Silence Like A Hotdish

8 November 2001

Good morning! You are so glad that I like you, journal readers. And let me tell you why you're glad. Because it is now illegal in Sweden to castrate a reindeer with your teeth, and I'm not going to tell you any more details on the subject (unless you write and ask for them). Aren't you lucky?

I read A Year in Lapland yesterday. And I now know more about reindeer herding than I ever thought I'd want to, but it was actually interesting to me. Also, I got a few scenes with Saami people written for the Not The Moose Book, which is why I was reading it in the first place. Took notes for more scenes and magic stuff, and I got an entirely separate story idea. So it was all for the best, except for the bits pertaining to the paragraph above.

My favorite Life Philosophy quote from this book was, "Of course, lassoing just any reindeer is no problem; the hard part is lassoing the one you aimed at." Wow, who knew writing was like lassoing reindeer?

I'm really amused that Zak has determined what a M'ris Moment is in writing. It's when you're writing and writing and you keep thinking, "This is so cool!" I like that. I like that being a M'ris Moment. Lately I've felt like M'ris Moments sound more like, "Ow! Oops." It's nice to be reminded that that's not the real kind.

I was cutting up mushrooms for last night's chili (yes, it was chili, Daddy!), and it was 5:30, and I was so tired. So very, very tired. And the little constant internal critic was kind of yammering at me in my head: "What's wrong with you? It's 5:30 and all you're doing is cutting up mushrooms. You shouldn't be so tired. Quit being a wimp...." And all of a sudden, I thought, "I've got three broken ribs, what's wrong with you?" (Not a truly schizophrenic situation, just different tracks of my brain. Worry not.) It's easy to forget, though. It's easy to get used to a certain level of pain and then take it for normal, and then expect myself to behave as though everything was normal. But it hurts all the time, and it wears me out. My mother warned me that this would be the hard part: when it's not fresh in my mind, when I've had a chance to get used to it, not running myself ragged. Because oof. Last night I was sent for and couldn't come.

Be it known that nobody who played with me as a kid is allowed to have precancerous dysplasia yet. There's evidently been some confusion on this subject, so I'm putting out the decree: no. I'll let you know when it's okay, but until then -- no.

The internet can be a valuable source of information for education or for specific research purposes. This is not one of those times. Liz's friend 2sheds (don't ask me, it's how she posts on Liz's message board) directed me to part of this site because we were talking about good band names, and then I found the mistaken lyric section. I'm particularly fond of some of the Simon and Garfunkel mistake lyrics, although some of them everybody knows. My favorite is "Silence like a cancer grows" becoming "Silence like a casserole." But in the upper Midwest, we don't really make casseroles. Mostly we make hotdish.

Hmm. Now I'm really hungry for my Grandma's chicken and rice hotdish. I've asked several Minnesotans what the difference is between hotdish and casserole. They've all had firm, specific answers, not a single one of which agrees. So if you have definitive answers, let me know.

Right then. This has gotten to be really scattered. You're all surprised, I'm sure. I got two e-rejections this morning. One of them was really useful, and from it I discerned that the editor might like a story I'm working on piece by piece, once it's finished. So that's a good thing to know. I've gotten both stories either sent out or ready to send out this morning.

Today I really need to get to the post office and the bank, and probably the grocery store, since we've run out of little things like flour, garlic, sugar, and mushrooms. Minor things like that. But I really am not sure about dealing with the car and the grocery store, so if worse comes to worse, I'll thicken stuff with cornstarch and sweeten it with molasses. Anyway, besides that, I need to write up to query/proposal combos, continue work on the Not The Moose Book and (I hope) on the golem story, and continue down my reading list. I'm going to try to get the more active stuff done early in the day, so that if I need to crash in the afternoon, I can do it without feeling like a hoser.

Much.

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