K. Eason's Blog

Got my very first fuck off and die comment (literally, that’s what they said) from a total stranger the other week on Bluesky, because I said hey, check your titers on measles/mumps/rubella if you’re of a certain age and get a booster if you need one, while we can still get vaccines. (I turned out to be immune to rubella, but not the other two, so I very quickly rectified that situation. My spouse, who’s older than me, was Very Immune To Everything and did not require a booster.) I was a little surprised. What, rando person with, like, four followers, you’re just searching the word vaccine and going in to post nastygrams? Or it was maybe a bot?

Whatever, blocked and muted and all that. But it lingered, that feeling of…bemusement, I guess. It wasn’t a threat, it was an ill-formed ill-wish, but the confrontational nature of the venom surprised me. I know, I know, I have been on the internet since it was all AOL and BBSs and you had to access a DOS shell, and along with porn (and cats), assholes have always been part of the landscape. But who wants measles? My dad has had measles and mumps, because that’s what happened before vaccines, especially when there are four siblings, and he’s fine, but come on. I read Little House on the Prairie. Shit can go very wrong. It’s like not wearing a helmet and bombing racing motorcycles. Sure, you could be fine! Or you could be paste on the road.

Block, mute, move on. But also, wonder: why, with all the shit going on in the world, do you choose to spend your energy being nasty to a total stranger who made a decision that does not affect you? There’s enough stress and anxiety to go around, you don’t need to add to it.

I could (and do) gesture at everything right now as a fuel for the anxiety-fires, the thing that’s hitting me hardest lives in the same house. Last post, we thought we’d solved Murdercat’s eating problems with a dental cleaning. Except, no. His teeth are perfect. And when he still wasn’t eating after the cleaning–when in fact he was getting worse–we ended up back at the vet. An ultrasound discovered small-cell lymphoma in his GI tract.

I’m skipping over a lot of the hard part here–the conversations we had with each other, with our vet, reading the research and Reddit, the realization that this cat who was just fine in January is now very much not, and we thought we had many years and now we have…well. A lot less. And the worst part: what we were going to do about it. You bring them home and you promise to give them their best lives, you know? And best might not be longest and with the most medical interventions, and not only because of money (though I’d be lying if I said that was not a consideration, too). This is a cat we have to wrestle into a carrier. Any treatment that involved lots of car rides was a no-go, and just because he will tolerate strangers handling him–no sedation for his shave/ultrasound!–it’s not because he’s chill, it’s because he’s terrified and too gentle to fight. You could do a lot to that cat and imagine he was okay with it. You could tell yourself that–he’s fine! see? no hissing!–and justify any number of things. And maybe we would, if this was something temporary or curable, but it’s not.

Our amazing, kind vet understood all of that. She got him on a pill-form chemo we can mail order and prednisolone caplets, and he’ll take them both easily in pill pockets, like he’s getting something cool no one else does.

Since the medication, his attitude and appetite have improved. He’s stopped climbing on people to be held, which is his tell for feeling sick. He wants his walks so he can hunt bugs and lizards and whatever little rodents are living in the hedges. (He is appallingly successful, even leashed, at catching and eating small things before humans can intervene.) He begs for Churus and snacks. He plays and snuggles with, and hisses at, the Patchwork Terror like everything’s back to normal.

However, and this is the part that’s hard: it’s not normal. Murdercat is not going to recover. There is no future day we stop medications and he’s cured. I keep reminding myself of this. There’s no “he is not eating enough, we must stop the weight loss!” There is “he ate something!” (We will not discuss my new obsession with his poop and its consistency.) The chemo makes his fur thinner, and the shave from his ultrasound still hasn’t grown back. But the prednisolone keeps him cheerful, and eager for meal time, even if we aren’t sure what he will eat. (This month, it’s cheap Fancy Feast pâté and expensive Tiki Cat kibble. Last month he wanted only chunky foods. Fresh-caught lizard, of course, is always welcome, bones and scales and all.) He will make it to 10, I think–September–but I would be surprised if he’s still here next summer. In the meantime, it’s gonna be the best year we can manage.

This is a very quiet corner of the internet. Welcome to…spring? Are we in spring? I think so. In my corner of the planet, the lilacs are out, the roses are out, the…well, everything’s out, except the jacaranda. They’ll be out in a couple of weeks. It’s also raining like winter, so who knows.

I do not love spring, not because I’m a flower-hater–flowers are fine!–but because it’s spring quarter, the time of student apathy and exhaustion, which coincides with the time of instructor apath–er, burnout. We call it burnout. The quarter system is a plague. I hate it. I have taught in it for going on 19 years, and while I am used to it, I still loathe it. See, teaching is, for me–or has been, in times past–the place where I derive some professional joy. Like OK! Publishing is hard, writing is hard, but at least I have proof-positive I’m a good instructor! My students give me life!

…they are not giving me life right now. Most of this year, actually. Winter quarter was the best crop I’ve had for years, but fall and spring are so quiet it’s like teaching during the pandemic again, when we were all on Zoom and the students might have a camera on and might be in frame but the mics were muted and it was mostly me talking to myself and blank faces. At least in Zoom, a question might get an answer in the chat window. Now I just get stared at. I’d say it’s demoralizing except I’m too tired to get that upset, last two paragraphs notwithstanding. (I have some very smart, excellent, observant students who are working hard, they just won’t talk. And I have a couple who will talk but only because the clock in our classroom is loud and it makes them flinch in the awkward silences before I do.)

Anyway, a long way of saying it’s been quiet here because I’m spending all my energy on students. Also, I don’t have energy to spare, because the world right now is a fucking mess. There is this clown car of absurdity administration, for whom cruelty seems to be the point, and for whom the McCarthyism appears to be inspiration. Gross. Then we have this tech-bro dystopia going on, hi, generative AI, how are ya? which is being embraced by people who should know better in institutions that should know better. (Maybe it’s okay for STEM stuff? I don’t know. But it’s not good for the stuff I teach. The writing is beige, and the analysis is either wrong or ant-wading-pool shallow. Let’s leave aside the climate impacts and the fact that it’s uncompensated labor/theft and some of my books are part of the Meta-thefts and if I let myself think about that I get unhealthily angry.)

So the future is more uncertain than usual, and that wreaks havoc on my creative productivity. I am writing…slooooowly…while my agent tries to sell The Last Manuscript, which is also going slooooowly. (Everything’s glacial except the actual glaciers; they’re melting pretty quick.)

But I’ve made a thing!

I made this for my mother’s 80th. It’s the Dazzling Dominos pattern in hand-dyed 100% silk. The photo is rubbish and doesn’t do justice to the sheen. Silk is lovely and it took the color well (I ended up double-dyeing it to really get deep pinks). Silk is also slippery and a pain in the butt to work with. Not sure I’ll seek it out unblended again.

The other major stressor has been Murdercat. We had an unseasonably hot spring, and he and the Patchwork Terror both blew their double coats in record time. I expected hairballs from both of them, and was not disappointed. (Horrified, maybe.) That much fur wreaks havoc on the digestive system. Murdercat is a far more conscientious groomer, and deals a little less well with gut-fur. He kept throwing up, and then eating less, and then eating even less. But things were moving through, so… The vet suggested maybe his mouth hurt because he hadn’t had a dental in years and the tartar was pretty visible, so we did that, along with bloodwork because he’s 9.5. Teeth were great! Nothing wrong! But he took over 48 hours to come down off the anesthetic, and when he did he…wouldn’t eat. He’d try. He’d crouch down over his bowl, take 10 seconds of nibbling, and sit back up and do the I am nauseous lip-licking. He wanted to eat. But.

The lab also found crystals in his kidneys, though not his urine, so the vet wanted him eating wet only (which is the norm). They recommended fancy-ass expensive food. Except, see above, not really eating.

So two rounds of anti-emetics and a course of appetite-stimulant later, he’s eating, though still not the wet food pâté he’s eaten his whole adult life. I haven’t invested in the fancy food, because it’s also pâté, and his objection at the moment seems to be texture. If I had to anthropomorphize and guess–he associates feeling like shit with bowls of his wet food, so no thank you. I subscribe to the school of “a cat needs to eat more than a cat needs to eat a particular thing” so he’s getting a mix of kibble and non-pâté wet foods, and we’ll figure out special diets later, if ever.

The Patchwork Terror, of course, is fine. He doesn’t care. Vomit? Hairball? Whatever. When’s dinner? He’ll eat whatever’s in front of him, and whatever’s in front of anyone else if they’re too slow. He gained, like, 1.5 lbs during Murdercat’s hunger strike. That will probably come off pretty quick now, though he’s bitter that he’s not getting to scavenge as much. You see how he suffers.

My favorite holiday! …although this year, no party, because the spouse got me a cold for our anniversary.

So in lieu of costume pictures, please enjoy this jack’o’lantern which yes, you must click through to see.

So we found this tiny turtle, collapsed just inside the shadow at the edge of a sidewalk. Head partway out, one leg outflung, as if it had been midstep and then collapsed. I crouched down and gingerly poked the shell. Truth: I expected a very dead turtle. Even cold, the local lizards won’t let you touch them.

It twitched.

The photo session: a very tiny turtle in Nous’ hands

Of course I picked it up. (I am the person who picked up a cold frog off the street on a predawn walk the day of high school graduation, came home, and had it revive in my pocket and leap out on the breakfast table.) The turtle was far more civilized (reptiles, amirite?) and pulled all limbs into its shell, probably hoping we’d go away.

We did not. The turtle was a good 100 yards from the nearest pond (this park has two), across two sidewalks, a big-ass lawn, and through a coyote-inhabited thicket. How it got where it was is a mystery (hatched up there? Teleportation circle under the honeysuckle?), but I didn’t think it’d survive its trip to the water if it was already cold and exhausted at before it even crossed the first sidewalk.

The ponds have a concrete rim which, in drought years (and it is rarely not a drought year) sit about 6 inches above the water in which one can see tiny fish swirling through the muck. The rocks and logs that stick out of the pond are lined with turtles, and they were all giving us side-eye. I put Tiny T down and waited. Five minutes to a) warm up and b) decide that we were far enough away, and it poked all appendages out and made a clumsy scramble of a few inches. Then it sat and looked, like it’d never seen water before. Like, omg! Am I supposed to jump in there? I am.

In transit to the pond

Tiny T scrabbled to the edge, pitched in… and took what looked like its first swim (awkward and flaily, before suddenly becoming smooth and controlled). Then it headed straight for a cluster of rocks and dove, trailing bubbles, and crawled into a crack.

There are many things in that pond that can kill a baby turtle–bigger turtles, bullfrogs, assorted birds–but they’re gonna have to work a little harder for it.

OK, so no lie: this post has been sitting here a week while I try and craft some elaborate and clever metaphor between this tiny turtle, luck, and a very thinly veiled memoir about publishing. I give up. Let me just say that making it to the pond is hard, yes, but it’s only the beginning. No guarantees. Bullfrogs abound! (Title of my next book. JOKE.)

…like an old, fat cat napping in the sun. Or a manatee. You pick.

I am not good at this updating thing anymore (maybe ever). I could blame fall quarter (always the problem child of the school year), or finishing a WIP on a self-imposed deadline. I could blame having to assemble a file for a merit review/senior promotion (which I will find out about… sometime in spring.) I could also blame this new WordPress environment that I’m getting used to but not proficient in yet, because I hate not being good at something, but also–I just don’t have the bandwidth to learn WP right now. Maybe that will be the first and only New Year’s resolution.

I did manage to finish that manuscript and sent it off to my agent in December. I like it! I hope she likes it. (There’s always that nagging terror she won’t, and then what.) This was a project that I began and then set aside for contract-work for, like, two years. It’s probably missing parts. I am a chronic under-writer. I hate endings. I have a running bet with myself where Lisa’s going to say you need another chapter here, or at least a scene and she will be correct.

I’m not under contract at the moment, and I am not one of those writers who sensibly lines up a bunch of pitches and writes whatever sells. No. I am one of those people who does it on spec and then hopes. And it is hope. There’s so much luck that goes into this, even with several books written and published. (Perhaps they did not do well (enough) to warrant a new contract. Perhaps whatever I’ve written now isn’t cool. Or it’s too weird.) I am reasonably sure it does not suck, because I have leveled up past the point of writing stuff that sucks. But beyond that… casting the bones, reading the cards.

I have some ideas for What’s Next, but I’m not in a hurry. Still coming back from burnout.

We went to the Hokusai exhibit at the Bower’s Museum this month, and while I thought all of it was pretty great–the Great Wave is, in fact, great–two pieces in particular tickled my fancy. One: this terrifying demon-hag, holding what appears to be someone’s head and pointing like she’s taking a selfie (note my silhouette in the glass behind her. It’s not really a selfie, y’all).

And then there was this little critter, who is the amphibian manifestation of my anxiety and existential dread.

And if you’ve gotten this far–well done!

But also, actual news (bury the lede!) the newsletter service I use will be going away in February, and so will the newsletter. WP allows you to subscribe to the blog, and since I am a worse newsletter-er than I am a blogger at this point–that’s probably your best bet. I don’t think, based on my updates here, that you need to worry about me clogging up your inbox.

2023 in movies: I loved Barbie. I loved Oppenheimer. (I did not see them on the same day, or even in the same month, and only one of them in a theatre.) I finally saw Everything Everywhere All at Once and loved it, too.

2023 in books, not exhaustive (I read a lot, y’all) probably only the last half of the year, honestly, what is time: Witch King, These Burning Stars, System Collapse, Refractions, The Waking of Agantyr, Black River Orchard, All Souls Lost.

And that is quite enough of year-end lists. I have a skein of yarn in a dye bath of “hm, what do I have left? Flame? Ruby? How about a little Amethyst in there too, for grins?” which will either be beautiful or look like the brush water at the end of a painting session. I will attempt to post it here, as proof of life and intention to update.

Byeee, 2023. Ok, 2024. Let’s do this.

Tinycat beholds Denver, or helps Nous navigate. Maybe both.

So…here we are over on WordPress. Much thanks to Rey Hererra for helping with the migration!

Like any new home, there’s breaking-in period. After 300 million years on Blogger (I KNOW, shut up), figuring out the new interface takes a minute. And the domain registration is still migrating. We’re in transit.

Survived the yearly (since Covid) pilgrimage back to visit my parents. This year was complicated by Tinycat, who came with us. I do not generally advocate traveling with a cat, but the feline politics in this house are complicated. Murdercat was always a sensitive boy, but after two years, more or less, of us being around all the time he became very, very anxious when we leave. And when he’s anxious, he asserts his control by harassing Tinycat. When she was younger, that was chasing. Now that her hips are wobbly, she can’t run, and he’s about twice her weight. We’ve found her cornered in the hallway before. Often there is urine. And she eats, like, sporadically, but also constantly. Like a hobbit meal-plan with bird-like amounts. We’ve had to resort to baby food with crushed kibble, supplemented by wedges of wet food, to get calories into her. People can’t be expected to catsit that nonsense unless they’re actually in the house…

…which wouldn’t work because Murdercat. The pandemic also rendered him more of a shyboy than he was before–and he was always reticent with new people. Now he hides. And stays hidden. He used to come out for meals, but not now! And any food left unattended for a heartbeat has PT devouring it. This suggested that not only would he be a challenge for the cat-sitter, but that his anxiety would make Tinycat’s life extra awful.

And so it was decided that a small 15 year old cat in stage three kidney failure would be coming with us on a tw0-day car trip for a two-day stay and a two-day return car trip. I was…both reasonably sure she’d be fine and also afraid that she wouldn’t. She’s the most emotionally resilient cat. Fearless, really. But she’s also frail and picky about eating, and at less than 7 lbs (from her most robust weight ever at 8, before the stomatitis), she has no margins for skipping meals.

She did great, y’all. It took us a day to realize she wasn’t drinking water in the hotel because the travel bowl was new, and she would only drink out of it if it was in the bathtub–but once we got her to realize OH HEY THIS WEIRD NEW SILICON DISH IS MY BOWL NOW, it was fine. She probably ate more than she has at home because for once we could just leave food out for her.

I still don’t want to do that again, necessarily, and next year who knows how her health will be. But this year, she was a trooper.

 As part of my "stop the burnout" summer*, I've been dyeing, and experimenting with how the colors play together. I'm using Greener Shades acid dyes, with fairly imprecise measurements (I don't have a dedicated dye powder scale, so I just scoop and eyeball it).  These are all on Knit Picks Bare Hawthorne skeins. No handspun in this lot.

"Rabid Peony" 
I dyed this before seeing Barbie, or it might have survived. Instead, I tried an overdye with my trust amethyst at 2% and a shot of Scarlet, and got "Mixed Berry." I think it's an improvement.
"Mixed Berry"
Trust River Blue and amethyst, for the win. 
"Be Cool"
This is the same hank from two sides. I was trying to see if blue and red dye made purple easily. I know my color wheel, red and blue make purple, but in practice--in acrylic paints, at least--that theory does not translate well. The interwebz assured me that the dyes mixed well and true, and they do! I was trying to achieve a version of one of those rocket red-white-blue popsicles you see around in ice cream trucks or wherever. The purple is faint, but this gives me hope that should I mix the last of my Scarlet and my River Blue, I will get an interesting colorway in actual purples.
"Rocket Pop" 
"Rocket Pop"

And if you've gotten this far: one melted Patchwork Terror. It hasn't been that hot here (we've been lucky!), but it has been humid, and despite shedding another cat every time he touches carpet or upholstery, he's still wearing a fur coat.

I'm melting...

* I've been writing, too. 80K and climbing.

We acquired PT because Murdercat was becoming too much for poor Tinycat. He wanted to play. She did not. He wanted to jump on her. She did not want that. And he is twice her size, there was not much she could do. We saw a post on the neighborhood list-serve for a kitten...twice...because the first home would not keep his rowdy little self and no one wanted him.

He needed us, Murdercat needed a kitten (this was my pitch: we're getting a kitten for the cat!) and so he arrived in October of 2019, sassy and fearless and very interested in when dinner was happening. 

He remains sassy, opinionated, assertive, and social without being a cuddler or a lap cat in anyway. He's Murdercat's bane and best friend, and he actually respects Tinycat's authority and space. 

 He wants your butter. Or your whipped cream. Maybe both.

His usual hangout. 

BFFs. Though now they cannot both fit on a single cushion.

Look at that little face. 

Hi, my name is Kat, and I'm a workaholic. 

WIP is around 50K now. I'm trying to a) not stress about daily wordcount and b) not write every single day. You know. Take breaks. I realized that since I started it April, I'd been either working on it, or on The Day Job, 7 days a week. I am trying to persuade myself that in summer, I can work on it 4-5 days a week, and that's fine because I'm not under contract or deadline. 

I should be writing now, but it's been A Day and also blogs count as writing. Because I said.

As proof that I Did Things other than write in June, I present:

"His Golden Lair", done in Miss Babs' "Biker Chick" colorway in her Killington wool/silk (which one cannot buy at the moment? Alas). The pattern is inspired by Smaug, and I think was intended to be done monochrome to show off the stitches. It's all cables and lacework and then some serious blocking. 

I don't mind cables. I do not like lacework, and I hate fussy blocking. But it's for dragon wings, so. 

It's big, y'all. Like, 62" tip to tip. About 18" down the spine. The lower image is from its blocking phase, when I had it pinned to the wall (under a LOTR print, as it happens). You can see the lace scales a little more clearly here. I confess I'd hoped for a more intense color from the Miss Babs--punch your face orange, rather than smouldering--but I like the effect. (My intent had been to use some homespun orange wool-silk-blend, but I ran out...10 rows from the end. 10 long rows, but still. I might've said some swears.) Now I have a bunch of the Biker Chick and 350 yds of fiery homespun that match fairly closely in color and texture and what will they become. 
And now that May Grey has become June Gloom has given way to July and we're seeing the sun... I've gotten back to dyeing. 
I actually mixed the dyes back in February, because the more humid and wet and even rainy it is outside when I do this, the less powder gets all over. Anyway. The dye is called "Ruby" and I was imagining a red. Maybe a dark, jewel-tone red. You know. From the name. But just in case, I made a 2% solution and I aimed for a dark dye job. And I got...
Pink. Rabid peony. Now, I do love me some hot pink, but that is a lot. It's on Knit Picks Bare Hawthorne, so it's destined to be socks, but it was supposed to be red socks. Jury's out on whether I'm going to overdye with purple or the other red I've got made up (called "Flame". I anticipate orange rather than pink) or just leave it alone. 
And finally we have TinyCat, who has nothing to do with yarn or fiber arts whatsoever. According to the chart at the vet's she is now geriatric. She prefers the term senior, please and thank you.  She continues to shrink despite eating well, so perhaps there is a black hole of spite where her heart used to be. 

 I'm writing again. I'd forgotten the sensation of feeling my way through the plot with only the vaguest idea of what's coming. I mean, there's a general plot in mind. A plan, if you will. An intention.

It's not that I can't think more than a chapter ahead in detail, it's that I don't want to. The kind of granular detail I want in a Google map I absolutely do not want in my storytelling process. I know the preferred terms are plotter and panster, but I think it's less about being carried along by the plot than it is about discovering it. Like...like a dungeon crawl. Or unlocking the map on a new level of a video game. What's over here? What's that? What does this do? If I know, then... eh? Why am I doing this?

(Then there's the debacle of Windscar's first draft, that I wrote to an outline and then trashed. Maybe I'm just crap at plotting.)

But let's stick with the dungeon-crawl metaphor. I think the close focus I keep on where I am putting my next literary foot is definitely reflected in the kinds of stories I tell. Generally short duration in-world, tightly focused, totally up in a character's head. That style makes it harder to do big sweeping epics. I think Rory worked--not as an epic, exactly, but the story spanned years--because I had an omniscient narrator. 

Someday I will try to write a single POV novel. Maybe even a first-person. And someday I may try out some of that postmodern fluidity of time and linearity. 

This, however, will not be that novel.