Five things
Feb. 22nd, 2011 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseI don't think you're supposed to be in a happy mood all day on the last day at a job at a workplace you like, with no immediate prospect of future work. But... it was a good day. The new receptionist is sweet and will fit in well, a number of people say they'll genuinely miss me.
I also have to admit I have some plans for trying to sort out a few things at home (things still occupying too much of my study that aren't mine) and maybe pull out a clay project or twa, as I'm behind in doing so. And of course to get more writing done - Not that I haven't made some progress, but it tends to be smaller and slower than it ought. And also arching more.
And when I got home, the package with the new Heather Dale was on the stairs. Technically, it's not a new album per se, as it's a collection of virtually all her Arthurian songs (barring Holly Ivy and Yew, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, rearranged into the rough order in which they happen, and in completely new arrangements. So far, some of these are not that terribly different (As I Am and Culhwch and Olwen), some are wildly so (Mordred's Lullaby, which is ALSO very unlike the stripped-down-to-solo-voice way she's performed it at the last concerts I saw. It's heavily layered again, but with new and different sound). but it makes me happy, because even the not terribly different, at least at first hearing, are still fresh enough to force a new listen to what it's about.
After the last three book gripes, I just read two pretty decent books in a row - the second of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books, the Sea of Monsters, which does indeed make for a better adventure, more for the girls to do, and the beginnings of a cure for the "Ugly and heavy and therefore evil" vibe you get off a character in the first book - she kicks butt in this one.
And Elizabeth Bear's By the Mountain Bound which is - well, it's a tragedy, in the literal sense. I can see very well why she chose to publish these in the order she did, because this was heartwrenching and terrible and I don't think I'd have had the courage to pick up All the Windwracked Stars second, for all it takes place a significant time later - by immortal standards. I rejoiced in the writing and the story, but oh, that wasn't easy to read through. There were moments where it was equally unbearable to read on and to stop.
So far these have beaten out the Stratford Man books (Ink and Steel and Hell And Earth) as my favourites of Bears.
I also have to admit I have some plans for trying to sort out a few things at home (things still occupying too much of my study that aren't mine) and maybe pull out a clay project or twa, as I'm behind in doing so. And of course to get more writing done - Not that I haven't made some progress, but it tends to be smaller and slower than it ought. And also arching more.
And when I got home, the package with the new Heather Dale was on the stairs. Technically, it's not a new album per se, as it's a collection of virtually all her Arthurian songs (barring Holly Ivy and Yew, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, rearranged into the rough order in which they happen, and in completely new arrangements. So far, some of these are not that terribly different (As I Am and Culhwch and Olwen), some are wildly so (Mordred's Lullaby, which is ALSO very unlike the stripped-down-to-solo-voice way she's performed it at the last concerts I saw. It's heavily layered again, but with new and different sound). but it makes me happy, because even the not terribly different, at least at first hearing, are still fresh enough to force a new listen to what it's about.
After the last three book gripes, I just read two pretty decent books in a row - the second of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books, the Sea of Monsters, which does indeed make for a better adventure, more for the girls to do, and the beginnings of a cure for the "Ugly and heavy and therefore evil" vibe you get off a character in the first book - she kicks butt in this one.
And Elizabeth Bear's By the Mountain Bound which is - well, it's a tragedy, in the literal sense. I can see very well why she chose to publish these in the order she did, because this was heartwrenching and terrible and I don't think I'd have had the courage to pick up All the Windwracked Stars second, for all it takes place a significant time later - by immortal standards. I rejoiced in the writing and the story, but oh, that wasn't easy to read through. There were moments where it was equally unbearable to read on and to stop.
So far these have beaten out the Stratford Man books (Ink and Steel and Hell And Earth) as my favourites of Bears.
