gratitudes amid the grind

[bronze_ribbons]

I miss English country dancing, and wandering across NC and back, and I'm going to miss hymn-leading, but there is plenty in house, mind, and online to occupy me for the rest of the decade (the last time I printed out my Workflowy it was like 30 pages long).


Put another way: still masking everywhere beyond my garden. Avoiding events that don't require proof of vaccination -- and, worse, groups that attempt to justify it on the grounds that vaccines don't prevent everything and most people seem to recover OK from COVID. I know enough people with long COVID to be terrified of it, and there's plenty of good to be done and fun to be had without playing roulette with my already dodgy odds. (As things were, I'm fabulously fit half of the year -- paddleboard yoga, miles of walking, and the like -- and coughing out my lungs the other half. What options I'll have after this hip/nerve business is sorted out remains to be seen...)

I made this card a couple of days ago for a friend. It's in part a triumph of using up supplies - I marbled the paper more than 25 years ago and probably pressed the rose petal around 2005 (it was likely from a cathedral arrangement). (The fortune is likely from a recent meal - we get takeout from Lucky Bamboo once a month most months, in support of the local Chinese Arts Alliance.)


What the fortune says: "The difficulties of life are intended to make us better, not bitter."

In honesty, I'm still marinating in anger and exasperation at the moment. It's not only grief at lost opportunities and friendships foundering on the rocks of non-presence, exhaustion, and what-have-you, but also the dreariness of revising end-of-life arrangements (i.e., when institutions that were at the center of your world even five years ago no longer fit your life as you need to live it going forward) and other chores. But some of that would be happening even if tridemics and fascism weren't clear and present dangers.

And a silver lining has been cutting myself loose (and steering clear of) obligations I shouldn't be taking on in the first place. And the list of people I want to catch up with doesn't get any shorter.


So, some happy things:

Robin_Fai beautifully recorded a ficlet I wrote last year for Purimgifts:

[Podfic] The Blue Flowers and the Yellow (29 words) by robinfaipods
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: English and Scottish Popular Ballads - Francis James Child
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Willie/sweetheart
Additional Tags: Fake Character Death, Trans Female Character, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming
Summary:

"O Willie, lie down as thou were dead,
And the sun shines over the valley,
And lay thy winding-sheet down at thy head,
Down amang the blue flowers and the yellow."

- "Willie's Lyke-Wake" (Child Ballad 25)

Podfic of The Blue Flowers and the Yellow by ribbons.

In addition to my efforts for Yuletide and the fall KJ Charles exchange, I created some other things (including in-universe docs and recipes):



The Circles That Matter (1812 words) by ribbons
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: England Series - K. J. Charles, Psmith - P. G. Wodehouse, Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Archie Curtis/Daniel da Silva
Characters: Honoria Lucasta Wimsey, Marjory Jackson (Psmith), Archie Curtis, Peter Wimsey
Additional Tags: Post-Book: Think of England, Pre-Canon: Lord Peter Wimsey, Post-Book: Mike, outside POVs, sad war boy
Summary:

“Da Silva had no birth or social standing, he was unlikely to have influential friends, and the Armstrongs would not expect the disappearance of a demimonde Portuguese Jew to cause concern in any circles that mattered. Curtis would make one hell of a fuss if anything happened to the man, of course, but by then it would be too late.” —Think of England

Daniel had warned Archie that there would be gossip, giggling, and whispers. He wasn’t wrong.

Amenability (8078 words) by ribbons
Chapters: 5/6
Fandom: England Series - K. J. Charles, The Will Darling Adventures - K. J. Charles
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Archie Curtis/Daniel da Silva, Archie Curtis/Daniel da Silva/OFC (Original French Character)
Characters: Archie Curtis, Daniel da Silva, Bill Merton, Patricia Merton, Kim Secretan
Additional Tags: Past Rape/Non-con, Hurt/Comfort, Billiard Tables, Light Bondage, Aging, Cock Cages
Summary:

Archie had worked with Daniel long enough to know he made a much more amenable lover than colleague, and it wasn’t as if amenable was the word Archie would choose for him in the former role. —“How Goes the World?”

Why, then, was amenable the word in Archie’s mind?

Faute de mieux (100 words) by ribbons
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: David Blaize - E. F. Benson
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Frank Maddox/George "Bags" Crabtree
Characters: Frank Maddox, George "Bags" Crabtree
Additional Tags: Drabble


Greened-Up Hand Pies for Green Men (730 words) by ribbons
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Green Men Series - K. J. Charles
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Recipe
Summary:

Something Sam might have learned from Cornelia, or Max might have prepared as quartermaster for the Fetter Lane residents. Pair with a bottle of ale or snowshus's 75 Beneath.

Other Habits (100 words) by ribbons
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Olivia/Viola | Cesario (Twelfth Night)
Additional Tags: Drabble, Alternate Universe - Edwardian
Summary:

"When in other habits you are seen..." - Twelfth Night

Remontant (100 words) by ribbons
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Lilywhite Boys Series - K. J. Charles
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jerry Crozier/Alexander "Alec" Pyne-ffoulkes
Additional Tags: Drabble
Summary:

Prompt: "At this point in 2022, I'd be down for some domestic slice of life fic of Jerry getting Alex set up with a gorgeous cottage out in the middle of nowhere with lots of fresh air and a beautiful garden, man. Give that man a break."

remontant, adj.: flowering again

There was a chap doing magic (1316 words) by ribbons
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: England Series - K. J. Charles
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Archie Curtis/Daniel da Silva, Fenella Carruth/Patricia Merton
Characters: Patricia Merton, Daniel da Silva, Archie Curtis
Additional Tags: In-Universe Personal Documents, Fic in a Box Treat, Spies & Secret Agents, Epistolary, rescue lesbians
Summary:

In "Games We Play," Archie "was glad he would not be made to come up with the full details of a fictional story—even this much was based on Rome ’10."

What happened in Rome did not stay in Rome. As certain surviving documents attest.

Have Not Saints Lips (2360 words) by ribbons
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: David Blaize - E. F. Benson
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hughes/Frank Maddox
Characters: Hughes (David Blaize), Frank Maddox
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of homophobia
Summary:

In Syria, Frank finds himself reckoning with the past personally as well as professionally.

Skylarks Wounded in the Wing (2199 words) by ribbons
Chapters: 19/19
Fandom: England Series - K. J. Charles, Green Men Series - K. J. Charles, Psmith - P. G. Wodehouse, David Blaize - E. F. Benson
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Daniel da Silva, Randolph Glyde, Mike Jackson, Frank Maddox, David Blaize, Archie Curtis, Sam Caldwell, Fenella Carruth, George "Bags" Crabtree, Saul Lazenby
Additional Tags: Drabble Collection
Summary:

Drabbles prompted by the No True Pair Challenge, September 2022. Title from William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence"

Prompts
September 1- Daniel finds Randolph's lost [item] and...
2 - Frank & Mike with the title "Ready to Go"
3 - Randolph hits it off with someone at a costume party/ball; wait it's Sam?
4 - Archie & David- head in the clouds
5 - Frank & Psmith - in the woods
6 - Daniel & David - hot
7 - David has no idea what they look like to Frank
8 - Archie & Sam - play a board game
9 - Daniel writes a letter to Archie
10 - David & Sam titled "Magic Touch"
11 - Archie & Randolph - under a full moon
12 - Mike & Sam - "wait, did you just make up this holiday?"
13 - both Archie & Frank reach for the last [item]
14 - David & Psmith - lessons
15 - Frank & Sam - "That's gotta hurt."
16 - while waiting, Daniel strikes up a conversation with Mike*
17 - Archie & Mike - a truly impressive misunderstanding!*
18 - Psmith & Randolph - "Better luck next time."
19 - Daniel & Sam - water

(* denotes presence of cat)

Of Gastly Stone (100 words) by ribbons
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Band Sinister - K. J. Charles, Green Men Series - K. J. Charles
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Randolph Glyde, Derivative Female Character
Additional Tags: Drabble, Aromantic russet-haired diva on the scene
Summary:

Wrayton Harcourt takes care of some business.

Writing is an absolute slog at the moment -- like, ekeing-out-one-leaden-sentence-per-day slog -- but what I'm working on nonetheless has the potential to be really fun and please the recipient, so chipping away to free the many-eyed-angel will continue.

My employer has been excellent about both precautions and accommodations.

A former colleague has (after a long search) been hired at a place that will treat them better.

My friend Lorraine has published a collection of haiku, senryu, tanka, and haibun.

I made pizza last night, and today I shall bake fruit bread and assemble a pistachio cream pie.

Still in bloom in my sunroom: Christmas cacti (in shades of deep pink and orange), shamrocks, white roses, tiny tomato flowerets.