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Having finally settled down to reviewing the changes and coverage for the various version of Kaiser Medicare Advantage, I think I'm going to switch from the "Advantage Plus" version to the basic Advantage version. The the "plus" benefit I used most (the gym membership) is now offered through the basic plan. The "plus" plan had some additional dental coverage but since I've returned to paying out of pocket for my previous dentist, that's irrelevant now. The "plus" plan has some additional allowances for glasses and hearing aids (which I don't need yet), but when I calculated out what I was likely to use versus the cost differential, there wasn't any real benefit to me.

It's fascinating to see what goes up and what goes down each year. It isn't the case that everything always increases. I assume there's an office somewhere calculating the cost-benefit on their end. Like: I assume that they're getting a good enough deal on the group gym membership, and that it pays off enough in member fitness/health that expanding the coverage makes sense. Other line items that decreased: co-pay for primary care visits, acupuncture, chiropractic, routine eye exams, several categories of drugs, outpatient mental health, urgent care visits. On the other hand, a number of services have been jacked up significantly, including outpatient surgery and most inpatient stays (though you only have to pay for up to 5 days after which it's free -- presumably they work hard to get you released before that point). So, all in all, cost incentives to do preventive care, but if something bad happens it'll be more expensive (and the out-of-pocket maximum has increased).

For those interested in cost comparisons: my Kaiser monthly payment for the Advantage Plus plan has been $38/mo this year. Next year under the simple Advantage plan it will be $29/month. (This doesn't include my Medicare B penalty for having earned too much money** before retirement, which I'll be able to adjust down a little once I've done my 2026 taxes.) My total additional co-pays/etc. so far this year (mostly the broken arm) have been $815. My dental so far this year has been $965, including the annual $449 membership for basic preventive exams and services (which plan also includes some discounts on procedures). So assuming that I don't have any additional "extra" medical/dental expenses, this all comes to under $200/month (again: not counting the Medicare B penalty).

People who have had experience with Kaiser tend to have polarized opinions. One down side is a restricted ability to select and maintain a relationship with a PCP. (Kaiser also seems to have regular labor dispustes.) But for me the up side is always knowing up front what things are going to cost out of pocket, and a system that prioritizes keeping people healthy rather than profiting off of being sick.

**This is, of course, a little joke. I would not have traded earning less for not having a Medicare B penalty.

As my faithful readers may recall, in mid-May I broke my wrist. And as I commented in subsequent posts, this pretty much killed fiction reading for a while for complex reasons. I finished no books in June, one in July, and then three in August when I was allowed to return to bicycling.

July

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett -- (audio) So I have this aversive reaction to people pushing things on me that I just haven't vibed on. And I get a lot of people telling me how great Pratchett is and how I absolutely must read him. So of course I've been resistant because I don't like being told what I'll like. (Recommending books to me can be tricky because of this. Think of it as being like trying to coax a shy cat into being petted.) Sometimes I'll find that, yes, I really do love the thing (e.g., Lois McMaster Bujold) and sometimes I'll confirm that it just isn't my thing (e.g., Monty Python). In fact, that last was part of my resistance to Pratchett because I've found that there's a flavor of British humor that simply doesn't work for me. But there was a sale at Libro.fm that included Monstrous Regiment and I figured I'd give it a try, since the book's premise was one that fits my interests. The book takes the trope of the cross-dressing woman joining the army and runs with it to ridiculous extremes. And...I found it quite enjoyable—though not so much that I’m going to binge Pratchett’s entire body of work. (I should note that I've watched a number of screen adaptations of Pratchett and while I haven't regretted it, they haven't changed my attitude much.)

August

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (Jeeves & Wooster #6) / The Mating Season by P.G. Wodehouse (Jeeves & Wooster #9) -- (audio) Speaking of flavors of British humor... Before I was released to bicycle again, I was putting in time at the gym on the treadmill which somehow called for fluffy brain-candy. Libro.fm was having a bundle/series sale and I picked up a bundle of half a dozen Jeeves & Wooster novels. (I'm not listening in any sort of regular order, as you can tell, but it's not like that really matters.) These are silly, ridiculous, and just about right for the start-and-stop of treadmill listening when I'm not in the mood to get deeply engaged in anything.

A Murderous Business by Cathy Pegau -- (audio) Cathy is an online friend (we've met in person once) who writes a lot of sapphic fiction, though not always in genres I'm interested in. This is a mystery set in early 20th century New York where a woman who has inherited ownership of the family business hires a female PI to dig out corruption in the firm. Solid and well-researched, with a variety of queer representation.

I group these posts more by the number of books involved than the timespan. So April and May each get their own post.

The Rushworth Family Plot by Claudia Gray -- (audio) I picked up the next volume in Claudia Gray’s Jane Austen-based murder mystery series: The Rushworth Family Plot. The basic premise is that all of Austen’s characters exist in the same continuity and that the scions of the Darcy and Tillney families solve murders and have a sweet, slow-burn developing romance. On the positive side, the depiction of Jonathan Darcy as solidly neuroatypical and Juliet Tilney as the one person who truly gets him and supports him is kind and relatable. But I find the writing style to be extremely repetitive, with the author hammering away at aspects of the history and social setting that one might expect a reader of historicals to be familiar with.

Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner by Katrine Marcal -- (audio) I picked this up based on a recommendation--I think maybe one of the guests on Smart Bitches Trashy Podcast? This is both a history of the field of economics and a critique of the way economic theories are distorted by ignoring unpaid female-coded labor. Quite interesting, though the author is solidly invested in the idea that you have to repeat an idea five times to make the reader remember it. It tends to lean heavier on assertions than on proofs. I did find myself mentally poking holes in some of the traditional theoretical economics scenarios.(Example: in the thought experiment of two people stranded on an island, one of whom has a bunch of gold and one of whom has a bunch of rice, how does "selfish" decision-making balance the future utility of having the gold with the present utility of eating the rice? My cynical reaction was that if economics is predicated on enlightened selfishness, the obvious decision is for one of them to kill the other, have both the gold and the rice, and an accompanying protein source. This, of course, is wildly against the assumed laws of civilization, but so are many of the assumed "best decisions" of economic theory.)

Word by Word by Kory Stamper / True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--from Azure to Zinc Pink by Kory Stamper -- (audio) The Lingthusiasm podcast (hi Gretchen and Lauren!) made me aware of Kory Stamper’s books inspired by her time working in the dictionary industry. Word by Word is a general love letter to the process of creating, revising, and maintaining dictionaries. A more specialized topic is covered in True Color. One of the things that most delighted me about these books—though it shouldn’t be a surprise—is the obvious love for the richness of language that Stamper has, not just in her subject material, but in the lovely prose she uses to talk about it. I have such a nerd-crush on her!

The Murder at Sissingham Hall (Angela Marchmont #1) / The Mystery at Underwood House (Angela Marchmont #2) by Clara Benson -- (audio) These are the first two books in Clara Benson’s Angela Marchmont mystery series. These are British country-house mysteries set in the era between the two world wars. I was a bit confused by the first one because, despite the series label, the protagonist was a man and the titlular Angela Marchmont was a background character—albeit one who always seemed to be two steps ahead of the supposed amateur detective. The second book switched over to Angela as viewpoint character and was more satisfactory on that point. The mysteries do have some flaws. Like: I’d figured out whodunnit very early on before the characters had any clue. And Angela has a frustrating habit of refusing to share her information and discoveries with others—including her friend the Scotland Yard detective—as she puts it “until she’s had a chance to think about it some more.” It’s a technique to keep the reader in the dark, but surely that could have been done by leaving their conversation off the page. Anyway, I’m enjoying the atmosphere and the writing otherwise and have several more to go.

I love the hot summer nights, when I've opened the windows and started the ceiling fan and I still sleep on top of the bedding, with the artificial breeze whispering over me all night.

I love the crisp start of fall, when I unpack the feather duvet and pull it up to my chin, delighting in the contrast between warn nest and cold face. I wonder how long I can put off turning on the thermostat for the winter, even though I need to wear my fuzzy sleep-socks to keep the bathroom tile from freezing my toes.

I love the winter nights when I carefully calculate when to have the heat kick on in the morning, so that it doesn't wake me up too early (sweating) by I don't huddle under the covers long past when I should rise because of the chill.

Spring arrives, not with a sharp change, but with the gradual kicking off of the covers, sleeping one leg in, one leg out, waiting for the sunrise to creep early enough that I'm not rising in the dark.

I'm enjoying the (free) Tai Chi class I attend Monday mornings, with the understanding that I've made a one-sided bargain with respect to certain things. Like: I will not roll my eyes when things are described in a woo-woo fashion, because I understand that's part of the cultural tradition of the practice, but neither will I pretend to take them seriously. (I'm here for the exercise, not for a religion.)

The relatively loose "come as you are" structure of the classes generally works well. New people are welcome at any time and teaching is incremental with students learning one new movement at a time until the entire routine has been learned. Advanced students who have learned the entire sequence practice separately, refining technique and (well, I don't much know what else because I'm not in that group).

But this creates a certain bottleneck. On any given day, approximately 2/3 of the students are in the "advanced" group. Of the rest, a wildly variable proportion are brand new (1st-3rd class) versus in a "middle group" of students who have learned around 1/3-1/2 of the full routine.

Setting aside the advanced group, which is led by several assistant teachers, the primary teacher starts with the non-advanced students. The first few movements are taught in detail for the brand new students, going over instructions multiple times. Then the class proceeds through the following movements, taking extra time at any point when a movement is new for at least one student. This proceeds until every non-advanced student has learned at least one new movement for the week.

Once a student has learned their new movement, they're supposed to step to the back of the class and practice the sequence they've learned for the rest of the class period. Assistant teachers may join them to answer questions and coach. So the group actively being taught by the primary instructor gradually gets smaller across the class period until everyone has a new movement.

Now, depending on the number of brand new students (and thus the time spent on basic-basic coaching) and the distribution of progress among the "middle group" it's possible for nearly the entire hour to elapse before the more advanced non-advanced students get to learn their new movement. In the mean time, they can either follow along with the intermediate teaching (which can be useful to reinforce technique) or practice the parts of the routine they've learned, among themselves, sometimes doing peer-coaching. More rarely getting some coaching from the assistant teachers.

The attrition rate hits hardest on the brand new students. I'd say that maybe one in ten is still coming after the first couple lessons. There's also significant attrition among the 5-15 lessons group, leaving a fairly small number who are in the "middle group"--fairly committed but still adding movements. At a very rough estimate (and not necessarily representative) I'd say that today there were maybe 20 advanced students, 8 "middle group" students, 10 with a couple lessons under their belt, and maybe 6 first-timers. (Other weeks there have been up to a dozen first-timers.)

At this point I've ended up one of the more advanced "middle group students, with 1 or 2 regulars who are a couple moves ahead of me. I'm on movement #26 out of 37. That means there's a significant gap where there ought to be more "advanced middle group" students who are almost done learning the whole sequence. I haven't quite figured out the dynamics of this, though there are multiple possible explanations.

Today, the middle group was pretty much left to our own devices and I got some compliments from the others on being able to lead and demonstrate for the others. (With some cautions like "I still have no idea what my hands are supposed to do on this one.") Chatter has determined that mostly what I have going for me is actually practicing every day. LOL. That and having bought a copy of the lesson book, so I can check and correct my own form during practice. But what can I say? Nature abhors a vacuum and Heather abhors a power vacuum.

Today my physical therapist certified me as "graduated." While my wrist mobility isn't 100% yet, I've plateaued on what intensive PT can do for me. I'll continue with the manual exercises for another month or so (which is more like 30 minutes a day rather than 4.5 hours), but the Medieval Torture Devices (MTDs) have been shipped back to the rental company, in time to avoid a third month's rent.

Let's see what I can do productively with all that time.

It's still slow, regular progress. Today's anecdotal proof-of-improvement was that when I rest my chin on my formerly-broken hand (so that the wrist bends backwards) there's no resistance and no pain. I'm still working on the wrist supination and I still have to do a bunch of fist-pumping to be able to close my fist completely. I did a bunch of continuous typing on Sunday and found I was aching after a couple hours. (So maybe I should go back to doing more longhand-then-dictation.) I'm plunging into the yard work again, though sticking to fairly short stints. Today, the weather seems to have turned from summer toward fall, so that should help with getting the yard back into shape. (The other thing that will help will be when I'm not spending 4.5 hours a day doing physical therapy.)

Book Sales

This past Saturday was the (new) San Jose Book Festival with the usual Bay Area Queer Writers Association crew -- a very nice event, held inside a shopping mall (which is a pleasant change from outdoor heat). BAQWA will be representing at two more local pride events this coming weekend (Martinez and Emeryville). After that my last book sales event for the year will be at World Fantasy Convention in October, where I'm tabling with the Liminal Fiction crowd.

After that's done, I'll do a post (probably on my Alpennia blog) summing up my experiences with event sales for this first year when I've been prioritizing it. Overall, sales have been better than I worried they might be. (In fact I've probably had the best sales of anyone in the BAQWA group.) But my net income (subtracting out table fees, financial processing fees, and cost-of-goods) has been highly variable due to radical differences in table fees. (And, of course, I'm not counting in any mileage costs or my time.)

In my usual data-nerdish way, I've been experimenting with several ways to track book sales data, which results in a certain amount of redundancy. There's the inventory database, which tracks all books in and out (even if they aren't technically "sold") and which I've expanded this year to itemize things like sales tax collected and electronic payment processing fees. (Some of my fellow BAQWA members think I'm silly for being all official with a business license and resale license and all, but since I'm working on setting up a sales portal on my website, it's best to have everything taken care of. Besides, I genuinely believe in the value of these parts of civic life.) Then there's the summary per-event table that also tracks tabling fees and calculates out the net per-event income (as well as providing a worksheet for submitting my sales tax report).

But separately, for each self-publishing project, I'm keeping a log of expenses and income. (I'll probably drop this at some point if I don't consider it valuable, but it's easier to maintain from the start than to reconstruct later.) This is all separate from the business-related data crunching I do for income taxes, though it helps sort out some of the details. (E.g., while the basic bank accounts database does the first cut on business expenses, I'll need the more granular data for things like "bank processing fees.")

I'll get to make use of a lot more of my potential business deductions this year to offset my expected income from the Anthropic settlement. (I generally pick only one major convention every year to deduct. Enough to get me under the self-employment tax threshold, but not so much I ping the IRS's "this is a hobby, not a business" radar.) Who knows, maybe some day, if I publish enough books, I can meet my stretch goal of having my writing entirely pay for my convention habit.

Today's physical therapy appointment confirmed my subjective impression that I've been making steady progress on the range-of-motion front. For two of the three positions for the Medieval Torture Devices, I'm getting close to maxing out the adjustment. I knew grip strength was improving, based on the squeeze-ball action.

So now I'm off all official restrictions for activity and am limited only by returning muscle strength and remaining motion issues (mostly wrist supination). Tomorrow I'm going to add working with my 5lb hand weights to the mix. Eventually I'll return to using the gym machines.

We're hoping that at my next appointment in two weeks there will be enough improvement to ditch the MTDs. The rental is on a full-month basis and that would allow me to return them before the third month kicks in.

Official release day today. Here's the universal book link page: https://books2read.com/b/31zplW

I'm still working on getting more links added. The page was being picky about me adding links manually the last time I tried, so I guessed it might be an issue with the book not being live yet and decided to wait to try again. But it's released through Draft2Digital and has a paperback through Ingram, so it should be available through all the standard outlets.

It's funny: My first two commercial self-publishing projects have both been ones where I'm not counting on actual commercial success. Skin-Singer both because story collections are tricky and because the majority of the contents are previously published. The Theory of Related-ivity because it's an extremely niche interest. This takes a lot of pressure off worrying about how well they'll sell, but it also means I don't have a good metric for what to expect with an actual first-release novel. (We're a long way away from anything like that happening, because the top priority for novels is the next Alpennia book, which I assume will be a Bella release.)

When I was first working on Related-ivity, I wasn't necessarily thinking about publishing it as a book, just as the blog series. But as it got longer, as the footnotes became a more significant part of it, and as I thought about how ephemeral attention to blogs are, I pretty much thought "why not?" Also, since D2D now has an annual threshold requirement for income to avoid the "maintenance fee" they added (to fight AI publications), every little bit of income helps. I didn't make the threshold this year, but maybe next year? I really need to promote Skin-Singer more online. It sells well at in-person events but I'm really bad about doing online promotions.

Getting my new internet equipment set up was both simpler and more annoying than expected. Here's a brief tour.

Equipment showed up late Monday

Decided to do my usual bike/coffee-shop routine (flanked by PT) so it was late afternoon before I began the set-up process. Per instructions, downloaded the "smart home" app and logged in to my ATT account.

The set-up instructions claim the app will provide you an "install equipment" button which will then lead you through the process. The "install equipment" button briefly flashes on screen as the app automatically logs you in and then is no longer visible or accessible. A search through every menu in the app fails to find any other method of getting the set-up instructions.

I called the "dedicated help line for ATT Internet Air" that was provided to me on my service call a week ago. The number is no longer in service and re-directs to the regular service phone number. That number offers a call-back appointment the next day. I hang up.

Now we're up to today. First thing, I called the ATT service number. "Call volume is unusually high, but we can give you a call-back in 15 minutes." OK. I have my phone and headset standing by. The call-back appears on my Apple Watch and I hit "accept". I can hear the ATT agent talking but evidently she can't hear me through the watch. She hangs up. I call service once more at they project a 10 minute wait time. I stay on the line this time.

I manage to short-circuit being told to do the set-up things that I already know won't work and describe my process history to the agent. He says, "Oh, it's just plug-and-play, there's no special process." Evidently the special installation instructions which have to do with verifying the optimal location in your house for the device are mostly unnecessary. We stay on the line while I plug in the device and verify that it's worki...oops. Got a signal then lost it. Reboot.

This time I got as far as logging in to the network on my laptop. Worked fine for about 5 minutes, then as we were moving on to the "register your device" step, the connection was lost again. Reset. No further drop-outs. Started the process to register my device (so it shows up in my ATT account) but -- as I eventually figured out -- every step in the online process has a lag time of about half a minute from pushing a button to getting to the next screen. By the time I figured this out and completed the process, I had let the agent go (after almost an hour on line). Did finally manage to register my device.

The next step is to change the new device's name and password to the ones I'd used for my old device. This will enable all my connected devices to switch over without the need for a new log-in. This actually worked as promised. Yay.

I still haven't placed my new device in its final location. At the moment it's standing in front of my tv, which is suboptimal. The instructions suggest that being behind an appliance can interfere with the signal, but I may try that anyway, since there's plenty of room behind the tv.

I have a different idea for a final state. My media center is an electronics cabinet with the big screen tv on top of it, flanked by two tall IKEA cabinets. I've been thinking for some time about using the space above the tv by installing a shelf between the cabinets. One thought has been to move my book "brag shelf" there, rather than being on the mantle over the fireplace. It would also be an optimal location for the internet device. Today I went off window-shopping for a shelf solution that would fit the space. There's room for a 24x48" shelf above the tv. (I wouldn't want one that doesn't go the full depth because that would ensure that things would fall off the back side.) But I'm not excited about supporting it with brackets that screw into the sides of the standing cabinets. I don't know how well they'd stand up to it. What I envision would be some sort of support structure shaped like this:

__ __
| |
|________|

that would rest on top of the tall cabinets (so I don't have to drill holes in them) with the shelf sitting on top of it. But this feels like it would involve metal fabrication. Alternately, perhaps a structure with horizontal beams across the top of the cabinets and three U shaped supports coming down from it. Like this;
_________________
| | |
|_____|_____|

Maybe I could do some nice woodwork on the visible side. Make use of all those power tools I have lying around. But as I was window-shopping possibilities, it occurred to me that I don't want to start any of this until I have full use of my hands again. So there's plenty of time to do more design work.