Confessions of a Fictional Historian

A crazy, crazy day. Thursdays usually are. I haven't been up to much tonight, but I am going to write, and it's going to be on something relating to the main AEFB project. I'm not really up for much else in the way of putting words together, so here are some YouTube videos:

This one is the treadmill video--my favorite. It forbids embedding; however, it has been haunting me, and I have to link it. I am pretty sure the gent in the red pants is my new celebrity crush, Damian Kulash, Jr., and DAMN, those legs.

Another one, which I can embed, is not the greatest quality, but it's of OK Go playing "What to Do" on handbells. Just to attempt to illustrate how awesome it was:



The performance I saw was better. Also, I was in the balcony, and could hear them singing and not twelve million people standing around me. Plus I was at a smaller show, probably. This video has talking and stuff on it, but again: the awesomeness. I did think Damian's technique was shaky when I saw it live (he handles the big bells like a man trying to club something to death), but after watching two different videos I realized he probably did that on purpose. It did get laughs.

Non-OK-Go-related: I checked out the first volume of Fables for my sister so that she can share in the awesomeness (judging from my luck she won't like it, even after getting to all the best parts, *g*), and decided I'd reread it while I had it around, since I first read it over a year ago. It's just as I remember--good, not great--except that Mark Buckingham, whose penciling feels, to me, epitomous (yeah, I made it up) to Fables did not pencil this volume. At all. I was horrified. I love Mark Buckingham.

Now for tea (in hopes of curing an itchy throat) and writing. And more later, when I feel like posting seriously.

My love for OK Go continues unabated. I have seen the treadmill video (thanks, YouTube!) and am very impressed. Due to that, and the handbell thing, "Here it Goes Again" and "What to Do" are stuck in my head pretty much constantly. Every time "Here it Goes Again" comes on in the car (it is track three on the CD), I get stuck there and put it on repeat about twelve million times. Hooray! Sometime (...tomorrow?) I will post YouTube links.

Just a quick entry to say that I spent the morning working in the kitchen (hot but peaceful), and the afternoon in my classroom (neither hot nor peaceful), went straight home after work for the first time in more than a week, and spent a mellow evening at home. I did the dishes, cleaned up a little, crocheted, watched very little TV, took a deep breath, and wrote 1100 words in my "AEFB warm-up" piece. It is, I am pretty sure, the first time I have worked on anything relating to AEFB since before I got sick (going on three or four weeks ago), and the first time I have written in over a week.

Surveying my month and trying to decide what to do with it. Don't know what's going on with Thanksgiving (and I really, really don't want to go; would rather stay home, make my own food, celebrate my dad's birthday, and go to Winterfair, but I think my mom wants me to go...), and want to go to various craft venues I discovered are happening this month.

I am a writer, which means that I like to tell stories. Long and complicated stories. With histories and subplots. This is the story of my seeing OK Go live last night, and as those first couple of sentences might imply, it is as long and detailed a story as I could make it. ( Click to read )

The past couple of days have been frustrating. As I told my co-teachers on Friday, I needed some serious retail therapy.

So yesterday my sister and I went shopping. We went to Urban Outfitters, where I was determined to find and buy a pair of turquoise T-strap skimmers. (I found them, tried them on, and determined them too painful. I was sad. They were beautiful shoes.) My sister had never been to Urban Outfitters, and she, having much more money than me, bought many beautiful things, including brown houndstoothy sneakers, brown houndstoothy mitt mittens, and a gorgeous soft yellow sweater. This sweater may be the sweater of dreams; it looked good even on me. And I am not a yellow person. (It was also expensive. I am thinking about going back and buying it. Sometime.)

I found some other beautiful things, but settled on something I've been looking for for ages: a red cardigan. I figured red cardigans would be more plentiful in the fall, but maybe it's a Christmas thing, because I've only seen pinks, neutrals, blues, and greens. I was looking for the right color (I am talking cherry-red, not brick-red or maroon or pinkish red), the right length (hits at my hip area, not my thigh area), and the right style (preferably V-necked, not scoop-necked). This one was perfect, and it looked perfect on me, the only problems with it being that it was more than I would have liked to pay and that it was thin and silky and hand-wash only.

I bought it anyway. It was perfect in every other way and my lust for a red cardigan was starting to get desperate. (In a month, they'll be everywhere...) It will look fabulous with everything I own.

We also went to Barnes and Noble, where I was looking for a book and a magazine and found neither. I was grumpy. We perused the books, mostly the children's and YA and bargain books, and I caught sight of one book with an interesting-looking cover. I am a huge fan of illustration, and lately books, YA books in particular, are using photographs on their covers instead of illustrations. So this book--I completely forget the title and author, I only remember that the title probably started with an M and maybe had something to do with a mirror and the author was a man, I think--had an illustrated cover, a black-and-silver tall tower thing and I reached out and read the blurb on the inside flap.

Most of a sentence later, I smacked the book closed and put it back on the shelf. The blurb said something about a young man tired of his dull life as a village weaver and I think it went on to say something about wanting to get out of his village for adventure.

People. I am so, so tired of this. First of all, I think being a weaver sounds way cooler than Standard Fantasy Adventures. Second of all, every damn fantasy is exactly the same: some teenager is bored with their life and runs off to have adventures. PLEASE. Can we do something different here?

(An Eye for Beauty is a YA novel about a young woman who is hired as a personal seamstress to a famous magician/professor. She does not have adventures. She is good at what she does and takes pride in her work. She is, basically, a servant, and she interacts with other servants, and they gossip, and they all hate the magicians and students (they work at a university for magicians). She does, however, have a family to take care of, and what I hope is one of the major points of the novel is what kinds of things she is willing to do to ensure that she continues to make money so that she can take care of her family.

I ranted to my sister in the car later that should AEFB ever get published, it won't do well and no one will even notice because it's not about some stupid kid running off to kill things and become a princess. (Actually, I think what I said to her was "...become a princess. Or marry a princess. Or both." Wouldn't that be a cool book?) Not so much that I mind the idea of a novel of mine not becoming a bestseller and me making a kajillion dollars--because how often does that happen, let's be real--but rather that this is the genre I love and WE NEED TO SHAKE IT UP, AUTHORS.)

Moving along from that.

I still have not finished the last ten pages of the second draft of AEFB, being lazy and afraid of it as I am, but I have been working (some, not as much as I should) on my research for it--typing up the things I've gotten from the books I have just now (I still need way more), so that I can return the books to the library and just have the notes to refer to on the computer. That's something I hope to work more on today.

Elyse and I also stopped at Mammoth's (I love that place so much. They don't offer a lot in the way of food, but it's a cool place regardless) and split a turkey club croissant sandwich and a yogurt. Delicious.

She and I and our dad went out to IKEA to look at their kitchens. I just...I don't know how to feel about that store. On the one hand, I like their designs and colors and prices. On the other hand, everyone else loves them too and the place is like a freaking mall and they sell practically everything but clothing there and I feel dirty for shopping there. Also, it's like a half-hour drive and it takes hours to get through the store, so every time I go there I get really tired and grumpy. Plus I specifically wanted to see this white metal side table with a magazine rack built in (I posted about it here), because I loved it and haven't been able to find it on their website or in their catalogue. I was going to take a picture of it, because I knew I wouldn't buy it ($50), and I just wanted a picture to remember it by, and to prove I wasn't crazy and making up tables. It wasn't there.

I hate that damn store.

Tonight I am going to see an OK Go show at Southgate House, which I am kind of excited and terrified about. Right now, I really need to get up, get dressed, and get some groceries (I have been awake for more than two hours and have only eaten breakfast), plus I think I will probably go to Sin City today, probably/possibly make some cookies, do the dishes, and work on my research.

Tuesday I was washing stools in the kitchen at work and bent over the sink and hit my head on the corner of a shelf on the wall. It hurt. Later, I looked in the mirror and saw that the spot was bleeding--a small cut, but painful nonetheless.

Yesterday morning I decided on the shirt I wanted to wear. It was a shirt that had to air-dry and spent too long piled with other air-drying clothes in my dad's basement and smelled mildewy, so once I got home I sprayed it (and other clothes) with Febreze and left it to air out a little on the drying rack. Yesterday morning I took the shirt off the drying rack and lifted it up to my face to smell it, and something (a tag, or a ribbon) flicked up and hit me in the eye. It stung like the dickens, and kept hurting for the rest of the day. Crying made it feel better, but I could not very well sit and cry my way through the workday. On my lunch break, I called my dad, who recommended I see a doctor rather than try to flush the eye with sterile water. I called the doctor and was told that I should be seen ASAP; they managed to squeeze me in later in the afternoon. I had to leave work and go to the doctor and then go back. My eye wasn't scratched or anything (probably just irritated by being hit), but I was prescribed antibiotic eye drops for a week and saline.

Notice: I am SO sick of prescriptions. By Christmas I think I should be done with all of them except my usual one. You know, unless another illness strikes or I injure myself again.

I was pretty miserable by the time I got home last night, for various reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, and put on The Simpsons season eleven audio commentaries and ate leftover Vietnam rice and then turned out all the lights and lay in bed with my eyes closed listening to audio commentaries. I felt a little better, and fell asleep after the disc was over. It was like ten thirty or eleven. Bright lights irritate my eye, so I spent most of today wearing my sunglasses, although by about three I felt well enough to take them off. Tonight I barely feel any irritation at all, which makes me happy, because yesterday I felt awful. And fairly well cursed.

(Medical problems so far this year: at least six separate joint pains over the summer, permanent arch support problem in left foot, pain in right foot that I don't think was the same problem, UC flare-up prolonged by my incompetence, flu, pneumonia, cut on head, and self-inflicted eye injury. All I need to do now is break something...)

I am really, really tired tonight. Due to various issues (recovering from illness, not feeling well, needing to take a break, Heroes), I haven't done anything in the way of cleaning up around the apartment since getting home a week ago tomorrow. I kept putting it off and putting off and tonight it really had to get done, so I took an hour and a half or so, listened my way through six podcasts, and washed the massive pile of dishes and put away the massive pile of laundry and sorted out some paper recycling and took out the garbage. And now I am exhausted.

The last time I wrote about my weekend plans, I got sick and all my plans were shot, so I shall not do that tonight. Let's just say I'm really looking forward to the weekend.

...I need to get back on track with writing but I am so tired I think I may just go to bed. And it's not even eleven yet. Also, my fellow toddler teachers had a rough day today, so I offered to make artichoke dip, which needs to be done in the morning, probably, and then baked at work.

Today sucked. It didn't seem so bad until the end, when I suffered from the kind of stress (stress of being around toddlers all day) that made me want to knock heads around or rip my eyes out. Then I went home, made a fried egg sandwich, and watched The Simpsons for the first time in like five days (I was going through some serious withdrawal there) and sulked and spent the rest of the evening reading and resting and writing.

I read about books--visited Tamora Pierce's blog for the first time in a little while, saw some book recs that look interesting, and read about some upcoming/new works of hers. I've mentioned before, I'm pretty sure, that I tend to have mixed feelings about her work, but generally, I like it, and also, I've made a point of collecting almost everything she's written, which pleases me, and I am always interested in new and different things she writes.

Last week I was bored a lot. Also, I had constant Internet, which I think made the boredom even worse. Plus I wasn't reading or writing anything. So in my browsing I happened by the SurLaLune Fairy Tales Blog, where I learned that there is going to be a Fables spin-off miniseries about Cinderella and also that Fables is still going. I may have had a spaz attack when I read this. (Did I know that it was still going? It's been months since I read volume twelve, but the plot I remember seemed...final.) I found volume thirteen at the library and there is still Jack of Fables, which I need to catch up on, and also apparently there's this novel, plus there is the James Jean Fables cover art book that I have been dying to see (and which, conveniently, is missing from the library...)

Yesterday, to my delight, volume thirteen of Fables came in for me at the library and I consumed it. It's so good. It made me want to run out and buy every single issue. I read about half last night and the rest this morning and then it was all I could think about all morning. Excellent, and sad.

Another thing that came in for me at the library was the graphic novel Skim, which I just read tonight and really enjoyed.

And when I was supremely bored on Sunday, and had just finished watching Firefly and was still in the mood for more, I started reading Serenity Found, which is the second volume of essays about Firefly. I like it. This volume has no crap and spastic essay about anthropologically incorrect woman-power.

Since coming home, I've been very bad about my habits and about finding the good habits again. I'm eating candy (and other junk food like biscuits) constantly at work, I'm not cleaning up around the apartment or doing the dishes, and I'm not writing. I'm trying to find my good habits again. (Though as I write this I am lying on my stomach on my bed, which is a very, very bad habit that I broke myself of. It's like I can only maintain two good habits at once.) I wrote tonight for the first time in what's probably been two and a half weeks--not in AEFB (which is what I should be working on, so close to finishing the second draft), but in something I started in March and rediscovered on my hard drive last night. I wanted to work on something different, something easier and with less of a commitment. 1700 words.

So I'm pretty much all better, except for a cough that gets worse when I talk (especially if I sing), and this itchy-lung feeling I get when I take deep breaths. The doctor said my chest x-ray looks much better than before. Now all I have to do is find my good habits again...

Thinking about books, comic books, writing (kind of spastically not-thinking about AEFB, because the next scene to work on is the romance scene, ugh), money, Christmas, Thanksgiving, work, and all the cleaning I have to do around the apartment. Yuck.

I am recovering, and it's not a good time. Friday was my first day back at work in two weeks, but it was also the first day in two weeks I'd gotten up and been active for more than, say, an hour, and also the first day in two weeks I went without a nap. It was a rough day, and by the end of it I was ready to die. My co-teacher kept asking me if I was okay. I can't really say that I was okay, but I was determined to get through that day, because if I went home from not feeling well it would mean that I was nowhere near okay.

After work on Friday, I went back to my dad's house and had a refreshing bowl of soup and watched TV with my sister, and finally worked up the energy to pack up most of my crap and go home, also for the first time in two weeks.

And being at home again is weird. Everything is how I left it--non-rinsed dishes piled up in sink, food getting down to rations, junk accumulating in piles in various places... Sigh. So now I'm alone all the time again, to make my own food and my own fun, nudging my computer around hopefully on my fake ottoman in hopes of catching the Internet signal. It is, as I said, weird, and I seem to get bored a lot.

Then there was Saturday. I didn't sleep well Friday night, and had a doctor's appointment Saturday morning which I had to wake up at 8:30 for. Zombie-like, I dragged through breakfast and getting dressed and then set out for the day, only to realize once I'd left that I'd left my rent-paying-forms at home. I went to the doctor (the UC doctor) and was amused by his fussing over me and my flumonia. He listened to my lungs and told me brightly that I would feel better soon. It was kind of hilarious.

Then to my dad's house, where he (my dad) said that he hadn't even eaten breakfast yet. I sighed, and went to get my laundry, but it was too heavy, so, frustrated and disappointed, I left about half of it at my dad’s house and took the rest home to drop off while I got my rent forms. (I am very frustrated by my lack of strength. Pissed, even.) Then to the bank to pay my rent, and a brief stop at my mom’s house, and then back to my dad's house.

From there, to the hospital, for my follow-up chest x-ray. The hospital said they had no fax regarding an x-ray. My dad called the doctor and got it faxed again, and then I got my x-ray. (It took much longer than last week's x-ray. I waited around a lot.)

By the time we got back to my dad's house, I was exhausted, but some soup (my dad made homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner a few nights ago, and it was DELICIOUS. The flavor was a smidge too salty, but otherwise perfect, and I think I had at least three bowls of it) gave me energy.

And then we went to Lowe's. My dad is planning to redo his kitchen (I was a little startled to hear this, and then he went on for a while about how he has no intention of selling his house and moving to Florida like some old person once he's retired; he intends to stay in this house and he A) wants it to look nice for when he retires and B) wants to work on it while he has a decent cash flow.) and he wants the opinions of my sister and I. I don't know how long we were at Lowe's, but it really took a big chunk out of my regained energy. I was already a bit worn out from what felt like running all over Campbell (and part of Kenton) County in the morning, and looking at refrigerators and cabinetry for another hour or two helped nothing.

And then I went home and watched TV for the rest of the day.

The main thing about my recovering is that I'm tired. A lot. I have not been taking any naps because I am afraid they will mess me up (I don't want to go back to work tomorrow with my body expecting a nap promptly at 3 PM), but I sure could use one. I'm watching (well, listening to) a lot of TV and poking around with various projects: crochet, AEFB research, house chores, a little reading.

The books I am reading are not engaging. That doesn't mean they aren't good, it just means that I don't feel like reading them most of the time. My work book is The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch, which has gotten good reviews and which I enjoy (just, again, it's not the kind of book where I'm like, "Ah, I can't wait to get back to reading that!", and also it's seven hundred pages long which makes me groan which I think means I've been reading young adult books for too long).

The other book is Diana Gabaldon's A Breath of Snow and Ashes, which I have had since 2005 and have not cracked due to A) it is a thousand pages long, literally, and B) the last time I read one of her Outlander books (discounting the Lord John books, which I enjoy), it nearly killed me. (It was The Fiery Cross.) I got the audio version of ABOSAA as well (well...the first twenty-four discs...) so I can make more progress by listening to it in the car on the way to work. And, in theory, around the house while doing chores, but I still have a lot of podcasts to get through.

A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Diana Gabaldon. Sigh. I like her writing, generally (the way she favors Jamie gets on my nerves eventually--does anyone in the series not worship him?), and I definitely admire the depth of research she's put into her work, but I just keep thinking, "Really, is all of this necessary?" I'm a hundred pages into the book (admittedly, a mere tenth of the novel) and I'm not sure what the plot is, or even the plot thread. I know that eventually it'll get into the American Revolution, and I'm seeing a few touches and threads of that, but mostly I see eighteenth century farmish domesticity. And while it's well written, it's not a story, it's a state of being.

Reading this book has also brought back memories of how I grew to feel for the characters while reading The Fiery Cross (and possibly Drums of Autumn, which I loved). I like Claire well enough, and always have, but, as I said, sometimes Jamie gets on my nerves. Brianna is definitely a toss-up for me; at best, I find her tolerable and non-offensive. I just hate her attitude; at her worst, she's the epitome of badly written redheads, all bossy and snitty. I love Roger without fail, but I can't quite forgive Jamie for his initial treatment of Roger, nor Gabaldon herself for doing that to Roger. (Just because it's good character development, but it basically crippled Roger, taking away something he valued and something that others could value in him in the eighteenth century. That's good character development, but what pisses me off is that nothing like this would EVER happen to Jamie. And I think it should sometime.) I loathe Stephen Bonnet instinctively. I like Ian. Most of the other characters (and there are a LOT of them) I am pretty blasé about.

So. Watching TV. Sometimes working on other things. Novel research is massive and time-consuming. I finally found my dad's copy of The Foxfire Book (and Foxfire 2 and Foxfire 3) and I think it is one of the coolest books to ever exist. I only wish there were chapters on clothing! Then I looked them up and discovered that they are up to Foxfire 12 now and one of the intervening nine books surely has something about clothing in it.

That’s my life. Being lazy and frustrated and bored and being too tired to do much of anything about it. I know it will get better (especially after a few days at work), but in the meantime, it leaves me feeling irritated and sorry for myself.

I'm pretty much better now, or well enough that I can function properly and go back to work. Yesterday the awful weak-lungs-feeling went away; I took today off work as well just to be sure, and I've felt fine all day. Except for being tremendously bored. I still have a pretty nasty cough (which my mom--who got this information from her sisters, who have both had pneumonia before, I think?--says could take months to shake, which I am thrilled about), and I'm kind of weak from spending the past two weeks on the couch, but I'm pretty much well.

And--as I mentioned--bored. I figure, when I'm well enough to spend all day at home and be completely bored, I'm well enough to go back to work.

I'm a little bummed because tomorrow is the Halloween party at work, and I'd wanted to dress up as Princess Leia--figuring I would be pretty easily recognized--but I never had the time or strength or energy to go out and buy supplies. Then the other day I was randomly browsing clothes online and found this blouse, which is really similar to the Cairo blouse Marion wears in Raiders of the Lost Ark (you can see a picture of the blouse--which she wears with red pants--at IMDB here). I'd wanted to be Marion originally but figured Leia would be easier and I'd be recognized more easily; once I saw that blouse, I thought I'd run out and buy it and maybe alter it a little and track down some red pants and be Marion... But the timing is just awful. I didn't really have the strength or inclination to go out and buy costume stuff today. And then I figured I'd go to my mom's house and get some stuff and dress up as a pirate... but then I didn't feel like driving over to her house. So I'm not wearing a costume tomorrow, since the only costume I have here is my black Hot Topic dress, which I do not want to wear at the center.

Again, I'm bummed. I was actually interested in Halloween this year, and the timing of my flumonia just nixed that idea.

Even more annoying is the fact that I was in the process of making plans to do things soon, and now I'm sapped of energy and money and I don't know if I'm going to follow up on any of my plans. :-p

So I'm still at my dad's house, and getting anxious to go home, but trying to find the time/energy/whatever. No plans for Halloween, vague plans for other things (my dad is planning to remodel his kitchen and I seem to have gotten dragged into the planning process), and work tomorrow is going to be challenging and interesting.

I haven't been reading or writing, either.

I'm tired of coughing, and tired of being on the couch. I'm ready to be well again, and glad to be breathing relatively well again.

I have a freak-out in the morning, caught by a nasty coughing fit a few minutes after I wake up, and struggle for nearly an hour afterwards to catch my breath. My parents decide that leaving me home alone is not a good idea, since the problem here is my ability to breathe. So my mom comes to stay with me for a little while, until she has to leave, and then my dad comes. Also, my mom calls the doctor for me--I thought she was going to ask them when I could go back to work, but apparently instead she told then I was having breathing problems and they wanted to see me again.

I nap for a while, then go to the doctor. I am so sick of going to the doctor. The doctor notes that while I don't seem to be doing any worse, I'm obviously not getting better. I get an inhaler.

I go home and my wonderful mother brings me magazines: Lucky, Bust, and Ready-Made. I am determined to read them all thoroughly.

Nap again, and more medicine.

My lungs feel tired and over-used and the coughing is rough. I'm off work tomorrow, but if there's no improvement tomorrow/Thursday, I'm going to be hospitalized.

Really, I just want to be able to breathe again.

Here is a timeline for you:

Saturday: I hang around the house, watching TV and reading comic books and resting and waiting hopefully for my temperature to go down.

Sunday: Feeling miserable, I pack a small overnight bag and take it and all my laundry to my dad's house for rest and laundry.

Monday: I stay home from work. My dad and sister take care of me, being on fall break. I go to the doctor and they say I have the flu. They give me medicine. I feel okay for most of the day, until towards the end of Heroes, when I start feeling tired. I crawl into bed and go through this cycle for a few hours: sleep, wake, vomit, call for drinks, sleep... When juice makes me sick, I finally just request glasses of ice, terrified of getting dehydrated.

Tuesday: Lying on the couch in the morning, I take my temperature and realize it's 104 degrees. My dad calls the doctor and...the rest of the day is pretty much gone. I slept pretty much the whole day.

Wednesday: Better, but not great. My dad and sister have to go back to school, and my mom visits me.

Thursday: Still better, and I start eating food on a regular basis. In fact, I feel great until about the time my sister gets home, when I start feeling miserable again--tired, mostly.

Friday: I don't remember. Not a great day, though.

Saturday: In the morning, I cough up what appears to be blood. In the afternoon, I go to the doctor (it's weird on the weekend--quiet). I get more antibiotics and more cough syrup, and the doctor has me go to the hospital to get my chest X-rayed, just to be sure. I go home afterwards, hungry and tired, and stay awake the rest of the night, eating and resting. I feel great!

Sunday: I feel awful. I sleep on the couch until like 1:00 pm, being unable to keep my eyes open otherwise. I eat food. Mostly, though, I lay on the couch feeling like crap, reading Archaeology magazines (my dad misinterpreted my request for mac & cheese as one for magazines; I told him I would like some but I wanted girl magazines; then I started reading the Archaeology magazine he gave me and it was interesting, so I read two more after that), and occasionally coughing up blood. I go to bed promptly at eleven.

Monday: I sleep well, only waking up once in the night! I don't feel like going back to work, but I do it anyway--make my own breakfast, shower, and everything. I get there at 9:30, and I feel weak and unpleasant, but I stay anyway, figuring I'll just get as far as I can. Sitting is nice, and a lot of kids are missing. I figure it won't be too bad. Then while I'm sitting on the playground, my dad calls and leaves a message for me to call him. Annoyed and concerned, I go inside and call him back. Surprise! I have pneumonia! They make me go home. I spend the rest of the day watching The Simpsons and resting. I like resting.

However, I'm getting bored. I should have asked my mom to bring me the AEFB manuscript. And I really want some magazines; I was even planning on buying some before the flu struck.

So that's my fabulous week of horrible illness. My lungs feel weird and I am anxious to get back to work. Also, we have had nothing but perfect, gorgeous fall weather, and I'm missing it--no walks in the park, no comfy skirts-and-leggings, no throwing footballs for children on the playground. Yuck.

I am sick. Actually, right now I'm on the mend--yesterday was the roughest day (fever of 104 in the morning, followed by so much sleep that I pretty much lost the whole day), but I've been out of work all week. It's the flu. No one said anything about swine flu, but my mom thinks that's what it was, because it's so common and the cases seen lately are mild. (I wasn't tested. The doctor was like, "Okay, so, I could test you, but there's a 30% failure something, so even if the test fails, I'm still going to treat you for the flu because that's what it looks like you have. Do you want the test or do you just want the medicine?" Me: "MEDICINE.")

So I've been at my dad's house feeling miserably and getting progressively more disgusting as the week goes on, but today was a good day. I'm eating actual food again (as opposed to toast and crackers), drinking more liquids, and am able to get up and move around the house. And I think tonight I'm going to take a much-needed shower.

I don't remember if I've ever had the flu before (probably I have), but man, this has been ROUGH.

Now that I've moved out of the sleeping-all-the-time phase, I'm into the bored-all-the-time phase. :-p Tomorrow I think I'll start back in my laundry and other work.

In other news, I have decided that I want to be Princess Leia for Halloween. Out of all the Halloween options I could think of (aviator! Marion Ravenwood! something else involving 1930s clothing! pirate chick! something cobbled together from costume stash! Kaylee!), this is A) the easiest and B) the most recognizable. However, this involves buying materials and then sewing them. We will see how this goes. If it doesn't work out, I may just wear a pirate outfit to work. I don't think making the costume would be hard, because I have no intention of making it accurate (and anyway, it's basically a robe); the hardest part would be obtaining and then styling the hair. Because I kind of fail at hair.

If I had my way, I'd be one of these for Halloween: one, two, three (Silk Spectre I, not II), four, plus I just randomly decided that this looks really comfy--like a midriff-baring sweatsuit with a cape built in!

But anyway. Sunday and Monday I was really pissy because all my plans for the weekend were ruined by being sick; then Monday night I tanked and now I'm just anxious to get better again. I'm getting there; I'm anticipating being back at work next Monday. In the meantime: ugh.

I am pleased. Work was crazy-busy but tonight my leftover shrimp tasted better than it did last night, I did the dishes, I listened to some podcasts, I finished crocheting a random experimental scarf, and just now I finished the biggest and most difficult scene to rewrite in AEFB. I don't know if it's any good or not, but the foundation is there for me to build on later if necessary. I'm only about eight pages from the end, and once that's done ("that" here referring to making minor changes in the draft, mostly eliminating words like "sort of" and "rather" and "quite" that come naturally while I'm working but drive me crazy afterwards), I'm going to go back and write some other new scenes that need to be put in. Hooray!

Also, tomorrow looks to be a relatively mellow day. Knock on wood. We've had a lot of kids around lately, and I miss the mellow summer Fridays of having three or five kids in our class, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers.

...sometimes I wish I had kids because right now it seems like the whole world is full of beautiful things for children, and obviously to buy them without having children would make me crazy. Example: I love these log pillows.

I am, as usual, excited for the weekend. Among the things I plan to do are:

-Laundry
-Probably/almost definitely do the Newport Gangster Walking Tour (I have decided that I must do this, while I have the chance, despite the money issue; I am now only concerned about this gross rainy weather--really, WTF, fall?)
-Visit Sin City Antique Gallery (.......again)
-Go to Barnes & Noble, for magazines
-Go to the post office, for stamps
-Possibly go out Saturday night with girls from work--there were vague plans to do this and then I haven't heard anything about it in like a week
-Finish up the last eight manuscript pages of AEFB and then start writing me some scenes

And I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but whatever.

Last night was another bad night, sleepwise--about 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Again. And this time I did not sleep in my car on my lunch break. So I'm hoping I'll sleep better tonight, like I did Tuesday night, but I would really like to just sleep for a full seven hours every night regardless. Gross.

Let's start things off here with a quote by Carolyn Wilson, who portrays Betty Randolph at Colonial Williamsburg:

A woman in the 18th century [...] is one who is accepting of her role. She's given certain parameters and her duty is to be the very best of what she can in that role.

I feel like this phrase applies to most of history and women--women had their place and they were expected to stay in that place. Which is why I get extremely pissy and annoyed with historical fiction, historical fantasy, or pseudo-historical fiction writing all these strong and spunky women who bitch and moan about not being allowed to go hunting or having to wear corsets. This is history. It is the way things really were. What might be more interesting than trying to write a 20th/21st century woman in somewhere between the 15th and 19th centuries is exploring in what ways women were strong while still remaining in their parameters in the 15th through 19th centuries. Or any other century, for that matter.

(Brought to you by Books I Have Been Reading Lately: The Serpent's Shadow, by Mercedes Lackey, which I put down nearly halfway through when I realized I could not care less about any of the characters and it had a smidge of that annoying quality I mentioned above--though it got away with it more, due to it being Edwardian and nearing women's rights--and also Out of Avalon, which is an Arthurian anthology I've had for ages and ages, whose stories I like in varying degrees (I really like the creative and interesting ones as opposed to the random blah Celtic historical ones), but one story in particular about a girl griping because she wanted to go looking for the Holy Grail and was not allowed to because it was a job for men in general and knights in particular and ugh sewing and how did she get to be a lady-in-waiting (something?) of the queen again?)

More things:

The lemon shrimp I made today, and carefully prepared, was not great. There was a weird aftertaste (too much thyme? marinaded for too long?), and the shrimp was a little dry, which I suppose happens when you grill. I am disappointed but thoughtful.

I want a boyfriend cardigan in red. I have pretty much decided that red is my favorite color (after more than a decade of purple or green), and that I need more red clothing, and more stuff in red in general, and everywhere I look, there are boyfriend cardigans in white, brown, blue, green, pink... but no red. Maybe Christmas will bring some?

Via Neil Gaiman: 5 Comic Book Halloween Costumes That Won't Objectify Women</em>.

Via Smart Bitches, Trashy Books: The War on Critical Thinking and Evolving Social Mores--a response to what sounds like a nasty article (I bookmarked but haven't read) about how subject matter (i.e. romance) in science fiction is driving men away from the genre and hence is reducing the number of scientists--male scientists--in the world.

I haven't posted links to Design*Sponge sneak peeks for a while because I had a stockpile bookmarked and then the computer started crapping out on me, so...yeah. But I definitely love design, and I like sharing links to things I think are pretty, so: one, two, three, four, five.

I have been saving tin cans with the vague intention of using them as planters or to make some candles out of them, and was thinking that I needed a big can, but wondering how to get one since I don't drink coffee. My dad does, but not out of a can; he buys it ground in a bag. I think. I was just wondering this last night, and then this morning at work I was doing the dishes and happened to notice two giant empty cans of corn in the garbage can. I stole one and rinsed it out and then took it back to my room, where the other two teachers looked at me like a crazy person. (Then I forgot and left it at work.)

I haven't worked on the manuscript in two days, and every time I stop working on it, it feels harder to get back into it. Plus I'm into the good parts now. I kind of took the evening off, deciding I really wanted to just unwind a little (mostly with the computer, and a little bit with book Graceling, which I will write more about when I finish it), especially after a stray comment at work that made me feel grumpy and guilty and after my semi-successful dinner, but I really need to get back to work on this.

People, the Prednisone is kicking in (...again). Tired, I went to bed before midnight last night, only to be fully awake again by 3 AM (somewhere between 2:30 and 3), and to not fall back asleep again until something like 6 AM. And then my first alarm went off at 7:20 AM. Three or four hours of sleep = NO.

Now it's a struggle to keep my eyes open, and it's not even ten yet. I blew off a lot of stuff last night because Heroes was on, and then was grumpy with myself about it later. So even though I'm still going to blow stuff off a little tonight, there are some things that I must get done. I might even work on the manuscript for a page or two.

Thinking about costumes lately, and Halloween, and jobs, and tonight I am going to make the marinade for this shrimp, which I am going to cook (pan-fry, not grill) tomorrow. Hooray!

Yesterday's leftover lentil soup was a success--I ate it with crackers and it was delicious. I've kind of been failing at food otherwise this weekend, though...Ramen noodles, a hot dog, lots of eggs, and a complete failure at fixing that gross ravioli from last weekend.

A lovely day. It was some kind of "Second Sunday" health and fitness festival on Monmouth Street, which I walked to with my mom and sister. We watched bellydancing and I tried spinning (I love spinning), and met some of my mom's biking friends. It was a perfect and sunny day, and I enjoyed watching all the different fitnesses and walking around outdoors. There was roasted corn that smelled delicious, and my sister bought fudge from Mammoth's. Also, we discovered the existence of a Newport Gangster Museum--I MUST GO. (I'm already seriously considering spending some of my precious RenFest money on the Gangster Walking Tour, because it only lasts through October and it is like my dream come true--a historical walking tour of my own city! Later I discovered the existence of a HAUNTED NEWPORT TOUR, but it is, sadly, booked through the rest of the month.)

While my mom was shopping for discount bike clothes, my sister and I went to Sin City, which is one of my favorite places ever. There are always so many beautiful things, and today was no exception--a collapsible top hat, one of those sewing boxes on legs ($25!), a beautiful folding table with green metal foilage legs ($30), an awesome metal milk carrier thingie ($30; I'd put wine or pop or something in it and put it on top of my fridge), and two things I've admired since I started going there: a set of black folding trays for $45, and a box of printing tiles (it used to be $60--now it's $25!). It was all so lovely, and if it weren't for the upcoming RenFest, which I won't even have much money for anyway (I'll have to wait at least another year before getting a cloak, sigh), I would have bought things.

I also went to the yarn shop and pretty much drooled on everything. I learned about the knitting classes they have there and the lady was very nice and helpful, and I just love seeing the long twists of yarn hanging on their hooks. They were all so beautiful and soft (and expensive), SO much nicer than what I buy at Hancock's! LOVE IT.

Also: I worked a lot on AEFB yesterday. A lot. Some of it was research, plus I worked through around ten pages of the manuscript, plus wrote about 1100 words. It was good.

I've been sitting here for way too long and now it is time to do the dishes, yuck.

Bored, and hungry. I'm out of bread, fruit, and veggies, and running low on cheese, with some stuff in the freezer (shrimp, pork, chicken, bacon) that would require cooking, or requires something to go with it. I also have some Ramen noodles and misc. pasta in the pantry, plus in the fridge some leftover lentil soup (wasn't nearly as good as the first time I made it, and that will probably be my lunch, maybe with some crackers) and some kind of ravioli my mom gave me that was gross and which I will try again tomorrow, after grocery shopping, with garlic and mozzarella.

Seriously. I can't even make a grilled cheese. I can't even make toast. I am very displeased. (I could make a quesadilla, but I made one on Monday. It was a really good quesadilla; I treated both sides with peanut oil and stuck it in the oven because I had a class on Monday and was too tired/lazy to fry it and sometimes I like to bake them instead. It was perfect.)

Some links to interesting things:

I love this vintage jacket.

Interesting note/article about a German-based women's magazine no longer using models in their magazine.

An art show that pays tribute to The Iron Giant. I nearly started hyperventilating when I came across this. There doesn't seem to be a lot there, but I like what I see!

Are those random lightweight scarves too "fashiony"? I've always kind of thought they were, since I have several scarves and a pashmina already, and I'm not into fashion scarves, really, but this talks about how to make your own lightweight scarf. Figures, I hate something until I learn how to make it myself...

I also love this poster an illustrator did for a Decemberists concert.

Another note: Queen of Fashion, by Caroline Weber, is a really interesting book. See here. I picked it up for research for AEFB, but it's really interesting outside of that, and also, there's not a lot of material in there I can use for AEFB. One of the books's themes is how big an influence fashion had on the downfall of Marie Antoinette the eventual revolution, which I think it interesting.

All right. Going to go and try the soup; maybe more pepper will make it better. Dinner--who knows? If only I could find that recipe for lemon grilled shrimp... (Also, I really want to try making an herb tart. Do you suppose that's more of a springtime dish or a fall dish?)

I am so glad it's the weekend, and I've spent my evening watching TV and looking at artwork online. Not the best use of my time, but looking at artwork I like inspires me and makes me want to improve. Also, Dollhouse was unexpectedly awesome (after the enthralling season finale, the second season opener was meh, with periodic bursts of interestingness, the second episode was meh all around, and this one--the third--was awesome in many ways, including serial killers, English literature, and Michael Hogah. You can never go wrong with Michael Hogan)!

I just need to kick my not-working-on-the-manuscript-on-weekends habit...

This is the main thing I wanted to report tonight: it is that my mom's missing cat Fox came home for good yesterday. The story is cute, I think--my mom thought she'd try leaving the yard gate open so that he could come into the backyard if he wanted to, and within a few minutes of opening it, she heard him crying at the back door. When she opened the door, he ran off to hide (in one of his usual hiding places in the yard), but she called to him. He looked back, and when he saw her, and the open door, he came right in. Which is good, because it rained hard for a lot of the afternoon yesterday. My mom reported last night when I went to see him that he hasn't been skittish or weird at all--he seems happy to be home, and cuddly. I came to the same verdict in the mere fifteen minutes I was there last night. Hooray!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my weekend; I have vague plans to go to a health and fitness festival on Sunday, and I keep thinking that I should work on AEFB for some big chunk of time during the day tomorrow, but I don't know. Also I'd wanted to go to Sawyer Point sometime soon, but if it rains tomorrow and I'm busy Sunday...

More tomorrow. I think I will try reading for a while (Graceling, by Kristen Cashore. Not bad, but reading it right after Shannon Hale makes it seem...not as good as I'd like. Or maybe the book of Arthurian short stories I pulled off my shelf a couple of days ago.) before going to sleep.

A strange day. It has been one week since my mother lost her job (fired) and her cat (missing), and ten years since my niece Rowan was born, and today the air was cold but the sun was bright, making for good outdoors weather, if only I wasn't only wearing my Target boyfriend cardigan over my Pitaya sleeveless gray tunic.

I do not like to think of the day that Rowan was born, which I remember in weird, vivid, broken pieces--Kenny had coupons for that steakhouse in the Newport Shopping Center area, so we walked there (he liked walking to the Newport Shopping Center) and I ate too much and while walking home, in the area that's now been bulldozed down to build a Target and a Kroger's Marketplace, I had to stop and sit in a driveway while waiting for my stomach to settle. We got back to my mom's house, her old apartment, and I stood in the doorway of her bedroom and she told me that Rowan had been born, and that she was a girl, and that her name was Rowan (they knew she was a girl, but I wanted to be sure, because there are such things as mistakes, and if she'd been born a boy, her name would have been Jack, a name which I like, but which my dad didn't), and that Val had been diagnosed with leukemia. After that is when it gets weird and broken--I remember nothing else of the day, except for one little piece of a scene, lying on the couch (the green futon), watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and crying to myself. I think Kenny was there with me, but I don't remember why we were watching Buffy or why I was just crying by myself. Because I was awkward and fifteen, maybe?

That is not a pleasant memory. But I am glad to celebrate the fact that Rowan, my only niece and a bright, funny, creative, playful girl I can't wait to share things with, has turned ten. (My gifts to her were Prismacolor pencils--too expensive for me to afford myself, though I've heard they are excellent pencils and I could use some colored pencils--and the Lemony Snicket books The Beatrice Letters--one of my favorite books in all the world--and The Unauthorized Autobiography, since Rob said she's just finished listening to the entire Series of Unfortunate Events, books that I love, audiobooks that I love, and that I have been recommending to her for ages and ages. I am so thrilled, and strangely proud, that she's read them and loved them.)

A good night last night, shaking off this like crippling melancholy I've had lately. I did the dishes and then sat down at my desk and worked for an hour, writing notes and working my way through tenish pages (I didn't count, only took note of how far it was until the part I wanted to get to--still ten pages). I felt good last night, and I felt good when I woke up this morning. I slept with the curtains closed but the windows open, because the apartment has started to smell a little lately and I wanted to air it out without getting cold, and at some point during the windy night, I heard for the first time my little wind-chimes, which I bought at the Broad Ripple Art Fair with Caroline, made of forks and spoons and hanging crookedly by my window getting tarnished in hopes of catching a breeze. They didn't jingle much, but I heard them in the night, and was happy. I didn't go back to sleep after my first alarm went off, but lay snuggled in bed, half-awake, thinking, and read the latest Shannon Hale, Forest Born, over breakfast, and liked it.

And a good day today--cold, and hectic, but somehow I was outside of the hecticness. I was happy, somewhat cheerful. I was glad to sit on the floor this afternoon and talk to and play with my children, holding them on my lap and encouraging them to play with cars the right way (on the floor, going vroom, vroom, beep, beep) instead of rolling them off the sides of the shelves. And we listened to a Halloween CD today that I liked, one that had "Monster Mash" and "Witch Doctor" and "It's My Party" and "Little Red Riding Hood" on it and was fun to rock to. Three kids had accidents today, and one of the toilets clogged and overflowed and my co-teacher was irritated throughout the day, but I was mellow. I rolled with it. Maybe I was powered by the thrall of a good book, by Shannon Hale's beautiful and enviable words, so easy to read and compelling.

(I like reading Shannon Hale. Most of the time. I read five of her then-six books mostly in the space of a week or so in February of 2008, and when I think of reading Shannon Hale books, I think of being curled up in bed with a plate of muffins and reading happily, reading things that are good and that I like reading, things that feel fresh and funny and interesting, and are comfortable to read on cold days.)

I came home and made spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread (we had spaghetti and meatballs for lunch at work today, and I remembered that I still had a serving's worth of meatballs in the freezer), and they were delicious. The garlic bread, not as much, because it tastes best the way my sister makes it, with seasoning salt and garlic, and also I had to make it on an Arnold's bun or else go without a sandwich one day this week, but it was still pretty good.

And then I settled in to finish reading Forest Born (I picked it up from the library last night. The spacing is a little funky, a lot of white space around the edges, I think, but it's four hundred pages long. A little less.), plowing right on through it and thinking about how I could use beautiful words in my writing, and how for me beautiful words are, like, a state of mind, or a conscious effort--I put things down as I see them, or feel them, and then leave them there, and they are obvious, indelicate, lacking even the basic grace of Stephen King's (who does not really use beautiful words, if you understand what I'm saying here).

And then came the little patch of melancholy for the evening--realizing that Forest Born is very much like AEFB and possibly--probably--better. Awkward. And then my mom texting me to say that they'd followed up on a call about missing Fox, and gone to see a lady on 10th St. and then the cat wasn't Fox, didn't have the weird black spots on his nose that Elyse and I are pretty sure are from letting him sniff the business end of permanent markers, and he had his claws. And then I felt sad for my mom, for feeling hopeful and then the cat not being Fox, but still being a stray which they couldn't take home.

I finished Forest Born, a bit into my writing time. (I have decided to write this instead of AEFB, though I am definitely going to put in some real AEFB time before going to bed, because putting good effort into it makes me feel good about myself.) I liked it well enough, but not as much as the others, and it felt younger than the others. (I did like that it had zero romance in it, even less than Princess Academy. I love romance, but it is everywhere, and I figure we can do with a shot less of romance every now and then.) I got on the computer and caught the Internet signal and got on here with the intention of writing about my excellent mellow day followed by the patch of melancholy...

And then while I was writing this my sister texted me and said they'd seen Fox on the porch, and I called right away and she said he'd come up on the porch and was eating the food there and was still skittish so ran off--but he's alive, and he came to us.

And now I feel happy again, and hopeful.

Weird and boring day. I went to the park (this would be Devou) today, in a thrift-store dress, a homemade headscarf, RenFest shoes, and Target leggings. I ate a muffin and an apple and sat on one of their many stone benches flipping through The Goose Girl and occasionally taking notes. I walked around a lot, across green hills and on the paved paths, and thought about AEFB and other things. I took pictures. I enjoyed the sunshine. Originally I thought I'd just go and chill on the hill overlooking the city (best view of Cincinnati anywhere, except maybe from the window of the Barnes & Noble Starbucks at the Levee), but in the end, I couldn't resist the outdoors, the weird trees and the hints of paths hiding around corners. I was there for somewhere around two hours, and walked for most of that time, but also sat on benches reading and taking notes and drawing.

I have decided I need to go to the park more often, especially in this excellent weather. (I also want to visit Sawyer Point again. I LOVE Sawyer Point. Maybe sometime I will take my rollerblades there...)

Ended up being weirdly bored today. I read, I cleaned a little, I watched The Fall, and now I am bored again. :-/ (I could read more, but I've read more than a hundred pages today and I'm a little tired of it, and I am trying really hard not to idly watch TV today. The book I'm reading is Guenevere: Queen of the Summer Country, which I've had since my Arthurian obsession but have never read. It's an interesting interpretation, not boring, at least, but not really my favorite. Unfortunately, no matter what spin you put on them, Arthurian books tend to be pretty predictable, with the exception of a few big ones...)

A few weeks ago at work I wrote out a little page of notes for AEFB. Then I lost the notes. For at least a week I've been all anxious about it, thinking that this paper holds the secrets to AEFB and I wrote down the secrets so I wouldn't forget them, and then I LOST it. Today I found the paper--there are no secrets, alas. It is much less helpful than I remember it being.

(I wrote the last two paragraphs of this and then posted it and then the Internet crapped out on me and here we are half an hour later with the last two paragraphs GONE, sigh.)

I haven't been working on AEFB much the past few days, not actual revisions. Thinking, researching (not nearly as much as I should be), sometimes picking at little extra scenes that will get inserted in later (today: 2000 words), and very occasionally revising a few pages (which is what I should be doing now and not playing on the Internet...). I am at the point where I am convinced that the book is awful and I am awful for writing. I'm pretty sure this happens to everyone. (See this. I think I am on "The Revision, Month Two", even though in reality it's been much, much longer than two months, because writing is not my job and hence I don't work on it as constantly as I should.) I just want to get it to a semi-finished point and go from there. My words are not pretty at all and I am pretty sure the plot kind of revolves around my man, who is then part of the romance, which makes me suck.

And on that happy note--back to work!

It's Sunday morning, and I have a lot of work to do.

I didn't do much yesterday (looked for Fox, and watched TV and did a lot of sketching--a few pages in my "show sketchbook" (as I'm starting to think of it) in charcoal, and twoish pages in pencil in my normal sketchbook), and my apartment is trashed. Dishes need to be done, laundry needs to be put in the hamper, cleanish clothes need to be put away. I haven't even made breakfast yet--don't particularly feel like cooking breakfast, plus I'm out of toast, so I have to cook breakfast. (I really want some waffles. Stupid Heroes.)

I have really been wanting to do more creating--sewing, drawing, writing. I don't have a sewing project I particularly feel like working on, but I need to do reference drawings (haven't done any in ages) as well with keep up with normal drawings. If I stop drawing, my skills will degenerate, and I think they've already started to.

Plus there is AEFB--I am not yet halfway through the manuscript, I haven't been working on it every night, plus I have extra scenes to write and historical-type research to do plus have been intending to do a careful and gentle study on some books I love to get a feel for the language and style.

And there's a writingish project I was planning to start on, and another project I should be working on, plus I need to get groceries and go to the library today.

...I haven't been very happy the past few weeks. I think today will be a good day and I will get lots of things done and still have time to watch season two of Heroes. Also: things will get better.