Reaching Out

Yesterday I had a CBS Steering Committee meeting and I did not miss it, and thus could take minutes as I should as the official secretary.

Today I did some work, hung with May, and finished my walking shitpost shorts! I accidentally sewed my pocket onto the back of a leaf, and thus trapped my hoop as well. I'll have to be more careful. And I want to re-do the side flower until I figure out how to make the threads lay down properly.

Tomorrow I will get back to attempting to finish reading outstanding submissions for Tachyon. I really have to. It's my ambition. I will shoot for the moon tomorrow!!

WHAT A YEAR AMIRITE

A quick rundown:

VISA SHENANIGANS:

Re-applied for the O1B; got approved. I was visiting Singapore at the time (it was fun!) and so didn't actually apply for a visa appointment until I got home, and even then I faffed about because I had to get a new passport since it was going to expire in a year or so.

Ten days before my visa interview, Malaysia went on its first COVID lockdown. I couldn't schedule a fresh appointment until late June, and by that time, the first available appointment was in January 2021.
(And that, too, has been cancelled, so my appointment is in March, because what the hell.)

EXERCISE:

I started playing Just Dance Now in my room, since I can't go swimming! For a time I was swimming very regularly at the Holiday Villa, and learned to go only at certain times of the day because otherwise the guy at the desk would get all "You need to pay bc you're a guest, not a member" since I was using my mother's membership card.

- I got a FitBit! It's an Inspire HR. I've gotten used to wearing it a lot, though I've stopped logging my water intake.

BLEH:

I do not like living with my parents. I wake up anxious in the morning waiting for my parents to quarrel and bicker and I don't go downstairs until my mom is gone because she's going to comment on my morning drink because it's too much sugar and just URGH. My dad knocks and comes in without my saying so or calls me for stupid inane things like "don't forget to take in the clothes when it's raining" or "flatten the boxes" or something that I would get to eventually, just not as quickly as he wants me to do it.

- I lost not just one, but TWO computers. My ASUS has konked out again despite promisingly working so well for a while longer. The novel I had been working on there in Scrivener is not completely lost? I still have an earlier draft with the first 1/5, but most of it was handwritten, and that handwritten material... is in California. There was also a short story draft that is now gone. I'll have to start it from scratch again--it was a difficult thing to work on though, so maybe re-starting will be better.

My old HP has also died, after about almost 10 years. The hard drive, comprising ten years of memories, is also gone, and I was so sure I had backed it up somewhere, but cannot for the life of me find the external drive. I've got bits and pieces here and there, and my writing folder is often backed up. I especially mourn the pictures I took in 2012 when I took my road trip across the States.

I'm now on one machine for both work and writing, and would like to change that. I'd like to get another ASUS T1 because the keyboard layout was very suitable for me.


GOOD:

- I made a sweet potato cheesecake. I should make another one.

- I've been doing more embroidery and invested in a 200-skein packet. I need to do more of it!


WEIRD:

- I'm now Vice-President for the Malaysian Writers Society?? I guess I am. I should do more stuff while I'm here.

- All in all, I'm a bit amazed that I've spent over a year in Malaysia now?? Since 2003, I haven't been back for more than a summer season. I'm definitely going to move the fuck out if I ever come back and re-settle here.


EDITOR THINGS

- The first two long-form debuts I ever edited have come out! THE FOUR PROFOUND WEAVES got like FOUR Starred Reviews, and NUCLEATION is such a fun space opera. They're both debuts as well, so that is also super cool. I also edited Marie Brennan's DRIFTWOOD, a fix-up novel, another first!!

- I'm also editing an anthology which has parenthood as its core theme. I'm quickly realising I... uh, would prefer working on an anthology where I get to pick out of slush, rather than one with a committed roster.

- I've also signed an NDA for a cultural consultant project.

- The last volume of HOW TO TREAT MAGICAL BEASTS that I'm adaptation editor of is out in March! I really enjoy this job, so I hope to have more chances to do that stuff.

- I was on a panel talking about food, colonization, and diaspora for the Carl Brandon Society!

- I was part of yet another Worldbuilding Master Class for Writing the Other. I think I'd like to re-visit the video and update it. I'll have to ask Tempest about that.


WRITER THINGS

I published four things this year:

"Trials by Whiteness: Definitions of Whiteness and Eurocentrism, and Their Relevance Post-RaceFail" at Strange Horizons: http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/trials-by-whiteness-definitions-of-whiteness-and-eurocentrism-and-their-relevance-post-racefail/

"Scholar Miaka’s Brief Summary of Memories Imbued in Memory Object Exhibit 132.NW.1" in RECOGNIZE FASCISM, ed. Crystal Huff: https://www.worldweaverpress.com/store/p171/Recognize_Fascism.html
CW: gendered violence, transphobia, slavery, physical & reproductive violence

"Mid-Autumn Incense" as part of Circlet Press' last Halloween Microfiction series: http://www.circlet.com/halloween-microfiction-mid-autumn-incense-by-september-sui/
CW: suicide

"In The Glass Hall of Supreme Women" at Fireside Fiction: https://firesidefiction.com/in-the-glass-hall-of-supreme-women
CW: body horror, misogyny, fungi


My 2019 short story "The Freedom of the Shifting Sea" got more press:
- reprinted in John Joseph Adams' BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY 2020, guest edited by Diana Gabaldon: http://www.johnjosephadams.com/best-american/projects/best-american-science-fiction-and-fantasy-2020/
- Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award Honors List: http://carlbrandon.org/awards/


My friend Stephani Soejono and I worked on a listicle, "Top 5 Hunting Grounds This Summer Season" which features fake local places for man-eating mermaids to go hunting: https://curiousfictions.com/stories/3278-jaymee-goh-top-5-hunting-grounds-this-summer-season

My Curious Fictions is sadly neglected because I am no good at keeping up anything regular, apparently. I do like it a lot as a platform though!


I also finished a 128k-word draft of a novel, which started out as fanfic of How Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke's Mansion (which was a manhwa I was enjoying until recent episodes where it turns out the core concept is actually quite WRETCHED and I am FURIOUS) and I've since made it its own thing. I'm doing a major re-write which is currently at 98k words and that's probably 2/3rds of the way through. I was hoping to have a better draft by the end of the year but that doesn't seem to be happening? We'll see--I'm stuck at a character death right now but maybe I'll figure it out in a bit.

The quick pitch: "A promising young woman wakes up in the body of a side character from a murder mystery romance webserial. Thing is, this character's doomed to be fridged before the story even starts! Not to mention that for a romance, there is a very high, very politicised, body count. Our intrepid side character is off to discover secrets that fanlore could only guess at, and help the hero, a duke of the kingdom (of course he is!) stop his enemies before they get the better of him."


I'm also now on AO3! My handle there is septembersongs but I don't have much, just some Girl Genius fic and Strange Magic stuff.

Could not brrain on Thursday and Friday, so work was a bust.

--

Started working on a new embroidery design: https://www.instagram.com/p/CBn7b4WAggX/

It's a set of frangipanis with some leaves. I've decided to make them bi flag colours. The first flower went okay until I got to the pink, and foound the small arm section between petals was IMPOSSIBLE to do well with the other threads in the way, so for the next two flowers I did those small pink bits first, THEN went in to do the blue center and purple middles. I've got the pinks of one flower left to do, and I should be able to finish the leaves quite quickly, except I'd like to try something different and do fishbone stitches with alternating colours. I don't know how that will work out.

Two observations:
- I really have got to get a proper pair of scissors with sharp tips. I've got a short scissors but it's not great at cutting very close to make the thread ends invisible. I may have to start sewing on top of the thread ends instead.

- Two-handed stitching is really harder than it looks. It took me a while to realise that I was still treating the hoop as if I was still holing it. And my left hand is underused to holding the needle. Where my right hand moves the tip smoothly from pointing one side to the other, the other hand doesn't have the same muscles so I've had to manually move the needle in that hand with my other hand. It's very weird??

I'm not particularly ambidextrous, but I do on occasion move my mouse from my right, dominant hand to the left (so I'm not wild about ergonomic mouses as a result) and while I can't do fine motor work like on Photoshop, I'm somewhat competent at it. But using needles in my left hand is a whole new thing. I've stabbed my right hand a couple of times already.

Still, according to the Internet, this is a learning curve and eventually it all gets faster, so I'm hoping it does! I'd love to be like the one amah in this video.

--

I HAD this expectation that I was going to finish writing, longhand, the novel I had been working on last year for the Clarion write-a-thon.

I had written a good hefty chunk of it into the leftovers of a notebook I had been using for grad school (one of those 5-subject notebooks, I rarely finish each section over the course). I even started typing them up (into Scrivener even! And then that selfsame computer died).

I had brought home the notebook to continue the draft in, to type stuff up and all.

I had not remembered that I actually had commandeered another 5-subject notebook to continue the draft in, and ... did not bring home the rest of it.

THIS NOVEL FEELS SO FUCKING CURSED I AM SO DEMORALISED RIGHT NOW and maybe I should change my write-a-thon goals instead and write some short fiction instead?? AUUUGHH. I don't know what to do!! I also have another pulp novel idea that I'd like to get started on?? UGH. i hate my writing life rn

I finished a tiny embroidery piece today! It's a double-sided lotus!

Initial process picture: https://www.instagram.com/p/CANiROygOeM/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Another process pic, after I filled in the lightest pink: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAvLxndD73o/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
At this point I realised that I should have started from the lightest pink, because that was a feather stitch that could have been more naturally filled outwards from than starting from the edges. A lot of the time I found myself unsure which direction the stitches should have gone, and that would have been a simpler decision-making process if I started from the inner feather stitch first.

Final: https://www.instagram.com/p/CA1-JhIgSpB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

I meant to add a bit more dimension to the stem with a different green, but I didn't quite grasp how to do that.

I'm gonna do something with a double-running stitch now for simplicity's sake! I'm gonna make the little white spirit from My Neighbour Totoro (which is called Chi-chi-ta in the Cantonese version).

Well, got a slow start again today, but I did get out for a couple of Ho-oh raids. The first one had solar beam as a charge move AND it was powered up by weather AND we only had 8 accounts, so, we beat it?? But with like 3 seconds to spare, which was.... harrowing lol. But we moved onto the next one, which I caught, decent IVs, too. I hung out a little after to chat with the grads who had come out--I THINK it's a family of siblings? Or a dude with a sister and a wife? I've never quite figured it out. Either way, they're from India, and I've seen them at a few other raids and we chitchat about other stuff too, so it was nice to be able to hang and catch up. I'll see if I can hang out with them further over the break, too.

I bused to the Plaza to finally get notions. I also found that "notions" in JoAnn's refers to just aisle 19, which... I would have made some purchasing decisions differently had I known, to be sure!

I took the bus back, and went to Rite-Aid to get some protein snack bars, and then went to the nearby new Chinese restaurant to try their chicken rice. By this time it was about 4pm so it was suuuuper quiet and they were totally not expecting anybody in.

I got home, did my grocery shopping (which was, like, cornflakes, and some snacks), and Aviya came over around 7pm. We did a ton of handsewing together until around 10.30, and it was nice. I'm attaching some trim to my green overskirt. At one point I almost panicked at not having enough trim, but I checked and maybe?? With a few inches to spare?? We'll find out!! But it's almost halfway there, and I also did a very nice corner on the trim that I'm pleased with. I looked up some podcasts to see if there's anything else I could listen to to finish off the rest of it.

Yesterday I sewed and had a Skype session with Irene's class and jolantru!


Today I--

- Submitted all my paperwork for my dissertation today! Walked to campus, waited until the Grad Division person was free, then handed her my sheet of signatures and some candy and did a couple of Ho-oh raids! She's gonna have a look at my diss revisions and then if it all works out I'm good to go!

- Popped into Starbucks to see Lindsay, and we met up for dimsum lunch afterwards. Decent dimsum, although the noodle rolls were more noodle than anything else, PLUS had all this corn in it!! WEIRD. Still, the lotus leaf rice was excellent, and one can never go wrong with the steamed spare ribs.

- Finished the new bag today, with a pearl-handed zipper! The zipper area was hard to figure out and I TOTALLY miscalculated how much fabric to cut, but I folded stuff over and I think it looks interesting. And anybody who gets it and wants more top-space can undo the small stitches I put in.

The problem is that the fabric isn't great for the kinds of little pouches I've been making, and I still have a LOT of it. So I'm a bit at a loss of what to do. I might try my hand at making fascinators and bowties. It's got a great goth aesthetic (outlines of skulls in red) so who knows! Maybe it'll make for some wonderful fabric flowers.

- Had to clear my desk a bit in order to plug in earbuds. My roommate is, I think, bothered by how loud I play podcasts while I'm sewing (and I have to have it that loud because I can't hear it over my sewing otherwise. Man I have a lot of crap on my desk.

Tomorrow I--

- Am talking to another of Irene's classes! At 8am. LoL. Wish me luck. I'm sleeping early tonight for that.

- Need to take a long walk. I didn't walk today and pretty much sat and sewed all day. I should probably also do some reps.

- Have to do that writing assessment assignment!!!! I think I've got a good grip on the voices of these stories, and they're much more enjoyable than I thought they would be.

- Will make another bag! This one will be a regular sling bag, maybe reversible even. I guess I should try doing some other style, but this is really quite so utilitarian and the pattern is so unfussy, so I don't really see any reason to do anything else. Then I'll make some fabric flowers, maybe a giant bowtie or two. Hopefully that will use up the last of this skull fabric, and maybe the other red fabrics too, so I can move on.

I also need to cut out some circles for pokeball purses! I definitely need some thicker material for the red and white, but the black stuff I have for the base is really nice and sturdy. I'll cut out a bunch and that'll give me a good sense of how much I need for red and white fabrics. I'm thinking felt, too. I'll also need a ton of zippers.

Yesterday I went into Box Springs again. There's a fence between Box Springs and Islander Park on Linden, the wall of which is the pipe through which I usually scootch. But this time I wanted to see if I could find the other end of the fence which the Metrolink put up which cuts off easy access from Big Springs Road to the "C" trail. It took me a while, but eventually I found a trail that winds out near the intersection of Watkins and Mount Vernon, right into the parking lot of the Riverside STEM Academy, which I hadn't even realized was a thing.

I was pretty pooped afterwards though. I meant to go back out to do a raid after lunch, but thought I'd lay down for a twenty minute nap which turned into two and a half hours. Ooops.

What I did get started on which was semi-productive was fixing up my jeans. The smallest pair of jeans from several years ago (probably when I first moved here) fit, but it had gaping holes in the inner thigh area (as one does). It was really comfy and I didn't feel like giving it up, so I basically double-patched it: inside and outside. That's some reinforcement in the places which get the most friction, and hopefully this will hold up. I think it'll work out well.

Today I spent puzzling out how to alter my jacket sleeves. I think I undid my stitches on the left sleeve about 8 times trying to make it lay down right. Finally I gave up on the idea of it looking perfect, since it's not going to be visible anyway, and having it so the outer layer lay down okay. I think I did all right. I'm actually not entirely sure where the sleeve should end, but when my arm is relaxed at the side, the sleeve comes up to the wrist, which I think looks professional.

I got frustrated about halfway through, and went out for lunch to Pho Vinam. I think I ate too much, though. I probably didn't need to eat half the meat on the plate, and should have just tried for a third instead. I was yawning the rest of the day, and had to lay down for a while, but I otherwise persevered, and I now have proper jacket sleeves. The right sleeve took about 5 tries. SIGH. On the bright side, I think I can say that my slip stitch is improving.

I dug around my fabric stash looking for jeans material, which I could have SWORN I had somewhere, because I wanted to patch the other two pairs of old jeans (they don't fit well, but they can't be easily pulled off my hips either). I decided to use some fancy embroidered scrap to patch the inner thighs of one of my jeans instead. I feel they're fairly visible to anybody staring at my butt, but maybe this will give me manic pixie dream girl vibes.

I'm still not caught up with Night Vale (which I can only listen to when my hands are otherwise occupied by crafts) and frankly I should really vacuum my bedroom.

Tomorrow if I wake up early enough, I'll definitely try for another 5k walk. The mornings have been amazingly foggy so I don't want to lose that opportunity.

I did, however, find the book in which I had started re-writing my steampunk romance novel, so I'm gonna see what I can puzzle out of it tomorrow. Maybe I'll go downtown and do some writing? At least least get re-acquainted with this second draft of the novel.

Was feeling really tired still today! I think my eyes will always get this way after wearing liquid liner. Also felt out of sorts and didn't want to go to campus, so I started embroidering a little hibiscus. First time using the 3-in hoop, and it's small and manageable enough that I managed to get the outlines of the petals and leaves done, as well as the flower pistils/stamen. I'm going to try to do a bit more with blending this time, we'll see... I think the center is a little too intense already, so I'll have to work with other lighter colours to off set it.

Took YL downtown to eat at Tio's today, and showed her around the Mission Inn. She's pretty enthralled by Riverside. I mean, I like Riverside, but I guess she found Santa Barbara's campus really isolating, so she's excited to be in a city where the downtown is more, uh, interesting.

Planning on hiking first thing tomorrow morning, then working in my office for a while. YL can probably figure her way out to Day St. (altho, I really want to go, to the JoAnn superstore... but I will resist until my paycheck comes in, at least).

- This morning I found a calico kitty nomming on stuff I left outside. I've seen her before, and while she doesn't look incredibly underfed (unlike patchy kitty last year who was so thin I could see her ribcage) she ate with a gusto that I don't think she would have if she had an owner. She seems really skittish, although I think with time I could get her to trust me. We'll see.

- I wrote 2000 words this afternoon during the write-in.

- PK and I went to JoAnn's and I fretted about stuff. There's a 5-piece sewing roller which I'm tempted to get, and it'll be on sale in a couple of days, about $80 cheaper than it usually is. I bought some embroidery thread and an inordinate number of beads. Also some cheap fabric, which I think would make a great bra for Nisi when I finally figure out the pattern for her bra. I also went to the kids' craft aisle and got some alphabet beads. I want to make a necklace that says "FEMINAZGUL" because I think that will be amusing. Uhm. I used a $50 off for a >$150 purchse coupon. I suppose I really should stop doing that and use the stuff I buy.

- Dinner tonight was leftover chicken meat, mixed with alfredo sauce and cheese, and dinner rolls I forgot I had. I attempted some baked potatoes but apparently I am a failure and forgot to soak them first so they are pretty much ruined now. I'll do better next time.

- My friend Jess from Seattle, who I've known since my days on ShinraOnline.com (that's 2001, wow, so much for online friendships not being real amirite) came to visit because apparently her last visit to California was filled with microaggressive people who did not understand social justice at all so she needed to visit me to clean her palate. We went out to eat a lot because she is a food blogger and thus that is what foodies do.

- While she was here, I decided to take advantage of the fact that she lives in Seattle to finish Nisi's new bra and have her deliver it. I'd been fiddling with the pattern on and off for a while now so this gave me a chance to really work it. The first one I made was 1) a bit too big (apparently this is a possible thing); 2) that terrible ordinary straps that fed into her shoulder grooves; 3) had the most worthless band for supporting large boobs possible as it is a standard band. THIS TIME, I adapted the band into the shape of a strapless bra, which included boning, and put boning in the lower cup, and finished it with padding in the shoulder strap. My bra teacher (or as she is affectionately known, the Fairy Bra Mother) told me that the pads used for push-up bras are really good fod re-distributing weight on the shoulders. So. The bra will be delivered on Wednesday and I have to wait for feedback now. If this works, I can re-do it into something much better (the boning was kind of sewn on quite simply and it could stand to be reinforced. With nicer top-stitching).

- In preparation for San Diego Comic Con, I find myself without a carry-on bag that I can carry on my shoulders. I usually have a little white roller-bag but I think I'm going to do a far bit of walking so I would rather not subject wheels to that. I was gonna make a new one, but I think I'll pass this time and just focus on packing *very very* light. I don't plan on attending any steampunk gatherings so I'll leave the magistrate costume at home (and it never gets recognized anyway but by people who've already seen it). I found the Greyhound station and it seems really cheap to get there and back, too. Still trying to decide if I want to return on Sunday (only one bus, at the same time as a panel on multicultural heroes =/) or Monday morning (which necessitates finding a place to stay and then getting a ride into town to the station).

Does anybody want anything from Comic Con?

- Also! on Friday evening! At Pokez Restaurant! We're trying to get together POC creators, and fans, for you know, socializing. It'll be fun!

- Five things make a post, so. Uhm. Would anybody like to buy a skirt from me? 35" waist, 18" long, green/blue paisley, four in-seam POCKETS and a lot of flare! I think it's my best work so far but my waist is only 32" as it turns out so this sits on my hips uncomfortable, and I didn't add belt loops because it would fold weirdly under a belt.