Up early to put things in order in my chamber, and then to my Lord’s, with whom I spoke about several things, and so up and down in several places about business with Mr. Creed, among others to Mr. Wotton’s the shoemaker, and there drank our morning draft, and then home about noon, and by and by comes my father by appointment to dine with me, which we did very merrily, I desiring to make him as merry as I can, while the poor man is in town. After dinner comes my uncle Wight and sat awhile and talked with us, and thence we three to the Mum House at Leadenhall, and there sat awhile. Then I left them, and to the Wardrobe, where I found my Lord gone to Hampton Court. Here I staid all the afternoon till late with Creed and Captain Ferrers, thinking whether we should go to-morrow together to Hampton Court, but Ferrers his wife coming in by and by to the house with the young ladies (with whom she had been abroad), she was unwilling to go, whereupon I was willing to put off our going, and so home, but still my mind was hankering after our going to-morrow. So to bed.
I'm fine, as far as I know everyone's fine, but my trip to get blood drawn was more exciting than anticipated: the bus driver had to slam on the brakes to avoid either a bicycle or a pedestrian crossing in mid-block. She did that, checked to make sure that everyone on the bus was OK, then drove to the next corner, pulled over, and asked again if everyone was sure they were OK.
A few stops after that, someone asked me where he should get off the bus to get to "the little mall with Trader Joe's and MicroCenter." It took me a moment to figure out what he meant, because the bus we were on doesn't go there. So first I told him I wasn't sure, because this bus didn't go there, and then I started thinking about the problem. He said he wasn't good at directions, so I suggested a route that involved more walking but less chance of getting lost. I wound up signaling for his bus stop, and then telling him I was sorry, I'd forgotten they'd moved the bus stop, so [revised directions]. I should note, he didn't ask me for most of this, just what bus stop to use, and I was in the mood to do the extra bits.
The rest of the trip to Mt. Auburn to get blood drawn went smoothly. Once I got there, I had very little wait, and the phlebotomist did a very good job; I made a point of telling him so. On the way back, I stopped in Harvard Square to put more money on my Charlie card; buy and eat a slice of Otto's mashed potato and bacon pizza; and then went to Lizzy's to get Adrian a pint of non-dairy chocolate ice cream.
I was going to withdraw some cash from the ATM at the 7-11 at Comm Ave and Harvard Ave, but when I got there the screen said "windows 7. Press ctrl-alt-del to log in," which was literally impossible with the numeric keypad, so I just came home.
"Now I feel much more comfortable advocating for [what I need]. To give you an example, on the set of Murderbot, going to my directors and writers, the showrunners, Chris and Paul [Weitz], and saying, ‘I'm really sorry, but on Wednesday at 2pm - I know I'm on the schedule that day, but is there any way I could be in my trailer for 45 minutes to have a therapy session?' and them being so supportive and loving and saying, ‘Of course, we will get you a Wi-Fi booster,’ because we were out in the middle of nowhere.
Sciona, the first woman ever admitted to the University of Magic, takes on Thomil, a janitor from a discriminated-against culture, as her lab assistant, and they both learn dark secrets about their world.
Thomil is introduced when his clan makes a desperate run across deadly ground to get to the safety of a city surrounded by a magical shield. The shield protects against bitter cold and the deadly Blight, which randomly zaps and dissolves people, but the area around the city is particularly Blight-infested. Only Thomil and his baby niece survive. When they arrive, they find that the city natives hate their race and has consigned them all as a permanent underclass.
Ten years later, Sciona, a well-to-do young woman in the city, is preparing for her magic exam to try to get into the sexist magic university, which no woman has ever passed. Though she does pass, all the male mages but her mentor hate her and hassle her. The only other person who's even remotely nice to her is Thomil, the janitor, who is assigned as her lab assistant as a cruel joke. But though Sciona is racist and classist, and Thomil is mildly sexist in an oblivious way, they find that they kind of get along...
Wang has an engaging, easy-read style for the most part, the intros to the two main characters are quite compelling, and despite the heavy-handed axes of privilege themes, Thomil and Sciona have a nice dynamic.
I said "for the most part." The exception is the magic system, which I think is basically computer programming via magic typewriters (spellographs). The wizards program a spell to access a specific area of the magical Otherrealm (which they can't see or sense in any way, so they're just plotting points on a grid) to grab magical energy or matter from it. But we get MUCH more detailed and lengthy descriptions of it, from long explanations to actual spells:
CONDITION 1: DEVICE is 15 Vendric feet higher than its position at the time of activation.
ACTION 1: FIRE will siphon from POWER an amount of energy no lower than 4.35 and no higher than 4.55 on the Leonic scale.
ACTION 2: FIRE will siphon within the distance of DEVICE no higher than 3 Vendric inches.
If and only if CONDITION 1 is met, ACTION 1 and ACTION 2 will go into effect.
The first half is Sciona and Thomil working on various spells, interspersed with very heavy-handed commentary on colonialism, sexism, and how Sciona totally gets feminism when it applies to her personally but is oblivious to all other isms. Sciona is an awful, self-centered person and Thomil is mostly perfect. Almost exactly halfway through, there is a shocking reveal. At least, it shocked many readers. It did not shock me.
Despite what the plot description sounds like, Sciona and Thomil do not have a romance beyond occasional sexy feelings. It's a magical dystopia/dark academia, I think similar to Babel (which I could not get very far into) but less anvillicious in that it does not have literal footnotes saying stuff like "This is a racist comment and racism is bad." (In the bookshop, I have Blood Over Bright Haven tagged "If you like Babel you will like this.") Sadly for M. L. Wang, this comparative subtlety got them some reviews on Goodreads accusing them of condoning Sciona being a bad person and endorsing her beliefs.
I did not care for this book but I can see how it would work for many readers, especially if they're shocked by the twist at the halfway mark.
Four geese seen at the cemetery pond on my way out, two visible when I came back through. They can hide well when they want to.
Curled dock up, can't tell if it is blooming or not -- green flowers. Also equisetum, horsetails, I think at least two species. And the buttercups are spreading in that horse pasture. Which I complain about every year, but that gets me nowhere.
Got out on the bike, up to the golf course and back, viewing with alarm all the dig-safe graffiti on the asphalt. Looks very much like a few miles of new paving. That's a US highway, and I demand my taxpayer rights -- they can only pave roads when I don't want to use them. Anyway, did not die. Although my body reminds me that this is a possible outcome . . .
I don't really keep up with you young whippersnappers' schedules, but going by the cakes coming in I'm guessing summer vacation is starting up. Soooo...
Hey, hoopy froods, school's is out for summer!!
You know what's awesome about summer, besides throwing all those pesky grammar rules to the wind?
Jumping into pools of cubed green Jell-O, that's what:
During the Winter Underlined book tour I actually had a whole Q-and-A session derailed by a discussion on the practice of combining Jell-O with cake. Apparently some of you weirdos do that.
[ducking and running for cover]
That's not all summer is known for, though. There's also the ice cream cones:
(Honestly not sure which parts of that are edible...but I'm hoping the answer is "none of it.")
And steaks on the grill:
YUM.
And hamburgers:
(I like how even the fake plastic ants won't touch those "french fries.")
And hot dog pancakes:
This looks like a job for... the Special Pancake Victims' Unit!
*DONK DONK*
And then, after all that food, you get to stuff yourself into a bathing suit:
I actually look exactly like this in a bikini, only paler*. And with more muffin tops. (HEYO.)
(*People tend to think Floridians are super tan, summer-loving sun-worshippers. Hee! SO CUTE. No, we're the ones huddled inside with the AC blasting, laughing at all you crazy tourists are out there getting heat strokes. We also own more sweaters than the average Alaskan, because there is no place colder in the continental U.S. than inside a Florida public building during the month of June.)
And then of course there are the fun-loving hordes of ants...
I swear these things are solar-powered.
Not to mention the blistering heat...
...and family vacations where everyone's miserable except the organizer of said vacation, who is homicidally determined to have a good time...
[One of my most cherished Disney memories is of the family collapsed on a park bench, moaning, while the Dad stands before them, screaming, "We're not here to RELAX, we're here to HAVE FUN."
"I'm having fun! I'm having fun!"
Plus there's nothing good on TV, and the neighborhood kids wake you up at oh-HAIL-no-thirty with their shrill little screams of glee and stomping feet, and all the parks and shops are crowded, and, and...
Huh. How long 'til Fall, again?
Thanks to Tracey D., Adriane M., Sam H,, Kerry L., Lauralee L., Aj M., Jill V., Julie G., Kristin M., and Becky C. for making us realize just how much we need a vacation.
*****
P.S. If you insist on being OUTSIDE in this heat, especially at, say, an Orlando theme park, at least do yourself a favor and get one of these:
Air temperature 53 F, wind northeast at about 1 mph, sunny. Pair of geese in the middle of the park, declaring it off-limits to any children and small dogs. I don't think they are nesting out there, as we don't have any open water within about half a mile. Planning a longer bike ride, up to the country club and back.
This year's Wiscon was all-online, and billed as a "gap year," with fewer program items than I'm used to, and no dealers room.
I went to two program items--a "US immigration law and worldwide fandom roundtable" and a panel on "the wild world of modern agtech and why isn't it showing up in current SF."
The roundtable was about as cheerful as you'd expect, with a lot of discussion of both past and feared legal difficulties in traveling to cons, and alternatives like smaller gatherings and online cons. Most of us thought that online wasn't as good as in person, but that it's significantly better than nothing. (There may be some selection bias here: people who didn't think an online con was better than nothing wouldn't bother attending.) And a couple of people noted that their choice has been online or nothing at least since 2020, for reasons like disability or budge that don't have much to do with Trump.
The panel on current and future agriculture was fun. Some of the "what SF is getting wrong" was about TV and movies, showing a garden plot that's much too small for the population it's allegedly feeding, and that the fictional future is even worse/stupider about monoculture than the real world today.
Other than that, I hung out on the Discord server. Most if not all of the program items were recorded, and will be available to convention members for a week after the end of the con, but I may not get around to watching any of them, even less interactive things like readings and the guest of honor speeches.
To my Lord this morning, and thence to my brother’s, where I found my father, poor man, come, which I was glad to see. I staid with him till noon, and then he went to my cozen Scott’s to dinner, who had invited him. He tells me his alterations of the house and garden at Brampton, which please me well.
I could not go with him, and so we parted at Ludgate, and I home to dinner, and to the office all the afternoon, and musique in my chamber alone at night, and so to bed.
Been seeing the summer toys come out of garage, big loud horsepower totally out of place on 25 mph residential roads. I'm not hip enough to ID most of them, but Corvettes and Porsches for sure. Low-slung beasts that may still have trouble with road conditions.
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