14 February 2004

The first love I got this morning was from EOTU E-zine, who bought and immediately ran "Speed Dating!" I haven't checked out the other stories in the issue yet, but Terry Bramlett's in there, and you can count on him for a good read. At least, I can.

So even though the post office hates my guts, I can get acceptances. Yay, e-mail! (We know the PO hates my guts because they stole one of the two books Celia sent me, and they had my package from the folks three-quarters open when it arrived, and they haven't delivered a rejection or acceptance or anything in ten days and we hates them, precious.)

I read some of Finland in the Twentieth Century, taking notes in my journal and erasing someone else's pencil notations as I went. Scribbling in library books is not allowed. Didn't people's mommies teach them this? It seems pretty basic to me. And this was word and phrase underlining, it wasn't just "I had a two-year-old who grabbed my library book when I wasn't looking; oops" sorts of stuff. I also was still trying to get rid of my headache (gone now, finally), so I spent much of the evening lying on the couch reading Georgette Heyer's The Corinthian. I hadn't read any Heyer before. She made me laugh out loud in bits, and while the ending annoyed me, there were bits that lightened it enough that it could have annoyed me much more. I don't think I'm going to go tearing through her body of work, but when I need something entertaining and light in the future, I will remember Heyer.

Now I've started Katie Waitman's The Merro Tree, on Karina's recommendation. I'm enjoying it, but there are things...oh, there are things. The felines, for example: if you have small house felines, I realize that sounds a bit more arch and distant, but I think human beings are much more likely to call a green-haired pseudo-feline a cat than vice versa. And there are other things that go clunk, and they aren't ruining the book for me, but they're noticeable. And having heard less stellar things about the next book Waitman did...well, I believe them, because it's her story and not her craft that's carrying me here. But it is carrying me.

Oh, and on the questions I asked: Paula talks, too (though I don't know how to permalink the right entry), and Tempy is no more thrilled with her schooling experience than I was. And Celia points out the flu epidemic as a big omission -- it is. It definitely is. I think -- at least at my school -- it was that they had this notion that history was something separable from other fields. You could study music or history, medicine or history, even literature or history. And influenza, that's getting to be medicine/biology, which we Can't Have. The other thing is that it wasn't something with a moral lesson they could drill into our heads. There was no "war is bad" or "fight the robber barons" that went with it. It's hard for people to get excited over "wash your hands" -- and it's too scary, thinking about horrible modern diseases. Smacks too much of one's own mortality. Can't be limited to volunteers. Etc.

So. Mark is now awake, so I have more love than EOTU gave me. We're heading out for French food for lunch in not too long. When we come home, I will take off my cute bell-sleeved dress (Why do I feel so much cuter in bell-sleeves? Should I blame the traipsing?) and put on something warm and comfortable and cuddly. And then I will make bars and we will watch Katherine Hepburn and I will read and work and things will be lovely. Just ask me, I'll tell you. Lovely, I say.