I’m curious to read the Commonweal series by Graydon Saunders going off a friend’s description and from the reviews. Everyone seems to agree it is strange.
First, imagine that you’re reading Master & Commander, except without any of the introduction to workings and terminology of a Napoleonic war era British navy sailing ship provided to the viewpoint character dr Stephen Maturin. Instead, it would be like reading the first person account of the operation by captain Jack Aubrey, written for people who are already familiar with both the world he exists in and the structure and organization of a military outfit.
and then
It’s military fantasy with no gendered pronouns (no, really), an interesting look at systems of government, obvious affection for the smallest details (you like logistics? get yer logistics here) that meant I came away feeling like I knew a whole lot more about artillery than I did when I started.
That’s plenty to get me interested!
This book isn’t on Amazon and so after a bit of digging around, I bought it from Google Books, found the epub download link, converted it in Calibre, and emailed it to my Kindle. That’s also how I read book manuscripts that people send me and stuff that I download from the Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg.
I had a good day today. Went to the doc for some routine tests and vaccinations, worked from a super nice cafe in the Castro where I could see the vintage F train cars go by, did some shopping & home again to work for the afternoon. It’s still such a relief to be able to breathe freely and see the blue sky after two weeks of wildfire smoke & filter masks.
Other people’s reactions to me in the Model CI continue to be odd, quite different from their reactions to me on the TravelScoot. I think it is a return to being perceived as more disabled in some mainstream (and likely quite wrong) way while the TravelScoot as I’ve observed many times tends to be seen as some sort of quirky toy, a hipster affectation, no matter how obvious it is I walk with a cane or how many blue accessibility symbol stickers I plaster all over it. The Model CI just reads as “wheelchair” though a fairly slick looking one so it is a quieter interaction and people are more embarrassed to either look at me or meet my glance. I got followed around a store for a bit as they tried to obliquely figure out if I was about to shoplift madly or what. (What.)
I figured out a really good setup for the undercarriage with a big sturdy shopping bag that has 4 handles. Carabiners clip the back handles to the spots where the rigid plastic basket would clamp on. The front handles looped around the nubbly posts at the front sides of the seat which are meant to have maybe a light and a coffee cup holder (they will have those soon, as soon as I can get to a bike shop for the holder and charge my new bike light).