It smells like spring.
I noticed it early in the month when Bear and I were taking the boys out for their after-dinner walk — the scent of green and damp in the air. In other years, I would be welcoming the scent of green with open windows and even longer walks, but it feels...wrong to have spring arrive so early this year. Bear and I had hoped that we would have at least one significant snowfall this year to introduce the pups to snow, but it’s been warm and rainy instead.
I don’t feel the ordinary passage of time and I don’t like it. It makes me feel unsettled.
Nevertheless, February was full-up with a lot happening in my personal life, probably because I have a lot of Aquariuses in it. I don’t know if it’s because I’m an Aquarius rising or what, but I seem to collect them like Pokémon. Bear and Castor & Pollux, not to mention their auntie Roshani Chokshi, with whom they share a birthday.
There was much ado about Aquariuses in the month of February.
First, the Great Unmanning or, The Boys Got Neutered at Last. When I first took the boys in to the vet for their puppy vaccines and check-ups, the vet advised that I wait “as close to one year as possible” before getting them fixed, unless they displayed “excessive unwanted male behaviors.” My boys are generally pretty good; they do not mark inside the house, they do not hump things or people or each other, although they do occasionally get humpy with other dogs at the dog park or the dog bar. While annoying, none of this was considered especially urgent in getting them neutered.
But at last, the boys are one year old, so they got their balls removed.
They recovered beautifully, but probably because they’ve never eaten so good. Koreans make congee for each other when sick (equivalent to making chicken soup in America), so I made the boys chicken congee for meals. Also we put them in surgical recovery suits, as per Bear’s nurse’s recommendation, and that seemed to have helped.
Shortly after the boys got unmanned, we celebrated Bear’s birthday. I make him stuffed cabbage every year as it’s his favorite dish, and of course, the boys had to be part of the meal. So I made them a dog-friendly version (no garlic or onion, and boiled in chicken stock instead of tomato juice). Everyone ate well.
A few days after that, Lemon and I drove down to Atlanta to celebrate the release of Roshani Chokshi’s adult debut, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride.
One of the things I mourned most during the pandemic was the disappearance of events at which I could hang out with my author friends, colleagues, and other bookish people in person. Rosh and Lemon are family, but it was still really lovely to be together with them to celebrate the launch of Rosh’s book.
Of course, I was back home in time for the boys’ birthday. Officially one year old on Valentine’s Day. I attempted to take a video of them getting their present, but alas, I will never get a cute video of my two chaos clowns sitting calmly in birthday hats while I sing them happy birthday. 💀
Lexical Gap
This creative life
The Morning Realms Dispatch
Notes from the Underground
What you might have missed
Reading
Watching
Other things of note
🧩 lexical gap: 썸타다
Pronounced sseom-ta-da. Like last month’s lexical gap, this is another neologism with the first syllable of a phrase is portmanteau-ed into a new word. In this case, the phrase is “something (English) going along.” This is the state of a romantic relationship where things are casual, but hasn’t yet gotten serious because no one has DTR-ed.
“So how are things going with that new person you’ve been seeing?”
“Eh, 우리가 썸타다. We’re something going along. We’ll see how it goes.”
✍🏻 this creative life
As of February 26, I finished the terrible zero draft of GUARDIANS 2. I wrote about 80,000 words in six weeks, which is incredibly fast for me. Normally I’m someone who prefers to write really “clean” first drafts, where the prose is decent and everything is largely in place. But “clean” first drafts take forever because I’m trying to do everything at once — the characterization, the storyline, the plot, and the prose.
For me, zero drafting was giving myself permission to suck and not care. And somewhat contradictorily, when I gave myself permission to suck and not care is when I had the most fun writing a story that I’ve had in the longest time. I might talk about it at length for the podcast later.
🌞 the morning realms dispatch
ARCS HAVE ARRIVED. ARE THEY NOT GLORIOUS.
I got a box a few weeks ago, so I’ve got bunch of copies to giveaway. Stay tuned!
FURTHER READING
The Morning Realms Dispatch No. 5: Sailor Moon
The Guardians Gazette No. 2: Reading fanfiction in bathtubs
🥀 notes from the underground
For my inaugural JJubilee, I decided to bring out some old Wintersong-related content from the vault. But! In celebration of my six years as an author, I am giving away a signed copy of Wintersong, as well as handmade booklets of the “unadulterated” scenes and the annotation. Go to my Instagram for a chance to win!
Anyway, thank you. All of you. It’s because of you I get to do this at all. <3
✨ what you might have missed
Creative Alchemy: Why we create. Artistic wounds, validation, connection, and more.
After Hours: Is publishing getting harder? Yes. For my 절친 only.
Negative capability: talent, memorable, mediocre, celebrity. For my 절친 only.
📖 reading
Chain of Thorns by Cassandra Clare.
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi.
Some monster smut I will not be linking to but I did find it on TikTok. It is very well written, but somewhat thin on the actual monster smut part, so I don’t know what to think about it. I was expecting more monster and less smut if I’m being completely honest.
📺 watching
Still signing stuff. 👀
Severance. Again. I know. I’m obsessed. I have THEORIES! If you also have THEORIES please let me know because I am dying to talk to people about them.
Ted Lasso. Everyone and their mother had been telling me to watch this, and the troll in me is very irritated that Everyone and Their Mother was, in fact, correct. All joking aside, this was incredibly warm and wholesome and also funny and I loved it.
[Redacted]. This is a show based on the intellectual property of someone I don’t feel comfortable supporting, but since I apparently also have no self-control, I can’t stop watching either.
Sailor Moon. Still delightful, even 30 years later.
💾 other things of note
Sang, Elliot. “Time Management is Capitalist Propaganda.” Elliot Sang, YouTube.
Signifier, F.D. “Broke Bread (Left Tube has a Drama Problem).” F.D. Signifier, YouTube.
Hopefully March will be a little less chaotic around Chez JJ. I can’t believe how quickly the year is flying by...