Category Archives: Words Words Words

A Healthy Sense Of Humour

Dinner’s being made, so I’m still noodling about on the Wondrous Wide World of Web.

In seeking an author web site I found a welcome page for a hosting service which included the following:

Disclaimer:

Almost all of these sites assume you, Gentle Reader, don’t have a problem with one, more, or all of the following, and moreover that you are of a legal age, height, weight, state of mind, state of reason, or state of confusion to view this content in your community, city, town, village, borough, township, county, region, ZIP or Postal Code, state, province, area or city code, time zone, country, continent, hemisphere, planet, solar system, galaxy, or parallel dimension to view the content therein. Not all views expressed are those of Mike and Lorrie, and I’m quite certain that views expressed by some of the sites’ administrators are not shared by others. Viva free speech!

Non-Christian religions:

Neither Lorrie nor Mike follow an Abrahamic faith. Few of their friends do either. If that bothers you, browse somewhere else. This means that sites hosted here are cheerfully pagan, and almost all are of a Teutonocentric bent. That means Germanic. That does emphatically not mean “racist prat.” Just so we’re clear.

Unusual spiritual practices:

Not only do we worship strange gods, but we wholly advocate doing odd things with them once you have Their attention. Magic, poring over quaint, dusty volumes of forgotten lore, several other things. Mind you, people who didn’t bail after the first one probably aren’t going to leave us here, but I thought you should know.

I like people who display healthy senses of humour. It’s good for the soul.

Apparently NASA had a sense of humour at one point too, but the proof’s been removed:

Told for the truth, guys. NASA actually has a document on what to do in case of a Viking Raid. Here at last is proof that NASA and the government does have a sense of humor after all! (Has now been moved from the original NASA site…updated as of 11/17/99) (Found on this list of barbarian literature, of all places. I’m looking for Diana Paxson links, okay?)

Various Things

“Want to watch The Fellowship of the Ring tonight?” I ask my husband as we finish unpacking groceries and washing dishes. I’m antsy, waiting for the theatrical release of The Two Towers to come out on DVD in a month.

He checks the clock; evaluates his mood; thinks about bedtime, and where to work dinner in.

“Sure,” he says.

It’s not just like tossing in a Disney movie, after all. You’re talking about a four-hour commitment, for which you’ll probably have to pack a lunch, or at least a snack.

To my astonishment, I discovered today that Emily has linked me on her writing blog! You all remember my references to Emily Horner and her word count acting as my stick and/or carrot from last November, I’m sure? I stop by her writing log every week or so. I tend to read entries as opposed to scanning links on the blogs that I read (although for kicks sometimes I click on a random link on someone’s page), so I have no clue when this happened, but I’m terribly tickled. I’m always tickled when I find that somone who isn’t a personal friend, who only knows me from my blog or on-line presence, has linked me.

And finally, from Caitlin R Kiernan:

“Where do you get your ideas?” Strike that. Reverse it.

“Where do they get me?”

Yes, Virginia, I’m Still Anti-Social

We just got back from buying groceries, and for kicks my husband tossed a box of Sugar Crisp into the basket. We opened it when we got home for a quick nibble while we put the groceries away, and dear gods, it’s just the taste I remember from the isolated encounters I’ve had here and there in the past. How on earth to kids get away with eating this candy for breakfast? I’d ration it out as a treat, or dessert.

Although I had a wonderful class on Saturday discussing films, I’m still in that odd anti-social mood, complete with persistent headache. I’m not fit company for man or beast, as my cats have plainly shown me. The light hurt my eyes all weekend too, which was absolutely no help when it came to trying to read or sit down at the computer. This may or may not have something to do with removing and washing the front windows. The amount of filth that came off them was absolutely disgusting. I’m betting they haven’t been washed in well over two years. The light quality has certainly changed in the living room.

And in an effort to help strengthen my bad wrist, I picked up a 2 lb weight at Canadian Tire yesterday. I’ve been doing over and underhand curls with it while I read, and it feels great. My husband had to remind me to work the other wrist too, just to balance things out. We’ll see how things develop.

Yup. Doing some serious withdrawing, in case you hadn’t noticed. These are the highlights of my life.

Did I mention I woke up at 3.30 AM and decided to research Norse deities, since sleep was denied me? And that I received my new Medicare card in the mail?

Teaching Again

I taught another workshop last night. Since registration has been terrible since the beginning of the year, this is actually only the second public workshop I’ve led in the past five months. It was nice to be back.

Also nice were the fees I collected. After paying for rental of the space, I have enough to relax, stop by the secondhand bookstore around the corner, and think about having a lime soda without feeling guilty regarding where the dollar-fifty ought to be going instead. The money’s not the reason I teach, and I’ll never make a living from it, but it’s a nice perq.

When Less Is Not More

Well, when I said last week that the cello section was getting smaller but better, I didn’t mean to suggest that even less was more. Tonight we only had two celli present – myself, and one other. And of course, we sight-read completely new music: Bizet, Sibelius, and that odd Overture for an Unwritten Comedy which was written by a Canadian in the 1950s, and sounds like it. (No value judgement implied; I quite like some of the Canadian compositions from the latter half of the last century. It’s just that this piece is going to contrast sharply with the others on the program.) None of us had heard it before, so we had no clue what we were aiming for.

On the other hand, the Sibelius was divine: slightly melancholy, slight macabre (even more so when Douglas gave us the story in a nutshell: a dying old woman, mistaking Death standing in the doorway for her long dead husband, rises and dances with him), and of course, in waltz time, my favourite. The Bizet was, well, Bizet. I have a love-hate relationship with Bizet. I like him sometimes; I hate him sometimes, usually when I’m playing his music. The rest of the time I’m terribly neutral about him.

A couple of people stopped by as we were packing up our instruments, and said that the celli had sounded quite good tonight. My fellow cellist looked at me after one such comment and said wryly, “Why do these compliments sound like condolences?” Okay, so we two aren’t necessarily the strongest among the section, but we were sight-reading new music, after all, and apart from losing our place for a bit here and there, we didn’t make any horrible mistakes.

In fact, I felt so good about what I did tonight that, as I did last week, I left rehearsal wanting to race home and play some more. The drive took all the wind out of my sails, though, and now I just want to soak in a bath and read, except that I’ve finished Lincoln’s Dreams and I don’t want to read the non-fiction I have on the go. I’ve recently re-read all the other Connie Willis in the house, so I suppose I’ll wander around my shelves and pull something off at random.

Before I left tonight, my husband asked to read the two bonus chapters I wrote earlier this year to tie up loose ends in my NaNoWriMo novel. As I printed them out for him, I re-read bits and pieces of it. Damn, it’s good. When I feel uninspired, I really ought to read my own work more often to get myself back in the mood. I’ve been dragging my feet about getting back to work on the Great Canadian Novel because I don’t know enough about my protagonist’s choice of action. I discovered the skeleton of a fantasy novel on my laptop last week that I’d forgotten I transcribed a year ago, so I could work on that as well. I also have a non-fiction book drafted out, so I can’t even try to dodge writing by claiming that I have nothing different to work on. A young adult novel, a romantic comedy, a fantasy, and a non-fiction book; no matter how I feel when I get up in the mornings, I ought to be able to work on at least one of my projects. My reluctance to plunge into the GCN is colouring my whole writing approach, though, I think. I don’t want to keep going until I know more, otherwise it just won’t ring true. Sending a protagonist overseas when you don’t know the city she’s headed to is dicey.

Of course, this means I have to travel to France. Just for research, you understand.

Eeeeee!

I check out Neil Gaiman’s log every couple of weeks or so, and this morning I found a dizzying off-hand reference that made my blood pressure soar (in a good way):

finished the last tidy on the pre-outline story draft for the TAM LIN film I’m doing with Brian and Wendy Froud and Sony Animation

Gah! Being (a) a Neil Gaiman fan, (b) a Froud fan, and (c) a huge fan of the Scottish tale of Tam Lin, I am quite naturally over the moon.