Author: Liz

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Feeling better

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Post-illness report! I’m still taking some extra meds for the lingering asthma/cough/chest pain and I still get tired easily. I can now take the bus across town, go to a thing, and take the bus home. I also am doing regular house cleaning and water the garden. I’m back at work (from home! with short naps). So that’s a huge improvement!

I really enjoyed the Claire DeWitt mystery novels – very modern noir – fabulous protagonist – nicely surreal – I kept highlighting whole paragraphs to save as quotes – Love a book that centers on a fictional book (in this case, Détection by Jacques Sillette, and a zine, Cynthia Silverton Girl Detective). No deep thoughts from me right now, but I loved these books and hope there will be another!

Quibbling with an irritating mystery novel

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Of all the books I’ve been reading it is silly to write about one of the most irritating, but that’s where I’m at this morning. I realize people love this series but everything about the first book grated on me! It is “Murder with Peacocks”, set in a small town. Our heroine is a blacksmith but took the entire summer off to go live with her mom and sister and do a professional job for free (planning three very large, complicated weddings and all the parties leading up to them).

Everyone is supposed to be quirky and funny, which is kind of cool, except they are all horrible with horrible boundaries and the gender politics are from like, the bad part of 1980 that voted against the ERA. Multiple (witnessed!) sexual assaults are treated as mildly humorous! The heroine just doing a shit ton of work for free for her horrible, entitled family is supposed to make them all extra charming. She’s so independent, strong, and liberated, but for fun she cleans the houses of strangers and her own (rich, I guess) family’s SEVEN BATHROOMS. I am over her, and everyone around her!

It’s also written in the weird twilight zone where everyone should have a cell phone, but they don’t, because the writer hasn’t figured out how to do a mystery with cell phones yet – let’s not forget that era of books and TV that were so strange!

Let’s also not forget the weird racist sweatshop (owned by the male romantic lead) in this tiny town with Mrs. Tranh (the heroine THINKS she MAY be Vietnamese – hello – perhaps the name and them speaking Vietnamese could be a clue) and the unnamed, unnumbered Ladies who don’t speak any English and sew wedding outfits 24/7 apparently and also no one in town knows them or invites them to anything despite the town all going to the weddings and knowing all of each others’ business.

But that is not even my most persistent quibble. There is a guy whose wife died and her sister, his sister-in-law, comes to stay, and (bad boundaries alert) Meg our heroine keeps ending up searching the sister-in-law’s room and suitcases and comenting on how she finds more and more “expensive knick-knacks” in the suitcases, so the sister in law was stealing, which is treated (like every crime, including murder) as mildly humorous. (Maybe they were her sister’s or family heirlooms, anyway!)

But THAT is not even my quibble.

WHAT are these expensive knicknacks? I can’t imagine what they ARE! Are they bookends made of GOLD?! What? What are they? Are they snuffboxes previously owned by Louis XIV?! Are they, like, a gem encrusted robot nightingale that sings, like some Caliph gets for a present in the 1001 Nights?

So, I am not like, filthy rich but I am comfortably well off and buy myself nice things sometimes. Here are some of the knick-knacks I can see from bed.

(They are there on purpose since I am in bed a lot and enjoy looking at them!) These non-valuable objects include:

* A lava lamp. Would fit in a suitcase.
* A small china triceratops
* A fist-sized chunk of green glass I got in an estate sale
* A copper bud vase with gold and enamel inlay
* Another bud vase, art deco, painted
* A decoupaged tray my grandma made
* A glass cube with laser etched diagram of the known universe

bookshelf with knick-knacks

They are valuable only to me, though maybe you could resell the bud vase for thirty bucks or so on ebay. (I looked, for reference!) The rest of it? Not valuable.

So much for the madcap mystery. All the characters need to go read Captain Awkward for at least 2 years and think hard about their life choices.

Please send help and tell me what these small town valuable small objects might be!

Got the Rona

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After 2 years of being pretty careful we finally got covid. It hit me kind of hard because of having asthma I guess. I’ve been off work for a month, hoping to improve this next week and be back at work but that will depend on whether I can talk without coughing.

It has sucked but I am reasonably good at being sick in bed. One aspect of being disabled that actually helps sometimes! The down sides of having covid while disabled – the logistics of getting to doctors’ office was kind of hairy since I could not handle a) the bus b) driving c) breaking down and putting together either the manual or the powerchair for transport in a car. My sister drove me to to get a monoclonal antibody infusion (TOTAL INFUSION was the hilarious 80s name of the clinic) and then isolated in her basement for days in case I had exposed her. I didn’t want to take a cab. Then at some point I thought about going to urgent care (because my blood pressure was out of control probably from the high doses of prednisone) but could not figure out how to get there without once again asking someone to potentially be exposed and then have to isolate.

I am fine now, just still coughing/ asthmatic when I move around a lot, talk, or laugh. NO LAUGHING ALLOWED. Goal is to quiet this reaction via more inhalers, nerve drugs like gabapentin which apparently help with dry cough, and more tea with honey than seems humanly possible.

I also gained 10 pounds almost instantly from the prednisone and eating whatever I felt like eating, which was: everything.

I missed a bunch of events, concerts, and so on that I had wanted to go to and will probably keep missing them as I will likely go back to work before I am 100% better and the ramp up to Actually Better enough to go out in the evening will be long and slow. So that also sucked.

Luckily the weather was amazing so I spent a lot of time, after the first two weeks where I barely got out of bed, lying on a sort of pallet on the lawn in the garden. I feel very lucky to have a sunny little garden with its astroturf lawn, hummingbirds, finches, and flowers. At first I was getting help from Danny to set up the little bed and drag it back to the Underhouse every day but now I can do it. There is also the hammock and my amazing outdoor claw foot soaking tub. Variety in where you park yourself is really good when you are sick, to keep up morale!

Milo turned 22 and A. is 19. They will likely be going off to grad school (library science) and university (probably in the UK). I’m so proud of them both!

Milo got covid, rather lightly, but was better within a day or two. Danny was pretty sick and slept through nearly a week (some of that isolating in the basement, but we didn’t isolate well enough) and then has been still a little bit sick for maybe 3 weeks or so. He is better now!

SDI & the EDD have been a non ideal experience, as they seem to have screwed up somehow. I think my doc sent in the paperwork but EDD attached it to a claim from 2014 (??!!!!) So my claim is in limbo, it doesn’t have a case number yet, so when I call on the phone I can’t get to the right menu to get a person, and I also can’t send a message since there is no claim to do it from, only a “pending” claim. ARRRRGH.

We are just starting to have people over to hang out in the garden. It’s nice but I find people to be exhausting. I holed up in the room with the door shut kind of a lot just because everything seems irritating and overwhelming and I get a headache quickly if things are overstimulating.

Somewhat inspired by the sudden heavy hitting covid, I started filling out a little workbook called “I’m Dead, Now What?!” that is supposed to gather all the information that would be useful to your survivors or executor of your will. It is interesting to contemplate. Mostly I worry about the giant mess of books, papers, and magazines that I have been lugging around for my whole life and which has NOT gotten any more orderly. What would anyone even do with it? The least I can do is put it in order and sort out anything “important” (LOL? is any of it?). Some of the zines, at least, should go to a good zine archive and/or maybe get scanned. So that will be a goal for this year. Maybe I can hire someone to scan them once I have a pile ready.

I would not call this “Long covid” by the way – Just a long recovery since my lungs got hosed and the exhaustion kind of lingers. I expect in another month I’ll be frisky as ever.

Bad Invention: The Gödel Escher Bra

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As a perfect answer to the people over my lifetime who would pontificate about Hofstadtler (sometimes without having read the book), I present you a supreme bad invention: the Gödel Escher Bra! Held up with Möbius Straps! (Alternate form: Eternal Golden Bra)

I thought of this in 2015 — just came across it again and laughed out loud. Still funny!

A foundational (garment) philosophy!

Maybe you can also use it as underwear somehow and then move it back up to the bra level — would that make it a strange loop?

A day in the life of Capp St. Noisebridge

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Noisebridge moved into the new space, what, a year ago or so? Something like that. Because of the pandemic, we have been a little slow settling in, and this winter with the rain and Omicron surge, there wasn’t a ton of activity – a solid core of regulars working to get the space organized, the wood shop even more functional, the giant laser cutter in working order, and so on. I spent Friday and Saturday afternoon at the space and thought I’d report on my day today! In case you are worried about my pandemic surge risk taking I will mention everyone at the space is vaccinated and I stayed outside 95% of the time and wore a well fitted n95 mask!

Friday in between work meetings I cleared an enormous load of junk and trash to the front porch, listened to Claus’s vision of what might happen with the space, emailed an electrician for a quote, arranged for trash pickup today and a plumber to come snake the clogged drain. 272 Capp was some sort of auto repair place for a while, with a big concrete driveway and a rollup door you could drive through. The drain in this “front porch” driveway area has been clogged since the move-in, and we’ve gone through a few attempts to lever up its rusty iron grate to no avail.

First off me and TJ chatted with a guy I know I’ve met before, James, who is a science fiction writer, who let me photograph his amazing “battle jacket” covered in patches for punk bands and nerd things, stopped by and talked about his plans for lenticular printing. I gave him some tips on cheap options for rubber rollers (like for printmaking). Wonder if we will see some nifty lenticular print workshops at the space?

james with patch jacket

The trash pickup guys were intrigued and said they might come back another day for a tour and will tell their boss, who would like the idea of a free workshop.

The heroic plumber who showed up today chiselled and hammered the hell out of the grate, got it unstuck, snaked and hosed out the drain several times (absolutely disgusting smelling motor oil storm drain situation! ) The plumber is now a friend of Noisebridge and I think is going to show up to take a welding lesson.

I took on the top half of a plywood laser-cut obelisk that was in the trash pile (rained on all winter) as my project. It is now spray painted with spare cans of paint & I’m going to add hinges to one panel so it becomes a cabinet, slather it in marine varnish, and put a solar LED light inside.

Justin from Technical Underground spent hours building a giant planter box for the front porch – totally off the cuff out of scrap lumber. It still needs some sealant inside, a bottom shelf, casters so we can wheel it around the patio, paint, a coat of polyurethane, then I’ll fill it with the herbs and succulents that are now in some janky plastic pots.

Have a look at things coming out of our horrible car repair shop storm drain (drains to Mission Creek, I’m afraid)

heroic plumber

Meanwhile people were coming into the space and doing amazing mysterious things. Some 3-D printer stuff was happening, a guy showed up with a box of electronics stuff and god knows what he was up to, someone tried out sewing machines upstairs, a dude showed up with fancy lumber to build himself a desk –

One of the most hilarious interactions went like this, a dude riding by on a bike stopps & yells in, askking if we are open. Yes! Yes we are. “Do you have any electrical engineers here?” Yes probably. Maybe! What’s up. “Can I bring this, well, I have this BOX, I got it at an auction and it’s like, this 80s bullshit device that does something with your Aura, and electricity, and I want to know what it actually *does*.” Ok well how big is this box and can i just say right off, that you cannot leave it here but that does sound … hilarious” “It’s got a little carrying case! I can bring it and show it!” “Bring it a little later like 5 or 6pm when a lot more people will show up!” Hours later dude rolls up on his bike with a sort of thin suitcase and we all cluster round to see the 3-Part Body Charging Molecular Enhancer!!!! Hilarity ensues! It is several glass plates, a palm sized piece of hammered copper soldered to an amp lead, and some laminated instructions. Turns out we are missing the other 2 suitcases with the Transformer thing and the Bulb but the instructions were AMAZING.

diagram of molecular enhancer

I feel that some of the instructions are worth sharing with the world and you will have to imagine my dramatically reading them aloud, lingering suggestively on any mention of rubber or nooses in order to make TJ die inside.

How I Experiment with The 3 Part Body Charger

This is how I start and stop the machine so I don’t feel a zap of current when I start or shut it down.

1. I sit on a plastic chair (plastic does not conduct electricity) or
2. Sometimes I use our sofa. I cover the area I sit on with a kind of rubberized material or thick blanket that does not conduct electric. I remove my wrist watch.
3. I PLUG THE CORD INTO THE 110 WALL POWER SUPPLY I MAKE SURE THE MACHINE IS OFF
4. I place the aluminum & glass part (B) on a clean flat dry floor
5. I position the transformer part (A) as shown in Diagram
6. I place Bulb Part (C) in Foam on floor next to my chair.
7. I insert all 3 plugs in their proper sockets on back panel board as shown on diagram
8. I clean the soles of soles of my bare feet and place only the heels on the aluminum part of the glass plat
9. I tie the string of the Harness on the wire next to the bulb and secure the rubber around my neck this prevents the bulb from breaking if I should drop it.
10. I form a noose from the end of the starting cord and tie it on my right wrist.

Many lines or phrases in BOLD, ITALIC, in RED LETTERS, or ALL THREE with Suspiciously Weird Capitalization and yet a notably correct use of the subjunctive!

As near as I can tell this Molecular Enhancer is the equivalent of slowly licking a 2 volt battery. SADLY, Zach the neighbor on the bicycle only has 1 of the 3 part Body Charger. But we enjoyed this historical tour of someone’s absolutely crazed invention.

Justin Lazerbong brought me a very tasty burrito!

Briefly taught another young person how to use a power drill, left her to drill holes in the Obelisk, and I just kind of enjoyed being like “Here’s a power drill, hold it perpendicular, squeeze gently and get the feel of it , BYE” I think she had fun.

I also sent some innocents who had never done such a thing in their lives before, to a paint store to buy several kinds of paint, which reminded me of a similar good time when I yolo-ed to the e-waste center in my wheelchair trundling an enormous heavy bin on entirely inadequate casters 3 blocks down Capp St. with a fabulous young nerd named Wolf who had (I think) just shown up for the first time that day. Hello youngster we are going on a JOURNEY.

Among the things I gave away at the curb (post trash pickup) were: a pharoah costume in original packaging, cupcake decoration kit, many VHS tapes and DVDs, a bunch of weight lifting gizmos (which sadly, the owner of them showed up several hours later unexpectedly, oops, but noisebridge is not a gym, and they were in the trash pile but I felt bad as he was distressed and explained ot me that when programming, it was important to take breaks and do exercise to keep blood flowing to the brain – sorry dude) Some buckets, some more buckets, gnarly old pieces of lumber that had been in the rain and had nails sticking out, and some sandals. By this time the plumber (still snaking the horrible smelling patio drain out after 2 hours at it) was yelling out in a companionable way to passers by, “HAVE SOME FREE STUFF! YES ! FREE!! FUCK YEAH ITS FREE” unbending a bit from the beginning of the day when he was awkwardly calling me “Miss”.

I tweeted this afternoon to try and remember the fun stuff going on: https://twitter.com/lizhenry/status/1482455008507432963

This post is already too long but SO MANY THINGS HAPPENED and I met like, 20 people and got to hear all about their
projects and beam at them benevolently and share some cookies. And that is what I love about Noisebridge! But most of all I love the feeling of contributing something to society and this city, beyond my own private life, family, home, and job, together with other people.

ups and downs

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My ankles have been so great and I’ve been walking more and more but I guess I went too far – maybe the squatting down while arranging stuff in the garden and digging or maybe just the cumulative extra walking was too much too fast. I thought I was being so cautious – literally years of waiting to be ready to even walk half a block to the corner and back – And then once able to do that I have waited like 6 months of building strength before trying to do anything further.

It feels like a bad dream.

I’m back in the manual chair in the house. Got out the shower chair.

Pain is not great but I can’t move my ankles at all without some pain and probably I should break out the walking boots/ night splints. It is painful/stiff/burning feeling but not as bad as it was that first year (no splinters/stabbing/boa constrictor squeezing feeling but that is what i’m scared of)

I can’t even express how much this sucks and how scared I am that it might get really really bad again like in 2011.

Here’s hoping not and that some days not walking, lots of forbidden NSAIDs, ice, elevating, etc. will let my ankles heal up again. I will also go to my nice new doctor. Just go all in on the NSAIDs and get some long lasting variety? (whatever replaced celebrex/vioxx if that exists?) Prednisone? Orthopedist again for round million of MRIs? Oh god.

Well whatever, I can cope even if so.

I am on day 3 of this. It wasn’t so bad today emotionally because I went out to get my allergy shots (train ride, nice lunch, allergy nurse was super nice, lovely view of the city to the bridge to the ocean, from UCSF clinic windows). They are going to do my Xolair shots too so that I don’t have to make 2 trips. Immunotherapy every week for now, and xolair on top of that every 2 weeks.

Pollyanna mode thoughts:

This house is so much better and easier than the old one to be fucked up in. Space to roll around in my manual chair! Various different places to lie down with my feet up – two whole couches and the bed and actually also the kids’ room in a pinch – If I can get down the stairs, my gravity chair – And I can sit on the porch steps in the sun or the tiny back deck for a nice view.

I am better off financially than before & now have both money and skill to get help for things or figure out what material / assistive device things to try.

I’m stronger physically than 10 years ago even if I’m, well, older.

It’s definitely enjoyable rolling down the long, smooth wooden floor hallway with the cat in my lap and pulling up with a little spin at the end. I always enjoy my competence at wheelies and wheelie-ing over a little bump (which we have from the hall into the kitchen). The cat really loves a little ride!

And in “experienced with this shit” super crip mode, in the good sense of super crip, I have a plan.

– Nice new (wheelchair user!) doc is out on leave. Hope she is OK. So I have a tomorrow morning remote appt with a physician assistant and will ask for extended release NSAIDs and a referral to orthopedist

– Actual doc in person appt in a couple of weeks (first available not-an-old-white-guy doctor that I can get to easily on a bus)

But I already know the things I should do, more or less, which are:

– Keep a log and follow a schedule to note pain levels and do regular voltaren/advil-with-crackers/ice

– When pain level gets worse over the day, amp up my elevation/icing/rest and don’t try to do stuff even in the manual chair

– figure out when in that pain level sequence I should take painkillers (probably “when it wakes me up at night/ can’t fall asleep” – otherwise probably not, or maybe some CBD/THC drops in evening but no opiates)

– So as not to mess up the rest of my body, spend some time periodically in the chair doing some seated tai chi/ stretches

– Experiment with night splints as long as I can tolerate them to keep things immobile

– Shower chair is up now and I will use it till really better

– Obviously, limiting my leaving the house or using the stairs (can do it, and should do it for my own physical and mental health, but can’t just do it frivolously)

– Ask for help more, which I hate even though Danny totally understands

Considering the many things I did kind of in rapid sequence that might have got me to this state. Experimenting with walks more than a block. Doing new foot exercises and stretches. More extreme stretching (like squatting to do things) Going out a lot and sitting up all day several days in a row (office day, night event, two night events in a row, extra office day with photo walk in evening (why did i do that!) I just have been so excited to be able to walk more and it felt actually good to be more active. So I guess I crossed that line without knowing it.

Imagination and reality

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You already know what I’m about to say: imagination is part of reality! One thing I love about road trips is poring over the Roadside Geology books for the area I’m visiting and at this point 30 years in I’m pretty familiar with Roadside Geology of Northern California. On this visit to Calistoga I swore to finally go look at “Glass Mountain” roadcut with obsidian bits coming out of it and a bunch of baked rock and ash where the obsidian hit a layer of ash and tuff from volcanic eruptions millions of years ago.

My sister and I got into my car. As we drove down Old Silverado Trail past beautiful wineries and terrifying burnt hillsides I described how I had to unsubscribe from the arrowheads group on reddit because they are often such horrible looters. But then there will be a video of someone looking at the bottom of a stream bed to a jumble of rocks and then bending – zooming in – moving a couple of little rocks and BANG giant clovis point. Dammit! I could just SEE an arrowhead and admire it and NOT LOOT IT, someday, as a treat? But in any case I’d like a little chip of obsidian to bring home and put into a flowerpot as decoration.

The location was described pretty well in the book and in some articles online as north of St. Helena near Glass Mountain Road, showing (color!) photo of the roadcut. The sun was in my eyes but the red baked dirt and rock was super obvious in a small roadcut and there was a spot to pull out pretty close by! Close enough for me to walk to. (We actually stopped at a different cut than the one in this article very close by)

The problem was giant trucks barrelling by and a very narrow shoulder so we scrabbled up a few pieces of obsidian from the roadside gravel and dirt sliding down the face of the cut. Really beautiful conchoidal fracturing and fresh glassy surfaces in the tiny pebbles we picked up! And then fled in about 5 minutes because the trucks were terrifying.

A side jaunt up to Deer Park and back on Glass Mountain road did have some streambeds we could have picked over if we had better long sleeve shirt protection from poison oak, but all really not looking like public property. Then we saw a bunch of signs for Elmhaven, famous house of someone famous, and turned off for it while reading Wikipedia articles about 7th day adventists and Ellen G. White (whose house it was). Apparently she was hit in the face by a rock at age 9 and then had lifelong Visions of angels on other planets (sometimes planets with rings and several moons!) Apparently Satan is just on Earth and other planets are much nicer (I guess; not having read her 40+ books and journals of 2000+ Vision sessions) I love how she gazes ethereally and makes graceful motions as if traveling through space (WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE EXACTLY) and always exclaims “Joy! Joy! Joy!” during, with an echo/receding effect like a song outro)

“‘One evening at the conference above mentioned [Topsham, Maine, 1846], in the house of Mr. Curtis, and in the presence of Elder (Captain) Bates, who was yet undecided in regard to the manifestations, Mrs. White, while in vision, began to talk about the stars, giving a glowing description of the rosy-tinted belts which she saw across the surface of some planet, and added, “I see four moons.” “Oh,” said Elder Bates, “she is viewing Jupiter.” Then, having made motions as though traveling through space, she began giving descriptions of belts and rings in their ever-varying beauty, and said, “I see eight moons.” “She is describing Saturn.” Next came a description of Uranus with his six moons, then a wonderful description of the “opening heavens.”’

So maybe we did not have time to soul-bond and time travel with the red bank of lava contact at the roadcut, but we did get another imaginary journey, even if also not consumnated since visiting hours at the victorian house and gardens started at 10am and it only opened at 11 and I was not gonna sit in the parking lot for an hour when I had to pee.

Oh those Golden Dawns

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Storytime! Brought to you by two small poetry books I just found in a box. In 1988 or so I went to the Yeats International Poetry School in Ireland and it was an interesting round of small workshops and classes (Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, and a guy named Tom Paulin who clearly didn’t want to be there) And deadly boring poetry readings / drinking sessions where Yeats’s grandnieces’s cousin would play the harp and someone would beatifically recite When I went out to the hazel wood on a little stage while people chain smoked.

Most of this trip is a haze to me because I had a killer sinus infection and a fever for half of it and had to stay in the horrible youth hostel on codeine and antibiotics absolutely dying while brutally healthy German girls played the guitar and sang far into the night, but I do recall amidst the nervous chain smoking academics and the earnest poets these two complete weirdos absolutely swanned into the entire scene and they were real live serious devotees of Aleistair Crowley.

The guy was small, skinny, ferretty, wore a giant gold medallion and I believe often some sort of robe and he would stroke his little goatee like a caricature supervillain while he talked in a weird nasal voice about the Order of the Golden Dawn in its modern day incarnation, and how he was a Druid. He came across as just a giant creep. The girl in this couple was more interesting and nice, with a giant smile, tall, floofy blond hair, big chunky hippie jewelry, kind of seemed rich, and had a cheerful breezy manner — and she would talk constantly about druid sex magick. I actually liked her. One could not figure out why this perfectly nice lady hung upon every word of the fool Druid.

I thought they were hilarious especially because everyone was so disapproving of them (why were they THERE? I mean, I get why, but, ?! somehow? Money?! They were both Yeats Enthusiasts and were also very clearly out to do lots of psychedelic drugs and sleep with anyone who was interested in a little Druid Sex Magick as a palate cleanser between the Baileys and the bee-loud glades. (I did not partake) I also didn’t think either of them wrote very good poetry (neither did I but I had an excuse: being 18 years old)

So coming across these books, I looked them up. The Druid died in 2014 and you can read all about him and his translating and how he liked to spend summers in the basement of the Cairo Museum. I wonder if he was a legitimate translator, or what? https://www.darengo.co.uk/terence-duquesne/

The druid Priestess, Dwina, now that I look her up, seems to have been in a long and successful open marriage with Robin Gibb from the Bee Gees. Interesting! “Dwina Gibb, his second wife, whom he met through her cousin in 1980, when she was running a beanbag factory in London while trying to make it as an artist….. The couple lived together in the Biscayne Bay mansion once owned by President John F. Kennedy and a 100-acre Oxford, England, estate, where tapestries and tarot-card tiles adorn the walls of their 12th century converted monastery and the Gibbs built a druid place of worship.”

It was truly hilarious like being inside A Dance to the Music of Time, maybe at the end where Widmerpool goes running off in robes or whatever. Maybe it’s time to re-read that whole series again!

Making a pass

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From a Twitter thread the other day on odd books no one has ever heard of, I made a list and read through a few young adult and children’s books. One of them, Redwork, was described as the quintessential situation where a young person has a weird bond with an old neighbor who is witchy & mysterious. I read through it – the 14 year old protagonist becomes fascinated with his downstairs neighbor who was a WWI vet and has become both a hoarder and a backyard alchemist – And there is some light psychic phenomena –

But the odd thing about this book is it had the vibe of a book that would have been out of date even in the 70s. I mean, maybe? Did movie theaters have double features, and (teenage) ushers that actually ushed, showing you to your seat with a flashlight, and supervised, and would kick you out for talking or throwing popcorn or smoking in the non-smoking section of the theater (!?!) I don’t think so but correct me if I’m wrong. Maybe it was by an author who grew up in like, 1940, trying to make his story seem current by having the kid’s mom be a single mother trying to get her Ph.D. (or something, though that part was as unreal as the alchemy) And nothing ELSE about the book situated it in time, really. Paying for a gallon of milk with pennies would have been more than difficult in 1990. Maybe we can date it from the wages – 4 hours times 3 nights a week brought take home pay of 40 dollars (no taxes mentioned and it seemed to be pay in cash)

Anyway, the worst bit was that the mean bullying head usher sexually harasses and assaults the young women and girls who work at the popcorn counter and everyone who works there knows it and a sexual assault on a young teenager was clearly described (in the mop closet, horrors) And the characters describe it as the bully “making a pass at her”. It didn’t feel like the author making any sort of point but more like that is the language HE was using about the incident.

What the ever living fuck and how was this book published like this in 1990?

People are so gross sometimes. It was also a totally mediocre book of the genre of “kid meets witchy old neighbor”. One star.

Lots of bookshelves

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As I sit down to write I’m mostly thinking about putting up more bookshelves. Neighbor Colin, who is a retired carpenter, gave me two long, long redwood boards which are at least 100 years old and have been weathering outside. We scraped them a little and hosed them off, and he split them lengthwise for me so now I have four very long and narrow shelves.

Today I plan to start sanding the boards by hand and then oil them. To avoid hurting my hands with repetitive motion, I’m figuring to sand, then oil one board, then hang it and arrange some books. Most of my books are out of boxes now, but double or triple stacked.

It’s so exciting to have them all back after their 10+ years in storage. While unpacking I felt my brain sort of waking up in different places – all my poetry books in Spanish – a ton of feminist science fiction – weird literary criticism – a huge section of the history of sexuality – all my zines and papers and letters and notebooks and other projects.

So that’s going on with me and actually generative creativity is in tension with the amount of domestic work to get the books and papers out and up — and the feeling of this enormous backlog of my own work that is a huge mess. I glimpsed entire book projects and zines that I forgot even existed – an entire Manifesto – Oh, help!

So, a little “curation” and archival ordering, a little spelunking through lost caverns, I hope will be balanced by new ideas & new writing.

Wish me luck with the sanding, as I’m a little afraid I’ll do it “wrong” by my neighbor’s judgement. He loves every piece of wood like a brother. As we were out on the sidewalk scrubbing dirt & lichen off the boards, he looked around dreamily at the painted Victorians of our street, & said, imagine if there was NO PAINT on all these, just beautiful, beautiful wood, century old virgin redwood and pine… Grain exposed… the history…

And the sins of our other neighbors, or contractors they hired in the past, have been pointed out to me: SOMEONE USED AN ORBITAL SANDER ON THAT REDWOOD!!!