World Fantasy Programming

I’m scheduled for a panel called “The Lands of Islam” at WFC. I’m sorry to say that I won’t be on this panel. I simply cannot prepare for such a panel with only one week’s notice–not if I want to do the topic justice.

I already notified WFC, and they will see if a reading slot opens up. I’ll tweet and post if I get one.

Sorry folks! See you there. I’ll be at the bar a lot of the time.

Grinnell College offers gender-neutral housing options

Grinnell College now allows students to live with a roommate of any gender. There are still plenty of same-sex roommate options, of course.

Go Grinnell! I’m proud of my alma mater. Back when I went there, we had to do illegal room swaps to get a roommate of a different gender. This change is great–especially for transgendered students, who may have difficulty declaring a gender.

The comments on the article are full of hate and ignorance, as you’d expect, but there’s a few students defending themselves nicely in there. That’s the part that makes me happiest.

I wish the alum office would tell us cool stuff like this instead of all the crap I get about the college administration changes.

As a side note, if James Hall is now the substance-free dorm by student choice… how did they get all the weed smell out of the walls? Things change in ten years…

The soup machine strikes again!

I just spent six days in Seattle with a dear friend who has 8-month-old twins. I went up there primarily to do the cooking and cleaning and laundry for a while, so she and her husband could be well-fed and get more sleep.

I made 21 quarts of soup and a double-batch of muffins for the freezer. I compiled some of my favorite recipes into a mini-cookbook, focusing on things that would freeze well, and asked my friend which ones she wanted. She chose a number of my favorite recipes: mushroom barley soup, spicy mulligatawny, Moroccan lentil soup, champagne orzo risotto, wheat berry medley, and Russian cabbage borscht. I also made my friend’s favorite honey bran muffin recipe. Luckily she and her husband loved my cooking. I was pretty much on my feet nonstop from morning to night.

I spent some time with the babies, but I’m awkward around kids until they’re about 5 or so. The babies were cute and drooly. (”Moist,” as my friend puts it.) They liked my singing. It was fun for a while, but I definitely don’t want any of my own. I’d rather be Crazy Auntie Vylar. If you have a child in need of a roller coaster ride, just let me know. Side note: yes, it is absolutely possible to love kids and choose not to have any yourself. People make assumptions about this and it drives me crazy.

At one point, we were clothes-shopping. One twin stayed home with dad, while the other was with us. While mom tried on clothes, I held baby and sang to him. It was amazing to see how differently people treated me when I had a baby. I got the most incredible smiles from strangers. One woman insisted he had my eyes, which would be extremely surprising as he’s not related to me.

Anyway! Now I have a few days to cook and clean my own house, and then it’s off to World Fantasy. Still have no idea about the programming schedule, but I’ll post when I find out.