The Enchanter's Theorem

Today is the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the day my father died, fourteen years ago today.

Fourteen.

It feels more like four days today. Like I just saw him yesterday and if I turn fast enough or around the right corner, I'll find him standing there, grinning at me like a loon.

I miss my father so much today.

There's nothing new to say or for me to tell you about my father. If you track either the Hugh M. Hyatt tag or the Poppa Bear tag here on my LJ, you will find my memories of him. Stories that I've kept alive as best as I can, because it's all that I have left of him. The things he touched and the things he made are not him. But the memories... Those are things, moments that retain a bit of his soul. A bit of who I knew and remember of the man. That I remember of my father.

This year has been so so full of death and grief. So many have died or been killed and not far away, not across the water, but in communities that I travel through, losses to friends I have known for years. Artists gone that I have known of for years. Children taking their lives, because they're not sure that the next four years would be survivable for them, because the gender they were did not comply with the physical form they were born with. Artists also taking their lives, because they weren't sure if they'd have health care the next four years, and better to make one's own exit than be at the mercy of a cruel and merciless government that demands Obedience, and dispenses only pain and a slow death from pre-existing conditions, because apparently the sick and disabled don't deserve care or help or gods forbid, hope. And on top of that, a friend I knew since high school finally lost the battle with his heart, the organ he had been given with a congenital defect that finally got him. He lived longer than any of us thought possible. So much so that I think we all thought he would be here for a little bit longer.

But maybe that would have never been true, no matter when he died. Jason's dying would have been a loss no matter what, and a lot of us would have wished for more time. Not for us. For his children and for his wife, who has been such a pillar of strength and power, that I am in awe and hope that when or if she needs to break or just take a break, we will all be here to catch her.

It's the least I can do. The least *we* can do as her community.

And here we are on Pearl Harbor Day and the World is on fire and we are firmly in the grips of what Heinlein called the Crazy Years. I like to think that my father would have been a voice of reason during all of this. Spoken out especially against the willful denial of scientific fact presented in hard data. This once, his stubborness would have been a gift and a source of power. He loved to argue. I like to think that he probably could have out-argued the Devil. He had that in him.

I don't have his facility for the math or the science. I can only write about the people and the art and the music that I track. The politics that I immerse myself in, because at heart, I am a truly political animal, and in another life, life in DC and write analysis for people who probably never read them. But whatever. That life is not this life and I work with the tools that I've been given.

Oh, it hurts this year, Lady. It really fucking hurts. And next year doesn't look any better, in fact the next decade looks to be pretty fucking shitty. We're going to lose more people, and not to natural causes. Even my father's heart attack was an expected risk. It's not like the family history doesn't run in that direction.

So apparently today is going to be full of fire and tears. I will burn incense and offerings and pray. I will meditate and weep.  I will rail at the cruelty of men and the blind neutrality of the vast Universe.

I need a box of tissue and a new cup of coffee. The crying is giving me that stupid headache that seems to follow such outbursts.

Pop, what are we going to do? I know that we can prevail, but I also know what the human cost of that effort will be. It'll be body count in both literal bodies, and in a lot of minds. It will break a lot of people and we will lose people we love and gods, I just want it to stop. I just. want. it. to. stop.

Goddess, help. Help. Help, help, help.

I don't know what to do.

I want my Daddy.

The Magician - Tarot Apocalyptica - 11-2016

No. I wouldn't fuck with her either.
( Tell the truth and shame the devil. )

Or: the quiet start to the year is over.

As of today, I’m off to a networking thing tonight, it’s Valentine’s Day on Friday, a bridal shower on Sunday, and running 18 miles on Sunday, all while carrying my usual work load.

Piece of cake. But the moderate pace of the last six weeks has clearly just been ejected from my schedule like woah. It’s not a problem, but I can see that I’m going to have to start being more militant in deploying the word that we all seem to struggle with from time to time: No.

There’s so much that I want to do this year and there’s so many opportunities. But if I learned anything from last year, it’s that I can’t say yes to everything at the same time and I absolutely have to make my own work a priority or suffer the consequences. To some degree, I’m still digging out from that. Which is not a bad thing.

But I would really like to be able to squeeze out enough to hit Warp 9 in this bucket…

(Oh, and I need to figure out a new user pic…)

Originally published at ANGELA N. HUNT. You can comment here or there.

I have Monday and Tuesday off, which will be devoted to running and sleeping.

I know. Look at me. Living la vida loca…

The writing is coming together very slowly. My brain is just not regrown enough. So I’m letting it take its time and just relaxing. Reading and working on all the metric tons of things that the press needs right now with the 12×12 initiative. Soon enough, something will light my cranium up again and I’ll be off to the races.

Mostly I just want to paint. I’m hoping to do that this weekend.

Otherwise, it’s just the same old same. Lots to do. Not enough hours in the day. Avoiding politics, because it alternately enrages me or terrifies me. Being the mother of daughters right now is enough to give you the cold sweats if you let it. Doing all I can to make sure the world they inherit sees them as people with rights and not slaves.

And when I can’t take anymore, I retreat for a bit and read. Remember that magick is real. Get back to it when my strength returns.

Which means I should get back to pushing this rock uphill.

Have a good weekend, my darlings…

Originally published at Angela N. Hunt. You can comment here or there.

Pictureless Wednesday. Need to edit more photos and hopefully that will be tonight.

Last night’s run hurt like a motherfucker. I don’t know if I didn’t stretch enough or what, but holy crunchy frog, it sucked, not that my pace showed it, so go me. Quads were killing me and the blisters on my right pinky toe continue to be painful little bitches. I did more work on my foot last night and seem to have caught the last blister (seriously, I have blisters under my blisters). Today my foot just feels raw, not “Oh hai, I am under your epidermis and here to fucking torture you!”

So. Progress.

Pro-tip for other returning or newbie runners: micropore tape is your friend. Sand off your callouses and tape your feet before you run. You will thank me.

In other news, only ten pages remain on the Broken Rainbow copyedit and hopefully that will get nailed down today, at which point I take a five minute break and start working on the edit of The Mad Scientist’s Beautiful Daughter.

Still no painting, but that’s okay. Only so many hours in the day.

I have other news that I cannot share, but think good thoughts for me and mine.

How’s your world?

Originally published at Angela N. Hunt. You can comment here or there.

Another day.

*does more Pranayama*

Dark Lightning eARC is going out today as soon as the PDF can be generated. That doesn't seem real to me at all. But there it is.

Next thing is to get the layout together and then wait, because of the damn review cycle.

Luckily, I'll be diving straight into the massive edit that is Broken Rainbow. Much work waits for me there and come July, the first edit of Vaudeville Goes to Hell needs to start as well as the joy that is busines plan writing for the production.

I still don't have a place to paint, which is pissing me off. I need to finish the painting for the Broken Rainbow cover.

And I need to do more jumping jacks and run.

There's a lot going on.

And considering how gray it is outside today, this is appropriate. A little piece of missing sunshine.

* * *

So. Back from vacation and back to dayjob. We return to our regular programming.

Vaudeville Goes to Hell is cranking along, though I'm 21 pages behind on page count (my own count).

I did only a little photo editing, but a lot of shooting with Instagram on Mr. iPhone. I love how easy it is to get back to the daily shooting with it.

Granted, vacation jacked up my back, without the dual visits to PT, so I'm paying for it, but the shooting pain isn't back. Small favors. Meditation and yoga are lifesavers.

If all goes well, I will be shooting the final photos for Alice Assassin in the near future. Just trying to get things to line up.

And that's me. There's a million other things going on. Consider this the highlight reel.

So.

It's been a really long weekend. As in, I'm going to work tomorrow so I can actually get some rest, it was that kind of long.

I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed in about five minutes.

But I can't turn my brain off and stuff is going on and and and... I need to turn my brain off. But I can't. So I've had some tequila. And it helps. And it doesn't. So I'll talk to you instead, because that does help, full stop.

I rambled and I deleted it, because even I could tell it was incoherent.

Just know that I'm thinking of you, wherever you are and whatever you're going through. I'm holding you in the light. Yes. You.

This life? Oh, it can be sharp. It can cut you to the bone. But it's the sharpness of a crystal, a brilliant thing of knife edges and brilliance and refraction. And even as it draws your blood, it robs you of your breath because of its beauty sometimes.

Yeah.

And on that note, to bed, my darlings. May visions of sugar plums dance in your head. If not that, whatever most delights you.

*kisses you on the forehead*

*whispers*

Good night.

I must say that Zoe Keating may very well be the most perfect rainy day music I have on my iPod. Especially any of the Legions tracks. Made the slow crawl in to the dayjob bearable and more meditation then crankfest.

Been getting a lot accomplished, which is wonderful, though last night I bailed on everything, because the latest Lois McMaster Bujold book was waiting for me, and excuse me while I devour it. Worth. The. Wait. Guy Gavriel Kay's latest book will be my next acquisition after it.

I don't really have anything else to natter on about.

It's raining.

I have loops of Zoe Keating music playing through my head.

Both my daughters are no longer ill from their respective illnesses.

Progress. I haz it.

Amazing what a night's sleep will do to shift things.

Grief is still a heavy weight. So many friends hurting.

But even in spite of my grief, I don't know. I felt a release.

I am enough. They are enough. Our lives are what they are. We are all doing our very best, right this second. If we can do better the next second, we will. Or we won't. It doesn't matter.

All that matters, is each other.

"You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other."
- Alien, Contact

You. Yes, you. I wouldn't be here with anyone else.