So I have whiplash.

Briefly:  I've got an interesting bump on my neck.  In the very middle.

Hadn't checked the front of my neck til today.  It feels like an Adam's apple.  [Which I oughtn't HAVE.]  Urm.

I probably have tissue damage, considering the current amount of neck inflammation.

Whiplash details below, because I figure I may need all this later on for the medical claim[s].  :(

Winter crash--!

Short version:  Driving home, we got hit -- an SUV slid into us.  We're mostly fine.

T-boned us.  He didn't stop due to slippery ice; we had right of way.

I am probably less fine, because this is the third car accident I've been in since June 2015 -- two car accidents in 2015, then sliding into an icy curb in March 2016, and now this accident.  (Why can't we hire the Flash to get us around, I ask you???)

Allen's car needs body work.  On both sides.

I'll need a chiropractor asap.  (Meaning Monday.)  Dammit.  I may have another week-long muscle spasm; that's what happened after the curb incident nine months ago.  :(

Tonight, the accident-causing driver compounded breaking the car, knocking us into a bus sign and a street light... by making it a hit-and-run.  The jerk.


Good news, a nice SUV driver stopped and gave us his license number.

Then SHE got hit by another driver.  Luckily her accident was not as bad as ours, AND the other driver and she went to talk like normal people.  They pretty much bumped each other; more luck, they didn't careen into us either!

The Other Driver stopped to tell us she too had slipped on the ice, and how glad she was to not hit us after our accident.

Also a gentleman appeared [who probably lived nearby] and who came to see if we were okay.

We live in a good place.  :)


So we pulled away from that accident magnet zone, off the curb, and awaited our cop.

Told our 911 operator that we were a street from home, and she was understandably very sympathetic.  "You almost made it!"


One Narnia street light in our neighborhood looks like a candle flame is bending in the wind.

Tonight we just returned from a holiday party, and that was nice.  Everyone left a bit early because more snow is en route.

Apparently Narnia had other plans for us, eh?  =sigh=  I'm off to bed soon.  Haven't decided yet if I'll ice my shoulder, which is grumpy from being thrown around (yay for seatbelts!) or go with my other choices.

Good thoughts are appreciated.  Thanks!!!

Depressive: me.

Something major has been affecting me.

(And I wanted to blog about it for a long time... but focusing is too hard.)

I'm depressive.  

I'm bipolar, and I have been bipolar for decades now.  Not manic, for which I am thankful, but depression has become a much worse problem in my life.  My meds keep me from mania.  

That used to be the most important thing to me, not being manic -- but I can't cope with chronic depression, which is honestly crushing me.

I've been depressive for months, and it has been getting increasingly worse. 

WFC, DAW, credit...

Last week DAW Books added me to their freelance pool.

(Yes, you're quite right, there are millions of exclamation points ellided there.)

I have an editor credit on Amazon.  David Tallerman cowrote a YA novel with Michael Wills, which I copyedited -- and Mike kindly listed me in the credits.  No one's done that before to my knowledge.

Frankly, I'm gobsmacked!

DAW, Dave, and Mike are some of my most favorite gentlebeings in the universe right now.  8)

Random: Oct. 2016

[Written nearly three weeks ago... on 4-October.]


This weekend's ConClave 40:  Clave's in a new hotel this year, which is amusingly enough a hotel that Penguicon once used -- back in 2006?

We plan on WFC 2016 as well, so Clave will be our penultimate 2016 con together (Allen attends Youmacon, but I don't).


Normally I post during September, which is my birth month and my work anniversary month.  I didn't this year.

I have a couple of publishing tests in right now.  (One arrived on my birthday; pretty cool!)  Seems like whenever I have tests, then other things want very badly to distract me and/or take up my time.  :b

On 4-October, Yesterday we found out that Allen's Olds was on its last legs.  He promptly found a different Oldsmobile, and brought that car home, so we have a reliable car again.

"But it's MY toy!"

I have a cloth fish on a pole.  Months ago, when Chaosium was still a kitten, he'd play with that cat toy.

I learned pretty quickly to hold on tightly.  After the first time KayKay ran off with the toy, that is!  I wasn't worried about him devouring the fish (eventually) so much as getting sick by trying to eat the string.

Shadowcat didn't get to play with it much, because KayKay wasn't big on sharing.

August 2016: Cat dramas.

~~ I wrote this 27-August-2016.  I should have posted it then, but I'll post it now.  Dates were added for clarity.


So Shadowcat seems to be expecting again.  I was basing it on how oddly she was acting, initially.

The current batch of kittens were weaned about two weeks ago.

Then suddenly all kittens (Oreo, 'Violet, DustBunny) were nursing again.  They shouldn't be.  They're three months old!

That was unexpected...

Our two kittens are still around.

Vee (the female) seems very pleased that Allen comes up to see if they're out and about, and then gives them treats.  I suspect she's bonding to him.

She still hasn't decided yet about this whole petting thing.  Her brother is very keen on us petting him, however.  8)

So I haven't pushed it, trying to touch her.  Maybe Vee will want to be petted; maybe not, also.  I suspect she would like Allen to pet her first.

I am not sure that Dusty / Dust Bunny is a name that's sticking to her brother.  He seems to simply respond to my voice.  Unless it's that he thinks "Hey, sweetpea!" is his name.  Maybe he does.

Maybe I'll call him Sweetie instead.  He is a very affectionate kitten.

Readercon... soon.

I'm thankful for NYRSF, since that and Locus both involve bibliographic matter to varying extents...

For I volunteered to run the bio-bibs for Readercon this year.

This proved to sometimes trigger my control-freak issues.

Yes, control is important to me, and not having control and/or being unable to Do A Thing when it needs doing... argh.

I am exceedingly grateful not to be the one creating the program book.  Fixing pieces of it, awesome; creating the bits, not so much.  (Except that I'm told that the bio-bibs are actually the largest part of the book, since they're the pieces that need to be separate files beforehand...)

So... they're back! :D

In other news, the little kittens reappeared today!  The kits -- either three or four, we aren't sure yet -- are still blue-eyed.

We both watched them for a while.  :D

They don't walk as much as they wobble.  Fall over easily.  Adorable as all heck.

Apparently I was right, Shadowcat IS the mother.  Skinny as a rake, that poor cat, and she was surprised to see that I saw her kits today.  Well, I was pretty surprised myself.  The little darlings.

Briefly: More kittens!

Our kittens just had kittens.  Or so we think.

(I shall have to call the black kittens kitlings then, to differentiate them from the baby kittens.)

Yesterday our housemate had watered the front yard, and therefore moved the lean-to.  I.e., boxes I'd set up over the winter to help protect the kittens/kitlings if they chose to stay by the house for its warmth.  Last night I noticed that he hadn't put it back, so I went to do that.

I found little black and white kittens, who looked like they were a week old, perhaps less.  They didn't try to run away -- just squirmed, as if trying to nurse.

I set the lean-to back up as best I could, and let them be.

Having several humans make noises around the kittens was not reassuring to the kittens' mother, I'm sure.  Even though I still don't know who the mother is.

"I don't understand..."

~ Authoritarians and being susceptible ~

I'm reading a fascinating article that's somewhat scary.  It's about people who are afraid, who let themselves be ruled by fear.

Fear that the world will change, that the status quo will change, that The Other will triumph.

The article is about the authoritarian desire to feel safe by "destroying" the threat[s] with a strongman leader, or who claims to be, who promises to do drastic things to "solve" the problems.

Even when they are foolish impossible things offered as solutions.

Cats, stairs, and family.

For years, I saw my aunt and Granny most weekends.

Thus I knew from a young age that people were different.  I could see it in my relatives, to start with.  Mom's parents lived together, Dad's parents did not.

My grandmother lived with her descendants instead:  Granny, her daughter, and her daughter's daughters, plus one of her grandsons.  Grandpa Zanoni had had many strokes, so by the time I knew him, he lived in a nursing home.

Dad's sister, who passed away a month ago, lived for much of my life in Granny's house.  At least that was how it appeared to me.  After Granny died [when I was almost sixteen], it became my aunt's house.

We all learn more layers as we grow up, eh?


I shall divert to two weeks ago, on Sunday, when I'd planned to attend the Readercon Skype.  Instead, there was Project Stairs.  My folks came over, we demolished the back steps, then assembled the new steps.

I'd made a list of ideal steps and current steps, and Dad went with the first.  This means we have 2/3 of the previous stairs, since I thought having steps just under the sliding door would be optimal.

Kittens, Cryoburn, death.

I've been rereading Cryoburn lately, my first reread of it.  It is far easier to read this time around.

The first time, I kept being afraid that the next moment, Miles would get the call.  About Aral.

As Allen pointed out to me last night, the way Miles does get the call is foreshadowed in the book that falls -- in the Vorkosigan Saga timeline -- directly before Cryoburn.

{ Warning:  sadness from death follows.  }

Another January death--STOP IT!!!

One of my editors died today (from Making Light and BoingBoing, respectively).

Astronomicon 12

Except I never edited with David Hartwell, at least not directly.  He was unfailing kind to me.  David knew I was part of NYRSF staff and was very enthusiastic about my work there -- so yes, in a way he was "my" editor.

Con season returns!

This month's ConFusion... back in Novi.

Where the cons haven't been for some time -- at the Sheraton, where both Fusion and Penguicon have been before.  I think 2005 was the last time P-con used the Sheraton.

Trying to recall when Fusion was there... 2003?  I know Fusion moved to Troy in '04 or maybe '05.

Yeah, some of us trace the years by where the cons were held.  What cities, what hotels.  8)


Life, the Universe, and ConFusion.  Hee.  Part of me wonders why so many cons switched from the Back to the Future theme of 2015 (hey, Marty!) to the answer is 42.

But I may just let it go.

I know where my towel is -- and that's the important thing.  Right?

Right!