13 August 2001

For those of you who recognize the title as a quote, please tell me: how does one get disqualified for a Mme. Curie look-alike contest?

I was amused at Tim's account of conversation without Heather and me last night. We chatted wittily all the way to the bathroom and back. No problem. It seems that a lot of men (not Tim, happily) assume that women adjourn to the bathroom so that we can talk about men. Never happened to me that way. This time, we adjourned to the bathroom so that we could (gasp) wash our hands.

But if it also happened to point out who was carrying the conversation, well, I don't have a problem with that.

I'm glad Tim and Heather are starting their new books, too. Then I know there'll be more good stuff to read. Writers I know are far superior to writers I don't know, because I can't drop hints to writers I don't know that, really, it's time for me to read another of their books now. (Although I keep thinking I should write a letter to Madeleine L'Engle, insisting that she write a book telling us what Charles Wallace is doing. She's not getting any younger.) Crazy sequential-writing people. Writing the first scene on day one and the last scene on whatever the last day is. What zany things will they think of next? Actually, I don't know if Heather works that way. We'll have to see. She'll have to see, at least; she's under no obligation to share the process with the rest of us.

I've been doing a little bit of research on Temppeliaukio Church in Helsinki, because I remember it so clearly from our trip there, and it seems like it needs to have one scene of true weirdness set in it. There are few enough things that jumped out at me that much, that I feel like this one is entirely worth using. And I even know who it is that lives and does his weird stuff there. There may even be a goat. Sometimes one doesn't know these things until one writes the scene.

That's the fun part.

Have I mentioned that my parents have gotten in on this? Yes. Daddy bought a wooden elk (imported from Sweden) and has placed it on top of the TV, where he and Mom call it "Marissa's Not The Moose." It's a faaaamily thing.

So today (moles and trolls, moles and trolls), work, work, work. And then I'm going to take some soup up to David, who may even as I post this be starting his oral surgery, and won't that be fun for him. Bleah. I doubt that soup will be the deciding factor in how good he feels, but you know, it's something I can do, whereas handing out Magic Hats Of Happiness is somewhat beyond my power.