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So successful was I today at writing-avoidance that i even managed to avoid doing the job I meant to do to avoid writing. Now that's good. On the other hand, my study, parts of the living room, and my bookshelves in the bedroom are all dusted, and select dustbunnies have been attacked by the hand-vacuum. Also, I managed to clip 6 of Irina's claws. On my own, without catnip to mellow her and Colin holding her down. Apparantly, I am Mighty.
I also have 3-inch long gouges just above my knee...
I also chose the wrong day for an extra-long walk after work (I wanted to see how long it took to get me from the archery range to my second workplace just walking. The answer is, alas, "Too long to get any archery in before my afternoon-only shift.") Canker worms EVERYWHERE. I had to cross the street several times to avoid walking under trees where I could see five or more at a quick glance. (If you see one at a quick glance, by the time you're under the tree, you have to weave among five or six.)
The pouring rain earlier in the week actually kept them up in the trees, (and drownded the ones on the sidewalk, mwahaha. I rejoice at the death of gross leaf-eating caterpillers!) and in fact, I had a very enjoyable walk on Wednesday, including a wander through a riverside park and a historic site, in the midst of the wet. (I've stated my opinions before about my willingness to walk through a downpour, provided the weather is warm enough hypothermia isn't an issue. In this case, however, I had the sense to carry an umbrella, or the walk would have been far more straight home.) Partly, the walk was enjoyable because there were no bloody caterpillars dropping on my head. There is, however, also something to be said about walking in an empty, silent park full of the scent of lilacs past their best bloom, creeping past the big warning barriers the city put up because the river is once again over the riverwalk, and standing on the last (not at all slippery, even in the rain) conrete step, to listen to the sound the rain makes pattering into the river. The rain also muffled the sounds of traffic so it seemed more distant than it was, where its own sounds, and the wind in the trees,a nd the trees themselves, weren't adequate barrier.
Also was reminded of fragments more about the Riel Rebellion than I could scrape up from the bottom of my brain without research. I've occasionally tried to figure out how Damina City's history diverges from Winnipeg's -- the catalyst is the presence of certain types of low-grade and very costly magic, but the results are usually mundane -- and the turning point is right in there, somewhere in the midst of the creation of Manitoba. Bird of Dusk isn't exactly a historically intensive book, since 16 and 17 year olds are usually far too much wrapped up in their own life in the here and now, and the manipulations of dragons and fey don't exactly make that any *less*. Generally, it's more relevant that I know the release years of Tori Amos albums. OTOH, I suspect my bears-and-northern-lights book, should it ever grow into more than an idea fragment in the back of my mind, will be taking place in Damina-Earth, not real Earth.
I've also finished two more books already. Margaret Mahy, being my book-in-bag, is going as slowly as you'd expect when it's read in bus trips and half-hour lunches, but I finished off both the Grand Tour and Diana Wynne Jones' novella the Game.
I think I liked the Grand Tour somewhat better than its predecessor, Sorcery and Cecilia (which may have been forever poisoned by being read in too-close proximity to Freedom and Necessity. Also, on the copy I have, dreadful cover with people all out or proportion). It was just as light, but it didn't stike me as quite as frivolous. Also, it's nice to see married couples -- even overly youthful naive newlyweds - who are faithful and deeply affectionate and still have things to learn about one another, as these, while more common than they used to be, are still altogether less common in fiction than people just getting into relationships. (I'm *surrounded* by newlyweds and affianced couples right now. 2007 has nothing on 2006, but I *will* be going to two weddings this year, and one more 2008. So far.) The closing of the last chapter is too obviously a lead-up to the next book -- it might not have been had I read it last year, but since the next book is out and I believe is named Ten Years Later, it's a bit too obvious.
The Game is one of those cases of DWJ creating utterly insane families that nonetheless have some familiar elements, and one of her cases of taking mythological figures and placing them where you totally do not expect them -- something like the way Prometheus shows up in the Homeward Bounders, except instead of one of him, there are more. It's a short piece (a true novella, not a novel, and noted as such even in itself), but probably as worthwhile as most DWJ. It's not Fire and Hemlock or Howl's Moving Castle, but I liked it rather more than Witch Week, actually, and I did decide I like that fine.
I started in on Peter Beagle's new story collection, too, but not far enough to say much yet. I anticipate difficulty getting out of it, and gratitude it is a short story collection, with actual, you know, breaks. (Not like chapter breaks, which are moments to pause and breathe, not closings.)
Bird of Dusk also does mean cracking music I haven't listened to for a while; specifically stuff I picked up in High school and early college (the book starts in April of probably-1993-might-be-94 -- either way, before I graduated from Miles Mac). I have neither Oysterband's Trawler or Deserters on CD. And I've been neglecting enormous chunks of my tape collection for a while. This means I'd forgotten how very much I *like* We Could Leave Right Now and Granite Years. I distinctly remember getting the library copy of Deserters out due to references by Charles de Lint and Will Shetterley both, listening to the first whole side in bemusement, thinking, "This isn't what I was expecting...." I flipped the tape, hit Granite Years, and that was when the thought concluded "...but it's Goooood." (I've also been missing my tape of Rawlins Cross's Reel & Roll, a rather lighter taste, which disappeared either in the move to the apartment or in the move to the house, I don't recall which.)
Now, if only I could drag out the vinyl I discovered at the same time. Want to hear my old Fairport Convention. WAAANT.
I also have 3-inch long gouges just above my knee...
I also chose the wrong day for an extra-long walk after work (I wanted to see how long it took to get me from the archery range to my second workplace just walking. The answer is, alas, "Too long to get any archery in before my afternoon-only shift.") Canker worms EVERYWHERE. I had to cross the street several times to avoid walking under trees where I could see five or more at a quick glance. (If you see one at a quick glance, by the time you're under the tree, you have to weave among five or six.)
The pouring rain earlier in the week actually kept them up in the trees, (and drownded the ones on the sidewalk, mwahaha. I rejoice at the death of gross leaf-eating caterpillers!) and in fact, I had a very enjoyable walk on Wednesday, including a wander through a riverside park and a historic site, in the midst of the wet. (I've stated my opinions before about my willingness to walk through a downpour, provided the weather is warm enough hypothermia isn't an issue. In this case, however, I had the sense to carry an umbrella, or the walk would have been far more straight home.) Partly, the walk was enjoyable because there were no bloody caterpillars dropping on my head. There is, however, also something to be said about walking in an empty, silent park full of the scent of lilacs past their best bloom, creeping past the big warning barriers the city put up because the river is once again over the riverwalk, and standing on the last (not at all slippery, even in the rain) conrete step, to listen to the sound the rain makes pattering into the river. The rain also muffled the sounds of traffic so it seemed more distant than it was, where its own sounds, and the wind in the trees,a nd the trees themselves, weren't adequate barrier.
Also was reminded of fragments more about the Riel Rebellion than I could scrape up from the bottom of my brain without research. I've occasionally tried to figure out how Damina City's history diverges from Winnipeg's -- the catalyst is the presence of certain types of low-grade and very costly magic, but the results are usually mundane -- and the turning point is right in there, somewhere in the midst of the creation of Manitoba. Bird of Dusk isn't exactly a historically intensive book, since 16 and 17 year olds are usually far too much wrapped up in their own life in the here and now, and the manipulations of dragons and fey don't exactly make that any *less*. Generally, it's more relevant that I know the release years of Tori Amos albums. OTOH, I suspect my bears-and-northern-lights book, should it ever grow into more than an idea fragment in the back of my mind, will be taking place in Damina-Earth, not real Earth.
I've also finished two more books already. Margaret Mahy, being my book-in-bag, is going as slowly as you'd expect when it's read in bus trips and half-hour lunches, but I finished off both the Grand Tour and Diana Wynne Jones' novella the Game.
I think I liked the Grand Tour somewhat better than its predecessor, Sorcery and Cecilia (which may have been forever poisoned by being read in too-close proximity to Freedom and Necessity. Also, on the copy I have, dreadful cover with people all out or proportion). It was just as light, but it didn't stike me as quite as frivolous. Also, it's nice to see married couples -- even overly youthful naive newlyweds - who are faithful and deeply affectionate and still have things to learn about one another, as these, while more common than they used to be, are still altogether less common in fiction than people just getting into relationships. (I'm *surrounded* by newlyweds and affianced couples right now. 2007 has nothing on 2006, but I *will* be going to two weddings this year, and one more 2008. So far.) The closing of the last chapter is too obviously a lead-up to the next book -- it might not have been had I read it last year, but since the next book is out and I believe is named Ten Years Later, it's a bit too obvious.
The Game is one of those cases of DWJ creating utterly insane families that nonetheless have some familiar elements, and one of her cases of taking mythological figures and placing them where you totally do not expect them -- something like the way Prometheus shows up in the Homeward Bounders, except instead of one of him, there are more. It's a short piece (a true novella, not a novel, and noted as such even in itself), but probably as worthwhile as most DWJ. It's not Fire and Hemlock or Howl's Moving Castle, but I liked it rather more than Witch Week, actually, and I did decide I like that fine.
I started in on Peter Beagle's new story collection, too, but not far enough to say much yet. I anticipate difficulty getting out of it, and gratitude it is a short story collection, with actual, you know, breaks. (Not like chapter breaks, which are moments to pause and breathe, not closings.)
Bird of Dusk also does mean cracking music I haven't listened to for a while; specifically stuff I picked up in High school and early college (the book starts in April of probably-1993-might-be-94 -- either way, before I graduated from Miles Mac). I have neither Oysterband's Trawler or Deserters on CD. And I've been neglecting enormous chunks of my tape collection for a while. This means I'd forgotten how very much I *like* We Could Leave Right Now and Granite Years. I distinctly remember getting the library copy of Deserters out due to references by Charles de Lint and Will Shetterley both, listening to the first whole side in bemusement, thinking, "This isn't what I was expecting...." I flipped the tape, hit Granite Years, and that was when the thought concluded "...but it's Goooood." (I've also been missing my tape of Rawlins Cross's Reel & Roll, a rather lighter taste, which disappeared either in the move to the apartment or in the move to the house, I don't recall which.)
Now, if only I could drag out the vinyl I discovered at the same time. Want to hear my old Fairport Convention. WAAANT.