UPDATE: I realized this morning that it’s actually the Transgender Day of Visibility, not remembrance. Honestly, Visibility is a more cheerful and appropriate word.

I have been thinking about plenty of things lately, and I’ve noticed that I haven’t blogged about anything lately, so here’s a blog post about the miscellany of things on my mind.

First, an encounter:

I was in Panera Bread recently. I was standing in line, wearing a T-shirt that read, “Don’t Mind Me, I’m Just an NPC”. The cashier noticed it and said, “I really like your shirt!”

The man next to me asked to see my shirt, so I showed it to him. He said, “I don’t understand.”

“It’s a gaming thing,” I said. “NPCs are characters that the players don’t play.”

“Oh, you mean like video games?”

“Yep!”

“Oh, I don’t do any of that. I’m a very boring person.”

To which I replied, “I doubt that. I’ve never in my life met a boring person.”

That moment, I’m convinced, was inspired by Doctor Who, because I think it’s something the Doctor would say. My sister and my mom both remarked that it’s something my grandfather would have said, and I agree. My grandfather was a remarkable man, always saying (sincerely) things like that, and he was in many ways my role model.

And this, by the way, is my grandfather. He passed away in 1992, but he was well-loved, and my family still tells stories about him.

Writing

It always comes back to the writing, doesn’t it? I promise I’ll be brief here.

Here, in bulleted list format, is my list of recent writing projects and accomplishments:

• I’m still working on revisions to And the Devil Will Drag You Under, though that’s on pause for a couple of months while I work on another novel. Which is…
• Witness to the Scourge. This one started as a short story called “The BIM” which grew to novella length, which was criticized for having way too much worldbuilding in it, so naturally I decided it needs to be a novel. So it’s happening.
• I’m also working on a new short story, “The Dragon Under Tower Bridge”. This one should be fun. I plan to have a rough draft completed by the end of April.
• In publication news, my short story “Heavens Below Us” was picked up by the Dragon Gems Anthology for Summer 2024. Yay!

I’m also going to enter the Grist Imagine 2200: Write the Future contest, assuming I can get something written in time. That should be fun.

Gaming

My pirate-themed Pathfinder game has been running for something like two years now, based on Facebook posts in my Memories feed, and so far, my players seem to be enjoying it. The only thing we don’t really like is the game system, Pathfinder. So I’m on a quest to find an RPG system that allows for heavy character role-play and is light on combat rules. I’ve found a couple of candidate systems, including Fate and Spark, but I haven’t read through them yet. I’m also checking out Old Gods of Appalachia, since my friend Dezzy gifted me with the rulebooks for that one, and I may run a game in that system soon. We’ll see.

And finally, this coming Sunday:

This coming Sunday, March 31, is Easter Sunday. It’s also the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR, for purposes of this blog post), which is dedicated to remembering and celebrating the lives of transgendered people who have been murdered or who have died by suicide. There are too many of those.

Naturally, there are conservative Christians who are upset about this coincidence, who believe that the TDoR ought to be canceled or at least moved this year.

I figure, though, why should they? Many of the trans men and women that I know have forsworn Christianity because of how Christians have treated them. I’d like to say that not all Christians are like that, but every trans person has experienced some level of Christian harassment. There are some trans* folks who are Christians, and I have deep respect for them as well as for those who are not. Being trans* in this world, where they, a relatively small marginalized group, are increasingly harassed and made pariahs simply for existing, is rough and scary.

Besides, Easter is a season of transformation. Given all that, I’d say the coincidence is appropriate.

Here’s a recommendation for you: A Field of Foxglove, by my friend Hilary Rose Berwick. This lesbian nun cozy is outside of my normal reading range, but I enjoyed it, and I think you should read it.