10 December 2005

Ahh, December. The month when my mother and I call each other to praise the virtues of parchment paper.

Two doctor's appointments and a concert this week. A windshield replacement. Some Christmas shopping, and then some more Christmas shopping, and some Christmas shipping. I'm not done with shopping, but I think I'm almost done with shipping, so that, at least, qualifies as progress.

We're running out of tape, oh the agony. Mark will get some today, and then I can begin a massive wrapping campaign.

I'm not sure that reading a massive volume of Russian history before the Revolution is the best thing here, but the snow, the cold...the fact that it's been sitting on my "to read" pile for months...the dwindling of the "to read" pile over the said months...yah. Russian history it is.

I also read the Outsiders anthology from my World Fantasy goodie bag today. It was...better than I expected, I guess. My hackles went up at the very title: Outsiders. Oh, goody. Now we have a bunch of horror stories from people who are obsessed with how really truly Different they are. But it was only partly like that, and partly just some decent stories, and that's about all you can ask of a randomly obtained anthology, really: that some of the stories be decent. I'll still probably pass it on rather than shelving it, but hey, could be worse. I expected it would be worse. It's nice to be pleasantly surprised.

(I have very low tolerance for people who are in love with their own supposed uniqueness but haven't bothered to pay enough attention to the rest of humanity to know what's genuinely unique and what's a demographic. Some people really are truly unique, way out there on the fringes, much stranger than the rest of us, etc. etc. etc. But it seems to me that a lot of people are much further in on the bell curve than they think they are.)

Oh, and another delight of my week is that I got a box with two marbles in it, the Earth and Mars. I have the Earth! And Mars! Sitting on my desk! If you are the one who sent them to me, please 'fess up so I can thank you! (And it looks like they are not horribly expensive on Amazon, so if you know someone who is not me and could appreciate Earth and Mars marbles, I recommend them highly. Search for "Earth marble" or "Mars marble.") I asked on livejournal and no one has claimed to be the giver yet, so if it's you, speak up! Grateful people want to know!