14 February 2002

Happy Valentine's Day! I know, I know, it's a made-up holiday. I don't care that it's a made-up holiday. Most of them are. Christmas is: we can be pretty certain that Jesus was not born anywhere near December 25. New Year's is: why should the year change on that day and not any other? Thanksgiving? You can believe that nobody who first moved to this country said anything about third Thursdays. Lots of holidays are made up. Most of 'em, even.

So it doesn't bother me that Valentine's Day is contrived. I think it's a nice contrivance, and one that gets me chocolate and other happy things. And it doesn't get me neon pink stuffed bears and other objectionable things, so really, all around, I'm pleased.

Of course, it's historically been a day for Bad News in my family, and today is no different. My great-grandma fell in the bathroom and broke her hip, bruised her head, broke her femur, etc. She is old, sick, and screaming in pain whenever someone gets near her face. Sigh. They're doing what they can, but there's really no way to make this good.

I think I'm left with a little residual wobbliness, but otherwise yesterday's yuck seems to have passed. Which is all for the best. Last night I was running a fever, though, and at one point in the small hours I ended up staggering around the living room so that I could drink cold water and not fall asleep while doing it. I think I pretty much was asleep while doing it. But not so much that I choked on the water, so it turned out all right.

Still no FTP ability, though. Grrrr.

Also still no FTL ability. We deal with these things.

So I feel like I'm kind of cheating, because I'll be posting back entries, or at least one of them. But I don't really mind when other people cheat.

When I was doing stuff for the upcoming issue of Speculon, I came upon a Garth Nix piece that amused me: The Garbeliad. Making fun of high fantasy is kind of a fish-in-a-barrel thing, but they're amusing fish this time, so I enjoyed it.

I've been trying to limit my computer time so as not to bring on further migraines, and since I have Stuff To Do, I'm going to let this be for the moment and come back to it periodically, until I have FTP service again.

Later. Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder is a very interesting book so far. I look forward to seeing how it coheres, but even if it doesn't, the tidbits are interesting, and I didn't have strong expectations of it to begin with. Just an odd little book. My favorite line is where the author quotes the museum keeper as saying, "Part of the assigned task is to reintegrate people to wonder." And that is an assigned task worth having.

I like the Olympics. Not only do I love watching them and witnessing snow and hearing the familiar accents, but then Karina updates all the time. Congratulations, Karina, on the Asimov Award honorable mention. I had a great time at the ICFA when I won the Asimov, and I'm sure you will, too.

Well, I don't know when this is going to go up, so I'm just going to cut it off now. Timprov is going to twiddle around with the webhosting stuff and see what he can see. Be well, tell the people you love that you love them, and have a happy Valentine's Day.