I set up a basket with all the ignored catnip toys in the hopes that one day one would be found acceptable. 

The catnip carrot came back, but they must have changed something because it no longer sparked joy for my cat. 

Well, yesterday I heard something. And looked over, and my cat had dragged the catnip banana out of the basket and was doing the full wrestle it and bunny kick it thing. (For non cat people basically the cat grips it in their front paws while laying on their side and kicks at the toy with their back paws.) 

So now I guess I need to stock up on some catnip bananas.

Three Interesting Things

1. This man and his wife shared the story of how they discovered the Social Security Administration had decided he was dead, and the process for fixing that.

2. This post about "Love is Blind" is really about how relationships are all about politics. 

3. I have been so excited for "Boop! The Musical" since I saw the very first (and so far main song) made available to press.  Sure sometimes one song is really the highlight of the show, and sometimes you think, if I just get to see this song it's enough.  Anyway, NPR reflects on the first time they met Boop star Jasmine Amy Rogers. 

Things Unseen

I got a new pair of glasses. I guess I should back up. I have had glasses, for quite some time. But initially I only needed them for distance. So things like driving at night, watching sports in a stadium, watching live theater. Which meant some people knew me and hardly ever saw me in glasses. And some people only ever saw me in glasses. It was interesting. 

Anyway, a few years ago an optometrist told me my close up vision had actually gotten better but some people after a certain age found bifocals helpful, so I should consider them. I was confused. If my close up vision was better, why would I need to. So I got another pair of distance glasses and carried them around, using as needed. 

And then about two years ago, I was at a restaurant with a friend and caught myself doing that maneuver I had seen my mom do many times, where you trying to hold the menu closer, then farther, trying to find the right distance. And I thought, okay, yeah, it might be time to consider multi-focal glasses. 

So got an updated prescription, talked the the optometrist about options, texted friends. And I got myself progressive lenses. 

And the first time I wore them, they made me dizzy. It was weird. Things that used to be clear were now fuzzy and some things were clear, but depending on how close they were. I took them right back off. But I experimented with putting them on and immediately leaving the house, and that seemed to work. So I started with that, and now I wear them all the time.

So this new pair I just got is photochromic. And the first day I wore them it was dark in the morning, and so it wasn't until I was headed home I had a chance to show them some sunshine. And I was looking around, and annoyed that they didn't seem to be working. I had been using clip on before. They made a dramatic flip closed when I put them on, and gave great sun protection. I pulled out my phone and doubled checked that I had really ordered the photochromic. I had. 

And then I switched on the phone camera to take a selfie to show the glasses people and noticed that, uh, then lenses were dark. They were working. The shift had been gradual enough that I just hadn't seen it. They were doing the thing, quietly, without fanfare. 

I think sometimes the federal government can be like that. Sure we all complain about potholes. But like monitor and repairing roads is a huge thing, and I am glad that some group is in charge for that. Someone else monitors the signs. Trims the trees that are pressing against power lines. Handles fire engine maintenance. The grants that help fund arts. The library that maintains huge amounts of documents and instruments among other things. Museums. The National Parks. Okay, I don't mean to list everything the government does because we'd be here all day. I read a study once that most people think they use no Federal government programs, and the average person is on seven. We all use roads. I use public transit too. I visit museums and National Parks. I get mail.  I'm sure there's more I'm overlooking. Because a lot of it is just kind of quietly there. So it's not a big deal. 

7 Things: I Belong to You

1. I did not think that setting a story in a National Park was a thing that would turn out to be remotely topical. Wow, this timeline. But I do adore Rock Creek Park, and it has a mill, and well, there are a lot of fairytales about mills as it turns out. 

2. One of the discords I'm in had the idea to each take a Grimm's fairytale and remix it as a romance. I wasn't super familiar with The Nixie and the Mill Pond, but making magical deals, the woman completing challenges to get her beloved back, yeah, I had ideas about that. 

3. I have been trying to write a story about a mo'o for a while. Because I love geckos, and the idea of a water protector with a gecko and a dragon shape. And nixies, as far as I could tell hung out near mills mostly because mills were on the water. So a mo'o nixie combo seemed sensible. 

4. I've been working a lot of museums into my stories, because DC has so many. (I briefly referenced the Zoo in this one.) But DC also has a ton of parks. There's a guy trying to visit all of them. Rock Creek Park is basically next to my back yard. I sometimes forget that it's right there, that I can just wander through it whenever I feel like it .

5. I don't always make playlists for my books, that's just not how my brain works. But nixies are known for their music and well, for reasons, I made the male protagonist a tour manager for his dad's rock band. So there was a lot of music research for this book. 

6. I also got to do a little cavern research for spoilery plot reasons. There are so many caves, caverns, and other underground spaces around here. Nature is amazing. 

7: I Belong to You - A Fairytale Remix

Makena meets Leif at an open mic night. They hit it off and she feels comfortable sharing about her mo'o and nixie abilities - her attachments to Rock Creek, where she has taken on water protection duties. Leif never stays in one place too long, travelling most of the year as tour manager for his dad's rock band. But for once he's considering what he might be leaving behind. But his parents are concerned once they learn he's been hanging out by the old mill. There may be a bargain left undone, and Makena and Leif together may have reminded the gods to finish things. Links to buy here: https://books2read.com/u/4XkO19

A Mill Story

I'll talk more about this on release day, but this is Peirce Mill. (Spelling intentional.) Growing up in this area, I had gone by this structure and wondered what it was. I knew there were mills. After all we've got a road named Viers Mill, there's Kemp Mill, there clearly were mills. There's an old saying that gets attributed to various people that when you are ready to learn, a teacher appears. Because often it's easy to be like sure, something mill road. Or sure, there's a historical sign that there used to be a mill here.

This mill is in Rock Creek Park. It's near a stretch where the water is deeper, and a little more serious seeming than some stretches that seem more suited to dunking your toes in. The National Park Service, along with the Friends of Peirce Mill, have kept the mill alive and in tact. It's set up for students to come visit. 

Why my sudden interest in mills? Well, some folks and I had talked about writing some fairytale retellings and one of them involves a mill. Of course magical creatures can adapt to a mill free life, I'm sure plenty have. But it turned out, we do have a mill here in DC. I didn't have to plant or revive one, it already was. 

In this time when some people think we don't need to keep parks, or historical sites alive, it was a great reminder why these things are useful. Why letting school kids and adults walk through and look at something, and think about the older ways of flour and other milling. 

It can be easy as a modern person to wonder why there are so many fairytales about mills. But of course just about every town would have had one. And pounding wheat into flour. There are mills and bakers because those people did their own kind of magic. Transforming plants into food.

Tara Kennedy

Note: If you are reading this outside of your normal work hours, feel free to hold off response until your work hours.  

~To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now. 

"Hadestown", book and lyrics by Anais Mitchell

Three Interesting Things

1. This piece is fascinating if horrifying on the human testing that led to retinol.

2. When I created a DC based accessories queen for Bored by the Billionaire, I actually didn't have a DC based inspiration for her.  Yes, there are people in DC who make very cool accessories, including shoes and purses.  But this person is aiming to make a little bit of an empire.

3. This post from a few weeks ago asked what are you hopeful for, and I really needed to read it. 

Tara Kennedy

Note: If you are reading this outside of your normal work hours, feel free to hold off response until your work hours.  

~To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now. 

"Hadestown", book and lyrics by Anais Mitchell

The Happily Ever After

You will sometimes hear people say the happily ever after or HEA is all romance really requires, as if that's easy. 

This weekend they had the Oscars, and while I am watching movies less these days I had watched two that were nominated for things ("A Real Pain" and "Wicked") and neither of them has an ending. Okay, that's not entirely fair. They both end. So that is an ending of sorts. "Wicked" ends with a to be continued, which one could argue is an ending. I would argue it is an excuse for not ending. Sure it ends where intermission is in the play, and that is certainly a pause in action. I would argue that intermission is the equivalent of a very long commercial break. So your intention with the audience is to leave them intrigued, but in a way that only has to last a matter of minutes, not months. 

And in the case of "A Real Pain" it is a slice of life style movie. So the movie lasts the length of the journey they go on, and then it ends. That's it. 

And HEA generally, though not always, requires a little more. Yes, your characters should have fallen in love, or very deep like. Yes, they should have faced an obstacle together and overcome it, even if the obstacle was taxes. But also they should have figured something out about each other. They should have figured out not just how to like one another, but how to face the world as a team. 

We're Going to Sing it Again

Quick note, I am going to discuss the end of "Hadestown". If the end of the show (based on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth) is a surprise you wish to maintain unspoiled about, click away now. 

Early on in the "Hadestown" run, I saw a prominent person post on social media that they were disappointed with the ending. A number of people replied, uh, but it's based on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Now of course not everyone is or even should be conversant with every myth. 

But in the opening song - which admittedly you hear after you have committed to the show - Hermes tells you this is a sad song, a tragedy. So, you are warned. 

Of course the trick of many great stories is to tell you where you are going, and then distract you with the drama, the romance, the adventure, so that you forget what you were warned about. 

Not all retellings need to use the ending from the original tale of course. The joy of retelling or remixing is figuring out what to keep and what to toss. 

And in the final song, Hermes tells us that you have to sing the song as if you don't know how it ends. That you sing it again as if it could turn out differently. 

I love a good happy ending. I really and truly do. But some stories don't have them. And that doesn't make the story wrong, necessarily. Sure some folks seem to think sad endings are harder to do, when often the opposite is true.

But in the case of "Hadestown", the story shows so many things. And yes, I am obsessed with the music. But it's a story about creatives. About people who lose themselves in their work. About people who are tired of struggle. And about people chafing against the deals they made, and folks tugging to take more. About working hard against a huge system to try and make change. And how sometimes the systems win. But you keep hoping, that the next time you sing the song, it turns out differently. Because one day it will.  And that will be a new story. 

Three Interesting Things

1. Sarah Kendzior is so clear eyed about the trouble we are in, and writes searingly about crafting in times of trouble. Content note: references to nooses. 

2. These teens had their play censored, so they wrote a play about censorship, and now that play has won an award. 

3. Do you want a story about a baby seal that was wandering around New Haven?

So Glitchy

One of the things that happens, when - to pick a totally random example - someone keeps talking over you (and not in a cooperative overlap kinda way) is that it could be because I'm a woman, or it could be that the person talking over me is quite sure that what they have to say is more important than whatever piddly thing I had to say. Or it could be both. Awareness of misogyny is useful for us all to know about and push back against. But the individual underlying reason leading to a specific thing doesn't matter to me in the moment. I'm still being talked over. 

I was thinking of this over the weekend when two weird and probably unrelated things happened. Hoopla removed a crapton of titles from their library. Since I mostly run with romance authors there was some speculation that romance books, or books that might be sexy, and/or queer might have been targeted. But folks in other genres saw it happening to their books once they were alerted. For me, about half of mine were still there when I first looked. And funnily enough, due to the timing of royalties, I had just gotten royalties from Hoopla. Hoopla is used by a lot of libraries, and one of the reasons I publish widely, is to make sure my books are available to libraries. 

And then someone noticed over on Amazon that the Black and African American Romance tag disappeared. You could still get to that category in other ways. Even odder, or perhaps not, it still existed in the stores for other countries, just not the US. 

Now Hoopla had apparently sent a note to libraries that they were doing a big quality check to make sure no AI titles had snuck in. And Amazon tweaks their categories a lot.

But I also remember when Amazon stripped the buy buttons from all the books for one major publisher. And Hoopla could have communicated with authors. But they didn't. 

In these times of increasing book bans, and weirdos claiming anything with people of color in it, Black people especially, is DEI, as if Black people were a recent invention, it's hard not to get suspicious at these things. 

Maybe these are just normal run of then mill things and nothing to be worried about. And maybe not. 

Anyway, my books are also published to Overdrive. And many other sites. (And some of my titles are back on Hoopla now.) I haven't started selling them direct, but if that becomes my best option, I will. Because goodness knows, we all need stories these days. 

Three Interesting Things

1. It can be overwhelming to figure out where and how to help.  This post has a number of suggestions.  I'm also going to add, things like helping a small non-profit file their taxes or learn how to use spreadsheets better may not be the stuff they make movies about, but if those are skills you have, you sharing them can make a huge difference.  Bonus can often be done at least partially remotely. 

2. Not that the headline isn't interesting, but this short article also goes into why a historic Black church now owns the Proud Boys trademark. 

3. The term mutual aid gets tossed around a lot, and it sometimes can seem like just a fancy wrapping on please give money.  Money is certainly a resource that is helpful to folks, and a little like gift cards as gifts, sometimes doesn't get the credit (pun!) it deserves.  But this story of mutual aid, and how it's really finding ways to connect community resources, and as always, mostly about logistics, was helpful for thinking more broadly about mutual aid. 

A Seasonal Break

Big things happened in sports this weekend, and we (by which I mean me) are going to be vague about all of that (because sports superstitions).  But I don't know why we call them seasons in sports (yes, I tried looking it up) but there's something very nice about thinking of them as seasons.  They come, they go, they cycle back around again.  In the final song of "Hadestown", which yes, I do keep listening to, they talk about how they'll just tell the story again.  Of course oral storytelling has an eons long tradition, and we've all had family members tell stories over and over again.  It's why retellings are popular (and of course "Hadestown" is a retelling). 

But it's also nice to hit the end, or a break.  Sports, since that was theoretically what I was talking about, can be so much fun, but also so stressful as a fan.  There are high, lows, amazing moments, and sometimes, disappointments.  So, when there's a pause, it's nice to get back to all the other parts of your life. 

One reason, I say, totally making this up, that we might call them seasons is that like planting and growing, you need a period of rest before you can get back to playing at that level.  It's interesting that more day jobs don't embrace the idea of a season of rest, so that you can be in peak condition for the busy season. 

Three Interesting Things

1.  A bear (that the headline claims was fat, which seem not relevant) was hanging out underneath someone's house when they returned after the fire. 

2. Rebecca Solnit wrote about how fighting for justice can be small acts. 

3. I'm guilty of the music or TV as white noise thing, but this article talks about how silence can be useful. 

Joy Doesn't Have to be Ignorant

People talk about being blissfully ignorant. And so I think there is a temptation to believe that being happy when terrible things are happening must mean you are ignoring them. Except I can be informed and happy. When we talk about things like hope being a discipline (to paraphrase Mariame Kaba) it means that you have to work at being hopeful. 

As a teen someone told me when I was upset about something that I could just choose to be happy. And oooh, that felt like being told to calm down. To choose happiness.

But perhaps, what that adult was (badly) trying to say to me is that there will often be terrible things, injustices, and unfairness. Some of them will be things I can help with or plug into in some way. And some of them will not.  But I also needed to make space to find joy. Because without the ability to find some joy I was going to flame out and also things would still be unfair or terrible. 

It is hard when several of my communities are being attacked. My hyper vigilance wants to watch. But I also need to eat food that makes me feel good, and read stories about people flirting and baking. 

To pick climate change as an example me watching how many hottest days we have, refreshing temperatures, scrolling flood stories, it won't change things. I can't will climate change to slow. (Rude but true.) I can, of course, do my part. And I can stay abreast of the changes. Lobby for more.  But if I never go walk through the park, or admire the sky, what even was all that worry for? 

Three Interesting Things

1. The cold weather created pancake ice in part of the river here. 

2. The war Israel is waging is also halting conservation work. 

3.

There is a kidlit for Los Angeles auction.  I know there have been a lot of auctions lately.  But there is a lot of need. 

2024 Reading Tally

I love data.  I've been doing the reading tally for a bit.  Here's last years, which links to the prior year's and so on. 

Last year I had a really good reading year and in some way's such a crazy number made this year kind of a relief.  It would be so much work to meet last year's and honestly, I didn't even want to.  I didn't want to set a new personal record, I wanted to let that one stand and think, yeah, that one time I did that.  I also wanted to try to make more time for things like TV that had been sorely neglected.  I did a little of that. 

Anyway, the data. 

Read: 224

DNF'd: 22

211 authors, 116 of them were new to me.  

The oldest title was from 2007.  Though I did read a graphic novel of A Wrinkle in Time, and the original IP on that is older than that.  (4 of the titles were from 2024. 

Most read author was Jill Shalvis, though Sandra Brown and Charish Reid were both not too far behind. 

Highest reading month was May with 29. 

36 were audiobooks. 158 were library books, because libraries are awesome.  14 were from Kobo Plus.

It was a good year of reading.  Hoping to maybe get more audiobooks this year. 

The Refugees of the Data Empire

I forget who I first saw saying that data is the new Empire, but yes. Data about is is the most important thing to corporations these days. It's why stores have begun collecting too much data. Target's data breach was in part because they were storing PINs, which have no legal use for them, but were of course very valuable to people to steal. 

I recently had to politely refuse to share my phone number multiple times to complete an in person transaction in a brick and mortar store. I was assured they would not call me, but "needed" the info to complete my transaction. They did not need my phone number and I did complete my transaction. The phone number just helps them better cross reference me with other purchase data so they can attempt to market to me more specifically. 

I have abandoned some social media platforms. Watched some destroyed, disappeared, or pivoted in a new direction that destroys all the things that used to make it interesting. And with the brief TikTok ban going into place in the US, we have another wave of people trying to gather up their followings, and find a new place to gather and reconnect. 

TikTok still exists, of course. The US isn't even the first country to ban it. (Possibly first to unban it.) But I've been listening to Rebecca Nagle's By the Fire We Carry, and was reminded that while possibly with less active death, there is tons of precedent for this. Precedent for the US deciding it deserves things that others had. That other people were in the way of their stated goals. That people the US didn't much care for having a space to gather was a threat. That the rules the US itself had established, didn't have to apply when dealing with people in their way. That rasing the spector of scary brown people is justification for anything. 

Sure, no one's being force marched through the snow. But as an alum of multiple online communities, there are people I've never found again. Who I likely never will. 

I was only a lurker on TikTok, but I know people who were running their small businesses there. It is a loss for our freedoms to gather and speak where we wish. And it is a loss for people who's salaries were dependent on it. 

I wish I believed my government cared about safeguarding my data, but the number of data breaches I've been notified of leads me to believe it is not a top priority. 

I'll be keeping an eye out for the Lorax Musical Concept Album. Just the kind of fun weird nerdy stuff my little corner of TikTok was into. 

*Note: I know TikTok is technically back now. But I deleted the app. 

Three Interesting Things

1. New York added congestion pricing and one of the buses has been faster.  As someone who regularly takes an express bus, this intrigues me. 

2. Phil Lewis talked to some residents of Altadena who lost their homes in the fire.  There are some links to GoFundMes in there too.

3. Some teens built a library. 

The End of an Era

The pet store near me is closing. First you need to understand by near, I mean walking distance. Like I once carried home twenty pounds of cat litter and I am not a person who regular walks more than a few feet with twenty pounds of anything other than myself if I can help it. 

My recollection was that it opened near the end of my cat Sabrina's life. I was excited because Sabrina was a pretty non-picky eater, but pet stores have a larger range of food, plus toys and other accoutrements. 

The store added a display with adoptable kittens. It was very fun to go visit, because my cat, at that point in her life had no interest in friends, so it was like window shopping for cuteness. I could not be tempted. 

Well, then Sabrina passed. I was planning to enjoy the cat free life for a bit. Try going away for multiple days without having to leave out extra litter boxes. Really live it up. 

And, yeah, I intensely disliked the cat free life. I had a tab open to Petfinder on my phone. I found an adorable set of bonded kittens that I went to visit at another pet store. 

And then some more adorable kittens appeared at the pet store near me. I ended up with Kayla. Kayla who has been my co-worker through several jobs. Encouraged me to take writing breaks. Carefully inspected the floor anytime I cleaned or moved something. Always there to check the fresh sheets to make sure they are acceptable. And who growls at the grocery delivery people before hiding under the bed.

Not too long after I adopted her someone tried to break into the kitten display and they had to remove the kittens. They never had kittens back at the store. I'm not saying the universe took extra steps to place kittens in my path, but I'm not not saying it. 

Kayla is also a very picky eater. So the convenience of a pet store when I realize, oh shoot, emergency pet food needed has been very useful. 

Brick and mortar stores, even chain store, have their uses. I know rents and other such things all must be considered. But seeing the store go is tough. I like being able to buy things online, but it was nice to walk over and grab them. I'm sad that we are making that harder to do. 

Snow Plans

We had snow in DC today, which I love. It meant pretty views of falling snow, I was lucky enough to telecommute for the day. Things always seem a little quieter and a little different on snow days.  Some people got a day off work. Some still had to go in.  Some teleworked.  And of course my cat was very excited that I was home and then ultimately bored that I was home but staring at a screen and typing.  She napped nearby before deciding I was too loud and she needed to nap in the closet.  

Some people had snowball fights.  Some people worked. Did I mention some of us still had to work?  I kid.  I don't terribly mind working on work days.  But I am always amused that the folks who work at schools (of which I know quite a few) think the rest of us get the day off too. 

It's staying cold this week, so the snow will stick around.  It snowed Friday, but Saturday you could barely tell there had been snow at all.  Eventually the snow accumulates enough crud as we trudge through it.  But that's hardly the snow's fault.