When Authors Don’t Know: A Rant

~ shawnaborman ~ Leave a comment

Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Things here are still a waiting game. I had to push a wheelchair meeting back from last week to this Friday (my fault, not theirs). I called Medicaid on the 11th and was told my review should’ve been done by August 28th, so she escalated it so someone should finish it soon. I guess I’ll have to call them every week until it gets done. Anyway, I don’t really have anything to ramble about today. But I promised an actual post, so I thought about it and I’m reading a new-to-me series that is both great so far and annoying as fuck. I guess I can rant about the annoying bit.

I started reading the Fourth Wing books by Rebecca Yarros. I made it through Fourth Wing and am about halfway through Iron Flame. I knew there was also Onyx Storm, but I didn’t realize there are at least two more books planned. I probably would’ve waited for them to come out before I started the series. But that’s beside the point. First, I should tell you what I like about it.

It’s a romantasy series and there’s sex on the page, so if you don’t like smut, it’s not for you. But I’m fine with it, so it’s not a problem for me. The premise is basically that the whole continent is at war, so there’s a war college where healers learn medicine, scribes learn to record events accurately, infantry learns to fight on the ground, and riders learn how not to get killed by their dragons. We’re focusing on the riders here. But what if those in charge are more busy hiding the truth than actually protecting their people??? Dun dun dun… Yeah, it’s not exactly original, but it’s fun so far.

I didn’t realize the main character was disabled when I bought the book, but I’m okay with that. Violet has an unnamed connective tissue disability, but given that the author has EDS, I’m guessing it’s something akin to that. There’s also a deaf character and some people know how to sign while others don’t. None of it is really a big deal. Sometimes, accommodations need to be made for Violet, but considering she bonded with the biggest badass dragon of her time, people just allow the accommodations to be made rather than facing the wrath of Tairn. Even when she’s in denial about needing different things, she eventually gives in and realizes it’s not cheating or whatever to do things that make her capable of doing what everyone else is already doing. It’s just part of life. So, I enjoy that aspect of the books.

But I did run into something that makes me irrationally angry. Bladed weapons are a huge part of the book. Most characters have at least one knife or sword or whatever. It’s so important that care and maintenance of the weapons is used as filler during dialogue sometimes. At one point it was mentioned that someone was sharpening their knife on a leather strap. But a strop doesn’t sharpen a blade, it hones it. Honing is realigning the cutting edge. Sharpening removes metal to create a new cutting edge basically. I’m no expert, but I do know the very basics and it makes me weirdly upset when I catch an author who hasn’t done a minimum effort of research. It makes me wonder what else is wrong with the book. Especially in fantasy and sci-fi, I count on the author to know what they’re talking about and when something simple crops up that’s wrong, it ruins their credibility. She got a little better in book two with honing vs. sharpening, but I feel like there’s still some confusion. Luckily, it’s not something that comes up often, so I try to ignore it when it happens, but it’s still eye-twitch inducing. And yes. I know it’s just a pet peeve. I’m being irrational. It’s just one of my things.

Anyway, I’m enjoying the series so far. The characters do seem to be much stupider in book two, so I’m not sure how I’ll feel by the end of it. We’ll see.

Wheelchair Saga Part 9

~ shawnaborman ~ 6 Comments

Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this wonderful Wednesday? Welcome to September! Things here are still “hurry up and wait” all around (Medicaid, wheelchair, etc.). I wrote 15,365 words in August and I wrote at least a little every day. I plan to do it again this month with my only real goal being “write more than August.” Anyway, I don’t have much to ramble about, so here’s another update to the Wheelchair Saga. You can find parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 at their respective links. Here we go.

Background: Randy from Universal Med Supply brought the chair out on July 28th. Two parts were wrong. It should’ve taken a week tops to get the replacements, but for some reason it took them a month (no idea who dropped the ball on this). I spent a month having to pull teeth to get answers and timelines. I’m not a happy Cyn (for those who don’t get the reference, I’ve been known as CynicalCripple online since the Yahoo chat days and people still call me Cyn). Anyway…

On August 31st, Randy brought out the replacement parts. Problem? He never bothered to learn how to program the button I ordered. Second problem? He was running so late that Sunrise Medical’s IT department was already closed, so he was going to have to come back again to program it with help. Why not just reschedule when you realize you’re going to be that late? I mean… I could have been the bigger person and told him to just try again a different day because I knew that was going to happen, but I’m petty. They want to make him make a useless trip, that’s their problem. I’m not giving them an easy out after everything they’ve done. But I digress. He replaced the knee pads with the correct thigh pads. So, those problems are at least partially corrected. Also, Mohamed didn’t send the “try it just in case” armrest pads. Again. I figure those are never coming and Dad will have to come up with something if the current armrests are too narrow to support my left side and right elbow. Also, there’s a new problem!

No one (looking at John West here) bothered asking me about what kind of joystick mount I needed and I honestly never thought about it or mentioning it. I figured a standard mount that sits against the armrest would be, you know… standard. Oops. They sent a swing away mount. In theory, it’s great. In practice, it’s not particularly adjustable and it’s way too far from where my hand would sit. My current joystick has never been very comfortable for me in that respect, but the new one is impossible. So, now I have to wait for a new mount for that. No idea how long that’s going take. Ugh.

It’s not like walking onto a car lot and driving away with something. Don’t ever think being cripple is easy. It’s mostly just paperwork and waiting.

Thoughts on EXPERIMENTS IN OFFLINE DATING

~ shawnaborman ~ Leave a comment

Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Things here are all still in “wait” mode. Luckily, it’s the last Wednesday of the month, so you know what that means. Book review time! For August, I decided to go with a straight up romance. No fantasy. No magic. No monsters. Just two people falling in love. Which is weird for me, but once in a while weird things are interesting. Experiments in Offline Dating by Kat Mackenzie was released yesterday (August 25th) by Avon Books. As usual, I must thank them and NetGalley for access to an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Let’s do the thing!

Experiments in Offline Dating follows Maya, the cohost of a podcast where she goes on ridiculously bad dates (usually due to her own awkwardness) and tries to figure out how love works using the data she collects. She’s used everything from the apps to being set up on blind dates by random people. The fact that she’s 38 and has never been in love makes the spinster life seem inevitable. For the new season of the podcast, Maya decides to go offline and sign up for help from a real life Irish matchmaker. Can he help her find love? She doubts it, but at least she gets to explore Ireland between the absurd dates!

Plot and pacing: cute and off. The plot is cute. It’s your usual enemies-to-lovers fare. The matchmaker obviously has ulterior motives when he promises Maya a 3-week cross-country trip and immediately pawns her off on his grumpy son who she has already embarrassed herself with. It goes about how you’d expect. The only real problem with the plot is the banter. It enters bitchy territory a lot. It’s not cute or funny. It’s just rude as hell and I’m surprised no one gets punched in the face for the things they say. But that’s just me. The pacing, on the other hand, is not a me thing. It starts out super fast paced, then just kind of dies to a crawl about halfway through. There are two points around the 75% mark that are supposed to be pivotal scenes, but they both get glanced over. And the ending felt like cheating, but a lot of books pull that family emergency crap to avoid making the characters actually deal with things in a sane manner.

Characters: mostly good. I liked Maya and Tadhg a lot. I did want a little more background on Tadhg, but he fleshed out enough to be enjoyable. Simone could have used more page time. The only character I didn’t care for was Jackie. He’s supposed to be mischievous and adorable, but if you really think about what he does, he’s a manipulative dick. And dangerous. Luring people to a sea cave so they get trapped during high tide? That’s how people die. Giving out a woman’s phone number without permission? Ick at best. Setting the woman up with some “handsy” dude when you know she doesn’t like to be touched and doesn’t really know how to tell a dude to fucking stop if he wants to keep his fingers? Shame on you. But if you don’t think about it too much, Jackie’s okay too. And of course, Finn (the dog) is my favorite.

Writing: not bad. It makes for a smooth read despite the pacing issues. There was nothing bad about it. Nothing great either. It was unobtrusive, which I like. It didn’t get in the way of the story.

Ultimately, I enjoyed Experiments in Offline Dating for what it was, despite my complaints. It was basically Nobody Wants This (it’s a show on Netflix with a similar premise), but without the religious aspect. So, it’s cute and I’ll probably forget all about it by next week.

Overall, I gave it 4 out of 5 stars. Actually, 3.5. If you enjoy romances with enemies-to-lovers and partially sunshine/grumpy tropes, check it out.

Wheelchair Saga Part 8

~ shawnaborman ~ 7 Comments

Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Nothing new here. Official status of basically everything in my life: still waiting. If you’re just tuning in to the Wheelchair Saga, you can find parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 at their respective links. This is going to be short.

Randy came out three weeks ago as of Tuesday around 3pm. The incorrect button was supposed to be shipped priority the day after he came out. It was shipped last week. I have had to be short in my emails to get updates. Yesterday, I asked for updates. The response was swift. Universal Med Supply has received the button and the new mounting hardware for the thigh pads, but there’s still no word on the thigh pads themselves. Mohamed called the wheelchair company and is waiting for them to get back to him about what’s going on with the pads. So, yeah. Still waiting.

Random Life Update

~ shawnaborman ~ 2 Comments

Hello, hello! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? I don’t really have anything to ramble about, so I guess I’m just going to give you a few random life updates. None of these are worth an entire post by themselves. Mashing them together seems good enough. In no particular order, this is my life right now…

1. Wheelchair: still waiting for the correct parts to come in.

2. Medicaid: still waiting for them to finish reviewing my stuff and making sure I’m still poor. I do have screenshots of everything telling me that I’ve done my part and they’ll be in touch if they need anything else. I also recorded a phone call saying the same thing. Just in case they try to say otherwise.

3. Writing: I’ve written at least a little on my unnamed cozy mystery with ghosts every day in August. I’ve written 6480 words as of the 10th. I’ll try to write 100 or so tonight (Tuesday the 11th) and 1,000 on Wednesday. It’s going well so far.

4. Reading: I’m ahead on that.

5. Slushing: I’m behind on that. Mostly because I’m prioritizing writing. But I’m still doing it. I just feel bad that I’m not doing more.

6. Applying to vote by mail: my voter registration card had the wrong VUID. I’m just lucky I caught it now instead of when it’s time to vote. Dad’s was also wrong. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might believe that the administration or someone connected to them is trying to fuck shit up by hacking voter systems and either randomly sending out wrong info to a random number of people in general OR they’re doing it to people who tend to vote Democrat even though we aren’t registered as Democrats. But there’s no proof of any of that and I’m not a conspiracy nut, so it was probably just a random malfunction that hit Dad and I because we’re at the same address. I don’t know. Check your voter registration card against county and Secretary of State records. Especially in Texas and definitely if you’re in Dallas county.

That’s it. I’m boring. I know.

Wheelchair Saga Part 7

~ shawnaborman ~ 13 Comments

Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely first Wednesday of August? I’m grumpy and annoyed and haven’t been sleeping well at all. I called Medicaid yesterday and wasted an hour and a half of my life. Like 70 minutes of that was spent on hold. First girl was sweet but useless (they always are because I think their entire job is to transfer people to where they might need to go). She transferred me to the special escalation unit where they can answer basic questions or forward you to higher ups. I just wanted to know if my renewal was actually received. Second girl (less cheerful but also sweet) confirmed that it has been received and is actually under review. They have until November 12 to make their decision. But I really just wanted a recording saying it was received in case they try to screw me around like last year. Anyway, I’m mostly grumpy and annoyed about the wheelchair, so let’s update the Wheelchair Saga! Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 can be found at their respective links. I’ll try to be quick because (believe it or not) this is not the last installment.

A little over a week ago, a guy named Randy brought my new wheelchair out and proceeded to start setting it up for me. Yay? Not really. There were things that were wrong. First off, I can’t reach the buttons on the joystick box, so I have to order special programmable buttons just to turn my chair on and off or control the speed profiles and seating. I currently have huge buttons that I have always hated aesthetically speaking. When I found a smaller two-in-one version, I was super happy. They cost Dad $525 out of pocket, which is fucking ridiculous. But for some reason, they sent a set that only had one wire. You have to plug the buttons in to make them work. In two different ports. Otherwise, only one button works. I checked. I told Mohamed I wanted the button that had two wires, so not my fault. I don’t know if it was ordered wrong or if Sunrise (Quickie maker) sent the wrong one. Either way, Randy told Mohamed and a Quickie tech what we needed and it was supposed to be shipped the next day priority after Mohamed signed paperwork. A week ago.

Another thing wrong was that I ordered thigh support pads. I got tiny ass knee support pads. I don’t know if any of you have seen my thigh fat, but it will destroy those tiny circles the first pothole we hit that jostles me into them. They could’ve sent either of the thigh pads and it would’ve been fine. Why knee pads? Who screwed up? Probably Universal, but I can’t be positive, so all I can do is grit my teeth and wait for it to be fixed.

The only other unplanned concern I have is the arm pads. I repeatedly told Mohamed that I need wide and flat arm pads. He said he would send out some different styles and we could try to make them work because Quickie doesn’t really have wide ones. They max out at about 2, maybe 3in. But there are no extra arm pads in the stuff left behind and the ones on the chair are indeed super narrow, so that’s concerning.

Other than that stuff, the chair looks great and we will make it work. I still hate the footrest hangers. They aren’t as ugly in person, but they also don’t match anything else on the chair. It’s black, purple, and green. They’re just a couple of random silverish bars. But the reason I really don’t like them is because I can’t operate them myself. The old system (like the manual hangers pictured below) have a paddle style release on the side that I can brush against a corner and they flip the footrest out sideways. The new ones are operated by a trigger style latch, so someone has to pull the trigger and twist the footrests out. I won’t be able to do that by myself. Hopefully, that’s my only loss when I finally get in the new chair. At least it’s a pretty chair.

Thoughts on SHRINK SOLVES MURDER

~ shawnaborman ~ Leave a comment

Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? It’s actually Monday as I’m writing this because my new wheelchair is supposed to be delivered tomorrow, so I probably won’t feel like writing a blog post. But! It means you can expect an update on the saga next week. I’m still waiting on Medicaid to review my renewal paperwork. That’s about it besides the low level terror of the administration and living in Texas and how they all feel about cripples. But, anyway. It’s the last Wednesday of July, so you know what that means. Book review time! This month, I stuck within my cozy mystery comfort zone. Shrink Solves Murder by Philippa Perry was released by Crown Publishing on the 28th. As usual, I must thank them and NetGalley for access to an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Let’s do the thing!

Shrink Solves Murder follows Patricia Phillips, a psychotherapist and woman of a certain age. She’s set in her ways. She has issues with her daughter, relationships, and isn’t likely to win Miss Congeniality even if her life depended on it. But at least she’s good at her job. Right? When a client shows up dead in a prime suicide spot and the police rule the death just that, Pat wonders just how wrong she could have been about the young man’s state of mind. Was she wrong at all or is something more sinister going on? Since the police have no interest in finding the truth, Pat will do it herself.

Plot: pretty standard. Pat wrangles her bestie (Pritchard) into helping her solve what may or may not be a murder. It’s a small English village (think Midsomer Murders, but on the seaside). People get up to all kinds of things from the mundane to the kinky. Everyone kind of seems to hate each other but can’t stand it when anyone seems to hate them. It’s the type of book where everyone is too obvious to be the murderer, so when they’re revealed it’s one of those “who? Oh, that one who was mentioned once 200 pages ago” moments. They actually show up a couple of times, but still. Same feeling. There’s no real romantic entanglement, not even a hint at one. But there’s a random growth arc with her daughter. To be honest, it wasn’t very memorable as far as cozy mysteries go, but it wasn’t bad at all. I quite enjoyed it as I was reading it.

Characters: interesting for the most part. Pat definitely feels like a self-insert. I wouldn’t call her a Mary Sue per se because she’s not young and perfect and all that. But it definitely feels like the author writing a story with some part of herself as the main character. Pat’s still an interesting character, though. Love Pritchard, but I want to know more about him. He has potential. I just felt he was still cookie-cutter quirky friend. I could do without the DS. She’s lazy and doesn’t do her job and only wants to fool around with her boyfriend. She did nothing for the book. The rest of the characters were flat. But if you read the acknowledgments, you’ll see that most of the characters are literally named after the author’s friends. It was a bit cringe to be honest. Made the whole thing feel a little like middle school besties writing stories for each other.

Writing: fine. There wasn’t anything wrong with the writing. It was just fine. But I fully admit that the title annoys me. I guess they were going for news headline speak, but I still hate it. If the blurb hadn’t interested me, I would’ve skipped it.

Ultimately, I found Shrink Solves Murder okay. It wasn’t bad. The characters could go either way if there are future books. If I end up liking them, I might read past book two. But I probably will pick up a second book at least.

Overall, I gave it 3 out of 5 stars. A solid 3. There’s potential, but I’m not quite sure if it could support a series. If you like seaside English villages, give it a try.

Disabled Writers

~ shawnaborman ~ 4 Comments

Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this wonderful Wednesday? Things here are okay so far. I’m not hearing good things about this administration and their disability policies. But I haven’t taken the time to do a deep dive to see what’s real and what’s panic/fearmongering, so I’m not going to freak out yet. Anyway, I’m still waiting for the wheelchair and for Medicaid to review my poorness, so I don’t have anything new to ramble about. However, since it’s still Disability Pride Month, I decided to make a list of books by disabled authors. These are not books I’ve read because I never actually intentionally looked for books by disabled writers, so I have missed a lot. Shame on me. But they have been added to my TBR list!

1. Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa.

2. Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw: Reimagining Success as a Disabled Achiever by Eddie Ndopu.

3. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

4. Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong.

5. Game Changer by Rachel Reid.

I’ll be back next week with the usual book review!

Wheelchair Saga Part 6

~ shawnaborman ~ 5 Comments

Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Things here are usual. The waiting game. Medicaid decided it is time for me to renew, which basically just means proving I’m still poor as well as cripple. I got everything together and sent it in. Last year they screwed me around even though I had everything faxed to them within a day of each letter I received. I called them repeatedly and was told I was fine and they had everything. Got told I was denied because I didn’t send anything in. Had to have my CLASS case manager come call in with me. Luckily, we finally got in touch with someone who knew what they were doing and that lady input everything based on what I had in fact sent in and fast tracked my approval. So, to hopefully avoid all that drama, I submitted everything online this time. We’ll see if that goes any better. Anyway, I figured I would give you a small update on the Wheelchair Saga. You can check out parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 in their respective links.

We’re still in the hurry up and wait phase. Which is partly my fault. I hate the footrests that come with the Q700, so I had emailed Sunrise (they make the Quickies) to see if they could put hangers and plates from the manual chairs on the Q700. They took forever to answer, but eventually said they could do that. My chair order had only been put in a couple of days before, so I decided to ask Universal to see if they could get me what I wanted instead of the ugly ones. They asked for a hold to be put on my chair and asked if it could be done. At first it seemed like it would be fine, but it would cost extra. Then it took a week for Sunrise to randomly say no they can’t do it. I don’t know why it took so long. No idea why they can’t do it. Whatever. So, that added an extra week of waiting for nothing. The original guesstimate for delivery was 2-3 weeks. That was June 1st. Throw in the week I waited for nothing. 3-4weeks. It’s been 6 weeks.

But I did get an email from Mohamed on July 10th saying that he was told my chair had shipped from Nashville and that they should get it this week. He did inform me that even though they couldn’t get the hangers I wanted, they could do the footplates. At least they won’t be as ugly/cheap looking. Anyway, they’ll then call me to schedule the appointment to bring it out and set everything up. More waiting! Maybe I’ll have something new to report next week.