Marcia had the best costume -- she was a fabulous Hermione. And
apparently, she already had all the clothes -- all she needed to do was
assemble them and sew on the Hogwarts patch. Very cool.
Ooh...not feeling good today, my dears. Couldn't sleep last night, for
hours and hours, and ended up not getting out of bed until 11 today, still
feeling icky. I'm staying home today, and once I finish this journal
entry, I may just stumble back into bed. I'm not hungover -- I didn't
actually drink much last night. But I'm beginning to suspect that until
I'm well again, I just should avoid alcohol entirely; it probably
depresses my system just enough that my low-lying cold can rise up and
overwhelm me. Most annoying, especially as we enter the holiday party
season...I did have a good time for most of yesterday. Paul and Marcia did come by for dinner, and Peter joined us unexpectedly about halfway through Star Trek. If I'd known he was coming I would have made another dish; we were eating pretty simply, with just some biryani rice and a potato/green bean curry. Oh, and a bit of chutney. He didn't seem to mind, though. We ate and watched tv (I was a bit distracted, but I actually think this was the first good Enterprise episode, though they're definitely taking some liberties with canonical Vulcanness -- and wasn't Spock supposed to be the first Vulcan serving in Starfleet? Wasn't that part of the whole point of Sarek's anger (see "Journey to Babel") at his son? But anyway...) and drank a nice tangy riesling and Paul pulled out the guitar and we actually sang a bit. So pleasant.
Around nine we headed off to the party; I ended up not being a pirate after all. All the pirate garb was just too bulky -- it was annoying me. So I put on my little brown silk tango dress, stuck a white rose in my hair, and became Billie Holiday for the night (Marcia's idea -- she's good with costumes). People actually guessed who I was, on the first guess, even. Though I should've figured out a way to put my hair up...
Marcia had the best costume -- she was a fabulous Hermione. And
apparently, she already had all the clothes -- all she needed to do was
assemble them and sew on the Hogwarts patch. Very cool.
Had some good conversations at the party, but at some point a conversation about sex turned into one about marriage and parternship and children and I just got depressed. Luckily, things broke up not so long after and I was able to catch a ride home -- not so luckily, my gloomy thoughts continued in that vein for quite a while, which probably had more than a little to do with my sleeplessness. Feh.
Anyway. Gonna go curl up with a kids' book for a while, I think. Oh, and I should probably eat something. Right. Talk to y'all later...
2:45. I suck at resting. I did have lunch and spend an hour re-reading Patricia Wrede's Dealing with Dragons -- that's such a delightful book. But I got restless after that, and ended up spending a while working on the SH POD book possibilities. Much thinking about numbers and money and such. Makes Mary Anne's head hurt. One of these days, I'd really love to find someone to take over the financial end of the magazine -- writing checks and contracts and watching the budget. But really, that's most of what I do, and I don't know that it's a job that anyone finds fun, so I feel guilty at the thought of shuffling it off on someone else. Eh. It's not so bad. Normally it's just a couple of hours once a month. Small price to pay for such a fabulous magazine, eh? :-)
But now I'm really going to rest some more. I am having to stifle the part of me that is noting that I have all this free time and I could be running around getting errands done -- there's a poster I need framed, and I need stamps so I can *do* checks and contracts, and there's a huge sale at the mall (not that I actually need clothes, but at 70% off, you ought to go look, no?)...but it's like momma says -- if you're too sick to go to school, you're too sick to play. So there. Back to bed for me...
We (the SH authors and staff) are talking over the proposed POD offer from Wildside. They're not offering much -- minimal royalties and no contributor's copies. But it's not a money-making venture that we're discussing either -- it's really just a fun publicity thing that doesn't cost us any money (though it does take a fair bit of my time). It'd be nice to have a big hardcover to put out on tables at conventions -- especially if Wildside has it sitting at their table in the dealer's room too... Anyway, I think it'll happen; it's just a matter of negotiating details and seeing which authors wish to participate. Lots of discussion, though -- I think all of us are learning a lot about Print-On-Demand in the process...
In between answering e-mails, I'm reading Carol Emshwiller's Ledoyt. It's really really good; told in part from the point of view of a young girl who's in love with the man her mother is marrying, Mr. Ledoyt. It's a Western, which is not a genre I normally read, but it's far more an Emshwiller-novel than anything else, and that is a great and glorious thing. I'm only about 60 pages in so far, but right now, I'd consider this highly recommended.
I may check back in later...but I may not. Right now, it doesn't look like my day has so much exciting planned. If I get tired of reading, I'll start doing SH checks and contracts; that's nice mindless work, and though I need stamps before I can send anything out, I can do all the other parts of it while I'm waiting to feel healthy enough to go get stamps. Probably tomorrow.
That was all thoroughly indulgent -- but the indulgence didn't stop there. I went on to Borders, where I had a not-healthy-but-tasty dinner (topped with chocolate moussecake) while reading the latest Tamora Pierce book (in hardcover). I then bought seven other books and came home (pausing briefly at the big sale but finding nothing of interest).
Read another book last night, Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle, which was very silly and fun, and am now reading another of hers. I did get mopey again last night when I finished the book, but I called up David and made him tell me bits of Russian history until I got sleepy. He's very good for that...
In any case -- I think once I finish the book I'm reading, I may try to switch to being productive again. I'm feeling a fair bit better today (mustn't overdo, mustn't overdo) and have grand plans for contracts, revising a story, interviewing a student for the U of C (I do enjoy that), and maybe starting to put the POD book together. We're still working out the details, but I'm hopeful that it'll actually happen...and if it does, then I need to make up a manuscript. Going to be a fair bit of work doing the conversions -- I probably ought to see if Jed can make it easier for me somehow.
Have a good weekend, munchkins. If you're having beautiful fall weather like we are, try to get out and enjoy it. (Karina, I wish you were here -- it would be great fun photographing you against all these gorgeous leaves...)
This is for the Best of Strange Horizons (year one). It'll have tons of stuff -- fiction, poetry, reviews, and articles. No illustrations, sadly, since it'd be even more expensive and difficult with interior illustrations...and it's already a $40 (or so) book. Eep. I'm not sure how many people will actually be buying copies of it...at least a few, I hope. I think Wildside only needs about ten or so people to buy copies at full price to make back their costs, so that's the minimal thing to hope for. Better, of course, would be if Publisher's Weekly and the New York Times Book Review gave it great reviews, and it got massive media attention and sold thousands upon thousands of copies, catapulting Strange Horizons into the first place among science fiction magazines, in print *or* online. That's be lovely. But I'll be reasonably content if Wildside just makes back their costs so they're happy to have done the book, and so we have some copies to show around at conventions and such. It's more a publicity stunt than anything else -- a fun one. :-)
Today I start putting together the manuscript. There may be a few authors who don't want to participate; we'll need to replace those. I'd like to get the manuscript together as soon as possible, because I'd like at least have a shot of having this available for Christmas. Of course, I actually have no idea what Wildside's publishing schedule is like -- it's possible they've already slated the book for next summer or some such. But better for me not to ask -- if I think there's a close deadline, I'm less likely to procrastinate. It's sad that I have to play such tricks on my lazy brain, which would rather be reading Diana Wynne Jones than working. Luckily, it has none of her work left in the house; I finished Castle in the Air and Dogsbody yesterday, and have had to move on to Neil Gaiman's Stardust today. The nice thing about not having time to go to a bookstore for a month is that when you do go, there's lots of stuff you want to buy.
Still coughing, but I slept nine hours, and aside from the cough, I feel generally okay. It's the Cough o' Doom -- I suspect it'll haunt me from now until the spring. I want to be a healthy person, dang it. Though I should be grateful that I didn't just break *another* rib, like poor M'ris...
12:30. Collected all the potential authors' e-mails and sent them out the invitation letter. I am a publishing machine! I'd like to move on the the next stage, ordering the Table of Contents, but I suppose I should wait until I hear back from everyone. That'd be most efficient... Aw, heck. Who cares if I duplicate some work? This part is fun!
I'm feeling okay this morning, though coughing a little more. Sigh. Still, in a good mood, which is a vast improvement over last night. Sad, low-down mood. And I wanted to talk to Kev, but he was frantically racing to meet a NSF deadline for this morning. Ah well. It's not as if I wanted to talk to him about anything in particular; I just get...off-kilter, if I go too long without talking to him. I don't think this is a function of dating him, in particular; he's just been my friend for so long now, and the kind of friend whom I tell everything to. We're trying to hold on to that part at least; occasionally, deadlines intervene.
Most of the deadlines these days have to do with SH stuff; Jeremy's had to resign as newsletter editor, so I'm taking over in the interim (any of you want to write a newsletter every week? Easy job, but requires commitment). Got to send one out today. Then there's the Best Of stuff; I'm still getting responses from authors, but in the interim, I've organized a tentative TOC. That was fun. :-) It looks like almost everyone we wanted will be participating, which is cool. There was some scrambling to get an editorial up today...and speaking of which, I'm not sure M'ris's comments about it were quite fair. She takes Audra to task for sexism, but I'm not sure I believe it's sexist to say that, mostly, women seem to write more of the kind of mother-daughter narratives she's looking for in sf. It would be sexist to say that only women *can* write such things, but that's not what I hear Audra saying. Just that so far, it seems to mostly be women who do it well. I don't think it's homocentric to say that mostly women write better lesbian smut scenes -- I think it's true, for right now. I don't necessarily think it'll be that way in the future, and there are certainly exceptions to the general rule now. It does help having inside information, though, when you're going for versimilitude. :-)
10:30 and no sign of my student. Hmm... I guess I'll give him half an hour and then give up and start really working. I need to write a lit crit paper today; oof. Also a little student grading, prep for next class. We're focusing on dialogue this week; I'm going to have them actually stand up and recite little monologues next week. Fun. :-) Some of them are gonna hate it, but it's good for them. I love saying that. Maybe it's a good thing I don't have kids.
What I'd really like y'all to do today is go over to SH and take our brand-spankin'-new Reader Survey. We're collecting various kinds of info, and if you read the magazine at all, it would really help if you answered the questions -- and even better, if you answered all the questions, or at least parts 1 and 7. Right now there's a sharp drop-off in responses after part 1, and part 7 is at least as important to us.
You should also read the new issue, of course; in addition to Audra's charming editorial, there's a lovely little illustrated story by Angela Boord (who I met at WorldCon), some new funky post-apocalyptic art, an interview with the very sweet James Van Pelt (another person I've met at various conventions), a cool little lemon physics poem, and a review of Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders series (which I keep getting tempted to buy whenever I go to the bookstore; maybe this review will finally convince me). Great week!
10:15 p.m. Oh, I so didn't write a paper today. I did all sorts of other fun stuff, and some of it was even vaguely useful -- I even made a egg curry and took a photo of the cool egg-shaped bubbles to share with you all. But write a paper, I did not. Bad grad student. No biscuit.
M'ris, I feel like we're somehow missing each other on this discussion. I'm certainly not saying that you can't write father-son relationships, for example. I guess what I'm really saying is that writers who have had a particular experience, have something of an edge when they sit down to write it. I *know* what the roadside samosas in Sri Lanka taste like, and they don't taste anything like the ones I make, or the ones you get in any Indian restaurant I've been in in the U.S. That knowledge might help me when I sit down to write about it. That doesn't mean that, in the end, you might not write a more convincing or even more realistic depiction of those samosas. Just that I had an advantage when I started out. And that given that kind of advantage, it's not surprising that Audra might find some hard-to-define commonalities between women writers who write about mothering. And that given limited time, and perhaps experience with a lot of men doing it badly (as with lesbian porn, for a completely different example), she might find that mostly she gravitates towards women writers as being *likely* to give her the experience she's looking for more often. Now...her examples, I'll grant you, are not necessarily the best, and I do agree that A.I. in particular was a bit unfair of a choice for a counterexample. But I don't think she needed to prove that men couldn't do it...just that she had encountered plenty of male writers whose takes on mothering had been unsatisfying to her, unrealistic. I suspect she has, and just didn't do a great job of specifying such.
Anyway. Gotta go finish commenting on two more student papers and then head in. Long day today. See y'all later...
Anyway, will check back in if I can. On to work...
4:00. No progress on paper, but everything else is going spiffy. Sigh. Current plan is to write the intro tonight after Star Trek, and finish it in the morning before class. I am such a bad example to undergrads...
I'm trying something a little odd for dinner tonight -- adapting my mom's beef, potato, carrot and onion stew (amazingly yummy) for vegetarians. Well, really, just leaving out the beef and seeing how it comes out. I suspect it's going to want some veggie boullion to punch up the flavor, but I'm lacking in such at the moment; not sure how I managed to run out, but I did. I'll put in some extra peppercorns, cloves and cardamom and see if that does it. Hmm...I really like the Ethiopian veggie stew, which I haven't made in forever. I think it's Ethiopian? David, do you remember? If this doesn't work well, then maybe I'll go look at that recipe and see if I can steal anything for this one.
I love cooking -- it's like being a scientist, but without any rigor, and with being able to eat (usually) the finished results. :-)
I'm even reasonably content with it, although there's a bit of a jump between my last two paragraphs that really should have been filled with a discussion of what he means by "trace", which would've explained an earlier comment of mine about how what was previously seen as marginal to meaning is in fact equally important to big, grand concepts... but I just couldn't figure out how to do that in a paragraph, which was all the space I had left. 4-5 page essays are relatively easy, but also rather frustrating. Still, it's done, and no more essays 'til the end of the semester. Yippee! :-) I like school, really I do, but writing essays on command...I dunno. Just not as much fun as it oughta be. Good thing I'm doing a creative dissertation rather than a critical one. :-) I'm really looking forward to diving into my writing next spring.
Oops -- time's a wasting. Gotta go! Catch y'all later...
Despite all this, I only managed to sleep about two of the four hours. The rest, I mostly watched tv or read; I'm in the midst of Lauren Slater's Lying, which is rather disturbingly similar in structure to what I was trying to do with my MFA thesis (which at one point was titled Truth, though it eventually became Naked). I suppose I have a bit of resentment that she did it first, and did it better than I would have. Ah well. Luckily, that's not the project I'm working on now... :-). The book's quite good, though -- I'm racing through it, and I expect that I'll be satisfied with the end. Will let you know if not.
The other thing I did during the flight was look out the window. It was an unusually clear night, and the sky was just full of stars. I first noticed them when we were passing over Chicago, and if I hadn't been so tired, I might have gotten sad, watching Kevin's apartment go by, imagining him asleep in it. Since I *was* awfully tired, I just felt vaguely affectionate, imagining him there. I couldn't really make out his apartment, anyway -- though downtown was quite clear, and I know roughly where he is in relation to downtown, even from the air.
We came into New York just as the sky started to lighten. A pale blue light over the fierce rush of streetlights; somehow, the city looked very lovely and perhaps just a little fragile, in that light.
He's spending today looking at houses on the Jersey Shore; he rents an apartment in Times Square, but he's thinking of buying a house too; a place to go on weekends, and where his mother can come and stay when she's visiting him and her friends in New York. It's a little disconcerting; in the last year, Kirsten and Arthur both bought houses; Ellie and Ian too. Strange, thinking about the paths to adulthood that people take -- right now, I have only the vaguest desire to someday own a house. I'm perfectly content to have a landlord dealing with the broken dishwasher and the leaky shower. Of course I've got a good landlord; that makes all the difference. It's so nice to call him in the morning with a problem, and then come home from school and find it fixed. It's like magic. :-)
We had a really nice day yesterday. Talked a little when I arrived, but then I collapsed and slept from 8 - noon, bringing my sleep total up to 6 hours; enough to get by on. Around 1-ish I got dressed and we headed out for brunch; savory and sweet crepes at a nice little place about seven blocks up Broadway. We lingered over tea until after 3, then walked up a little further, to a large Barnes & Noble. I found their copies of AE and signed them; always fun, and it means they can't give 'em back, though that wasn't really so likely. Still, I find it really delightful that these days I can walk into most major bookstores and find my name on a book. A book is better than a house, I think. I realize most people wouldn't agree with me, though -- including my mother.
I talked Alex into picking up Michelle West's Hunter's Oath; I'm going to get him hooked on this series too. The first two are a little weak, but then they get so good -- if you like long epic fantasy, that is. Which he does. I picked up a couple of books too; Nicholson Baker's U and I (a memoir/tribute to Updike), and Nabokov's Speak, Memory -- both books that I've been meaning to read for a while. We lingered some more then in the coffeeshop, over hot chocolate this time. While there, I witnessed an odd altercation; a grey-haired little woman startled yelling at a young East Asian man (with "med student" written all over him) because he had his books on the table and she didn't have room to sit down with her drink and books. I've seen people get stressed at students before, in crowded bookstore coffeeshops, but this poor guy was at a tiny little table; he really wasn't being unreasonable in how much of it he was using. She yelled for a while, and when the cafe dude came over to calm her down, she loudly asked if she was the only one who got angry at this sort of behavior -- Who was with her?! About three people (out of fifty or so) raised their hands, and when she asked it again, clearly unsatisfied with our response, another woman hollered out, "Lady, we're all with him!" There was a loud murmur of agreement, but that didn't faze her. Eventually, she sat down at the table with him, and he put some of his books on the floor, looking utterly embarrassed. Poor kid.
We eventually meandered back to Alex's, after a long talk, mostly about fantasy novels. Thai food at Pongsri (across the street from Alex's, recommended) for dinner; tasty yellow curry (with sweet potato; I really need to try currying sweet potatoes myself; I like 'em, and I don't think they have them in Sri Lanka. I bet if I mixed sweet potatoes, yams, and normal potatoes in my regular curry, it'd be pretty tasty. Worth an experiment). Then we went to see a show! Alex took me to see Rent, which I've been wanting to see for a while. The first half was great (though the music was loud enough that it was more than usually difficult to make out the words). The song that ended that act, about the bohemian life, was lots of fun. The second half...oof, what a downer. I was sobbing, and the thing is, it's supposed to be sad, but not depressing, I think. But we both found it kind of depressing, and had to stop at another bookstore on the way home to cheer up. :-) Worked -- hooray for bookstores! Came home, talked a little, collapsed. Long, fun day.
This morning he left before I woke up; I got up around 8:30, got dressed, caught a cab to the train station. Now I'm comfortably typing on the train -- my only complaint is that the tray table is a little high, making this not as ergonomic as I'd like. Aside from that, though, I think I could comfortably work on the train (which has outlets at every seat on this coast) for hours, or days. I ought to revise my paper; I decided to work a little more on it, to try to clean up that bobble I noted the other day. But first I'm going to read, I think. I finished Lying, and started the Baker. So far, very good; he can be really compelling. It's a little surreal reading all these writers talking about writing, though. They're all so self-conscious; I think pretty soon I'm going to need a dose of some good old adventure fiction or some such -- lots of action, no thinking. :-)
Then a party for my baby cousin (there are now 19 first cousins on that side of the family, and I don't think they're done yet...), during which my mom arrived and was most surprised. :-) Shocked, is I think more the word. Lots of good catch-up with sisters and cousins and second-cousins. Lots of grown-ups and babies I had trouble keeping track of. (At these things, I somehow revert to being one of 'the kids' despite being thirty now...it's a generational thing.) The party went 'til about midnight and then we went to my second-cousin Elaine's for girl talk and eventual sleep. Around two-ish maybe?
In the morning, Sharmi (baby sister) and I woke up early and had some
breakfast at a local diner; she used to live in Boston when she was in
college (at Tufts) and knows the area well. Yummy and cheap. (That's a
picture of her from the party, btw -- she's looking so cute these days;
I mean, she was always cute, but now it's like a grown-up cute.) By the
time we came back to Elaine's, the others were staggering out of bed, and
we spent about three more hours hanging and chatting and drinking more tea;
Elaine made a lovely pot of it, plus tiny banana muffins which were all
devoured. It was especially nice talking to Elaine; she studied lit! I
had sort of lost track of her and hadn't realized that I had a cousin who
also did English lit. She's working in PR now, but still has a yen for
Victoriana; we had a delightful chat about Charlotte Bronte's
Villette. :-)
Then back to my aunt's house to pick everyone up and go out to lunch at Panang, a really good Malaysian restaurant. Mirna (middle sister) spent some time doing medical research in Malaysia, and she says the food at this restaurant chain (they're in Chicago too, and I think in New York) is pretty authentic. My favorite part was one of the appetizers; roti, a kind of stretchy crepe bread, served with tasty curry. So good! I didn't think I'd be hungry again, after all the food my aunt served at her party (all delicious and delectable), but amazingly, my stomach was ready for more today.
And then they dropped me at the train, and I'm back on it, pulling into Penn Station in New York. Spent much of the ride editing photos from the visit; I love my camera. Did you know that? I adore it. It's especially fun being able to hand it to the younger cousins and say, "Go -- take as many photos as you like. It won't cost me anything!" Sometimes, they take pretty decent ones. Sometimes not.
Anyway -- had a great time in Boston; am utterly exhausted now. Maybe I can persuade Alex to go grab me some takeout for dinner when I get to his place; I'm about ready to crash, despite napping some on the train. But a good trip, and well worth it, I think. My folks were really glad I came, and I owe them *something* after all the trouble I've caused them. Poor things...
As I get older, dealing with my (extended) family gets easier and easier. That's lovely. Despite being somewhat estranged from them for years, I can't imagine what it would be like *not* having a passel of cousins whom you saw at least occasional Christmases and birthdays. It's nice. It's more than nice, really.
Got in to Alex's and collapsed for a while, but eventually managed to drag myself up and go out to dinner with him. He'd already eaten, but took me to a little Italian trattoria down the street where I had pasta primavera and he had cappucino and cheesecake. I felt virtuous for ordering something with vegetables, but the dish was really pretty soggy. Pasta primavera should not be soggy! Ah well. We had a nice conversation over the meal, though; love and life and sex and such. I love hanging out with old lovers; they know you so well, in a very comfortable and intimate way, even though you're not dating them anymore. It's hard to be stiff with someone when they've seen you naked. Especially naked and sweaty and making funny noises. :-) It's also particularly nice talking to him about Kevin, since they're friends, and Alex knows Kev pretty well. It helps. (Five months now, and it doesn't really seem to be getting much easier. Hopefully it will soon.)
We walked back around 11-ish, and then I dragged out my computer and made Alex look at pictures -- first photos from the party (the ones I edited on the train) and then various other that he hadn't seen, of David and Karina and Jed and Kevin, etc. and so on. Fun. It's fabulous having all my photos from the last year with me on the computer. I love my camera! He showed me some actual photos of the recent trip he and Yuko took to some gorgeous island somewhere. Must be nice to be comfortably well-off! They looked so cute in their swimsuits and diving gear...
Speaking of comfortably well-off, we also spent a while talking about the houses he'd looked at on Saturday -- he and his mom saw one that he absolutely fell in love with, but it was a fair bit more than he'd planned to spend. It sounds terrific -- perched up on top of a cliff; actually sort of dug into the cliff, kind of like Bilbo's house. :-) I spent a while fantasizing about borrowing it for ten days to run an artist's colony -- he was dubious at first, but by the end of my spiel, sounded halfway convinced. Wouldn't that be cool?! I'd be willing to cook for the group; we could open it to ten people or so, charge maybe $10/day for food? People would have to get there on their own, and probably bring sleeping bags and pillows and towels, but there wouldn't be any other charges, and they'd have a fabulous retreat near New York. We could maybe even use some of the money to fly in someone like Nalo to be our guest speaker. :-) I'd have so much fun scheduling a few activities and workshops, and we could just all work the rest of the time. What do you think? Could I get sci-fi and/or erotica writers interested? (This'd all be a ways in the future, of course -- first he needs to buy a house, and then he needs to furnish it. But still...something to think about. Alex likes the idea of being a patron of the arts. Hmm....do I know anybody else who has a big house sitting empty? This sounds like so much fun; I don't want to wait!)
Anyway, lovely evening; stayed up too late. Woke up this morning to the phone ringing; Alex's dad calling to tell him to turn on the tv. Made tea and drank it while watching tv for the next couple of hours; called my sister and some friends to let everyone know that I was okay. Alex and I spent a while arguing about whether it was terrorism or not; he thought it was 80-90% likely; I thought he was overly paranoid, and there was a good chance it was just a terrible accident. Sad stuff; really depressing watching the news.
Around eleven, headed off to Melcher for a brief meeting. Met with Duncan and new editor Leah and looked at possible cover and interior images (I did mention that this one will have photos, yes?) Some gorgeous stuff; there's one in particular that I'd love to have for the cover. A fabulous tropical blue for the water, and a man and woman entwined, in contrasting skin tones. Very striking. Fingers crossed. We also rearranged the TOC completely; I'm much happier with the new arrangement. I just wasn't able to think clearly when I was doing it last time. We considered putting my story first for a while -- if it had been from anyone else, I think we would have, because it has a fun tone that would be a good opener. But I felt weird about that; we ended up putting it last again, like we did last time. I think that'll work better. I also spent a little while showing Leah how to use a Canon Digital Elph camera (the type I own) -- she had one sitting on her desk, which it turned out belonged to Sarah Jessica Parker (of Sex in the City fame) -- Melcher's doing a book connected with the show, and SJP sent her camera along with about 800 informal pictures of the cast. Very cool! I touched SJP's camera! It's almost like touching her, right? :-)
Alex came and met me afterwards, and we went to a Belgian bakery for lunch; I had a pate and gherkin sandwich, with some more strong English breakfast tea. It felt like a day for a lot of tea. The bakery was called Pain, and if I remembered where it was, I would tell you, because the food was quite delicious. There was a couple speaking French sitting next to us, which really completed the continental picture. For a moment, I could forget that I was in New York -- which would have rather been a relief, today.
We went back to Alex's around two, and I'm honestly not sure what we did between then and five, when I left for the airport. Read a little, edited some pictures. Mostly watched the news, talked some, got sad again. I don't normally stay glued to the news during this kind of thing; I prefer to try to work as I regularly would, and just check in periodically. But I was hoping that they would announce that they were opening JFK to departures (when I finally left for the airport, they hadn't announced it open yet, but I'd called my airline and they thought the flight would be leaving on time), so I kept listening. The sadness on the tv seemed to combine with my sadness about Kevin and my exhaustion after all the travel and my slight dread of returning to Salt Lake and loneliness again -- it just all combined to overwhelm me after a while, and I got more and more stressed, to the point where I just didn't feel like I could cope with my original (sensible and cheap) plan of taking the subway and a shuttle to JFK. Alex kindly gave me cab fare, a kiss, and a fluffy sf novel for the road; I called David from the cab and talked to him until I got to the airport. I was feeling better by the time I got to the airport, and the novel (Steven Gould's Jumper, a rather charming little teleportation/coming-of-age story) kept me nicely engaged up through the first hour of the flight.
And now, at the end of this very long entry, and these rather long four days, I'm typing to you again, while I watch the news again on the little tv in the seat in front of me. Apparently there is some progress in Afghanistan; I don't know if we should be there, but at this point, I'm just hoping it's all over soon. They're showing photos of Near Rockaway, where the plane crashed, and I'm thinking of Shmuel, whose family lives in Far Rockaway, only a few miles away. I think I'm going to turn off the news soon, and either watch the Food Network, finding comfort in the details of baking cakes and such, or perhaps try to work a little more on that children's story. When I get home, I'll upload this entry, and be glad to be finally home, able to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, rather than being trapped in a New York airport (as I so easily could have been). And even if I'll be a little lonely for a while, I'll be glad to safe, hale and whole and with no one I know hurt in today's disaster. Counting my blessings. Be safe, everyone. Take care of yourselves.
In other news -- my being away from the net for four whole days remarkably didn't mean that the world fell apart. Well, maybe the world is, but my magazine isn't, which is really what I meant. I love having a competent staff. All is purring along nicely; I've gotten responses from almost all the invited authors for the POD book, and I'll send out reminders to the laggards this week and start putting the actual manuscript together. I also need to revise the W intro and write a dedication and acknowledgements. I wish I'd kept a list of everyone who helped on this book -- if you think you should be acknowledged, please write and remind me! Those are the main tasks for tomorrow.
Anyway -- I never did get that crit paper revised, so I'm going to go do that now; hopefully the professor won't laugh in my face when I attempt to hand it in this late. Fingers crossed. I would have sent it from the road as we'd agreed, honest I would, but I didn't anticipate being totally cut off from the net. These people who have only a cell phone and no regular long-distance...occasionally people get too high-tech even for me.
11:40. About to run off to class; just checking in to note that I did manage a revision -- it's not perfect, but it's much better. I can live with that. I also sent out a note asking if SH illustrators might be interested in doing items through Cafe Press -- I'd personally love to have several of those illustrations as mugs and Christmas ornaments! And I got a note asking if I'd be willing to review a book and write a cover blurb for it; this is the second such request (the first was for Ursula Pflug's Green Music), and I admit I'm still a bit bewildered. When did I become famous enough to blurb books? I feel like I crossed an invisible line in the sand...but I don't know when or how. Ah well...
So far today, have mostly done SH stuff. Sent out a reminder to the laggard POD authors; only about 4-5 left to respond. Once those are in, I'll send out contracts to them (which means I have to draft contracts, oof!) and put the anthology together. I'm hoping I get everything back by this weekend; I have a nice long quiet time over Thanksgiving break, which would be the perfect time to put the book together. Fingers crossed. I also set up a Cafe Press store for SH -- they've really streamlined the process; very nice. :-) Frank Wu (who illustrated "Slugball") is going to do up a test image for me so I can see what his image looks like on a mug. It's taken me a while to figure out how this stuff works; it looks like if I want multiple images on the same items, I need to create a little store for each one, and then link them -- so it'd be Frank Wu @ Strange Horizons, etc. Probably more technical than you wanted to know...anyway. Stretched my brain a little at first, but I think I've got it now.
I also drafted a dedication and acknowledgements for Wet; I'll try to revise the intro next, I think. It's one of those days for a thousand little tasks. Nothing too overwhelming, especially now that the dang Derrida paper is handed in. :-) May check in later -- if not, have a good Wednesday, okay?
11:40. Haven't revised intro yet; soon. Did send out SH newsletter, forgetting to note one thing -- that we're raising article rates to $40/piece. Write us an article! Pretty please? Send queries to David, at articles@strangehorizons.com. Hopefully this rate increase will get us a) more submissions and b) better submissions. :-) I'll note it in the next newsletter, at any rate. We'll see if money really does talk...
I looked over our galleys for next week; there was an interesting article on Star Wars fan films, which I didn't really know anything about. I went over to theforce.net and watched a couple; the original one, Troopers, was really good. (Although even with a cable modem, it was a little slow and spotty in transmission -- can't imagine what it would be like on a slower connection). Lots of fun.
I've started doing some reading for lit. crit. -- Foucault's History of Sexuality. I've read this before, but a long time ago -- at least I hope it was a long time ago, 'cause my memory of it is really fuzzy. It *could* have been for Kathryn's class two years ago. But hopefully it was actually for the introductory sociology sequence in college, which would have been more than a decade ago. That would be a more comforting span of time. In any case, good stuff -- Foucault is very convincing when I'm reading him. Of course, most of these people are. I'm just a wet sponge -- I absorb whomever I read and believe what they believe until the next person comes along. It's a good thing I'm a creative writer and not a critic.
Although speaking of criticism, some exciting news -- you remember that Kay article that Chris Cobb and I did for SH? Well, he's turning it into a much more scholarly piece and has had it accepted to present at ICFA. Sadly, I don't think I can make it out there this year -- not if I want my department to pay my way to AWP (Associated Writers and Poets, I think). Although, since I have this paper already accepted...oh, it's tempting. Anyone want to buy me a $300 plane ticket to Florida? :-) Still, I'll assume not, since it's really more important that I go to AWP this year and schmooze with the lit. fic. people. But it's nice that I get this little academic credit almost for free (since Chris is doing most of the work, though I do plan to help out some on the paper). :-) Even better would be having it accepted for publication somewhere...I wonder if Science Fiction Studies might be at all interested. It's something to hope for, at any rate. And maybe even work towards, even if this isn't really technically supposed to be my field. (Not that I really know what my field is -- post-colonial identity politics? Sexuality? Magical realism/slipstream fiction? Who knows, really...)
1:45. About halfway through the Foucault; I should finish it this afternoon, I think. The question is, will I find time to do the ancillary reading as well? Check in later and hear the answer to this gripping question...
I spent a while paying bills -- ah, that mix of pain and satisfaction. It was lovely that I had enough money to pay the bills this month; if only there were more left over. I finally got around to doing something I should have done a while ago -- switched my cell phone plan from a painful $50/month for 500 minutes (many of which often went unused) to $30/month for 200 daytime minutes and 2800 evening/weekend minutes. In theory, that should be enough to cover most of my long-distance costs; I will endeavor to use my cell phone whenver possible (and keep a reasonably close account of the minutes, since going over is an agonizing 40 cents/minute). This should cut down significantly on my phone bill, which was a very sad $240 last month. (About $150 of that was 2200 evening minutes; I spend a lot of time on the phone, apparently. :-) It's necessary to my sanity, but not necessary to spend that much! It may take me a little while to get used to using my cell so much more, so I'm asking for help -- if I call you in the evenings or on the weekend, please ask me if I've remembered to use my cell phone for the call. Thanks!
Soonly my contracts should come back from my authors and I can send them to Melcher and collect the second half of my payment; that should pay off some outstanding debts and make my life happier. I really hate owing people money. I think this summer, I may try to make a chunk of money somehow. I don't plan to sell my body on the street, but anything short of that is sounding sort of appealing... :-)
I don't want to give you the impression that I'm in dire financial straits, btw. Just a typical American, with typical debt. I'd like to be a typical Brit instead -- fiscally responsible, and the sort of person who waits to buy a house until they have the cash to do it. :-) That level of fiscal stability is probably far beyond my abilities, though.
8:20. Okay, I wasn't going to post again, but just a very quick note that Todd clearly just doesn't get Kirk. I will agree that Picard is the best captain qua captain -- if I were in charge of Starfleet, I'd want Picard on my flagship. Sisko's not a bad captain to handle a war, and Janeway...eh. Ick. It's too soon to tell with Archer, so we'll leave him aside. But if I had to pick a captain to *follow* -- it'd be James Tiberius Kirk all the way. Because the one thing that original Trek had that none of the others have matched is that Kirk is a gold-plated hero, in the best and worst senses of the word, and the crew follows him not because he's smart, or scary, or patient, or impassioned (although he can be and has been all of those things), but because they love him. They flat out adore their captain, and I do too. And no, this is not the wisest way to captain a ship -- it means that sometimes your crew is going to want to make the wrong decisions because they just can't stand to let you die. They're going to be tempted to even sacrifice an entire universe, just to save you, their captain (and you can probably tell from that transition from Kirk to you just which kind of captain I'd like to be). And it's gonna be only because they know you'd be disappointed in them that will save them from making that terrible decision -- that, and the fact that you've managed to put together the best damn crew in the fleet, and they're *all* heroes in the end, and understand what heroism's about. That was what original Trek was about, through and through, and while I may think Picard's universe is a little more realistic, and in the end, more nuanced and even more interesting -- Kirk and his universe -- well, they were glorious.
Great "Enterprise" episode today, btw -- in fact, the last three have been very solid. I have hope for this show. :-) Though pretty soon, Archer needs to be really wrong about something -- to make a mistake, and understand that his mistake has consequences. Essential to his character development (and Starfleet's), I think.
Final note to Todd: Trek canon is clearly that Vulcans *master* emotion, not that they are emotionless. Only the small percentage that study Kolinahr (the complete divorcement from emotion) are striving to be actually emotionless -- and most of those who attempt it fail (including Spock after V'ger). This was Surak's teaching -- that Vulcan emotion was in fact so great that if they didn't master it, it would destroy them. Vulcans almost went extinct several times in the era before Surak, in nuclear and other holocausts. See mating ritual for remnants of that time; vestiges of emotion that they cannot master. See also episode with Sarek and Picard, when disease and mental degradation destroy Sarek's ability to control his emotions.
She had shoulder-length hair the last time I saw her, at Christmas; now it's very short, and she looks like a pixie from Midsummer Night's Dream. She's as slender as one too -- she got the skinny genes in the family. My middle sister is slender too, but she's careful about what she eats and works out a lot. Sharmi is just thin -- thin enough that I think she should eat more. :-) They're both much more stylish than I am; they seem to keep up with the current trends effortlessly, and always look like they've just walked off the set of Friends. They are very cool little sisters. I should ask Mirna if I can post photos of her too...
In other news, finished the Foucault. Am horribly behind for this week --
haven't read the short Melville novel we're discussing in class today, or
any of the associated critical reading for either class. I'm printing out
Althusser's "Ideology and the State" right now, but I won't have time to
read it before class. At least I'll have it with me for a reference. I'm
something like ten or fifteen essays behind right now; this weekend I
think I'm going to have to do a binge reading spree to catch up. It's
travel plus a little too much time spent on SH stuff (which is just more
fun that reading about ideology and state, I have to say). The goal is to
be caught up by Tuesday, so that I can goof off some over Thanksgiving
with a light heart. We'll see how it goes.
Kevin called last night and we talked a bit. Trying to decide whether we should try to see each other before Christmas, and if so, when and where. The big advantage to my going to Chicago is that I get to see Roshani and Zoe too. Baby's talking and walking!!! Not a lot, but still. She wasn't doing that last I was there, and I wanna see. I'm guessing that unless something else intervenes, I'll end up going out there around mid-December, then going on to the East Coast. Might go straight up to Boston at that point, since Todd and Debby are leaving fairly early to drive South for Christmas. All in flux. We'll see. Means I should get moving again on that baby afghan, though -- it's only about a quarter done.
11:45.
But seriously, I seem to remember that way back when, people did actually want some MA Gear (TM). I'd be happy to make some up, but I'm not sure what exactly y'all would like. Photos? Poems? And would you like them on ornaments or t-shirts or boxer shorts or mugs or mousepads? So many options. I wish I could remember what you said you wanted last time...maybe it was Sitting Under a Tree, in the Rain? If it's a poem, I have to figure out how to make a poem into a GIF -- you wouldn't think that would be difficult, but I'm not sure where to start. (Zak, help?)
Anyway, if you really would like a MA Object (TM), please drop me a line and tell me what you're be interested in. In theory, I suppose I could even fit one of the very short stories on a t-shirt, if I made the type really small... :-) I promise not to mark them up very much. :-) And if none of you are interested at all, I'll just let the store languish. But it was fun setting it up, and I'm kinda tempted to make myself a Karina mug to drink my tea out of every morning...
2:40. Votes in so far for the poem above, and/or Dreams of a Lover or Dragons in the Mountains. Get in your suggestions now! :-) Requests so far are for mugs or mousepads, 'cause t-shirts fade.
There was also a request for that CD I promised y'all. I do intend to reproduce it, really I do -- it's just that it requires an initial outlay of several hundred dollars, not to mention the time to do the design/layout, etc. I got up to a certain point on the layout with one graphic designer, and then she kind of disappeared -- I'd like to try to track her down to finish it if possible, 'cause I really liked what she was doing. It's more the cash than the time, though -- when I get up-front cash these days, I really feel like I ought to spend it on paying off credit card debts, rather than investing it in a project that's going to take several months to make the money back. But we'll see...maybe I can free up some money after the holidays and try to do them in time for Valentine's Day. Will let y'all know if so.
Buffy was, of course, fabulous. I would comment more, but no spoilers for poor Karina, trapped in her backward country so many months behind in their Buffiness.
I spent a little while this morning trying to get a poem onto a mug. The process I attempted went like this:
It also looks a bit bare, with just black text on white. I could put a colored background rectangle under the text, but that would just look kind of blocky, don't you think? I could also add a tiny image, and wrap the text around it -- do you think it'd look better with a tree in it? Maybe I could use that photo of the tree swept by wind from a few weeks ago... Hmm....details, details. It's a good thing I'm not a graphic designer; I could fiddle for months over such tiny little things. Well, maybe not -- I'd probably get impatient after a few days and say -- "Good enough!" Or, more likely, "Help?!" :-)
12:45. Very slow morning. Umm...talked to David for a while, had a big lunch (feeling stuffed) of leftover Thai green curry and bread, drank tea and read more of Kate Elliot's Child of Flame -- yet another Humongous Fantasy Series. Let's see -- at the moment, I'm in the midst of George R.R. Martin's (waiting for him to write next book), Michelle West's (ditto), Elizabeth Haydon's (waiting for third book to come out in paperback) and Kate Elliot's (reading fourth book presently; will then wait eagerly for final (supposedly) book). And I wonder why I fall behind in my critical theory reading...
Speaking of which, this is what I *should* be doing this weekend:
Before I go...a question? Are y'all still out there? I mean, I know that my RL friends are still reading, if somewhat erratically. But there used to be at least fifty other people out there, and it seems lately like I'm not hearing much from y'all. Do y'all *sniff* not love me anymore? Am I writing too long entries? Too boring? Write, write! I'm being hit by a sudden attack of insecurity, out of nowhere...
Of course, I didn't get anything done yesterday. Chatted with friends, read my fantasy novel, answered some e-mail. Pretty much ditto today; I went to see Harry Potter with Carol this morning -- lots of fun. Then we stopped at the video store and I rented some Spanish films (to practice for my exam this week) and two goofy ones: The Wedding Planner and Knight's Tale. I watched the former when I got home...and I suppose it's progress of a sort that I can now watch a romantic comedy and only get slightly sad. I couldn't watch them at all this summer. After that...umm...some e-mail, some random tiny tasks, wrote to Jason (finally), watched Sister Act on tv, made and ate dinner. So very not a productive day. But I *think* I'm still okay, and will be able to finish everything I need to finish tomorrow, if I work steadily. I think I needed a mini-vacation. Hopefully I'll feel more like working tomorrow.
I also need to write a little piece for nonfiction class tonight, and submit a proposal for my final lit paper, and prep to teach memoir tomorrow, and finish marking up their stories. It's gonna be a long day, as I wander from desk to bed to kitchen (while waiting for tea to brew) to papasan in sunroom to dining table to rocking chair...
2:00. If you want to know what I think about all this ideology stuff, read Terry Eagleton. It was such a relief reading someone saying what I thought -- and saying it clearly and logically, with illuminating examples. If all critical theorists wrote like this, I would read a lot more critical theory for fun. The only sadness is that I know my professor is going to demolish Eagleton (and by extension, me) in class tomorrow. You may expect me to have at least a minor, and possibly major, existential crisis over Thanksgiving break.
In addition to reading dutifully, I did goof off some; I went over to my Amazon wishlist and updated with books, music, techno-toys, etc. I even added the laptop that it'd be very nice if my parents got my for Xmas, if they're feeling flush (which they may be, now that they've just finished putting their last daughter through college). Fingers crossed. The one I have is adorable, but is getting rather full, in various ways. I also added some Visor stuff (did I mention that I managed to spill orange juice on my Visor over this last visit? It still works, but the screen seems a bit messed up now. :-( Much sadness. I also ruined my copy of Melville's Benito Cereno). I would've added a modem card for my Visor, but what I really want is something that will let me hook up my Visor to my Samsung cell phone, so that I can check e-mail in airports and other such places where I can't just hook up my laptop to a normal phone line. And I couldn't find any such thing for the Visor. Does it not exist? Am I just a dork? I don't really want to sign up for a new service plan, either; I want to use my existing Spring PCS minutes. Is this really too much to ask?
In any case, it was fun to shop. I love Christmas. :-)
(Btw, did one of you send me an Ondaatje book for my birthday? It arrived late-ish at David's, and I picked it up the last time I was out there, but now I can't find it (it's probably *somewhere* in my apartment), so I don't remember a) which one it was or b) who it was from. Please drop me a line if it was you, so I can thank you properly...)
Back to theory, my darlings. And while I'm reading that, you really ought to be reading this week's new Strange Horizons. :-)
What was particularly fun about it was getting in touch with old lovers again. I ended up exchanging a fair bit of e-mail with Dean and Paul (my first two boyfriends) and Curtis and Jason (whom I had brief...umm...one-night-stands with, really, though they've both been friends before and since). None of those are people I normally e-mail much; it was interesting and rather pleasantly nostalgic.
Eventually I went to sleep, only to wake up half an hour later, wide awake. Annoying! I read some more theory until I fell asleep again.
This morning I got up, finished the grading and class prep. Went in to do a mess of photocopying for my students, which made me late for class, but all in a good cause, eh? Then busy class stuff until Buffy. Umm...this isn't exactly a spoiler, but Karina, you might want to be warned that the show is getting kind of SM-ish this season. I mean, I think it's hot, but not sure you'd appreciate it.
When I finish updating, I'm going to go watch some Spanish films. I'm taking another stab at the Spanish exam tomorrow morning; we'll see how it goes. If I don't pass advanced proficiency this time, I think I'll just take a class either this spring or this summer and get the requirement done that way.
Oh, btw -- Jed found me a Visor/cell cable! Excellent. :-)
I think part of my reluctance to study is that it just seems unfair that I've forgotten so much. I mean, I was almost fluent in Spanish, once upon a time -- enough to pass Chicago's advanced translation *and* speaking exams. That was only a decade or so ago; why doesn't my brain just retain this stuff?? Actually, it does retain it -- when I look up "algunos" and see "some" it's not as if I've learned a new word -- it's like getting a word that's been on the tip of your tongue finally out. But to do that with a whole language? Unfair! I'd like to have a few words with my brain...in Spanish, ideally.
Or Polish, or Tamil. Which are the two other languages I've managed to forget. I studied Polish for four years(!) in grammar school, because I lived in a Polish-Catholic neighborhood and everyone learned it. Do I have much use for it in my everyday life? Well, no. But it'd be nice to be able to read Stanislaw Lem in the original, and I think there's a poet named...Agniewskwa? Something like that, that I've liked a lot in translation. Not to mention that if my Polish were really fluent, it'd be a short step to Russian, and since David and Alex both speak Russian, that'd be pretty darn cool to know. But it's gone, all gone. I can still do the sign of the cross, and their version of Happy Birthday ("Stolat", one hundred years...), and even sort of a Christmas carol or two, but my pronunciation's all mangled on those and I'm not sure what I'm saying. I had a decent Polish accent, once upon a time. I miss it.
And my parents tell me that I was fluent in Tamil as a baby. I came to the U.S. at age 2.5 or so, and probably spoke a fair bit of Tamil with them for another year or two, before they got all intense about my learning English. And I appreciate the English, I do -- it may be the single thing I've learned (excellent grammatical and idiomatic English) that's gotten me as far as I've gotten. But dangit, I wish I'd hung onto the Tamil too. I still understand my folks a little, when they speak it -- but only them. Anyone else from Sri Lanka has too different an accent; I just lose the words entirely. Tragic, that's what it is.
Back to my third-grade short stories. Sigh.
Hey, munchkins. Survived the holiday okay? I did, mostly at least.Woke up way too early this morning, not sure why. Luckily, I had some silly movies that I hadn't watched yet, so I popped in Legally Blonde. Truly pretty pointless, but amusing nonetheless, especially at 6:30 a.m. when one is very tired. After I finished that one, I started cooking, but very very slowly. Started my favorite Thanksgiving recipe, the one I make every year if I possibly can, Savoury Sweet Potatoes. (I actually usually make it with yams.) This is a recipe I've been making since my college days; I found it in a newspaper one year, under 'low-fat tuber recipes'. :-) I talked to Kirstie briefly while I was cooking and she reminded me that she had been there the first time I made that, and said that not only was she making it this year too, but that she often made it for dinner because she liked it so much. I don't do that, because I'd rather save it for special occasions. But boy, it's good. Go try it! Very yummy!
So I got the yams started, and then put in A Knight's Tale, which actually turned out to be a much better story (and funnier) than I expected. Pleasant surprise. Not that it's brilliant or anything, but it's solid and rather clever, sort of in the vein of Ten Things I Hate About You. I paused it intermittenly when I needed to turn the yams over or chop stuff and put them in the oven. Nice mellow morning.
Around 10:30, I started cooking in earnest. We were doing a potluck among
some of the grad students -- but not really a potluck, in that we planned
it all in advance. Heidi and her sweetie (husband?) were bringing dessert
-- she made two pumpkin and one deep-dish apple pie. That's Heidi,
helping herself to some pie. She's a doll, and her sweetie is a big comic
geek whom I loaned Why I Hate Saturn (which he loved), and
the first Strangers in Paradise, which did nothing for him.
Oh well. It was still nice to see them, and the conversation got very
geeky at several occasions, since they're also Star Trek fans. We totally
ripped apart this week's episode, for example. What were the writers
thinking? Just lame and heavy-handed and much duller than the teasers
promised.
Jenn and David brought the turkey, which was very lovely. Also a
sausage-apple stuffing, which was utterly delectable. Gods, I love
stuffing. I had three helpings. :-)
I made some other food in addition to the yams. The biggest hit was probably the Winter Squash Soup with Gruyere Croutons. I actually skipped the croutons -- not worth the effort with so much other food around. I also set some soup aside before I added the cream, because Jenn's allergic to dairy -- I tasted it, and really, I think the soup is pretty damn good even without the cream -- and without it, it's a really healthy recipe. Squash is good for you, right? Not too bad for you, at least. I made it with veggie broth last time and it came out fine, so it's a good vegetarian dish. I think it's going to become my standard winter soup.
I made a green bean dish, but I'm not happy with it, so I'm not going to
bother pointing you to it. It was okay, but not great. What was great
was this
Stuffed Marinated Portobello Mushroom recipe. I think this is the
third time I've made this, and every time, people (including myself) have
been very happy with it. Usually I serve whole portobello mushrooms as an
appetizer, but this time, I bought huge ones and cut them in quarters for
appetizers (see the dish at the bottom of the picture at the top of this
entry). Very filling even so, probably too much so for Thanksgiving,
really. But perfect for a dinner party.
It was a really nice crowd; some of the usual suspects, plus some new
people. That's Edward at left; he's a new MA in lit., I think. From
South Georgia, and very sweet. And here he is again, with DeNorris, who I
*believe* is doing an MFA in poetry. Honestly, I have trouble keeping
everyone straight. I think I'm just slow.
Mostly I enjoyed myself very much. There was laughing and silliness and stuffing ourselves and very delectable food (Paul and Marcia made brussel sprouts and corn on the cob and mashed potatoes and gravy -- it was a proper Thanksgiving feast). There was good fellowship and affection. There was a little department chatter, but only enough to be bonding, not enough to be overwhelming. Sometimes it seems like the department is all we talk about, but not today; that was good.
I thought I was in a pretty good mood. I had started to get a little sad this morning, but had quickly drowned that in cooking. And then I was busy having fun. But at one point this evening, someone made an innocuous comment that just rubbed me the wrong way, and I got irritated -- but that wasn't the real problem. The problem was that as soon as I got irritated, I was suddenly on the verge of tears. Which made me realize that I really wasn't as okay as I thought I was. I went and did dishes until I calmed down. Everyone was very nice to me; they didn't really know what was wrong, but they knew something was up.
I miss Kevin. It's nothing complicated; I'm just used to spending most holidays with him -- either Thanksgiving or Christmas, and sometimes both. And I could have spent it with him, but going to his parents...that would have been too difficult this year, I think. If I'd asked, he would have come here, or I could have gone to Chicago, but I hate to keep him from seeing his folks; they're lovely people, and they don't see nearly as much of their only son as they would like. So. I had a cooking question this morning -- or specifically, a question about whether a pan he had given me was ovenproof. So I called his mother's, not really thinking about it; I was distracted by cooking issues. And maybe deep down I wanted to talk to her, to hear her voice. Not sure. But I said "Hello, Ann, it's Mary Anne." And she said, "Hello!" And I said, "Happy Thanksgiving!" And she said, "Happy Thanksgiving to you! I'm sorry you're not here with us this year." And I didn't know what to say. I know Kev's sister knows that we broke up; I'm not sure if his parents do. Probably. We've always had a friendly relationship; not really close, but mildly affectionate. I like them both, a great deal. It was so strange, hearing her say that, not sure if she knew that it was unlikely that I'd be spending another Thanksgiving or Christmas with them.
This is a picture from last May, when I was living with him in Chicago for
a month, and we were moving his things from his apartment to the new
condo. The one that I thought I'd be probably living in next year. And I
probably knew, deep down, that it wasn't really likely to happen...that we
might do it, but that it wouldn't be a good idea -- for either of us. And
yet.
All the people I spent Thanksgiving with are delightful. I am thankful for their friendship and care -- most especially Paul and Marcia and Jenn and David, who have been so lovely to me. They've made living in Salt Lake not just bearable, but actually reasonably pleasant. I'm also thankful for my work -- gods, I can't tell you how thankful. I would have fallen into a black pit of despair without it, I think. If I had still been doing the kind of mindless filing work that I did for years...ugh. Too ugly to think about. Tomorrow, I'll probably work on the POD book; this weekend I may start some academic papers. That's all good, and sometimes even great. I'm, of course, also thankful for my long-distance friends. I think they know how much. David and Jed have had far too many late-night phone calls from me the last months. I need to start weaning myself off that habit soon. But not just yet, I think. I am very thankful for my Jedediah especially. He's so good to me.
But however wonderful everything else is -- and it is honestly wonderful -- it's not Kev. And right now, I would give a lot to have him here. Not doing anything in particular -- he could be chatting on the phone, just like in the picture. But he'd be here, and I could feel his presence in my apartment; I could listen to him talk; I could, if I chose, get up and go to him and lean against his chest and he would hold me.
Maybe next year, I can just be thankful to have had him for as long as I did.
I'm not there quite yet.
It's funny -- we call ourselves adults at 21, and in some ways we are, but it's only very recently that I've actually started to feel myself enough to not want desperately to have parents to lean on. Oddly enough, feeling that sense of self has made it much easier to deal with my own parents; slowly, we're working to heal the breach. It's good. I used to go months without talking to them -- once, my mom and I had a fight and didn't speak for six months. (Her choice.) Recently, I took a page from David's example, and started calling them every Sunday. So far, so good. We'll see how it goes.
In any case, wept at Jed last night, was comforted, fell asleep content, woke up happy. The surprising thing this morning was the snow. I shouldn't be surprised; various people have been eagerly anticipating it in my department. But somehow, I think part of my brain expected it to hold off until December. I don't know why. In any case, it's rather lovely, if a bit grey at the moment, since it's still snowing and no sunlight is getting through. But nice nonetheless, and a good excuse for putting up my Christmas lights in the windows. (The decorations will wait until December 1st. I have strict rules about this sort of thing.)
What I am missing is my Karina. It doesn't seem right, having snow without a Karina in it. Snow in her hair and hat, a big smile on her face. In a little while, I'm going to put on my boots and coat and go tromping off to the art store to pick up some supplies for Xmas presents. It would be so much better, having a Karina tromping beside me. Maybe I'll just close my eyes and imagine her there. I know what it looks like, having a Karina with you as you walk through the snow...
The other option is to make a book with Japanese binding, which is much simpler. I'll probably make a version like that today as well, and see which one I like better. I can see advantages to each.
If I have time, my actual plan is to make two different books this Xmas. One will be a children's story for my relatives (I'll need 9 copies of that), and the other...mmm...let's just say that I'll need somewhere between 1 and 5 copies, depending on what I end up doing exactly. Since the Japanese binding looks easier right now, I suspect I'll end up doing Japanese binding for my relatives' books, and a hardcover binding for the others. We'll just have to wait and see.
It's nice to have a project for my evenings, though. I like crocheting, but I can only do about an hour of it before my fingers start cramping up. This should be fun to do in front of the television.
3:30. Did some laundry and took the book out from under its weight (where
it's being pressed and drying) for long enough to take some photos. Let
me tell you about what I did wrong, so that you may learn from my
mistakes, young Jedi.
Firstly, I don't recommend choosing a binding fabric that is thicker and
heavier than what you're using as a cover. The binding goes on first, and
in this case, the heavy green velvet shows through clearly under the
translucent orange paper. Not good. (On the other hand, the velvet
does feel awfully nice. Maybe use it for the cover instead?)
Secondly, they're serious when they tell you to be neat with your binding; as you can see from the first two photos, I had uneven amounts in front and back of the book. Less of an issue if the cover actually covers it, but I imagine you can probably still feel the binding with your fingers, so better to be neat. I started out neat, but got more slapdash as I went, since this was just a practice piece. I was rewarded accordingly.
Thirdly, use the kind of glue they recommend (either buying bookbinder
glue, or making paste out of flour and water). You're supposed to slop
some on and then brush it thinly and evenly across the paper. Not make
some squiggles with craft glue and then just press it down. As you can
see, not smooth and professional-looking!
Fourthly...well, actually, the fourth and fifth pictures are fine. The light yellow translucent paper I chose for my end papers is very pretty (although it did show through the edges of the cover paper, so you might want two different end papers; a thicker one for the inside cover, and then a pretty light one to go next to the actual paper. Still, not bad. And the center of the book has a very easy hand-sewn binding; I'm a little stunned that it's actually enough to hold a book together. Who knew? Nice and neat.
Overall, I now have a functional if not particularly attractive book, and
have a good sense of what I'll do differently next time. It does seem
rather flimsy -- 24 pages is not a lot to have pressed between stiff
cardboard. I think I'll use heavier weight paper for the next version
(which may mean working a little harder with the binding; I'll probably
pick up a thicker needle tomorrow, as well as an awl or bodkin (which I
need, as it turns out, to try the Japanese binding). I may also use
lighter cardboard for the cover; the one I used is wonderfully sturdy, but
was a pure bitch to cut through. I ended up using an exacto knife, a pair
of scissors, and my heavy-duty kitchen knife...and I still had somewhat
ragged edges. Which I guess is okay, since the binding covers them, but
it was annoying. That was the only part of the whole process that was
actually difficult -- the rest was just finicky. Be sure to have a ruler
or tape measure if you try this, and I do recommend picking up a book of
instructions, or poking around on the web for them.
Mostly yesterday I just sort of wandered around, doing random things. Around seven, David called, and we ended up talking for close to three hours. We hadn't had a long talk in a while; it was nice. After that, I watched tv and crocheted -- only one more set of rows (maybe an hour?) to finish the body of this piece. I always have mixed feelings about crocheting; I'm still unskilled enough at it that I make lots of mistakes at first, some of which I catch soon enough to fix them, some of which I only notice much too late. (I guess not too late if I were sufficiently anal, but c'mon -- it's knots, right? Who's going to notice a couple funny knots in the midst of a bunch of knots? I'm so glad I'm not a perfectionist...my life is crazy enough as it is. I think they must issue a limit on the number of neuroses they offer you ("Here, Mary Anne. You get: control freak, megalomaniac, borderline hysteric and possessor of a mild anxiety disorder. Have fun!")). My low skill level means that towards the end of a piece of crocheting, when I've finally figured out what I'm doing, there's a nice satisfaction in humming along, not making mistakes. Which usually happens just before the piece finishes -- and you're not even really finished, because when you finish the body, you have to do the edging, which is really just an opportunity to make a lot more mistakes. Especially if you messed up the body badly, so that the count on the edging doesn't come out right. (Sometimes I think I use counting more than I use spelling/writing. I mean, not really...I think? I find myself counting all the damn time, though.) I suppose as I get more skilled, this will all ease.
Anyway. I refuse to get anxious about my afghan; that's just silly. Things that you do for fun shouldn't stress you unless you actually like being stressed.
Other random things to do today: write a recommendation for a student, go over my cousin's high school admission essay (as the only English major in the family, I've become the default consultant on all such essays. I have over 50 cousins. Eek. Interestingly, they became much more active about contacting me for this stuff recently. I don't know whether this means a) they're just getting to the right age for it, b) the family is trying to welcome me back into its bosom, or c) they trust me to be more of an expert now that I'm in a Ph.D. program. My family is goofy.), clean bathroom and kitchen, revise my damn Wet intro. The last of the contracts should be coming in soon, and the book won't be truly done until they're sent back to Melcher and the intro is revised. It'll be so nice to be actually done with it.
I may check in later; Jenn and I are going to the art store this afternoon, so I might have cool book-type stuff to tell you about later (I hope I'm not the only one who finds bookbinding fascinating :-).
Snowstorm! We have a local severe weather alert going; heavy snow last night, light snow right now, but with more snow to come. It's rather impressive, actually:
In any case, I was always somewhat underdressed for trudging through the snow. Navy blue pants tucked into perhaps knee-high black boots? Often I'd be walking through snow that came up to my thighs, so first my pants would get wet, and then, worse, the snow would creep down my boots, to settle and melt into icy puddles at my toes. Usually when the bus arrived, we'd all jump on and then take off our boots, to try to dry off our toes and give them a chance to warm up. They'd be stinging with the cold; I'm a little surprised that no one ever seemed to get frosbite.
It's funny -- when I got to Chicago, it was much much colder -- but it was easier to keep relatively warm, because it was so much drier than New England. Little snow. As long as you got out of the killer wind, you were okay. Days like today were beautiful in Connecticut, but you couldn't quite enjoy it because you knew that soon you'd have to go to school in it -- or at the least, go shovel out the driveway. Luckily, my landlord shovels my path now. Not that I plan to go outside today. Not at all, not even a little bit.
I did open my window for a few minutes and stick my head out and let snow fall in my hair. :-)
It'll be nice to stay inside today; yesterday there was a fair bit of running around. I took some hardcovers I didn't want to Sam Weller and traded them in for a pile of paperbacks I did want. Satisfying, sort of like getting free books. I found an old Phyllis Ann Karr that I hadn't heard of before; that was probably the most exciting. Lots of other nice texts, though. Bradbury and Hobb and Duane and Hambly and Jacques and McKinley and Morrow and Russ. I should have no trouble avoiding my crit. reading for the next month.
Then I picked up some bookmaking supplies (first stopping at Borders for a slice of pumpkin cheesecake, yum!) and came home. In the evening, I made books while watching Ally; they were having a viewer's choice marathon. Mildly amusing. Sometimes that show really irritates me; sometimes I think it's funny.
I made a book with Japanese binding techniques; a little glue, but mostly
held together with sewn silk embroidery thread. The binding was
surprisingly easy, but I made a big mistake with the book -- I tried
watercolor paper for the inside, and that's just way too stiff for this
kind of binding. I can barely open the book to a 45 degree angle; no good
for writing in, and not really much good for anything else. I sort of
feel like I should take it apart and do something else with the paper, but
I think I'll keep it with my orange book, as an object lesson in what not
to do. In case I forget.
I had more success with the Western-style book I made; a red silk cover, black silk binding, and sketching paper pages (which feel nice, a little rough). Pretty much exactly as I wanted, though I wish I'd been more careful with the glue; some places where I had excess glue stained a tiny bit. I'd like to make a couple more books today; it's fun and very satisfying, since it feels like I'm making something so substantial -- a book! But instead, I'm going to do some work, really I am. At least for a while. Light some candles, read some theory. Not a bad plan, eh?
Mostly this morning, I've been reading Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables, for class. Just finished it -- good stuff, though I'm amazed at the pacing that he could get away with. Partly he manages it because he's actually really funny -- I'm pretty sure that's intentional. It's a quiet humor, and if you're not reading line-by-line, I think you could miss it entirely. The gothic feel is just that tiny bit over-the-top that makes it seem intentional. Good mystery, fun book. Now I get to go read some criticism of it, which will probably miss the point entirely. (Sorry to be so negative; I've just read some pretty bad criticism of Melville recently, so I'm feeling dubious about early Americanists in general :-).
I also spent a while talking with my SH publicists about how we can more actively solicit donations, in the way that a museum or National Public Television or NPR might. Various plans in the works, including a letter to be sent out in early December, a fund-raising drive in December, along with some possible free gifts to randomly-selected donors... If that goes well, we may repeat it every few months, with different prizes each time. We're also thinking about putting together a SH poster, featuring the work of our illustrators over the last year. Wouldn't that be cool? I'd love to have one to frame and hang in my apartment. We'll see if the illustrators are willing; if so, I see no reason not to do it...
Back to the reading, but I may check in again later. There's only so much criticism I can read before it feels like my head is going to explode. That's when I do dishes or come talk to y'all. :-)
2:45. Two essays down, three to go. But I is tired and the snow is falling, and I just want to curl up and go to sleep. Not the best state for reading dull stuff. Sigh.
But you don't have to read dull stuff. You can go read cool new Strange Horizons stuff instead. Lucky you! New story, with interesting gender politics. New (very short) poem. New review of Tad Williams's Shadowmarch project. New article on falconry. I wanna falcon, I do. But I want someone else to do all the work, which I gather just doesn't happen, unless you're a king. I wanna be a king...
(I love the bit in Patricia Wrede's Dealing with Dragons where Cimorene is asking the female dragon she's keeping house for if she really means to try out for the newly vacant position of King of the Dragons -- 'Don't you mean Queen of the Dragons'? And the dragon is bewildered at the question, eventually explaining that Queen of the Dragons is a completely different position, and a much duller one -- why, it's been vacant for years... Heh heh.)
So far this morning, I've drafted a letter to be sent to the conference participants regarding next year's conference. I'm not sure I mentioned that Paul and I are interim co-chairs? Handling the transition at least, and quite possibly chairing next year's conference. It's a big deal -- a fair bit of work, much more than I put in this year. It also means that I can't run away from Salt Lake next year, which I had considered doing (since I won't be taking classes). But really, it makes little sense to go away, since unless I'm lucky enough to win a fabulous fellowship, I'll really need to teach in order to pay my rent. If I went elsewhere, I'd just have to work a lot more hours in order to pay rent, which wouldn't be at all conducive to getting my reading done in preparation for my exams. So unless something shifts radically (always a possibility), I'll be in Salt Lake for at least one more year. And if I'm going to be here anyway, I might as well organize a large interdisciplinary conference, right? It's not like I have anything else to do with my time... :-)
Speaking of which, gotta go. I really *have* to finish revising the intro to Wet this morning and send it off, dangit. I've been putting it off for too long, and the rest of the book is at the copyeditor's now. Have a good Tuesday, munchkins...
10:10. Ugh. Once I showered and dresed, no time to finish intro. I've had to stick it in my UNIX account, with the hope of revising it after my afternoon class; I have a couple of hours between that and my evening class, and I think I'll just stay on campus and work. On the plus side, I look pretty today. :-) I'm wearing a thin clingy black shirt under a long deep purple dress, of a wonderful soft suede-ish material. Black tights and my stompy black boots make me feel fully prepared to face the snow. Winter chic. I rarely feel anywhere close to chic, so it's kind of a thrill when I manage it. Of course, no one else may agree with this assessment.
I have five minutes before I go catch my bus -- five minutes isn't long enough to do anything. If M'ris had updated her journal, I could read that while drinking my tea, but sadly, she is laggardly this morning. I shouldn't complain, though -- she actually updates every day, which, amazingly enough, I've managed to do this month, but it's not as if I manage it often. I've been tempted to join Jette's little Holidailies ring (promising an entry every day in December), but the odds are so slim that I'll actually manage it; I dunno. I'm not sure she's still accepting people in any case. Hmmm...
In other news, a change of plans. Did I mention that I was going to stop in Chicago on my way to the East Coast for Christmas? I decided that with all the Xmas presents I was making for my family this year, it really made more sense for me to stay here with all my supplies. So Kev's coming here instead; his semester finishes earlier than mine, and he'll actually be out here from the 11th to the 22nd. I leave for the East on the 23rd (at 7 a.m., oof. His flight is at 10 p.m. on the 22nd...a shame we couldn't coordinate airport travel better. Ah well). So he'll be here eleven days. Presumably, that'll be fine. We're still the best of friends, after all. Fingers crossed.
Ah -- *now* I've used up my five minutes. Until later, my dears.
After that, a whole passel of stuff to do. It tires me just thinking about it, so I'm not going to yet. :-) Will probably check in later...was just saying hi, really.
4:20. Well, I did eventually get moving on the day. I spent a while revising my intro to Wet and sent it off -- I'm still not entirely happy with it, but hopefully it's better, and the Melcher editors may be able to help me make it spiffy. Part of the problem is that I just don't have as much to say as I did last time; the last intro, I really had a point I wanted to convey. This time, not so much.
I also spent a while writing up a fund-raising letter for SH. We're going to have a little fund drive in December and try to raise $1000. So far, the primary burden for the magazine's funding has been on a few people. Not only would we like to spread that out more, but when we apply for arts grants, it'll look a lot better if we have donations from lots of different people, no matter how small they are -- it shows a broad base of public support for the magazine, which is one of the main things arts organizations are looking for. I've never really done fund-raising, but I've received enough of these letters (especially from my high school), that I have at least a rudimentary sense of what to say. The trick is going to be writing them periodically and keeping them fresh and hopefully at least a little interesting, so people don't just delete them out of hand. E-mail is even easier to throw away than print solicitations -- although I suppose eventually, it'll be easier to donate too, since you'll just have to click on a link or some such to signal your agreement.
After that, I decided I'd done enough real work for the day. :-) (Yesterday and Monday were pretty intense.) So I picked up a book I put down a while ago, Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage, and read some more. Honestly, I find it a little dull. But I'm more than halfway through, and it'll bug me if I don't finish the thing. When I couldn't stand that anymore, I decided to work on Xmas presents. There's one I'm working on that involves lots of messing with graphics and printing them out and cutting them up and glueing (sp?) them into the little red book I made last week. So I spent a couple of hours on that; oddly satisfying. I'm working with very small images (for complicated reasons), which I'm blowing up to double size (still pretty small), which gives a fairly grainy look. I wasn't sure it was going to work, but even though a lot of resolution and detail is lost, I actually like the way it's coming out. It feels somehow appropriate to the subject matter, which involves some stuff from long ago. Anyway -- so far, so good. I glued in a few pieces and am now pressing the book and waiting 24 hrs for it to dry, so I can make sure it's working okay before I put in the rest. Then I'm going to add a few poems, and possibly a few hand-written things (though I'm a bit dubious about that, as my handwriting is not so lovely). Fun.
I also started work on another book -- this one will probably be for sale at WisCon. It's a larger one, about 6 x 4.5 in. It'll be a different verson of the children's story I wrote, The Poet's Journey. (I can't remember if I mentioned this idea to you already...bear with me, if so.) I'm going to make it using some of the same techniques I used for the glass collages, using dried flowers and leaves as I go. I don't think they'll necessarily be particularly appropriate to the story, but that's okay; it'll be an attractive little book, which is really all I'm aiming for with this one. A nice one-of-a-kind piece that I won't mind selling. :-) I'm not at all sure what's a reasonable price for something like that -- when I finish it, I'll put up pictures, and y'all can help me decide.
I had an idea for another version of it -- rather than a bound book, this would be a series of large, loose-leaf pages, each one with a page of the story and with collage elements that actually suit what's going on on that page. So for example, the first page takes place on the beach, at the girl's house. So I would incorporate sand and feathers into that page. Another page might have dried flowers -- another might have bits of ribbon, or broken mirrors, or simply layers of words... I'd create a portfolio case for the entire thing, to protect it; I don't want it to be too fragile, but I think it'll need to be handled with some care. Each page would really be a separate piece of art. It's so cool in my imagining, but I'm not at all sure I have the skill to implement what I'm thinking of doing. I'm going to try...but I'm going to practice with some other pieces first. :-) It would be lovely to have this done in time for WisCon, though...
Zak said that I might actually be able to sell little erotic books, with my poems and stories. To be honest, that hadn't occurred to me at all. :-) What do you think? Would people buy them? I'm not sure what people would want to see in such items...and I'm not sure what adds value to such collectibles. For example -- it'll be a lot neater if I print out the text and glue it down. But I wonder if people would prefer if I hand-wrote it all; would that make it of more value? Suggestions/input welcome -- I'm a bit lost on the subject.
Paul and Marcia are coming for dinner, so I should go start cooking. I have salmon marinating in teriyaki sauce; I'll be grilling that and serving it with a sweet rolled omelette and sesame seed rice timbales. A nice gewurtztraminer to accompany the meal; I'm feeling elegant today. :-) Although it's difficult to be elegant while watching Star Trek...
We got a little tipsy and enjoyed watching Star Trek; afterwards, they
lingered for some more silly tv. I showed them the books I was working
on and convinced Marcia to take the mistakes off my hands -- she's very
good at finding uses for seemingly useless things. Eventually, they
headed out, and soon after that Karina called; I talked to her until I
fell asleep.
This morning, I spent putting together a chapbook for my students. They're going to include their favorite pieces of what they've written this semester -- so far 12 have sent me material, but I'm hoping that I can coax a few more into adding stuff today. It was fun putting it together, and some of the pieces are really quite good -- or at least, quite promising. It's been so much fun teaching creative writing -- to be honest, I'm not sure they'd actually have to pay me to teach this class. :-) But don't tell them that, please...
Off to campus now, to discuss The House of Seven Gables, which I thought was really funny; sadly, only a few people in the class agreed with me on Tuesday. Hopefully more will agree with me today. I'm going to try to be quiet in classes today -- I talked too much Tuesday; I was in a sort of hectic mood. It's snowing again today, so I'm going to try to be quiet and mellow, like the snow. Drifting down peacefully and gently...well, actually, it's quite blustery and frenzied at the moment. But I can be a different kind of snow than what's actually falling, right?