Tutoring, Conspiracies

15 August 2001

I am working.

No, really, I am. I'm signed in and ready in case any kid wants help with his/her math homework between now and 11:00 (Pacific time). Any of you think the chances are good that actual children will want help with their math homework in the middle of the morning in the middle of August? No, me, neither. But if they're willing to pay me N dollars an hour for the privilege of sitting here with headphones on while I write my journal entry, work on the Not The Moose Book, read, and catch up on e-mail, more power to them. May their business flourish.

I have to say that the little microphone dealie is kind of getting at me. If I blow out, it pants in my ears. I'm breathing very carefully. Also, I feel like a Saturday Night Live spoof of some sort. I feel like saying, "Yello?"

I will not do that if some hapless student shows up, however.

Papillon was good, better than La Maison. Also much more expensive, and they wrote in my soup. But it was cream of squash soup, so I forgave them.

My dad gave me his taste in music. My mom gave me her taste in vegetables. I suppose everybody wins.

When I was a little kid, my grandpa used to tell me that if he, Daddy, or Mother didn't know something, it wasn't worth knowing. (And if Grandma couldn't do it, it wasn't worth doing.) For a long time, that seemed to be true -- they were really good at answering my questions. Now I've broadened the net, of course. Yesterday it was Jen (Spande) who came to my rescue with the difference between an embassy and a consulate. I would make her Morphism Reader of the Week, except she doesn't read Morphisms, and Morphism Unreader of the Week seems like a still more dubious honor.

I feel like this book is going to take a million different fact-checks in the writing and revision process. It's weird that way. My previous three books have been somewhat less research-intensive -- the type of books they are and my own background knowledge combined so that I barely had to look anything up. Also, their settings were wholly fictional. I'm at the point now where I feel like pretty much anything about Finland is going to be useful to me somehow. It's not the only information that I need, but I can't tell you where I'm going to find a description of what it was like to go through Customs in Helsinki. I can't tell you where I'm going to find a description of what the British Embassy looked like in 1949. I just keep looking, and hoping.

Whattaya know. A quarter of the way through with no students. Amazing.

Scott read The Grey Road recently, and he said, "I like your YA fantasy better than YA fantasy in general. Because what I like about your stuff is that it's neither underage babies nor little adults. They're kids." Well. I was going for that, yes. He said a bunch of other stuff that was pretty well what I was going for. Best kind of compliments to get. That one seems pretty basic, but I've read enough YA stuff to know that it shouldn't be assumed. People forget what it's like to be a kid. I don't think that has to be a liability, if they then listen to and observe actual kids. But if they just make it up or listen to half of what the kids are saying, well. Not so good.

I have given up on the rebel Lutherans' mailing list. These people, on this mailing list, are driving me nuts. They have no interest in treating people as people. They want to treat people as categories. And they want the rest of the people reading their posts to assume that they (the writers of said posts) are Good People and thus their words should be interpreted in the best possible light. And if they say anything unfortunate, of course they didn't mean it. But if anyone who disagrees with them says anything unfortunate, it is an indicator of their true feelings, which are, of course, that Satan is their proper master.

I really, really hate it when people ascribe their own personal prejudices to God. I think God hates that kind of person.

Oops.

Seriously, though, my mom, who is partially in charge of this whole group, assures me that the people she's dealt with in person are nothing at all like the mailing list bozos (I don't believe she used the word bozos, that was my addition), and that good, loving and non-hierarchical, stuff may come of this yet. I hope so. Because if I meet more of these people in person and have to talk about The Homosexual Agenda, I'm going to rip out some internal organs, and they won't be my own. And they won't be silly things like spleens and appendices, either.

I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but read my lips: there is no homosexual agenda. There was no gay constitutional convention wherein all the gay people got together and decided what they should all be in favor of. Not All Gay People Are The Same.

Sadly, Not All Rebel Lutherans Are The Same, either. A goodly number of them are great big dorks.

Yesterday Avi admitted -- without prodding, really, I was in mid-Homosexual Agenda rant and didn't bring it up at all -- to being part of the International Jewish Conspiracy. I am so jealous.

I think that was just a cover for his being part of the International Avi Conspiracy, though, which I haven't figured out yet but which has something to do with being tall and skinny. I'm sure of it.

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