Whew! I was running a little frantic, trying to get some Sri Lankan curry powder packaged and out the door before my 10 a.m. appt. to record a podcast with Benjamin Rosenbaum, and I was just getting ready to drop Ben and Darius a note asking if we could possibly push it to 10:30, but then I went to go check the calendar for something else entirely, and saw that we had actually scheduled today for 11 a.m., because Ben had a thing, so whew.
Packages are all done now (and look, I figured out partway through that if I sealed them with washi tape and wrote a label to go over it, that would hold the not very sticky washi tape in place and look v. pretty) and out the door, waiting for pick-up…
…including a big mask order — 4 LotR masks and 4 Dr. Who masks. Someone is going to be geeking out when they get this. 
*****
Now I just have to pick out a topic for today’s recording. If you have an opinion, feel free to weigh in! I’m going to take 15 minutes to walk through the garden, take some photos, drink my coffee, and breathe.
Possible topics…
Humanism:
– what does it mean to be human as a SF/F writer? Post-human / far future / Singularity / Plurality University / etc.
-> Ben: you asserted that we were humanists in the first episode. I think this is interesting; it’s not a label I identify with, not because I have any strong aversion to it, but just because I’m not sure what it means. I sort of associate it with the 15th century and with putting Man atop the Great Chain of Being, but that’s obviously not what you mean by it. Let’s also talk about what the label means.
Pandemic:
– how people manage risk
– how we’re handling all this personally
– how you and Esther and the kids are doing (if you’re comfortable talking about Esther as therapist and your relationship stuff and your synagogue work, all of that would be interesting, I think, and I’d do the same from my end with Kevin and Jed and the kids and teaching)
– how Switzerland and the U.S. are handling coronavirus differently (I have no idea what’s happening there, actually)
SF & Writing:
– maintaining SF community during a year-without-conventions (Mary Robinette)
– writing during all this
– motivational structures
– the frustration and grief of a delayed book launch; plans and strategies for handling it (Liz Gorinsky)
Teaching:
– Swiss and American educational systems during the pandemic
Domestic:
– domestic labor during the pandemic (the big chart)
Misc:
– international guests (Yudhanjaya, Aliette — fold in pandemic check-ins — New Zealand (Toni, Jed’s friend, etc.))