My Readers

I recently read Alexandra, and Voyager, and the parts that I read were so satisfying that I feel I could never write that well again, and I am so frustrated at feeling that such a few have read these books.  Actually, Smashwords kept statistics of how many readers downloaded the books.   But now they (the company) has been acquired by Draft 2 Digital, and I don't know where to look for statistics, and I don't even know whether any statistics they keep would include the older downloads. 

I can hardly believe I had been capable of such great concentration at one time, as to put myself into the heads of these interesting characters, male and female, and put such convincing words into their mouths.  As much as they are real to me now, because of how authentic their voices are, they must have been more real when I was writing, a decade ago. 

Now to a different topic completely. 

When I wrote the Helen stories, I had her playing my favorite pieces, naturally.  I had listened to recordings of these pieces for years and years, but I hadn't seen them being played!  I recently watched a famous violinist play one of these pieces, and I was startled at how different her playing style was.  And now that I think of it, many of the violinists play that way; that is, they sway to the music, as though they were dancing.

I'm not sure whether this is a modern thing; pop singers, of course, use their entire bodies to make their performance more exciting, so it could be that classical musicians follow suit.  Come to think of it, the musicians I used to watch on YouTube were usually foreign: German, or Japanese, and they kept their bodies relatively still. 

When I described Helen playing, I described her as being relatively still.  I don't think I really like this dancing about, though it is the expected thing these days. 

Well, I'm no violinist, I want to make that perfectly clear, so my descriptions of musical performances are from the point of view of an outsider!

I wish you all a wonderful new year!

Kay Hemlock Brown

Female Athlete of the Year

I didn't realize that this was a thing. 

Ranking of things in the USA strikes again; in this case, women athletes.  This award, for 2024, was recently given to Caitlin Clark BY THE AP. The sports department of the AP has somewhat lower intelligence than the rest of the news service, apparently.  In a team sport, such as Basketball, many of you will agree with me, that it makes little sense to single out a particular individual in a team to whom to award something like this.  If I were Caitlin Clark, I would be embarrassed.   I would also be concerned that, winning such an award, there would be resentment among the rest of the team members that will hamper the team performance for the 2025 season. 

But for the media, it is more important to get their financial advantage than to be concerned about what happens when they break a story. 

Kay

Olivia Hussey

Sad news today: Olivia, who played Juliet, in Zeffirelli's 'Romeo and Juliet,' has died, at age 73.

She had a smile that could light up a room, and a knowing grin that made her look more human!  She truly made that movie.  She also had a rough voice, which I found attractive.

She looked so Italian, as she needed to look for that movie; but she also looked (and spoke) in such an English voice, which made sense, because Shakespeare had convincingly and thoroughly turned his dramatic subjects into English folks. 

Bon voyage, Olivia!

Kay

The Benefit of Being Inconsistent

Gun control has been largely resisted in Congress by invoking the 2nd Amendment, which allows people to own guns, and even carry them about openly. 

In the past, Trump supporters have often supported the gun lobby, and opposed any attempt to restrict gun ownership.  Over the next day or so, we will discover why this Wisconsin kid shot these people in this (Abundant Life) school, and how (he)she got hold of the gun. 

Before Kristi Noem gets to weigh in on this case, Trump might join up with Biden, and call for gun safety legislation!  Wouldn't that be amazing?

(Added later, 12/16) Well, it's going to be thoughts and prayers, I guess.  The parents should be prosecuted for allowing the girl to get access to a gun.)

Kay 

Another Miscellany

Hey, Dear Readers!

I hope you're all recovered from the election outcomes, and all of the clowning of the Maga people!  

Politics.  Unfortunately, many of the late night talk show hosts take each new reveal from Maralago (please put in your own hyphens and dashes and stuff) as a serious new joke, and work out how it would ruin the country in new and creative ways.  I think, in contrast, that it's all one big joke, really.  Trump wants to create confusion among the Democrat Elites, first and foremost (he loves to troll these people), and get his supporters in on the joke.  Then he wants to entertain his people, and reward those who have given money and support these several years.  I don't think it makes sense to get disturbed over these announcements.  Trump thinks that the Dems get too serious about these things,  while (he thinks) the entire point of being president is to have fun (and get rich!)  (Actually, he tries really hard to have fun, and fails.)

Christmas.  I've always tried to enjoy Christmas as much as it was possible.  This year, though, commercial interests are trying harder than ever to rip consumers off.  But I'm going to try equally hard to do my thing, and I'm going to win.  For presents, I like to give stationery: pens,  papers, calendars, that sort of thing, or even music. 

Caitlin Clark, and Taylor Swift.  I have to admit, I just don't know what's going on with CC; the sports writers have got me so confused that I don't know what is current news, what is old news, and what is mere conjecture (i.e, guesswork).  The tiny bit of credible news I have identified shows Caitlin calm and in control, which is good.  She is shown wearing some daring dresses, and super short skirts, but you know, if I had a figure like that (I don't), I'd probably flaunt it too!  But whatever she wears, you know fans using AI will almost certainly modify it to look even more daring than it was. 

I said I was going to listen to some Swifty music, but I never got around to it.  Soon.  Soon.

Kay

P. S. I did listen.  I can handle 'Shake it off,' but that's about all.  As a person, though, Taylor is just wonderful, and thinks very much like I do. 

Sapphic Literature

2024, July 25

Am I missing something?

I was browsing books on Kindle, when I saw—once again!—that in almost every GG pairing, one was dressed in pants, and the other one in a dress.

What is going on?

Is there a sort of understanding within the lesbian literary community—I mean those who write so-called WLW fiction—that one of them just has to wear pants?  Look, when lesbianism was just becoming a thing in ancient Greece, they didn't even have, or wear pants. 

Is there an unwritten dress code that I'm unaware of, that one member of each lesbian couple has to volunteer to be the pants person?

I don't think that wearing pants implies anything about the wearer.  They're not tomboys, or guy wannabes.  I'm deeply annoyed, because I wear pants sometimes, and if anyone wants to impute any characteristic about me from that fact, they can go straight to hell. 

Kay, not wearing pants!!  (Actually, I'm wearing pajamas, which don't count.)

Happy Critters

I was spending an afternoon at the home of my friend, who has the cat and the dog.  This time, my friend was sleeping after lunch, and I was going through FaceBook, when the cat got up on the arm of my chair, and started to purr!

She purred and purred and purred, and I stroked her while she was purring.  After a while, she took off, and checked out her food situation, and then came and sat on the rug. 

The dog was fast asleep.  If he's hungry, he comes up to my friend and wags his tail.  Sometimes, after a meal, he sits down and wags his tail, for no obvious reason. 

Both the purring and the tail- wagging are telling us that they're happy!  They're happy at us.  This is one reason, I'm sure, that people have cats and dogs: they're happy, and they make houses into more cheerful places.  Of course, having a dog or cat uses up some money; they have to have food (though some experts insist that home-cooked food is best for them, like boiled chicken and rice ... I don't really know (did I hear yams?  I can't remember; I guess I could Google it).  You really can't be depressed if you have a dog around. 

Most cats don't really try to cheer you up, but they certainly are company.  You can talk at them, but they don't understand a thing you say.  A really smart cat might pick up a word or two; like I know my friend's cat knows 'outside' (she's an indoor/ outdoor cat).  If you ask her "Outside?" she immediately runs to the door. 

Don't just run out and get a pet just from my recommendation; don't forget that I don't have a pet either!  And don't buy a fancy pet from the pet store; there are hundreds of pets waiting to be adopted at the humane society.  If you do get a pet, please have them fixed.  (Some people who get female cats, leave them intact.   Then a boy cat comes along and gets her pregnant, and once the kittens arrive, no one can bring themselves to kill them, they look so cute!!  So fixing the pets as soon as they're ready for it is the kindest thing to do.  Then, (unless you're a maniacal anti-vaxxer) you must give them their shots, to prevent them getting distemper, and rabies, and so on.  (Shots are expensive.)

Wow.  I hadn't expected to make an appeal to get a pet when I started this post!  If you do get one, and it's a female, you could call it after one of my heroes!

Kay

Smelling Like Cake?

Apparently, lots of women like Vanilla as a fragrance to wear!  Who knew?  (Apparently everyone but me.)

I never bring up the topic of fragrances with my girlfriends usually, because I rarely wear perfume.  I have a bottle someone gave me long ago, and just keep using that!  Just the thought that I should buy another perfume is completely off my radar!  And it's unlikely to be vanilla, let me tell you. 

Now we're getting into personal stuff, but, you know, I have generally considered myself to be pretty girly: I prefer to wear skirts than pants (though I must say I did often wear jeans to class, especially early Fall and late Spring).  I have some clothes that have a touch of lace on them—just a touch—and I like to cook, and that sort of thing.  I don't like guy sports, though I've watched enough football to talk about it in general terms.  Tennis is the game I like to play—I should say liked, because I haven't played in so long!—and that's it, for me. 

But, vanilla?  I don't know... When I used to snort down entire sheaves of Amazon 'sapphic' romances, I used to read descriptions of these gorgeous women whose hair smelled of vanilla, and I used to think, ew.  What will it be next, chocolate?  Lemon is somehow OK; in fact I read somewhere that the oil distilled from citrus rind was important in the perfume industry.  In fact, I remember that it was a book of my mom's, from way back; it was a set of (straight) romances, before I gave up on them and started reading lesfic instead. 

Anyway, I had better get used to smelling vanilla on women. 

Kay