Moving parts, continued

The release post is now stickied, so I can keep posting about follow-up without feeling like I’m burying the announcement.

Also, I forgot to include this song, which has been stuck in my head intermittently through this process. [They Might Be Giants, “Number Three”]

The print version is now live on Amazon. I’m about to send my first email to the mailing list, which I find very daunting despite the fact that these folks specifically signed up for updates. Impostor syndrome 101, right there.

After that, it seems like the only loose thread is Goodreads; I don’t think it has populated there yet. I have found and bookmarked the instructions for requesting an addition, but I’ll wait a little while before going that route.

[EDIT: As soon as I posted this, I saw that Goodreads has populated book 3. All right! Updating link lists now.]


Some of these things would no doubt have been done last week — I’ve been unusually un-procrastinatory with this, once the final draft felt finished — except for timing. My spouse and I already had a long weekend trip scheduled for the 12th-14th, heading to the nearest mountain/forest/river-y region for some outdoorsiness. When it became clear that the book was ready to release a week beforehand, I didn’t want it hanging over my head the whole time. So I did whatever I could complete before the trip, and the remaining loose ends after.

The trip was great. A few years ago I decided my joints and back were too old for tent camping, so we’ve upgraded to cabin rental + day trip mode. So we can go out and do various things, and then come back to sleep where there’s electricity and climate control and indoor plumbing. This time we did some trail walking [I wouldn’t call it “hiking”, it was flat and very maintained] and some lake kayaking. The latter was new to me, and it was a lot of fun.


Finally: just noting that the day we came back, I finished the campaign/story mode in Ring Fit Adventure, a goofy-looking but surprisingly challenging fitness game that I’ve been playing since January. There’s a NewGame+ mode, and as I understand a NewGame++ mode as well — so there’s still plenty to do for a while, even without switching modes. But it was a little personal victory.

I have many, MANY thoughts up on my soapbox about fitness and fitness culture, because so much of it is toxic and shot through with pseudoscientific grift, magical thinking, ableism and general shitty lack of minding one’s own business. I work out because I like it, because it’s one (ONE) tool in my anti-depression toolbox, and because I want to reduce my risk of injury as I age. It doesn’t make me hot, interesting, or more palatable to capitalism. My actions with regards to my body and its upkeep are no one else’s business unless I choose to talk about it, and other people’s actions are likewise none of my business. I’m a socialized-medicine believer despite (or because of) the fact that my country doesn’t have it, and so I don’t believe I morally owe anyone health or the performance of health. I’m not “one of the good ones” because I exercise, and I resist talking about it IRL to avoid that line of conversation.

TLDR, I may be a nerd who plays Squats: The RPG, but I don’t judge anyone else’s actions, choices or situation, and anyone who does should be banished to Mountain Climbers Hell