Resistance, Rebellion, and my Washing Machine Part 2

Time and the perception of time is a weird artifact for a New Zealander who interacts with many people overseas. Everyone's in a different timezone. For most of them, it's yesterday. I write this newsletter on a Friday evening, and it's set to publish early Saturday morning. But for the majority of its readers, that will be Friday morning.

Anyway, from my point of view--the one that counts, in my newsletter--it's Friday right now, in the first week back at school, and I woke up today with one of those fun headaches where it's like my head is an apple, and someone put a really big apple corer right through it, centred around the right eye. That's my right, by the way. Your left, looking at me.

I went to school anyway because we have a lot of admin at the start of the year before students arrive (that's next week), and I did the most important things I needed to do, and then I came home because it turned out the apple corer had been soaked in something caustic and I needed the good painkillers.

It's been a week of mishaps and irritations, and also a week of little joys and small triumphs.

Remember my washing machine? The accidentally-turpentine-contaminated washing machine? I got it clean! There was not a hint of a whiff of anything. I sang its praises. It washed a load of dish towels and a load of bath towels and then in the middle of some clothes, it tripped the circuit breaker and the power went out. I plugged in my phone to check the circuit - that worked fine. I plugged the washing machine into another socket to check again. It promptly tripped the circuit breaker again. Diagnosis: electrical fault. Personal diagnosis: about to lose my damn mind.

So I bought a new washing machine, and by that I mean a secondhand, refurbished, under-warranty-for-six-months washing machine, because that's how I like to do my appliances. It means I can afford a much better quality machine upfront1. It also means I'm helping keep stuff out of landfills for longer! That's a small triumph mixed with the little agony of having to tap the emergency fund - but at least it's there to be tapped.

Anyway, when the circuit breaker tripped, a lot of powered appliances switched off abruptly, including the iMac I had dragged out to finally retrieve old files. Alas, the incident seems to have fried what was left of my poor iMac's brain. I want to be clear about this - I have been meaning to grab some of those files for eight years. The day--the hour--I finally do it, it gets hit by lightning, collapses, and tells me fun things like "the disk cannot be repaired." I've put it back in the closet. It can stay there and think about what it's done until I can pay someone else to deal with it 2.

I have a bike now! I love my bike (also secondhand) which came with a peachy orange helmet and a bright yellow sidebasket, and no gears, which is fine because I live in a very flat city. I have taken my bike to games night and the beach and the cafe and the supermarket. Yesterday someone tooted at me because they were trying to turn into the road I was trying to cross and I wasn't moving fast enough to suit them. Twenty years ago I would have been mortified. Yesterday I summoned all my middle-aged unwillingness to give a shit, and said, out loud, "I know, dude, I'm trying my best."3

I am trying my best!

Like many people not currently in the USA, I am nevertheless thinking about the USA a lot, with horror and disgust for the current administration and their violent, masked goons, and with admiration and respect for the brave people of Minnesota. I am particularly moved by their stubborn, persistent hope. The people whistling and shouting, the people getting groceries and watching their neighbor's kids and calling their representatives and joining their community are showing that resistance isn't one big hero doing one big thing, but dogged persistence. Solid, real, community-led change comes from myriad little joys and small triumphs (and failures, and disappointments, and burnout, and coming back when you're ready.)

I had this in mind when I made my 2026 Bingo4 card. This year my categories are Home, Work, Resist, Leave the House and Misc.

An "at home" is like an open-door policy afternoon tea, at least the way I've done it in the past, and "submit on bills" refers to the NZ process of public submission on many parliamentary bills. I think everything else is self-explanatory.

Here's one small piece of resistance: I've contributed a novelette to Romantasy Rebels, an anthology of fantasy romance about people standing up and pushing back (plus making out and making magic). All the proceeds will be going to PEN America, who fight censorship and book bans, in the USA and around the world.

Romantasy Rebels is over 800 pages of fantastic fiction, and having read a great deal of it in proofs, I can heartily recommend the anthology.

This COVER

My own contribution is Mrs Beeton's Book of Magickal Management, which was previously a shorter story in the excellent Wilful Impropriety anthology. For the PEN America version, I've updated and extended the piece. It's gaslamp fantasy, set in the last years of Victoria's reign, in a world where women can attend lectures at Cambridge and Oxford, and can even study magickal theory there (although, of course, they don't actually practice magick with the men!) but are not entitled to formal degrees.

Irene Crawford, a former clerk's daughter and current lady's maid, can't even hope to access this quisling half-portion, but when she has to join forces with the Viscount Northcliff to save his sister and her mistress from a dastardly marquess and his foul sorceries... well, she might just have to show her aptitute for scholarship.

Women's education is not something I take for granted. In our world, women weren't awarded degrees at Cambridge until 1948. There are still, as you will be aware, many barriers to girls and women learning, all over the world. Mrs Beeton's Book of Magickal Management is a story with a wry tone and a light touch (and a happy ending!) but I'm deadly serious about the message.

You can pre-order Romantasy Rebels now. It has a strictly limited window for sales of February ONLY, and you don't want to miss out.

Little joys. Small triumphs. Resist.

Let's do it.

Karen/Kate.

That Healey Girl is the newsletter of Karen (or Kate) Healey, a romance and speculative fiction author who lives in Ōtautahi, New Zealand and shakes plots loose by wandering along the river. Please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone you think might enjoy it.

1 Yes, the lifespan of secondhand appliances is shorter, but I bought my previous machine secondhand and it worked without a hitch for six solid years, at less than a third of what it would have cost me new. The expected lifespan of a washing machine is ten years, so according to maths I'm still ahead of the game.

2 Or, possibly more likely, it never comes out of the closet again. None of those files were super urgent, obviously. All my best writing is backed up in multiple places. I just wanted to fossick through the midden for any hidden treasures.

3 Tonight, however, a nice gentleman in a classic lowrider yelled "I like your helmet!" as he drove past, and I yelled "Thank you!" back.

4 Here is my 2025 Bingo, for comparison (categories: Home, Work, Food, Leave the House, Sewing). I did pretty well! I also did technically sing in public--waiata at school, the national anthem at the Special Olympics--but my intent for the bingo spot was performative singing (in a group, karaoke, etc) so the spirit wasn't there.