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Month: October 2020

It’s All About the Floor Space

The first bedroom I remember was the smallest in our house then, so I always thought of it as small. Having seen some postage-stamp bedrooms since, on the other hand… But the room was small-ish. And then, as now, I wanted all the things, all the choices, all the options, and so it was full. Very full. I’m talking path to the bed and the rest of the floor covered maybe a foot deep, full. I don’t remember how long it was like that. I do remember once throwing a pillow to cover the face of a doll who was face-up and staring at me from a corner I couldn’t reach. That pillow stayed there a long time. After my mom passed, my dad rearranged things, giving himself the smallest bedroom. My brothers, who shared, moved up to the biggest, and I got the middle-sized, more than twice the size of my first room, and the only one with a closet. A huge closet, since some wise person had seen a room with no closet and simply built a wall across one end. Ta-da! But to get that room, I had to move my stuff. All my stuff, including more than a foot of sediment from the past few years. I remember lying across my bed, with a “move this” bag on one side and a garbage bag on the other, and picking up one thing after another. I had to do it, so I did. It took forever. Once…

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COVID: What does the Tarot say?

So, I’ve been doing a lot of Tarot reading lately. I used to read way back in my twenties, but went on a long hiatus, and then started back up again recently when I started collecting Tarot decks again. And naturally, I began reading again. And I am feeling rusty, so I’ve been doing a lot of practicing. And I wanted to incorporate a short, simple Tarot ritual into my every day life. So I’ve been doing Daily Draws — and that’s exactly what it sounds like. You draw one card for your day — in my case, for guidance or advice — and make a note. I have a planner that I make my notes in. I try not to look up the standard meanings and try to interpret the cards in my own way. You’re not really supposed to rely on the standard meanings, anyway, technically. But you totally can if you want — there’s no wrong way to read the Tarot. I’ve been pulling cards for other reasons as well, for advice on various things, for writing questions, etc. I did a reading with a brand new, very artsy deck to figure out the ending of The Vanishing, Reaper Girl Chronicles #3, which I am revising. As per my usual process, I didn’t actually write the ending because I did not know it. Which is why I did the reading. It was very, very insightful and quite awesome. The Tarot, at least for me, has been very…

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Halloween in COVID Times

Hi, friends! It’s October, best month of the year! The weather’s finally cooling off, the leaves are turning (and hopefully will get all the way done before a snowstorm kills them all), I can wear boots without looking like a crazy person, etc. And normally there’s Halloween! I mean, there’s still Halloween. But this year it’s a bit anxiety-inducing, isn’t it? What’s safe? What isn’t? How do I still make it fun for the small, mobile ones? They’ve recommended against trick-or-treating, and it feels like the trunk-or-treats have the same issues (which, I’m assuming, are “lots of people touching the same things” and also “the potential for someone COVID-positive to spread a lot of germs and make it near impossible to contact trace”). Next Door has announced their Halloween map for the year. Normally you can mark that you’re giving out goodies and any specifics (for example, I normally take part in the Teal Pumpkin movement, where having a teal pumpkin set out indicates you have alternatives for kids who can’t eat candy due to allergies), but this year your options are for having decorated, doing a costume wave parade (where, I’m assuming again, you stand outside and wave at the kids and admire their costumes?), or having put out pumpkins. Sad times. I know people who are still planning on handing out candy to trick or treaters (bad idea, but I’m not surprised), or doing an alternative like setting individually wrapped candy out on a table (if you think…

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Walking Weather

I think I’ve written before about how I spent this summer either gardening or hiding from the heat indoors. (It hit 30 C / 85 F all of a sudden at the beginning of the summer, and pretty much stayed there until the end of August, when it dropped suddenly.) We had a truly ridiculous tomato harvest from early August until the end of September, so that sucked up most of my outdoors time and energy. But now the tomatoes are done (or at least all picked and ripening indoors). It’s well and truly fall…and for me, that means time to revisit my favourite nearby walks and seek out all the colours. I started walking just about on the fall equinox, and have kept it up pretty steadily for the two weeks since then…not every single day, but many of them. That’s new for me; I like walks but have never done them so regularly (not counting ten minutes here and there during the public-transit commute I don’t have right now). Most of the walks are pretty short, twenty or thirty minutes, squeezed in at random times between work and other tasks. But I’m already noticing a physical difference–I will admit I’ve been feeling pretty creaky during this time of remote working, and I’m positive I’m too young to be creaky! The walks are also proving to be an excellent stress reliever and mindfulness tool…which I knew, of course, but it’s amazing how often one needs to be reminded. I…

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Coat of Scarlet: A Clockpunk Tale, Part 7

by Siri Paulson Read previous installments: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 For Marius, deciding to make himself a place aboard ship was rather easier than the doing of it. Gloriana was friendly enough, but Marius dared not rely on her alone to be an ally among the crew; her comments about himself and Niko had been sufficiently ambivalent to give him pause, and moreover, being ship’s quartermaster kept her far too busy to nursemaid a land-rat. The other crew members tended to either give Marius a wide berth or rib him mercilessly. At least they confined their ribbing to his haplessness aboard ship; Gloriana seemed the only one brave enough to give commentary on Niko. He could have ingratiated himself with mending, but he was still working on the justacorps coat until his fingers cramped. It had been worn long enough that the lining needed mending in more spots than just the one, and the cuffs needed turning. The attempted theft at the docks had not improved matters, for it had been both torn – again – and dirtied. After all that, he was determined to return it to Niko in better condition than it had come to him. So he found himself with no spare skills to offer, nor any but the most basic knowledge of the workings of the airship. The best he could do was keep out of the way during maneuvers and drills –…

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