lunabee34

1. Ha ha! I am vindicated.

So, my family will sometimes say stob for a small stump or a stick sticking up out of the ground or a broken off piece of fencing. Josh has insisted repeatedly over the years that this is not a real word and just something weird my family says. However, I'm reading one of Rick Bragg's memoirs and he uses the word stob, which prompted me to look it up in the dictionary and confirm it is indeed a real word and not just another example of the ways in which I belong to a bunch of hicks. I've always assumed it's a bastardization of the word stave.

2. Fiona is sick again. She has the flu now, and the pediatrician had us go to the hospital so she could get a chest x-ray (I guess their machine is better than the one at the pediatrician's, IDK). We haven't heard back about the results of the x-ray, but I really hope she doesn't have pneumonia again. I just don't understand why she keeps getting these respiratory things.

3. Dylan has a weird lump on her shoulder that we think might be lupus-related. The rheumatologist is sending her to an orthopedist to look at it (which makes no sense to me), so hopefully we'll know more about it soon.

4. I have to go to the dentist today. I've been putting it off as long as I can because I am a ding ding, but I hate going to the dentist so much. :(

5. We watched The Wild Robot on Netflix. Fiona loves the book(s?), and she was satisfied with the movie as an adaptation even though it made some minor changes to character and plot. All three of us ended up crying multiple times throughout; Josh popped into the living room at one point and turned heel and left again immediately. LOL Definitely worth a watch.

1. Fiona and I have been re-watching She-Ra; our first watch was long enough ago that she really doesn't remember much of the show. Y'all, I had forgotten how fucking gay this show is right from the gate, and it is delightful. This is no Korrasami walking through a portal in the last frame. Adora and Catra are IN LOVE from episode one. Scorpia is fucking gone on Catra, and her feelings for Catra are explicitly compared to Seahawk's romantic feelings for Mermista. I love it so much. Scorpia was my favorite character the first time around, and that hasn't changed; I keep wishing Catra would pull her head out of her ass and love Scorpia back.

2. I have been listening to music again. I don't know why, but after I had Dylan, I stopped listening to music. I mean, I'd have the radio on in the car, and we'd listen to albums on long trips, but I stopped really caring about and listening to music. Mostly I would listen to NPR and classic rock playing the same songs over and over again. I'm not exactly sure what triggered that shift; when I was pregnant with Dylan, music actively annoyed me (IDK why; such a bizarre thing), and then after they were born, I was just out of the habit.

Ever since we got Fiona a laptop for Christmas, she has been getting into music--mostly the music Dylan likes but also finding some on her own. So I've been playing a bunch of music for Fi so she can figure out what she likes. I started playing NIN's The Fragile album, which she hated. "This sounds like a DJ, mom," which okay. Clearly she does not know what a DJ is. LOL She also hated The Barenaked Ladies except for "If I Had a $100000000." She barely tolerated Moby, and then I hit the jackpot with Tori Amos. She also really liked Temple of the Dog (Chris Cornell's early album before Soundgarden).

Oh, I had forgotten how much I love Tori Amos. It's like she somehow saw right into the heart of me for a lot of those songs, especially the ones on Little Earthquakes. It feels good to be listening to music again.

3.

every night my mind is running around her by magneticwave
Stranger Things
El/Dustin, Mike/Lucas, Jonathan/Nancy/Steve
This is borderline cracky and incredibly funny.

a revival by hatsandapoodles
Stranger Things
Steve/Eddie
A lot of people die in the mall fire. Including Steve Harrington. Eddie doesn't care, until he does. Featuring- falling in love with the memory of a dead boy, too many exorcisms, Robin Buckley's love of radical zines, and a heavy dose of religious trauma.

when you shine, you’re a hilltop mansion (so how’d you lose the light?) by actuallymaxie
Stranger Things
Steve/Eddie
So, Steve runs away after Vecna and spends ten years homeless and pitiful, and it's not super believable that he would do this, but I love it so much because he is miserable and sad and it makes me cry and cry and cry, which is my favorite thing to do while reading fanfic. LOL

1. Fiona has walking pneumonia. Poor kiddo. :( She had a respiratory thing about three weeks ago (not COVID, flu, or strep), and it settled into her lungs. She's okay, but it breaks my heart hearing her cough.

2. About a month ago, Dylan started having an autoimmune flare up and has been experiencing fatigue so bad they are having trouble going to class and completing school work. There's some question of whether they'll be able to finish out the semester. They got tested at urgent care for mono, covid, flu, vitamin deficiencies and just basic cbc--all of which are fine, of course. We went to the GP today and got them tested for Hashimoto's, celiac, lyme, and a few other things. I'm not expecting any of these except the Hashimoto's and celiac to potentially come back positive. I hate that my 22 year old kid is going to have to figure out how to live hurting and tired all the time. I can hardly stand it and I'm 45. It's really not fair.

3. I got a pack of the Pentel Mattehop pens and they are awesome. The color is so saturated.

4.
An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is an enormous brick of a book--almost 800 pages--and at first it wasn't grabbing me. I was reading it in a desultory kind of way, 2 pages here and 3 pages there, and suspected it was going to take me months and months to finish as a result. The book is divided into four sections, and once I got to the end of section one and realized that each section is about the same set of events told from the perspective of a different narrator and each subsequent section reveals that the previous narrator was mistaken in some of their conclusions about those events, I was riveted. There was squealing at one point.

This takes place during Restoration England, and I think I would have enjoyed this book even more if I was more familiar with that historical time period; I'm a 19th century gal, through and through. In addition to the plot, I enjoyed reading about 17th century ideas about medicine, philosophy, and religion.



View all my reviews

5. From Vecna to Van Nuys (And Back Again) by EddieSpaghetti
Steve/Eddie
Is the amount of miscommunication and hiding feelings in this fic utterly ridiculous? Yes, yes, it is. Do I eat it up with a spoon anyway? Yes, yes, I do. (The fic does offer a reasonable explanation for it, though.)

1. Oh, it's like a million pounds off my chest. So earlier this semester, shortly after my Aunt Gail died of ovarian cancer, Dylan started experiencing abdominal pain and some other symptoms. They went to the urgent care, and y'all, I know our health care is totally fucked, but sometimes there are good people operating within it. The doctor did an ultrasound FOR FUCKING FREE! and saw that they had an ovarian cyst. The doc said they were pretty positive it was a cyst but that Dylan needed to follow up with their OBGYN to be sure. We did that today. We have to wait for the confirmation from whoever's going to read the ultrasound, but the tech said the cyst is gone. Hurray!

2. I got packages of wonderful gifts from executrix and sheafrotherdon. Thank you so much!!

3. I introduced Dylan to the first Die Hard movie and they didn't hate it. We're going to watch the fourth one at some point before they go back to school.

4.

The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Unlike McTeague, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It follows a nouveau riche family as they navigate the upper-crust of Boston society.

This is a Norton critical edition, so it includes ancillary material at the back--contemporaneous reviews, letters to and from Howells, literary criticism. What amuses me about the contemporaneous reviews is the broad range of responses to the novel, especially the pearl clutching that runs the gamut from dismissing Howells as a Jane Austenesque writer of comedies of manners to the most odious picture of human nature with no redeeming qualities (these cannot be simultaneously true). A few of these reviews compare realism to photography, suggesting that it can't be art because it hasn't been molded into something edifying.

All the ancillary material is written by men except one contemporaneous review. Boo!



View all my reviews

I find the 19th century discussion of photography and whether it's actually art to be fascinating. Ouida was of the firm opinion that it is not art, and she was highly critical of photography, seeing it as a kind of lie. She also was very upset with the way that photography changed expectations for privacy and ownership of a person's image. She wrote an entire short story centered around the misuse of a photograph.

So, I went yesterday to have the initial consult for my first colonoscopy, and lo and behold, it's happening tomorrow. I mean, medical stuff never goes that fast. LOL So, I'm spending today in the misery of liquids only + prep. Not looking forward to being NPO until the afternoon tomorrow either. But I'm glad to be getting it over with.

Also, the gastro was appalled that I've had no management of my celiac since diagnosis so I'm getting a bone density scan in January, and he tested my antibody levels. If those are elevated, it means I'm getting glutened even if I don't feel bad. Of course, if they do come back elevated, I suspect a certain new housemate is responsible for that.

But the house sale is completely over and the money is in the bank! OMG! So now the relocation may begin.

1. We got Margaret settled into the assisted living facility on Monday, and she's done so well. By the end of that first day, she already had a gaggle of friends she was hanging out with, and they have activities all day long. She's so busy, we all have trouble catching her on the phone.

I think all of us had been waiting on tenterhooks and scared that she'd react poorly, but thankfully she didn't.

One down, one to go!

2. I don't know if y'all remember a few years ago when we hit a bear on the highway and totaled our car. Last week, Fiona and I were driving down the highway, and we saw a little bear cub frolicking on the side of the road at the exact spot where we had the accident. It freaked me out because where baby is, mama is not far behind. But we escaped unscathed this time.

3. I didn't post any real details about this book in the review, but I'd love to discuss this book!

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is absolutely masterful. I love a good Neo-Victorian, and this is the best one I've read maybe ever. The writing is beautiful, the focus on all the details that ground a reader in the 19th century (slang, dress, the grime) is amazing, and the sense of place (London, the asylum, the countryside forty miles from London) are all exquisitely drawn.

I love how twisty and turny this novel is. I don't want to say too much about the plot for fear of ruining it, but there's such an excellent payoff in the third act.

Highly, highly recommended.



View all my reviews

4. I'd love to discuss this one with anyone who's read it, too.

McTeague: A Story Of San Francisco by Frank Norris

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a book in which deeply unpleasant things happen to deeply unpleasant people. The characters (and the narrative itself) are racist and sexist; child abuse goes unremarked and treated as a matter of course. Domestic violence, alcohol abuse, and murder feature prominently.

And, yet, Norris is a compelling writer. His descriptions of San Francisco and later of the desert are vividly written. His portrait of an unorthodox romance between two elderly characters is an oasis of sweetness amidst all the horror.

I enjoyed parts of this book but will not read it again.



View all my reviews

1. We were so lucky; we got through Helene with pretty much zero impact--a power outage of ten minutes and some sticks and branches down in the yard that we have yet to pick up because we are Those Neighbors.

Meanwhile, my colleague's neighborhood had a lot of downed trees, one of which fell on her house and trashed it, and another of which fell on her neighbor's house and killed him. Another colleague who lives less than a mile from us is still without power and likely to remain so through this week. Josh's sister works in Erwin, TN, and one of her friends was among the 50 people trapped on the roof of a hospital who had to be evacuated via helicopter.

I cannot express how grateful I am that we are okay and that none of my colleagues, friends, or family lost their lives.

2. I had to miss my aunt's memorial because I would have had to drive through the storm to get there, but everyone understood and told me to stay home; I was worried about hurt feelings, but it was just too dangerous to attempt.

3. Sammy takes an antiviral pill twice a day followed by a supplement paste that also inhibits the viral load. He has always been extremely easy to pill, but ever since he adopted a tiny plastic tub as his favorite place to sit, all I have to do is shake the bottle and he hops in his little tub. Then I just pop the pill in his mouth without even having to pick him up.

The weirdest thing happened with his paste, though. We opened a new tube, and he just wouldn't eat it, turned his nose up at it even though it was the exact same everything. So after the pill, I just squirted it directly in his mouth, again without even having to pick him up. Once we opened the next tube, he was back to eating it on his own again. So weird. Something was different about that tube, but IDK what. It wasn't spoiled; it didn't make him sick. Cats.

4. I was so sad to learn of zulu's passing. We were not super close, but we've been friends for years now, and her optimism and infectious enthusiasm brought me a lot of joy. daemonluna has written a beautiful eulogy from the perspective of someone who knew her better than I did. Even though zulu is gone, her light continues to shine through her words and her friendship. She will be deeply missed.

+ We have survived the Great Hargray Internet Outage of 2024. If you were in GA, SC, FL, or AL with Hargray as your internet provider, you were out of internet most of yesterday. Fortunately, it was fixed before bedtime last night.

- I have discovered one of the reasons why I have been having more flare-ups, migraines, and fatigue over the last two months. My FIL has been glutening me--not enough to make me puke but enough to evoke an autoimmune response that has me lowkey feeling like shit all the time. Hurray! He clearly doesn't believe it's something he should be careful about; maybe he even thinks I'm just being precious about it. If an 11 year old can keep me safe, then he is certainly capable. But he doesn't care to. I realized this when I saw him get a piece of pizza and then use the same hand to get the ice scooper; I called him out on it, and he was a jackass about it. Which is another problem. You can't explain the rules to him or call him out on anything without him being a jackass. Josh also gave away his beautiful, expensive, bespoke butcher block cutting board that he got for Christmas because FIL got crumbs all over it. I cried and cried over that one and felt terribly guilty.

Fortunately, Josh is 100% on my side. He reamed his father out and told him he could never speak to me like that again and that he had to follow the rules, etc. To FIL's credit, he apologized to me the next day, and in front of Fiona, but it wasn't long before I saw him about to cross-contaminate the lunch meat again. This time when I told him to get his lunch meat and cheese before his bread, he just did it instead of clapping back at me. But it's clear that when left to his own devices, he just does whatever.

So, I now have my own little stash of lunch meat hidden in the depths of the fridge where he can't find it, and I feel much better physically if not mentally.

+ I just finished rereading the Parasol Protectorate series, which is delightful fun. I wish I had thought to nominate it for Yuletide, but I reread the whole series in a whirlwind last week to prepare for a reading group this week. Steampunk + all the slash, femslash, and het you could want = great fun.

( PP book reviews )

- Objectively, living with FIL is fine. But subjectively, it is really starting to chafe. He is either sitting silently in his chair and completely disinterested in making conversation to the point that he doesn't even look at people when they come in the room (he's always been like this) or in his bedroom napping. It's hard to explain how tiresome it is to be in the company of someone like that day after day after day. And this part makes me feel like a shitheel, but what makes it worse is that he's never expressed a single bit of gratitude, not said thank you one time, for us completely upending our lives and bringing him here. :(

1. Everything is going really well with FIL. His transition into the household has been seamless, and his health is good. I was really worried that him living with us was going to be a negative experience in a lot of ways, but that has not been the case at all!

2. Deep, deep thanks to executrix for helping us navigate all the elder care rigamarole. We have lawyerified, and the plans are in motion. I think MIL will very soon be in a facility.

3. The Cushing's diagnosis has fallen through; despite testing positive on 3 out of 4 of the diagnostic tests, I didn't test positive enough. Fuck all them fuckers, she says cheerfully. May they and someone they love, preferably a child, develop simultaneous chronic illnesses no one can diagnosis and which everyone vaguely acts like they're making up.

4. The semester starts tomorrow. I'm not ready to go back.

1. Fiona placed fifth in the nation for extemporaneous poetry composition at the National Beta Club Convention Elementary Division. We are so proud of her!!!

2. I have already started to get glorious birthday presents. My SIL got me some elegant stationery from a shop in her hometown, amejisuto got me a gorgeous purple quill with ink stand and a journal to record the books I've read, and misbegotten sent me an Etsy gift card which I have used to buy some earrings. Our honeymoon was a cruise that left out of New Orleans, and Josh bought me a gorgeous garnet bead necklace and earrings set at the Riverwalk while we were waiting to board. But somewhere along the way, I lost one of the earrings, so I got some beaded hoops that are a perfect match! Thanks to everyone!

3. I've been rereading some books I've kept since childhood that Fiona has outgrown so that I can say goodbye to them.

( children's books )


The New Poetic by C.K. Stead

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I know very little about W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot and very little about modernism, so this was very informative for me. I also like the author's writing style; for a book of literary criticism written in the 60s, it's very readable with clearly cited sources.

And then the author loses me in the last two chapters where he explains in-depth Eliot's theory of writing poetry and whether or not he thinks Eliot accomplishes it in specific poems. Some of it is just that I don't like Eliot, and some of it is that his ideas about the poetry writing process are incredibly opaque and bizarre to me.



View all my reviews

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book is so good. Atwood captures the cruelties of adolescence in disturbing and moving ways.

I think that what I enjoy the most about this novel (besides Atwood's always beautiful prose) is that the narrator always feels herself separate from other girls and then women; she feels more comfortable with boys and then men and feels contemptuous of many women. Throughout the course of the novel, though, she comes to realize that many, if not most, of her assumptions about about the other women she's known in her life have been flawed.



View all my reviews