It’s been a heck of a while

Posted on by K. M. Herkes

Long time no post. Over a month, I think, since I’ve shared anything but book-focused or fluffy photo posts. I’m not even going to try to catch up on all The Other Things. Spring was a season of mostly lowlights with some big highs that were delightful but also made the dark parts feel darker. It’s a huge effort to share now, but I need to crawl out of my protective shell and  stretch my word muscles.

Here be the major doings.

Firstly, my much-loved and amazing mother-in-law died in February. Not a surprise, she was 95 and suffered a bad injury leading to a sharp decline before Christmas, but it was a hard blow all the same. She was a powerful, complicated, wonderful woman who told the worst best jokes and was a shining example of how good a human being can be.

Logistics put the memorial in April. Spouseman comes from a large family. Gathering together the three  children’s households + eight grandchild households, including assorted lifemates, 2 great-grand-children & other loved ones from all the round earth’s imagined corners = some heroic scheduling.

My sister-in-law is a goddess. That is all.  While still steeped in the first raw pain of grief, she organized a huge multi-family celebration of poignant joy with grace and strength.

It was a hard trip for Spouseman and me, but also a good one  filled with bright moments of laughter & hours of shared stories, with interludes of desolation and tears.

Secondly, a week after returning, late in the month, our Scootercat went overnight from being a dear, cranky cat with a failing digestive tract & horrible arthritis who  still enjoyed sunny naps, treats, and petting to a pain-wracked, incontinent old kitty who couldn’t walk more than a few steps and  had no more happy waking moments.

He was our very good boy, the bestest of the best, but he was ready to go. With help from friends w we found our way to a very good emergency vet who got us in after hours the day we realized it was past time to say good-bye. I couldn’t rest the next day until I cleaned the house from top to bottom, and while I did that and randomly leaked tears, I also struggled with guilt over being relieved that I wouldn’t have to clean up after random puddles & poops any more. Grief is weird.

Weeks later, I still glance at Scooter’s usual sit-spots whenever I pass them and feel that aching hole inside because there’s no one there.  All of his good, favorite beds and toys that a new kitty might like are set aside to await the day we’re ready to embrace another fuzzball or two. Or three.  It’s going to be a while before I’m ready. And even longer for Spouseman, I think.

Thirdly, on the professional front, I did Indy PopCon with Bard’s Tower, which was an interesting and entertaining con that took place on Pride Weekend, wherein the number of people in all kinds of cosplay boosted my hope for the future of humanity.  On the same weekend, good friends in Chicago took my books & bling to Printers Row LitFest, whereupon I learned people like book-bling even if they haven’t read the books. (Go, Mercury Battalion!) So…that was a grand good thing.

Same week, I found out a good and wonderful, talented friend was in the hospital, and another is facing the return of a deadly cancer. SO.  THERE’S THAT. Anger and helplessness just simmering away in the daily mix.

And lastly, we expect to be moving in a couple of months. I’ll post more about that shocking development when it’s all finalized.  The whole thing came together super-fast, but it should be perfect and delightful…once it’s a done deal. I have a deep, abiding fear of jinxing the whole thing by getting too talkative about it until All The Papers are signed.

It’s long overdue. It’s a thrill to consider having enough living space for a guest bed and a dining table and a cushy bean bag chair AND a Spouseman’s office plus mine. It’s also going to be All New and Unknown, and thus I am scared 24/7 right now.

Despite all appearances to the contrary, I do NOT uproot well or enjoy environmental change. Yes, I do change my surroundings regularly, (okay, obsessively) but it’s a defensive strategy–if I don’t push that particular limit hard and often, I will calcify, emotionally, into a fragile barnacle who would shatter if pushed to move or change at all.

And I don’t want that. So I seek change stress, and I’m all in on this move. All the same, getting used to a new space is going to be uncomfortable, stressful, and terrifying even though it’s chosen and wanted.  There’s no getting around it. Gotta just push through.

So. That’s what’s happening in my world. We’re all caught up.

A lot of media has been consumed since the last Other Things post, but it was mostly brainless visual re-watches and comfort re-reading to offset the heavier topics trending in reality. I’ve also struggled against a blast of creative apathy that has yet to abate.

Next up in my life, preparing for Gen Con, plus a whole lot of panic over ohmygerdIhavetofinishthesefershlugginerrevisions for Sharp Edge of Yesterday, and also SOMEHOW finishing the last 25% of my cozy ghost mystery.

But that’s all for now.

 

 

 

 

The latest in random happenings

Posted on by K. M. Herkes

I filled out forms today.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that nothing in modern life can happen without filling out all the proper forms before, during and after EVERYTHING one does.

…or so it often seems to me. Forms hate me. True story.

If you’ve never seen me fuck up a form five times running before getting it right, well, now you know that’s a thing. And I did a ton of everyday form-filling today without a single meltdown.

So, yay?

Confirming con dates, ordering freebies, depositing checks, booking hotels & travel, submitting information here & there, updating spreadsheets…

AGH. SO MANY FORMS TO FILL OUT. ARGH.

But it’s all done, and I’ve survived.

I also made progress & significant decisions on the new beginning for Sharp Edge of Yesterday. It still has a sucky first line, but I am now resigned to “sucky first lines” being my trademark style…and it starts with Jack & Heather snarking on their way to an emergency, so there’s that.

Rewarding myself with popcorn & hot cider now. (see the featured image for the post.)

See ya later, internet.

The latest in dream developments.

Posted on by K. M. Herkes

Long winter nights throw off my usual sleep routine, and weird sleep patterns lead to oddly vivid but disjointed dreams. A few nights ago, I had some doozies.

I’m left wondering if the ideas I collected from those slumberland excursions came from ideas I read or saw somewhere, or if they’re purely the work of my imagination. I like some of them enough that I might want to use them in a story someday, so I’ve been doing some research, but to no avail.

The most recent sleepytime entertainment involved a new setting, or more precisely a new zone within the complicated urban/suburban region of my dream geography. The place I identify as The City has dozens of neighborhoods and architectures recognizable from real world places I’ve visited, ones I’ve studied, fiction I’ve read, and photos I’ve seen. Parts of it are medieval, some early industrial, some modern, some futuristic.

Evidently there’s a tunnel system beneath the section of City that resonates with urban 19th century America/Britain/Europe society. I hadn’t known that until last night, despite many a dream in which I’ve gone deep in basements to hide from tornado storms. (It’s an annual recurring dream set.) Anyway. In these newly-appeared tunnels there are Old West-style saloons, modern coffee shops and 50’s diners where people sit around and rank the “Worst Deaths” collected from various media entertainments.

I do not question the anachronistic establishments while I’m in them, nor do I wonder at modern media discussions taking place in in patently pre-electronics environments. The list is what stuck with me, that and the passion of the discussions about scenes I am 99% sure actually go with the shows being discussed.

Content Warning: the next bits are gruesome. Feel free to skip to the second row of asterisks. It’s nothing that should shock anyone who’s read my fiction, but…I feel I should issue the disclaimer nonetheless. For whatever reason, disturbing creepiness that comes to me in dreams never fazes me while awake, so it’s difficult for me to judge its effect with any objectivity. Better warned than squicked out, says I.

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Tops on the “Worst Deaths: Ranked” list was “Death by tallow,” aka someone being dipped in hot grease over and over until dead. Has that ever been done on TV? Not that I recall, but it was voted best-worst in the dream discussion I took part in. Every one of my dream friends agreed that was the most horrifically creative means of murder they’d seen, and that it was from a CSI episode.

Second place went to “Fire in the belly,” meaning someone being carefully eviscerated and then having hot coals dumped in their body cavity.  (I warned you, didn’t I?) My dreaming brain insisted this came from Game of Thrones was second. (I can easily believe that but can’t place it in any given episode.) Third place was a tie between shoelace garrote from a buddy cop movie whose name I can’t remember, (dreams being like that) and being skinned alive with a sander from a horror movie. (also no idea which one)

Are any of those death scenes from a real-world existing narrative? I have no idea. But they are all vivid in my brain as items discussed around tables while meals were going on. Which doesn’t sound exciting, but there it is. I actually spend a lot of time in dreams watching and listening to imaginary people. And reading. I read things in dreams.

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Other less disgusting but also deeply-engraved concepts from this episode:

Coins minted by criminals and used as black market currency by members of an underground culture. They’re called Venturi, and stamped from circular metal punch-outs left over from the manufacture of homemade explosive rockets.

A rebel militia run by members of that underground group to fund the political overthrow of a  (which is why rockets are being manufactured) They’re organized in units like a D&D party, with every cell meeting as a gaming group and using gamer lingo as the code for real world operations.

So not all of it was gross, just some of it, and the tunnels part was pretty exciting. My dream world doesn’t grow all that often, and expansion is usually tied to personal growth in other areas.

Maybe I’ve been stretching my limits more than I realized, the last little while. Hopeful thought.