12 April 2002

Well, I decided not to be like my grandparents yesterday. My grands are retired, see, but they get it into their heads that some given thing has to be done on some given day, and that is just that. And then they do it and wear themselves down to nubbins. While I'm glad that my grands are still stubborn and not willing to be defeated by something so small and trivial as a deck that needs staining, sometimes it's good to just say, "No, I thought I'd do that today, but there's no reason it can't be tomorrow." I did that yesterday. I had planned to go to the bank and PO (again), and I was humming along so well on the NTMB and enjoying my Kavalier and Clay reading breaks so much that I thought, heck with it. I'll handle that later, and why not?

Kavalier and Clay. Oh my. Go read that book. Good good good good good. Yes. Definitely going on the recommendations list. I enjoyed it immensely. I got another Michael Chabon at the library, on the strength of this one. We shall see. I also read Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning, on the strength of such diverse recommendations as those from Mary Anne and my cousin Joey. I think it would have been better if I'd had another couple volumes of it on hand so that I could just get into the Snickety rhythm of it. I'll enjoy seeing what horrible things happen next, I think. And then I returned to The Red and the Black for awhile.

I used to read more than one book at a time on a regular basis. It was just How Things Went. Now I rarely do, and mostly if I do, one of them is nonfiction. Not this time, though. I feel the need to intersperse The Red and the Black with other, more modern things. I'm not sure why, but I trust the instinct, so we'll see how it goes today and what I end up reading.

Evan is putting titles on his journal entries now. I asked him why, since titling is my least favorite part of any writing process, ever. He said it wasn't that hard, and I discovered the key: he doesn't worry about whether his titles are lame.

I think not worrying about lameness may be one of the big hallmarks of adulthood. I think adults can still worry about being stupid, untalented, unattractive, and any number of other things, but perhaps not so much with the lame. This may be even more a mark of adulthood than my button box. (Cower before the domestic might of my button box, all ye mortals!) Because there are just bigger problems to worry about. "Do I look lame with this baby carrying thing on my chest?" Who cares? Is the kid comfortable? Are you comfortable? All right then.

Actually, I think that's a sign that one isn't old enough to have a baby: if one seriously worries about looking lame carrying the baby in a Snugli.

I don't think we're short on signs of not being old enough to have a baby. Just short on people who care about them.

So. Not the Moose Work has been good. I worked on all three sections yesterday, which was good in some ways and bad in some ways. I think mostly it just was. I decided to leave the Chernobyl-related scene or scenes until later. I think I'm mostly going to work on the first section today, but I may also do a directly related plot point. It'll be good. One of the nice things about writing non-linearly is that if you have a minor character who only shows up a handful of times, you can write his scenes close together if you want to, while you still have quite a consistent feel for him and how he works.

I did manage to get an English response out of yesterday's Finn. (Thanks for offering to help, Jon! I may take you up on it later.) And -- dang, I love the Finns. Their web presence is so happy. There are nifty, organized little pages for every ministry of the Finnish government, so I could easily figure out which officials would supervise the disposal of salmon after the rain of salmon.

Second to Belgium when going abroad, hah.

I finally baked the moose cookies, only I was too lazy to cut them into the shape of moose. I modified a tiny little bit and made them into bars, upon which I wrote, in icing, "M'rissa is too lazy to cut cookies this week. Sorry, mooses!" This made Mark laugh a good deal when he came and read over my shoulder, but it was that or a circuit diagram, and I didn't want anybody fighting over who got the Zener. Writing with a tube of icing is really good therapy for the hands, actually. Much better than my foam squeezy duck (who is lacking half its bill and whose head may follow at any minute). My hands feel great. Unfortunately, I don't want anything decorated on a regular basis. I suppose I could make plain-top brownies more often and ice-decorate them. Seems like it might not be worth the hand therapy, though.

Well. I'm going to go for a walk this morning, I think, so I'll leave this here. Have a good weekend.