23 June 2004

What I like about the Minneapolis Institute of Art: it's free. I know that sounds like sort of a petty thing, especially since I paid to see a special exhibit last time I went there and donated a small amount to the museum this time. But here's the thing: they've got good art there, and lots of it (and some bad art there, too, but such is the way of things). And since it's free, I don't feel like I have to drag myself to see every last bit of it to "get my money's worth" or some such. I can do what we did yesterday: see about half of it, decide we're done, and plan to go back again later. We did the second floor and decided that the third could wait.

I had awful dreams last night. They were just wrenching. I made myself go back to sleep once, and I dreamed I was nattering on and on about these awful dreams and couldn't stop myself. So I got up; enough of that, brain. Honestly.

I got a note from Kev saying he'd gotten home safely, which is good to know.

I forgot to wish you all a happy Midsummer. Happy late-summer, then, even though it isn't. Silly sun. Silly weather. Silly climate.

Silly Mrissa, I'm afraid.

Ooh ooh oh. I've been getting moose stuff for a couple of years now, with the Not The Moose Book and all, but I haven't ever before been tempted by moose jewelry. Because...I mean...moose jewelry. Come on. But these are tiny little silver moose with little gold crescent moons above them. And when the Not The Moose Book morphs into a trilogy that starts with Thermionic Night, what can one do? What, indeed, but buy earrings.

I've finished the reread of Brust's Phoenix, which I liked, of course. It didn't blow me away as much as Teckla and Taltos did, but it was still a very good book and worth my (and your) time. I still have a pile of comfort books on my desk, but since I have a pile of borrowed books from private citizens, a pile of borrowed books from the U library, and piles of books to read from my own library -- not to mention a manuscript from an old friend to read for fun and another coming along from the Mer to read for crits -- so I think I'd better get back to non-comfort reading in some regard. So I've picked up Tuomo Polvinen's Imperial Borderland: Bobrikov and the Attempted Russification of Finland, 1898 - 1904. Bobrikov is something of a melodrama villain in my head: boooo! Hiss! Throw bits of popcorn! So maybe this'll be its own kind of comfort reading. Stranger things have happened. So far, the Polvinen is interesting but has some translation errors that are just weird -- "heir to the shown" for "heir to the throne," that kind of thing. I don't know if it was well-written in Finnish, but in English, not so much. But I've got a few lovely bits and pieces that will make my books better, la la la yay.

I'm back to being a real Minnesotan: I no longer celebrate every mosquito bite as a sign that I'm home, home, home. I still greet the skyline when I see it, though, and practically everything I smell is like Proust's darn cookie for me. I think I'm glad of it -- I'm mostly glad of it -- but there's part of me that feels that going out to the garage should not be a deeply moving emotional experience every single time.

On my lj, I threw the floor open to questions. I'm going to do that again here. Go for it. Ask me something. Something about writing, about life, about Minnesota, about how to choose an eggplant or what to get your brother for his birthday. Ask me about Bobrikov and what the grand plan is for Not Moosing. M'ris Explains It All. Or the parts of it she feels like explaining, anyway.