“Entropy” is the second book in the Stasis series. (If you’re wondering how I got this book out so quickly, the short answer is that I didn’t release “Stasis” until I’d revised the third book several times. That is, the first three books are, essentially, one book in three sections.)
First, in this matter of “Dave Grohl”, I admit I’m like the juror for the high-profile trial– the person who had to have missed EVERYTHING in order to be impartial. But, here it goes.
Back in ’98, like everyone else in the world, I was enthralled with “Everlong.” I bought the CD that’s blue with red thingys on it, and if a CD could’ve been worn out the way vinyl gets worn out…
Soon I started my 9-5 (or, 7:30am-10pm) job, and added the grey CD. My new favorite song in the whole world became “Headwires.” I listened to those first two Foo Fighters albums all the time for the next, say, 15 years.
Then a bunch of bad stuff happened all at once.
One day I’d dropped off the kids where they needed to be, and I was sitting in a parking lot.
I was missing my blue Foo Fighters album ever since I let my husband take it on a Habitat for Humanity build and it never got home again, but I hadn’t replaced it because, hey, I can just play them through in my head whenever I want to. Well, as I was sitting there in the parking lot, reviewing some of my favorite Foo Fighters songs, I was thinking, “You know, I like the vocals and guitars a lot. But it’s really the drums that make this band. Drummers never get any credit. Maybe this drummer has worked with other bands. Maybe I’d like them just as much. I should find out. Expand my music base.” I walked into a music store, found the Foo Fighters section, and looked through the discs till I found the blue one.
After I paid for it, I took it out to my car, opened it up, and read the case liner to find the drummer. One of them was “Dave Gr… how does someone pronounce that? No wonder no one knows who he is. He should get a stage name.” I listened to the bonus tracks, and got an extra favorite song, “Dear Lover.” [There’s a certain scene in Book Three (I think I’ll name the book Syntropy, but I’m not sure yet) (edit: I think I’m naming it Entanglement) that kind of channels that song.] Ready to start researching what other bands this “Dave Grohl” person might have been in, I looked him up on Wikipedia.
“Nirvana? He was in Nirvana? But that band is SO depressing!” was my first thought. Seriously, I cannot feed that part of my psyche. It’d eat me alive. There’s no way I’d ever listen to their music on a daily basis, even though I do admire their achievement, and it’s certainly possible that, among the bands’ repertoire, are songs that I could love. That’s part of the problem, in fact. (I sometimes wonder if people who like tragedy are those who haven’t yet experienced it.)
Then I read on, and saw that David Grohl had pretty much gotten the whole band together and done all the vocals and tons of guitar for Foo Fighters, and that pretty much everyone in the world knew that except me. *Homer Simpson slap to the forehead while saying “Doh!!!”* I thought maybe I’d listen to an interview of his or something, but about three seconds into it there was swearing, so I skipped ahead a bit, and there was swearing, so I clicked way down towards the end, and there was swearing, and then I tried a different interview and got the same results, and then I realized that instead of having been upset at the lead singer for messing up some otherwise great songs by sticking stupid swear words in them, I should’ve been glad he cleaned up his language for the recording studio. Quickly, I went and got all the albums I’d been missing out on for years and years.
But here’s the thing.
The song “Walk” was precisely and exactly what I needed to hear at that time in my life. If Brother Grohl were a preacher on the pulpit, he could’ve preached that song to me. It was as if God had kept me in the dark all those years because He knew a moment was coming up that I would need exactly that song, and He made a way so I would find it at exactly the right moment.
Laugh if you want. Then think about it.
Over the next several months, things got a lot better, through a lot of learning new stuff and doing things I’d never done before that were really hard for me. One of the many results of that process was I started writing a novel.
So, yeah, that’s why I thanked David Grohl.
Obviously, Jane Austen is one of my very favorite authors. I love how her writings make you laugh, and then think. Her characters are unique, but have that ring of truth to them– I look around my office or school or ward (translation: church congregation) and see the behaviors she catches so well. Although I’d love to meet her (I wonder if, in heaven, she accepts cards from people like me?), I can understand that those close to her, but outside her family circle, might have been concerned at becoming the object of her too penetrating wit– her surviving letters are an enlightening read.
The events that commemorate this 200th anniversary sound lovely:
“Two hundred years later, her death is being marked with a lunchtime concert at the venue, featuring music and instruments of the Regency period, as well as a commemorative church service.
‘Lots of people are coming to pay their respects so it will be joyful as well as solemn for those people,’ said the Very Reverend Catherine Ogle, dean of the cathedral.
‘The choral evensong will be a magnificent service using hymns she would have known as well as prayers she wrote herself, so that’s a really beautiful thing.'”
It’s also great that she’ll be on the new 10-pound note note in the UK.
I watched the “Oceanography” series The Great Courses: Oceanography and was absolutely amazed by the complexity of our oceans. (It was a mere coincidence that I was researching William Whewell at the time– that is, if you believe in coincidences.) One of the lectures mentioned the issue of plastics in the oceans, especially how little bits of the stuff have become ubiquitous throughout ocean waters, and how no one knows what effects they’re having on ocean life.
Today, I learned of a quick way anyone can help with this. All you have to do is look at a picture, draw rectangles around the bits of garbage in it, and choose the best label for the garbage you found. You don’t even have to sign in. I just did one, and it was super-easy. Here’s the site: The Plastic Tide
What you’re doing is teaching computers how to spot plastic debris. That way, scientists will be able to track how plastic moves through our earth’s systems, and we’ll have good information to make smart, effective choices about how we deal with plastic in the environment. I learned about this project in this article: The Nature Conservancy
I’m consistently impressed by how patient and friendly the participants are at these MTG tournaments. Everyone really wants to win, but people don’t put that competitiveness ahead of being considerate.
One guy used “Glory Bringer” against both me and my son (to devastating effect). At the end of the tournament, he overheard my son wishing he had one. The guy gave it to him, just like that.
The five hours went really fast. My kids and I all finished in the bottom half, but I was glad we did as well as we did. I was a little exhausted at the end, but that just made the after-tournament pizza taste even better.
The MTG artwork in Kaladesh is some of my favorite. I’m no expert, but it seems that in the past expansions, the art varied in quality across the set, but in more recent releases the art is more consistently excellent in every card.
If you like pie (an entire pie, that is, not half a pie) today is your day!
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/math-for-fun-and-glory/vi-hart/pi-tau/v/pi-is-still-wrong
https://tauday.com/tau-manifesto
These are the cinnamon rolls she makes in Chapter 11 of “Entanglement.”
I worked on this recipe for months, making adjustments till it came out just right.
Perfect Cinnamon Rolls:
Ingredients:
1 ½ sticks unsalted butter
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1/3 cup white sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
4 ½ cups flour
1/3 cup dry milk powder
2 tsp salt
2 ½ TB cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 cup water
4 oz cream cheese
2 cups powdered sugar
½ tsp vanilla
3 large eggs
Part I:
In a large mixing bowl, pour 1 cup warm water. Sprinkle 2 1/4 tsp yeast over the water. Sprinkle 1/3 cup white sugar over the yeast.
While it’s proofing:
In a small bowl, mix 3/4 cup light brown sugar, 2 ½ TB cinnamon, and 1 tsp nutmeg. Set aside.
Butter a jelly-roll pan. Set aside.
Put ½ stick of butter and 4 oz of cream cheese in a mixing bowl (to soften). Set aside.
Put ½ stick of butter in a small bowl (to soften). Set aside.
In a different small bowl, put ½ stick of butter. Microwave on 50% power till melted (usually about 30-60 seconds).
Now that the yeast has proofed, pour into the bowl the melted butter, 4 ½ cups flour, 1/3 cup dry milk powder, 2 tsp salt, and 3 eggs. Mix well with a spoon (or your hands). When it’s looking like a dough, turn it out on a floured surface and knead it until it’s smooth, adding just enough flour to keep it from getting sticky. When it’s good, let it sit for a minute while you wash out the mixing bowl it was in. After you’ve washed and dried it, butter it. Then pick up the dough, put it in the bowl, gently rub some butter on the top of the dough, and drape a slightly damp cloth over the bowl. Let it rise until doubled (30 minutes to an hour, depending on how warm your kitchen is). If you have time, gently fold it in half, pat it into a round shape (preserving as much of its fluffiness as possible) and let it rise again. This second rise will make the rolls lighter and flakier, but the rolls will still be wonderful if you don’t have time for it.
Part II:
On a floured surface, roll out the dough into a large rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Spread the ½ stick of softened butter evenly on the dough. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly across the buttered dough, being sure to go to the shorter edges.
Roll up the dough into a long cylinder. Cut it in half, then cut each half in half, etc., till you have 16 rolls. Place each roll on the buttered jelly roll pan. Let the rolls rise for at least 30 minutes. (Use this time to start cleaning up the mess.) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (it adjusts to 375 in a convection oven).
Put the rolls in the oven. Set the timer for 15 minutes.
Part III:
While the rolls are baking, add 2 cups powdered sugar, ½ tsp vanilla, and a dash of salt to the softened butter and cream cheese in the mixing bowl. Beat until fluffy.
Serve warm, with frosting melting on top.
Today I learned about the website timetravelnexus.com. Here’s a little of what they say about their own site: “The Time Travel Nexus (TTNexus) is a resource for time travelers, for writers and fans of time travel stories and for those interested in real world research related to the possibility of time travel.” I’ve been clicking around on it, and it has some great stuff from all kinds of media: comics (aka graphic novels), TV, movies, books. If you’re into time travel stories, this looks like a place you should visit.
After watching some “Pi is Wrong” videos by Vi Hart (on Khan Academy) my son showed me the Tau Manifesto. He started laughing when I said, “Wait, wait, that means…” and then scrolled up to show exactly what I was astounded to realize. Then, at the perfect moment for clinching a sale, he clicked on the link to buy the Tau Day t-shirt. In my excitement, I bought one for each of us: https://teespring.com/tauday#pid=369&cid=6521&sid=back. We’ll be ready for June 28th!
Tau Manifesto: http://tauday.com/tau-manifesto
“Stasis” was released today. It’s the first book in a series. Preview the first several chapters here: https://www.amazon.com/Stasis-Alex-Drevessa-ebook/dp/B0725ZGCPR/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Alex Drevessa 
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