Issue #13 Naughty Nuns, Flatulent Monks, and Other Surprises
Pumpkin spice latte fiends! Just kidding -- I hate pumpkin spice but I'm sure there are some of you who would disagree with me. You do you, my friend. You do you. The tired jokes of "basic bitches" also happens this time of year and frankly, I'm sick of that too. I too like wearing leggings, long sweaters, scarves and my beat up nearly decade old Uggs. Shit is comfortable. V. wrote a FB post declaring instead of degrading women's fashion sense (such as calling them "basic bitches"), we should life women up and support their clothing choices. I wholeheartedly agree! (I'll still make fun of people who like pumpkin spice because it is gross. Give me a mocha any day.)
Speaking of food, it's time for doughnuts and cider! Seemingly a midwest thing, fall doesn't really start until you pair round cake doughnuts with fresh pressed apple cider. Michigan produces an ungodly amount of apples that are sold across this great nation of ours and you can buy cider in grocery stores but it's typical cider that's been mass produced (even if it is Michigan apples), which just ain't right. We're still waiting for several local places to produce their own cider and they aren't going to have any ready until mid-late September. Pro-tip: find a local orchard and chances are you can get your own locally pressed cider and fresh handmade cake doughnuts. You'll thank me later.
It's also getting to be cord (fwap fwap) and sweater season in Northern Michigan. Weather is in the high 60s/low 70s while people "down south" are still hanging out in the 80s. Louisville is still reporting temps in the high 80s and K. in Columbus is also reporting similar temps. My baby brother is getting married on October 14th in Grand Rapids and we're leaving for Louisville the day or so after so hopefully the cold snap in L-ville will occur right around the time we get back.
Other than lazing about, things have been quiet over in my public empire. I'm keeping up with my #100DayProject of writing a page of fiction nearly ever day and I'm getting better organized submitting my other work. Since it's so quiet, I'm going to jump right to Fanciful Delights.
Obsessions
I've rambled in the beginning on cords, Uggs, cider, and doughnuts and my hatred of pumpkin spice lattes (really, anything pumpkin spiced). It's not too hard of a stretch to get I really love fall. When I lived in Louisville for scant six months late last year / early this year (November to May), the seasons went from hot (90+F for days on end) to rainy. There is no demarcation between the four seasons and it is something I'm having a hard time accepting. I'll get a bit of fall in Northern Michigan and it'll be somewhat okay when we get back to Louisville but instead of snow accumulation, L-ville gets rain which gets tiresome when it happens for days on end. And it's the depressing rain, not the thunderstorm / lightning or occasional light shower, it's the overcast constant stream never seeming to end kind of rain.
But! Louisville did get a total of 12" of snow last year while Grand Rapids hung out in the 90"+. So yeah, winter is Louisville all the way.
(I just received a Ben & Jerry's email to announce their pumpkin cheesecake ice cream. I have no words.)
Books / Movies / TV
I'm still reading through A Discovery of Witches for the book club of two but I put the brakes on it while I wait for Mini-me to catch up. She works full time and she just started this semester of school (she's a junior at university! I'm so proud!), so she's a bit behind. I'm rotating my DoW ebook copy through five different libraries so when one check out ends, another begins. Thankfully Kindle keeps track of where you've been thus I'm not losing my spot. I finished Vinegar Girl (a contemporary retelling of Shakespear's Taming of the Shrew) which was terrible. Authors of age should not write books about the young people (under 30) without having a grasp or doing research of contemporary wordage. As an example, in 2016, a 29-year-old woman does not say "beautician" to mean someone who does their hair, they would say "hair stylist." I started The Hours by Michael Cunningham (I'm about half-way through) and I've added a few more books to my TBR pile: Night by Elie Wiesel, Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart, Orlando by Virginia Woolf (told 'ya I am on a Woolf kick), On Writing Well by William Zinsser, Hild by Nicola Griffith, In The Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss, Take Off Your Pants by Libbie Hawker, Hogwarts: Incomplete and Unreliable Guide by J.K. Rowling, Short Stories of Hogwarts by J.K. Rowling, and Myths of Origin by Cat Valente. (You can check out the full list of what I've read, reading, and future reading here.)
Phew! (Also! The new HP booklets came out this week and I was v. excited to see them show up on my Kindle.)
I'm trying to read across genres and types to get a better sense of story structure, plot, and general set-up and the writing technical books for deeper understanding. I don't know why I hadn't thought of this method before but I'm not always the sharpest tool in the shed.
Curated Link Love
Female friendships in fiction [The Guardian]
Infographic of how long it took famous authors to write their books [Electric Literature]
Ode to a tampon [Tin House]
The pre-Raphelite muse, Jane Morris [The Paris Review]
Why listening to an audiobook is the same as reading a book [New York Magazine]
Van Bruen sisters: the first women to motorcycle across the US [Mental Floss]
An encyclopedia of ever literary plot, ever [Vulture]
A review of Pride and Prejudice 200 years later [LitHub]
Being lazy is a sign of intelligence [Independant]
Why man men have red beards but not red hair [Motherboard]
The many stories behind rocky road ice cream [Mental Floss]
Pride and Prejudice and consent [Tumblr]
Does technology kill the romance of art history? [Aeon]
The woman who turned her unsolicited dick pics into art [Vice]
You don't have imposter syndrome, you're just anxious [Jezebel]
The 14th-century version of Tumblr [Atlas Obscura]
If you can't choose wisely, choose randomly [Aeon]
xoxo,
'til next week
You can find me across the internet as @byshieldmaiden or
at my facebook page, A Most Unreliable Narrator.
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