Owls' Court

I got my hair cut a couple of days ago. Not that you'd notice. Just an inch or so. Now it's a shapely mass of hair, instead of just being a mass of hair.

HRH has put his foot down, and it's squarely on the brake pedal of our car. He's not driving anywhere this evening. Apparently, the lunatics are already out on the roads, so it's ye olde Metro for us, which is just fine. We're heading out to Ceri's tonight to be with a few friends. Not that New Year's means much to us; it's Happy New Calendar Day in our household. It's always nice to spend an evening with intellgent friends, however, and heaven knows we don't want to be anywhere near the downtown core tonight of all nights...

Project Planner

I now have a bulletin board by my desk. It's pinned with story mission postcards dating back from last summer, and index cards with what I'm certain seem like random words to my husband (such as "Ben?" and "Good Book"). Projects with deadlines are written on pink index cards (for example, the three book reviews I've agreed to write that are due next Monday - argh).

It helps.

Have I mentioned that I love my new printer? Apart from actually printing (a definite improvement over the last one), it's quiet, and it doesn't consume mass quantities of ink for no reason. It does indeed print on both sides of the page, by printing every second page then instructing you to flip the stack over and re-insert it in the paper feed in order to print the alternate pages on the reverse side. Smart little thing.

Balsamic Moon was, of course, the first thing that was printed. And By Many Other Names was the next project. The colour title pages I designed for both novels was next (the balance of the colour inks seem a bit odd, but I can deal with that), as were the winner's certificates. Then they were both taken downtown and bound in hardcover. I was warned not to open them for at least 24 hours to allow the binding to cure, and the suspense is killing me. They're currently shelved between my thesis and the three-volume anthology of short stories on a common theme written by me, t!, and Tal.

And... Ceri's Yule gift is now complete. Muah-hah-hah-hah. Hey, better late than never. (And no, Ceri, it has nothing to do with my printer, or hardcover binding. You'll see.)

The New Printer

I am proud to announce that I am now the owner of a fully-functional Xerox XJ35c laserjet printer/scanner workcentre. Hugs and kisses and tears of relief to old family friends Dorothy and Greg for allowing me to take it off their hands.

And now? Well, I've been obsessing about a printer because my need to write has been building up inside me once again. In fact, at my parents' house over the holidays I found my completed fantasy novel tucked away on my laptop and began to edit it - from the last chapter in order to avoid the problematic first chapters which have been edited several times without satisfactory results. This novel has been finished for about a decade, and going back to it with fresh eyes I can now see that it isn't as bad as I expected it to be. Sure, it's very definitely a first novel, and requires help; but overall, there's great dialogue, good pacing, and interesting flawed characters. I wanted to keep on writing Crossroads, but apparently I haven't transcribed the pages and pages of hand-written work I did in the Second Cup this summer. And, of course, the legal-sized notebook with those pages in it was at home. Sigh.

A printer isn't necessary for writing or editing, but it certainly makes my life so much easier. Balsamic Moon will be the first thing printed out, once I take an hour this afternoon to fix a certain passage in chapter five. In fact, I'm about to sit down with a cup of tea and make a list of all the writing-connected things I want to do. Then I'm going to acquire a small bulletin board and pin them up individually, as t! has done for years, in order to have the satisfaction of taking each one down as they're completed.

I love my new printer. Apparently there's a double-sided page option, which I discovered as I poked about in Properties (there is, alas, no manual as of yet). I'm definitely going to play with it later this afternoon and poke various buttons to discover the miracles hidden within.

I have a printer, thank all the gods. It shouldn't feel this good.

We finally saw Matrix Revolutions,

We finally saw Matrix Revolutions, and all the Pagans in the back row of the theatre sort of nodded and understood why masses of people Just Don't Get It: it's about cycles, not about a linear storyline. In every ending, there is a beginning. The story was told in order to show us how a cycle can function without being a carbon copy of the previous (or successive) cycle. Of course, because the protagonist died, folks are confused - the Wachowski Brothers didn't provide a nicely gift-wrapped Happy Ending (TM) to the Hollywood pap-fed masses. Granted, the film can't stand on its own; then again, it wasn't originally designed to be a film unto itself, so I don't count that against it. I'll be very interested in seeing all three installments in a row when Revolutions comes out on DVD, in order to get the proper overarching storytelling flow. The film felt very different from the previous two in the trilogy, most likely due to the emphasis on story as opposed to action. It was, if you'll forgive me, a more human story. The men in our party were suitably impressed by the King Arthur/barge send-off for Neo as he Returned to the Source (which I missed, somehow - odd for me. But then, a burning ship sort of burial isn't my personal cup of tea. I think it's a guy thing.) Had there been four queens in attendance, I'm sure I would have seen it. No, really.

Teaching didn't really pause for the holidays due to the mid-week placement of the civic holiday. Yesterday's class on animal energies included a beautifully behaved Great Dane, a flamepoint Siamese, a corn snake and a fat-tail gecko. Nox, the corn snake, got extra cuddles from me after his turn at show and tell, and after wrapping himself around my waist for a while slipped into the hood of my cardigan for an hour of serious napping. There's something remarkably smugness-inducing about walking around a store knowing that there's a four-foot snake curled up between your shoulderblades and no one else is aware of it.

The weekend ended with a nice relaxed dinner with Scarlet and Skippy, and giving holiday love to the many cats who were boarding at the vet over the vacation period. An excellent weekend, all around.

Christmas!

Okay, everyone else has done it: highlights of the holiday swag!

The very best were the digital cello tuner I asked for, and the Pride & Prejudice DVD set (possibly the only things I did directly ask for). Classic sweater sets; much chocolate; a new set of winter accessories (hat, scarf, mitts); a sweet little fox picture; and many gift certificates (as Roo says, "the gift of getting what I want"!). Oddly enough, no books. Well, okay, one; every year my mother finds me some sort of antique volume, and this year was a red leather-bound edition of RLS' A Child's Garden of Verses. (Last year it was Tennyson!) Although Indigo has a Boxing Week sale on that gives 30% off all hardcover books, and the new Ronald Hutton Witches, Druids, and King Arthur is out; at $45 it's a bit steep, but with 30% off it becomes very affordable. Especially with a gift certificate. And with a gift certificate, it sort of becomes a holiday gift, right?

And from the "completely unconnected to holiday swag" pile of nifty stuff: for skaldic fans who are also LOTR geeks, take a look at Eowulf, an epic retelling of Dernhelm's heroic actions in the battle of Pelennor Fields. Not bad.

So I see that while

So I see that while I was gone, it rained in Montreal, rendering the piles of snow next to non-existant.

And I also see that Montreal is scheduled for a huge snowfall tonight, approximately fifteen centimeters' worth.

Welcome home, me.

I have only one thing

I have only one thing to say about The Return of the King:

Full-out sobbing as the Rohirrim charged the armies of Mordor at Minas Tirith.

Yep. Emotionally wrung out by the time the lights went up. Completely and totally wrung out.

Can't wait to see it again.

Blessed Solstice -- Is That An Open Window?

As last night was the official longest night of the year, we lit our candle in our wind lantern and set it on the dresser in my room, and fell asleep.

My husband woke me up at some unearthly hour in the night from a dream that was a vivid cross between Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings.

"We have to put the candle out," he said. "The smoke detector in the room is giving off beeps."

Without waking up completely, I pinched out the flame, tried to open the window, couldn't, mumbled at my husband to do it, and sat in bed while he opened it.

"Better to open the outside window too instead of hoping the cross-draft does it," I said.

"Er," he said, "this is the outside window. See? Screen." He pushed his hand against the window and lo and behold, it was screening bending beneath his fingers, and not glass.

"It's not cold enough," I said stupidly.

"Welcome to Canada's banana belt," he said. "Want to sleep with the window open?"

So we did.

It was just strange.

On Going Home

There’s something odd about coming home for the holiday season as an adult. Sure, my parents now live in a differet province, in a house that features in absolutely zero of my childhood memories, but there's more to it. My parents seem to look forward to having us here, but sometimes I wonder why. I arrive with laundry to do, change their radio stations, have classical music on all the time, and light candles. I either sleep at odd times, or hide in a corner with a book, or go out to roam Oakville (they have a remarkable invention here called parking lots, making shopping a much less harrowing experience).

I look forward to coming here too. There’s something terribly comforting about having familiar meals served to you by your mother. Sometimes they’re new meals, which I look forward to discovering just as much because my mother is a fabulous cook. Last night we had slow-cooked lamb shanks with polenta, which was divine. Some things are best left to discovering as an adult. Had my mother served me polenta as a child, I would have pushed it around my plate until it got stone cold and even less appealing, tasted a speck and decided it was too much like oatmeal, which I hated. (I’m still not fond of oatmeal; it’s something about the texture. Thin or thick, I just really have to be in the mood, and it needs plenty of salt.)

For the second year in a row, my parents haven’t put up the Christmas tree; they put white fairy lights on their six-foot-tall silk fig in the corner and gather gifts underneath it instead. I don’t have any seasonal decorations up at home, either, which might have contributed to my lack of holiday cheer. Christmas seems to have arrived awfully quickly, something like all that snow at home.

The drive down was a breeze. The three feet of snow that the Montreal city crews are ignoring gradually vanished as we drove west, disappearing completely by a half-hour past Cornwall. I’ve been going about in my cardigan over a t-shirt outside here. Last night I woke up to the sound of rain hitting the roof and the window. I’ve forgotten how much I love that sound.

Tonight after dinner we have a date with popcorn and The Return of the King; tomorrow we pick up our borrowed printer and do the official seasonal dinner and the ritual opening of gifts. For the rest of this afternoon, though, I think it's going to be dozing with a book and perhaps a Maine Coone cat.

Sigh

So sleepy. I have no idea why I'm so tired when I spent most of my weekend just sitting waiting for things to happen. I got to work half an hour early for teaching yesterday, and my first class ended up being cancelled; I sat reading in the office for four hours until my second class rolled around. Then I got to work today (an hour and five minutes before I had to be) to unlock the doors, only to discover that the store was already open, and had been for two hours. No one had told me we were opening at ten AM instead of the usual 12 noon. Slightly frustrating; all the more so because if I had been asked, I would definitely had said that I wouldn't be able to open at ten AM seeing as how I didn't have to be there until my students gathered for their Solstice events at one PM this afternoon. Usually my class starts at noon, and I arrive a few minutes ahead of time in order to unlock the store for the girls who are working on the floor, which is fine. Today was just crossed wires, which is frustrating enough on its own.

Ah well. It just means I had a really unhurried two days of doing nothing. Which, I suppose, was slightly frustrating in and of itself, since I've been anti-social all weekend, desiring nothing more than to hide under the covers of my very warm bed.

We're now on our way to Toronto for four days of seasonal quality family time. Yay us!

A Merry Solstice to you. May you all see the light at the end of the longest, darkest night of all.

Pulling Vivaldi, Substituting Evanescence

Argh. I'm just pulling my hair out today. What was supposed to be a nice quiet day going through a new 500 page spa book turned into a editing job from my publisher that's just hit seven hours and still no end in sight.

I've resorted to taking Vivaldi out of my CD player and inserting Evanescence, turning up the volume, and pouring a large glass of wine to keep me going. My next break will involve creating a business card that says something along the lines of:

Seriously. My confidence in my own writing abilities is skyrocketing. Copy- and content-editors everywhere will weep with joy when presented with my work, because not only do I know what I'm talking about, I know how to say it.

Back to the drawing board.

If ever I needed assurance that I can write a book, the experience of editing professional authors' work is convincing me of it. Ye gods.

And I think my cats did some odd sort of "change the rain into snow" spell. Two of them fell behind one of my short bookcases this afternoon, at different times. I am convinced that it was no accident, but arcane action of some nature.

Death of a Loyal Sewing Machine

Actually, now that I stub my toe on it, there was one fly in the weekend's ointment: my beloved toy-like sewing machine is dead. I discovered this while crafting (I love double meanings!) the finishing touches of last night's Yule gift for my coven-sister. This sweet little machine had two speeds, Bunny and Turtle (I kid you not, those are the icons), and has been my trusty companion through Star Trek outfits, several Renaissance faires, ritual robes, Hallowe'en costumes, curtains, skirts, dresses, coats and cloaks for eight years now. It was a gift from my parents, and I don't know how long any of us truly expected it to last, being such lightweight plastic.

I have a couple of options: I can take it into a repair shop and pay goodness knows how much for an evaluation and/or repair, or I can think about a new sewing machine. A grown-up one. Ceri and I were talking about this when she was doing the research to invest in her own machine a couple of years ago. I ought to be responsible and take my sweet little toy in to at least be looked at. I owe it at least that much after mercilessly subjecting it to heavy tapestry fabrics and thick wool that were all theoretically too much for it to handle. With whispered words of encouragement, the occasional prayer and the even rarer swift kick or hard knock, it got the job done, though, no matter what I asked of it.

Until last night, that is. Last night's project was completed entirely by hand, with the help of a curved needle (why haven't I ever used one of these before?), a glue gun, and a passle of cats who were very interested in the feathers I was using.

So.

Naturally, as my sewing machine is down for the count, I desperately want to sew again. Let's hear it for human nature.

I've had an excellent weekend

I've had an excellent weekend all around: teaching, gathering with friends, ritual, and so forth. Artistically I have triumphed, but you'll hear about all of that when I have visual proof for you. Not only have I triumphed, I've indirectly created the potential for future fun gifts, which is just fine with me.

And, as the cherry on top of the whole weekend, I have a gently used laserjet printer waiting for me in Oakville. Hurrah!

Foiled. Foiled, foiled, foiled, gods

Foiled. Foiled, foiled, foiled, gods damn this ruddy printer.

It can join the computer Skippy intends to launch out a window as soon as he has a complete operative system. It will be incredibly therapeutic to throw it and watch it smash into a jillion pieces on the pavement below. It will be just as useful as a pile of bits as it is now, whole, silent, unmoving, and entirely a waste of space.

I'm now officially in the market for a new printer.

And Speaking of Novels Involving Ferrets

My dad sent me this Robert Bateman jpg yesterday:

At the NaNo wrap party I realised that thanks to my NaNo research, I knew more about ferrets than my writer-type colleagues. There was something vaguely embarrassing about the discovery.

What On Earth Am I Doing, Wanting to Read It?

Twelve days after The End of November, I awoke with a strange desire to read Balsamic Moon. So I'm about to do a quick spell-check, go out to pick up a new ink cartridge, then print out a draft.

Before I do, however, I must put a CD on. CBC Radio Two was originally playing some kick-ass Mozart. Now they're playing sappy choir carols. I'm so not in the mood for this today.

I was just Googling for

I was just Googling for a display case, and I found an eBay store that specialises in them. Terrific! I called their listing up, and one of the first things I read as the text appears is Bat Display Case: Holds 6 Bats.

Maybe it's the witch in me, but I immediately envisioned a display case with six bats hanging upside down inside it, blinking through the glass.

Then, of course, the image finally loaded, and with vague disappointment I saw six baseball bats lying horizontally on a rack.

It just seems so... prosaic. I liked my idea of a bat display case better.

Hanging With Dave

Ah, yes, working in the book world is so taxing, you know. Rubbing shoulders with the talented and famous... it's a task that someone must perform, and I have nobly dedicated myself to the path. For example, here is a shot of me hanging out with Dave Duncan.

Yes, that Dave Duncan.

To see more, you can go check out the Nebula/Melange Magique Con*Cept'03 photo gallery.

Touched

I have a public who requests updates. I am touched.

A big thank-you to all who came out to support my husband's studio launch on the weekend. All five members of Studio Elements were touched (and decidedly overwhelmed) by the response and enthusiasm displayed by the attendees. I think everyone sold a piece of artwork, too, which was unexpected; it was a party, not a show, after all. You just can't hold back popular demand, however, or deny good art.

We also had the Montreal NaNo wrap party, where we discovered that many of us had story elements in common (apart from the psychic ferrets, I mean). We also played t!'s annual game of NaNo Questions, where queries such as "If your novel were a food, what food would it be?" and "Describe your novel in ten words or less!" were posed. It was a riot to hear the answers from such a varied group of people. The room was humming with creative responses from creative-types. So, overall, it was a remarkably artistic weekend.

The art theme continues this week as I make a Yule gift for a friend, which cannot be detailed here as she is quite likely to have the surprise ruined for her. You'll all be kept up to date with appropriate vague references.

The Changeling game that Roo (dubbed "the very cute pagan gamer geek girl" by admiring friends who met her on Saturday night) and I have been discussing for the past little while is becoming more and more likely to actually happen, which makes me jump with joy inside, being as gaming-starved as I have been for months. It's really making me think about when children lose their completely enchanted viw of life. Playing with my god-daughter this weekend (whom, by the way, delivers the very best spontaneous hugs, complete with back-patting and sticky kisses) raised the same question. When do we lose that completely open, joyful celebration of absolutely everything we see? When do we begin to trap things inside, to deny our individual interpretation of life, to conform to consensual reality simply in order to make things easier? And, the ultimate question: why? Playing Changeling will allow me to further explore these questions. Plus it's just going to be downright fun, 'cos it's with cool people and will no doubt involve large amounts of candy and giggling. Think the ultimate sleepover or the best day off from school and you might hit on the general feeling.

On a completely different note, my dreams have been remarkably vivid these past few days. I don't know about how others dream, but my dreams tend to involve pop culture figures, most recently the Lord of the Rings film characters. The cast from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel pop up frequently, too. (There was a run last spring where my dreams featured the Buffy cast performing a different Gilbert & Sullivan operetta weekly.) My latest dreams involve lots of swords being passed from person to person as symbols of their identity. Entertaining, but one does have to wonder what it's all about. (No, this is not an invitation to psychoanalyse me; it's a rhetorical question.)

Or maybe it's just all about the gorgeous costumes that my subconscious mind dreams up.

Hmm. Almost makes me want to drag out my toy sewing machine and get back into the construction of absolutely beautiful outfits with little to no practical purpose.