Easily Distracted by Shiny Things

To my relief, after the first bike ride I took seemed to be significantly more gruelling than I thought could be accounted for even by "Yeah, i AM in crappy shape", I noticed that the tires seemed a bit soft. Turned out I was right: now they're properly inflated, I can bike twice that distance, if not with ease, then with reasonable tiredness.

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Had my second dream this week that, when I woke out of it, had me thinking, "yeah, I know. I have a lot of anxiety right now. Shut UP subconscious. Leave me alone."

Course, it would be better if the worries themselves went away.

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For unrelated reasons, I've been thinking a lot about this old post recently...

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I recently imported the whole of my LJ entries into Dreamwidth finally, mostly as a back-up in case LJ suffers another DDOS or some other shut-down, rather than as an "I'm moving" sign or any such. This means, unless I'm mistaken, that I lost any previous Dreamwidth exclusive comments to my entries. Thankfully, these were remarkably few. (ETA: I am mistaken. Which is nice to see.)

Anyhow, this action was partaken as part of a look at all the things I need to back up but hadn't lately. (It took a while with the revamped computer to get the Dana to communicate, so for what felt a really long time, I could only charge it and had to trust the file that was ONLY updated there wouldn't disappear due to low battery power before I even noticed... and that was true even after I found myself working more on an editing project on the computer.)

So. People. Back stuff up if it matters to you. Even online.

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Worked three days this week, if for inconsistent amounts of time, and it looks like I have more shifts lined up for LITERALLY every day next week, Monday through Sunday. All temping, two locations. Yay for some income into the house.

I did, however, decide that I wasn't completely happy that, should I ride instead of walk to the current one, I would need to park my bike where I can't see, it at a business on Broadway & Sherbrook. I know it's locked up, but even so. Unless I do what abacchus did, and pick up a mini-cable or something, the tires aren't secured, just the body. I think I'd be *less* worried if I had to lock it up mid-downtown.


Anyhow, time for bed.

Just got back from the usual New Year's Cabin retreat. This year, it involved a slightly shorter visit, but much pleasance, more board games than Wii games, weather too miserable for any but the die-hards to go out in, a newly announced engagement (which the male of the couple started to tell his parents by saying, "L___ and I have decided to stop dating" - for which his mother's sound of genuine distress was probably highly reassuring), hungover parents, and a lot of fun.

Also I just finished Sherwood Smith's Once a Princess, which caused me to quietly curse my mother for getting me the first in a two-book series (And myself for choosing to read that before Coronets and Steel or I shall Wear Midnight, the other Christmas goodies), and to go and make an Amazon order.

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A quick evaluation of how I did writing wise the last year.
( Read more... )
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( Books! )

The event this weekend went well; being our 40th anniversary, a great many people made an effort to show up who haven't in a while, or have never been this far north (their Majesties for one - eeep.)

Rather than leave it in the middle of the ramble, I'll put our best news up front:

Oh, lord, we have a quadruple peer.

Duke Tarrach Alfson is now a Pelican, too. And it truly, genuinely, and totally could not have happened to a nicer guy.

(Also, Gabriel de Lion and Azalais got engaged!)

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Friday was its usual self; getting in, setting up, catching up, greeting old friends, and War Court, our short Dark Ages court for the Huscarls and the people who got to events-other-than-our-own to do one of the martial activities through the war season. We were given little pewter towers.

Personal thing: I've been rather wishing that the Huscarls spend a moment in this court to turn around, remove their helms and introduce themselves to the populace. Because three of the central Huscarls spend most of the event in the kitchen, making us our wonderful feasts and bacony breakfasts - and thus end up talking mostly to their old familiar friends. Which has the notable disadvantage that we have members who've been around a few YEARS who've pretty much NEVER met them in anything but passing (even the kitchen clean-up area is different enough from the rest of the kitchen that . And in the dark, in full Norse regalia, people really can't tell who they are, so even the ones we know well and love dearly (HEs Robin and Hreodbeorht even newbies have likely met, and it wasn't that long ago that HE Thrym came back for a while, and his name is still passed on in many a story) are turned into strangers. It works for the impression of the Elite Guard, but not so well for the feeling of connection. These guys feed us and toil for us all weekend; it would be great for even newer members to be able to look at the Huscarls entering the War Court and making their solemn oaths and to recognize them as Part of Us.

And some of them are very worth getting to know. I remember that from when they came out to all the other things.

We also had a class on what's involved with wine-tasting and mead-tasting and appreciation. With, yes, chances to try out the samples. Much fun.

The night seemed to end a bit early, even with that. I'm surprised, with the number of younger members, to be reminded that the group as a whole is aging.

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Saturday began leisurely with the aforementioned bacon (and French toast and other breakfasties), then set-up of the archery range, and long slow shooting. We ended up with so much general practice we only did 2 royal rounds, nothing more -- everyone knew the Water Duel was waiting for Sunday, when the heavy fighters weren't doing their thing. I did okay - 45 - on my better round. (The other one was an embarrassment which ended with a freakishly good speed round - which earned me literally 2/3 of my total points on its own.)

Then it was running around trying to figure out where I was supposed to be going to find their Excellencies to set up for court. I ended up at the chapel we chose to use for court, and almost at the royal cabins before I was pointed the right way. At least I was only needed to stand there and look pretty (Archer Captain), unlike Colin, who was Herald, and had needed to be off doing his set-up well before.

Sometime before the event, their Majesties had decided their court would be Sunday noon, and so, "aside from one piece of business", our evening court was all local work; making Hadassah, a much-loved member who moved back to Ontario, a Forester (A local award for people who don't live with us but are considered part of the group. Inducting a new member into our order of the Snowflake, for people who've done good service. etc.

The whole court was actually run by the Prince and Princess (Hrodir and Anne - incidentally, both also Foresters for our group), since the King and Queen arrived less than an hour before.

Which meant that when their Majesties arrived, they swept in just after Hadassah's award, and took over on the spot. Which involved shocking the hell out of Duke Tarrach Alfson. Mistress Ia said that she felt he needed to be required to attend ALL the peerage meetings. (I first thought they were accusing him of slacking off on attendance, and only about the time it was occurring to Tarrach what was going on did I start thinking, "No, wait. HG FINA has the Pelican. He doesn't...")

We also got back the Baronial court long enough to make Tarrach and Fina foresters, of which the only surprise to me was that they weren't already.

(A fun bit of trivia; Colin, at the start, forgot to officially open the court until Hrodir told him to. When their Majesties came in, their herald Moraig, not knowing, forgot to open court until their majesties chided her. And on Sunday. Colin forgot to open court...)

And Tarrach was put on a very odd vigil.

See, after feast, Tarrach has been one of the main people to stand up, and challenge the other lord in the vicinity to go to the kitchen and help with clean-up. (The Lords specifically because the tradition involves stripping off tunics and doublets; we Ladies go just as enthusiastically when it's our cabin's assigned job - and it was for me - we just don't strip. Er. usually. There was that one time I walked in the kitchen and was shocked dead still to discover Branwen had removed her Tudor gown and was working! In! Public! in her chemise and her corset alone. (GASP) The little detail that she was more decently covered than I'd seen her outside SCA many a time in the summer...)

Because of this, though, they had set up two chairs in the corner of the washing room. His Grace was to strip off his shirt... and sit there on vigil while we worked around him. (He did, in fact, insist on drying some dishes. He stopped when the Prince came in to berate him. Also, I managed to keep him from getting a fresh drying towel.) When we were done, his vigil moved to the fireside, then to watch the fire arrows. I hung around various places, including fireside, to chat with various people.

They'd made one change to the fire arrows this year, thanks to Lord Bearaich; enough to make me feel it worth my while at least to watch the first few. Bearaich had figured out how to make "whistlers" for the arrows out of ping pong balls. So not only were there the sparklers to make beautiful arcs of light in the midnight sky, there were also sounds. Coolness.

Then we burned a tower down (as is traditional), and chatted, and called it a night.

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Sunday's focus was on court and on the Water duel, as far as I was concerned.

Court went very nicely. I was surprised to get an award - a Crwth, for continuously singing around the campfire when there's a chance. (I have a Balefire, but mostly for pottery). Many people got many awards. A couple from Fargo were surprised by a sneak Court Baroncy.

And Tarrach got his Pelican.

Little story about that...

After Brunch in the AM, Tarrach and Mistress Ia, his sponsor, went and and distributed slips of paper to the populace with what are called admonishments - things the person being elevated into the peerage should do and be. Things like, "A peer should be generous to others and not boastful of his own accomplishments."

One of the locals given such a slip remarked that they looked kind of like fortune cookie sayings.

Which meant that he HAD to mention to HG Tarrach that some of these read REALLY well when you append "in Bed"...

Tarrach almost lost it during his own elevation.

Anyhow; the water duel went well. I won my first round - against a rather decent archer, Ingvar, who pointed out that he always went yup against either me or Cristina in his first or second round, and always got taken out by one of us. (Hee). I lost in my second round to a beautiful one-shot by an overall less experienced archer. I'd told her that it didn't matter that she thought I was better. She just had to get one in the right place at the right time. Evidently, she listened.

I wandered off then and did some knife-throwing for fun, got back in time to see the finals, which was Tarrach's younger son, Gregor, against Magnus. Magnus won.

I did four challenge rounds after; lost one for shooting like crap, one in a somewhat closer battle, and won two. Including against Colin. (Technically, I one-shotted him, since I took the bottom out of the target right on the first shot. But I kept going, and put another one through later. And had one skin off a corner, and probably would have hit with the last one if his target hadn't dropped. To be fair, he did hit it too, just not well enough to drain and balance out.)

We ran in after that, late for supper, and when that was done and the fire was lit outside, we sang bardic songs (though it took a surprising effort to lure members of the group hanging out on the balcony to the fire; they were singing occasionally, but there was a younger member at the fire begging for music. We paused long enough for lady Cristina to fulfill a longtime dream:

In Lord Gabriel's very first event, his mother made him garb. Of horribly synthetic fabric with silver spray paint, in the shape of a giant hoodie. (He said when she asked him if he wanted a hood, he said yes, thinking she meant a period-style detached hood).

Cristina had, last Winter, acquired this dubious piece of garb. (Okay, some of the worst I've ever seen). And at the event, she built an effigy, and burned it on the fire with great ceremony as a warning to all other bad garb.

Then we sang to late, and slept until it was time to get up and pack.

And now I should sleep again.

Yesterday, being my birthday, was pretty darn good as such things go. I got to sleep in and refuse to feel guilty about it, and spent my afternoon puttering on the internet catching up on many of my regular comics and stories guiltlessly. I also practiced mandolin quite happily - I'm regaining some of my calluses, but I need to keep it up.

Then we went and picked up Colin's birthday present - I'd got three of our pictures framed. particularly our print of this work by Chris Quilliams (for those who don't know, Colin and Élise were the original models, though Colin has more hair and less evil, and Élise has the usual number of eyes).

Also, another of Chris's works, this one, which, let's just say Colin didn't know we owned it until then.

After which we went to my dinner. It turned out bighairyviking couldn't make it due to illness, and Brannie couldn't for an abcessed tooth, but those of us who did mostly enjoyed it. We then went back to our place to show off the new floors, watch the first two episodes of the new Futurama series, and introduce vilashna and her fiance to the Middleman, which they'd never seen.

At which point, abacchus left us to change to go to a goth/vampire night at a local club. And I decided that, much as I like the Middleman, I've seen the pilot at least three previous times, and I felt like going dancing. So I dressed up in a slinky black outfit (velveteen top and floor length skirt) with a large silver cross and a nice choker, and left to a smattering of compliments (Yay).

We discovered that they'd pretty much JUST sprayed for mosquitoes, so I was rather glad that the club was a pretty short walk. We could still smell it on the way home, and on our brief foray to the patio to cool down adn get a bit less volume, but a lot less than we did on the walk there.

The club had two dance floors; small and loud, and large and HORRENDOUSLY loud. We stuck to the smaller one, which also had better DJs to my ear. I'm not much for most techno for listening, but it works pretty well for dancing, although I do prefer those who split it into distinctive song-stretches to those who just do what I think of as soundscaping, because with more distinct pieces, you can change styles of dance, or at least particular moves, more often.

We saw a few people one or both of us knew, and some very striking others; I rather liked the girl in what i think of as a goth pixie outfit (corset and very short pixie-like skirt - also long black hair and geek glasses.) who was playing with a baton on the end of an invisible wire, which she manipulated with some skill, so that it circled all around her as she danced. And a girl in a pair of tights with all the stitch-marks of a pair of jeans (Like mock pickets and seams) and the figure to pull of tight tights; wasp waisted but very curvaceous. Whoa. Colin would have been right with me in thinking she was the hottest one there, although there was eye candy of both genders.

Today was archery, which would have been better if the range were less humid, and a Heather Dale concert in the evening. Decadent Dave Clement was the opening act, and he shone very well himself. (He also had the brand new Dandelion Wine CD - which was at the time of recording him and Tom Jeffers, and is therefore probably their last CD together, as Tom is now in Toronto - available in Winnipeg for the first time. Colin was nice to me and let me pounce on it. It has versions of Crazy Man Michael, Merlin, and Solar Flare, among others, so I'm happy. The only way it would please me more is if it had the Highwayman, but the track list is pretty pleasing in every other way.)

Heather did as fabulously as ever; her live version of Gawain and the Green Knight has her doing a chameleon act and turning to every character in turn again. She has a strong command of her body as well as her voice, but because she hasn't done many songs with more than one character in them live for some time (Decadent Dave tried to ask for the Trial of Lancelot as an encore, but she said she wasn't sure she had the energy) it isn't as evident, if she's doing only one person per song. Though Joan came through clear.

Ben didn't speak up as much as he sometimes does, and the drummer didn't do much but drum, though he added some nice new touches to the arrangements.

Heather also described her new intended project, which is to collect her Arthurian material together and re-record new versions of the lot as one album. Since her arrangements of many of them have changed drastically since the originals (She does Mordred's Lullaby fully unaccompanied these days, and the last time I heard Prydwen, it was also very stripped) this could be delightful.

Then it was home, where Colin discovered the cork had half-popped from one of our bottles of mead (Ceddwyn's, not M's or Bearaich's). Half because it was on a very short shelf, and it hit the ceiling. certainly, the mead, which is champagne style, was still fizzy. It was also a bit dry, so we had it with a splash of grape juice, and OMG YUM.

So. Good weekend so far. Tomorrow is the choir party. All I still need to do tonight is get some writing in.

Last weekend I went to an event. Then I wrote a long journal entry. Then our internet died.

So here's what i wrote, edited a fair bit:

Weather was unpromising; the site was saturated from the excess rain (including the floors of the indoor locations), and the whole camp layout had to be rearranged to use the high ground only at the last minute. Friday night, we ended up barbequeing under what should have been a perfectly useful shade fly, but the wind was high and the drizzle light, sot here was literally no place we could put the barbie, our ourselves, that didn't involve drizzle. Saturday morning was horribly windy but not much drizzle, so we did archery after all; the afternoon remained the same almost to court, at which point we started seeing real breaks in the cloud, and by feast we weren't worried about being rained on; after dark, we were watching stars.

Colin had what seemed to be a minor cold. Then we slept Saturday night on an air mattress with a distinct leak, and he was worse. he went home around noon with another friend feeling pretty bad. Turns out he came out with a fever that night; I grant that I had fun without him, but I missed him. But I'm also glad he was in our house taking care of himself.

I do quite like the site! Truth be told, I thought the rearrangement, putting everything much closer together than it would otherwise be, actually made for a very good set-up for the number of people present. In future years, as it attracts a larger number (Which it likely will, being close to Avacal, allowing for visitors from Sigelhundas (Regina) at minimum, and close to the Shire of Midewinde (Minot, ND), with whom we have good relations), it's good to have the original plans for the set-up in mind, but this year, we didn't need to have to walk most of the length of the fairground for the archery. (It was literally at our back door.)

Except for the one major issue besides the weather, and not totally under the Event Steward's control; Saturday morning, the washrooms wouldn't work; the septic tanks were full. This did get fixed within a couple of hours.... but that they were full again a handful of hours later. We weren't overusing the site that much; the septic tank appeared to be cracked and taking in groundwater. And it was by low ground. The next nearest washrooms we could use were in an RV park, about ten minutes' walk from site (Half that if you were willing to use the cut-through beside the RCMP building, which was more boggy ground this time), and, once they had wind of our problem, the inn/bar, also about ten minutes' walk. (There was also a public washroom building further in town, to which I was driven once.) And of course, many availed themselves of bushes depending on garb, gender, and need.

I was actually shooting pretty decently in spite of the targets being at longer ranges than our indoor range can handle. I missed winning by *one* point, which made me feel pretty good (I had one bad round, so it was a fair cop, though I also had the best individual round of the day. To which: Squee!) To a literal newcomer to the sport, which was slightly deflating.

I bought myself three new pretties (Two ceramic necklaces from different dealers, and a pashmina scarf in my wardrobe's most ubiquitous shade of turquoise). Also hot apple cider from a booth manned by two girls of ~ 9-11 years, but that didn't make it more than ten minutes while the pretties came home with me. I also got to watch a bead-maker do two different styles of lampwork beads - the pendant I bought from her was porcelain and glass, which she couldn't demo on site, but which I have a pretty fair grasp how she did it anyhow.

I then decided that, having not tried it before, I'd try the thrown weapons tourney. I was at first afraid I'd be the one newbie among people who'd at least tried it before (Thrown weapons is usually a very small side activity with about 4 regular contestants - I was betting on 1-2 more from the visitors from Avacal.)

We had a line of over 15, most of whom were new to the activity (Some of them were brand new, first-event people for the SCA, even cooler). I liked the throwing knives. A lot. I was okay with the axes, and I'd certainly try them again, but really didn't like the spear, and not just because I managed to clock myself in the head with one of my practice throws.

Lots of fun.

However, Colin being away, I was then drafted as the Herald for Court. The awards were of course excellent to call, but the mood was ... well, frankly, borderline seditious, including the Prince.

The Big upcoming event in Wisconsin, Warriors and Warlords, or Dub-Dub, is usually set up as a competition of King & Queen versus their Heirs; Hrodir's 'sedition', was set-up for that event, inspired by a number of events in other courts or on Northshield's hall, including a recent time when the King deliberately "shamed" our Baron in front of the court - a schtick that may or may not have gone a bit overboard, tales differ - as our excuse to be on his side.

Then feast, which was very very tasty, as feasts around here are wont to be (Though the Brandon group hasn't had a lot of chance to demonstrate until now, they carried on the tradition with aplomb.)

The Prince had each table try and do something to entertain on the spot, in an informal competition; our table was taken out the first round, and deservedly, for choosing to do the Hokey Pokey (the choice of one of the girls who'd been running the hot drinks booth all day - I was happy enough to go with it. It didn't demand I sing in any real way; projecting my voice in court pretty much brought back the worst of the cough.) There were very few serious entries.

I was supposed to be running a bardic competition that night, but first the competition got cancelled due to lack of participants (While the weather was now promising, it had been miserable for enough of the day that we lost a LOT of people who opted to feast then drive home, both to Avacal and to Winnipeg) then we cancelled the second fire pit, as the one in front of the Baron's tent was pretty much becoming the place to be.

I sang along between coughs, but the one time the Prince really pinpointed me to do a song, enough other things happened that I didn't actually have to try. (It's rare when I say 'phew' to not getting to sing, in spite of the fact that i'm quite often nervous as hell at doing so.)

And they got Abacchus drunk! Fortunately, while he was a great deal of fun drunk, he didn't go so far as to forget himself, and he did down lots of water before he slept. But it's his first time. And he's my age, not a young'un. (Granted, the most I've been is giggly. But at least I've been that, and I actually have no interest in hitting "I can't walk", which is how far they got him before he started to sober himself.)


The main fun on Sunday, besides cursing that this would be the warm and sunny day, was driving home. To be clear; Cristina is an experienced driver, but she's also a country girl. With this being the second time in her life she'd handled a standard, while she managed to get us onto and most of the way down the highway, she had no confidence with doing so in a city. So me, the one with the learner's permit, got to do the last stretch, especially in the city.

Clearly, we got home alive, since it's been a week now since that happened. No problems, either.

I have to say that a highway that drops from 100 klicks to 70 with widely scattered lights for at least ten minutes before it drops to city speeds (60/50) is a LOT more comfortable than one that drops from 100 to city on the spot, as the highway up from North Dakota does. It's not nearly so much the speed, as it happens, but that the cars don't go from wide-spaced to cramped in one fell swoop.

So. That was last weekend. This week was quieter. Colin got better slowly. I did archery and dance practice. I've been mostly not writing, except for edits and an attempt to get the synopsis for Bird of Dusk down to a reasonable length (It's currently 11 pages double spaced. And that's after I cut. It will take at least two more cuts, or a major brainstorm about doing it a totally different way, to get it to seven or less. Ideally, I'd like five.)

Also, we cleaned house and started to get more furniture into place and more of the little jobs remaining on the renovation done. It begins to look like a real living room/dining room again.

That's all.

1) When I was describing a dragon in one of my stories, I ended up writing this sentence: "More heat flowed off him with each motion, and a scent like candle-smoke, but also, strangely, rather like lilac at the end of its bloom." I wrote that scent, and I thought it seemed crazy. But apt.

Now I can't smell lilacs without thinking of dragons.

2) The flooring is in. The next steps are: cleaning and putting in baseboards. Retouching the paint on the walls. Moving furniture into position (different from the last arrangement; we seem to have decided to flip a lot around.)

My father in law did by far the most of the work. Colin did a lot, including most of the more esoteric and tricky board-cutting and the work on vents and ducts. Two friends, Chris Q and Nathaniel, came by and leant their hands. I made myself available most times I was home, tore up boards, sorted boards, and laid out flooring and cleaned - and did a number of other assorted side activities that were necessary to the job but far from central. And my mother in law occasionally helped and more often cleaned but most often fed the lot of us, full home cooked meals for nearly every single lunch and dinner, which is an impressive amount of work.

I really do feel like they could have done it without me; not because I didn't do anything, but because my jobs were always smaller fussier things. Still, i feel proud looking at the floor.

3) The rain we had last weekend had one effect on the house; the vent leading to the upstairs bathroom fan leaked. Not a little. A whole lot.

To trace the leak, Colin climbed up into the attic. And, knowing he'd have to go back, he left it wide open. Even though he said he'd seen evidence it was occupied.

Result? This is the e-mail I sent Colin today (with one correction, as I didn't take the time to dig up the accent aigu.):

We had the first squirrel in the house.

Élise didn't catch it. Not for lack of interest. She *was* first on
the scene and cornered it on the stairwell post.

I did. With the pink garbage pail so conveniently left in the hallway.
I'll grant Élise the assist, though; it went my way because she was on
the other side, and she did nearly bump her nose on the garbage pail
as it came down on the thing. But I really didn't want it getting past
me into the bedroom.

You mom took it outside (I was still in my nightshirt; this all
happened about five minutes after my alarm went off, while I was still
trying to convince myself to have a shower. Actually, I first thought
the thump in the hall was Adam's door. Until Both cats went on full
alert, and Élise took off.)

She released it some ways away, but I expect it or its fellows will be
back to the attic soon. Granted, between humans and cats, they may not
try to venture down again...

I washed much of the upstairs hallway; it definitely left a couple of
small black things behind it on the floor where it had been trapped,
as well as more insulation. And I teased Élise for not catching it
first. (Not that i think she understood. She did look like she wanted
her toy back.)

Irina never left the bedroom. I'm still not sure if it had got past me
if she'd have jumped at it or away.

Anyhow, in short, if you could try and find the places they get into
the attic and seal them up, tonight seems like a good time.And should
we lay down some of the dessicating poison up there, too?

Turns out I'm slightly wrong, and my mother-in-law handed it to my father-in-law, who, in her polite words, tested how well it could swim (not very), and then got rid of the remains. I can't say I disapprove. I just didn't want it killed in the house. Or toyed with anywhere that I'd regret having to clean.

Colin put a live trap up there instead of poison, as he couldn't find any of the desiccating (Now that I have a spell-check...) kind, and pointed out that he couldn't walk safely across the attic to look for holes without removing all the insulation, as he couldn't see the support beams.And to find the entry from the outside, he'd need a two-storey ladder, and ours was loaned out to *someone* and never returned (We'd have asked if he could remember who had it. But the last one we remember was Augustine United Church, and I distinctly remember carrying it home from there.)

4) I'm still working on the wrong projects. or the wrong parts of the right projects. Argh.

5) Someone asked me recently about putting writing samples on my LJ more often. So. What the heck. This is the opening to Bird of Dusk. (The * is where the guy in Writing Idol stopped reading; though I did change small things since then.)

( April, 199-, Damina-Riel City, Manitoba. )

I'm alive.

New job is busy.

Twelfth Night went fantastically well, but for some minor bumps (Part of feast got delayed due to the mini-siege-weapon competition running long. Things like that.) The site tokens I made got much good comment; Colin took pictures, and I may post. In the archery competition, I accidentally shot our Baron in the head. (Well, the version of him printed on the target). Then I got made archery captain. I should really give that the telling it deserves. Another time, maybe?

There aren't enough hours in the day. Even with getting to write at least a few minutes each lunch hour. Those few minutes have been adding up, though. But I'm *not* at dance practice right now, and I dislike feeling too tired and having to pick and choose between activities.

Yup. I know these symptoms. I'm working full time.

Oh, wah. I get to make money!

Some of which I spent this week. The damage:

Bruce Springsteen - Magic
Criminal Minds Season 1
Eve's Bayou
The Prestige (The movie not the book)
Laurie R. King - The Art of Detection

After which, I reminded myself I only have this job to June, and thus should be saving money up, not using it, and so paid off my credit card for the month (And am considering, not cutting it up, but putting it away with my passport for use only when travelling, or aiding and abetting a friend of mine if she should wish to make more online purchases.) And am trying to convince myself to Not Buy Stuff. After all, I'm in the library at least part of the week.
_____________________

Minister Faust - From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

I was slow in picking this up in spite of quite liking the Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad. The premise - psychiatrist to superheroes writes a self-help book - just didn't interest me. And it took a while to hook me, because, as humourous as are the truly dreadful similes Dr. Eva Brain-Silverman uses throughout, the first impression of the superheroes she's studying is pretty much that they're all impossible to like. I mostly persisted because I was actually intrigued by the scene he read at World Fantasy (The first solo talk with Iron Lass/Hnossi Icegaard).

Of course, Dr. Brain is a textbook case herself - of unreliable narrator. And like Coyote Kings..., The funny bits, which do show up, are the shiny cool things to drag one into what is, in the end, a truly dark story; of willful blindness aiding and abetting willful destruction, or people buying into their own stories (especially Dr. Brain. Or maybe not. I kept wondering, afterward, if she wrote what she wrote as the only way to get the truth out. Or if she really WAS just as unaware of what she had written as she seemed). Of whether the good guys win, or the winners write history, or there are no good guys, just people with all their fuck-ups pushed forward.

Short version: I've been incredibly busy. I'm miles behind on LJ. And I'm rather tired.

Longer version: As of Tuesday last week, I'm working full-time (Seven hours a day Mon-Fri) for the first time since the Bakery deliberately dissolved my job from under me in 2006. (I've had individual weeks of working five days a week in between, but not consistently and not all for one business at a time. And of course, the schoolwork kept me from anything like laziness while it lasted). It's a contract that only goes to June 30th, albeit with the potential to be a permanent placement if the fit is good and nothing else intervenes. I feel almost bad for *wanting* that something to intervene, as after four days there, it's a nice office.

It's busy, with varied kinds of work - which I consider a plus. After the bakery where there was never enough work and RCC where there was never nothing at all to do but a lot of it was repetitive, I decided I prefer being busy. More, of course, there's a strong discouragement against beign lazy: the temp who was at my desk before me was apparently a bit lazy and spent work time on the internet, and a LOT careless; she managed to get malware onto the computer, which caused them to decide no personal computer use even on breaks.

The thing which makes this quite bearable is that the lunch break is an hour. And I'm downtown, a block from the library. And I have a Dana. So after I'm done eating, I can vanish a while and just type.

forodwaith,we have got to take advantage of this to get together at least a couple of times. Even if we don't have plans, around 12:30 or so, look for me in either the stairway kiosks or the tables by the Human Bean.

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My evenings, on the other hand, have been taken up with making site tokens (Clay pendants with crosses or crescents) for the event, to the point of missing several other activities I usually prefer (Dance practice, choir practice, etc.). This is one thing the new job threw off; I'd been intending to take more advantage of the free daytime hours to do the work.

Final tally is 83, of which Colin made about 15. We're expecting about 75 to the event I think, so that should be enough extras. They went to the person with the kiln today. Hopefully they were dry enough; a few were still slightly cool to the touch when I packed them (A pretty good sign of lingering moisture).

Still it was fun, if terribly messy and worse for my back and my exercise regime. And I have enough of a lump of clay left over to do *something* with.

Alas, this week will be catching up on other activities, and cleaning house for the post-revel.

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Writing wise:

I'm not working on the Serpent Prince at all. I started another project I probably shouldn't have, but the way the words have been flowing when I have had a chance to get to the computer, I can't wholly complain. Because I am working a bit at a time on the Dana, I decided to also start the editing for Bird of Dusk slightly earlier, so that I'm not constantly uploading and downloading. Not much so far, considering the lack of computer time.

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Sleep... twice in the last two weeks, I've napped in the evening. I think I've mentioned before, I don't do this. I usually *can't* sleep outside my usual sleeping hours unless I am ill or exhausted.

I really must remember that "Sleep is for the weak" is the creed of those who should know better.