Yesterday was a really nice day — I spent most of it alternating weeding, planting dahlias (long overdue, but I figure it’s still better to get them in the ground than not), and finishing reading Ruthanna Emrys Gordon‘s _The Half-Built Garden_, which I just loved to pieces. It’s a little surreal reading it, actually — there’s so much of it that I think, “Oh, I could have written about exactly that.”
And then when I told Benjamin about it, adding, “Well, not the network stuff or the Jewish stuff,” he’d apparently had a similar reaction reading it, that he could have written all the Jewish and network stuff, but not the poly stuff… So I think the conclusion is that between us, if we worked really hard, Ben and I might manage to make most of a Ruthanna? 
You should probably just read her lovely book. I’ve gone back to read her earlier Innsmouth series now, which I’m also enjoying.
After all the weeding and reading, I walked Ben up to the Lake Theatre (newly renovated with very fancy seats, and you can even buy bottled wine if you want, but on the other hand, they still haven’t brought back the seasonings for the popcorn, grumble) to see the new Indiana Jones movie. I saw a review that said this was a perfect Gen X movie, and I don’t know about perfect, but pretty great, I think.
I sank into a nice nostalgic haze and thoroughly enjoyed a lot of ridiculous chase sequences, a bit of historical puzzle solving, much snarky dialogue, great acting from both Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Brdige, and of course, much punching of Nazis.
Afterwards, we walked down to Kettlestrings Grove, where I enjoyed a Blue Barrie: Birch Gin, Créme de Violette, Simple Syrup, Pineapple & Lemon Juice with Absinthe Rinse, and split a spicy tuna tartare with Ben, followed by a set of three s’mores tarts. Both delicious, and it felt like a properly celebratory evening after a successful week of co-teaching Clarion.
Ben and I had so much fun doing that, we’ve been talking about whether we might want to co-teach a week next summer for the SLF. Maybe? Probably it’d also be on Zoom, so if you’d be interested in taking a week-long writing course with us, let us know. There are a lot of possible approaches — straight up craft-focused, like what we did this week, all-critique-all-the-time, some mish-mash, etc. and so on. And do we aim it at a broad range of writers, or at beginners, or like the Strange Horizons workshops, at neo-pros and pros? Much to ponder.
We also spent a little time talking about what I should write next, because I am feeling a little stuck, but should figure it out soon, because he leaves tomorrow and my month of solid summer writing time commences. I’m trying not to pressure myself TOO much, because as you may remember, my goal for 2023 is to DO LESS, but on the other hand, I don’t want to just let July drift away in a haze.
A couple of the more personally exposing possibilities are nerve-wracking enough that I ended up not sleeping very well last night, half-drafting bits in my head and then getting anxious about writing them. It’ll be better once I’m actually in a project. Right now, it’s all possibility and a stomach full of butterflies.
Well, I’m not writing yet. Plan to spend the morning reading and setting up some gaming / potluck supplies, and then the afternoon, people will stop by, so that will be nice. I’m not sure if we’ll do a casual game or something more committed and serious, like Terraforming Mars — hopefully most people will show up by 12 – 1, so we can figure out if we have people interested in a longer commitment game, or if we should stick to shorter games.
It’ll be fun regardless.
