From: jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid   
      
   On Wed, 30 Jul 2025 23:26:10 -0400, Joy Beeson   
    wrote:   
      
   Sunday, 9 November 2025   
      
   > Current reading is the March-April 2025 Analog.  I checked a   
   > few times to make sure I hadn't picked up a Hitchcock   
   > instead.   
      
   It vanished.  I recall shoving it hastily into my go bag and   
   failling to zip the bag when I was called to get my blood   
   drawn.  (Results:  everything fine, keep on doing what you   
   are doing, come back in six months.)   
      
   So now I'll never know what happened when Ganny went to war.   
      
   The January-Febuary 2025 Analog took its place in the bag. I   
   have to jog it before and after reading; the cover and a   
   substantial number of pages are innocent of glue.   
      
   Lt. Leary Commanding in car   
      
      
   Friday, 6 December 2025   
      
   When I saw the library getting rid of three David Drake   
   books, I grabbed them without stopping to think that I read   
   only in waiting rooms and these books are too huge to carry   
   in my go bag.  When Spouse was in rehab, I kept Lt. Leary   
   and my needlework in a spare drawer that happened to be the   
   right height to serve as a chairside table.   
      
   Since then, I've been keeping it in the car to remove the   
   temptation to read when I should be doing something else.   
      
   Like the Analog, _Lt. Leary is falling apart.  This is   
   surprising in a hardcover -- we had better glue than that   
   when I was in the high-school library club in the late   
   fifties, and the binders did remember to press a strip of   
   cloth into the glue.  But I think there is supposed to be   
   some gauze between the thick fabric and the glue.  When   
   making shell jewelry in that same era, we always put a fluff   
   of cotton wool into the drop of Duco that was to secure the   
   cup shells.   
      
   I'm not sure what to call _Lt. Leary Commanding_.  It's not   
   a fix-up, collection, or picaresque.  It's all of a piece,   
   but I wouldn't call it a novel.  I think of a novel as   
   having a story as a backbone -- an introduction to a   
   situation, the characters respond to the situation, the   
   situation is resolved to the reader's satisfaction:   
   beginning, middle, and end.  Lt. Leary_ is more of a chapter   
   in a biography.   
      
   _Into the Maelstrom by Lambshead and Drake (Which I am now   
   reading) is a novel.  The situation is very complicated, as   
   befits a novel, and the question to be answered is "Will our   
   protagonists survive?".   
      
   I should find out reasonably soon.  Now that I can stay   
   home, I've been sitting on the stationary bike fifteen   
   minutes a day to slow the loss of muscle.   
      
      
      
   Saturday, 6 December 2025   
      
   Not today!  I spent the entire morning hunting out winter   
   clothes and remembering how to put them on.  (I definitely   
   need three pairs of thick socks, or to darn my old   
   fisherman-wool turnout socks; with only two pairs, my left   
   sandal was a bit loose.)  (And I need to remember how to tie   
   my scarf to keep it away from my rear-view mirror.)   
      
   And then I pumped up my front tire and went for a three-mile   
   bike ride.   
      
   --   
   joy beeson at centurylink dot net   
   http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)