16 January 2005

I feel like a crank today. Not cranky; I'm in a rather good mood, at least internally, and cranky is too often used to mean crabby or snarly. No. Crank-like. I have already harassed my clergybeing of choice and snarled at Ken MacLeod this morning, though I left Mr. MacLeod unaware of my snarling, which I can no longer say for Pastor Lillejord, now that I've hit send. (I limited my comments to Pastor Lillejord to one of the approximately seven issues I had with the sermon this morning, the one I thought was actually wrong and not just suboptimal or not to my taste. But incidentally, do I have to go through the rest of my life hearing about pastors' drug experiences at every second or third church I enter? Really, do I have to? Because it has been neither enlightening nor entertaining so far.) (I will point out, for the sake of Pastor Lillejord's good name, that he was talking about the side effects of a legal over-the-counter substance, used as far as I know according to specifications, rather than Chaplain Elvee's stories about the Sixties.)

But Mr. MacLeod, oh, oh, it was just one phrase in his introduction to Charlie Stross's The Atrocity Archives, and that was "geeks and geekettes."

No.

Geek is not a gendered word. See how calm that sounds, just set down there on the page like that? when really what is coming out in my head is more like, "Geek is not a gendered word, and I'll be damned if I let you try to exclude me from my own people by tacking me on as an afterthought."

See what I mean about feeling crank-like? And incidentally, Ken MacLeod and those other damn kids can get off my yard.

And I just got a Girl Scout to my door! I win! I am a real live grown-up and a real live homeowner and, not incidentally, in a few months I will be a real-live grown-up homeowner in the proud possession of several boxes of Thin Mints and a box of Hoedowns, which they call Tagalongs here: the kind that leaves you with chocolate and peanut butter all over your front teeth.

Happiness.

It's been absolutely frigid here for the last several days. All errands are carefully vetted for efficiency and necessity. As a result, we're short on several things, but not critically short, not yet; and the temperature is supposed to be rising a bit. And of course it's been a social weekend; naturally, because it may be the coldest weekend of the winter. (I hesitate to say that it is the coldest weekend of the winter: we still have the rest of January and all of February and March to get through.)

The notecards, the various colored inks, and I are working together to improve Thermionic Night, and it's consuming a lot of my time and energy and attention. I may be back to talking about the book all the time, cryptically and uselessly, or about bits of process no one else could possibly find interesting. Sorry there. It's what has to be, I think. After all this time, I can imagine letting other people read this thing, and it's a little heady for me.

I should have Christmas pictures with my side of the family up here tomorrow. Stay tuned.