Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Books read in January 2023

New: 

1. Minique by Anna Maxymiw
 
Reread:
 
1. Taken in Death
2. Concealed in Death

Saturday, January 28, 2023

Cascade Complete from the grocery store is better than Cascade Complete from Amazon

I previously tried Cascade Complete, and found it subpar and ineffective.

However, I recently ran out of dishwasher detergent, and Cascade Complete was the only one I could find in store. So I bought it, thinking it's better than nothing until I can get something else.

My first surprise is that the detergent was a different colour. My previous Cascade Complete (which I bought on Amazon) was a kind of dull greyish blue. The new one from the grocery store was a bright greenish blue.
 
My second surprise was that it worked! No food left on pans, no stained teacups, my dishes were clean!

I've been using it for some time, and it's on par with the lemon Cascade I was using before!

So maybe the Cascade I bought from Amazon was a bad batch?

So far I've only tried one bottle of Cascade from Amazon and one from the grocery store so I don't know how widespread the problem is, but I'm glad to know that the most common liquid dishwasher detergent actually works when I buy it in store!

And if I ever again get a bottle of Cascade that's dull greyish blue, I'm returning it right away.

Saturday, January 07, 2023

Romance novels vs. fanfiction

I recently saw someone on book twitter say that it's a convention of the genre that romance novels have to have a happy ending.

That surprised me, because when I do read romance, I'm usually metaphorically peeking between my fingers, feeling like this is all going to end in heartbreak.

Often it's not worry about whether the couple ends up together, but rather worrying that they're not right for each other. Especially in cishet romance, I'm fearing that the male lead is unsafe for the female lead. (After all, we all know that handsome and charming does not necessarily equal safe!)

Even in the In Death books, which I have been reading and enjoying for OMG 15 years now, I read the whole first book and didn't feel that Roarke was a safe partner for Eve. I only even started the second book because it had already arrived from the library and it eventually won me over. 

The problem with early In Death, which I think is also the problem with many romance novels, is the author is writing from the assumption that the couple belongs together. But as a reader, I just got here. I have no emotional attachment to the pairing, I have no reason to believe they belong together, and I'm not motivated to suspend disbelief. The author would have to win me over and actually demonstrate that they belong together, which authors don't always do.

Because of this, I don't read that much romance. 

However, I just realized this is why romantic fanfiction does work for me. In fanfiction, I already know the characters and I already agree that the couple belongs together - that's why I'm reading that pairing! So the author doesn't have to win me or the rest of the audience over. Everyone already agrees that the couple belongs together, and we can just enjoy the ride. For example, I recently read an AU where one main character (who was in a position of greater power) accidentally kidnapped the other (who was in a more vulnerable position). In original fiction, that would be appalling! But, because I already agree with the author that the couple belongs together, I'm like "Oh, that scamp, how's he going to get out of this mess?"

Writing this out, I realized that I more often start shipping characters from movies or TV shows rather than books. Something about seeing the relationship played out visually is more convincing to me. Other than In Death, I can't think of a pairing I've started shipping after reading them in a book. But nevertheless, once the shipping is established, text continued to be my preferred medium for fanfiction.

Wednesday, January 04, 2023

"He's an asshole but I don't remember why": a post-head-injury phenomenon

Since my head injury, my brain behaves as though it's trying to save disk space, by deleting information it believes is no longer needed.

One such category of information is information that was used to make a decision that has been finalized and shouldn't need to be revisited.

One example of these decisions was choosing my condo finishes. I chose my kitchen counters on the basis that they were the least worst of the available options, but my brain has deleted what the problem was with the other ones. I couldn't explain to you what was wrong with them or why my current one was better.

Another example of these decisions was setting up my mortgage. I remember various questions I asked when deciding on the specifics of the mortgage and I remember that I was satisfied with the answers, but I don't remember what the answers were. I couldn't explain to you why this particular kind of mortgage meets my needs best, even though I'm confident that itdoes.
 

Another example of these decisions is deciding that someone I don't have to deal with in real life (a writer, a public figure, etc.) is untrustworthy or should be disregarded. 
 
For example, maybe people I trust on a particular topic don't trust this individual. Maybe this individual's politics are problematic. Maybe I learn that this individual is racist (as I've mentioned before, I'm bad at detecting racism myself, so I can't always tell until someone else mentions it).
 
So I decide to disregard them. I don't pay attention to the untrustworthy things they say, and instead spend my time and energy on trustworthy people. I don't read them for fear that I might unknowingly internalize their racism, and instead opt to read the people who first recognized that the problematic individual is racist.

Decision made, my brain deletes the information I used to arrive at that decision.

Then, sometime later, this individual comes up in conversation. I recognize the name as someone I've made a deliberate, informed decision to distrust for very good reasons. My interlocutor, being a decent human being, would want to know about this.
 
But all that's left in my brain is "He's an asshole . . . but I don't remember why."

***

What's super interesting is how people react to this!
 
When I can't remember or articulate why he's an asshole, people's visceral reaction is "You have no proof, therefore your allegation is non-credible!"
 
And then, they quite frequently go from "Your allegation is non-credible" to "Therefore, the person you are making allegations against is trustworthy!"
 
 
I haven't figured out what to do with this. If I were in my interlocutor's position, I'd want to know that he's an asshole. Based on what I know of my interlocutor, I also think they'd want to know.

But when I present what I know, minus what my post-head-injury brain has deleted, it often comes across as giving the asshole additional credibility.

I don't know what to do with this.