The Marvelous Judith Lee

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it today. I hope everyone can be with their family and friends.

This TV season I've enjoyed watching the Miss Fisher Mysteries from Australia; I've tried reading the books but don't like them as much as the show. I found the books to be more action-adventure-oriented, whereas I prefer a cozy mystery. Phryne Fisher is a very interesting character, having been born poor but becoming well-to-do when her father inherited a grand title after WWI, so now she has the money and leisure to devote to being a detective. I find her a refreshing and positive model of women's lib back in the 1930s.

I have read other books as well lately, and I have to rave about Richard Marsh's Judith Lee mysteries. It's two collections of short stories for one great price. I'm 1000 pages into it and still not done yet.

November premieres

I'm so glad Nikita is back. I forgot that the new season started this week, so I'm glad that my DVR remembered for me. It's such a great show, and I'll be sad to see it end. Seeing Alex and Sonya work as Batman and Robin was so good, even though we only got a few glimpses of their storyline in India. I wonder what their codename is, if Nikita's Lone Wolf, Michael is Red Wolf, and headquarters is Blue Wolf?

Fox pushed Almost Human's premiere back, which made me annoyed since I was anticipating it so much. I've enjoyed what I've seen so far, though I had to look away from the screen with the sexbot episode, because I'm squeamish even about fake human bodies being ripped apart like that. I like the banter and the characters. It makes me wish even more that Agents of SHIELD wasn't so disappointing. I haven't watched the last couple of episodes of Shield because I wish that Skye would just die so we could focus on Melinda May and Coulson instead.

On the comedy side, I am enjoying Brooklyn Nine Nine despite the annoying behavior of Andy Samberg's character. The ensemble makes up for it, and I hope it will get better ratings.

Finished

So at long last I completed my story Dirty Little Secret. It's the longest story I've ever written, both in terms of sheer word count and in terms of months spent almost continually writing in my spare time from real life. All this from a story which I intended only to be one or two chapters long. You see, I intended Gob to drop by Sudden Valley once, kiss Michael and offer to help him like in Chapter 42, then leave and return to his roofie circle while Michael says to himself "He's not coming back." But the story had a life of its own, and Michael didn't want to refuse Gob, and thought "why not?" since he was "out of the family." When writers talk about a compulsion to write, independent of any feedback or praise from other people, this is what they mean. So my story expanded and ballooned, much like Mitch Hurwitz intended just a movie, then a few introductory mini-episodes, then gave us season 4, and perhaps much more to come.

Wendy, we need you

Well clearly I spoke too soon about the Texas abortion law. I can't believe the Circuit Court issued a ruling late on Thursday night, forcing clinics to immediately close and cancel appointments with patients on Friday. It's also disturbing to me that letting the law go into effect means that the judges think it's "likely" that the state will win the case. Talk about telegraphing how they're going to rule. So everything's fucked up for months at least, and maybe years too, if Planned Parenthood tries to appeal again, and then the Supreme Court could make it worse. If they strike down Roe vs. Wade, then states across the country could start passing laws like this too. I can't believe how everything's going backwards.

And of course the Voter ID laws are still fouling things up at the polls. I voted myself, but just because I got through doesn't mean it's going to be easy for other voters. It's enough to make me despair of Texas politics again and dread the 2014 elections. If the voter turnout this year is low, and the statewide propositions don't pass like they wanted to, then we can only hope that the Republicans realize what a horrible mistake they've made. We'll see on Tuesday, I guess.