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Nov. 15th, 2021 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnMe: Now that it's mid-November, I've finally got the church Christmas program sorted and I can start catching up on other stuff, like DW and my Yuletide fic and beta --
Bishopric: Hey, just wanted to call and catch up on Christmas music and mention two things. First, the stake is holding a Christmas music celebration and is asking if our ward choir can participate.
Me: ???? This sounds... like not the best idea our stake has ever had...
...But anyway, a month ago when I asked what the guidance was on choirs, the bishop told me choirs were only possible masked and distanced (which I think is great) and I asked around and literally no one I talked to wanted to have choir under those restrictions. So we don't HAVE a choir. But we do have a small group of vaccinated people who were going to sing something and I guess I could ask them...
Bishopric: Cool, sounds legit! Also the First Presidency [global Church leaders; as you probably know this is an extremely hierarchical church, so this would be sort of like the Pope and the Vatican, I guess, except that people actually do what the First Presidency says, for the most part] this week was encouraging people to have Christmas programs on Dec 26. Not Dec 19, which is when you've planned everything for.
Me: ... okay. I guess... I'll ask everyone if they can do that.
[I should say that Bishopric guy was extremely apologetic! Totally not his fault, but gah.]
Bishopric: One last thing, we've historically had this Christmas ward musical fireside thing, do you think we should do that again now that we also have this stake music thing?
Me, remembering the multiple conversations I had in 2019 with other musicians saying "...don't you think this is all a bit much, we are all super stretched thin??": You know what, I'm super going to go with "no" on this one. If people complain bitterly we can tell them it was because of the pandemic (not even false, I was assuming we weren't going to have it this year because of the pandemic).
So last night (and part of tonight) instead of doing fun stuff I emailed/texted everyone involved, and I think got back that most people are going to be able to do stuff on Dec 26? Including the person who I wasn't sure was due to have a baby Dec 26 or Jan 2, but it turns out it's Jan 2 and so as long as she's support/coach and not directly performing, it seems like it will all be okay unless she goes into labor that day which she thinks is unlikely :) There might be minor drama with one person which hopefully will be easily fixed if everyone else is reasonable. Crossing my fingers on that one -- of the four people involved in the conversation, two of them I am super confident will be super reasonable, and then there is a small but nontrivial chance that Fourth Person will be unreasonable in the opposite direction. But aaaaaaah! (ETA: Fourth Person has responded entirely reasonably, YAY)
But at least I will probably not have to do anything for a ward musical fireside!
Bishopric: Hey, just wanted to call and catch up on Christmas music and mention two things. First, the stake is holding a Christmas music celebration and is asking if our ward choir can participate.
Me: ???? This sounds... like not the best idea our stake has ever had...
...But anyway, a month ago when I asked what the guidance was on choirs, the bishop told me choirs were only possible masked and distanced (which I think is great) and I asked around and literally no one I talked to wanted to have choir under those restrictions. So we don't HAVE a choir. But we do have a small group of vaccinated people who were going to sing something and I guess I could ask them...
Bishopric: Cool, sounds legit! Also the First Presidency [global Church leaders; as you probably know this is an extremely hierarchical church, so this would be sort of like the Pope and the Vatican, I guess, except that people actually do what the First Presidency says, for the most part] this week was encouraging people to have Christmas programs on Dec 26. Not Dec 19, which is when you've planned everything for.
Me: ... okay. I guess... I'll ask everyone if they can do that.
[I should say that Bishopric guy was extremely apologetic! Totally not his fault, but gah.]
Bishopric: One last thing, we've historically had this Christmas ward musical fireside thing, do you think we should do that again now that we also have this stake music thing?
Me, remembering the multiple conversations I had in 2019 with other musicians saying "...don't you think this is all a bit much, we are all super stretched thin??": You know what, I'm super going to go with "no" on this one. If people complain bitterly we can tell them it was because of the pandemic (not even false, I was assuming we weren't going to have it this year because of the pandemic).
So last night (and part of tonight) instead of doing fun stuff I emailed/texted everyone involved, and I think got back that most people are going to be able to do stuff on Dec 26? Including the person who I wasn't sure was due to have a baby Dec 26 or Jan 2, but it turns out it's Jan 2 and so as long as she's support/coach and not directly performing, it seems like it will all be okay unless she goes into labor that day which she thinks is unlikely :) There might be minor drama with one person which hopefully will be easily fixed if everyone else is reasonable. Crossing my fingers on that one -- of the four people involved in the conversation, two of them I am super confident will be super reasonable, and then there is a small but nontrivial chance that Fourth Person will be unreasonable in the opposite direction. But aaaaaaah! (ETA: Fourth Person has responded entirely reasonably, YAY)
But at least I will probably not have to do anything for a ward musical fireside!
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Date: 2021-11-21 04:43 am (UTC)YT is going well for me this year, in an unexpected way... last year was the year of mega-longfic, and this year is super-tinyfic. Not because I don't like the canon--- things just need to be the length they are. Now I'm looking around for something to write a treat for. Not you, sadly: I will let those who liked the Scholomance as much as you did explore it with you, and while I will be eagerly watching the Matter of Seggri tag, I don't think I can do it justice.
My latest reads are finally finishing Malka Older's "State Tectonics" trilogy (good, but not Hugo-eligible--- I missed it when it came out), and Lindsay Ellis's sequel to Axiom's End. What I liked about AE: the acknowledgment that relationships are complicated, and memorizing a list of keywords ("consent", "autonomy") will not remove this complexity, and people who are too messed up to have wholly "good" relationships still need other people. What I didn't like: the aliens themselves... not alien enough. The sequel is right where the first one was on both counts.
A bit further back, Nghi Vo's "Singing Hills" novellas and Zen Cho's "Black Water Sisters," both of which have lovely Asian-mythology worldbuilding and queer female characters, and which are otherwise not much alike. IIRC those were both on this current year's Hugo cycle?
How is your YT going?
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Date: 2021-11-21 05:52 am (UTC)*nods* I'm definitely familiar with having to write longfic for some things and shortfic for others! Totally agree that things sometimes just need to be a particular length. Ha, of course I am always extremely happy to get treats from you! -- though I'd kind of suspected in any case that my requests this year weren't quite your style. Maybe next year... :)
I haven't read any Older or Axiom's End, though I keep seeing them about -- hm, what you like about AE sounds very much like I'd like it too, and maybe I won't mind the aliens too much if I know about them going in :)
The first Singing Hill novella was on this year's Hugo ballot, and I really really liked it. Oh, hmm, the Zen Cho was published this year, so I should take a look at it for next year's ballot, thanks!
My YT is going well! I fortunately landed a request where the writing wasn't a problem (sometimes I feel like a story flows pretty naturally, and sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get it to work, and this one is the former). I'm hoping to have time to write a treat -- we'll see. (Probably not for you as well -- you have amazing canons and prompts which I have no idea how I could fill :) I will read the heck out of whatever gets written for you, though!)