Thanksgiving Advent, Day Seventeen: Dishwashers etc.

I lived for about five years in places without a dishwasher. (Well, longer than that -- but the four years in college don't count, since all I had to do was dump my tray at the appropriate spot in the dining hall.)

I am so very, very thankful to have one again.

Dishes fall into that deeply annoying category of "didn't I just do this chore?" No sooner have you cleaned them up than, oh look, there's another dirty plate. Laundry is the same way, and words cannot express how glad I am that I've never had to do that by hand. The one time I ever tried was with a pair of trousers when I was at a field station in the middle of the rainforest in Costa Rica; I got about a minute in, very feebly, before a pair of hands appeared in my field of vision and took the soap and trousers away. I watched the very nice Costa Rican lady do what my fourteen-year-old self could not, and marveled as if she were turning water in to wine. Combine that with my reading about what it used to take to do laundry in the pre-washing-machine past . . . yeah. There are entire months of my life that have been saved by me not having to do laundry by hand.

Dishwashers. Laundry machines. Vacuum cleaners. Hell, showers -- even bathing used to be a bigger undertaking, back when you had to heat the water and fill the tub and so on. Be thankful, people. Be very, very thankful.

Signal Boost: Trust and Treachery

You know how we keep having these discussions about anthologies that take the best stories, regardless of who writes them . . . and somehow those stories end up all being by white men? (Totally by chance, you understand, and the editors can't be blamed if that's what was sent to them.)

It's nice to be able to talk for once about somebody doing it right. I've been contacted by the editors of an upcoming anthology, Trust & Treachery, who are actively reaching out to get more quality submissions from women. To quote:

One of the items that we made specific mention of in our original call for submissions was that we’re looking for works representing the entire range of experience -- including all races, ethnicities, genders, ages, religions, sexual orientations, abilities and views on life. The world of fiction and its characters, especially genre fiction and speculative fiction, can be diverse places with a richness and depth in both culture and community. As editors, we made both a personal and professional commitment to have that same richness represented in this anthology. But we need to you help us do it.

This? Is good, pro-active editing. It's realizing that imbalances aren't automatically a reflection of the fiction that's out there -- only the fiction that's being sent in. And that's something that can be changed, with a little effort.

So I'm happy to give them a signal boost. Description of the theme is here, and submissions guidelines are here. And props to Day Al-Mohamed and Meriah Crawford for their hard work.