hell or glory

I have, honestly, and the new content sent a few little ideas crawling in my head (and a few dozen new nightmares in Nine’s- cursed inevitability of betrayal, etc, etc)-

But life really is imitating art quite badly right now.

I moved again this past summer. The place where I used to work- the building where I used to work, an office that wasn’t mine but that I visited more than once- was hit by drones two weeks ago. It burned, in part. Other places I’ve been, buildings I’ve worked in, places I’ve visited, were hit as well. Everyone was safe, mostly. But my successor’s still there working. What I do- we’re essential. We don’t get to leave during a drawdown, not right away. Not until they turn the lights off and lock the door.

We as Americans like to consider ourselves insulated from war, don’t we? If we are not soldiers, not there in the thick of it, we are safe. It is far away and we are safe.

Until we aren’t.

Cocktails over Coruscant

I did a mobile order at Starbucks so I could grab breakfast on my way to work as an end of week treat (I haven’t had a paycheck in a month thanks to the shutdown so one deserves a little treat every once in a while…)

I use the English version of the Chinese Starbucks app due to my very poor Mandarin reading skills. When you do a mobile order it gives you an order confirmation code- instead of a number it’s a short phrase in either Mandarin or English.

This is probably a coincidence but my college brain jumped immediately to a very specific scene when I read:

(I immediately burst out laughing in the middle of the train.)

I’ve gotten a bunch of new likes on Equivalent Exchange recently, so I felt obligated to pop my head up with a little update.

Not dead. Still writing. Just moved to China for work and quite desperately trying to get things sorted out, including but not limited to:

-getting Miss Q settled in school

-not being able to set up WeChat (how is one app used for LITERALLY EVERYTHING), then setting it up and immediately getting punted to WC jail for adding three entire friends

-finally getting SWTOR up and running, though it’s still madly temperamental on this network

-not speaking, y’know, Mandarin (which I am working on, mind you, but the tones are going to kill me)

-work chaos, as usual- always chaos but this time it’s Chaos Minus Budget which is an entirely unfun form of chaos

Half the house is in boxes (the other half gets packed up today) and despite having spent most of my life moving from place to place it never really gets easier. Certainly less so with both all of the job insecurity happening now in my current line of work - though my being overseas cushions me from that a little- and having to wrangle all the Big Feelings of Miss Q having to leave her friends.

(Yes, it’s as high as it looks. About 1km down…)

(There’s the “edge.” See the little stone point at the far end?)