Continuing to put most of my writing energy into NaNoWriMo, here’s a gifset swiped from harry-styles.tumblr.com:
I’m with you brother. Bonus if he’s in handcuffs…
Dragged kicking and screaming…
Random Noun Syndrome, or, if a white-bearded queer can’t laugh at himself, who can?
For a lot of weird reasons related to various social commitment we had (all of which were fulfilled through online meetings, so we are still isolating and practicing social distancing), he wound up accompanying me on this last weekend’s main grocery run. And a couple of funny thing happened.
At one point we turned the cart up an aisle, and I pointed down at the second from the bottom shelf and said, “We are either completely out of or nearly out of those, so pick a couple out.”
His reply was a confused. “Are you sure? I mean, if you mean the variety packs, maybe…”
I explained why I was certain we were nearly out, having had to throw at least one of the cardboard wrappers in the recycle earlier in the week. And he asked, “Cardboard???”
I turned around to look at him, and instead of looking at the nearly-at-the-bottom shelf I had pointed at more than once, now, he was looking at the very tippy-top shelf…
I had pointed at collections of snack-packs that we both liked. I like them because they were a balance of protein, fat, and minimal carbohydrates and were perfect for those times between my meals when my blood sugar dips lower than it ought. And he likes them because they were mostly shelf-stable and would tide him over between meals at work when needed. He was looking at the packs of cheese sticks. And he was right, we were nowhere near being out of the cheese sticks.
But they were not the thing I pointed at, and he admitted that he couldn’t remember if he had actually looked at my hand to see what I was pointing at. We decided the confusion was that since he is so much taller than me, he is always looking at things at his own eye-level first, and he just thought when I said “those” I was referring to what he was already looking at.
At another point in the trip we turned up the spice aisle. I pointed down at a low shelf where, among other things, various containers of pepper were arrayed. There were tins of ground black pepper, jars of whole peppercorns in black, green, or multi-colored, similar pepper variety jars with grinders build into the lids, and so forth.
Michael asked why I was stopping. I said, “The big pepper grinder keeps falling off the back of the spice shelf, and it’s hard for me to retrieve it, so I thought we should get a small one to keep next to the stove.”
And he looked at me with a very perplexed expression and said extremely slowly, “Okay…”
I continued, “Just pick out one of the small pepper grinders and we’ll be fine.”
“What?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “If you don’t want to limit it to one, pick out one of the other pepper grinders, too, they’re all on sale. Maybe a black and a green? Or a black and a variety?”
He was now looking at me with an extremely concerned expression, as if he thought I was having a stroke. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, honey.” And his tone of voice implied he thought something worse than a stroke was happening.
I was really irritated by this point, and opened my mouth to explain again from the beginning. Except at that moment some far off slice of my brain interrupted, and did the equivalent of playing back to me the recording of the conversation. The beginning of which was actually, “The big coffee grinder keeps falling off the back of the spice shelf…”
Every single time that I had meant to say “pepper grinder” what had actually come out of my mouth was “coffee grinder.” And, of course, since we were standing in front of the spices, there was no coffee anywhere in sight, never mind that while American grocery stores may sell both ground and whole bean coffee, they don’t usually sell the grinders.
I laughed and said, “Pepper grinder. I meant to say that it’s the pepper grinder I keep losing behind the shelf, and I don’t usually feel like moving the chest freezer so I can get back there.”
“Oh! That makes sense!”
After we got home, while I was putting other groceries away, my husband pulled out the chest freezer and the shelf unit and retrieved the big pepper grinder… and then he went through the rest of the shelf unit and he found not one, not two, but three medium-sized bottles of whole peppercorns meant to refill the grinder. And each of them had been opened at some point and had some of their peppercorns removed. He was able to finish emptying all three and completely fill the big grinder, getting rid of three some bottles and making the shelf somewhat less crowded. So I might possibly be slightly less likely to knock something off the back of the shelf moving forward.
Keep your fingers crossed!
So it ends in a scruffy parking lot between a dildo store and a crematorium
Still trying to put most of my energy into NaNoWrMo, so once more, not much in the way of a substantive blog post.
The Best Four Seasons Total Landscaping Memes For Your Viewing Pleasure.
How to reuse or recycle political signs instead of adding to landfills.
Fox News Did The Bare Minimum And Finally Stopped Showing The Trump Team’s Latest Election Lies.
Rupert Murdoch ‘told Trump he had lost’ after he whinged about Fox coverage.
Elseweb, people asked how my NaNoWriMo word count was going. As you can see in the above image, not badly at all, thank you.
Finally, let’s let the great Kate McKinnon finish things off:
SNL’s Kate McKinnon and Colin Jost Totally Lose It Ridiculing Rudy Giuliani Over His ‘Four Seasons’ Trump Lawsuit Press Conference:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
“My name is Inigo Montoya. You tried to destroy my Republic. Prepare to lose the election!”
I’m doing NaNoWriMo, and have already diverted a lot of attention on the election and commentary thereof. So instead of a substantial blog post, here is a fun meme-set swiped from iamjohnlocked4life.tumblr.com:
Sunday Update 11/8/2020: Sore loser
*is* an election.”
Pro-Trump Mobs Try To Disrupt Voting Counts In Contested States.
As America waits, demonstrators demand to count (or stop counting) the votes.
Trump demands that legitimately cast votes stop being counted.
Watch people across the world celebrate Joe Biden’s win.
Weekend Update 11/7/2020: Biden-Harris for the win
AP, major networks call presidential race for Biden.
“It’s just the networks,” a certain barely animate ghoul said in another news conference… except for weeks the pussy-grabber-in-chief the ghoul works for has been insisting that whoever is called the official winner on Election Night was the true winner. And who calls it all election night? The networks! Not one state in the union certifies their final vote until weeks after. That’s how it’s always been, because counting millions of votes and auditing the counts takes time.
But it isn’t just the networks, because yesterday Reports: Secret Service ramping up Joe Biden protection. On the news late last night (I’ve been listening while working on NaNoWriMo), a reporter outside Biden headquarters in Delaware commented that when he and the comeraman arrived earlier in the day, the amount of Secret Service security they had to go through to get to their spot was siginificantly more complicated than it had been the day before.
But let’s move on a bit…
Biden Celebrations Erupt On Streets Of USA.
Obama Congratulates Biden On “Decisive Victory”.
World Leaders Congratulate Biden And Harris.
I laughed last night when, in a segment discussing how every other losing president before the current person has graciously conceded and started the process of working with the new candidate’s transition team when the news anchor said, “…but this is undoubtably the most incompetent, corrupt administration in the history of the nation, so even if they were so inclined, are they even capable of managing a transition?”
And proving the point this morning:
Trump lawyers hold presser at landscape company; vow fight is not over in Philly and pledge new lawsuits. Let me lead with this quote, and then explain:
Trump announced his lawyers’ news conference on Twitter just hours earlier — first saying it would take place at Center City’s posh Four Seasons Hotel, only later to delete his tweet and name the correct venue: outside Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Holmesburg, in Philadelphia’s 65th Ward.
What seems to have happened is that in a rush to get people in front of the cameras to denounce what networks calling Pennsylvania for Biden, someone in the campaign was tasked with booking a conference room or something at the Four Seasons Hotel… but apparently they called the wrong business.
I am informed by my husband that people are posting screen grabs online where you can see the adult bookstore that is next to the landscaping business behind Giuliani’s head.
I mean some of it is just so stupid: they asked Supreme Court Justice Alito to stop the vote counting in Philadelphia (after lower courts had refused to do so), on the grounds that ballots which came in after the normal deadline should be segregated until the lower courts decided what to do about that fact that the governor and state supreme court had worked out a deal to had three days for the mail-in ballots to arrive because between the pandemic and all of the effort’s of tRump’s post master general to hobble the postal service, there was reason to believe ballots that should have arrived on time wouldn’t. The state responded that they had already segregated the ballots and were not counting them, yet. Alito’s ordered them to keep the ballots segregated and continue counting the others.
tRump’s team thought that was a win. But if you understand judge-speak and look at the order, Alito (who is very conservative and prone to be in favor of the administration) essentially said, “Why are you bothering me with this? They’re already doing what they ought.”
And I want to point out: they were asking for the vote counting to stop at a point where Biden was winning. The only way, at that point, for Trump to win, was not if they stopped counting, but rather if they kept counting and by some miracle nearly every single uncounting ballot was for Trump, and virtually none were for Biden.
I recognize that the narcissistic grifter in charge is screaming at people to file lawsuits and do something about it, but there isn’t anything to do. He’s lost.
EXPLAINER: Why AP called Pennsylvania for Biden.
Trump Can Try, but the Courts Won’t Decide the Election.
Trump’s last-ditch US election lawsuits not going well for president, experts say.
Of course, he’s mostly trying to stir up his base in some delusional belief that a civil war will break out and that he will win. And so far his gun-nut supporters have been more bluster (with some tragic exceptions) than bite.
Let’s move on…
Earlier in the week I was getting irritated at tRump-supporters who were throwing around the word “statistics” when they clearly didn’t actually understand any of the mathematical subjects they were trying to invoke (Because I majored in math at university and statistics/game theory is almost certainly what I would have studied if I’d gone to grad school). But I’m supposed to be doing NaNoWriMo, not write long blog posts, so I didn’t. Fortunately, Camestros Felapton came to my rescue:
The GoP War on the word “statistically”.
I Guess I’m Talking About Benford’s Law.
He has some really pretty graphs in the second one…
Anyway, I think I’m going to go out for a celebratory latte… which I hope to get in a Starbucks Christmas cup!
Friday Five (farewell Mr Bond edition)
It’s been a really tough four years, and this week has not been the spectacular knock out many were hoping for, but we’re nearly at the end of the beginning, I’m quite sure. Because everyone is suffering from outrage fatigue and anxiety exhaustion and existential debility, I think we need a break. So I have organized this week’s Friday Five to minimize the angst. Yes, politics is mentioned, but more headlines about the good things that you probably missed because all of the oxygen has been sucked up by the liar in chief.
So let’s get to the Friday Five. This week I bring you: the top five stories that have nothing to do with either presidential campaign of the week, five stories related to the election but again only cool things, five stories of mostly uplifting interest to queer people and our allies, five stories about science and science fiction, five stories about the tops of the tickets, and five videos (plus notable obituaries and some things I wrote).
Stories of the Week:
It’s (After) Nov. 4 and COVID-19 isn’t just still with us, it’s actually worse than ever.
Supreme Court Rules in Favor of DeRay Mckesson in Cop Lawsuit.
Activist Destroys Kansas City Police Commissioners One By One At Community Meeting.
‘This is revolutionary’: new online bookshop unites indies to rival Amazon .
Stirring up a hornet nest – safely. Two more murder hornet queens captured in my state…
This Week in Non-outrageous Election News:
Oregon becomes first state to decriminalize hard drugs.
Florida votes to raise state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.
14 Victorious LGBTQ Candidates Who Made History in the 2020 Election.
America agrees: Nate Silver is the absolute worst & Steve Kornacki is the best.
This Week in Science Fact and Science Fiction:
The Milky Way makes little galaxies bloom, then snuffs them out.
Great Scott! This Custom BACK TO THE FUTURE Bass Guitar Rocks.
Not aliens: Mysterious burst of radio waves traced to a magnetar.
In A Pandemic World, We’re All Engaging In Speculative Fiction.
This Week in News for Queers and Allies:
Meet the 2020 ‘Rainbow Wave’ of LGBTQ+ Election Victories.
Awesome dad asks the internet for advice after seeing his teenage son kissing another guy in public.
The sheriff fired her because she’s a lesbian so she ran against him. She’ll be the new sheriff now.
Editorial: Wake-up call on LGBTQ rights.
This Week in the Fight For Democracy:
Biden breaks Obama record for most votes.
Why the Post Office’s Last-Minute Ballot Crisis Isn’t as Dire as It Seems.
Surprise, surprise: Gay Republicans really are self-loathing, study finds.
Jake Tapper Decries Trump’s Unhinged Speech As ‘Feast Of Falsehoods’ And ‘Pathetic’.
Stay Tuned: It’ll Take A Little Longer To Find Out Who Won The 2020 Election.
In Memoriam:
Sean Connery and His Son Jason Smile Together in One of Late Actor’s Last Family Photos.
This is Sean Connery’s best James Bond movie.
Alan Cumming reveals adorable dad/son vibes he shared with the late Sean Connery.
Things I wrote:
Weekend Update 10/31/2020: Scarier than any Halloween costume.
I hope you’re having a spooktacular Halloween!
Sunday Update 11/1/2020 – Words and Images.
The Election Doesn’t End Until Every Vote Is Counted!
Cumulative realities, or the night before the world changes….
When the real world becomes too stressful, write a better world.
Topical Videos!
Biden Urges Patience And Trump Claims Victory As Battleground States Count Their Ballots:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Trump Cries Fraud and Calls Dibs on the Presidency | The Daily Social Distancing Show:
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Trump Is Losing the Election, So He’s Trying to Destroy Democracy: A Closer Look:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special | Official Trailer | Disney+:
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Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious Graphic Novel Trailer:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
When the real world becomes too stressful, write a better world
Usually either just before the end of October or at the very beginning of November, I make a post about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I mentioned on Twitter a few times this year, but, well, between being in a slow rolling apocalypse, trying to be cheerful for Halloween, and keeping an eye on the election, I never got around to saying anything here. In case you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is:
…each year on November 1, hundreds of thousands of people around the world begin to write, determined to end the month with 50,000 words of a brand-new novel. You may know this mass creative explosion by the name National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo
The basic idea is that you commit to writing 50,000 words of either a brand new novel, or to continue one started previously, or to revise one started previously. People who sign up for accounts can join regional forums, set up NaNoWriMo buddies to encourage (or compete with) each other, attend in-person or virtual write-ins, and so forth. It can be a lot of fun, particularly if you jump in with the notion that you’re just trying to get the first draft—no matter who bad it is—down so that you can edit and rewrite later.
I’ve been doing it for years, sometimes working on one book, sometimes several. I find posting daily word counts and encouraging others to get their word counts up, et cetera, a good way to make myself focus on a project.
I started working on my project shortly after midnight on Halloween. Since I also had Monday off from work, I managed to get a nice amount of writing done the first two days. Then, between a busy work day and watching election returns, I essentially got nothing written yesterday. So I need to try to make up for that tonight.
In what might have been a strategic error, of my novels in progress that needed work, I decided to work on the one full of political intrigue. I may decide to set that aside and grab one of the others. Because a book where the bad guy is a necromancer with mystical allies might be a better way to keep me from fretting about our future as a nation than the book where competing heirs to a throne are maneuvering and plotting against one another, you know?
Vote Him Out
This is not a topic to be neutral on…
Get out there and vote!
Vote!
If you get to the polling place to vote and they say your name isn’t on the list, calmly say, “I demand my legal right to cast a provisional ballot.”
If you have already voted, check that your ballot has been received.
Remind others to vote. You can volunteer to drive someone to a polling place, but remember, you can’t talk about who you’re voting for, or try to talk others into voting for your favorite candidates at the polling place.
If every vote didn’t matter, the Republicans wouldn’t be trying so hard to stop us from voting.
Vote!
Font Folly 