Monthly Archives: September 2006

Potpourri

My router is suspiciously subdued today. I think it heard me threatening to smash it, and has been cowed into more appropriate behaviour.

I think of all sorts of deepish things to muse about in journal entries as I lie in bed falling asleep, and then when I get to the keyboard the next day I can’t remember a single one of them. Maybe I wanted to talk about how it seems as if with a turn of the calendar page from August to September, fall arrived: cooler temperatures, sleeping with the window almost fully closed at night, the need to wear socks and therefore loafers again. I’m mildly irritated that I didn’t even get to wear the four new camisole t-shirts I bought in early August, back during the last humid heatwave. Or maybe it was something else about clothes, such as how those new smallest-ever size jeans I got in July are now too big for me somehow, after washing them twice. I’d like to have clothes that fit properly; I don’t think it’s too much to ask from life. I think I need to re-evaluate my personal style, too, since I look at most of the clothes in my drawers and go “meh” a lot of the time. (This may have something to do with the fact that my clothes last forever, so I don’t buy clothes very often. Plus I’m not a fan of fashion in general. The contents of my drawers date back from an average of about six years ago.)

I have no idea what I’ll wear for the signing on Saturday. A t-shirt and jeans won’t exactly cut it, and all my good pants are a size too big for me. Oh, there’s a cord skirt I got to wear all of once before I got pregnant, and if I wear my brown sweater with it then I can dig out my funky brown cord lace-up boots, too. Well, there we are, then. Assuming I’m in the right kind of mood on Saturday, that is. I reserve the right to change my mind depending on how I feel when the time comes to get ready.

Since none of last night’s deep thoughts are making a comeback, I tell you instead that I bid farewell to the medium auburn hair I had all summer as a result of the highlights my stylist put in in mid-April. Since my hair is a mess of curls, no streak stays well-defined as a streak; they merge with the rest of my hair, creating a blend between my base colour and the highlight, which in turn lightened through exposure to sun and wind. It was a lovely colour and I enjoyed it for the summer, but I was never fully convinced it looked quite right. So today I coloured it all a basic mid-brown (and let me take a girly moment to say that Garnier 100% Color is the best product I’ve ever used in terms of ease of application, because my hair is usually nightmarish to get hair dye through and this went on in moments). It’s a mild relief to be a proper brunette once more.

All right. I’ve had lunch, there’s tea, I’ve eased back into writing by journaling… let’s see how much I can get done on the last two chapters of ESTC.

ESTC Update

Total word count, ESTC: 20,638
Total words today: 1,028

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
20,638 / 50,000
(41.3%)

I dawdled today, knowing full well that I only had to hit 1400 words this week to be on schedule. I’m about two hundred words under my (actual) daily quota, and don’t really care, ha ha! (This is good for me, and a nice change from stressing.)

All today’s words constitute the draft of a single ritual. I have got to move to the final two chapters, because everything else (except chapter 2, the ubiquitous history/cultural chapter; I am formulaic and predictable) now exists in a moderately substantial draft form. And I’m almost half-done. When it’s all there in draft form, then I can polish and rewrite and round it out.

Warning: Incipient Hardware Violence

Goodbye, Internet; I am about to stab my very noisy whiny router with something blunt but dense in order to cause as much damage as possible. Or possibly just turn it off.

When I need to take another break, I will turn it on again in order to do research on a replacement router, because I can’t take this thing much longer. It sounds like I’m working next to a vacuum cleaner. It somehow was left on for four days straight while we were gone (although I could have sworn I turned it off like I do every night, being obsessive about things like that, particularly before a long weekend away) and we came home to the thing sounding like it was revving up to take off from Cape Canaveral, complete with threatening an explosion midair. It’s worse than it’s ever been, and I want to kill it dead dead dead because it’s getting into my brain and I can’t make it stop. Not even playing Zombie Chickens at top volume masks it.

So joy: a new router gets added to my list of things I need to buy for the computer when my cheque comes in, right below that new stick of RAM.

Book Signing!

This Saturday, for the first time ever, a local book signing by the elusive author of Power Spellcraft for Life, Solitary Wicca for Life, and The Way of the Green Witch!

Location: Le Melange Magique, 1928 Ste-Catherine West, Montreal (metro Guy), (514) 938-1458
Time: Saturday September 9 2006, 16:00 – 18:00

This is part of the Le Melange Magique’s 15th anniversary celebration weekend, and is going to be an informal meet-and-greet kind of event. I’d love to see you, to thank you for your support, and to finally sign all those copies of my books that people keep saying they’ve been holding on to, hoping for an event just like this!

I’ll be leading a spellcrafting workshop at the store next month too, around mid-October. More details will be available at the signing, and the store will be taking registration for it at that time as well.

See you there!

The Sum of the Weekend

Days on “holiday”: 4

Days spent travelling: 2

Days actually spent somewhere else not moving, and thus days theoretically defined as “vacation”: 2

Number of days required for everyone to recover from a day of travel: 1 (you do the math)

Nights of decent sleep: 1 for Mama, 2 for Dada, 2.5 for Liam

Excellent meals: All of them

Number of stupid tropical storms that ruined two or three weekend plans: 1 (damn you, Ernesto)

Hours spent in the car on the way to Oakville: 8

Stops on the way: 3 (1 major for Liam’s lunch, 2 minor leg-stretching)

Hours spent in the car on the way home: 7.5

Hours spent parked on the 401 around Napanee: 1.2 (We’re not sure how that math works out either, but that’s the way it happened. We think we bent time because all three of us were hating the car so much by that point.)

Stops on the way: 2 (1 major for Liam’s lunch, one for leg-stretching and a Liam snack)

Number of cars seen and commented upon by Liam: 1,892,459,386

New teeth this weekend: 2 (thank every single god out there, those damn lower molars are finally OUT)

New word: “Home.” (Said very gently but seriously while looking deeply into my eyes, little hand patting the armchair.)

New accomplishment: Going up the grandparental staircase alone to the second floor. Several times, in fact. Usually chasing a cat. (Coming down, still not so good.)

New clothes: 2 shirts, 2 pants, 6 pairs of socks, 1 two-piece snowsuit

New lace-up shoes: 0

New soft slip-on shoes: 1 (They have FISH!! on them and they are teh awesome. Liam chose them himself, although now every once in a while he trips because he’s looking at his feet and saying “fish!”.)

New people Liam met: Smiley little cousin Saya! (Oh yes, and her cool parents.)

The average price we paid for a litre of gas: 86 cents

Cool things: The squirrel that came right up to the back door and climbed the screen, close enough to touch (if Mama had so allowed, she ruins everyone’s fun); the wooden cat on the hearth; the horse brasses; the toy basket and the new Fisher Price Corn Popper walker toy that Liam spent more time swinging around like a club to shake the little balls than actually walking with.