Category Archives: Books

Briefly

Despite my quiet monitor, dual hard drives and new cordless ergonomic keyboard, I’m still having anti-computer issues, so here’s a summary of Life in General:

Regarding that ergo keyboard: things are just a bit off, and I keep hitting odd buttons, which creates situations where I have to go back and delete or re-type. My arms and shoulders are happy, though.

I think the US publisher still hasn’t received my press packet and NDA. I’m mildly stressed, and I can’t locate the tracking tag that the post office gave me. My desk has been cleaned a couple of times, new equipment has been installed, and the apartment has been thrown into turmoil twice over the last week for various reasons, so it could be anywhere (except the places I’ve looked, apparently), or even thrown out.

My doctor is so pleased with how things are going that I no longer have to see her monthly. We’re down to quarterly.

For some reason, now that the weather is tolerable, my allergies are hitting hard and fast. Thank the gods for Reactin.

The Kim Possible DVD contains four episodes only. Fortunately they were all episodes I hadn’t seen, so I loved it from start to finish. I’ve enjoyed later episodes from the first season more, though.

The new electric baseboard heaters were finally installed yesterday. The wire they used is bright red, to indicate that it’s a live wire. The landlady wanted the cheapest and fastest labour possible, so the wire is just stapled to the ceiling as opposed to set behind baseboards or fished through the ceiling. It looks terrible, and the electrician agrees. We call them our apartment go-fast stripes.

First classes of all three sessions went well over the weekend. It feels like we’re right back in the swing of things, as if we never had a summer break.

I found two second-hand books I’d been looking for. Hurrah!

Enough!

Things That Make You Go “Hmm”:

Whenever I please myself with a word count, I head on over to Caitlin R Kiernan’s log of her latest novel endeavour. I haven’t written lately, so I haven’t checked it out, but today I came across a lot of interesting posts (Caitlin is nothing if not interesting). The one that made me go “hmm”, however, is this one about how socially acceptable is a grown adult’s playing of “let’s pretend” (which is essentially what authors do in their heads). She contrasts it with role-playing, an activity which the majority of adults scoff at.

Er. It’s the same thing. Imaginative adults play let’s pretend all the time. Let’s pretend that light isn’t red, let’s pretend you’re a naughty schoolgirl, let’s pretend that bill says I owe much less than I actually do. Authors of all genres of fiction (and some non-fiction) play a version of let’s pretend and then write it down.

Caitlin blows the whistle on it, as well as costuming (another interest we share), and what she calls The Cult of Sports. Go. Read.

Autumn PotPourri:

Over the past three days my back has developed that nasty kink in it that had me lying on the floor eighteen months ago. I’m trying to avoid movements that trigger the intense pain, but I forget sometimes and yelp embarrassingly. This isn’t so bad at home, where there are only cats to look at you condescendingly, but when you’re freelancing in an office, people turn around.

My press packet and the NDA haven’t reached the US publisher. I’m a smidge anxious. It should have been there by Wednesday.

There are five books at my local secondhand bookstore that I covet. Problem is, they’re all ten dollars or so. They’re trade paperbacks, so I ought to look at the encouraging fact that fifty dollars is significantly less than the hundred dollars or more that I’d pay for them new, and all of them are in mint condition. I do have a paycheque that needs to be deposited, and a morning free today. Hmm…

I woke up at 4 AM so I got up and began sorting through all my teaching stuff. Yes, CMS level 1 sessions begin again tonight! I love beginning classes again; I meet new people, discover new points of view, and refresh my own knowledge as we go. Then I get to do it again tomorrow morning with another level 1 group. Saturday afternoon, though, I get to start a new level 2 group, which will include several of my past level 1 graduates (Joy!), and on Sunday I have a level 3 group of equally marvellous ex-level-2 students. (Yes, if you think all of that through, I’m teaching from Friday night straight through to Sunday afternoon.) The first session of all of these ends in early February, so I’m looking forward to five months of study and watching people make new connections and acquire new skills and knowledge.

This is always a stressful time of year, though, what with people scurrying about and re-integrating their schedules and what-not. Orchestra begins again for me next Wednesday, for example. I’m glad the weather has become sane again, at least. Everyone can be thankful for that. If you can’t get outside for half an hour, at least look out a window often!

Book Stuff

I got free books in the mail today!

Okay, I have to write reviews on them, but they’re free books! I love this job! (Freelance writing, that is.)

Friends are at the Toronto WorldCon this weekend (affectionately known as TorCon), revelling in the total immersion of things speculative. The irony of the situation is that I, too, will be in Toronto this weekend. Just not at TorCon. Alas.

(I should get Ceri back for being In The Presence of Neil Gaiman Without Me by writing a single story for her which contains all four assigned story points I haven’t yet addressed. Ha.)

Studio!

My husband has finally moved into his studio space, and while I’m grateful, I’m sure he’s even more relieved. We got to unpack a couple of his boxes that hadn’t been opened since our move six months ago, and lo and behold, in one of them I found a tiny box of my things too. It held copies of press releases I’d written, articles, things like that. In amongst them, though, I found an old file box of business cards left over from my F/SF bookselling days, and I opened them and sorted through them, just for kicks. I found some odd stuff.

Like William Gibson’s fax number scribbled on a slip of paper.

And Cory Doctorow’s Charles Atlas-style business card.

And Forrest J Ackerman’s full-color photocard.

All in all, it was an interesting trip down memory lane. Besides, it was a terrific lesson on how-not-to-design-a-business-card. The majority of them were disastrous from a marketing point of view – no charisma whatsoever.

I’m thrilled, thrilled, thrilled that my husband is now officially Set Up in his artist space. I’m equally overjoyed that he’s decided to spend at least an hour every other day working there to relax. I love being there too, so this might be an answer to those restless evenings were we can’t settle down but have no real idea of what we want to do. I’ll grab my laptop, he’ll grab his sketchbook, and off we’ll go.

Make no mistake – we know exactly how lucky we are.

Gnash

Tori Amos will be in Toronto this August 13th on her LottaPianos tour. I, however, will be in Pennsylvania.

Sigh.

Neil Gaiman on seeing Tori at some point during this North American tour: And no, I don’t yet know which ones I’ll be going to. Given that this is going to be the last time she’ll be on the road until at least 2005, I want to make as many as I can. (“Look, I’ll just ride in the bus and write a book. You’ll hardly even notice me. Promise.”)

As if Neil Gaiman could ever not be noticed.

A Curse Upon Hydro And Blogger

Joy. Remember I was growling about how the power was supposed to be turned off last week, and it never was, so I wasted a whole day of work? Guess what happened this morning with no warning at all.

Blogger had a hiccup yesterday and ate not only the penultimate post on the Hogwarts quiz, but the long and involved post I did on Frida Kahlo as well.

So, to recap:

Apparently Defence Against the Dark Arts would be my best class if I attended Hogwarts. Hmm. I thought for sure it would be History of Magic.

July 6, 1907 was Frida Kahlo’s birthday, although she popularised her birthdate as July 7, 1910 to identify herself with the new Mexico born with the outbreak of the Mexican revolution.

Currently, my favourite work of Kahlo’s is her Self-Portrait, 1926; I find it quite Mona Lisa-like: mysterious, solemn, quirky, and each time that I see it I come to a different decision regarding what lies behind those eyes. Here she is.

Self-Portrait, 1926

(The original post was longer, and more articulate. Really.)