Brain currently booting in Safe Mode

I'm really enjoying keeping these lists with commentary of what I've been reading over the year. It keeps me somewhat organized and lets me track my thoughts.

I read 75 books last year. Not too shabby. Let's see if I can read more this year.

January:

1. The Earl's Holiday Wager - Theresa Romain
   
2. We'll Prescribe You a Cat - Syou Ishida (translated by E Madison Shimoda)
   
3. The Baron's Marriage Gamble - Theresa Romain
   
4. Agent to the Stars - John Scalzi
   
5. Ghost Station - SA Barnes
   
6. Thornhedge - T Kingfisher
   

February:

1. Earl's Trip - Jenny Holiday
   
2. The Duke at Hazard - KJ Charles
   
3. Witch King - Martha Wells
   
4. A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting - Sophie Irwin
   

March:

1. The Spellshop - Sarah Beth Durst
   
2. The Beast Takes a Bride - Julie Anne Long
   
3. The Zombie Survival Guide - Max Brooks (reread)
   
4. Someone Perfect - Mary Balogh
   

April:

1. Til Death Do Us Bard - Rose Black
   
2. The Lady He Lost - Faye Delacour
   

May:

1. Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
   • Compulsory (short story)
     
   • All Systems Red (reread)
     
   • Artificial Condition (reread)
     
   • Rogue Protocol (reread)
     
   • Exit Strategy (reread)
     
   • home: habitat, range, niche, territory (short story, reread)
     
   • Fugitive Telemetry (reread)
     
   • Network Effect (reread)
     
   • System Collapse (reread)
2. Tall, Duke, and Scandalous - Amy Rose Bennett
   
3. Demon's Guide to Wooing a Witch - Sarah Hawley
   
   

( Commentary this way... )

Some things:

I had a dental appointment today, a cleaning and exam. I got told that I should be going more often - every six months instead of every nine - and I declined. Yes, I can go twice a year, get in two cleanings and one exam, OR I can not push my dental anxiety anymore than I already do. My last appointment - three small fillings - was fucking traumatic, and cleanings are bad enough as it is. Yes, I should go more often, but I will not. Paying for mental torment is no kink of mine, thanks ever so much.

I think Sunny is lonely. He's been super affectionate lately and has dug out his favourite springs so we can play fetch, something he hasn't done in over a year. The spouse isn't ready for another cat, but only having one just doesn't sit right with me. Will we get a second (and possibly third) cat? Yes. When will this happen? *shrugs* I have no fucking clue.

We continue to be precariously housed. It is...not a great situation to be in. There's a lot of "hurry up and wait" and the uncertainty is a mill stone on my chest.

My reading and writing have fallen off the face of the planet. My brain has not been kind and there has been more than enough nonsense to distract me from the things that I love. Hell, even my crochet and knitting projects have been languishing lately.

To that end, I started something I consider a "mindless" crochet project. The pattern is simple, doesn't require counting, and is a number of two-row repeats. I was gifted some yarn and decided that it would make a nice scarf. It wasn't enough, which is fine, so I dug in my stash to find a very similar colour to finish it off. It wasn't enough again, which is less fine; I have one row left.

So I went to my stash, hoping to find a cream or off-white that would work with not just this scarf but the second one I started today (a just started project is much more public transportation friendly than an almost finished one) and came up empty. I have a lot of different colours, lots of different weights in two garbage bags, an underbed bin, and two tote bags, AND NO CREAM. I need to buy yarn so I can finish these. *le sigh*

It is cold and wet out there, but I have tea and a cozy sweater and comfy pants.

Last year, I made the lone resolution to read more books than I did the year prior. I had 62 entries for 2022, and, with a quick count that adds the same both up and down, 68 for 2023. Resolution achieved! Go me! :)

I think for this year, I will make two resolutions:

Resolution One: Read more than the year prior. I like this, as even failing means I am reading somewhat consistently.

Resolution Two: Get my knee back to what it was before I strained/twisted it. This whole "being defeated by a sufficient number of stairs" nonsense is getting tiresome. Before, I could do a full squat AND get back up (handy for cleaning the cat boxes) as well as kneel on the floor to look under furniture or into bottom cabinets. Now? *bwahahahahahahahahaha* No. It's such a weird thing to miss, but it made me feel less decrepit. Time to amp up the physio I was doing when it was only patellofemoral syndrome and not whatever this nonsense is.

Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade was great until it wasn't. I had to stop reading because it was late and then woke up after only four hours of sleep angry about the characters and the choices they were making. Both have some pretty deep-seated childhood trauma regarding abandonment, and whilst having a conversation regarding future employment plans in which the hero clearly states that he wants her to come with him, the heroine decides to NOT FUCKING LISTEN to what is being said and reacts by fucking running away, doing the abandoning before she can be abandoned. Up until that point, I could believe in their HEA. After that? YIKES ON TRIKES. Yes, I did finish it, and yes, it got resolved, and yet it left a sour taste in my mouth.

After building up and building up and building up their relationship, after establishing good communication practices between them, to have a breakdown in communication be the device that drives the lovers apart? No. Just no.

At its core, that kind of literary 'device' is just lazy writing. There are other ways. And hell, I don't think this even NEEDED that kind of contemporary romance plot beat. It could have been done differently, in a dozen better ways than misinterpreted conversation that sent the characters spiraling.

This is also the last book in a trilogy. The first, Spoiler Alert, and second, All the Feels, are fantastic. 10/10, would recommend. This one? If communication snafus aren't going to turn you off, then go for it. If they do? For the love of all things holy, DO NOT STOP READING AFTER SHE RUNS. I guarantee it will chew on your brain and you will get less sleep and wake up frustrated and annoyed about a fictional character's bad choices.

Okay. I have a personal bugbear: the use of 'entrance' during sexytimes in the books I read. Since I read a lot of Regency romance, I see it much more than I would like. It throws me out of the story because I find it So. Fucking. JARRING.

When the pairing is two men, I've taken to muttering, "it's anal, not architecture."

I first encountered it reading fanfic, where gay boys are imagined everywhere and hook up with abandon. And you know what, that's glorious, but 'entrance'? Not so much. It's now in romance novels for reasons(?). I don't fucking know why. Is there a dearth of appropriate words? Do we need to go back to pork swords and love grottoes? Inquiring minds something something.

There is no dearth in appropriate words. I write erotica/porn for the D&D games I'm in for funsies and have had a fair amount of practice writing effective, affecting, HOT sex, with no entrance in sight. It's possible, it's good, and I've found, with that practice, that less is more. Letting the reader do the heavy lifting makes it more personal, more impactful. (At least for me. Your mileage, etc.)

And now that I've sung my own praises without providing any examples (something akin to this VERY NSFW one that I wrote a decade ago here), I've decided to fix my 'entrance' problem in a way that I find amusing. It's like this: if I'm going to be forcibly ejected from the narrative by an author's word choice, then I get to do what I will with that word choice.

To that end, I'm going to lean into the architecture with synonyms.

If you're going to use 'entrance' for vaginal penetration, whether that be by fingers, penis, or other phallic object, then I'm going to mentally change 'entrance' to 'foyer' or 'antechamber' or 'vestibule'. Typically, in palatial homes, a foyer consists of marble columns, expensive flooring, that lone table in the middle holding a vase of hothouse flowers, and so on. It's the guest entrance. It's made to impress and decorated as such. Now, when I read "the entrance to her body beckoned him inside", it will now be "the foyer to her body beckoned him inside". There. That's better; much more jarring and much more amusing. Perfect.

Now, for why it's anal and not architecture, I've gone with something else that will work much better than 'entrance': mudroom. It's often at the back of the house, is more function than form, and was designed in days of yore as a pass through from the muddy outside to the clean inside. I have also read a startling amount of anal sex scenes with zero lube and fewer condoms. Mudroom, indeed. "Eric lined himself up with Archie's entrance and pushed in" will now be "Eric lined himself up with Archie's mudroom and pushed in". If I'm going to be ejected from the narrative, then I want to be EJECTED FROM THE NARRATIVE. No more weak attempts to get me to leave the story's flow, oh no, just one great heave into the nothing outside the wordy embrace that I've sunk myself into.

Yes, I know that this is a very silly thing to get my gitch in a twist, and I also know that it's a 'me' problem. And yet maybe this little rant will change someone else's mind about the word, and they'll find something better in their own writing, or even drop it completely. Until that happens (if it happens), I'm going to amuse myself, as it's a damn sight better than being annoyed when all I want to do is enjoy the time I spend reading.

I'm trying to work out where January went. It was here just a minute ago and then *poof*.

The most remarkable thing that happened was this: the on-going D&D game that I was in finished. We got to the end, had a bit of a "what happens next", mostly births and deaths (there were tears!), some speculation on what the kobolds are going to get into and up to over the centuries and that was that. Then clawfoot and I went into some detail about those intervening years between campaign's end and character death over email.

The thread was the equivalent of getting curb-stomped in the feels, yo. We didn't gloss over the deaths of beloved characters, we killed them. Because I was crying so often, the tops of my cheeks were red and raw. But it was a good pain. Now that it's truly over, I feel a little like I am adrift at sea, my little raft lost far from shore. Instead of Good Book Hangover, I have Satisfying Conclusion of a Game Hangover. This one cut a little deeper and I was a lot more invested in this character than any of my others, so it makes sense that I'm grieving the loss.

And, because we finished up a long term game, we are starting on some palate cleansers and have chosen Wanderhome as the first one. It's very soft and gentle and just the thing after a very dark and hard campaign. We did some world building and character creation yesterday, and will start playing next session.

Short reads for a short month! I've started in on my graphic novels that have been languishing in my physical TBR. With luck, I can get through all of them this month. I should be able to, but life doesn't often go smooth. In any case, even some of them read is some that weren't read before, so I'll call it a win either way.

I loves me some comics, and have for a long time. I don't buy them like I used to, and I certainly don't read them like I used to. February seemed as good a month as any to try to get through what I have here.

Once more, with feeling: I'm keeping track of what I'm reading this year, because my memory is terrible and lists are fun!

January:

1. Sharing Knife: Beguilement - Lois McMaster Bujold
   
2. Sharing Knife: Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold
   
3. Sharing Knife: Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold
   
4. Sharing Knife: Horizon - Lois McMaster Bujold
   
5. Hook: Dead to Rights - Melissa Snark
   
6. Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys - Mick Farren (borrowed)
   
7. Shadows Fall - Simon R Green (borrowed)
   

February:

1. Second First Impressions - Sally Thorne
   
2. Tiffany Blues - M J Rose
   
3. Any Rogue Will Do - Bethany Bennett
   
4. Neon Gods - Katee Robert
   
5. The Anatomist's Wife - Anna Lee Huber
   
6. The Ruin of a Rake - Cat Sebastian
   
7. The Princess Knight - G A Aiken
   
8. Renegade Love - Ann Aguirre
   

March:

1. My American Duchess - Eloisa James
   
2. Fugitive Telemetry - Martha Wells
   
3. Game of Butts: The Pounds of Winter - Chuck Tingle
   
4. Under the Whispering Door - TJ Klune
   
5. Candy Houses - Shiloh Walker
   
6. All the Time in the World - Shiloh Walker
   
7. Viking's Surrender: Gathering Storms - Clara Frost
   
8. Home Sweet Home (Over Too Soon) - myself, clawfoot
   
9. First Comes Scandal - Julia Quinn
   
10. Firelight - Kristen Callihan
    
11. All the Feels - Olivia Dade
    
12. Bigfoot Sommelier Butt Tasting - Chuck Tingle
    

April:

1. The Panopticon - Jenni Fagan
   
2. Horns - Joe Hill
   
3. Mooncop - Tom Gauld (reread)
   
4. Dragons of Ordinary Farm - Deborah Beale and Tad Williams
   
5. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls - Steve Hockensmith
   
6. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
   
7. The Merlin Conspiracy - Diana Wynne Jones
   

May:

1. The Trouble with Dukes - Grace Burrowes (reread)
   
2. Too Scot to Handle - Grace Burrowes
   
3. No Other Duke Will Do - Grace Burrowes
   
4. Serpent of Venice - Christopher Moore
   
5. Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase
   
6. Rake I'd Like to F... - Novella Anthology
   • The Last Crimes of Peregrine Hind - Sierra Simone
     
   • Two Rakes for Mrs. Sparkwell - Eva Leigh
     
   • A Rake, His Patron, & Their Muse - Nicola Davidson
     
   • Monsieur X - Adriana Herrera
     
   • Sold to the Duke - Joanna Shupe
7. The Return - Rachel Harrison
   
8. A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine
   

June:

1. For the Wolf - Hannah Whitten
   
2. After Dark with the Duke - Julie Anne Long
   
3. Highland Conquest - Alyson McLayne
   
4. A Lady for a Duke - Alexis Hall
   
5. Hench - Natalie Zina Walschots
   

July:

1. Someone to Hold - Mary Balogh
   
2. One Thing Leads to a Lover - Susanna Craig
   
3. Better Off Wed - Susanna Craig
   
4. The Devil to Pay - Kate Bateman
   
5. The Unspoken Name - AK Larkwood
   

August:

1. The Footman and I - Valerie Bowman
   
2. The Lady Gets Lucky - Joanna Shupe
   
3. Someday My Duke Will Come - Christina Britton
   

September:

1. Nona the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
   
2. To Catch an Earl - Kate Bateman
   
3. Every Rogue Has His Charm - Susanna Craig
   
4. My Heart is a Chainsaw - Stephen Graham Jones
   

October:

1. The Flowers of Vashnoi - Lois McMaster Bujold
   
2. The Duke Heist - Erica Ridley
   
3. Midsummer Moon - Laura Kinsale
   

November:

1. There Will Be Time - Poul Anderson
   
2. Pink Slip - Katrina Jackson
   
3. Someone to Cherish - Mary Balogh
   

December:

1. Wrath Goddess Sing - Maya Deane
   
2. Lady Derring Takes a Lover - Julie Anne Long
   
   

( Notes Ahoy! )

Nona! Nona! Nona! I preordered Nona the Ninth for reasons and started it damn near immediately. I spent a fair amount of time trying to unravel the mystery of who Nona was and I was pleased to have gotten it right. Also, Noodle (the dog on the cover) is the goodest boi and he doesn't die.

The reason I preordered Nona arrived yesterday by FedEx. It's roughly 4cm in diameter and substantial enough for two pin backs. It is gorgeous.



Tor Books often has giveaways like this. It merely depends on if you're willing to pay preorder pricing for the privilege.

The Return by Rachel Harrison was touted as a feminist horror and I don't see how? I mean, maybe because there were four friends who are women who are still friends and go on a girl's trip together? Is a depiction of female friendship enough to call a book feminist? Honestly, I don't think so, unless there was something there so subtle that I missed it. In any case, it was a good read, suitably creepy and upsetting in all the right ways, but that ending.

Not gonna lie, y'all, it wasn't great.

It was an ending, sure, but it felt incomplete, rushed. I kept waiting for more resolution and then it was over. There were other characters mentioned, and then nothing? Like, what happened to them after everything went down?

Horror novels work because there's an emotional connection between the character and the reader. Adding characters in and then dropping them without a word feels cheap to me. Even a sentence: Character X wanted to focus on their career and Character Y sold the house and moved to the other side of the country. That would have been enough. But nope. No resolution for you, throwaway characters.

So yes, I do recommend it, because the atmosphere and the setting is pretty great, good and creepy. But if you need more from the ending, you're going to be a tad disappointed.

So. Let's see. Some things:

- today is a Weather Impacted Learning Day on account of freezing rain. So, that's something. I mean, I get it, freezing rain is NASTY, but I was hoping to have a nice, quiet day today and that's not going to happen. I do feel a little guilty for ordering some stuff from Amazon last night, because driving in this weather is hot garbage.

- I pulled the plug and purchased a waffle iron. I've wanted one for a while, have a place to store it (which is key), and it wasn't a billionty dollars. Before my dental appointment yesterday, I stopped into a drugstore to pick up a few things. There were five items, and the bill was $35 and change. Everything, save one, was a sale item, and the regular prices were STUPID expensive for what they are. I was suffering some sticker shock, especially as I went in for a bamboo toothbrush, only found models that were imbued with charcoal (?) and cost $9. So, yeah, I bought more from Amazon, because two extra soft brushes for $12 without charcoal (which seems so fucking scammy to me) is a much better deal.

- I always feel guilty when I buy something from Amazon. I hate their business model and how exploitative it is. I try to limit my spending through there as much as possible for that reason.

- dental anxiety always hits me, even if I'm not feeling it at the time. It's why I needed the afternoon nap, that's for damn sure.

- the books I've been reading have been...meh. Maybe I'm picking the wrong ones? I dunno. Reading lack lustre novels is so draining because it makes me not WANT to read. Gonna see if I can get my mojo back with my next one. *fingers crossed*

- even though we are no longer under any kind of mask mandate (aside from post secondary institutions and medical places), I did notice a lot of people still wearing one (me, included). When I was out on Saturday, I was strongly reminded of this: if someone can't or won't wear a mask properly, then that person is going to lie about a zombie bite.