The Strange and Unaccountable Account of the Adventures of a 21st Century Lady

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I took this for Rameena, but I have no idea whether or not I should be annoyed -- I don't think I'd like Bella from what I've heard of her, but ah well.

Goblin Fruit is up! And I am listening to Night Journey again and again and I am lighting a beeswax candle and thinking about going for a roam outside, although it's late.

I should start getting ready to catch the bus for work. But it's 105 degrees (potentially 108 degrees, depending on which website I believe) outside and I hate my job.

I also hate my boss, who is going to be the closing manager tonight.

Whine, whine, whine. Sigh. The google logo picture is of a scorching sun. Apparently, it's the first day of Summer.

I just finished watching Dead Man. The movie with Johnny Depp. It was the strangest thing, completely captivating. And I feel haunted by it. The character of William Blake was incredible, from rube-start on the train all through the Western landscape. Everybody else delivered up ghosts -- by which I mean, hey, your character is a person -- too. Now that it's been watched, now that I'm thinking about it, there were so many strange details and events that just make me ask "why?" -- but the way that details and events in fairytales might make the academic ask "why?" once they've thought about them. While in the movie, it all made perfect sense, it was always motion and moving. There were all these moments of Unexpected, and, wow, the scene that sent William Blake on the run, the double murder -- again, moments of the unexpected, but also really solid performances. Heck, I don't even want to call it a performance, that's how dead on I thought the scene was played, how shocking and sorrowful. Good movie. I think I'll wait to watch it again, but I'm glad I bought it.

What if I was wealthy and dead? What if I'd somehow managed to make certain that, once dead, I'd be buried on Mars? By buried, I of course mean shipped there -- and unloaded. No need to bury me; I could just lie there. What then? Would I rot the same as I'd rot here? Would my decomposing stuff start life on Mars -- that'd die out quick-like, because there were no other decomposing things to feed on? Say that Jesus and all of that Bible stuff is real. Say that the Second Coming happened and all of the dead rose up whole and walking. Would I rise up, or would I be stuck in the ground, since I was on Mars? Would I rose up, but be all alone, since I was on Mars? I guess since I'm not really, uh, religious the point is moot. But.

Yeah. I need to force myself to sleep. Or to read something. Or to practice on the harp.

Let's see. More words. How many can I chew out tonight? This is a kind of procrastination, I realize. I'm procrastinating on sleeping -- and I never thought I'd do that. I love sleep; when I sleep, I dream; I usually dream so vividly, too. Not lately, granted. Lately my dreams have been mundane expressions of everyday anxieties. Maybe that's why I'm procrastinating. I know that what I dream won't be worth dreaming. Bah. Maybe that's something to study -- how different poets, poets whom I approve of and appreciate, have dealt with dreams and dreaming in their verse, compare it with how they dealt with it in their correspondence (if they did at all) or how dreams were viewed by the public while they were alive. I find it interesting: everybody thinks that dreams mean something. Or can be translated so that they mean something. Today, you tell somebody a dream -- they start to psychoanalyze you, maybe make a joke, raise their eyebrows significantly. It all depends. You aren't just dreaming a story. But mostly that's how people've thought about dreams, isn't it? That they were messages, or at least -- possibly, at times, sent with intent, even if that intent was just to deceive the brain. I've got a copy of Phantasmagoria by Marina Warner. Maybe now's the time to start reading it?

Poets I've loved. They're an odd bunch, they are. Pablo Neruda. How can I not love Pablo Neruda in translation? He's a poet I'd learn Spanish to be able to read. I mean, his poetry makes me hungry, like I could bite into it and get juice all over my mouth and not care, because you know what? I could just lick the juices off, or maybe find a cute boy to do that for me, or maybe just leave the juice. Wouldn't matter. I was introduced to Neruda by somebody whose name I don't even remember, somebody who played a Hermetic mage on a website back when I was, what, maybe fifteen years old and sent me an e-mail with some of his poems once he learned I liked poetry. E. E. Cummings. I don't remember how I met his poetry, but there was a time when all I wanted to do was settle a book if it in my lap and play around with reading it outloud. At WisCon somebody had a tattoo of that leaf/loneliness/1 poem of his -- Eric, was that you? -- and there was fun to be had in reading it outloud. Everybody who tried read it different. That's what I love about him -- well, he's got style. That's for sure. He can play with a word until it's doing things it never thought it could do, probably. We'll have to pretend that words can think for that sentence to make sense. He can tell a story with a poem that's somehow love and death and everything. Man, he's good. He's just incandescent. Gerard Manley Hopkins. Talk about glory. That's Hopkins. Now he's fun to read aloud, and he's got some lines to make you shiver, get under your skin, have fun with. I would've liked to talk to him about religion, I think, just to hear him talk about it. I would've loved to hear him read his own work. John Donne. So meticulous, so careful, and yet so damned passionate; austere one second, high-minded one moment, and the next you feel like maybe he's talking about something a little more. H.D., who I was introduced to by Liz, another roleplay friend, also a poet from the very first issue of Goblin Fruit. Sparsity? Hi. That's what H.D. wrote with. Hieroglyphs, runes, mystery -- I feel like reading her is reading a secret book and something, some Mysteries, might be imparted therein. Lucille Clifton. Liz introduced me to her, too. It was Anunciation -- we were chatting. She showed me Clifton's "Mary Cycle". Now, I'm not religious. I'm really not. But Clifton's "Mary Cycle" moved me. And if that isn't holy spirit, well, then what is? Lucille's another one for the language play. Tennyson, of course. From when I was a kid flipping through my mom's old Norton Anthologies of Poetry. Always, always liked his poetry. Lady of Shallot, of course, and also Ulysses. Ulysses makes me cry. Keats. Another of course. And another one from the Norton Anthology of my youth. I would've been hopelessly in love with Keats if I knew him and had read one of his poems. I would've been hopelessly, despairingly jealous of Fanny, and would've tried almost relentlessly to invent time travel so he could get medical treatment and just not die so young. Yeats. Yeats, who I have heard read, because of that anthology Poetry Speaks -- whose reading, let us say, does not meet with my approval. He chants, does Yeats, like a magician -- and it doesn't suit. His words are flush with enchantment and beauty and why would he dampen them that way? I love Yeats. He's a storyteller in his song. It's great. Lisel Mueller, because of Terri Windling, quoting the beginning of Reading Brothers Grimm to Jenny at the top of one of the Endicott Journal of Mythic Arts' editor letters -- because that one snippet was so intriguing that I hunted Mueller's works down and printed as many as I could find up and taped them onto my poetry wall. I'm in danger of going on and rambling myself into a frenzy.

Still restless.

I'm so restless right now. I've caught up with almost all of my mail; I've read a book. Tripping to Somewhere by Kristopher Reisz. As far as urban fantasy goes, it's rather awesome; reminds me of Francesca Lia Block, except with more substance and grit. Reminds me of Holly Black, except with more mystery, less borders. Guy's got a voice, that's for sure -- and a clear sense of story, not to mention what it takes to build a flawed, interesting cast of characters. The main character is gay, and this motivates some of the conflict with other characters, but (and this is where I get impressed) the whole conflict is driven by the character herself more than the character's sexual orientation. You know, I don't believe I'm being as clear about this as I'd like to be. It's not one of those books where the emphasis is on -- oh no, I'm gay, she's straight, therefore there are problems, but otherwise there wouldn't be any problems at all, and. No, it's not one of those books. The conflict doesn't hinge on the "gay", it hinges on the characters themselves -- and it's done pretty damned well, I have to say. Reisz's prose is lovely, kind of hits you in the gut sometimes. His characters are very human. His deus ex machina character -- you know, the Mysterious One With Knowledge Who Pulls Strings -- isn't overused, thank god, and said character's influence -- when it is overt -- actually surprises. I recommend it. Was good clean fun.

And I'm still restless, even after writing out that mini-review. Restless and hot. I could sleep, of course. Or work on that novel. Or practice harp. I can't finish the con report now -- my brain refuses. Nothing appeals, though. I don't know what I want. Rar. I suppose I could draw up a Velociraptor Escape Plan for Elise's house to add to her graduation present -- or maybe I could work on an extra story for Rameena. At this point I don't even know what I'm typing.

The rest of Friday, in brief.

Amal and I traipsed after Cat and Dmitri and landed ourselves in a party, where Eric made another appearance. We had a chugging contest, which he won very casually, and Amal lost, despite desperately trying to defeat me. I believe this is when mention of homemade mead was made (say that ten times fast, I dare you). I believe there'd been motions made towards the Ratbastards Karaoke party, but after Cat & Dmitri & Amal disappeared into the darksome pit of yelling and singing for a little while, they reappeared and our trajectory had changed, so I guess it wasn't destiny. A little after midnight, we wandered to the Boisterous Basilisks, Bears and a Balcony reading. We went for JoSelle, but the reading was really a lot of fun, even though we missed the first reader (Alex Wilson, I think).

The participants were: JoSelle, Will Alexander, Alex Wilson and Ben Burgis. It was held in a room that was pretty full, so no problem with midnight readings being poorly attended. There were four chairs that looked Masterpiece Theater cosy, and in those four chairs the participants. Amal and I arrived in the middle of Will Alexander's Zombie Romeo and Juliet -- and it was a one man performance, let me tell you. He switched positions for each "part" and had the audience giggling and laughing in turns. I wish I knew whether it was going to be published somewhere, because I'd like to track it down and read what I didn't get to hear, or somehow go back in time so we wouldn't miss the first part of his reading.

Now, I'm inclined generally to like anything that has a basilisk in it, the exception being Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Definitely the weakest link in that series, and as far as basilisks go, Rowling's basilisk wasn't at all interesting. The point: I was inclined to like JoSelle's reading because it was about a boy falling in love with a basilisk. A basilisk! Also, because it was JoSelle. But after listening to her, I'm certain I would've enjoyed her slice of story even if I didn't know and like her. I'm intrigued, and I want to know more about what happens to the basilisk and the boy. Read aloud, the story reminded me a little of Patricia McKillip's Academia, which is a good thing.

Ben Burgis read a short story about a teenage boy, who was host to an alien. The whole alien-host thing was part of a deal that humanity'd apparently made with invading aliens a generation ago, and it was such a well-rendered tale -- heck, it was just a good story. Ever since he read it, it has been in my head -- making me think about it, wonder about it, wonder if there was going to be more, or if that short story was all there was. I think he said that it wasn't published anywhere, or maybe that he was working on it. I really hope it finds a home one day, because I want it. Keep in mind, science fiction usually doesn't get much attention from me.

After the reading, nobody wanted to leave. The audience sat. The panelists sat. Everybody sat, and chattered, and then Tanya lent us a bag full of Cthulhu dolls for use at the poetry reading. If only we'd remembered them, we could have used them to wave at Mike Allen! Ah, well. I really loved those Cthulhu dolls. They made the hotel room so much homier.

I think I'm going to note right here how fabulous it was to meet JoSelle. She was much tinier than I expected her to be for some reason -- I think it's because, in the picture I'd seen, she looked ever-so-much like a long-boned Virago with her witch-wild hair and all. I'm not saying she didn't still look like that, but she was -- tinier. We ran into one another for the first time but briefly, and I requested that she read "Mary" at the Goblin Fruit poetry reading, because, man, I love that poem. Also, very graciously, she gave me a chapbook of hers that'd got lost in the mail (it's a long, long story) and signed that along with another chapbook and there were promises made to track her down and buy a copy of Erz's handbound book of JoSelle's "Godfather Death" poem if said book made it to WisCon. I think JoSelle was the person I bought from first, before anything else -- granted also, I think the dealer's room was still closed when we ran into her. Still, I'm really glad. It was great all around to finally hear her read and put an anima to the words I read.

Back in the hotel room, Amal put this movie called Miyo and the Land of Faraway onto the laptop and we watched it until a truly ... terrible ... talking head came into the picture. Then sleep sort of devoured us. I think I made her listen to Karine Polwart's "Sorry" and "Firethief" on my ipod.

The first thing we did on Friday morning was find breakfast somewhere that wasn't the hotel. In retrospect, I'm pleasantly surprised by how often I got out of the hotel; at Mythic Journeys, we left the hotel maybe twice and never went very far. The place Amal and I wound up at was called the Sun Room Cafe, and we went there on recomendation from a hotel clerk with a really dazzling toothpaste white smile. Many details of the hotel itself might fade in my memory, but I think the brightness of his teeth burned into my brain. The Sun Room Cafe was not, as he'd said, "just down the block", but down quite a few blocks, up some seedy-looking stairs and on the second level of a building. The food was delicious, just what I wanted. They served tea in teapots that were squat and dark, a size pleasing to the eye and hand, and it wouldn't be the last time we ate there, in a table in the sunshine by the window. Amal's panel on Speculative Poetry was later that day, so I read the description of it and decided to pull questions from it that I thought she might be asked, so that was fun.

After breakfast, we went to check out the dealer's room and the Gather. The dealer's room was mostly books and some really lovely jewelry that looked like it was made by sylphs living on the darkside of the moon (or at least some grunt in Faerie), but the jewelry was all too expensive. I really didn't buy much at all, and I'm really weak when it comes to dealer's rooms and anything at all market-y with stalls and tables and the like. Ran into Alex there, who had this luminosity to her like maybe she was a kid in a candyshop and once she'd eaten enough candy she'd get three magical wishes, and who was very good at floating away.

( At the Gather: )

Between the Gather and Amal's panel we worked. Yes, we worked. We scoped out Michelangelo's and Fair Trade, two coffee shops owned by the same guy (Samir, who started to talk to Amal about Lebanon after we approached him about holding the GF reading at Michelangelo's, which made me think: she's right, it really does happen, people see her name and - bang presto! - conversation). He only asked for an hour's notice, which pleased me, but also horrified me at the same time -- who would hold an event somewhere with only an hour's notice? Also voiced my reservations about the noise from the coffee machines, citing how Hell-loud they always are at Barnes and Noble, but we were going to work with what we could. We were also determined to have decided upon a location AND a time before the panel, so Amal could announce the reading there. It made sense. It was also a looming deadline so work felt like business as usual.

But before the panel we heard tell of a place called Avol's Bookstore. Heard tell of this from F. J. Bergman, aka Jeannie, on some mailing list Amal's on. Jeannie works there, you see, and it sounded really lovely as a venue. At some point, we bumped into Eric and he mentioned it is well via Jeannie, so we wandered off to find this fabled bookstore. First, there was dinner with Alex at a Nepalese restaurant called Himal Chuli. This was another Eric-recommended place, and, man, I think it might be my favourite restaurant of all the restaurants that were tried. Mango lassi, cinnamon lassi - food that was just delicious and filling. People who, once again, understood about communal feasting. After dinner, we found the bookstore. It was perfect, so we arranged things with Ron (the owner), played on the thrones in the back, then skedaddled back to the hotel.

( The Panel - Women Writing Speculative Poetry )

From now on, the order of events might get a bit hazy. I remember details -- too many, sometimes -- and I still want to get them down. That said, the days bleed one into the other. Things will get a little mishymashy.

What else do I want to remember about Thursday? Dinner, of course. And second dinner, too. First Dinner was Amal, myself, Eric and Jessica. Eric was our leader, as he rather often was, and he lead us to a Nepalese (or - Himalayan? I think this was the Nepalese - nope, it was Afghan) restaurant that was quite good. Amal informs me the restaurant was called Kabul, and it smelled rich with spices. The idea was for us four to go somewhere "appetizer-y" so that Amal and I could still enjoy dinner not-too-much-later with Alex once she came in, but it didn't work out that way, exactly. We each ordered different things and then picked off each other's plates, because both Eric and Amal are from the school of communal feasting is good. I like that school. Makes splitting the bill easier, too.

Second dinner, with Alex. Alex is also cool, and I'm really glad that I got a chance to meet her and hang so often for the rest of the weekend. When she first arrived, she reminded me a little of Oliver, and not just because she has an adorable accent. It was something about the sharp glass-delicacy of her features, which might hide from some the smuttiness of her mind. She looked exhausted, and revealed to me and Amal the glory and the wrong of "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" -- followed directly by "The Ultimate Orgy of Homosexuality", a parody. We watched them on Amal's computer, on a table in front of a mirror in the corner of our room, so I remember the absolutely horrified expression on my face (and ditto on Amal's) as we watched and Alex grinned. Dinner was problematic, since everything was closed or closing down by the time we tore ourselves away from the internet. We finally found a little Italian place and feasted on potato skins. I had a root beer float, because I felt the need. There was a jukebox, and the jukebox had awesome music, so Amal and I put moolah in for: Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps by Cake, Singapore by Tom Waits and another song. Not remembering it right now. After that, we wandered back to the hotel, parted, and that's all for Thursday.

Except I should also note, for posterity, that Amal gave me prezzies. Really, really, really good ones. Really, really, really, really good ones. The memento mori necklace that Desiree Isphording created that I've wanted for years now and that I saw somebody'd bought and I thought oh well I resisted its siren's call must try not to regret it. And a desert-dusty carving of a merman and a mermaid from the East. And a coin, which I have, as requested, kept on me when I go out -- although that's partly because I keep forgetting to take it out of my purse. It's an intriguing coin and looks like treasure full of mystery and awe. There's a door on one side and I've already imagined somehow going through the door to find another country. You know, a magic one. Then: CDs. Tricky Pixie, Solace & Sorrow -- signed! Joy!

And that's Thursday. From here on out, expect no such thing as "chronological order".

This is what happened, and who happened, and how it happened -- basically, the happenings of -- this weekend in Madison.

First, let us begin at 2:30 AM last Thursday morning. I utilized this power I manifest on occasion. The power is the ability to wake up super-early and on-time for Something if I know that Something is going to happen, even if there are no alarms anywhere and I'm lost in a timezone that is not my own. Normally, I'm not exactly what one would call a yay!morning person. I finished packing. Mom and I left the house around four and we were running late. There were hints of traffic-to-come but we mostly missed them and all went smoothly until LAX.

LAX has magic powers of its own. It can confuse even someone who has been through it multiple times and can, with hardly so much as a wink, reduce even the cheeriest folks -- I'm thinking Television Commercial Cereal Mascots, even -- to bad moods. Lucky from Lucky Charms would NOT enjoy LAX. Neither would the Trix Rabbit or that Fruit Loop Toucan and his nephews. Tony the Tiger? "I'm sorry, sir, but you're going to have to be declawed before we allow you into the security line..." We were directed to the wrong teller booth five times. The security line was very, very long and quite invasive. Interestingly, my plastic baggie of BPAL got through, even though at Madison the security guard informed me that the plastic bag was too large. Oh, LAX Security Guards. You have become -- dare I say it? -- LAX in the rabid pursuit of your duties. Just beyond the line a woman was reduced to tears because she had to catch a six o' clock flight, she'd already waited in the security line once and been told to run and grab something from somewhere else. She'd also been told that she might be able to get back into the front part of the line -- i.e., the part that wasn't outside wrapping around the building -- if the security guard would let her. She (the security guard) would not let her.

Beyond that headache, everything was mostly good. Airplane left on time. A lovely, yet annoying and lying, African American girl slept on me for most of the flight. (She was a liar, too. The flight attendant: "You need to turn off your cell phone now." Girl: "Oh, it's off." Flight attendant: continues walking. Girl: continues texting like mad. Jess: Hmmm. What could actually happen?) The teeny tiny plane which took me from Denver to Madison was so small that each buffet of wind could be felt. At some point, we hit quite a bit of turbulence, so there was some oohing and aaahing from everybody except for the children. The children began to sing: "TURBULENCE IS FUN. TURBULENCE IS FUN. Yay, yay, Turbulence!" I quite enjoyed the turbulence, actually -- it reminded me of earthquakes. How they can dislodge your heart for a moment and shake up your breath, at least until you're too used to them.

As you come into Madison, if you're looking out the window, the landscape looks like Mythic snakes have been let loose and they've chomped at all the greenery and decided to make the landscape into lace. Also, everything is tiny and isolated from everything else. Also, it is quite green.

Taxi cab ride to the Concourse was good and surprisingly cheap. After I unloaded my luggage with the hotel staff, I went a-wandering, and I must say that Madison really is a beautiful city. I hesitate to call it city, because the word just doesn't taste write in my mouth. Madison isn't the right shape for a city. It isn't the right smell. It wasn't dirty at all. The buildings were too small.

Every time I travel, each time I'm alone for the first time, I find I tend to give money to one homeless person and/or busker who approaches me. The same holds for fairs like the Renaissance Fair. This is the first time I gave money to a rude one, who I wound up arguing with. Bum: "One dollah? Two will buy food for me AND the missus." Me: "Eh, just one dollar." Him: "(something Jess doesn't remember)" Me: "You can give the dollar BACK to me and I'll give you some nickels like you ASKED for." Bum: "I am a starving artist." Me: "And I'm a poet. I think I win? Seriously, dude. Have some dignity." Bum: "(wander away muttering)" Me: "Damn. Why didn't I give that dollar to the guy singing soulful whale-road chanties? Also, yay! I haven't been stabbed!"

By the time I'd checked my pocket watch and realized I should wander back to the hotel in order to meet Amal (and Eric, who gave her a ride from the airport) in the lobby, I also realized I was sort of lost. Woe!

I wandered vaguely uphill. Then I wandered vaguely toward the capitol building, except somehow I kept seeming to be where I couldn't see it. When I found it again, I was veryvery happy, but I kept going around the wrong corner I suppose, because it still took me a goodly time to find the hotel again. When I poked into the lobby, Amal and Eric were not there, so I sat down and continued reading "In the Forest of the Forgetting" by Theodora Goss.

I didn't notice exactly when they did arrive. The lobby was a crossroadsy place with people always coming and going and meeting and flowing. I noticed Amal out of the corner of my eye when she was already almost upon me, and I'm fairly certain what she said was, "Ignoring me like a wench, are you!" or some variation thereof. Eric sort of stood courteously back and we were introduced.

Eric is cool. He has an LJ name, and if I weren't the lazy sort of LJer that I am, I would probably link it here. But I am the sort of lazy LJer I am, so there is no linkage. I'll say it again: Eric is cool. He wears jewelry made of snake-bones and hematite. He wears boots that are asskickingly awesome. He's got Nordic blue eyes and fluffy elf-brown hair and a rather mischievous countenance. He is also accompanied by Nigel, who is awesome, and must meet Oberon one day. Oberon is my griffin puppet. Nigel is a leather-and-fur crow who is a twist of art and had his own WisCon badge. There is (or will be?) a picture of me with Nigel floating around the web at some point. Nigel was made by Eric's girlfriend, Jane, who I kept meeting briefly or seeing even more briefly for the duration of WisCon -- never at the same time I saw Eric, actually. Her name is Jane and her creations were on exhibit at the Art Gallery, but I'll talk more about that (and her) later.

In fact, I think I'll talk about a lot of this later as I'm thirsty for tea. I'll end on this note: Amal and I went up to our room with plans to meet Eric for a "small, appetizer-y" dinner as soon as we'd unloaded. Amal and I had plans to meet up with Alex for REAL dinner later. We also met a young woman named Jessica (because: of course. It is a name of popularity.) whose hair was GORGEOUS. Dark, understand. Except she'd dyed part of it indigo and part of it blue and part of it green all of which really only showed up in certain lights and somehow this was all a Speed of Light math joke which I don't remember, because while I can appreciate such jokes from a distance, I can't say they really "click" in my brain. She also has an LJ, and I am also too lazy to link to it. She was also going to dinner with us. But where was I? Right. Our room.

Well. We'd planned on holding a Goblin Fruit reading there, something I was rather nervous about. Not holding the reading *there*, in our room, but holding the reading at all, considering it was very last minute and I'm still of the belief that "but, but, surely SOMETHING cooler must be going on".

The room was basically a hallway. Then there was a corner, and around the corner was a smidge of floorspace and a large bed. It was not conducive to a reading if more than, oh, five people showed. And even then, where would the poet stand? On the bed? While somebody with mischief on their mind, or perhaps just the human desire to shift, bounced around at the foot of the bed? The bed would have to double-up as stage and seat -- and no, that would not do, so we decided we'd have to find somewhere else. Then we made the Bible drawer the jewelry drawer and hung up our various clothes.

(Amal: "The Bible in the drawer?" Me: "Yeah. The Bible Drawer." Amal: "There's a BIBLE in the drawer?" Me: "Yeah! Of course! All hotels do that!" Amal: "Really! In the UAE there's always an arrow pointing to Mecca." Me: "Really!")

I'm home. And I'm glad. The cats are happy to see me. The brother cannot be bestirred from the bed to say hello, but grumbles at me. The lawnmowers are purring outside. The weather is calm and placid, clouds in the sky, dust on the horizon, and there are hills. Also, my bed is ready for me to collapse into it after a harrowing flight back. Of course, I'm not tired, so I fiddle around on the computer instead. I think it's also happy to see me, or I'm possibly projecting.

Well, it rather looks as if I'll need to finish a novel by Christmas.*

You cannot understand just how shocked I am. I'd never have bet THAT if I thought there was the remoooootest possibility I was wrong. Who are all you other people? I'll dedicate the travesty to come to all of you. Or perhaps to the yous who responded as I would've.

Perplexed? See the gauntlet, and how it glints all prettily.











*Mwahahaha! But did I say which Christmas?
** Fuck. I totally did.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from head to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But he still fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich--yes, richer than a king--
and admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

The two terms I find myself explaining most often to my aquaintance: "Furry" and "Steam Punk".

I need to come to terms with the fact that I'm not in complete writerly control of my own story, and even if I was I probably wouldn't like it very much (being a perfectionist). There will be things that I want that don't happen to me. There will be things I want that I just won't get. I'll get other good things, but probably not what I really want, and the good things are still good.

Dear [Insert Name(s) Here],

I even like the word beauty. I don't know why I should; it's actually rather ridiculous, if you start to really look at it. It isn't even symmetrical unless you squint. But I love beauty, and because I do, I am full of love you. I love you because you have sent me such things that when I check for the mail I am constantly surprised at what falls into my hands. Frozen images on paper from the Levant, a crowd in robes and t-shirts w/ jeans, a frankincense tree against the sky, unburned, and another frankincense tree as golden as honey in the sunlight, an envelope with a card and a broken crescent moon ornament, organic shapes and whorls of leaves or animals -- colour; a building in Spain that you call "designed by Dr. Seuss and decorated by Wiliam Morris", the luminiferous empty hallway of an Abbey in France, a medieval woman in vibrant colour and delicate lines who reminds me of a jewels, so fine and so fire to the eye, also from France, a tapestry detail, a bird-like Lady in voluminous spring greening robes and a fan from Louis the Something's reign; a ghostly Romantic rendering of Isabella and the Pot of Basil, all greens and shadows, from Boston and old-fashioned Alice with her neck stretched tall, still from Boston. And that's not all, either. An invitation to a graduation, stately in white and crimson, almost too tasteful; a book, unattainable here, sent in trade from England; a chapbook the color of beeswax bought because somehow a stray entry on this journal got to the poet. More, too: a surprise package of BPAL, a bottle of Rose Red, Rackham-labeled, chasing my adoration of the imp sent by the same person; a bottle of Glitter, which disappeared en route to me the first time; a bar of Villainess soap. Still more: a memory-misty picture of San Francisco, from the same, with a scribbled invitation to come and a shadow-box puzzle glued together -- depicts a girl floating through the air; on the back, a message penned in bleeding ink. I love you, really, deeply: I do. You (plural) have given me mail that isn't needful to anything but myself, and I love you for it. When I go to get the mail, I anticipate interesting things, maybe stories, maybe something beautiful, and I don't know how in the world it happened that I have so many people who can send me things that are not bills, but don't stop! Because it makes me happy.

So, love,
An appreciative receiver of mail

PS: No, I haven't received anything special today. This was inspired by my gathering up of the mail of the last month or so into one location.

The other day I went to the Renaissance Fair with Jackie and Sheryl (her mother) and my mother (Karen, for the curious). I had a good time. We spent quite a bit of it simply sitting, talking and watching the local color. It wasn't as colorful as it has been in the past. There were no yellow-eyed demons with horned codpieces and not a Darth Vader in sight. My favourite parade, the Danse Macabre, caught up with us at the same place it always seems to: where all the food is. While I feasted on an artichoke, careful to scrape as much flesh from its armoresque leaves as possible, I watched them whirl in black rags and skull masks, beckon to a child who stood stock-still and wary.

We were caught quite a few times by Queen Elizabeth's procession, which meant we were held immobile against whatever stall we happened to be at. This year's Queen Elizabeth was a young Queen Elizabeth, and she was absolutely beautiful: sharp features, with character; sharp nose, sharp cheeks, tilted chin, wide smile, swan-neck. Her red hair was worn girlish long, with a crown of flowers, and if it was a wig, so what? There was a violin-maker with the most shockingly turquoise eyes I have ever seen, and he was, eh heh, quite gorgeous, but when I decided I wanted to find his out-of-the-way booth again and chat him up (y'know, violins: I really am quite fascinated by the making of them; the fact that he was beautiful was totally incidental), I just couldn't find it. The fair isn't that big, and it's laid out in what is more or less a deformed figure eight, but the violin maker's stall had vanished completely it seemed.

The joust -- oh, the joust. I love the joust. We always go to the joust at the end of the day, then wind homeward from thence. The joust we wait for is the joust to the death, and I love it. We got the evil knight, again, which is a good thing. His character was thus: mad, bad Sir William de somethingorother who heard voices in his head and looked straight-backed and pale-haired with a very stony jaw. He pulled off the fixed with pride look quite well. His colors were silver and green, and he was allied with a charming (and quite pretty) knight whose name I don't remember, but whose colors were purple and gold. They were the bad ones who spilled their drinks on the tourney ground when it was time to toast valor. Jackie and I kept trying to guess who would betray who, and, even knowing the score like we did, there were enough twists that, by the time the victor (not one of the bad knights) was standing tall, we hadn't had a clue who was going to go first.

I resisted -- with great difficulty -- the lure of a $70 hand-mirror from Fyne Woods. These mirrors are marqued wood and I've wanted one for years, so I was quite proud of myself.

And then I was somehow left alone next to one of the mask stalls. Now, I'd already gone into this mask stall earlier, tried on a couple, and then -- although this is the maskmaker whose wares I am determined to be the owner of, one day -- I left. I decided: No, not now, because money is scarce right now, and I'm going to WisCon, where I can only presume there will be books to sell, books that I won't be able to find on my shelves as my local bookstore, especially what with the new management, so no. No mask for me.

I caved. It happened something like this. He was helping another customer. I saw this beautiful, beautiful mask. I'd been sort of perusing again thinking that if I was to get a fox-maid mask it would be from him, because there's something very arresting about his foxy masks, and I was looking for one. But then I saw this other one, right? I'm standing there, hands clasped, staring all wantful and nono step away butit'snotsobad and aughit'ssoexpensive justwalkaway when he offers me a wolf mask. I go: "Heh. I was looking for a fox, but -- I don't know about THIS one. I don't know if I'm trying to convince myself to stay or to go!" And he offers me a deal. A really, really, really good deal. Still expensive, but -- well. I caved like a souffle cooked by somebody like me. Behold:




The front view.




The side view.




Me, pleased and with a griffin-mask hat, still begrimed in Ren Fair dirt and sunscreen.

I must say, the salutations on the submissions we receive are always entertaining. Will I be Jennifer? Will I be Jessica-not-Jennifer? Miss or Mrs. Wick? Will Amal be a Mr. yet again? Or will the hello be more... creative? Maybe we'll be Goblinfruiters or They That Must Not Be Named or The Gob Crew or You Wonderful Magnificent Editors You! It's just really fun.

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded:



* Bold the ones you've read.
* Underline the ones you read for school.
* Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.


Here's the twist:
add (*) beside the ones you liked and would (or did) read again or recommend. Even if you read 'em for school in the first place."


The List

Addendum
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell*
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses*
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods*
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked
The Canterbury Tales*
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys*
The Once and Future King*
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility*
The Picture of Dorian Gray *
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles*
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay*
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere*
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita*
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid*
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

Name: BON VIVANT

Description: An effervescent blend of crystalline champagne notes and sweet strawberry.

Wet, on skin: Sweet, summery; round.

Dry, on skin: I tried this on a whim. My box of imps is, literally, too full to close, so I just plucked from the top. Took a sniff, thought, mm. Not bad; sort of sweet, sort of summery. Then I found myself sniffing the air a little while later, thinking, Did somebody spill alcohol in here? And, lo. It was my wrist! Not unpleasant, but the booze definitely comes out, as if I'd dragged myself through a strawberry daiquirí.

After some time: Okay, the above wasn't fair. There's still champagne. By god, that's clear, but the fruit is behind it, just -- not TOO sweet, but sweet.

Final Verdict: Sure, I'll wear this occasionally. I don't know what occasion calls for smelling of booze and strawberries, but I'll find out, and then Bon Vivant will be my signature occasion-for-smelling-of-booze-and-strawberries scent.