In Which Our Heroine Prepares to Make Waves (But Not Today)

27 February 2004

And once again, damn you, Mel Gibson! Because I've been wandering around singing snippets of Jethro Tull's "Passion Play," but I don't own it on CD, so I can't just play it and get it out of my head. Yarg! We will try a little "JC Superstar," which I at least know all the way through. (This may be a step up from the mental soundtrack of earlier in the week, "Union Maid." I'm not entirely sure on that one.) And for some reason "Daffodil's Lament" has joined in the cacophony: "Look lovely! Look lovely! Look lovely!" Uhhh, thanks, brain. I appreciate that.

Celia made me notice that James Patrick Kelly is bein' nice to me: " If you want to know who is going to be making waves in the next couple of years, check out stories by Timons Esaias, Lena DeTar, Greg Beatty, and Marissa K. Lingen and the other stars-in-waiting at The Fortean Bureau." Hee! Thankee, Mr. Kelly!

(Making waves? He's damn right I will.)

(Making Waves: a weblog from the Teresa side of the Nielsen Hayden family? And then, of course, one of Patrick's preschool-age relatives could be Electrocute.)

(Yes, I do know what a big dork I am.)

I got spam claiming to be from Bilbo Baggins. I won't bother asking if nothing is sacred, because I think the answer is pretty clear there.

Yesterday featured an unexpected moment of physical nastiness around noon, so I took things a bit easier than I'd anticipated yesterday. Had some winter blueberries (I know they're no good, but I can't resist the first time they go on sale). Worked on my book, read some of Alec's book, did some of the less physically demanding tasks on my list. Stretched and tried to get my body to relax and stop misbehaving. I'm now hooked on Alec's book for sure, after the first three-ring binder. Only two 4" binders of book left to go. Well, maybe he'll write sequels.

Ohhhhh. Oh my. All these years -- since I was maybe 12 or 13 -- my mom has been treating me as the expert on fantasy and SF series she enjoys. And she'll ask me, "When is the next one coming out?" She is still asking this over the Fionavar Tapestry, even though it has a rather firm ending at the end of book three. It's not that she doesn't understand, it's that she's not getting the answer she wants, so she keeps asking. And I have just realized: we're getting to the point where the answer to my "I don't know, Mom" is going to be, "Well, tell him to write it now." Because I think my mom would like Alec's book. And because I keep meeting more people in the field. (Luckily, Mom hasn't started The Secret Country yet, so by the time she's asking me when the new one will come out, Pamela might have had time to finish it. Unless Mom goes on a binge once she starts them. Which happened with the Susan Cooper books, so I warned her about the last page of Silver on the Tree. I just hope Daddy remembered to pass on the warning.)

This will not be a problem with my own books, since Mom doesn't want to put undue pressure on me, knowing that I'm very good at doing that myself. And I think she'll probably be wary of putting undue pressure on my friends as well, and it'll just be, "Tell him/her I'm looking forward to it. A lot."

I'm about halfway through Sylvia Engdahl's Enchantress from the Stars, for when hauling a 4" binder around is impractical, and I'm not feeling wowed yet. Maybe it's just not for me. I don't know. I can't say I feel like she's handling something poorly; I don't think this general conceit could be done better. And it's not bad. It's just not grabbing me all that well. I think part of it is that the father's manipulations seem silly and transparent, and also part is that the Prime Directive Thing is bothering me. It just seems silly that there are whole groups designed around interfering with other societies, and their major rule is that you're not supposed to interfere with other societies. I've never bought that one particularly well.

The book piles are really insane. I wish I could designate this a Reading Only Weekend and just loll around the house making a big dent in the book piles. Alas, this is not to be. If I keep feeling all right and Mark comes home feeling all right, we'll probably spend tomorrow running all over hell's half-acre looking for useful grown-up things. Some of which -- a lot of which -- are one-shot errands that will be done once they're done (as opposed to my usual do-it-again-next-week errands, which can usually be performed alone). So it'll be good to have that stuff removed from the list. Still, I look longingly at my book piles. So longingly. So many lovely books. I'm going to go read a bit and then get some work done.

Oh, and one more thing: Auntie Mrissa gets to be the hero today, because she is bringing Roo a t-r-u-c-k. A Matchbox t-r-u-c-k. I really hope he likes it.

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