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Archive for the ‘Biography’ Category

I am a biohazard.  –  Meghan Reinertsen

I’m still working on “Until the End of Days“; it’s up to 12,000 words now, into the novelette range, and I’m really enjoying the process.  This week’s video is the song I hear playing during the last scene, when our heroines have defeated the baddies and are unwinding in front of the big console radio at home.  If you listen to it, I think you’ll get a taste of the tone I’m going for.  The links above it were provided by Kevin Wilson, Ryan Marino, IncarcerNation (x2), Marc Randazza (x2), and Eleanor Janega, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Diary #789

Since my budget is much tighter these days (due to the one-two punch of lower income and tariff-driven inflation), it’s very difficult for me to justify extras like expensive perfume.  So it really brightened my day recently when one of my generous gentlemen sent me a bottle of my favorite perfume from my Amazon wishlist, saying that he hoped it would help lift my spirits.  Grace always used to insist that I do things (such as getting my nails done or my hair colored) that make me feel more attractive, but since she’s been gone I don’t have that voice any more, and have started feeling guilty about such expenditures during lean times.  So it’s really lovely when my readers step up to tell me that it really is OK to be a little bit frivolous, and obviating the problem by making the choice for me.

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My life looks like a dumpster fire.  –  Eligio Regalado

This really rocking cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” by a Franco-Ethiopian band was called to my attention by C.J. Ciaramella; I know Grace would’ve really enjoyed it.  The links above it were provided by Popehat, Dan Savage (x2), Guy Hamilton-Smith, Jesse Walker, Mike Masnick, and Ryan Marino, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Cops believe molestation and rape are OK as long as they pretend that they were thinking about ruining lives rather than getting off.  –  “First They Came for the Hookers…(#1160)

After the government does something especially awful, there is usually an avalanche of horror stories illustrating exactly what reasonable people warned would happen.
–  “Vulture Watching

Jim Larkin…[was murdered by] the government…as surely as if he had been executed.  –  “R.I.P. Jim Larkin

Authoritarians of all stripes are absolutely obsessed with controlling other people’s words, actions, and even thoughts.  –  “Calling Spades

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Diary #788

Usually, I see the first pullet eggs early in July, but because we got our chicks so late this year I assumed they’d start in August this time.  Sure enough, on Friday (August 1st) I found this with several full-sized eggs in the nest (my chickens generally share one nest).  So if things go as usual, we should start seeing a surge in the number of these over the next few weeks, and by October they should be getting up to full size.  The weather has been strangely cool; we’re more than halfway through summer and have only had a handful of days that would even qualify as “very warm”, and only one I’d call “hot” (over 30o C).  It’s also been much drier than usual; though we had a lot of rainy days, the actual amount of rainfall has been well below average.  So I’m not sure what our fruit crop will look like this year; even the tomato plants seem sluggish (only one small tomato visible so far).  But with four new white leghorns, at least we should have plenty of eggs.

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Wear your boots, kids.  –  Mary K. Brown

The great Tom Lehrer had so many hilarious songs, I decided to pick one that, in his case at least, turned out to be wrong.  The links above it were provided by Phoenix Calida, Wendy Lyon, Mike Siegel, Walter Olson, C.J. Ciaramella, Radley Balko, and J.D. Tuccille, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Yes, representation is important, and never more so than when the type being represented is those who refuse to allow themselves to be sorted into herds and driven to build up power for those who would rule others.  –  “Representation

People who refuse to consider ideas on their own merits, preferring to assign value based upon their personal opinions about the speaker of said ideas, are not serious thinkers and should not be treated as such.  –  “Julius Tweeter

“Rescue” narratives are not only nonsense, but distracting from measures that really help sex workers.
–  “Served Cold (#1359)

I will always be grateful to QAnon cranks for making “sex trafficking” rhetoric unpalatable to anyone outside of the MAGA cult.  –  “Small Mercies

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As I mentioned in my anniversary column a few weeks ago,

…my Muse of Fiction wants my attention again; perhaps she feels I don’t need her when I’m happy.  Whatever the reason, I’ve written three new stories since finishing Who in Review, and I’m starting on a much longer one than I’ve ever written before, in part as a tribute to Grace…

Because I did want to write a much longer story than is typical for me, I’ve had to develop a new technique; typically, even my full-length short stories come into my head almost fully formed, and all I need to do is write them down and fill in a few details.  But that won’t work for this one, which is currently over 7000 words and only in the vicinity of half-done (generally speaking, anything under 10,000 words is considered a short story; longer than that is in novelette territory).  So what I’m doing is writing each episode of the tale as it comes into my head, then fitting the pieces into the larger whole and editing as necessary.  The first scene I wrote was a pivotal one perhaps halfway through the narrative; I then wrote the first full scene, then the climax and denouement, and now I’m beginning to fill in.  The characters are based upon Grace and myself, the setting is New Orleans in 1931, and the genre is adventure mixed with black comedy (which is why I recently re-watched The Avengers and watched The Thin Man series for the first time).  I’m enjoying the process, and writing action and dialog for Grace’s character is almost like having her nearby, which is part of why I’m doing it.  And I’m already thinking of other situations for the characters.  So even though the word “therapeutic” is probably overused in this sort of context, it’s the right one.  And I hope it will give my readers a little (fictionalized) taste of Grace’s personality, and the chemistry that made us such a great team.

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Nobody is safe.  –  “Thomas”

The perfect song to honor Ozzy’s passage to the afterlife would’ve been “See You On the Other Side”, but I already featured that one in a column about Grace’s preceding him into that realm in January.  But I think this one’s a good choice as well.  The links above it were provided by Jason Kuznicki, David Ley, Dan Savage, Kevin Wilson, Phoenix Calida, Mike Masnick, and Radley Balko, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Diary #786

As you can see, our turkey has grown quite a bit! She isn’t nearly as skittish as the chickens, which is quite annoying when I come to throw out scratch for them early every afternoon; she will get up right behind me while I’m getting the corn from its bin, which means when I back out of the corner I often step on her toes because she’s directly behind me (and being a literal bird-brain, she never learns it’s a bad idea to stand there).  I hope it’ll be better when we expand the coop in the next few weeks, and it’ll be interesting to try her eggs when she finally starts laying.  We’re actually not getting as many eggs as usual right now, but that should change once the four white pullets start laying; normally that starts in July, but remember we got these later than usual, so I expect it’ll be a couple more weeks before we start seeing those.

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