Civil Right, Civic Duty

I have exercised my civil right and performed my duty as a citizen, and I have voted. Was anyone else surprised to find names they’d never seen before on their ballot? There were nine parties listed on mine, four of which I’d never even known existed in my riding.

It’s such a small thing – unfolding a piece of paper, picking up a small unassuming pencil, making an X in a white circle, and refolding it. So calm, as opposed to the emotional responses that watching political speechs evokes.

Speaking of emotional — if I have to deal with one more crisis arising from people assuming things, I will slice my wrists open or something equally inane.

Sewing List

Tonight I pick up the sewing machine that Debra is lending me, so I’ve been going through my bookmarks and notes on all the things I have to sew this upcoming summer. I have at least two robes that I know of, a handfasting dress, severe alteration to do on another robe (HRH has lost over 60 lbs, after all), various doll dresses, and of course I’m dreaming about Hallowe’en as well. With this book out of the way, I now have a life once again, and I’ve been wistfully wishing I had the opportunity to get crafty recently. (No pun intended, I swear.)

I’ve also been meaning to make proper curtains for the front window. And Ceri‘s been threatening to get me to make a quilt, which has always been a mild interest of mine, just not a pressing one.

I’m quite happy about all of this. I go on sewing sprees where I sew madly for about ten months, then can’t stand the sight of a sewing machine or fabric for a while. Since my machine started giving me grief two years ago while I made the Arwen riding dress for Hallowe’en, I haven’t really had a good sewing spree. I’m looking forward to it.

At Last…

Today’s word count: 3,470
Total word count: 80,473

My gods, it was like pulling teeth today, but I did it, damn it. I did it.

And no, I’m not finished; tomorrow will be polishing bits of Chapter 2, and brainstorming more examples for Chapter 11. But I’ve passed my contracted minimum, and there will be nothing new going into the manuscript. I’ll leave it for two days, then reread it on Monday to check finicky things (like have my references to other chapters been consistent?). And then, I think I might just submit it on Tuesday.

This is vaguely surreal. It certainly hasn’t sunk in yet.

New Day

I took yesterday off — I didn’t crack open the laptop or a reference book all day. I severely needed the time away from the manuscript; I think I broke myself on Tuesday. I couldn’t string enough words together to make a coherent sentence yesterday, and it was a bit of an Eeyore day as well.

So I read all of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix instead, and yet again, for the third time, I read it too fast and didn’t allow the story to breathe properly.

Orchestra was okay, not spectacular but okay, and I slept well (although I dreamed of washing one of my Wicca books in Debra’s washing machine, because the pages had begun to go a bit yellow with age). I awoke to HRH sitting on the edge of the bed to say goodbye (yes, he’s putting in a half-day today). We talked politics for about fifteen minutes, then he got up to go to work. “Oh, sure,” I said, “talk sweet politics to me and then just leave.” “Wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?” he smirked, and off he went.

I so love the fact that my husband can now make literary jokes.

In other news, I sat down to finally reserve my plane ticket to Hamilton, and found to my utter disgust that with taxes and fees etc., the cost of the ticket has doubled. So I’m in the process of checking out the cost of train tickets; I can switch to the GO train in Toronto and meet my parents in Oakville, and it will probably be cheaper. (Update: Yup. Cheaper. Plus I’d get there earlier in the day, and it’s a ten-minute round trip to pick me up instead of an hour.)

I’m bright-eyed and busy-tailed, and I’m determined to write at least two thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven words today.

Bill Gates Big Book Of Wicca

1. The book would be called Windows to the Goddess.

2. Iconology was be a major chapter.

3. A revised edition would be released approximately every 6 months without which your magic would no longer work.

4. Your broom would crash at least once a week.

5. Cauldrons would be called recycle bins.

6. A book of shadows would be called the folder of magic.

7. A free high speed connection spell would come with every book.

8. Ever now and then, your circle would collapse and you would have to perform the reboot ritual to get it working.

9. If you used the more powerful MagicNT rituals, the above would happen to all circles within a 5 mile radius.

10. At least once a month, you would have to reinstall your spells into your folder of magic.

11. You would have to use a start ritual to exit your circle. (And cake and wine would only be available after a sign from the Goddess saying it was safe to do so.)

12. The spells would be called simply “Banish,” “Purify,” “Dedicate,” etc., and these names would be trademarked so that no one else could use them.

13. Everyone would use the spells in the book, because everyone would have it laying around and could assume others knew it too. In an unfamiliar group, you could be sure that everyone knows “Banish,” so it would be convenient, and you would get used to it.

14. It would be illegal to let other people cast the spells in your book or vice versa. (Of course, everyone would do it anyway.)

15. The book would be outrageously expensive. Other, cheaper books would exist, and also free ones on the internet, but it would be harder to use them because you wouldn’t be familiar with them and you’d have to get used to a whole different metaphor. Most people would think it perfectly reasonable to use Bill Gates’ book and pay his fees.

16. If you had questions about the spells in the book, you’d have to call in to an enormous tech support system and pay for “incidents.” (Or get your 9 year old niece to show you what to do.)

17. Due to agreements with altar manufacturers, the book would be packaged with every altar sold, and you would have to pay for a new book when buying a new altar. Furthermore, no one would be allowed to use the book they already bought with a new altar, only with the altar the book was purchased with. To use the book with a new altar, it would be necessary to buy a new copy of the book for the new altar, and throw the old copy away (like OEM operating systems).

(Author unknown; various versions exist. I found this one via Butterflies in my Stomach.)