5 April 2003

The newspaper arrived safely again, and my breakfast cereal has blueberries in it, which is some consolation for the fact that the superhero bra is dead. Some small consolation. The superhero bra didn't have a big letter on it, or stars. It didn't even give supernatural amounts of "up, up, and away." It was just the right blue, the right deep royal to be a part of a superhero costume. And now the wire has bitten thoroughly through it, and there's really no fixing it now.

This isn't a metaphor. It's just unfortunate.

I'm trying to pretend that it doesn't mean that I need to go bra shopping again. Tra la la, no no, no bra shopping for me! I have plenty of bras! Even though the Amazing Red Bra, which is the best bra I have ever owned and incidentally was discontinued shortly after I bought one, is showing many signs of wear, and one of the bras in the drawer is the Evil Purple Bra that makes me feel like a suspension bridge has been inserted in my shirt with the posts just that much too close together. Oh, I'm fooling myself, I need another bra. Crud.

So, as soon as I typed "Crud" right there, I went to buy one online, from the expected place, but I'm not happy enough with them to give them a link. And I had done the "ultimate bra search," which translates as "what do we have to fit your freaky self," and okay, there was one that might be worth trying, maybe, but then all the interesting colors of it are due to be in stock in May, or maybe September. Crud again. We'll try a boring color, then, and if I don't like it, I'll send it back. Bra roulette.

If anybody is reading this because they googled on "bra roulette" and my page came up, please don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Heh. My high school English teacher was giving my contact information (e-mail and webpage) to the creative writing teacher at my old high school. ("They have creative writing at my old high school?" I said. "When did this happen?") He kept asking if that was okay, and I kept saying it was a fine idea, and not a problem, as I get e-mail from random people with whom I have much less in common than going to RHS. But now I'm picturing the poor teacher coming to look and going, "Well, she's just mumbling about superhero undies right now, I don't think that's going to be very useful." Even though those superhero undies more than paid for themselves with the essay I wrote about them. My secret to writing: when you can't think of anything smart to write, write something stupid. You can edit it later, or toss it out completely. Or sell it for $75. So my underwear really does pertain, sort of, somehow.

Ahem. Moving on then.

So far my first-readers have leaned towards keeping Odin in Dwarf's Blood Mead. Which is good, since I already wrote him in and all. I just want to make sure that I have sufficiently explained why there will not be a deus ex machina from him or any of the other gods present in the book. (Who are definitely staying, no matter what. Especially Tyr. I like Tyr. I get annoyed when people ignore Tyr for not being easily cast as one of the Greek gods, even though none of the other Norse are really like Classical figures, either.)

(I get even more annoyed when people try to cast Loki as a devil or an evil god. Keep your dualistic hands off my mythology! But that's another rant, and one I might have done here already.)

I'm still really loving the Not The Moose Book. Hee. This is so neat. And it's all mine....

I finished reading Karl Schroeder's Permanence yesterday. Sigh. I really wanted to like that book more than I did, but I just never got to care about the characters, or even the plot. The ideas were nifty, but not nifty enough to carry the whole book for me. Now I'm almost done with Lloyd Alexander's The Rope Trick. It's one of my favorites so far, in part because Lidi is more like Mickle than like Eilonwy or Vesper Holly. She isn't Just Plain Crazy, But Cute And Resourceful. She's still cute and resourceful, but she makes more sense, in a way that makes her feel more believable as a character. (Even though I still love Vesper Holly.) Have any of you read any of Lloyd Alexander's grown-up books? If so, what did you think of them? Are they worth tracking down?

In the category of "things I can control," I cleaned the house, worked on the Not The Moose, ran errands, and did some random small tasks around here yesterday. This morning and early afternoon, I'm going to make the appetizer for Amber's potluck tonight, work on the Not The Moose and on whatever line edits Mark and Timprov had for Dwarf's Blood Mead, and read. I'm hoping it'll be a more or less relaxing day. Actually, I'm hoping for more rather than less. I'm sure I'll let you know.