The Freedom Song of the Jigsaw Girl

Some of you may be familiar with paganaidd's fan-fiction, which is incredible and I highly recommend it all. She is an excellent writer and packs a lot of great stuff into her stories. I'm delight to say that she is also working on an original novel and has entered an excerpt of that novel in the Echos of Another World writing contest over on Inkitt.

In All the In Between Places is phenomenal. If you like things that meld modern times and events with myth, magic and the otherworldly, then please check this out. This is the review that I left on the story itself:

"Each of the little vignettes is potent and powerful, though that last one was the one that really punched me in the gut. A very good introduction to a world that is a bit more than it seems with tantalizing glimpses of how magic, gods, and other worldly creatures would interact with our modern world. A very solid start for a novel."

If you read it and enjoy it, please feel free to share it with others. Thank you.

I have stuff that needs doing, but it can wait til a bit later in the week. Right now I think I'm just going to continue vegging out and resting. Not sure when I last watched so much tv (or the internet equivalent). :) Am all caught up on current seasons of Sleepy Hollow, and Agents of SHIELD. Or at least as caught up as one can be without having a cable provider account. I am still kind of mad about the fact that I have to have a cable provider to access the most recent episode of a broadcast television series. Although once I go back to work I'll end up a week or two behind anyway. So it'll all come out in the wash. :)

Also caught up on Forever a new crime procedural with a supernatural twist (guy who cannot die) which I got hooked on while staying with my Dad. Not sure what I might watch today. Got a ton of things in both my Netflix and Amazon Prime queues, so there is no shortage of things to watch.

Also, Hawkeye: L.A. woman, aka Kate Bishop and Lucky the dog have adventures in L.A., was phenomenal. The only problem was that I finished it and wanted Vol. 4 of the series immediately. I haven't been so tempted to resubscribe to an ongoing monthly comic series in years. I may have to play with reading digital comics on the iPad I inherited, because I will not start collecting paper copies again. They are way to much of a pain to store.

Tomorrow I shall have to think about starting in on my errands, including going over to get blood drawn as it's been a while since I had my thyroid, iron levels, and other metabolic work-ups done. Don't really want to even think about blood draws today, so distractions and rest it is.

In cool news, I will be speaking on a student panel on Asexuality (via video chat) at Vermont Law School for Asexual Awareness Week. That will be at 6:30 tomorrow evening, so hopefully I will have found some spoons by then. :)

So I've been spending a lot of time listening to the Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix-Tape Vol. 1 soundtrack which is all mix of 1970s pop, rock, and Motown songs. And while some of the songs sound ridiculously cheesy, they do remind me fondly of people in my childhood. Music was always the bright spot of my childhood and one of the very good things that my parents shared with me (along with love of books and reading). I strongly remember dancing around the house singing with my mom, carefully placing the record needle to play the song again, sitting on my dad's lap as he played harmonica, sitting with him as he tried to play the banjo, and sitting with him singing along to the music on the stereo. Neither of my parent's were much into Motown, but my favorite great aunt was.

Basically, both the soundtrack and the movie for Guardians bring back the best memories of my childhood, which can often been overtaken by the worst memories. So it was really nice to have something hit all the happy memory nostalgia buttons for once.

( CW: Non-graphic discussion of grief and grieving )

Good things: ( cut for length as it includes a longish list of all the books that I've bought or pre-ordered in the past few months )

For brain candy I decided to read Flawed Dogs by Berkeley Breathed, a copy of which I found at the thrift store last week. It's a kid's chapter book, so while it deals with some heartbreaking topics and realities (animal welfare related) it does so in the same way that Roald Dahl and others do by balancing the grimness with humor and love. I'm a bit more than halfway through, and could easily finish it in another hour (or less). It is not a long book after all. I can sleep in tomorrow so I might just stay up and finish it. :D