A Change in Plans

Our school is undergoing a major renovation. The entire project is supposed to take two years, and is much needed. However, construction occasionally causes inconvenience, usually because they need to shut off the water after school, and that causes our after care to close.

Today was one of those days. They told us yesterday, which made me very happy that Wednesdays are one of my usual work at home days. However, Wednesdays are also a half day at school, so the early after care closing meant I had to pick the kids up by 2 p.m. I thought I might let the kids watch TV while I tried to finish my work day, but as I walked the kids to school in the morning (because of course, this was also the day Mr. Snarky had his green card renewal appointment), I decided that instead, I'd take the late notice as a sign that I should just go enjoy the beautiful weather with my kids.

And that is what we did. I had almost finished my "must do" list by the time I picked them up. Luckily, they had birthday cards to write for Mr. Snarky and my sister, and that and having a snack kept them occupied while I finished the last few things I needed to do. Then we wrapped the gifts to go with the cards and headed out for some fun.

Our first stop was my local indie bookstore. My book club is reading March, by John Lewis, this month, and since I wanted that in physical form, not as an ebook, I decided to buy local. They had to order it for me (they are primarily a sci-fi and mystery bookstore, but they are awesome: check out Mysterious Galaxy if you're ever in San Diego!) so I needed to go back to pick it up. I thought Pumpkin might like the store, since they have a nice middle grade/YA section. And she did. She loved it, in fact. I suspect I'll be taking her back there often. I let each kid pick a book, because I am a soft touch when it comes to books. And how could I say no when Petunia picked Ada Twist, Scientist?

After we got our books, we went and got ice cream. And then we headed to the beach. I have been meaning to take a celebratory walk on the beach for a little while: I have the Amazon release of Caresaway and paperback release of Unspotted to celebrate, so even if I'm not quite there on my Tungsten Hippo mailing list goal yet... I felt I deserved a walk on the beach. Why not do it with the kids?

I didn't get my usual deep thought time during this walk, but I did get a lot of smiles, and that is a good trade. It was in the mid-70s today, and sunny. The beach was beautiful and we found some nice shells. Petunia also found a lot of not so nice shells that she brought home, anyway. She always does. If anyone needs any shells, we have you covered.

Looking for shells

Pumpkin fell in love with some driftwood and insisted on bringing that home, I don't know why. She says she is going to decorate it. I am curious to see how that goes. But most importantly, they laughed and ran away from the waves, and just had fun. And so did I.

Having fun

I'll pay for this afternoon, either with some extra hours in my Sunday "make up" session or by squeezing some more hours in next week. But it was worth it.

Weekend Reading: The I Rollerbladed When I Should Have Worked Edition

It was so beautiful here today. I wasn't going to go for a rollerblade, because I had to take time out of the day to take my tax info to my accountant, but it was too beautiful of a day not to go out. I will pay for this by having to do my accounting over the weekend. It is the first Friday of the month, which is when I usually do my monthly accounting and I only get it partway done. Plus it is time to send out author royalty statements, and I barely started on that. So instead of doing fun work like writing during my Sunday morning work session, I'll be doing accounting. Bleh. But the rollerblade was worth it.

Anyway, to the links.

Self promo first: I'm running a GoodReads giveaway for the paperback version of Unspotted.

I've also decided to pick a random Annorlunda mailing list subscriber each month to send a promo code for a free ebook. If you want in on that, here's the mailing list sign up page.

Now the politics:

Josh Marshall had an interesting post in which he tried to come up with an innocent explanation for the Russia story that still fits all the known facts.

The leaks coming out of DHS undermine the national security argument for the Muslim travel ban. It has been clear all along that this was coming from the Bannon/Miller wing of the administration, and therefore I've never been inclined to buy the national security argument. The argument about immigrants not assimilating and the risk of replicating the issues seen in places like Brussels ignores some really key differences between the US and Europe, in my opinion. It also ignores evidence that immigrants from these countries have been assimilating just fine here in the US. If you only judge assimilation based on whether or not women wear hijab, you're really not thinking hard enough. There is nothing about being American that requires letting people see your hair. My non-expert opinion is that if you want immigrants to assimilate the main thing you have to do is treat them fairly and give them a chance to succeed. This travel ban does the opposite.

I've mostly stuck to my self-imposed rule that I'm not going to get into Democratic party strategy arguments (either in real life or in what I read online), but I read this story from a long-time labor reporter about the new DNC chair Tom Perez, and it made me feel better. So I'll pass it along for any of you who might also appreciate such a thing.

I could post a bunch of immigration stories, but I think I'll try to write an actual post about the topic sometime soon instead.

Instead, enjoy this interview with Gilda Wabbit, the drag queen who was in the "this is the future liberals want" photo that went viral earlier this week. Here is a quote from her:

"I won’t speak for all liberals, but I’d like to see a future where it isn’t a big deal for a woman in full modesty garb to sit next to a drag queen in NYC. It’s become a bit of a sensation, but her and I were just existing. The freedom to simply be yourself in a sea of people who aren’t like you is a freedom we all deserve."

Sign me up for that future, please.

Here is a less happy subway story (h/t @NeedhiBhalla). The point about there being no good option when you experience discrimination is a really good one.

This short article from an emergency room doctor who has to tell people Trump is president is a good read.

Here is an article about the same news story being spun two different ways by the same company. Basically, this company is profiting off of ratcheting up partisanship. We, as a society, are going to have to figure out how to handle this sort of thing in our internet/social media age. We're taking steps towards that now, but they are baby steps.

If you somehow didn't see the incredible (and incredibly sad) essay in the NY Times today from a woman writing a dating profile for her soon to be widowed husband... go read it. But you will probably cry. In my inbox this morning, I had an email from a friend letting me know that her husband had died. My friend is older than me, and her husband was older than her and quite ill, so it was not a surprise. But still, reading that email and then reading that essay destroyed me.

So I guess I need to find something happy to end on. But I don't really have anything, so....

BUNNY!

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— うさぎ島の写真bot (@rabbit_isle_bot) March 3, 2017

BUNNIES!

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— うさぎ島の写真bot (@rabbit_isle_bot) February 26, 2017

That's all for this week. Happy weekend!

Weird Day

This has been a weird day.

I sat down to do my usual Wednesday morning activism and was stopped by the realization that I didn't feel comfortable doing the first thing on my list—writing a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kelly urging him to make sure our immigration policies are not enforced in a cruel and dehumanizing manner—was not something I felt comfortable doing while my husband's green card renewal is pending.

And that realization depressed me so much that I couldn't muster the willpower to make any other calls. I did donate to Mi Familia Vota and Jon Ossoff's campaign in the special election in Georgia.

I thought I might have a hard time focusing on work, but posting my Tungsten Hippo recommendation for the week helped me snap out of my funk a bit. I downloaded this week's book on a whim and ended up really enjoying it. It is the sort of book that will stick with me for awhile. You can probably expect a future blog post about what it means to be well even if you are not fully healthy (in my case, I will always have asthma and a somewhat screwed up right arm from an old repetitive strain injury).

I struggled a bit until lunch time, but did some good work for a client after lunch, then went for a run and enjoyed what was really a glorious day, and came back and just powered through my to do list.

In the end, I finished everything on my to do list (which is rare: I aim to have one or two items as "stretch goals" for the day) and even picked something else off my office kanban board and finished that.

When I finished work for the day, the news was still all about Trump's speech last night. I didn't watch it, because why listen to someone who always lies? But I found the fawning coverage of his ability to tell his lies without sounding unhinged depressing, so I figured it would be another night of a self-imposed news blackout.

I walked to my kids' school and picked them up, made dinner, and enjoyed talking to my kids about their day while we ate. Then my phone buzzed. It turned out to be a missing child alert (that child has been found, safe). But while I had my phone in my hand, I opened Twitter... and holy cow, my timeline was on fire with the news about Sessions. And with justification. He lied during his confirmation hearing about contacts with Russian officials. He was at one point and may still be a target of an investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. He must recuse himself from the ongoing investigation. A special prosecutor must be named. In a normal administration, he'd be resigning, too. But this is not a normal administration, so my money is on him trying to hang on and more damaging things coming out until he is finally forced to resign. Of course, I could wake up tomorrow morning to find he's resigned. Who knows.

I am more convinced than ever that if we actually get an independent investigation into this entire mess, people will end up in jail. But I am not convinced we'll get that investigation, or at least not in a timely manner. I have resigned myself to having to wait until after the 2018 election for a proper investigation. If the Democrats don't take the House in that election, though, we might not get one even then.

Meanwhile, the horrifying VOICE policy will be enacted. The administration will continue to vilify and dehumanize immigrants, particularly immigrants with brown skin.  They will continue to ignore hate crimes committed against people with brown skin. They will continue to ignore the rising Antisemitism. An alarming number of Americans will cheer this. An even more alarming number will just go along, perhaps because they don't want to offend the ones cheering by implying they might be racist, perhaps because they just don't want to think about it.

We are in a race. Can we get rid of this administration, or at least the worst actors in it, before they lead us to do something so horrific and shameful that future generations of schoolchildren read about it and wonder how we could have let such a thing happen?

I do not know the answer to that. I do not know how best to try to win the race. I guess I will rally and call my Senators and Representative tomorrow morning to let them know I think Sessions should resign and that I want them to pressure him to do so. I will continue to fax the House Oversight Committee (since their voice mail is always full) to tell them they should investigate the myriad conflicts of interest swirling around this administration. I will raise my small voice and contradict the dehumanization of immigrants, documented and undocumented. I will speak up against Antisemitism and Islamophobia and racism as the poisons of our society that they are.

That is all I know how to do. I do not know if it will be enough.

And I have started my meditative yoga practice again, because I think my days are going to be weird for awhile and I need to find a way to cope that doesn't turn me into one of those people going along with something horrifying just because I don't want to think about the mess we're in.

Weekend Reading: The Too Tired to Do It Right Edition

The news has worn me out this week. And I also had a lot going work-wise, so I'm tired and writing this post in the minutes before I need to go pick up my kids. It will be short.

Still, I have links.

First some publishing related news: I'm running a Kindle Countdown deal on Caresaway right now. Buy now before the price goes back up to normal!

Also, the paperback edition of Unspotted is out!

Finally, I'm really close to meeting this quarter's goal for Tungsten Hippo mailing list sign ups, so if you think a weekly email with a couple of short ebook recommendations, a quote, and short ebook related news sounds tempting, sign up now so that I can meet my goal and take a celebratory walk on the beach.

That's enough self-promotion. Here's some other people promotion: a friend of a friend is running a GoFundMe to send copies of Becoming Nicole, a book about a transgender youth, to Texas legislators. Chip in if you want to help educate Texas legislators about the people who will be harmed the "bathroom bill" they are contemplating.

The US doesn't actually have an immigration crisis right now.

If you're wanting more facts about the current state of immigration and some ideas for how to fix it, there's a Planet Money podcast on the subject. One thing I am ashamed to admit I did not know that I learned in that podcast: there is basically no legal way for an uneducated worker from Mexico to come here. According to an economist quoted on that podcast says such a person would need to wait 130 years to get a green card. That is essentially no chance.

Here's a story about the Tohono O'odham, whose sacred land is in the path of the planned border wall. We cannot undo our history of disregarding the land rights of the Native peoples of this country, but we could start respecting them now. I don't expect that this administration will, though.

You should also read this essay by a Navajo woman living in LA about answering when asked where she is from.

I can't say I feel much sympathy at all for Milo Y. John Scalzi sums it up rather well, but I confess I don't care why Milo is the way he is or why his follower follow him. I care about the people they are hurting, and I want our society to start holding them accountable for the damage they do.

Roxane Gay's post after Milo lost his book deal is worth your time, though.

I like the idea of a class on calling bullshit.

That's all I have. A lot more happened, but you can read about it somewhere else. Not because I don't care, but because I'm tired and it is time to get my kids.

Here's your bunny to end on, though:

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— うさぎ島の写真bot (@rabbit_isle_bot) February 24, 2017

Happy weekend!

Sunday Morning Musings

Last night, I said in an off-hand way that I wished I was 10 years younger.

Mr. Snarky replied in an equally off-hand way that if I was 10 years younger, I'd be pregnant.

And he is right. 10 years ago, I was in the final months of my first pregnancy. It is a bit weird to think about that, both because I can't believe that the little baby who arrived in April of 2007 is now almost 10, and because I've changed so much in those 10 years, too.

I am happy with the changes. I am a stronger person now than I was then, more sure of myself, and more able to distinguish the signal of what I want from the noise of what society tells me I should want. I still work to consistently act on what I want, but at least I'm better at knowing what it is.

So, while I would love to have my body of 10 years ago back, I don't actually wish I was 10 years younger. I'm better off now.

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Another thing I thought about after this exchange: the way some decisions radically alter the path of your life, to the point that there is no crossing back over to the other path. This is not a novel thought. But I still think sometimes about the path I stepped off of when Pumpkin was born. That other path had a lot more travel in it, I'm sure. I'd probably have seen more of the world, and I love traveling and seeing new things, so that would have been a nice path.

But this path is pretty amazing, too.  I've said before that parenthood is like a different type of journey. Like any journey, it has some really tough parts. It also has unbelievably amazing parts. I love traveling with my kids, for instance. I love watching them see new places. It is a different dimension of travel, and for me, it makes up for the extra hassle of traveling with kids.

Don't get me wrong, I like to travel alone and with just Mr. Snarky, too. But I love our family vacations.

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Whenever I write about the journey of parenthood, I wish I was a better writer. I cannot adequately describe what it is to be a mother. I wish I could, but I can't.

Right now, I'm reading Stephen King's On Writing, and am amused by how this is making me think I should write more and try to get better. I even jotted down some notes for a fiction idea. 

Maybe someday I'll try my hand at fiction. It seems unlikely, but you never know. Right now, though, I have other priorities, and I need to stay focused. One of the things I've learned in the last 10 years is that I have a tendency to start lots of projects. I find so many things interesting, and it is so tempting to pursue them all! Learning to embrace that and also manage it has been one of the great gifts I've received from this blog. A reader pointed me to a book about "scanners" and I recognized myself and also picked up some great ideas for how to harness that energy to build a life I love. 

Now, I don't necessarily start in immediately on every idea I have, but I write it down in one of my notebooks (I keep one for writing ideas, and one for other ideas), and I let myself enjoy each idea. Then I turn back to the kanban board I keep on my office door and focus on finishing one of the projects I already have in flight.

Speaking of which, I have a proof to review. The paperback version of Unspotted will be available soon!

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Here's an old post about kanban, but if you want to know more about how I use it to organize my work, you'll have to head over to my real name blog. I was about to say that you could email me if you need a link, but I guess it has been awhile since I cross-linked, so here is the post I have in mind.