Wiscon 37

A whirlwind as usual.  Late night genderfloomping and biking back and forth to our off campus hotel, plus swimming, eating, arguing, talking, imbibing tasty queer drinks in test tubes, working shifts at the reg desk, and more really wore me out.  But I'll have more to say later.  Fitfully slept and argued with myself in my sleep last night...

I'm very excited about Hiromi Goto and N.K. Jemisin (whose stories I have talked up here before) as next year's Guests of Honor.  The Tiptree to Kiini Ibura Salaam for Ancient, Ancient was a highlight too.  (Caitlin Kiernan also won for The Drowning Girl.  As the Tiptree song said, "Read these books, Read these books.")

Poorly planned

One of the core functions of city/regional government is transportation.  The Metro Council is all hits and misses.  The light rail has been a hit, mostly.  But the new train cars suck.  They are pretty, yes, more high tech looking.  But they have less seats, less places to stand out of the way, and FOUR less bike rack spaces per car.  As biking only increases, and the racks were already full at rush hour.  Who planned that?

Lucky I'm listening to Galactic Suburbia and my ire is focused more on the usual publisher and internet fail...  My blood pressure rises too much with city planner fail.  Don't even get me started on R.T.'s quiet lack of non-fail.  It's hard being pretty...

My neighbor was ditching his alternate transportation method.  Cute, huh.

A step towards full citizenship 12.5/50

With DC as 1/2...

Still processing sea change, myself.  Not much more to be said, as they covered the gamut in the legislature...  I could listen, though.  I'm too old to care about what the arguments are.  Just get over it.

Addendum:  it's hard to know how to celebrate.  Going to the bars seems the wrong thing.  Plus there are no girl bars here. 

The line keeps going thru my head: "How you like them apples."  It's not over til it's over.

Source Decay

Brilliant, even on rereading:  Charlie Jane Anders at SH.

I'm not sure what anti-con bubble I've been living in where missed  that she's GOH at ConVergence this year, but yow- a great choice, guys.  I might have to brave the crazy parking shuttled multi-hotel nightmare.  I had pledged to avoid it...

May snows

Not so thick here, but southern MN got ten inches two days ago.  All bets are off.

I'm reading, randomly because I searched for running books, the story of Matt Long , a New York firefighter who got split in two by a bus and then ran a 7 hour NY marathon with no right adductor muscle, a two inch shorter leg from a fractured pelvis, and mangled left toes that he'd basically land on with every step.  The reader for the audiobook keeps it lively.

The Avengers!

No, not the goofy comic book heroes/bad Whedon movie... *The* Avengers, the punk rockers with politics, from my formative years, i.e., ages ago... 

Coming to the TC May 10, as part of Girls Rhythm Fest, one of those great ideas local organizers have sometimes.  Cherie Currie of the Runaways Sunday night, and a whole bunch of other great bands.  Color me tickled pink, or at least my hair...

I have to admit to also getting a twinge of excitement about the Go-Gos touring with the B52s.  They were my first real concert, their songs are still catchy, and we did not have a ton of female rockers to pick and choose through in the 80s.  I can count on my fingers the women who appeared in the guitar and drum mags I pored over as a teen.  Our local scene had a handful of bands: Fire Party, Broken Siren, Strange Boutique with a female singer... Every woman made a mark.

I saw a documentary on Patti Stemple, the drummer from Hole, not too long ago.  Man, the lack of support she experienced when she needed help with a drug issue... problem... Was epic.  Finding out one of the few, and great, bigtime female rock drummers landed so hard really hurt.  I did not really pay attention to Hole until later, finding Courtney so annoying.  Now I really don't like her... Hole has some great songs though.  That's the weird thing about music, books, art.  The product can transcend the maker, and even being reduced to "product."

Anyway.  I have to go do a little dance, then finish the latest batch of sourdough naan, run in the 70 degree madness, and see what movies are playing at the MIFF in its final weekend.  The second Kazakh movie, Student, we missed due to massive snow just a few days ago.  Too bad, cos it was based on my favorite book from jr high, Crime and Punishment.

Ok, but it is pretty

And not the 9" they promised.  It never is, is it...

Please, no sequels

Snowmaggedon IV, coming to a northern state near you.  And some middle ones...

Not to knock rocket science, but...

 Crucial application of the scientific method to magazine submissions.  Watch behavior and account for it.

I've been glued to the radio all week, thinking about the folks I know who ran it, who are all safe so I feel guilty, the folks I know who decided not to this year, like a number of coworkers, and how I would probably have been there just about that time waiting for or shepherding a tired runner if she hadn't twisted the ankle and let me take her on a hilly hike in Tucson. 

Going to work is not an escape, either, though I felt like the only East Coaster this week.  The coasts are very distant places to vacation once in a while, in flyover country, not the centers of attention 'coasters are to themselves.  Our TV coverage was focused heavily on local runners who were ok, including Scott Dibble, our very hardworking gay state legislator.

I've hit my horror quotient for the time being and have nothing to say that can add value...  It does make me disinterested in most movies and popular SFF for the moment, tho.  Tired of the glories and romance of battles, weapons, etc.  I'm reading Richard Hell's bio and a strength training manual for a break.

It makes me shy away from writing, too.  It sucks to be glib when you can't elude just how ridiculous it all sounds.   Roxane Gay of Pank magazine put it well:

"...What especially wearies me is having such a finely honed vocabulary for tragedy."  (Whole cloth here.) 

Yeah.

Avoidance

Baking works well.  I got some good spring out of the sourdough in the squash bread, after winging it on approximating the UK measurements.  Last of my winter squash from last fall.  Wiping them with diluted bleach kept them from molding, in my sort of cool cellar.

Listening to lots of Coode Street, Skiffy and Fanty, and Galactic Suburbia podcasts this week, plus Jo Nesbo's The Redbreast, from his Norwegian Harry Hole mystery series. 

I'm reading books about strength training and anatomy, not so interesting to anyone else who doesn't read medical records or practice medicine daily... Or get injured frequently.  The book Running Anatomy by Joe Puleo and Dr. Patrick Milroy is fascinating me though.  Who knew you used all those upper body muscles in running?  Great color pictures.

Recent Hugo discussions sent me back to Jonathan McCalmont's blog post about  Cowardice and laziness in SF.  I'm trying to work through it all, but there's something he's putting his finger on in that post that seems really important, to me.  I keep being drawn back to the discussions about what's missing in SF right now.  Not exactly sure why, but I'll keep trying to become more articulate about it...