A momentary distraction on the road to the pub. Network.
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rafiwinters at 02:58pm on 11/06/2025What I read
Gail Godwin, Getting to Know Death: A Meditation (2024) - rather slight, one for the completist, which I suppose I am.
Robert Rodi, Bitch Goddess (2014): 'told entirely through interviews, e-mails, fan magazine puff pieces, film reviews, shooting scripts, greeting cards, extortion notes, and court depositions', the story of the star of a lot of dire B-movies who has a later-life move into soap-stardom. I hadn't read this one before and it was a lot of campy fun.
TC Parker, Tradwife (2024) - another of those mystery/thrillers which riffs off true-crime style investigation - somebody here I think mentioned it? - I thought it went a few narrative twists too far though was pretty readable up till then.
On the go
Apart from those, still ticking on with Upton Sinclair, Wide Is The Gate (Lanny Budd, #4), boy I am glad that I am reading these in e-form, because they must be monstrous great bricks otherwise. In this one he actually ventures back to Germany, his marriage starts to crumble, he continues his delicate dance between all the various opposed interests in his life while managing to get support to the anti-Nazi/Fascist cause, Spain is now in the picture, and I have just seen a passing mention to Earl Russell being sent down for his Reno divorce (that wasn't quite the story, but one can quite imagine that was what gossip might have made of it 30 years down the line).
Up next
New Literary Review.
The three books for the essay review.
I think more Robert Rodi might be a nice change of pace from Lanny's ordeals.
bbcnewsworld_feed at 05:31pm on 11/06/2025
scalziwhatever_feed at 05:03pm on 11/06/2025
Today in Incredibly Mundane Things That Yet Must Be Done, my side of the closet had become untenably crowded with clothes that I currently either can’t or won’t wear, and it was driving Krissy a little batty. So this morning she hauled all my stuff out onto the bed and told me to decide what was going to stay and what was going to go.
For an indecisive hoarder such as myself, this ultimatum filled me with existential horror, and yet I knew she was right: Much of what I have I can’t fit into at the moment (someone decided to eat a few too many snacks and not walk enough steps for, uhhhhh, a while now), and even with what I can currently fit into, I tend to default to basically the same five shirts and three pairs of jeans. So basically 90% my clothes are, essentially, just taking up space. I would never do a triage of all of it without prompting. So here was the prompt.
The “triage” was actually a quadage, as everything got sorted into one of four categories:
1. Clothes that don’t fit and/or I wasn’t wearing it even if it did: On the floor to be donated (as you can see in the picture above, with Charlie the dog for scale). In this category are a lot of shirts that are currently tight across my midsection, multiple Kickstarter t-shirts (sorry, Kickstarter pals, I mostly didn’t get the “t-shirt” tier because I wanted a t-shirt, I just wanted to send you extra cash), old convention/book festival t-shirts and sweatshirts, souvenir shirts, jeans in a waist size I will likely never see again, and shorts I can’t manage to get past my thighs. This is the largest category of stuff.
2. Apparel with sentimental value and only sentimental value: Put into a box for storage. These include gifts I would feel guilty disposing of, commemorative apparel I want to keep but can’t/won’t wear at the moment, or quirky stuff that amuses me, but I don’t necessarily want to be seen in, even if it fits. This is the smallest category, but it’s enough that it will take up a whole box.
3. Apparel I want to wear again but currently don’t fit into: Back into the closet, pushed to the back. This is mostly shirts. I need to lose at least 20 pounds before I unlock some of these again, and losing 30 pounds will unlock them all. Call them “shrink goals.” I’ll start working on that in earnest starting at the beginning of July.
4. Stuff I currently fit into: Back into the closet, obviously, shirts near the front of the closet, pant/shorts in their corresponding cubby holes.
Of the last two categories, what’s left? Honestly, not a whole lot! My regular shirts were basically entirely wiped out (note only two collared shirts there, although I will clarify that actual dress shirts and suits are in a different closet along with other more formal wear; this closet is for everyday wear), and what I have left are primarily t-shirts, most of which I recently purchased when I realized I let my sloth change my clothes size. On a day-to-day basis this isn’t an issue, since as I already mentioned, I tend to just wear the same five shirts anyway. Also it’s summer so I’m not exactly dressing up, and as a science fiction writer I’m not expected to dress myself up fancy-like when I do events, I just have to be, you know, not all covered in stains and crumbs. This current state of affairs will not present either a logistical or sartorial crisis for at least a few months.
Still, it was a little bit of a surprise to me how much of my ostensible wardrobe was functionally inert and just taking up space. It was a lot. And now all of that is off, or soon to be, to local charities who will hopefully pair the clothes with people who actually need and might actually wear the stuff. It’s not all Kickstarter tees, there are some things in there one could wear to work. The clothes being actually worn is a more useful fate than the one they had in my closet. Fly, extraneous clothes! Be free!
— JS
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