Patron Saint of Falling Over Things

Thank you to couplagoofs on tiktok, for this 2022 anthem, and apologies to The Mountain Goats.

I'm not drowning
I am swimming so good
I am having a nice time
This is a good afternoon
I don't want to die
I love living

Tiktok is fun? It's supposedly this den of wanton teenage vipers eating their own tails, and that's one part of it, but to be honest the algorithm is quick to figure out what you want and serve that up steadily. It figured out that I want queer-friendly content and random facts. It is proving to be a nice place to take my poor addled brain for a wee rest.


RAT-us Quo
COVID sure is a thing that is happening everywhere? I am having cognitive dissonance between what is happening all around me (lots of COVID, no access to rapid tests) and what the government is telling pharmacists (It's a mild infection! Only the very sick will get very sick!) It's hard not to fall down paranoid rabbit holes. Why are people acting normal? Why is nobody screaming in the streets about this? I don't understand.

I'm boosted, lilacsigil is boosted. We've upgraded to N95 masks. I've stopped going to the gym. We're not planning to go anywhere besides the supermarket and appointments. I don't think there's much else that can be done at this point. Eventually we'll get it. I just hope that it's a long way off, and a variant that's a little closer to my definition of mild than the government's.

*sighs* I am swimming so good.


Reading Wednesday
Finished Reading
The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey narrated by Sarah Lambie
- when last we left the reader, she was pondering whether this was a kissing book
( spoilers on whether this was a kissing book )

The Martian, by Andy Weir, narrated by Will Wheaton
- avoided this for a long time because it seemed so... blokey.
- it was blokey in the sense that it was a bloke's story, but it wasn't bro-ey. Okay, not TOO bro-ey.
- there was still obligatory (and arbitrary) het.
- As long as you're hearing first person, it's okay. The third person sections are DIRE af.
- took a minute to get into Will Wheaton's narration, because the last time I heard his voice, it was as a smarmy villain in Leverage
- he did a great job
- kept forgetting this was fiction, the science was so near-future that it all seemed plausible to me
- the story of how this book got written was as interesting as the actual book
- It was a serial! He had an email list!
- I heard about it on the Cracked Spines podcast, but here's the wiki entry: The Martian (Weir Novel)

Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix, narrated by Tai Sammons and Bronson Pinchot
- I read this because Audible Australia didn't have the furniture store book I wanted to read
- which was Finna by Nino Cipri
- one of the reviews of Finna said, in what I imagine was a pissy voice, "Don't you think we've had enough horror stories set in furniture stores?"
- Interesting that they chose to find fault with the queer furniture store story, huh?
- But I was like, this is a genre now? So I looked for others, and found Horrorstör
- it was good? Not amazing, but definitely fun.
- it knew what it was here to do, and it did that well
- The scariest parts were my mental flashbacks to getting lost in Ikea.
- One of those books that is probably better in paper form, because there apparently are graphics to go along with it
- this would enhance the existential horror, I think
- but the voice used at the start of each chapter to narrate the catalogue was delightful


The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, narrated by Imogen Sage
- this was free so I read it
- and it wasn't terrible
- but the whole time, I wondered why I was reading
- I don't usually read straight history type fiction
- I did love The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester
- and this lies adjacent to that non-fiction tale of dictionaries
- Esme's father is a lexicographer for James Murray, editor of the OED, and she grows in the scriptorium
- she begins collecting the words that are rejected from the dictionary
- all the dictionary stuff was really interesting, as well as the weird little ecosystem of printers and academics involved in editing the new edition
- but there's one thing I need to learn
( cut for me never learning not to do this one thing )

The Final Girl Support Group, by Grady Hendrix, narrated by Adrienne King
- DNF
- I wanted to like this, because the premise is clever: final girls in adulthood, dealing with their traumas with other women like them
- Adrienne King is a fabulous narrator!
- the world building was great, especially the creepy media industry that has built up around the women
- in practice, relentless grim existence is not as much fun to read about, you know?
( Cutting seems like a bad word to use here, but TW for character with cancer )
- there's a TV series planned, though?
- I would check that out, to be honest. It's a really good premise and maybe it could be done better on screen.

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, narrated by Rong Fu
- imagine that I had just stuck my head in a tumble dryer
- and I am now staring at you with wild eyes and hair still sparking
- maybe also a skull fracture
- that is the emotional experience of reading Iron Widow
- it is a hell of a ride
- not once did I manage to predict a plot point
- that might be my inexperience with mecha type stories
- or a general unfamiliarity with the story of Empress Wu Zetian
- but hotdog! This was wild!
- also, you don't see a f/m/m threesome that's, you know, actually a threesome. And they were adorable together. Soft and tender with each other, wielding angry death with everyone else. A lovely dynamic.
- it was a whole lot of righteous anger in a giant fighting bug
- to quote the author, "ENFORCE YOUR LAST PATHETIC GENDER ROLE, PATRIARCHY"


Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey, narrated by Romy Nordlinger
- it's a queer western! A queer western about librarians.
- it's about finding out you're not the only one in the universe who has ~feelings for their best friend
- the world building was understated but I liked that it didn't have to be explained much
- the setting is a post-civilisation dystopia
- our character runs away to join the Librarians, who travel between towns distributing approved reading material, and are very proper. And probably best friends. Look at them holding hands. Best friends for sure.
( Cut for a surprise reveal )


Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, narrated by Frankie Corzo
- This one walks in Dracula's shoes for a while: castle in the mountains, isolated, fog, taciturn staff
- but Noemí is a wonderful protagonist who takes the story in the direction she wants, thank you
- I love that I can almost hear her sigh and shake off her socialite persona because damn it, someone has to save her cousin
- the story takes its time, but in a loving, creepy way. So loving. So very creepy.
- gorgeous language, beautiful things
- there's a certain amount of body horror towards the end
( spoilers are spoiling )
- also there are paper dolls!

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Sutanto, narrated by Risa Mei
- it's a romance! I don't usually read romance
- but the aunties are fantastic, Meddie is fantastic
- I feel like I've been invited into their world so I better be polite
- Meddie's family is Chinese-Indonesian
- Chinese-Indonesian wedding planners
- it's as amazing as it sounds
- When Meddie accidentally kills her blind date on the eve of a big event, she must ask her Ma and Aunties for help
- while still managing to run a socialite wedding smoothly
- the chaos of this eventually got to me and I stopped reading
- this isn't a DNF so much as a DNF-yet
- it says something about how invested I am in these characters that I can't make myself read about them being in danger, you know?
- I will come back to this one when I've calmed down
- it's so good

Curently Reading
Witchmark by C. L. Polk, narrated by Samuel Roukin
- ahahaha it's so gay
- gay wizards even
- "Help me, Starred One!" *giggles with delight at how everything that is*
- so far, it's perfectly tropey, with forced soul bonds and hidden identities and a murder mystery and some kind of expy elf man
- sort of Edwardian setting
- GREAT WAR DAMN IT!
- okay, not THE great war, but it's definitely meant to parallel WWI, all grim and shellshock
- will I ever learn?
- probably not

Next up
Ugh, too many choices:
- Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots - office temp for super villains
- In Deeper Waters by F. T. Lukens - gay gay pirate romance described as "a frothy confection"
- Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman - I saw this promoted as "vampirism as metaphor for colonisation" but now I can't find the review, and I'm wondering if that was a spoiler.
- Matrix by Lauren Groff - it's narrated by Adjoa Andoh! But also, it's Marie de France and 12th Century living, and I don't know how grim it is.

Probably frothy gay pirates. Seems the safest.