In Which The Great Complicator Rides Again

13 November 2003

Two days ago, several people in e-mail wondered whether "Happy Veterans' Day" was the right Veterans' Day greeting to a non-veteran. (The proper greeting to a veteran, I should think, is "Thank you." If you're observing the day at all.) And it was in writing back to Sarah that I came up with my answer. I think that depends on whether we're at war or not. If we aren't, I think the proper greeting for Armistice Day is something like, "Whew" or "Thank God." If we are, I think something to the effect of, "Next year, God willing" is more appropriate. Not "next year in Jerusalem"; different holiday. Next year everywhere. (Although I have to say Jerusalem would be a good start, if we were picking places to have working armistices.)

All the Armistice Day stuff on Making Light has made me want to poke around and find what else is out there that I'll want to read about WWI. Any recommendations, people? I know the Pat Barker trilogy I recommended earlier in the week. I also remember L. M. Montgomery's Rilla of Ingleside quite clearly, and it was one of the first books that made it clear to me what war meant. Although I couldn't forgive Montgomery for killing Walter and bringing Jem back alive. I still haven't forgiven her, actually. It was just not right. But aside from those -- fiction, nonfiction, for children or adults. I may not get to them right away, but I'll add them to the list and poke at them gradually.

I've been reading Pamela Dean's The Hidden Land, which is lovely lovely, and it has me hooked, and I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to finish it before Kari and Jake get here one way or another. If I am, I may as well read it in a chunk as trickled out over a few days. If not, then there's something else that should be getting done and isn't. Well...there's likely something else that should be getting done and isn't anyway. My world is currently like that. And there isn't that much left in The Hidden Land, so....

Yesterday I had an apple hazelnut muffin that inspired me: now I want to stud the tops of our apple breads with hazelnuts for Christmas. We've been working around my mother's newfound walnut allergy, but my family is nuts. Yes, okay, sorry, that was too obvious, is vs. likes. Anyway, I'm probably the least (fond of) nuts in my family, and I like them very much. I couldn't resist the hazelnuts in the shell at Cub Foods the other day. They had them sitting there, being ready now that the snow comes and goes, and what's better than cracking hazelnuts for days it's snowing? Other than lemon tea, I mean, or cocoa, or cocoa with Bailey's, or cocoa with Buttershots, or....

But hazelnuts are good. We've established that much, at least.

And what else have we established? Oh, a publisher, right! Why I Hate Aliens appears to have found a home. Yay! I'm making sure of some contract particulars and announcing to the authors after that, but the publisher should be specified in my journal and on my main page tomorrow if all works out. I have to say I'm relieved, and I hope that this publisher has better luck than the last two in terms of editorial health and well-being.

Gingerbread for breakfast is a really good way to start the day. This is one of the advantages of the bread kind over the cookie kind. (Mrissas don't eat cookies for breakfast. Not even at Christmas. Ice cream, on one or two occasions in the past, when Bridgeman's and I didn't live in the same city and I hadn't had the chance for it otherwise. But not cookies.)

For some crazy reason, I just opened the synopsis I'd written for the Not The Moose Book and started picking at it. Okay. Close synopsis. No NTMB means no synopsis as well. I worked a bit on "The Beast's Apprentice" yesterday but mostly on articles and the like. So many things on the list. Ai yai. Focus, focus, focus. List, list, list. I can do non-list things on the weekend, maybe. I hope. Or I'll just do non-list now and make Kari and Jake sit in the library until the floors are dry. I have no idea when they're coming over tomorrow; if they show up too early, I may be in my pajamas yet. Kari has seen my pajamas before once or twice. It'll be okay.

Timprov dreamed of a rejection letter last night. I don't even get these things in my dreams, apparently. (In my dream, I had to redo my high school graduation ceremony, only they brought us all into the gym in a flying saucer. Analyses of this dream are quite welcome.) I feel like the rejections are going to come flooding into my mailbox any day now, all in one big clump o' rejectedness. But there's really no reason for the post office to hold onto them, particularly. Except spite and malice, obviously.

I understand why people get themselves persecution complexes. It makes everything so obvious. Hmm. I think most complexes are like that, actually. Makes it kind of a funny name, doesn't it? Scott sometimes calls me, "The Great Complicator," claiming that my involvement in anything, anything at all, makes it inherently more complicated. I would have said "interesting" instead, but never mind that.

Back to Novel Gazing.

And the main page.

Or the last entry.

Or the next one.

Or even send me email.