October 2022 Reading

There is a small chance that I will finish another book today, but if that happens, I’ll just add it to my November total instead.  I intended to focus on nonfiction reading during October, but life went a little sideways, so I retreated to fiction.  Even so, I managed to read three nonfiction books, four fiction books, and one kid book.

I did not read every word of The Practice of System and Network Administration by Tom Limoncelli, Christina Hogan, and Strata Chalup.  (Disclaimer:  I know two of the authors, who are wonderful humans, and the spouse of the third, so I expect she is also a wonderful human.)  This is part of my education and preparation for writing a book with Brent about incident management.  It is well out of my skillset to opine on the technical merits of the book, but I will say that the authors present their material clearly and with great good humor.  There is even a section on how to avoid spots on glasses, which was a welcome break from the other sorts of problems discussed.  I find much of technology to be, frankly, scary, but this book was reassuring and friendly, full of good examples from the authors’ real life experiences.

 

I also know the authors of Incident Management for Operations, Rob Schnepp, Ron Vidal, and Chris Hawley.  Again, I read the book as part of my homework.  The authors lay out how an emergency services approach to incidents like fires and natural disasters can work for IT incidents as well.

 

The third nonfiction book I read was for fun.  I am interested in artist’s models, so I was excited when I went to the Crocker Museum to find an exhibit about Twinka Thiebaud.  The book of the exhibition is called Twinka Thiebaud and the Art of the Pose, edited by Jayme Yahr.  The book is fascinating, full of essays and analysis of various works featuring Thiebaud, from her father’s works to more recent photographs.  The thrust of the book and exhibition is that the model can be as much of a creative force in a work of art as the artist.

 

On to fiction.

 

I finished out the Ramsay mysteries of Ann Cleeves by reading The Baby-Snatcher.  I liked it, as I liked the whole series.  Cleeves writes interesting characters and good plots.  Highly recommend.

 

The amazing Gail Carriger (yes, I have the privilege of knowing her in person, too!) writes books I very much enjoy.  I’m slowly working my way through them.  This month, I read Curtsies and Conspiracies.  What is not to like about a bunch of powerful young women doing powerful things?  Also:  a mechanical dachshund.  Funny, playful, and satisfying.

 

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is a book I want to read over again.  It’s beautiful and confusing and satisfying and thought-provoking.  An engaging, if unreliable, narrator shows us a whole different world.  Read it!!!

 

I laughed out loud repeatedly reading T. Kingfisher’s book A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking.  That was exactly what I needed.  There is deep stuff in there, too, about the cost of heroism and the value of difference.  Also, attack gingerbread men and a sentient sourdough starter.

 

T. Kingfisher’s other writing name is Ursula Vernon.  Castle Hangnail is a heartwarming book about a castle in need of a new wicked witch and the way a community comes together to save themselves and others.  As always in Vernon’s work, there are hilarious bits and creative solutions to difficult problems.  Two thumbs up.

 

October total:  8

Fall total to date:  16

YTD total:  84

October 2022 Flash Lit #10 - Touchless Everything

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, or Physics for Poets

 

1.     Seeing around corners.

Waves of light lap on

different shores

a susurration in blinks.

The scale of it all,

so small,

makes for fun-house

distortions.

 

2.     Where am I?

No one knows except

when I am at rest,

and really, when is that?

In my sleep, I may

swim, or fly, or explode.

 

3.     That cat.

There has to be

something better to do

with the time

than to put

imaginary cats in boxes,

or hats, or whatever.

 

4.     Speaking of time.

I guess I’m glad

we have a Spandex

universe, because

sometimes it’s Thanksgiving

and we need more room.

But somehow

it always works out

to infinite math class

and no jam today.

 

5.     And when time becomes matter.

A whole other kettle

of quarks.

It’s impossible

for things in this

universe to touch

without fusing.

Contact is an illusion.

 

6.     But love.

Somehow, in

the order becoming chaos,

in the spinning

probability of galaxies

and the spirograph

paths of electrons,

we manage, in fact,

to love each other. 

October 2022 Flash Lit #9 - Online Classes

Online Classes

 

Today, class, we will learn

about the white tip

of a cat’s tail,

the impetuous hug

of a tousled toddler,

and the expulsion

of the moriscos from Spain.

Some of us choose

to embody a black-box

model of mind;

we display white letters

on our background and

leave it at that.

One of us is not muted

and the swish and clink

of dishes in the sink

fights for dominance.

I laugh at the clever

joke the professor cracks,

but he doesn’t know.

He flicks to the next slide.

October 2022 Flash Lit #8 - Found Family

Found Family

 

My friend Phil, whose hair

curled just like his younger

brother’s and whose skin,

pale as paper, matched

his mother’s, said once,

standing on the green kitchen linoleum,

“Did anyone else ever wonder

if they were adopted?”

I laughed and laughed

because I am adopted.

Mortified, he stared at

the hem of his pants.

I explained, as best I could,

that we are all strangers.

Every one of us is searching

for the real mother,

the blood brothers,

the sisterhood of understanding.

The best we can do

is wrap our warm arms

around each other’s

precious hearts.

October 2022 Flash Lit #7 - Grocery Delivery

Grocery Delivery (Not) 

Someone else could pick

my peaches, round, soft.

Someone taller could reach

the hearts of palm

on the top shelf

without surreptitiously

stepping among the

canned beans on the bottom one.

But I need more

than mac and cheese,

bread and butter,

tight-furled broccoli.

I need to be

between different walls.

I need to answer

paper or plastic.

I need to ask

the checker about his daughter,

like every week,

like the world still

makes sense.

October 2022 Flash Fiction #6 - Online Community

Online Community

 

Who knew

a metaphorical window

in a thinking rock

could become a candle

lighting the darkness

leading us home

to each other?

October 2022 Flash Lit #5 - Masks Optional

Masks Optional

 

My mask

protects you.

I wear it to keep my

germs to myself,

those little seeds

of infection.

If I left it off,

you’d see my teeth

and my sharp

pink tongue.

There would be no

Filter for my words,

no mesh

to catch them

between my heart, my mind,

and you.

The mask

conceals the monster.

October 2022 Flash Lit #4 - QR Code Menu

QR Code Menu

 

Every touch—every touch—

has become violence.

We are walking war crimes

or weapons of mass destruction.

not smart bombs—we know not

what we do

as we garnish our menus

with plague and pestilence.

 

•

 

Even in war, people die

of other things—

broken hearts, cancers,

hunger, freak accident, old age,

car crashes.

 

•

 

The chicken strips in the hospital

cafeteria are very good—

hot and crispy.

A child’s meal to feed

my grieving child-self.

 

•

 

My brother is not vaccinated.

We pay for a rapid test

via smartphone

and I lend him a mask

So he can see our father’s face

half-hidden by ventilator tubes.

His body bruises so easily.

Every medication leaves its mark.

 

•

 

Our eyes see a square of squares

and find no meaning

in the markings.

It takes a camera’s eye

and a brain of silicon

to translate box

to box lunch.

There is another text—

palimpsest—

and sometimes we can read it:

We are all,

all of us,

dying.

October 2022 Flash Lit #3 - Quiet Quitting

Quiet Quitting, or Other Duties As Assigned

 

I

 

Coffee making.

Smile.

Type “Discussion ensued”

in the minutes, those minutes

I can’t have back.

 

II

 

Don’t answer the phone

because there’s no money to pay anyway.

Don’t open the mail and find

out where he’s been.

Try to cry where the kids

can’t hear.

 

III

 

No.

This is my hair.

These are my people.

These are my words.

I don’t have to be loud,

but I don’t have to leave. 

October 2022 Flash Lit #2 - Hybrid Workweek

Hybrid Workweek

 

Turns out

I’m a hipster after all.

I couch-surfed before

that was a thing, crouching

in the narrow space

so the kids could each have

a room of their own.

I did it again this week,

riding the wave of grief,

my father floating high

in the rented hospital bed.

My days split—where did they go?—

between home and away,

between Zoom and vacuum,

between the work of dying

and the work of staying here.

There have always been too many hats.

But I am a hybrid

and I will wear them all.

Flash Lit October 2022 #1: Working in Pajamas

Working in Pajamas

 

The work of dying is hard.

My father’s body consumes

itself to do it, shrinking.

His eyes flicker open sometimes,

but he quests

along the path of dreams,

gown a flimsy armor

against the night.