my heart is a glorious machine;

Heavens, it's been nearly a week since last I posted! For shame! But really, I've been rather shockingly busy, in, yes, the offline world, what with writing a Hire Me letter and composing my first proper resume ever (it's very short and not terribly impressive, but the fonts are lovely!) for the job at the local paper, and then accidentally spending the night at the Meholicks', which has become such a tradition -- with the Nielsons, too, when they still lived here -- that I really ought to put together an emergency survival kit consisting largely of pyjamas and spare underthings and leave it in a convenient corner. You see, burningstarsxe was coming home from three months in Maine, and when she arrived at last, there was such a riot of conversation and general jubileeing that I kept not leaving, and then it was eleven thirty at night... The next day was Friday, which was also Season Premiere of Dollhouse Day, so Sarah and Hannah came back in the evening, and we had a drawer of inappropriate starches (a real drawer, too), only someone neglected to tell me that none of the normal channels work anymore. We have bloomin' satellite, so this really oughtn't be a problem, but apparently it is. So here we are, panicking, staring at the grey screen, frantically eating cookies and squeaking... oh, it was dreadful. Eventually we gave up, took the drawer upstairs, and cosied up on my bed to show Hannah the Supernatural pilot, while I refreshed downloady sites to no avail. (A link finally surfaced about ten minutes after their father collected them, of course.)

Saturday was spent at Hershey Park, to which we acquired free passes from buying certain products at Martin's. Dad took Heidi and Timmy and I in the shiny new car, while Mum stayed home with Leandra (who would be no fun at an amusement park, as she would climb everything and be impossible to keep track of and she'd probably try to jump into a roller coaster or kidnap a duck or something). Ah, new car, how marvellously you glide along! And how exquisite it is finally to listen to CDs in the car again, instead of ancient tapes! (Okay, that often meant that we listened to a lot of Steeleye Span, but after two years it begins to be tiring when road trip music always consists solely of the surviving remnants of what Dad listened to twenty-five years ago. A lot of it is modern jazz, which I'm not especially keen on, and even Dad isn't that interested in anymore, and some of the singer-songwriter stuff is too eightiesified, and there isn't any of Dad's awesome psych folk stuff from the seventies besides Steeleye Span.)

Anyway, I'm not the largest fan of amusement parks in general, especially when I think about them too much ("this would be a really rubbish way to die, in the service of something so frivolous", I occasionally think on roller coasters or even swing rides, where a line might suddenly break; and then I think about how ridiculously much money goes into building these town-sized clusters of sheer entertainment, when people are, well, yes, starving in India and being murdered in the Sudan, and I am well aware that this sort of thing makes me the epicest of wet blankets), but I enjoyed myself rather -- they had an excellent carousel that actually went around quite fast, and tearing down an old wooden roller coaster is fantastic, and those spinning swing rides I adore because they're exhilarating and relaxing at the same time. Also there's something peculiarly sordid and fascinating about amusement parks and fairgrounds and circuses, something I can't quite put my finger on -- something about the colours and the sticky-sweet smell and the odd music and the mechanisms and the peculiar names of things and the way so many things seem strangely frozen in time. I do so want to put Mr Caruthers and Evy onto a carousel or something. (I have also always wanted an old carousel horse, a real one, on a golden pole, to keep in my bedroom and try to know the stories of it.)

And then it began to rain. Bah. It was cold and wet and we braved it for several hours, but then they started closing the roller coasters because they weren't safe anymore, and the rain wasn't letting up at all, and we were soaked and shivering and finally toured the Hershey not-factory -- mostly it was an array of Yay Capitalism Buy Our Overpriced Stuff, but it was very interesting to learn all of the different processes involved in making a simple chocolate bar, and when we finally wrenched the siblings away from the piles and piles of obscenely expensive mass-produced chocolates we decided to just go home. Ah, warm car warm car warm car.

Sunday I woke to rain, and when one is under the covers and indoors, grey rainy wet days are cosy and wonderful. Alack, I had to get up for church, and was rather cross, but at least it was chilly enough that I could wear my little black and grey double-buttoned schoolmistress dress, and people left quickly, and at home again there was magnificent chili for dinner, the first of the season, and then I ran off to finally watch Dollhouse with Sarah and Hannah at their house, and there was much conversation, merry and thinky and both, and I do so like people (and having Sarah back). Also Mr Joss Whedon is rather a meany-pants, but I expect you knew that. (Also JAMIE BAMBER IN HIS REAL ACCENT IS SO GORGEOUS AND WIBBLE-INDUCING AND ALSO CONFUSING. WHY DID YOU HIDE THIS BEAUTIFUL ACCENT FROM ME FOR SO MANY SEASONS OF BSG, MR BAMBER? WHY? THIS IS CRIMINAL. And, oh yes, there was also Alexis Denisof with his real accent, which is, alas, American, but his voice is still quite splendid and I am afraid that Sarah and Hannah and I could not possibly be prevailed upon to tell you a word of what he said in his little speech, as we simpered like very silly girls all the way through it.) 

Today, there was leftover chili and rain and coffee and a little autumn-coloured cat in the morning, and a library run in my new favourite purple sweater and my elegant pashmina scarf flowing around me in the brisk belligerent wind, and I am really quite enjoying it all. Except for these silly advertisements all over my LJ and being reduced to fifteen usericons. Pah!

Reading sarahtales' fantastic essay Ladies Please (Carry On Being Awesome) and writing the Novel at nearly the same time has birthed a lot of swarming thinky thoughts. For one thing, yesyesyesyesyes, and a large side helping of "huh?" because, you know, I read these fictional girls who apparently have friends only so they can complain about them and compete with them and/or talk about Boys with them, and I guess those people exist (I started running into them a lot more in later youth groups) but that is so not the world I grew up in. Okay, the world I grew up in also didn't have schmaltzy Christmas music, kids embarrassed by their parents for no reason other than that they are Grown-Ups, people who don't like books, or public school, so non-fantasy YA fiction frequently depresses, irritates, or confuses me. But still. If I could exist, at least temporarily, in a world where being female is not some kind of contest, fictional characters can do this, too!

And awesomeness comes in many different flavours! Female characters do not have to have big weapons and fight everything to be awesome. Though they totally can. (C.f. Zoe Washburne, Kara Thrace, Sarah Walker, Buffy bleeding Summers.) I love that Fred Burkle gets to fight evil with Science, and Willow Rosenberg gets to fight evil with computers and magic, and Kaylee Frye gets to fight evil by being a mechanic (and with optimism!), and Hermione Granger gets to fight evil by being clever and a know-it-all, and Martha Jones gets to fight evil by telling stories*. I love that Lydia Asher gets to be a medical scientist at the turn of the century, but she's vain about her glasses and she likes pretty clothes and she's happily married, and she bloody travels across the world with a vampire and plunges into complicated spy politics to save her husband. I love that Meg Murry gets to fight evil by loving her brother. I love that Emily Starr and Anna Grazinsky and Cassandra Mortmain and Anne Steele and Molly Weasley and Jo March and Joyce Summers and Arwen don't even have to save the world to be awesome.

* Note: I still don't like that episode, or Tenkerbelle, but Martha walking the world and telling stories? Completely fantastic anyway.

Thinking about my own story in this context pleases me, because while I didn't set out to write Awesome Mutli-Faceted Female Characters, I am pleasantly surprised at how everyone turned out, and it's fun to play with them in that respect. Evangeline, the contentedly introverted but friendly older sister, is the one who gets to fight vampires; Camilla, the bossy, loyal, loving mother-of-the-family middle sister is, personality-wise, the more stereotypically ass-kicking one, but she gets to be awesome by being supportive and keeping the family together and making everyone food and knocking sense into them. Briony mostly gets to be awesome by growing up and being loving and optimistic at this point, but I really want her to do some amazing stuff in the second book that I am pretty much resigned to writing now. Lottie gets to be, well, crazy, alas, and I don't actually know how that's going to play out at all, so I can't really comment on that. I am, however, increasingly bothered by the fact that the girls' mother is completely non-existent, not only in the present but in the past. I've dropped mentions to her a couple of times, but I still have no idea who she was or why and why she isn't here anymore. And then that bothers me because what this novel and quite a lot of other stories in the universe at large are really lacking are Awesome Women Over Thirty. (Immortals do not count.) I mean, okay, at the moment I don't even know who many of the characters are besides the occupants of Evangeline's two homes -- her family flat and the library -- because the story hasn't ventured out into the wider world yet. Maybe women's roles are a little different in this 1912. Maybe there are some other awesome women in the Ministry of the Paranormal, or at the Noxes' church, or at Briony's school, or all of the other places I haven't explored yet.

I also had the brief weird thought of gender-switching Evangeline's father and having her mother be the reclusive, eccentric, but intensely loving dealer in rare books and magical miscellany, except that kind of turns a lot of things on their heads -- like, the colleague relationship between Evangeline's Parent and Mr Caruthers would be entirely different, and the Nox family would be entirely female, and I'm not really sure I want to do that, and then I'm still stuck on the question of Where Did The Other Parent Go Anyway. Not to mention the fact that Edwin Nox is, you know, in my head of his own right, even if he never seems to do anything. (You're all saying, It's obvious! BOTH PARENTS COULD BE ALIVE AND WELL and I say, Absolutely! Except I keep trying it and the story soundly rejects it, which annoys me a lot! Especially because stories really need more awesome married couples who love each other. Maybe the girls' mother is just Off Being Plot Pointy Somewhere? Only I cannot think of anything for her to do. But I also hate the Importantly Dead Mother stereotype...)

And now, dear f-list, an excellent example of How I Suck At Essays. Note the lack of coherence, the digressions, the change in topic, the total lack of cogent point... and now I have to go do the dishes write about Briony crushing on Mr Caruthers' coat, just for lady_moriel.

I saw the last of my comrades off early this morning... have been sort of putting off thinking about it or feeling it at all, but now that Sarah and Jonathan are off to the Wilds of Maine... well, you know. At least Hannah's only visiting, and therefore coming back this week (and Victoria, I forgot to tell them to give you a gigantic hug from me), but -- oh, last summer was so perfect, at least in hindsight, when I had a whole group of friends and we had our inside jokes and rituals and community and made this little town feel more alive. I hadn't had anything like that since I was nine. So yesterday evening the Angelmobile and I set out for one last visit with the remainders of the old gang, which was meant to be hanging out with Sarah and Hannah and Jonathan and turned into also going to the Meadows for frozen yogurt and singing our theme song ("Rest in Peace" from "Once More, With Feeling" ...yes, really; we used to sing it everywhere, especially on amusement park rides and such things) and being ridiculous and gabbing and wearing hats and watching Torchwood and eventually I just stayed the night, which was nice, because then I could see the van off in the morning and then bicycle home -- before anyone thereabouts woke up properly, even.

Speaking of the Demon Bicycle, I spent a lot of Saturday afternoon helping Jonathan clean out his flat apartment, and, as I generally do, rode over on my bicycle. The Angelmobile, also as usual, had not really been working properly; the handlebars need to be tightened constantly, and most particularly the breaks were completely non-functional. Oh, shush, you. Mostly I bicycle to work in a straight line, few turns or reasons to have to stop, so it's actually the little residental streets that pose a danger anyway. Of course then I was on one, and at the top of a hill, and I was clearly not smart enough to get off and walk the Demon Machine down, instead thinking I could glide down with one foot on the road for friction. Note to all: do not do this, it is stupid. So there I went, careening down the hill, swerving left and right in the hopes that I could wear down my momentum to the point where the foot on the road approach would actually work (it's stopped me decently going to and from work), and because I was stubborn, I remained in denial that the only thing for it was crashing in the most comfortable way possible. Ergo, instead of steering for the nice soft grass, I finally lost the last of my control in the church parking lot across from Jonathan's apartment, landing in a tangle of limbs and hair and bicycle on the concrete. Fictional profanities may have been uttered. Jonathan said that he knew I'd arrived when, from the window, he heard a woman call out, "Are you all right?"

Injuries sustained: decoration on one shoe: needs to be re-attached; screwdriver in bicycle basket: lost; palm: badly scraped; back of right calf: now boasts a great purple and green bruise larger than my fist. Also, the bicycle chain jammed, which I didn't figure out until after I left Jonathan's -- and I'd walked the bicycle a block or so away on account of hill, too. Fortunately Jonathan turned up at my house later in the evening and not only un-jammed the chain (I tried, but couldn't, and he actually, uh, had pliers) but fixed the front brake and some other stuff. Hurrah! Then again, having a mostly-working bicycle is taking some readjustments. It feels all wrong.

And now for more Battlestar Galactica. I'm nearly finished with the first season: have only got the two-parter finale, actually. Eee!

Sigh. This post contains a lot of Information and not very much about what anything means; all flat and laid out, like a road map in contrast to the road itself, carving through mountains and convenience stores and little histories.

Assorted excerpts from my week-and-a-half with lady_moriel.


- At her friend Calli's house, we watched and sporked Twilight, then cleansed our palates with Iron Man (if Tony Stark, the Doctor, and Topher from Dollhouse were ever in the same room, things would blow up -- a lot), and watching Calli play Portal, which is made of win, and then we watched the first episode of Chuck, and by the time Kyra and I got home it was one in the morning. Heh. Luckily, Calli lent us the first season of Chuck on DVD, and we ended up watching through the entire season in a week, much to Kyra's delight as she has been trying to get me to watch it for an age. Nearly every night we'd sit about watching Chuck and doing other things like organising stuff or computering or I don't even remember, but it was fantastic, and Chuck is made of win.

- There was one day when we discovered that we had somehow accidentally colour-coordinated our clothing. I had a ruffled ribbony teal apron-blouse and black skinny jeans tucked into Chinese silk-print boots and a choker with a lock; she had a teal-and-dark-blue puff-sleeved flowered blouse and an ankle-length blue tie-dyed skirt from England and Converses and a teal ribbon round her neck with a key on it. It was kind of fabulous. Also, yes, we are marvellous dressers, indeed we are.

- I've mentioned that we did a lot of shopping, but on the way back from a shopping trip at the big Anchorage mall we wandered around the city a bit and went down dripping alleyways and I wrote T.S. Eliot graffiti on the walls with a sharpie. And we drove around blaring Metric. It was brilliant.

- We discussed at length the uses and conveniences of a sword cane (Kyra has one) and if Mr Caruthers possesses one what it might look like. I was practicing with her sword cane, which has a twist-off top, trying to see how quickly I could get the sword bit out and stab someone with it, and finding it a little over-complicated to have to twist the top off because that would signal to my opponent and distract me for a valuable couple of seconds; with a lot of whirling and stabbing I managed to reduce movement to two twists, but it was still too cumbersome. Then Kyra's mother walked in (Kyra was... somewhere else. bathroom? shower? food?), asked bemusedly about the thumping noises, and I told her that I was practicing with the sword cane but it still took too long to get the sword out and I'd probably get killed in the time that lost. "Um... it's research. Yes." She shook her head and laughed at me. "You are exactly like Kyra." 

...Well, everyone else is doing it. And some people who read this journal are my mother and will be buying me Christmas gifts anyway...

CHRISTMAS WISHLIST MEME

How it works:
Step One
- Make a post (public, friends only, filtered...whatever you're comfortable with) to your LJ. The post should contain a list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and internets-related ("I'd love a such-and-such icon that's made just for me!") to medium ("I wish for _____ on DVD!") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV!") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.
- If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where a "holiday elf" could get in touch with you.
- Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ.

Step Two
- Surf around your friends list (or friendsfriends, or just random journals) to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:
- If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true! Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use--or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free--do it.
- You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday fairy--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call.
- There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

( lists of stuff. )

Some observations:

i. My father is kind of adorable. Also, his music taste is made of win. (My father's taste in music is primarily responsible for my taste in music, though we listen to quite a lot of entirely different things. My adoration of all kinds of alt folk and traditional folk music is all his doing, though. I grew up singing along to his Steeleye Span tapes.) He's cleaning out his office and blaring the Strawbs' Hero & Heroine, and I have no idea why I have never stolen this album from him before. RECTIFY POSTHASTE. (Aww, now he's playing Once!) 

ii. I'm beginning to worry that the Evangeline story is only a really good excuse to hunt down a lot of alt. traditional folk. However, it does mean that the mixtape I will perfect and post at the end of the month will be really fantastic and full of artists nobody's ever heard of, yay! (Also, freak folk/neofolk/New Weird America is my favourite. thing. ever. We were made to be together, we were!)

iii. Speaking of which? I FOUND MY VAMPIRE BALLAD. After I watched Wings of Desire and alas, did not have the soundtrack at all, I started playing the only Nick Cave I possess on repeat, which is a duet with PJ Harvey I got off audiography ages and ages ago -- the old traditional ballad "Henry Lee" (lyrics), and eee, is it ever fantastically applicable to vampire seduction, except that she only stabs him, she doesn't eat him. Oh well, the version in my altverse could easily be slightly different. Anyway, it is fabulously atmospheric and I heart it to bits. ...I seem to have this problem with loving murder ballads too much, c.f. my wild love for "Little Sadie" in all its cheerfully psychotic glory.

iv. Apparently I am quite ridiculously A SAP. Like, I have had "Full of Grace" stuck in my head today? And I get all flaily and sniffle and yell "ANGELLLLL!" at inappropriate moments? IT IS BAD, I AM TELLING YOU. (Since when did I ship Buffy/Angel this much, anyway?) Also I have this absurd need to write fanfiction. OH HELP.

v. Twilight calendars attract the weirdest people. Seriously. I have had much weirder not-customers since we started displaying them prominently. Several times elderly women have picked them up dubiously and just sort of looked at them, like, "the undead? is that what the kids are into these days?". Also there were Real Live Twihards in handmade Team Edward t-shirts wandering around my kiosk today, at the most caffeine-raging stage of thirteen, and I was beginning to plan out emergency escape routes in my head ("if they make a rush for the front display, I can duck behind the register -- I think it's bulletproof? -- and these keys can totally be turned into a weapon if things get really dire!").

Annnnd the people at FYE keep moving Edward around, and he glowering sinus-infectionly at me all shift today, aieeeeeee. I'm beginning to construct a theory that sparklepires contract some kind of Death Flu which presents itself with symptoms very much like vampirism, except with more sneezing and, um...glitter? That bit's hard to fit it. Then again, it's hard to fit into the original context.

I'm hoping someone will, like, knock over a bunch of CDs, and Edward will be all "THESE ARE NO LONGER ALPHABETISED. AND ALSO YOU CRACKED THE COVER OF THIS JOSHUA RADIN, YOU CRETIN. PICK IT UP." and have to climb out of the poster to go fix them and THEN HE WILL STOP WATCHING ME ALL DAY? 

So yeah: life = job job job job nano job sleep. I am staying up late tonight to write. ...Except so far it has mostly been catching up on the two days of LJ that I missed, good heavens. Tomorrow I plan to: touch up my hair, take some books back to the university library up the hill, SLEEP, bake a cake (what? I really want cake), mayyybe pick up a bottle of Vampire Red Manic Panic at Sally's because they were closed when I got out of work today, NaNo, and possibly attempt to clean the pit which is my bedroom, which I have been putting off in favour of NaNo for weeks now. Argh.

I have been enjoying Good Days lately -- a whole string of them, which is lovely, and un-looked for. The air is brimming with October and possibility, and when it isn't, I have been trying my best to keep myself busy.

Sunday: Jonathan's parents and younger sister came to dinner. This I think was a resounding success. The dinner itself went well, the food was fantastic, my cake turned out even better than I'd anticipated (though next time I think there will be more icing), cider was very seasonal & delicious. The company was much enjoyed as well -- the McKeens are pleasant and comfortable and everyone got on very well. Jonathan & Allison & I had Fun With Cameras in the backyard before heading back to Jonathan's apartment for commisseration with Sarah, Hannah, and Victoria, who has just returned from three weeks in Williamsburg, and I have missed her quite a lot, so it was more than usually good to see her. I made a lot of cookies (snickerdoodles & chocolate buttermilk chocolate chip) and they were all eaten, and Taboo was played, and much cheer and goodwill was exchanged.

Monday began with...well, laziness, and me feeling a bit sloshy and thick, but by afternoon Mum & the little girls & I had headed off on an ultimately profitable Goodwill trip, whereupon I acquired the first pair of sandals that I have actually owned and liked in the past five years or so. I loathe flip-flops and anything resembling them with all of my being and most other practical sandals I have come upon would not co-ordinate with anything in my (extremely varied!) wardrobe. But Mum found the splendidest leather t-strap almost-flat sandals, with beading, which I later discovered on the internet retail for around forty-five dollars. I wore them all the rest of the afternoon; they are extremely comfortable and bohemian and will suit next summer's festival-going very well. There were also intruiging black flats with bows & silver buckles, brown & black striped stockings, and a charcoal-coloured hat that looks like a bit like a bucket hat by way of Jane Austen. There was also a Wal-Mart trip, full of kitcheny things and general housekeeping-ness. Almost immediately after we arrived home, Jonathan showed up for a planned photography walk. This was really some of the splendidest fun & glory I've had in ages, I think. The weather was warm and gentle with just a little coldness of breath in the wind, and we explored all sorts of bits and pieces of my town I've hardly or never looked at before, and took pictures of all sorts of odd things. Some of the results from my end will show up on balladrie before long; I am still sorting them out. There is some lovely magic about finding hidden things in a place you know.

Also I bought some really awesome jewellery involving buttons & owls, and stripey warm fingerless gloves. I mention this partially because I am very happy with my purchase, and partially so that I can tell you about how I bicycled to the mall in the near-dark, and the moon came out, and she was full and pale sheeny gold, an old-lace moon netted in lavender clouds, which darkened on the way home to skeins of navy silk.

Tuesday I woke early to see Dad off: he has gone for a quiet sabbatical in a cabin in the woods, where he has been hiking every day, and reading and writing quite a lot, he told me on the phone this evening. The rest of the day involved watching a lot of Firefly (I first fell in love with Firefly last October and now it has become one of my Autumn Things, like Sunshine and Abigail Washburn and certain sorts of baked goods and combinations of colours in my clothing and the onset of me wearing more eyeliner than usual), and an excursion, which was sort of a walk, and sort of a going to Hockman's for some chocolate caramels and then taking the long way back to the park, where I curled up on the far edge, away from the playgrounds and the city pool and the ball-fields, under several trees, between the picnicking pavillion and the stream. I lay on the grass under the gathering clouds and read The Secret History of Moscow, which along with The Graveyard Book is probably going to be one of this year's most memorable Autumn Books. I missed having one last year, and since Autumn is practically a holiday to me, this was very unfortunate. I had Winter Books that could have done just as well for Autumn but they came too late. The year before that I discovered Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and the year before that it was Sunshine, which it is now tradition for me to read at the end of October -- I am chomping at the bit to re-read it now, but I make myself wait! -- and bake cinnamon rolls to coincide. Anyway, it started to drizzle (which is a very ugly word; I don't like it; it has very little resemblance to the delicate little scatter-rains I love so much), and my poor library book was getting damp, so I went into the pavillion and got a bit chilly and watched Firefly a bit more, with my chocolates.

I think it was also yesterday when I had the candelabra on my trunk burning so long that the left-most candle is nearly flat, and there is a great mass of picturesque wax dripping down.

Today I have watched more Firefly, read, and gone to Hockman's with Heidi and Leandra, where Leandra got a free chocolate for being ridiculously adorable and grinning her little seven-toothed grin. It's been softly rainy most of this day, too, what Mum called "Seattle rain", my favourite sort of October weather -- it makes one want to be cosy, but also to be outside, and alive. The streets finally smell absolutely of autumn -- wet leaves and far-away woodsmoke and rain and things decaying quietly and willingly, and that undefinable autumnery that must be its very own scent, independent of all material causes. I took a little barefoot not-on-purpose walk down the sidewalk a bit, loving the trees, and in the luxury of dusk stood on the ledge overlooking the road in all the wet. Our house is on a hill, but the hill is only a hill from the back, where it drops steeply down to a patch of grass and the road that feeds into the main through-town one. There's a long sort of curb of wood keeping the yard a little safer, and some odd, thin trees jumbled up together. I love standing on the ledge and just watching things. Mostly cars, but the park is just a little ways from the other side of the road, and the Medicine Shoppe is exactly across, so often there is someone walking by.

We have been making our home more homey by getting all of the decorations out of boxes and putting them on walls where they belong. The living room is almost finished; the bedrooms are pretty well set also. I indeed take pictures when things are more in order and there are fewer boxes everywhere. My bedroom needs more posters -- I will buy them with my paycheck!! -- and I am thinking of copying lady_moriel and making a collage for my door. I spent a few hours today listening to Lisa Hannigan and NPR, and pulling everything from where it was crammed into my dresser drawers, sorting it out, folding it, and putting it back in, except I hung a lot of things in the Main Clothing Closet (Jonathan was right; I do need to name my four closets), so there is much more room now, and everything is considerably more organised, and my bedroom feels a little bit more settled.

Also I cut myself shaving -- BAH, I HATE RAZORS -- and knocked a shadowbox off the wall, shattering glass everywhere, one bit of which I stepped on. The cut was small, but there was an inconvenient amount of blood. One of these days I will grow out of this? 

So, the season four finale of Angel has left me with this insatiable need to listen to Dario Marianelli non-stop. I DON'T EVEN KNOW. It was weird enough that somewhere in the middle of season three, my brain said to me, "YOU NEED TO PLAY DEBUSSY'S "CLAIR DE LUNE" ON REPEAT FOR HOURS, OKAY?", and I said, "erm...okay?". I suppose it was a small step from that (the "Clair de Lune" I've got is the Jean Yves Thibaudet from Atonement, scored by Marianelli) to the rest of the Marianelli oeuvre (or what of it I possess), but, er. Well, as the Doctor would say. Well.

Today my bicycle finally acquired a name.

I spent much of the afternoon at the library with Sarah, Hannah, and Victoria (Alessandra left yesterday to spend Pascha -- Orthodox Easter -- in Maine with her family), except for the part I spent doing yard-work (not entirely voluntarily, but Sarah and Hannah stopped to chat after church and Caroline stopped to chat and play with Leandra whilst walking her dogs), and the other part I spent running an errand to get sugar, and ask about hair dyeing materials at Sally's. The errandy bit was interesting, as it involved me on a bicycle dodging things and being berated roundly by the-voice-in-my-head (which has weirdly taken on many characteristics of Spike's; don't even ask) and, alack, getting my first tan of the season. I shall have to be more vigilant with the sunscreen after this.

Anyway, I attained a bag of sugar and rode downtown to the library with the bag dangling off my handlebars and thudding awkwardly hither and thither. I had my satchel with me, of course, but it was full to bursting with hardcover books for the library, and therefore not much help. We met up in the midst of the stacks and poked books at each other and were not very good at being quiet. I found some stray books, and Sarah found an Angel novelisation which amused us greatly. Later we wandered downstairs to watch the children while Mrs M went to the supermarket, with Sarah and some assorted youngsters. Hannah and Victoria and I somehow got onto the topic of The Death Of Moony The iPod, or The Cruel Murder Of Moony The iPod, depending on whom one asks, which turned into plotting out a murder mystery game in which we solve the mystery of Moony's untimely death and pretend to be other people and have silly names (I am Winifred Partridge, grieving -- so far as we know -- fiancée of the late Irving Podsworth; also I am probably a vampire, which is wont to cause trouble as the late Mr Podsworth was, as most of you know, a wereipod werewolf). Frodo-the-action-figure, for reasons only partially known, is a major participant in the proceedings.

There was then the traditional migration to Hockman's, and, as we headed out the door, several of us said "Quickly, to the Angelmobile, away!" nearly in unison, which resulted in a group effort to quote the entire monologue from memory. ("And prancing away like a magnificent poof is truly thanks enough!") Hopping aboard my bicycle, I had an epiphany, and cried out, "I've got it! I've been trying to name my bicycle for ages, and from now on, it shall be known as -- THE ANGELMOBILE!" Agreement and hilarity ensued. (And it's all true. I've been scrambling after a name for some time, as I've got to call it something when I'm shouting at it. I thought briefly about Serenity, but my bicycle could only be called such by the blackest of irony, as it has attempted to kill me on several occasions. The Angelmobile suits its crotchety personality and delusions of grandeur, and my sense of geekery and fangirlism OH SHUT UP.) This distraction enabled us to lose Sarah, who called a minute or two later from Hockman's scolding us for not being there. We scolded her for not being here, and I managed the feat of bicycling one-handed while eating an apple: rather suavely, I might add.

Then we bought a lot of chocolate, and the following dialogue also ensued.


Then someone got to singing "Early One Morning" and I put my hands over my ears and attempted to eat Victoria. We're a lot of ridiculous geeks, we are. (Fortunately, so are the proprietors of Hockman's, so they aren't terribly worried.)

I bicycled home quite happily (despite "Rest in Peace" remaining firmly lodged in my head, forcing me to sing it out loud all the way home), satisfied with having had a great deal of exercise, and cosied up with a book and my newfound chocolate and the window wide open with the breeze coming in and Solas' live album (preparation!), with breaks in between to bake peanut butter cookies and eat some of them.

I am very fond of Saturdays.

So, I've decided deduced that sometime during the period in which Angel first moves to L.A. and is getting drunk a lot due to mopeage, he meets the Doctor in a bar, and they have a few beers and angst about the downsides of semi-immortality and the blonde young women who are no longer in their lives. (Also they probably save the world, completely by accident, and possibly in a manner that necessitates the quoting of "The Hollow Men".)

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.