Do Not Look Back, My Lion by Alix E. Harrow
Started: 7/21/20
Finished: 7/22/20
I was not enjoying this story, and then it made me cry (sad horrified tears, not happy tears), so it had clearly gotten to me, but I’m still not sure I liked it.
Author: Zannah
Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island by Nibedita Sen
Started: 7/21/20
Finished: 7/21/20
I like experimental short story formats. This one is fun, but also now I want to read the (fake) source material.
Away With The Wolves by Sarah Gailey
Started: 7/20/20
Finished: 7/21/20
Good story, like a YA werewolf story but without the usual trappings, and I’d really like to find out more.
For He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll
Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/20/20
If you like cats, you will like this story. I do, and I did.
Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin
Started: 7/20/20
Finished: 7/20/20
She’s writing in the second person POV again, and it’s SO effective. I love how this played out.
The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye by Sarah Pinsker
Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20
Sarah Pinsker can do no wrong. This story was a roller coaster, speeding downhill, all fun and great, and then BAM we ran into a wall and fell into pieces and then what? And no. No! Oh god no! It’s fantastic and you should read it. Except not you, Mom. Or Margaret.
The Archronology of Love by Caroline M. Yoachim
Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20
I don’t think I fully understood this story. I mean, I get the overall plot and everything, I understand what happened and what the characters learned, but the details of the big tech thing and how (or why) things get erased…I spent too much time (for a novelette I finished in less than an hour) puzzling over it. Don’t dazzle me – just tell the story.
Omphalos by Ted Chiang
Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20
I liked the style of this story more than the content, I think. It’s about an archaeologist who reads about an astronomical discovery that upends her views on everything. The setting is an alternate reality where the science really does uphold the beliefs of the young-earth creationists, so that’s the accepted view of the world and physics and everything. The story is told from her perspective as she relates her days and thoughts to God, via prayers that feel like letters or diary entries.
Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom by Ted Chiang
Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20
Fascinating near-future story with tech that allows you to communicate with yourself in a parallel universe, which is really cool, but it’s about free will and how people use that tech to make decisions, to justify their actions. The tech is just the next thing (but it’s a very cool next thing to consider).
The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes
Started: 7/18/20
Finished: 7/19/20
This novella was inspired by the song The Deep (by clipping.), which I haven’t listened to yet. The premise is that the pregnant and going-into-labor slaves who were thrown overboard midocean (true) gave birth to mer-people (probably not true) who built a whole civilization and society around a historian who remembers everything so that the rest of them don’t have to. The story is mostly about the current historian who is having difficulties with this burden, but it also goes back into the memories. It’s very good.
I can get this done
Hugo voting ends in three days, and all I have left to read are six novelettes and six short stories. I’ve read five of the six novels (there’s one I can’t get my hands on), all six of the novellas, five of the six YA nominees, four of the six nominees for best series, a sampling of the best new writer nominees, and I’m not even going to try with the other categories. I had to draw the line somewhere.
But I can read six novelettes and six short stories by Wednesday night, right? I can. I can and I will, but I really need to get off the internet!
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark
Started: 7/16/20
Finished: 7/18/20
Supernatural detectives in a supernatural version of 1912 Cairo with sky trams and djinn and women’s suffrage as a backdrop. I would read a whole series about this.
Deception
We’ve mostly been doing really well with naps lately, but these last few days have seen a couple of bumps. Three or four days ago, I was trying to get Jack to go to sleep, but he kept saying “Poop” and “Poo dada”. I thought he was asking me to sing the poopy diaper song (“Poopy diaper! Poopy diaper!” to the tune of the Hallelujah chorus), so I sang it quietly for a little bit and a while later he fell asleep. I did sniff his diaper at the time – didn’t smell anything. When I changed his diaper after that nap, I discovered that he had pooped. Whoops. So the next day when he told me “Poop.” while I was trying to put him to sleep, I believed him. I picked him up out the crib (and he giggled – that should have been a clue), turned the light on, and checked his diaper. No poop. Back into the crib. He insisted he had pooped for the rest of the time it took him to fall asleep, but I wasn’t falling for it (and I couldn’t smell anything). He eventually fell asleep. Post-nap diaper change: no poop.
During our attempts to fall asleep yesterday, when he said “Poop!” several times right after I put him in the crib for his nap, I believed him. I picked him up (no giggle) and changed his diaper (there was poop). Back into the crib, where he immediately yelled “Poop!” at me. Not a chance. But after about 10 minutes of insisting that he pooped, which is a not-at-all-fun constant barrage of “Poop. Poop. Poop! Poop.” in increasingly tearful tones, I figured I should check again. He giggled when I picked him up, I checked his diaper, and there was NO POOP. Back in the crib, back to the “Poop” chorus, and he never fell asleep. No nap yesterday.
Today, I got the “Poop. Poop!” plea pretty soon after I put him in the crib again. I stood up, leaned way over to smell his diaper (to giggles), didn’t smell anything, and refused to pick him up. He eventually fell asleep.
Jack: The Boy Who Cried Poop.
This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Started: 7/12/20
Finished: 7/15/20
I had heard nothing but wonderful things about this one, but the one time I tried a Max Gladstone book, I couldn’t get into it. That turned out to apply to this novella, too, even though he had a co-author. The premise is really cool, but I seriously considered just putting it down and walking away. The writing was not working for me. I got involved eventually, and I think I liked it…? Interesting, but not really my speed.
Mother of the year
Okay, so obviously I shouldn’t let Jack watch TV all afternoon, especially not on a warm sunny day. I had a meeting, one I couldn’t just pretend to listen to (I don’t seem to have many of those anymore), so I got him his lunch, strapped him into the high chair, and turned on the TV. He was happy, I was working, and all was well. When my meeting ended, I cleaned him up and put him down on the floor. Before I even reached my hand out to the remote to turn off the TV, Jack ran across the living room, grabbed the armchair pillow, dragged it into the middle of the rug, and plopped himself down, giggling excitedly.
It feels cruel to turn the TV off when he’s so adorable and into it. I mean, I did it anyway, and we all lived to tell the tale, but he was so happy.
His memory is better than mine
Months and months ago (time has no meaning and I don’t remember exactly when this was), Jack learned to say baby and when he combined it with his love of emergency vehicles, it reminded me of a certain song. We sang it to him for a few days, maybe a couple of weeks, and then forgot about it.
The other day, I had Jack on the changing table, and he indicated that he wanted me to sing and he said, “Oowee. Baby. Oowee. Baby.” Over and over. After a couple of minutes, it clicked. “You want me to sing Oowee Baby?” “Yup.” You got it, kid. Sea Cruise coming right up.
Another toddler mystery
Jack didn’t nap today, so our afternoon was a little rocky. I pulled a toy out of the closet as a fun surprise – for him, not for us. It was that piano toy shaped like a cat that plays the WORST versions of kid songs with cat-related lyrics. We had hidden it for our own sanity. He loved it, though, and giving it to him worked for a while, but then he got this really sad look on his face, mouth turned down at the corners like he was about to cry, and said “Dada me! Dada me!” Was he looking for Dada? Asking for Dada to play with him? That seemed unlikely. He doesn’t know pronouns and has no idea how to use “me”. He’s doing the Gaby thing of answering “You!” when we point to a picture of him and ask him who’s in it.
Still, we found Dada, but that did not solve the problem. “Dada me!” in increasingly sad and tearful tones. FINALLY I figured out that he wanted to hear one of the terrible songs on constant repeat. It was “Partridge in a Pear Tree”, but the lyrics were something like, “In the month before my birthday, my daddy gave to me…” and “In the week before my birthday, my daddy gave to me…” Ah. Dada me.
So I’d help him play the song, and then cycle past all the other bad songs so we could hear this one again. And again. And again.
John has taken Jack up to bed, so my mission is to hide this worst toy ever somewhere new. Somewhere Jack won’t find it. Maybe…the basement.
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Started: 7/8/20
Finished: 7/12/20
Astronauts doing science! Science fiction, but heavy on the science, and oh so optimistic.
Short on time, as usual
I just used up my blogging time recommending books to online friends, and that makes me happy. Hopefully those recommendations will make them happy. But it means this is all I can write in the time I have. (Also, I had to spend an unexpected 45 minutes putting Jack to sleep after John tagged me in. Jack was NOT sleepy. We gave him a few bites of custard and a bite of brownie after dinner, so I’m blaming the sugar high.)
I am out of time! Good night!
A big day
Today was full of firsts. Well, two firsts. But some days there are no firsts, so I’ll call two in one day a full day.
The first first was a first for me! (I am reading WAY too much Dr. Seuss.) I made custard! For no reason and prompted by nothing at all! And it’s good, if maybe a bit eggy. I have no idea what made me think of it, but then I googled a few recipes, discovered I already had all the ingredients, found a recipe that did not assume I own custard cups, and boom. An hour later, we had custard.
The second first (same as the – no, that doesn’t work) was a first for Jack. I think he’s learning empathy! Finally! We went to the beach today with Emily and fam, and McKenna gotten bitten or stung by something. It got her finger, and she was very upset for a while. When she started crying, Jack looked around and said, “Baby! Baby!” I may be projecting a little, but he sounded concerned. Tonight, while reading before bed and then as he was falling asleep in the crib, we repeated this routine probably ten times: “Baby! Baby?” and he’d hold up his finger. “You mean McKenna and her finger?” Then a plaintive “Yup.” “She’s okay, I checked. Everyone is fine.” Then a satisfied “Yup.”
He cares! Or he’s at least remembering it and thinking about someone other than himself. Still a first!