It's like someone threw a bucket of water on the Trump administration, and it's started a slow dissolve. To be honest, there wasn't much there to begin with, but it was a nefarious nothing; callow emptiness has succeeded in the past in doing massive harm (see: The Third Reich) and could easily have done so again. I was genuinely concerned that when the crisis came, Trump and his people would just blithely continue onward, never acknowledging that they were liable to respond to the nation. They would ignore court, refuse to resign, pretend that public opprobrium didn't count for anything. And that would be the truest sign that we were headed to a grim future.
But no. For whatever reason they are vulnerable to outside interference. Flynn resigned. Puzder withdrew. It's descending into greater chaos than already existed. I can't figure out why that's happening--not that I can parse much about this administration. In this case though, I really had assumed that Flynn would stay, defended by Trump and others, and that they'd shout alternate facts--blatant lies--from the rooftops until some other problem loomed large enough that Flynn was forgotten. I assumed that Puzder would stay in the running, and when the vote was called for he'd be rejected but then he'd start doing the job anyway.
None of that, though. A good sign, I think. There is still vestigial responsiveness in the administration, and it seems to be growing. The only thing that seems to be growing. Otherwise, there are leaks and recriminations and people being refused spots on the chat shows and widening interest in Russian connections, and so many problems in less than a month that it is dizzying.
What are you reading? Some of Glen Cook's Garrett Files, which remain choppy, and which, in the latest, feature a fridging. I mean, it's a thematically appropriate fridging--the books are crime stories, and the detective found domestic bliss, and thus the woman must die, as is called for--but it's still bothersome. The book wasn't written in 1980, it was written in 2013. And there's a ton of casual homophobia, poofs and nancies and all that being thrown about, none of which is necessary. It's at least only casual? It fits the mini-genre well enough, and the author was 69 when it came out so I suppose that was what he knew, and there's casual sexism too, so...I don't know. I will have read the entire series when I'm done, and I don't think I'll need to read another if Cook manages to produce more in his last years. They're books for high school/college me to enjoy, and that was a long time ago.
Writing anything? I guess? We'll say yes. It's slow going, but it's going, which is something.
How's the weather? Goddamn there's rain. Inches in the last day or two. I have friends with flooding, sometimes over and over, as all this heavy rain pelts us in waves this winter. But it's getting warmer, and the days are getting longer, so that's nice.
Speak on Eclipse Phase: It's the current tabletop rpg I'm running. Centuries ahead Solar system spanning transhumanist space stuff. Excellent background and world building. Terrible, clunky, finicky rules system. I was warned about it but took a "how bad could it be" attitude. It's bad. Real bad. Piles and piles of crap bad. But we're managing, narrowly. I'm still thinking that I might change the rules but keep the setting, though I'm not sure how that would work at this point. My friend Matt has a Powered By The Apocalypse conversion he runs with, but I tend to hate PBTA games in practice, even if I like them in theory.
Anything big at work? Garden Show next week. Inventory next week. ECCC in two weeks. Independent Bookstore Day in two months. Entirely new inventory, pos and web systems in three months. There's a lot going on. But we have the summer to take it easy, at least at present, so I'm just aiming for that, and keeping it in mind, and trying to keep my goals prioritized and stuff.
That's about all, I guess, right now? Pills are fine, husband is fine, family is generally okay though with some grim happenings that aren't mine to talk about, and the world seems slightly less likely to dissolve into nothingness than was the case three weeks ago.
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