Category Archives: Links

Constantly And Unwittingly

Argh! Been tagged by a meme!

I rarely do this sort of thing, but here you are:

The Rules:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.

Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest, then tag three people.

The book is The Witch’s Goddess by Janet and Stewart Farrar, because I’m working on references.

“The lover’s unveiling of a woman’s body is a sacred gesture as old as man himself. In our rationalized world, which no longer believes in ritual but which constantly and unwittingly re-creates it, this act has become the strip-tease, an aberrant form of religious worship debased to the level of commercial spectacle” (Markale, Women of the Celts, p.144). We mean it here in the original sacred sense.

If I had arranged my stack of current reference books differently, you might have gotten information on a species of swan, or on medieval technology.

I don’t think I’ve ever tagged anyone in my life, because I’m not fond of being tagged for time-consuming things myself so I don’t do it to others (this was fun, though, which is why I did it.) So with no imperatives involved, I’d be interested in knowing what Meallanmouse is reading, and what books are near Sandman7‘s computer, and I’m always interested in knowing what volumes Dr. Anne has on the go because she is Terribly Smart, and Witty to boot. And frankly, if any of my Gentle Readers are interested in sharing sentences six through nine on page 123 of the closest book, consider yourselves tagged and share!

What We Did On The First Sunday Of August

Ever since I can remember, the first Sunday in August has been the Highland Games.

I’ve remembered it too late to schedule it in over recent years, or we’ve been busy, but this year we made it. We packed up both godfamiles, and off we all went for an afternoon out in the gorgeous sun. There wasn’t a spot of humidity anywhere, and there was a decent breeze, thank goodness.

HRH wore his kilt — of course — and Liam wore the tiny kilt that my grandfather got for me from Edinburgh when I was a wee little thing. They stopped a lot of traffic.

Liam loved the massed bands; he loved the drums and the pipes (not a surprise at all, considering his heritage and the cousins who play both); he loved all the dogs he saw; he smiled at and charmed just about everyone he met. He reached for a total stranger to cuddle with her, but it was fine, because it turned out that she was the wife of one of the members of Salty Dog, a local Celtic band that HRH used to hang out with lo these many years ago. And she was more than happy to cuddle him a bit before heading off to the beer tent where the band was striking up. He absolutely was not interested in napping, or eating that much; too much to see! to do! to hear! The one thing he wasn’t happy about was the cannon that was part of the opening ceremonies. He’d been fine through the display of musketfire, but when they fired the cannon he was looking the other way. The sudden sharp sound surprised him more than anything else, so there was a bit of angry crying. But after he’d cuddled with each of us and had a bit more milk, he was fine and interested in the bands marching onto the field.

I came home with badly sunburned shoulders, despite the amount of sunscreen I slathered on before departure. But apart from that, it was a wonderful wonderful day, one of the best I’ve had in a while. The massed bands at the opening ceremonies were, as always, worth the $10 admission fee alone. And it felt really special to bring my son to his first games, as I’d been brought to too many to count while growing up.

Liam Update

Almost a full two months after the fact, there are finally pictures from Liam’s birthday weekend up:


Liam’s First Birthday Weekend Extravaganza!

You may notice the page looks a little different from the earlier photo albums. Someday I’ll get around to recoding the old ones to match the new design and the new site. You know, in all that spare time I have.

Got Writing?

There are many writerly folk who swing by here, so I’m posting a note about Jan’s second annual August Writing Challenge.

Here’s how Jan presents the project:

Jan’s August Writing Challenge
Write something every day in the month of August.

Sounds tough! What do I have to do?
Write. Something. Anything. Any length. Prose or poetry. Every day. For a month. And share it.

Sounds cool! How do I sign up?

* Join the august_writing community if you’re not already a member [Note: if you don’t have an LJ account, you’ll need to set one up so that you can join the community. It’s free, and you don’t have to actually use the journal; heck, I don’t, I only use it to join communities like this and leave comments!]
* Link to this post in your LJ or journal so that we can get as many people involved as possible
* Post either your writing, or a link to your writing, to the community every day in August, starting on Tuesday, August 1st, 2006.

Sounds simple! Are there any other rules?
Nope. Well, not really. It has to be creative writing – prose or poetry, of any any length, on any subject. Stuff you would normally be writing anyway counts (so, for those who write serials, that counts) but stuff you write for your job doesn’t. But it can be anything. Short fiction, short-short fiction, essays, character studies, stream-of-consciousness, writing exercises (like last year I’m going to try to post a different writing exercise every day for anyone who would like to use it), sections of a larger work you have in progress, etc. Anything at all, so long as it’s a self-contained piece of writing that you did that day. It would also be really cool if you could read and comment on a couple of other posts every day.

The problem I ran into last year was the stuff-you-write-for-your-job-doesn’t-count, because after working with the green witch rewrites and a six week old baby, there was no time left even for little bits. I think I managed to post things on eight days out of the thirty-one. This year may or may not be different, since I’ve got another book to deliver this fall. I’m going to give it my best shot, though.

It’s a terrific exercise, because everyone shares tips and tricks and supports one another in getting something, anything out every day. People who didn’t consider themselves writers joined and surprised themselves at how much they accomplished. We all saw some awesome stuff, saw some new projects develop, and shared insight into the creative process. Wander over, take a look, sign up and join the fun!