Where the nostrils cease from dripping and the sinus are at rest

Not that it's happened yet. But every so often there are stretches where it does, and I feel reborn...

Josie's house across the way sold to a lesbian couple with several kids and at least two dogs. They redid the basement to make a granny suite for one grandmother. But now they're temporarily moved out while major renovations happen inside, including it seems a new staircase. This week has seen the porch stripped of its covering, which I rather thought was concrete. New stairs are being put in. The facing was taken off, something altered inside, and then somehow put back. And I wonder to myself where the money for this is coming from, because houses on the street have been going for over a million since 2015. I hope it wasn't inherited from Grandma, whom I liked.

Finished?
A Dark Night's Passing
-- chilling portrayal of the Japanese male sense of entitlement, quite unaware that that's what it's doing. Contains husbands forgiving their wives for having been raped. Argh.

Reading now?
A quandary. Started Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth in ARC format courtesy of incandescens. Horrific setting, perhaps not best read in the nightmare of summer heat. Reminded me strongly of Gene Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer, speaking of both horrific *and* unchancy. Have been meaning to reread that series because I retain only fragments of it, and am not even sure that the fragments I retain are from Wolfe and not something else read in the mid-80s. Started that as well. A smoother style than Gideon, which one expects, but perhaps not best read in the nightmare of summer heat either. Have been bouncing back and forth between the two for a couple of days, at risk of never remembering anyone's name.

Have been informed that Severan is an unreliable narrator. I need to be told these things because I'm the naivest of naive readers. So I keep feeling uneasily there are traps in the Wolfe book and go back to the more or less straightforward Muir narrative. Except- except- I hate feisty heroines. Male-authored feisty heroines feist boobily. Female-authored ones feist potty-mouth. (Yes, Kate Griffin, I am looking at you.) Gideon's mouth is not only foul, it's boringly male foul. Not quite 'fuck' as punctuation, but tedious invective whenever she talks to anyone including and especially the Meen Gurl she hates whom I'm quite sure will end up her lover. There's a distinct YA vibe happening here. But I continue to read it for the world-building, in spite of the unlikable characters. And then go back to the uneasy shifting sands of Severan.

Next?
Depending how hot it gets, I may have to find some nice dry nonfiction to cool the brain.