author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

As promised, the Friday Fictionette for February 7 went out today. For once it's just a fun bit of fluff, "How the Royal Stablemaster Won the War." The TL;DR summary is "A plan requiring a horse is doomed to failure if it does not take into account that a horse is a living being with needs, a will, and a mind of its own." The Douglas Adams quote concerning the inevitability of forming opinions about the person who sits on your back all-day-every-day makes an appearance. Here's your links to the Patron-locked ebooks and audiobook. I don't think the links are reversed anymore, but if the one takes you to the other, then the other will surely take you to the one.

So that's what I did this morning. Then this afternoon I darn near finished the entire text of tomorrow's release--another fun bit of fluff, which is probably why it came together so quickly--thus increasing the probability that it gets posted on time and I reach Happily Ever After that much sooner. On the other hand, my husband decided to take tomorrow off (it's his birthday!), and he proposed we use that time to finally watch Steven Universe Future together. So that brought the probability of a February 14 release back down again. I believe that makes a zero net movement of probability.

But about that afternoon fictionette work: I decided to bring it to downtown Brighton. I was going to be in Brighton for scrimmage tonight anyway, and City Hall has a convenient charging station I like to plug the Chevy Volt into, and also there's this library. And I got that work done at the library. And that is a minor miracle.

See, me and the library in Brighton have had a rocky relationship. It is a beautiful space with fantastic resources and very helpful staff! It is also completely devoid of that stereotypical "Sshh!" library culture. To some, that probably sounds refreshing. No stern-faced librarians shushing you unreasonably! But what it actually means in practice is kids of all ages yelling at the top of their lungs and running around. It means adults holding shouted conversations across the stacks. It means there is no reliable quiet zone anywhere in that sunny and well-appointed space. I suppose the community doesn't particularly want one. That's their right and their choice, but it's utterly alien to me.

Also I have had some really strange encounters there. Once, the staff member helping me out had to apologetically interrupt our session for the four police officers who'd quietly materialized around us. That was startling. Some ninety seconds earlier, there was this kid, I don't know what he was up to, but it was probably less than 100% above-board because the staff member told him No, Wait, Stop, and he ignored her until she damn near body-blocked him. I have no idea whether the two incidents were related. I have no reason to assume they were.

I don't know. I just find the whole place very weird. But it's so beautiful! So I keep going back! And having very unsettling encounters. And feeling this unreasonable sense of betrayal because IT'S A LIBRARY I SHOULD BE ABLE TO GET WORK DONE IN A LIBRARY WHY CAN'T I GET WORK DONE IN THIS LIBRARY?!

But last week it finally occurred to me that I could use a study room. They have three of them lined up on the sunny side of the building. All I needed to do was get a library card, and then a study room could be mine for a whole two hours. I could go in and close the door and make all the noise go away. Or, well, not so much go away as get distant. That's enough to make it something I can tune out, which is amazing, because I am not good at tuning stuff out. Some glitch in my brain is convinced that any words spoken within my hearing range are addressed to me and I need to pay attention. But I went in there and closed the door and all the shouting voices sounded far enough away that my brain accepted that they were not my problem. Even when the study room next door was being used today to watch a movie, the noise was muffled enough that just turning on my own music drowned it out.

Which hasn't ended the unsettling encounters, you understand. Some guy stood and stared at me through the study room door for an uncomfortably long time. I'm not sure why. (I have a few guesses.) But that door was closed, so once I turned to get him out of my peripheral vision, I didn't have to care. There was writing to do, and by golly, I did it.

So now I can get work done at the library in Brighton, and everything is right with the world. The End.