26 January 2006

Yesterday was an extremely productive day. So productive, in fact, that every time I sat down to write a journal entry, I thought of something else I ought to do, and did it. Which is good, I guess; at least could be worse.

They hauled our old living room furniture away this morning, and tomorrow the new couch comes. I will miss the old couch, but not so much for sitting on or lying on or...otherwise using...yah. It is time for the old couch to go. But the concept of the old couch, that's what I'll miss. This has been my couch all my life, because it's been in my family for longer than I've been alive, and, well, it shows. It's been reupholstered since then, but still: this couch has done yeoman's service and deserves, um, a good rest. Yes. In a better place. I expect that the wee beast will be muchly confused, as this has been her couch her whole life, too.

She likes Charlie, though, or at least will sniff at him and leave him alone. I wish I could say we had this brilliant strategy planned for getting her used to him (Charlie, for those of you who have not been keeping score, is our robot vacuum), but it mostly just worked out well: Mark introduced her to Charlie with a treat or two for not barking, and then we wandered off, and I started making lunch, and it was about the same time as the contractors arrived to work on the neighbors' house. So should she make a big fuss over this small whirring thing that does her no harm? Or should she supervise the construction work and vulturize the food preparation? I think you know what the pup chose. And if you want to borrow this as a brilliant suggestion, be my guest.

It is such a relief to have a vacuum I can wander off and leave to work, and more so that the dog isn't going to stand and bark at it all day. It's so convenient.

I went to the library yesterday and got, among other things, the sixth Harry Potter book. It turns out Darth Vader was Luke's father. Sorry if I spoiled that for anyone. Seriously, this book has been as thoroughly "spoilered" for me as it is possible to be. I'm not sure if that's what's robbed this book of any emotional resonance for me, but I'm afraid it isn't -- I'm afraid it would be like this even if the entire blogosphere hadn't been bent on saying that Rosebud was his sled. Rowling has talked a lot about the books she supposedly hasn't read, when people have talked about all the "homages" in the Harry Potter books. If she's not lying, I think I see her problem right there: maybe if she read more of this stuff, she'd see what you can do with heavy emotional themes in a kids' book.

Not having read much in your field is not always an asset. It can make you look stupid in interviews and often doesn't help your craft any.