Yesterday, instead of the massive mountain of household chores and writing MGC (to say nothing of staring at a blank page and kicking myself for being out of words, fiction or fact), I took the day off.
I started the day by not getting out of bed, and finishing a book. (Alma Boykin’s finale to the Familiars series, Preternaturally Familiar.)
Then I switched to an… I’m not sure I’d call it an anthology, because Perspectives is a collaborative effort, almost a shared-world, in which a bunch of EMS bloggers came together and wrote a story of a weekend in EMS, moving from West Texas through the midwest, to the east coast, of the same incidents across a weekend seen through the eyes of police, dispatchers, paramedics, ER nurses and ER surgeons. It’s amazing. It also made me cry.
So then I got up and checked blogs, lost 3 hours to TV tropes because…. well, because. Then wandered out to the back porch, and sat in the shade while reading Cedar Sanderson’s The East Witch. Which is a lovely melding of faery, Underhill, and the legendary creatures from Kiev through the taiga to the Yupik and Athabascan Seal Woman and Grandfather Raven.
Finally, I came inside, and ate leftovers while downing a lot of water and plowed through a short, sweet, funny romance that CV Walter had recommended to me, called Nailing the Alien. It was hilarious, a heavily salted with bad puns and double entendres with construction tools sandwiched between the sex scenes… all of which I’ve heard when working maintenance, as well as elsewhere. For those of you who do not care for the romance genre, or do not care for “your sexual harassment will be graded” kind of environments, save yourself the trauma and don’t search for it.
And then I had some caffeine because I needed it, and went to dinner with friends. When I got home, I picked back up on Front Sight Focus, which is… it’s like Ten Rules For Life if Jordan Peterson were a chief Petty officer in the seals.
And then I actually did a load of laundry, because, well, it needed doing, before bed.
When was the last time you took a day off and played hooky, and read things just because you wanted to, not for research?
What was the last book you loved enough to re-read?
Mad Genius Club 
Not for a while, at least not without a heavy load of guilt. I have a big recertification test in a week and I’m stuck reviewing medical stuff until then. But afterward… ah, afterward! It will indeed be hooky time at that point.
I always read for fun. Reading for research was unproductive.
I really enjoyed The East Witch, but haven’t re-read it yet 🙂
But I did just finish re-reading The Complete Peanuts 1965-1966. I appreciate it even more after a second reading. I still can’t believe how much my wife is like Lucy Van Pelt, it’s eerie.
I didn’t notice any chocolate in that discussion of a day off. Seriously? Try again.
And I always read Dorothy Grant books at least ten times, especially if I’m trying not to go to bed. I’ve read Preternaturally Familiar twice so far. I used to read Rex Stout until all my copies fell apart. I’ve read Changelings Island three or four times and Joy cometh in the Mourning same. There’s others… I think I’ve read the first Texas Troublemakers anthology several times… I’d better stop now.
*The Faded Map* by Alister Moffat. He’s a new-to-me historian of Scotland, who writes very well. The book is about the kingdoms of northers Scotland, from 320 BC to roughly 1066. It’s filling a hole in my knowledge, as well as being a fun read.
I didn’t _mean_ to take a week off . . . But I figured I ought to at least give John Ringo’s Zombie series a a try. Just a couple of chapters . . . That was just a few months ago.
Currently about half way through the audiobook of “The Last Centurion” by John Ringo.
Already read twice but needed something for the truck stereo.
Next in the queue is “Time Enough For Love” by Heinlein. Lost track of how many times I’ve read that book..
I don’t think I’ve actually read any fiction in a while. Was working my way through the Wheel of Time books for a while, but schedules and structures changed, so haven’t been reading much of that.
Currently I’m picking through “How to be a Victorian” and a manual for a flight simulator. Sort of bouncing back and forth between the F6F Hellcat and Blacksquare’s analog King Air mod.
The F6F just flies so nice for a high performance fighter, but doing something like a low altitude loop around Australia’s coast line in MSFS just seems like something one would do in a regional plane like the King Air. It’s just, I cannot make heads or tails of modern glass cockpits, so a steam gauge King Air mod could be the ticket.
Also flipping through Just Flight’s BAE 146 manual. I’m not normally interested in airliners, but that’s a weird one, and it turns out it was heavily used in Africa and Canada because it had ridiculously good short field performance.
There’s something manic that appeals to me about taking a 4-engine jet and asking “Can it bush?” Probably to complex a plane for me though.
Still, the manual is a free download, so why not give it a look?
*How To Be A Victorian* is fun.
It really is. I think one of you all recommended it to me for research. It’s remarkable what it takes to do things without electricity, and how common it has been for people to just take the words of experts who’ve done a bit of math too…
*Domestic Revolution* is even more interesting on the tech side
I’m currently rereading Pam Uphoff, before that was M.C.A. Hogarth, before that was Dorothy Grant, before that was Alma T. C. Boykin . . . my reading speed outstrips both my budget and everyone’s writing speed.
Was off work sick recently and spent the day binging the Combined Operations series. 🙂