It's Only A Paper Rose

The good news is (for anybody who only follows me here), I'm about 98% recovered from the ankle break/surgery/infection. I still occasionally have bad weeks or just overdo it, it gets stiff if I sit for a while, but I'm mobile and working again, and can even run a bit, albeit awkwardly.

The bad news is, after a trip to Alaska that involved a truly lovely wedding, a disproportionate amount of family drama, and (no joke) getting rear-ended, badly enough to total my mother's car, by a pickup on the way to the airport, I'm home...and COVID-positive. I strongly suspect I picked it up at the urgent care where we got Brian's x-rays done. (He was in the backseat and got the worst of the shock; Mum and I were in the front and pretty well protected. Luckily there's no sign of spinal fracture.) I overheard a couple of doctors in the hallway while he was in radiology going "It's COVID?" "Yup, it's COVID." Obviously I was masked, but, well...stories of Omicron's infectiousness have not been exaggerated, it seems.

The good news is, neither Brian nor anyone else I'd been in contact with (my mother, two folks in my polycule) are showing any symptoms; I'm crossing my fingers that their vaccinations held better. I'm isolating in the second bedroom/bathroom just in case. Poor Brian's back to having to take care of me again...luckily I'm only in here until June 2 if all goes well. (He's been commenting about how quiet the house is with his mad wife shut up in the attic. I guess he really is the sort of dude who prefers his mad wife to be all up in his business. <3)

Symptom progression so far, because keeping a record seems like a good plan:

• Day Zero (Friday May 27): Had a scratchy throat that antihistamines didn't touch; it got progressively worse as the day went on, along with a general crappy-feeling-ness.
• Day One (Saturday May 28): Lots of sneezing and sniffling, went through almost a whole box of tissues. Still more or less functional, but definitely feeling the energy hit. Felt a little warm at one point (99 degrees F) but it receded.
• Day Two (Sunday May 29): Woke up pretty congested, though the sniffling's been slowing throughout the day (thankfully for my Kleenex supply). Feeling maybe 60%-70% functional; the one time I got off the bed to try and raise my heart rate, though, I rapidly wished I hadn't done that. (My smartwatch is just going to have to chastise me, it seems.) Around 8:30 I got a proper fever (over 100 degrees F) and took Advil. It spiked around 10:10 at 100.8, then came down; it's hovering around 100.1-100.3 for now.

So now I wait and see, or continue to wait and see, anyway.  My friend Heidi who had it quite recently said days 3-6 were the roughest for her, symptom-wise, and that'd line up with both the appearance of the fever and the CDC's timing (I can stop isolating myself on day 7 once I've been fever-free for 24 hours without medication). 

I know, statistically, the chances of my having severe complications are infinitesimal—I have no comorbidities, I'm young(ish) and healthy, I've been triple-vaccinated.  But, I mean...I used to occasionally buy lottery tickets on similar odds.  Being comfortable with this kind of uncertainty is tough. 

I'm just looking forward to when this is all over and I can join the ranks of the SUPER IMMUNE. :P

Update, Day Three (Monday May 30):  My fever broke last night before I went to sleep, and while it probably recurred overnight (I woke up a bit sweaty), I slept right through it.  I've been feeling progressively better as the day goes on; it's been eight hours since my last Advil and I have no fever, only minor congestion and an occasional cough.  I've heard way too many stories of sudden reversals with this thing to breathe out entirely yet, but I'm hopeful, and super, super grateful that it doesn't seem to have reached my lungs.  Fingers crossed my immune system keeps doing yeoman's work and things stay on the upswing.

Update, Day Four (Tuesday May 31):  No recurrence of the fever, congestion and cough continue to improve and I haven't even needed Advil.  Assuming I continue feeling better tomorrow I'm going to see if I still test positive—if not, it'd be nice to be able to snuggle with Brian again a day early.

Yesterday was World MS Day. I meant to post about it—this ride I'm training for is raising money for MS research and treatment, after all—but I found myself at something of a loss. I've never lived with MS (or any major chronic illness), never had to deal with the regular doctors' visits and scans and constant threat of a flareup around the corner.

What am familiar with, however, is wonky blood sugar. It’s a family trait, and one that basically guarantees that I have to eat a healthy diet of whole grains and proteins—if I don’t, I very quickly become nonfunctional, up to the point of passing out if I’m especially careless. Usually I manage fine by being careful to eat regularly and healthfully. But every once in a while something goes awry, and especially when I'm in the midst of training and running a calorie deficit, that margin for error is just not there.

Last week I got caught up in a project and missed lunch; after a half-hour of fighting the wind on my bike on the way to work, I reached my destination and discovered my keys were missing. Cue a minor freakout and some scrambling; luckily everything worked out, although the yoga class I taught that afternoon was unfortunately subpar (no surprise, as I had no focus). I got some food in gulps here and there, and by the time I was ready to head home, I finally felt more like myself.

Which was when I found that my keys had been in a different pocket of my bike bag all along.

Health is a tricky thing. We think of ourselves as unchanging, immutable beings, but the truth is, our capabilities are at the mercy of so many physical factors that may or may not be within our control. I think that’s one of the reasons I’m happy to be raising money for this cause—in supporting research for new treatments and cures, in helping affected people gain access to treatment, we’re helping a whole bunch of people reclaim their abilities and lives.

(Would you like to join us? If you have an afternoon latte you're willing to skip, you can donate $5 at my link here. Just don’t skip lunch. ;)

As usual, spring feels like it comes about three weeks late to Chicago, but it's finally come—there are no days in the upcoming forecast where the weather's dipping below freezing, and in fact it's supposed to get up to 70 (albeit cloudy and windy) next week. More to the point, yesterday was the first day where the weather was nice enough, long enough, for me to take Gabriel up to Sauganash for my Monday commute. I was a little concerned about being out of shape; it's about five and a half miles each way, depending on the route you take. But I've been going to Sculpt semi-regularly (which always includes a good cardio section) and also biking to and from Lincoln Square (between 1.5 and 2 miles each way) regularly, so it wasn't anywhere near as much of a strain as I was concerned. It probably also helped that I was careful to actually eat enough calories; Brian pointed out that maybe part of the reason I was so tired all the time last summer was that I get so busy running from engagement to engagement that I forget to eat. (I'd still eat at mealtimes, usually, but I have trouble downing huge portions at once; I'm more of a grazer.) So I was careful to make sure I got enough food...and aided in that goal by Breanne (the studio manager) bringing in chocolate cupcakes that were bigger than my fist. The fact that I demolished about two-thirds of one with lunch, and still ended up under my calorie budget, gives you an idea of how much I was moving yesterday, haha.

My evening C2 was particularly interesting. I had a student walk in fairly early; I went to sign him in...and his name came up as "Chris Evans". He was not the Captain America Chris Evans, but of course I had to take a second look. When he caught me looking, I made some dumb joke about "You're a little smaller in person,"; he dutifully laughed and headed to the locker rooms, and my desk shift partner and I chatted a bit about various celebrity sightings we've heard about in the yoga community. Then he comes back, asks some minor question, and when I give him an answer, thanks me and flashes a truly megawatt smile—like, I'm pretty sure he practices in the mirror—before heading into the studio. My colleague and I sort of sat there, stunned for a moment, until I commented, "Well, *now* he's as good-looking as Captain America." Alas, he lives downtown and was only in the area for a work event, so I'm unlikely to see him again, but dang.

Needless to say, I was particularly pleased that my class came out extra well—not that it was perfect (no class ever is), but it was the second week doing this sequence, so I already had a good toolbox of cues, I could see people improving throughout the class (always a sign you're teaching well), and I'm particularly pleased with my theme this week and felt I wove it in solidly without hammering on it too hard. Honestly, I think it was one of the best C2 classes I've ever taught; it's amazing what wanting to impress an attractive audience member does for one's inspiration.

In weirder news, I have literally not read anything book-wise this week. Some of this has been the aforementioned cycles being taken up by house-hunting (it's a surprisingly emotionally-intensive activity, especially when you have a partner and you're having to negotiate your respective needs), but also, the time I normally spend reading has actually been taken up by writing. For the first time in a long while, I have an idea in my head that won't let go, despite being emotionally murky and requiring multiple rewrites—usually I lose interest after a week or so if I haven't found the clear arc. My brain is still convinced there's something good there, though, so I'm keeping at it...so this is basically an apology for not having a Wednesday book post tomorrow. I promise I'm not turning into one of those "I want to be a writer but I just don't have time to read" people, heh.

Your limitations
are not the enemy
converging at the city walls
brandishing spears and shields
massed, mindless, grinding.

Your limitations
are your oldest friends
descending on your sleepover
deciding what to do, who to be
connected, conversant, discovering.

Keep those friends.
Listen to the secrets they whisper at night.
Encourage them to grow, to expand
to overcome their childish fears
But respect their boundaries
when they set them.

After two months' consistent practice followed by a month of only sporadic effort (hurrah for the holidays), I'm finally back on the piano-practice wagon. This is helped somewhat by the (hopeful) resumption of lessons - my pianist friend seems to have gotten his life back together, and Wednesday we worked together on some more basics. New cool thing I learned: written music has evolved and changed over the centuries! I had always assumed that (say) a staccato mark meant "play this note short" in any music; while that's broadly true, a staccato mark in Baroque music is played longer and with more emphasis than one in Romantic music, which is similarly played longer and softer than one in modern music. This was one of those revelations that I found simultaneously fascinating and patently obvious; written music is a language as much as words are, so of course different generations will adapt it to suit their needs and fashions. It also nicely contextualizes the work in its period in history (one of my favorite things!) - Baroque music, being all about the flourishes and complications (not unlike Baroque art and architecture), is played with much more emphasis on the ornaments and accents than modern music.

Yesterday I had lunch with Elyse, whom I love dearly and whom I see far too rarely (through no fault of hers or mine; we just both have ridiculously busy lives, and her December was even crazier than usual). We spent some time catching each other up on our work lives and personal lives and talked about the news and ate far too much Mexican food and generally had a lovely time. We even managed to catch a Sculpt class together last night; I was particularly entertained at how it caused a reversal of our usual demeanor. (She's usually quite bubbly and ebullient, whereas I think I come across as more reserved; this was a "challenge" class, though, where the teacher encouraged us to grab weights a category higher than we usually do. So by 2/3rds through, when our arms were dying, she had the biggest bitchface going on, whereas I was almost maniacally laughing and singing along with "Beat It" as we did our 3,974th set of tricep kickbacks in chair pose. I...am beginning to wonder if "bring it on, is this the best you can do?" is an entirely healthy stress response, heh.) If nothing else, it was a great bonding experience!

That said, between the busy few weeks and that class, boy are my arms sore today. I have a King Spa day planned with Martha tomorrow, and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it...

Hello, book-friends! We've had some warmer weather this week, so I've been biking to work and on errands the past couple of days - and woke up so physically exhausted that I skipped Sculpt this morning. (It's almost like biking 12.4 miles in two days is a lot when you're not doing it regularly, heh.) So today I'm catching up on this year's Julkalendern, the Swedish holiday TV show where they release one 12-minute episode each day until Christmas. My reading comprehension has grown significantly since last year; I have enough grasp of the structure/syntax that I can pick up unfamiliar words from context, so I only have to pause the show to look something up a couple of times an episode. My spoken comprehension, though, is still pretty crap, so I continue to be grateful for the Swedish subtitles. As to the show itself, it's cute - sort of a Doctor-Who inspired low-budget sci-fi romp, and definitely better on the diversity front than last year's Entirely Blonde And Swedish cast - but I'm not quite enjoying it as much as last year's steampunk/fantasy adventure, in part because it doesn't have anything akin to the delightful friendship between determined young Selma and manic-depressive mad-scientist Efraim von Trippelhatt to give it an emotional center. But there's still sixteen episodes to go, so that may change.

What I've just finished reading

Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie. I've already written up most of my thoughts on this one; it does end up feeling a little bit like an interstitial episode, though we'll see how much of it turns out to be setup for the final chapter. Even if the answer is "none", however, I like these characters and the universe and Ann Leckie's writing enough that it was well worth the time.

What I'm currently reading

Ancillary Mercy, though only just - I've barely read the first chapter. Definitely anticipating this one, though - I decided not to wait and space it out like I did the first two, even though I usually try to savor the series I like best. (Only three Vorkosigan books left! *sadface*)

Bad Astronomy, by Philip Plait. I've had this in my Audible library for a while (I think Brian or I picked it up on sale), and I figured I'd give it a listen while wrapping packages and whatnot. It's well written, but very basic; most of the information I remember from my high-school astronomy course, although I was surprised how much of it had gotten muddled with various common-knowledge misconceptions. So not a bad refresher course, but definitely aimed at a not-particularly-scientifically-literate audience. Which, sadly, means most of America.

What I plan to read next

cyrano reminded me that I've still got the rest of the Wrinkle in Time series to read, including the one I've never read before. Also, really looking at my bookshelves for the first time in some weeks, I seriously need to winnow them down, and possibly buy another one...though God knows where I'll put it.

As I mentioned on Wednesday, it's been a pretty physically intense week; in addition to work picking up and getting back into the regular Sculpt swing, Brian and I both got flat bike tires on subsequent nights, so the time I planned to rest after class yesterday were instead spent walking back-and-forth between our house and the bike shop multiple times. (We were a little afraid it'd been vandalism; we'd discovered both flats when our bikes were parked in the same spot outside the yoga studio, around the same time of evening. Fortunately it turns out to just have been bad luck; mine was a pinch flat, probably from the local road construction tearing up the pavement, and in his case he'd run over a piece of broken glass. Chicago streets strike again!) Then in the evening I decided to hit a hot yoga class to unwind my muscles after Wednesday's Sculpt class, so by the time I woke up this morning I was feeling pretty wrecked.

Today, on the other hand, has been pleasantly quiet. It's cold and snowy outside (first snow of the season), but inside we have books, and Netflix, and a fireplace, and a couch with big fuzzy blankets to nap on. It's also, at least for me, been a day for reflecting on disconnections, and mortality, and how best to support people I care for. (Two friends are going through a messy breakup. Another friend may or may not have lung cancer, pending a biopsy. I got an email from Jim Rothfuss' daughter with information about his memorial service, which I actually could make it to - it's in Wisconsin, about a three-hour drive from here. But I'm genuinely not sure if I'd be welcome; the email was sent to everyone in his contact list, I'm unlikely to know anyone else there, and I don't know that 'random person no one else knows showing up to memorial service' is the best plan.) Somewhat entertainingly, Brian and I have date night plans to go see Fun Home, a musical based on Alison Bechdel's "family tragicomic" about growing up in a dysfunctional family that ran a funeral home; it seems an appropriate choice for the general tenor of the day - sometimes life is awful, but we find the opportunities for connection and support and humor and keep on trucking anyway.

I'm debating what to do about piano lessons. I was really looking forward to learning from my friend I'd worked out a trade with - he gave lessons for years, and is a patient teacher as well as an extremely skilled pianist. But we got through exactly one lesson and then his personal life started falling apart, and the last couple of times we've planned to get together he's had to cancel. (We were supposed to have tea today and assess whether this was a week-or-two delay or an "I can't take on another responsibility right now" situation, but given that he had to cancel this as well, I guess I have my answer.) I have another friend who offered to give lessons and would probably be happy to trade, although I don't know offhand what her experience is with teaching or what her schedule is like. I need someone who can be consistent; I do best with some kind of weekly accountability and the structure of a lesson plan, although of course I like to have my own input as well. Possibly the most promising option was suggested by a friend whose landlords are professional music teachers; she lives in the same building with them, says they're cool people, and apparently they're also marathon runners so they'd probably be down for a massage trade, heh. We'll see how it shakes out.

I'm back from Alaska, and managed to meet my goal of making it through an entire visit with my mother without getting into a flaming row. Hooray for active listening!  Or perhaps we just got the row out of the way beforehand, heh.  On the less-good side, someone in my home state was kind enough to share a cold with me, which I'm still fighting off...and I have two classes to teach tonight. I suspect tonight's focus will be self-directed practice, heh.


What I've just finished reading

An Unsuitable Heir, by KJ Charles. What makes a long flight home with a cold bearable? Pseudoephedrine and a new KJ Charles romance. The former sort of tunnels my awareness, making me tend to hyper-focus on one thing rather than be aware of my surroundings, but in coach class that's not necessarily a bad thing (although I did almost miss the beverage cart a couple of times). And the story of Pen and Mark - a nonbinary Victorian era circus performer suddenly heir to an unwanted earldom, and a one-armed private investigator with a pragmatic outlook and catholic tastes - was a delightful thing to focus upon. The book also finishes the Sins of the Cities plot arc, which is pure Victorian serial melodrama, but elevated by Charles' usual excellent characterization, and given some interesting twists by Pen's nonstandard self-image. I also loved Pen's relationship with twin sister Greta; there are really too few supportive sibling relationships in the fiction I read.


What I'm currently reading

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England, by Ian Mortimer. This book continues to be a fascinating refinement of my perceptions of fourteenth-century England. There haven't been many outright revelations - I've read a fair amount of fiction set in the period, beginning with Karen Cushman's work in elementary school (Catherine, Called Birdy was always a favorite). But there are some minor details I hadn't realized - for instance, while personal cleanliness is more difficult prospect than it is now and standards for cleanliness are somewhat different (a healthy body odor is thought to be a sign of virility, at least among the lower classes), people still wash their hands and face when they get up in the morning, and handwashing is mandatory before and after meals. Most personal washing is done in basins, and thus somewhat more sporadically than we'd consider ideal (especially in the freezing winters), but especially among the more prosperous tradesmen and the nobility, it's considered bad form to go around stinking up the place, so people make do. Household cleanliness is made difficult both by the lack of good detergents and of labor-saving devices, but that doesn't mean it's neglected; cleanliness (or the appearance thereof) is closely linked to purity of spirit, and is thus highly valued in religious medieval England. So perhaps my grousing about how everyone in Galavant looks a little too clean is somewhat misguided.

Another point brought up that I found interesting was that of ignorance vs. misinformation, specifically as regards the medical profession of the time. Physicians were not ignorant; medieval medical texts were chock-full of 'knowledge' on treating illness. Unfortunately, since much of that knowledge came from flawed sources (astrology, humoral theory, superstition, hearsay, a little practical experience with no scientific method applied), it tended to be less-than-helpful at best. It does give you an idea of why Enlightenment principles had something of an uphill battle before them; it's much harder to convince people to change their outlook when there's already an established worldview.

Also, I'm quoting this passage in full, because it made me laugh. From the end of chapter 8, on the perils of taking hospitality in monasteries:

There is an old traveling minstrels' trick which you might want to keep up your sleeve. How guests are treated in a monastery is the decision of the almoner {man in charge of distributing alms}. If he treats you badly, or serves you the most miserly portions of food, or if you get given "a vile and hard bed", go to the abbot and praise him to the skies for the generosity of his house, and emphasize the large amount of money which the almoner must have laid out on your behalf.

As an aside, one of the interesting things about learning Swedish has been the ways in which the construction sometimes resembles medieval speech - the verb is nearly always placed second in the sentence (Hur mår du i kväll?, translates most directly to "How fare you this evening?"); and certain words such as passande (which translates to "suitable" or "appropriate") were used in nearly the same form in medieval English (such as here, in "passing good", which to modern ears sounds like "mediocre" but in fact means "quite excellent").  The language tree is passing fascinating!


What I plan to read next

I need to finish The Hummingbird's Daughter, even though Cat Sebastian's Ruin of a Rake is beckoning me on my Kindle - reformed bad-boy enemies-to-lovers gay Regency romance that won numerous awards?  Did somebody say "catnip"?

Hello, fellow book friends! CorePower is doing a 20-classes-in-30-days challenge, and looking at the charts I realized that I haven't been to class since the month started. I've been teaching a lot, but between work and social obligations and a bit of personal-life trouble I've been slacking off. I hit Sculpt this morning and I could really feel it - I had plenty of endurance (thank you, bicycling) but I was much stiffer than usual. I think it's going to be restorative yoga this afternoon - there's a class at Uptown that ends half an hour before I need to be there to teach. Convenient! Now to see if I can get back to a regular practice.

What I've just finished reading

Paper Girls vol. 3, by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang. The breakneck pace of this story hasn't let up, and while initially that worked in its favor, it's starting to become a handicap. We're still getting bits and pieces of history and character development, but a few of the girls are still frustratingly interchangeable; additionally, there's a new character introduced whose perspective is radically different from our main characters' and who is potentially fascinating, but who gets far too little screen time to really explore any of that potential. To top it off, the girls and the audience are still incredibly fuzzy on what the rules are for this adventure; while this certainly helps to evoke the confusion and fear on their part in this unfamiliar time-traveling situation, it feels more than a little like narrative Calvinball. I hope the author slows down for a breath or two in the next volume; it doesn't have to be six issues of "so, Bob, this is how the rules work in this particular time-travel adventure", but a little more development of the ensemble and their situation would be helpful, as would giving them a chance to be proactive instead of just flailing desperately.

Appointment With Death, by Agatha Christie. I was all set to get started on one of my yoga texts, and then I realized I hadn't finished my Poirot omnibus I borrowed from my friend in Boston...priorities! Unfortunately, I can't say this was one of Christie's stronger efforts, even discounting the by-now-expected casual racism/sexism. I liked the depiction of the future victim as an emotionally dominating tyrant who kept her entire dysfunctional family in misery around her - I think we've all met people like that - but the actual solution felt like it came out of left field, and that's leaving out some very questionable depiction of mental illness. Still, like much of Christie, it was pretty compulsively readable, and at least now I can send the book back to my friend.

Special DNF Award: Joyful Desires: A Compendium of Twentieth Century Erotica, by a collection of pretty obvious pseudonyms. I found this in a Little Free Library up in Sauganash (one of the more suburb-y neighborhoods of Chicago), which tickled me. Unfortunately, it's turned out to be pretty mediocre stuff, better-edited but generally about on par quality-wise with the old Usenet-sourced shorts I used to read online as a teenager in the nineties. (The book was published in 1998, so that might account for the stylistic similarities as well.) I read about half of one story, half of another, and skimmed a few other bits; it's all very focused on the physical, with little to no character depth or emotional interplay...you know, the stuff that makes sex interesting. :P There are some pretty entertainingly bad bits, though, almost enough to make it worth reading further just for the comic value. My favorite from my quick skim: "Turning to one side, I let my head rest there, high on the creamy smoothness of her curved back while I slid my hands up under her torso to cup her dangling breasts through the slick gown. I hefted those litle pendants, sliding my palms up and over the silky fabric, curling my fingers around that wonderfully soft titty-flesh, clutching her hanging boobs and pumping them through the thin crinkling dress." Yeah, I just don't even know where to start with that, other than "laughing uncontrollably", which is what I did. I guess I'll drop this one off in one of my local Little Free Libraries and let it continue to circulate.

What I'm currently reading

The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea. The pace of this story might be best described as "leisurely", but I find myself caught up in it nonetheless - it's an engagingly-drawn portrait of the personalities and people in a particular group, their suspicions and fears and values and beliefs. Definitely recommended to anyone looking for insight into rural Mexican culture of the time, although perhaps not if one prefers a rip-roaring thriller. This is very much a tale from the Land of Mañana, where nothing gets done in a hurry but still, somehow, things get done, and lessons are learned.

What I plan to read next

Still eyeing the yoga books...but I think right now my priority might be something easier - I feel like I need a mental break as much as a physical one. We'll see.

Last Tuesday I had the sort of back-of-the-throat sinus pain that usually heralds an oncoming cold; however, given the option to believe it was allergies, which I've never had (in fairness, May is an especially terrible month for allergies in Chicago), or a cold, I inexplicably went with the former and did not adjust my activity schedule in the least. Three hours of massage, an hour of biking, two hours of yoga, and two days later, I was in full-blown no-energy knocked-on-my-butt cold territory, and missed two days' work at the spa as a result. Eugh. I'm nearly better, aside from a trailing cough, but it serves me right for not listening to my body.

But hey! Lots of reading time!


What I've just finished reading

Sunstone, vol. 5, by Stjepan Šejić. The writing in this lesbian BDSM love story has been a little uneven - though, in fairness, no more so than most romances - but the artwork. Whoa. (It's not explicit, though definitely NSFW.) Šejić has clearly cultivated the high-level comic creator's ability to visualize a scene in an unusual way that contributes to the telling of the story, and several of the story bits that might feel a little interminable in text are rendered in striking and imaginative ways that help communicate the narrator's state of mind. I particularly liked, in this volume, watching Lisa's somewhat fragmented mental waffling illustrated as the falling petals of a nearly universe-sized daisy - she loves me, she loves me not. (Because man, when you're in love and uncertain, it really can take up your whole universe.) And even with its somewhat fanfic-y feel, the character and major plot arcs are all resolved in an emotionally authentic way. I loved it.

All In the Timing, by David Ives. This was a gift from cyrano, and while I enjoyed reading it, it definitely illustrated to me why I don't spend a lot of time reading plays any longer - I haven't cultivated that sense of directorial vision, capable of considering multiple possible presentations simultaneously, and doing so is a lot more mental work than just reading a novel. Still, my benefactor asked for my thoughts, so here they are:

--The concepts behind "Sure Thing" (where two strangers navigate the tricky waters of a coffee-shop conversation on the way to genuine connection, with a gong helpfully sounding whenever one of them missteps) and "Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread" (a musical number playing on the eponymous composer's stylistic quirks and nihilistic sensibility transposed into a completely banal setting) both made me smile, although I wonder how many people the latter would really play to outside of particular demographics - surely lots of theater-goers haven't seen Koyannisqatsi.

--"Words, Words, Words" (in which three monkeys with typewriters serve as a metaphor for the blind human push toward art-making) struck me as a little precious in its conceit, but could work with a good enough director/cast.

--"The Universal Language" (in which a con man sells lessons in his invented "Unamunda" language to a woman suffering from a stutter, only to find such joy in teaching it to her that he falls for his own con) surprised me in its earnestness; I'd thought that I had pegged the collection as rather more postmodern cynicism, but it was oddly touching all the same.

--"The Philadelphia" was more straightforward, didn't outstay its primary joke, and made me genuinely laugh. ("I've been in a Cleveland all week. It's like death, but without the advantages.")

--Weirdly, "Variations on the Death of Trostky", which seems to be the one most people remember from this collection, didn't do a lot for me as written; I think that may be the lack of directorial eye speaking. I felt like I was missing something, whether from the direction or political context or simple lack of familiarity with 1930s Russian socialist philosophy.

Still, on the whole, I enjoyed the collection, and would totally audition for the part of Dawn in "The Universal Language".

An Extraordinary Union, by Alyssa Cole. Luckily this picked up some as the story progressed; most critically, Elle gained some depth of character. I appreciate that she's still prickly and judgmental (and justifiably so, given her history and contemporaneous context), but she gets to be a little more three-dimensionally human as things go on. And the Confederate vs. Union spy plot does a nice job moving things along, as well as giving the romance a sense of urgency sometimes lacking in the genre.

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Hrmm. So many mixed feelings on this one. asakiyume brought up some very cogent points about how it feels like a very specific and limited dystopia - although there's some discussion of how it affects other groups (largely through deportation), the focus is by far on educated middle-and-upper-class white women, and reflects a very specific fear of their social worth (and, thus, their privilege) being reduced down to that of baby-making machines. Which seems almost quaint in retrospect - as she pointed out, if anything, what's kept women subservient (in our culture and in others) has been not a lack of fertility, but an abundance of it; higher education and social autonomy for women is linked strongly to access to birth control.

That's not to invalidate the underlying fear - given the persistent volume (if not necessarily numbers) of the conservative movement, and the high placement of some of its more extreme members, it's understandable that the Netflix series has become popular - but it does seem rather blind to how its dystopia would be received by women of different ethnic or social groups. (There's no mention as to what, if anything, has happened to black women, for instance. I pictured the narrator's friend Moira as a lighter-skinned black woman, although I don't think there's anything in the text to support that. Nor is there much differentiation in social class - would a poorer woman already used to being largely looked down on embrace her role as a Handmaid, given that it comes with a certain cachet?)

There are some touches here that ring true - I especially liked the portrayal of a culture that promises women freedom from predatory sexualization under patriarchal guardianship, only to have those same supposed guardians be the one doing the predating. But for every detail that felt "right", there were others that brought up far more questions - who, for instance, does this dictatorship even serve? How does it fit into global politics? Who are they fighting? How did they even get into power in the first place, absent some kind of major disaster? I realize that our narrator's limited viewpoint means some of these questions naturally would go unanswered, but I have a feeling osprey_archer's Society for Improved Dictatorship would have some choice words for these people.


What I'm currently reading

A Talent for Trickery, by Alissa Johnson. In a weird way, this is turning out to be the opposite of An Extraordinary Union. The female protagonist is charming and well-drawn from the outset, but both leads are getting bogged down in a lot of Feelings About the Past, which, while certainly a valid part of romance (especially between two thirtysomethings with a history), doesn't make for a particularly dynamic plot. Most of the actual plot developments have been fairly external to the characters, which isn't necessarily a problem, but here has had the result of making the female lead especially a passive reactor in her own story - something that's frustrating to her (given that she's a former con woman and not used to passivity) as much as me, the reader. I do like the theme of how people's lives and priorities can change over time, but I hope things pick up here as well.

Future Sex, by Emily Witt. "Internet dating had evolved to present the world around us, the people in our immediate vicinity, and to fulfill the desires of a particular moment. At no point did it offer guidance in what to do with such a vast array of possibility. {...} It brought us people, but it did not tell us what to do with them." Even beyond Internet dating, this seems to be the thrust of the book so far - Witt writes about her desire for connection, but seems patently uninterested in forming any kind of actual personal connection with anyone she encounters. I think asakiyume hit the nail on the head last week when she pointed out that going into any kind of relationship simply looking to get your needs met is a recipe for failure, since a relationship should be about what you can do for the other person as much as what they can do for you; this definitely adds a pathetic (in the sense of "pathos" as well as the more common definition) dimension to her search. I'm waiting to see if Witt will show any insight on this point, although I admit my hopes are not high. Luckily it's not a terribly long book.


What I plan to read next

I'm going to need a new audiobook to replace The Handmaid's Tale. I'm eyeing Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, although I want to read a bit more of her work before I tackle the biography - I've read a bunch of her domestic-humor writing (which is notable in how it's been dismissed as trivial, despite the very real thread of psychological horror and fear in losing one's personhood to 1950s domesticity...or maybe that's just my interpretation), but little of her outright horror other than "The Lottery". I have a copy of The Sundial I ordered more than a year ago (!) that I've been meaning to read...or maybe I'll use one of my Audible credits to nab The Haunting of Hill House or another of her works. Suggestions?