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pameladeanHello, you all. I am in that exasperating (to me, at any rate) state where I write entries in my head all the time but I never post them.
This requires posting, however.
I've often mentioned my long-time partner Raphael in this space. Some of you have met Raphael. If I manage to start posting again, you will not see that name any more. I'll be talking about Cameron. Her last name is Reed, though I don't usually use any partner's last name here. She is the same partner and the same person, but she has transitioned. Her pronouns are she or they. I guess, if you know her from long ago and have taken pleasure in Hellsparking the pronouns, you could still do that.
This is a profoundly joyous and very welcome development, though I'm sorry she ended up going through most of it during an ongoing and mishandled pandemic.
It's National Coming Out Day, so I guess I'll mention that I'm bisexual.
In other news, the upstairs furnace doesn't want to start up, the friend who has been nursing it along for us is laid up with both the flu and an injury, and I am worried about getting actual repair people in because I fear that they will reflexively red-tag the furnace even though it probably just needs a minor adjustment. It is as old as the house, which was built in 1916. It's no longer powered by coal, and was retrofitted with a pressure tank a decade or so ago after the replacement expansion tank in the upstairs bathroom began leaking after only a few years of use. The previous one also had leaked, but only after about 90 years.
I have the names of a bunch of companies that will definitely red-tag it and am trying to run down one that won't.
Other news, other news. The year 2020 has apparently done a real number on my executive function. It's somewhat better after several months of taking Vitamin B12 to address a deficiency. After I get my COVID-19 booster next week, I'll have lab work done and we'll see where my levels are and whether more improvement can be expected.
I had some weeks of very good productive work on the perpetual revisions of the novel currently called Going North. I'm stalled out again now, partly because I'm working on other long-overdue necessary matters like taxes. I've had to clear all or part of my desk twice in the past year and a half, once to address a hole in the screen of one window and again to make space to replace the air conditioner. I eventually accomplished these necessary clearances by shoving everything into a series of paper bags. Sorting would still be going on (as in fact it is) and I would have had no air conditioner through several more very nasty heat waves and would still not have one now, if I had insisted on things' being sorted as a preliminary. The paperback fiction aisle containing K through just-barely-W is still packed with stuff from my office.
The yard is a jungle and I have 48 species tulip bulbs arriving sometime this week.
Hiking has been a little erratic because of heat waves and thunderstorms, but the hikes we've had have been really beautiful and contained many interesting moments. There's a dearth of meadowhawks this year, it seems, but we did see some autumn ones on the last few hikes, as well as spotted spreadwings at the Carpenter Nature Center. We saw a prince baskettail snatch a moth out of the air and devour it just over our heads, dropping the wings at our feet. At the same spot just before, we had seen an osprey descend with enormous force and speed and snatch a fish out of the water. We saw a beaver swimming the length of a long pond to bring back water-lily leaves, one by one, to its lodge. We saw green herons. We saw a great blue heron, standing in the shallows of the Mississippi River, catch its own fish, spend several geometric moments moving the fish around without dropping it to get it lined up with its gullet, and then gulping it down. We saw many other things that I'm not recalling at the moment. Most of the common skimmers, ebony jewelwings, American rubyspots. Oh, and orange bluets. Montissippi, a regional park in Wright County with a fabulous dragonfly and bird population and the worst portapotties known to us, provided a generous array of darners and bluets mating and ovipositing; also, later in the year, a pileated woodpecker hammering away on a dead cottonwood branch. We've heard it before and since, but that was our only viewing.
All these hikes were with Cameron. I also went with Eric for two nights at St. Croix State Park, where a friend had planned a camping and gaming weekend for people still skittish about ordinary gatherings. I don't game, but Eric does. It's a beautiful park, and we had a fine time exploring it. We did not see the dragonflies I had hoped for, but finally we went down to the canoe landing where the rental canoes are, when it was early enough in the day for the river to be sunny, and saw several dragonhunters, a majestic and alarming kind of clubtail that preys on other dragonflies. Eric had seen one of those before when we went to Wild River together some years ago. But at the canoe rental landing at St. Croix, he also saw his first American rubyspots. We also very much enjoyed hanging out with friends in what at the time was a safe manner.
David and I have been taking rapid antigen tests and then going out to have lunch at my mother's about every other week. The pandemic has been pretty hard on her as well, and she is still going nowhere except her front steps with their little garden or her back deck. I hope she may venture out more after a booster and after Minnesota's horrific community-spread numbers go down, if they ever actually do.
I started reading new fiction again after a lengthy period of being basically unable to do so. As a result I read Katherine Addison's The Witness for the Dead, decided that it was a little too soon to read The Goblin Emperor again, and accordingly reread The Angel of the Crows and then actually took the heavy hardcovers of The Doctrine of Labyrinths from the shelf, to the great annoyance of my cat, who does not want to be a book rest and resents the space the books take up on what she believes to be her pillow. I've just started The Mirador, possibly my favorite volume of the series, and it's very hard to do anything else but read it, which is not helping any of the projects that require attention.
I'm looking forward to getting my booster so I can feel able to see Eric other than outside again. He's acquired a roommate, which he had intended to do for some time, and I am still very paranoid about COVID because my diabetes will make whatever level of infection I get much worse.
Nobody in my house has gotten sick yet.
Minneapolis politics is really wild right now. I have a lot of opinions but lack the energy to argue about them just at the moment.
I value all of you exceedingly and am glad every time any of you post.
Pamela
This requires posting, however.
I've often mentioned my long-time partner Raphael in this space. Some of you have met Raphael. If I manage to start posting again, you will not see that name any more. I'll be talking about Cameron. Her last name is Reed, though I don't usually use any partner's last name here. She is the same partner and the same person, but she has transitioned. Her pronouns are she or they. I guess, if you know her from long ago and have taken pleasure in Hellsparking the pronouns, you could still do that.
This is a profoundly joyous and very welcome development, though I'm sorry she ended up going through most of it during an ongoing and mishandled pandemic.
It's National Coming Out Day, so I guess I'll mention that I'm bisexual.
In other news, the upstairs furnace doesn't want to start up, the friend who has been nursing it along for us is laid up with both the flu and an injury, and I am worried about getting actual repair people in because I fear that they will reflexively red-tag the furnace even though it probably just needs a minor adjustment. It is as old as the house, which was built in 1916. It's no longer powered by coal, and was retrofitted with a pressure tank a decade or so ago after the replacement expansion tank in the upstairs bathroom began leaking after only a few years of use. The previous one also had leaked, but only after about 90 years.
I have the names of a bunch of companies that will definitely red-tag it and am trying to run down one that won't.
Other news, other news. The year 2020 has apparently done a real number on my executive function. It's somewhat better after several months of taking Vitamin B12 to address a deficiency. After I get my COVID-19 booster next week, I'll have lab work done and we'll see where my levels are and whether more improvement can be expected.
I had some weeks of very good productive work on the perpetual revisions of the novel currently called Going North. I'm stalled out again now, partly because I'm working on other long-overdue necessary matters like taxes. I've had to clear all or part of my desk twice in the past year and a half, once to address a hole in the screen of one window and again to make space to replace the air conditioner. I eventually accomplished these necessary clearances by shoving everything into a series of paper bags. Sorting would still be going on (as in fact it is) and I would have had no air conditioner through several more very nasty heat waves and would still not have one now, if I had insisted on things' being sorted as a preliminary. The paperback fiction aisle containing K through just-barely-W is still packed with stuff from my office.
The yard is a jungle and I have 48 species tulip bulbs arriving sometime this week.
Hiking has been a little erratic because of heat waves and thunderstorms, but the hikes we've had have been really beautiful and contained many interesting moments. There's a dearth of meadowhawks this year, it seems, but we did see some autumn ones on the last few hikes, as well as spotted spreadwings at the Carpenter Nature Center. We saw a prince baskettail snatch a moth out of the air and devour it just over our heads, dropping the wings at our feet. At the same spot just before, we had seen an osprey descend with enormous force and speed and snatch a fish out of the water. We saw a beaver swimming the length of a long pond to bring back water-lily leaves, one by one, to its lodge. We saw green herons. We saw a great blue heron, standing in the shallows of the Mississippi River, catch its own fish, spend several geometric moments moving the fish around without dropping it to get it lined up with its gullet, and then gulping it down. We saw many other things that I'm not recalling at the moment. Most of the common skimmers, ebony jewelwings, American rubyspots. Oh, and orange bluets. Montissippi, a regional park in Wright County with a fabulous dragonfly and bird population and the worst portapotties known to us, provided a generous array of darners and bluets mating and ovipositing; also, later in the year, a pileated woodpecker hammering away on a dead cottonwood branch. We've heard it before and since, but that was our only viewing.
All these hikes were with Cameron. I also went with Eric for two nights at St. Croix State Park, where a friend had planned a camping and gaming weekend for people still skittish about ordinary gatherings. I don't game, but Eric does. It's a beautiful park, and we had a fine time exploring it. We did not see the dragonflies I had hoped for, but finally we went down to the canoe landing where the rental canoes are, when it was early enough in the day for the river to be sunny, and saw several dragonhunters, a majestic and alarming kind of clubtail that preys on other dragonflies. Eric had seen one of those before when we went to Wild River together some years ago. But at the canoe rental landing at St. Croix, he also saw his first American rubyspots. We also very much enjoyed hanging out with friends in what at the time was a safe manner.
David and I have been taking rapid antigen tests and then going out to have lunch at my mother's about every other week. The pandemic has been pretty hard on her as well, and she is still going nowhere except her front steps with their little garden or her back deck. I hope she may venture out more after a booster and after Minnesota's horrific community-spread numbers go down, if they ever actually do.
I started reading new fiction again after a lengthy period of being basically unable to do so. As a result I read Katherine Addison's The Witness for the Dead, decided that it was a little too soon to read The Goblin Emperor again, and accordingly reread The Angel of the Crows and then actually took the heavy hardcovers of The Doctrine of Labyrinths from the shelf, to the great annoyance of my cat, who does not want to be a book rest and resents the space the books take up on what she believes to be her pillow. I've just started The Mirador, possibly my favorite volume of the series, and it's very hard to do anything else but read it, which is not helping any of the projects that require attention.
I'm looking forward to getting my booster so I can feel able to see Eric other than outside again. He's acquired a roommate, which he had intended to do for some time, and I am still very paranoid about COVID because my diabetes will make whatever level of infection I get much worse.
Nobody in my house has gotten sick yet.
Minneapolis politics is really wild right now. I have a lot of opinions but lack the energy to argue about them just at the moment.
I value all of you exceedingly and am glad every time any of you post.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2021-10-11 09:48 pm (UTC)Dragonflies come in such jewel colors. They are a real treat.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 01:55 am (UTC)Dragonflies are indeed amazing. The darners look just like enamelled brooches. I like what Cameron calls the black-and-white ball too: the twelve-spotted skimmers, widow skimmers, chalk-fronted corporals, etc.
P.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-11 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-11 10:28 pm (UTC)A parcell of news and no mistake!
I have no idea what the custom is, or even if there is, to convey wishes for benevolent outcomes on the occasion of changing one's name; I would nonetheless like to do so as regards Cameron's news.
Those are some excellent and enviable hikes and I hope there are any number more.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 01:58 am (UTC)We were very lucky with most of our hikes, given the lacunae in our usual schedule. We're coming to the end of the season, but could get in one or two more fall color hikes before the axe of winter falls.
P.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-11 10:41 pm (UTC)Mazel tov, Cameron!
It actually took me some time to sort out which persons mentioned on this journal were partners and which cats.
It is good to hear from you.
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 01:59 am (UTC)Every time I have read this comment I have collapsed into gales of laughter -- not at you, at me. I think I should make a sticky post with a list of characters.
*hugs*
P.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-11 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 02:00 am (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-11 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-11 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-11 11:25 pm (UTC)Glad to see you post, I’m trying to get back in the habit of reading and posting here. It’s tricky, I tell you. But each time I see good posts like yours, it reminds me I should check this place at least once a day.
I hope you can figure something out sooner rather than later with the furnace. Ugh. Though it doesn’t look like things will get too cold yet for a bit at least (we can hope). But it’s Minnesota, so who really knows? (We’re trying to figure out if it’s time to take our window air conditioner back indoors.)
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 02:03 am (UTC)I don't have trouble reading here at the moment, but posting really is tricky.
It does look as if no furnace will really be needed for at least ten days, but you never know what Minnesota will try to throw at you suddenly, that's true.
We have just stopped taking the window air conditioners out altogether. I'm not sure this is really the best strategy. Certainly if there were only one we would be more inclined to take it out. Autumn and spring are such fickle seasons.
P.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-11 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 02:03 am (UTC)Woohoo!
Date: 2021-10-11 11:47 pm (UTC)Re: Woohoo!
Date: 2021-10-12 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-11 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-11 11:57 pm (UTC)I am so glad to see a post from you again, it's like an unexpected treat of a visit.
Your hiking and limited social activity sounds really good. 2021 turned me into even more of a hermit than I used to be (the wildfire smoke and awful heat wave didn't help either).
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 02:06 am (UTC)I really do want to post more often, though possibly if I did it wouldn't be as much of a treat.
The lows and disappointments of 2021 have turned me into a serious hermit as well, but I'm much more okay with outside stuff than inside.
And yes, you had even worse heat than we did and much much worse wildfire smoke. It's enough to make anybody give up on the entire outdoors altogether.
P.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 02:36 am (UTC)Oh god, yes. Some entries I mentally compose so often, I get confused about whether I actually did post some variant or not.
I have never had the pleasure of meeting them, but rejoice in their transition and joy.
Best wishes for the upstairs furnace, post-B12 assessment, Going North, taxes, and everything else!
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 04:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 03:06 am (UTC)I have much the same problem with my bedroom right now - had to move a minor mountain of books off my desk to relocate my WFH space there Friday when my housemate took the day off, and it's amazing how much inertia they've already acquired there while I've been away most of the holiday weekend. ]
Today I went on a day trip out of Boston to a native plant trust <1 hr's drive away ('Garden in the Woods'), and I found a snake napping in a high bush, many glorious painted turtles, a well-disguised frog in the reeds and another keeping guard at the bottom of a tiny turtle's sunning log, a vole, a cricket in the grass, and so very many beautiful plants and trees. My friends and I had a wonderful time.
Hearing from you gladdens my heart. Thank you for reminding me to post more.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 04:14 am (UTC)That's just exactly what happens, items that are supposed to be somewhere only temporarily acquire inertia.
That botanic garden looks amazing. Thank you for describing your day!
I really must post more. It's so rewarding.
P.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 10:33 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 04:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 05:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 06:11 am (UTC)(From the Greek μετονομάζειν "to call by a new name." It's hapax legomenon in English, but was used in 1609.)
Wishing joy and dragonflies to Cameron and all who love her.
Nine
no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 10:34 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2021-10-12 07:13 am (UTC)Boo (as ever) to COVID and pandemic.
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Date: 2021-10-13 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 09:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 10:36 pm (UTC)Heating worries are heating worries, even if your boiler is not as ancient as ours.
I mostly am also reading new works by familiar writers, but I did venture into some completely new ones earlier, which I didn't list.
P.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 09:11 am (UTC)Thank you for sharing your identity- you know mine and that coming out will be fifty years ago next year!
no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 10:38 pm (UTC)I keep forgetting I have newish readers who don't know everything. Also, probably, long-time ones who might have forgotten some details.
Fifty years is awesome!
P.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 11:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-12 09:20 pm (UTC)In the case of another local trans woman where the book cover says a name that is not the name she would want used, but there is no copy of that book available with her right name on it for people to find and read, I asked if the right thing would be to review it as "[hername] writing as [previous pseudonym]" and in her case that was the correct answer, but there is no Universal Trans And Other Renaming Caucus where these things are decided once and for all. So I thought I would ask about Cameron's specific priorities in case of a reread.
(no subject)
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