I hope you feel better soon, Gud.

I have kept on top of the kitchen, even cooking, through Snotcoughpocolypse but today I'm just sitting here with makeshift nose tampons in, taking endless Buzzfeed quizzes and looking at Zillow.

BTW, if we're moving into a new rental house April 1st, when is it legit to call to inquire about a new rental?

I LOVE all my timers. I think I'm up to 5 right now. Outside lights, window lights, Christmas tree, downstairs mini tree, and upstairs mini tree. The only thing I do manually is three lights in my village.

Ooh, you are a pro.

I think there are still some old white guy authors worth reading (please Great Spaghetti Monster, let Neil Gaiman never have sexually harrassed anyone!), but gift recipients certainly aren't going to suffer for being given a wider selection of voices from women and people of color.

I'm grossed out by my own bookshelves at this point! I practically only read white male authors!

I practically only read white male authors!

Is it all the crime fiction and mysteries?

Growing up I just read what I wanted and that included lots of women writers: Ursula K. Leguin, Elizabeth Enright, Andre Norton, Madelein L'Engle, Mary Norton et al. And I didn't think about it too much.

But when I started to listen to music the options were way more guyish in the 70s. I mean, I certainly had and loved Joni Mitchell and Aretha Franklin and Carole King and Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde but there were clearly less options there.

And when women directors were a complete rarity in film, and still are.

Anyway, I am feeling definite fatigue with Straight White Guy narratives in any medium at this point. Feeling like that ground is well and truly covered. Don't need an more upper middle class white guy midlife crisis movies. Don't need any more "But my dad never loved me" tales. Don't need anymore "If I stalk you it means I love you" songs.

Excluding programming stuff needed for work* I haven't read a book by a white dude all year, and I'm not particularly dying to go back to them after my challenge is over.

I've read SHIT-TONS of great stuff by POC and women and queers (and, obviously, all the possible overlaps of those things), and I've also read more overall than I have in a long time.

(I did finish the book I was in the middle of at midnight Jan 1, but that was Chernow's Washington biography, and thus directly influenced by my Hamilaria.)

* it's also made me realize that supporting tech stuff by women is just as great a need, maybe greater -- the necessary exception I made to get the job done just makes me even more pissed off when the Only Definitive Book On Blah Blah Code Library is yet another dude. Step it up, tech publishers.

I am feeling definite fatigue with Straight White Guy narratives in any medium at this point. Feeling like that ground is well and truly covered.

Aw, can't we have another "I'm an asshole, but I'm just so damn talented!"

Is it all the crime fiction and mysteries?

Yep. And I'm over it! I mean, I'm not over crime fiction, but give me Karin Fossum.

So I did a super half-assed job of vacuuming two rooms, but guess what it was? Better than nothing!

Jesse you've read Dana Stabenow and Laura Lippman, yes?

Y'all I have 2 boxes ready to ship to people, I got part of my brother's Christmas to my parents who are flying there next week, I have a small pile of things to get listed on ebay today, I vacuumed the back room, AND I just did a pretty thorough cleaning of the garage. Still not quite able to get both cars in comfortably but I only need to get rid of a few more things or clean out the final corner and somehow make space by consolidation. So excite.

It was poetry that dragged me seduced me into reading writers of color, primarily women: Lucille Clifton, Edwidge Danticat, Rita Dove, Naomi Shihab Nye, etc., etc. Jane Kenyon and Mary Oliver, too, and others. But while YA and fantasy and scifi brought women--Piercy, McCaffrey, Norton, McKinley, LeGuin, Cherryh and others into my life it was poetry that opened me up to POC.

3 eBay listings up. It's a little more challenging doing it on my phone, but I'm gonna get more done.

Dinner is going to be black bean, corn and green chile dump with queso on the side. No work.