I'm returning to more active Cubs fandom after a couple decades away, and it feels like "Cubs neglect the farm" is a theme that hasn't really changed. A lot has changed since I took my 20 year sabbatical, but that feels like a through-line.

So anyway, I'm going to go submit a literal shaggy dog story, and the point is dogs are great, don't overcomplicate, and maybe I need therapy.

Dogs live in the moment. They mostly experience Now. Anyone who's (not) thrown the ball knows dogs can be taken in by not even slight-of-hand.

So what's the dog's experience of sword and sorcery?

It's kind of just another day for them.

I've read a lot about the psychology of dogs, how they experience the world, what things are like for them. Because, you know, if I don't keep pushing stuff into my brain it'll go quiet and then I'll probably experience An Emotion, which I've been putting off and as we all know is to be avoided.

So I decided to write a sword and sorcery story from the perspective of a dog.

Because, as previously mentioned, I'm an idiot.

AYFKM? I’m over here being a cynic and a smart ass and apparently I’m not cynical enough.

Fun fact, it also went through the west half of the TC passenger depot.

Wait, did Sparkman street downtown have a thriving multicultural community that needed to be displaced?

Holy fuck.

Dollar store Dolly wannabe.

Oh that's a very clever solution. I wonder about putting multiple names in the "Bad OCR" column for the multiple "alternate versions" across censuses and other records to allow for searches.

Thank you for the idea, this is really great!

Just finished "Green City Wars" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I didn't really know that I needed Redwall-cyberpunk-noir, but here we are.

How can we use this power for good? Or at least profit?

I want the back story on this law. What exactly was going on that led to that combo in the regulations?

Somewhere between “received wisdom“ and “well, everybody knows” I’m estimating.

And by research subject there I really mean “ADHD addled brain’s target for dopamine hits when they show up in a city book, employee list, memo, newspaper article, whatever.”

And just put down the 1920 equivalent of “gig worker” without actually listening or checking too close.

One of my research subjects is listed in the city directories as a coach cleaner every year for about 17 years, but the census in the middle of that time lists her as a laundress. I had assumed she was doing both, but now I’m wondering if the census taker heard ”widowed mother”

Okay but how late is that true? I spend a lot of time in census records from the early 20th century, are they just defaulting to laundress for any self employed woman?