my heart is a glorious machine;

Attention particularly to goddessreason: there is a film coming out in September about John Keats and Fanny Brawne, and it looks spiffing. Unfortunately neither of them are vampires in it (no word on Byron however), but one cannot have everything, I suppose.

The sun went down yesterday in a tangle of after-storm clouds and a pale bloom of light, and the rain-rimmed window glowed with it. Later outside was dark and the sky dark-water blue and still cloud-wracked, though the rain was drying. Oh, how I love weather.

And in other good news, the first draft of the first chapter of the Evangeline story is finished; I finished it while on holiday. It needs a once-over and I absolutely must edit a handful of passages that I loathe and despise, but it will be going up on balladrie as promised: very soon, actually. And by "very soon" I actually mean "it's up now". (Friends only, as it's My Novel, but if any of you haven't friended balladrie, just do so now and I'll friend you back before you can say... something really short. Unless I am sleeping.) A great deal of new things have snuck in, including a sudden and startling revelation I had in the car: the dead woman on the library steps is not a warning, an accident, or a sign: she's a ritual. I don't know what for yet (perhaps to weaken the threshold ward on the library?), but things make a lot more sense now because I never really knew what she was there for. It's not made clear in the first chapter, though, because the characters don't know at that point. So.

Anyway, Mr Caruthers' Sordid Past! (Someday, I will start a band with this name. It will be brilliant.) Was reading a mostly-entirely unrelated novel when a passing concept sparked a bit of storyknowledge in me, which led to a new set of circumstances, namely: Mr Caruthers spent a year or more living in thrall to group of vampires, supplying them with blood in exchange for learning black magics; was probably about twenty or so at the time. Originally entered contract because of vampire woman he fancied himself in love/lust with. He finds himself in rather an awful situation (what did you expect, you pillock? learning black magics from vampires will lead to nothing good!) but can’t escape. (Do vampires want his blood particularly for something, besides willing blood/memory donor/connection to humankind? Does Mr Caruthers have some sort of special power/ability/lineage? Special capacity for magic?) Eventually the Vampire Division finds and liberates him and make a deal not to charge him with various offences, including use of illegal black magics, consorting with vampires (yes, probably a prison-able offence), various things he was probably something of an accomplice to, and things he did and got away with before entering into thrall -- if he uses his personal understanding of the vampire mindset in their service pretty much forever, whenever they feel like calling on him. Mr Caruthers takes over a library, becomes a recluse in spectacles and tweed and a painfully messy office, and eventually hires a fetching copper-haired assistant librarian.

By the time the story beings, it’s been ten? seven? thirteen? years since Mr Caruthers was released. Some kind of unrest is stirring in the vampire community -- something to do with the Industrial Revolution? Pre-WWI whisperings? Vampires feel threatened, which leads them to try to perform some sort of ritual? Which involves Mr Caruthers as a teind, because he was once a functioning part of their community, or because in their twisted mindset they consider it a sort of honour? Or because he betrayed the community by killing some of them in his bid for escape and/or fed information to the Department? They think they are allowing him to redeem himself by being their sacrifice? The ritual takes place on All Hallows Eve, of course, the story being rather demanding, and my subconscious so determined to put in little hints of Tam-Lin everywhere.

Good heavens, my subconscious is such a bizarre place.

(And yes, really, I do promise to talk about Nova Scotia! Only things keep getting in the way.)

I have been telling myself, very firmly and resolutely, to list the things I don't like about my job, lest I get too carried away with enjoying it, and... unspecified bad things happen. Not dwell on them, mind, just -- keep them in mind. To help me along, as it were, today I was introduced to the saddest task I have ever been asked to complete thus far.

I. destroyed. books.

I feel like a murderer.

I have betrayed my sacred duty as protector and advocate of book-kind!

Apparently The Company has a great massive list of things they have decided are not selling, and therefore we must remove them from our shelves and send them back. I scan every single book with some sort of device (it goes 'whirrrring!' when there's stuff), and mostly it just beeps, but every couple of shelves it makes a great racket and then I know I have to dispose of the book I have just scanned. The hardcovers and the nice paperbacks are simply placed on a cart, where they do look forlorn, but at least they are going back to somewhere, perhaps to bargain bins, or to the publishers. The cheap mass market paperbacks, however, we are ordered to strip. Which is a clinical euphemism for brutally ripping off their front covers and tossing them into a box to be thrown out.

(All right, and it isn't only the book lover in me that rebels at this wanton destruction: I was raised not to waste things, ever, at all, and to understand the value of everything, and destroying perfectly good merchandise is wrong. I wish we could at least send them off someplace to be recycled, instead of to moulder in a landfill somewhere.) 

In happier news, I am scheduled to work two days next week, instead of the one I've been getting, and... my name is no longer at the bottom of the schedule list. Which is probably somehow telling? I've been moved up to right beneath the managers and key-holders. People who have worked jobs before, this is good, yes? 

Yesterday the gang & I finally finished Coraline, and it was very very lovely and wonderful and Mr Gaiman should be proud (which I am certain he is, after reading blog and Twitter entries on the subject), and stop-motion animation is fabulous, and imagination is fabulous, and how did they make fire on the candles sakhghg, and alas, I do still have the niggling complaint that they shouldn't have changed the setting to America, rather than Britain, but that is niggley and due mostly to my extreme Anglophilia. (Also, the fact that everything is tiny and real fills me with glee. Sets! Which are real, and filled with real tiny hand-made props!) 

And then I came home and my family was gone and the only member left (Timmy, on the computer) had no idea where they were. Which is to be expected, as he never remembers such things, and I had a vague memory of Mum planning to go shopping, but it was still a very eerie and hilarious coincidence.

I feel rather tired and smushy and blank; I hope bed and book will cure much of this.

(Also, take note of my glorious new layout, courtesy of midenianscholar's scholarslayouts. I've tweaked the fonts a wee bit, but otherwise it is all her masterpiece: all hail Alyssa!)

Foremost on the list of Things Which Would Be Nice About Now is: a fire. Possibly in the middle of my bedroom floor, so long as it is safely contained and not likely to burn anything it isn't supposed to (thereby rendering us unable to get our deposit back), and, primarily, warm and cosy. I could roast marshmallows. Or tasty sausages. Or, more importantly, my hands, which keep having to be reminded that, yes, they do have nerves in them. (I got a pair of fingerless gloves WITH FINGERS yesterday however; we will see where this takes us. Why do they still call them fingerless when they've got half-fingers? Or do those not count as fingers? Anyway, they let less air in and are quite rocking.) 

I've been having difficulty motivating myself to post, not because there is Some Great Dire Thing or because I have a ridiculously complicated thing to write out, but... because I have been. Well, I've had difficulty motivating myself to do much of anything lately (moreso than usual, I mean, which is to say BAD). Ugh. I seem to be rather more depressed than I am actually noticing.

So, Rabbit Hole Day! That was fun; I'm glad you all liked it; it was fun to write. I was feeling a bit sad, because I had jumped on the bandwagon really late at night, so I thought that nobody I knew would be able to do it, but three of you did! and it was marvellous! 

Here is sartorias' entry, from which I learned of this holiday (and gorblimey, is it gorgeous). And here are other people's entries that she gathered. (She is, by the way, the fantastic author Sherwood Smith, and her blog is a delicious repository of stimulating discussion and thought.) And, on my own f-list: lady_moriel's elevator takes her to unexpected places; aohdwyn learns a new way to make cupcakes; and cails runs into a mysterious stranger. I think this is the best holiday ever, and I should absolutely do it again next year, even if everyone will know by then. (It's a really fascinating exercise, too, especially trying to make it believeable in the beginning, drawing on elements of your actual life and seeing how you can develop them into something fantastical or surreal. I loved that I already had this practically mythological Mysterious Boy, too. It was great. Also, I have learned decided, he is almost certainly Tam Lin, but Janet is not, alas, me; Janet is the pretty red-headed girl at the bakery he was so often conversing with.) 

Stuff Which Has Happened: acquired warm fingerless gloves, had a grand time with Jonathan and then Jonathan + gang having stimulating discussions, making peppermint patties (messy beyond all reason, but delicious), and watching The Dark Knight, which... I somehow forgot how excellent a film it is. I really, really love Christopher Nolan's directing (someday I ought to see Memento, too), although it's difficult for his films to be personal favourites because they're sort of -- distant? I don't love Nolan the filmmaker in nearly the same way that I love Joe Wright and Mira Nair. It's difficult to quantify, because they do get very intimate -- I like that Dark Knight gets involved enough in characters and motivations that it doesn't lose itself in a sea of Epicness, and The Prestige (magic! science! Victoriana! NON-LINEAR TIME!) is full of the small human moments that I love, but they're still -- cold? I love them, but at the same time we both hold each other at arm's length. Hmm. But blimey, I think my favourite thing of all of my favourite things about his films is the way they're cut together. He juxtaposes scenes and cuts away from scenes in ways that are gorgeous and right and sometimes very unsettling -- often he cuts away in the middle of some kind of explosive action, so that you find yourself holding your breath.

Have not been writing much. Should look to this, yes. I am trying to at least get one complete and reasonably organised chapter of the Evangeline story written -- and am also attempting to apply Occam's razor to plot theories (in its most simplified and condensed form: the simplest solution is probably the answer), which may even get me somewhere (! -- ?). Perhaps perhaps. Only there seems to be no simplest answer to 'why are vampires suddenly specifically a threat?', does there? Why do all of my favourite storygerms come with such convoluted plots? My muse ought to know that I am very bad at this.

And! Vienna Teng has got a music video at last, for 'Gravity', and it is lovely and fascinating and good heavens what a completely marvellous dress she has got. My favourite thing, though, is the joy in her face when she sings. Oh Vienna.

So, yes, I has new hair, and I love it very much. I love going to Renee at Rainbowtique, because every time, I go with only a vague idea of what I want done with my hair, and by the end I have a completely brilliant haircut that is absolutely me. All of us girls went -- only Leandra didn't get her hair cut, she just played with all of the hair on the floor and tried to attach it to her own head -- and we all look quite nice, though I haven't got pictures of everyone else.

( pictures and tales of the new hair (& other things), stage i and stage ii. so, you pretty much have to read the whole post. ha ha!><div style= )

Ugh. SO, YOU GUYS, PRINCE CASPIAN IS THE MOST FABULOUS THING EVER AND I AM STILL GRINNING MANIACALLY EVEN THOUGH I COULDN'T STOP SMILING ALL THROUGH THE FILM ITSELF (EXCEPT FOR THE BITS WHEN I WAS CRYING, ALTHOUGH I WAS BEAMING THEN SOMETIMES TOO).

Anyway, today was the best day ever. (Today I was loud and we were all fangirly. Then we were kidnapped by the Meholick tribe, never to be seen again. It was the best day ever!) The girls and I have begun a writing club of sorts, dubbed the Quill and Ink Society, in order to improve and share our writing, and have a great deal of fun in the process. Our first meeting was today, and we handed in word prompts and then had two minutes to scribble a storybit inspired by the prompts. (Then we read them aloud. With much flourish.) Alessandra and I had already done this, which lead to her idea of making it a regular thing, with everyone -- amusingly, when I did my first one with Alessandra, most of my storybits ended up fairly wistful or gloomy (as most of my writing seems to be): today they were nearly all comical. I'm rather pleased with them, actually, and hope there's a story waiting to rise, because goodness knows I could use a short story or two under my belt!





Then we drove home and were really, really loud and fangirly all the way. And I did the dishes and would like to go scrounge up food now.

So, one of the first things I discovered in Alyssa's family's house has been sending me into fits of geeky squeeishness.

They own what is apparently a first edition copy of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (published in 1943, I believe; somewhere around there, at least). Tucked inside of it are typewritten copies of 'Rhapsody on a Windy Night', 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', and 'Gerontion'. Typewritten. Held together with a paper clip so old it's made grooves in the yellowing paper. I've been sporadically reading the poems since I got here whenever I have a moment in which I don't really have much else to do (which isn't often, as Alyssa and I are gadding about with cameras and costumes and occasionally our sisters).

Today, Mrs. H took us (Mum, Heidi, Alyssa, her sister Laura, and I) to the consignment shop, which as far as I can tell is like a thrift shop, with more vintage and antique items: I noticed a great deal of wonderful parlour chairs, the cloth-covered sort, with which I would love very much to furnish a home, or a dorm room. There was an exquisite vintage typewriter for only fifty dollars, and I very seriously considered buying it, but decided that if I really want a laptop and an iPod, both of which would be much more practical, I need to be a bit more sparing with large purchases such as that. I did, however, buy a wooden handbag with a nineteen twenties look to it, a soft, red-brown 'authentic velour' hat, which could fit into several eras and looks rather pleasant with my nineteen thirties dress, and--most exciting of all--a nineteen twenties flapper hat, dangling beads and all. Alyssa and I are going to take photographs of them as soon as possible, and you lot can see them when I get home. I'm completely thrilled: I adore hats madly, and it is very difficult to find them in this day and age.

We also dropped into Starbucks, which I have dearly missed, and my beloved vanilla bean creme frappuchino and I were reuniited. (Starbucks smells glorious, by the way.)

In further news, Pride & Prejudice is my new(est) favourite film. It is so beautiful that I was very nearly aching, and I must get a hold of the soundtrack as soon as possible. Amusingly, Mr. Darcy reminded me of fandom Snape, especially with his proficiency for black (and mmm, tailcoat! *drool*), and I kept expecting Lizzie to hiss fiercely, "That overgrown bat!" But oh, how lovely it was, and I must find icons immediately. Cinematography = so much love.