What Stace had to say on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2018

I’ve been debating on what to say here, and how to say it, and if I should say it, for some time now. I’m still not sure how this post will turn out. But I’m typing anyway, because I like to live on the edge.

First, of course, grand and abject apologies. I’ve been way, way absent, and I’m sorry. Those of you who are bothering to read this deserve better (those who aren’t deserve better, too). I am still working and writing–I promise–I just haven’t been online much, or at least not in the areas where I used to be (this is where the uncertainty sets in, but I will explain at least some of it, I promise).

I am still working on Downside 6. It’s happening. I promise.



I am still working on another project which is in its final stages, and I’m planning another new thing I’m very excited about, that–if all goes well–will be a big spooky trilogy.

But a lot of other stuff has happened, too. Good things, for the most part–everyone is fine and happy–but they weren’t so good as they happened and I’m still sad about some/a lot of it.

About two months after my last post, we discovered that Hubs would no longer have a job at the company where he’d been for years. The lack of jobs in a comparable salary range in that area meant we had a decision to make: leave my beloved house in my beloved little town in the North Devon countryside and move to another part of England to start over again by ourselves, or leave my beloved house in my beloved little town in the North Devon countryside and move to Dallas, where my dad lives and where he’d been hoping very much for years we would move so we could be with him.

We chose the latter. We took the settlement money his employer gave him (less than he deserved), hired some movers to take what little stuff we could afford to ship back overseas (and what was feasible, since of course all of our electronics would be useless over here), booked our third transatlantic passage on the Queen Mary II, and came back. From the date he was informed about the changes at his company to the day we set sail was three months almost to the day.

It was heartbreaking. I love America, and I will never be unhappy to be here, but I also loved that little town and I loved the people I had come to know as friends (and the children, friends of my girls, who I viewed almost as mine, as well). And I loved that house. I sometimes have dreams that I’m still living in it, lovingly cleaning the twenty-five feet or so of kitchen counter or using the glorious five-burner-double-oven gas stove, and wake up feeling, well, very very sad.

The bright side, though, is that we’ve now been in “the DFW” for a little over a year–actually, we are in “the HEB”–and it is pretty awesome. I could do without the heat–you may remember I hate summer, in general–but the area is really cool, the people are great, the girls have made friends at their schools, and there’s plenty of shopping and things to do (although not as many 24-hour stores as Miami or even GA, and around 11:30 one night not too long ago I decided to take the girls out to Dunkin’ Donuts on a whim only to find Dunkin’ Donuts closed–I’ve never heard of a DD that isn’t 24 hours! But that’s a minor issue). Hubs has a new job at a company right down the street from Princess’s high school, and he loves it there; it’s a great company with great people, and he’s earning more than he did before. I certainly miss those abundant UK vacation days, but it’s worth giving those up for him to be with a company that is functional and successful, that is well-run and respects its employees.

And, of course, my dad is here, which is great. We’ve all refinanced the mortgage/gone on the deed together and are, among other renovations, building him what us basically an efficiency apartment in a cabin shell which we are attaching to the house. So I’ve been doing a bit of that–I’ve learned to lay tile and build things of wood, and own a number of cool power tools–as well, along with furnishing and decorating. Hubs and I both needed cars, so we are now both driving Kia Souls (mine a white 2013, him a dark silver 2015).

It gets easier every day, not being in Beloved House and Beloved Little Town anymore. I still miss it and my friends there, but I’m okay.

Speaking of things not getting easier, though, and of friends…here we go. I’m going to keep this brief, as brief as I can.

You may remember the last post I wrote here, on the eve of the Presidential election. I expressed hope then, hope that we would all come together and find the commonalities among us and move on united at least in our hope and desire to see our country safe, our fellow Americans happy and taken care of. I expressed faith in my fellow Americans, believing them to be good, caring people for the most part; people who believed in each other and in the rule of law and all of that stuff.

Sadly, I appear to have been wrong–no, I guess I flat-out was wrong. I never in my life thought I would see the outpourings of vitriol, of hatred, that I have seen since that election. And I’m not talking here about the people who actually rioted to protest the results of a legal democratic election. I’m not talking here about the college professors or actors or TV talking heads who like to say outrageous or offensive or ignorant things to stir up viewers and thus ratings. I wish I was talking about those people. But I’m not.

I don’t want to go off on a big rant here and I’m already considering deleting this entire section [note: I have deleted about a thousand words]. Suffice to say I kind of stopped hanging out on social media and other places where I used to love spending time because I became increasingly uncomfortable–no, not uncomfortable; disturbed and upset–by the amount of hatred I was seeing from people I thought I knew, people I liked. I was and am still increasingly disturbed and upset by the black-and-white thinking and tone of it all these days; the glib dismissals, the accusations, the nastiness, the rage and outrage.

And quite frankly, beyond that, I just find the whole thing terribly, terribly boring. I don’t know when or why politics became everyone’s hobby and constant obsession, but I wish it would stop. I cringe when I go on Twitter or Facebook–I am literally afraid to look at them, and go days without doing so–because I know there’s going to be some enormous tempest in a teapot, some enormous artificial scandal that everyone will be freaking out over that will turn out to have been misreported or misinterpreted or just some dumb shit some nobody said that is suddenly the hugest deal in the whole fucking world. Or there will be some tragedy and everyone will be scrambling to point fingers and screech about it being this person’s fault or that person’s fault or this group or that group or jesus christ who the fuck has time for that much goddamn hate in their lives?

Because I don’t.

I have books to write. I have children to raise. I have a kitchen to finish building (IKEA!) and a house to paint and tile and laminate flooring to lay and plumbers and electricians and people screening the porch so I can sit outside without worrying about getting stung by a wasp (I am allergic). I have never in my life gotten to experience most of these things before, and now I actually do–not the big renovation we’d been hoping to do, because we couldn’t come close to affording that, but it’s more than we’ve ever done and after years of renting it’s pretty exciting. I have old now-out-of-print EC books to re-edit and compile for sale. I have a stepdaughter about to go to Japan for a year to teach English in a fishing village; the address she gave us is like seven lines long.

I even have one or two potentially exciting developments going on that I can’t talk about but which have been occupying a semi-decent chunk of my time on occasion.

And in two weeks (less than, actually) we will have a new German Shepherd puppy in our house, and I am extremely excited–I have always wanted one, and this one sort of fell into our laps. I will happily share photos if anyone is interested after reading this. We’re hoping my dad’s older female GSD will like the new little boy, and we think she will–she generally likes other dogs–but we’re afraid his arrival may put her nose out of joint a bit.

So there’s a lot going on. And there’s a lot more that I’m frankly hiding from because I find it so upsetting. (And yeah, like I said, I did take several very large chunks out of this post, so…) I do not have time for the constant stream of vitriol, hyperbole, lies, and hate that seem to be almost all I ever see on social media anymore.

And I have decided that you’d all rather have books from me than see me on Twitter more often, desperately trying to lighten the mood and ignore the bad, but I do still pop in there on occasion. I hope I’m not wrong there, but if I am, oh well, I guess that makes me evil and someone who doesn’t deserve to live, as is apparently the case with all people who are wrong–at least, so it seems on Twitter.

So there you go. That’s what’s been happening with me, and why I haven’t been around. I hope to be around here more. I miss you all. But I have been working very hard, and I promise to have some things to share soon.