my heart is a glorious machine;

Oh, how lovely; the incense twine of woodsmoke is coming in through the open window, and today it is autumn. I finally realised that sitting in my bedroom all day ruining my eyes on screens, not getting any air or exercise, and only seeing the exact same things I see every day was doing my psyche no good, and on a whim took up my iPod and my embroidered bag and betook me to my bicycle, and to the hill.

The hill is behind my old house, where Sarah and Hannah now live (again: it was theirs before it was mine), and when I lived in the Rectory I would steal up there often, especially last August and September, before we moved. It's a large hill, and if you look in exactly the right directions, the long waving grass and clusters of trees hide all the signs of civilisation and you can pretend you are Nowhere. I mean, there's the statue of the Founder of Our Town and the grave of his horse, but they're sufficiently worn-down to be interesting. There's a path up the side to the top, and if you skirt off the path to the right there's a marvellous little grove of trees, very fey and out-of-the-world feeling. I've always wanted to string candle-jars around it and have a mad tea party at dusk. It was here that I lay myself down in the old leaves and listened to a lovely new album by Thistletown -- pretty, jingley, multi-voice freak folk with the occasional jazzy horn riff reminiscent of Nick Drake -- and then the Magickal Folk of the Faraway Tree, because lying on my bed did not do them justice. (I posted them on musicyardsale yesterday; go join and/or have a look!) Sometimes I wandered over the hill and picked an autumnal bouquet of leaves and late flowers, but mostly I lay in the leaves and twigs listening to lovely music and watching the sky change and the orange-edged leaves flicker in the wind, and great flocks of birds fly hither and thither overhead -- the shadows of birds, skirting over and through leaves in the sun, is an image I will never forget.


Of course, while I was sitting in my woodland grove with leaves in my hair (and purple earbuds incongruously in my ears), a herd of college students suddenly flowed into my hidden paradise. Funny how this never happened, ever, when I actually lived in the neighbourhood. Apparently they were on some sort of botany mission? I stayed where I was as they trooped past me and smiled and felt very peculiar. I wonder what they must have thought of me? We sort of grinned at each other amicably and nervously and they went off to do their botany things and I went back to my music, but it was very amusing. (Fortunately they had left by the time "Here's a Health to All True Lovers" came on, because I had to dance to that, and I wasn't ready to stop after that, so I queued up old favourite Steeleye Span song "All Around My Hat" and kicked off my shoes and shouted somewhat tunefully along with the chorus. I can sing well, but not usually so well when dancing.)


And then I had boundless energy! Well, not really, and I think I swallowed an insect, bleah. But I did feel a great deal more motivated and brain-working-y and went home and made chocolate chip cookies and had debates with the radio again.

I've been thinking about this for several days, especially since I've been digging through colleges again and trying to understand how I can fit the things I want so badly to study into one interconnected whole. So, here it is:

I want to major in Story.

Watching this beautiful, beautiful video from Ukraine's Got Talent clinched it for me -- because this is a kind of storytelling that I have never seen before and don't really know how to describe. But I know that it's powerful. I know that it hurts and sings like steel and banners in the wind. And I love that. I love that there are so many ways to tell stories to one another, so many different ways to communicate our experiences, our ideas, or hopes, our imaginations. I've thought a lot about Story lately, because when you take all of the things that I love and set them together, that is what they are. Film, mythology, music, dance, novels, graphic novels, folklore, television, poetry, fanfiction, journalism, history, psychology, philosophy, urban legends, photography, drawing with brushes and pencils and chalk and sand, sociology, education. Everything. Story. Whether it's how you tell a story, how you listen to someone else's story, or how you learn to understand a story -- that's what they are. This is why I love public radio -- because they tell me stories, which is better and more real and more human than any of CNN's or Fox News' scandal-mongering. (I remember, after the earthquakes in China, an NPR journalist trying to describe the things she was seeing, and finally sobbing so hard she couldn't even speak. That was empathy and love, and it hurt. It got to the heart of things far better than the endless barrage of cold photographs on television, spoken over by comfortable, coiffed newscasters. This journalist cared about the story, about the people. And she cried. So I did, too.) 

So this is what I want to study. I want to study different kinds of storytelling, and I want to study different kinds of stories, and how to understand them and transform them and combine them. I want to study how to work with people and teach them to tell their stories, and how to listen to their stories when they tell them, and how to help them understand their own stories. I want to study how different kinds of stories affect each other. How mythology affects history. How poetry makes us brave. How stories and truth get all tangled up. How sometimes Story goes deeper than truth, illuminates it, is it. I want to understand how stories give us -- everybody us -- a voice. I want to study how different kinds of stories can bridge each other, how to find the best format for the kind of story you want to tell and who you want to tell it to and why. How to use stories to facillitate change, to show love, to further understanding. This is why I want to be a librarian (and a writer and a filmmaker and a musician and an artist and a scholar) -- because it's all about every kind of story and leading people to the stories they need and teaching them how to tell their own, both to other people and to themselves.

And there it is. Dear Emerson/Harvard/Hampshire (my current triumvirate of Schools I Want To Be A Part Of), this is why I want to be in university. I may have sucky math scores, but maybe this helps? (...can you send cover-letters to colleges? do they do much of anything?)

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.)

Woke this morning feeling strangely alive -- well, no, not as soon as I woke; mostly I was sleepy (and cosy, as there was a fluffy little calico making brrrriiir! noises and curling up on my legs), and fuzzy-headed, but lying in bed listening to Morning Edition and the bedroom all full of breeze (oh lazy Saturday mornings, how I love you!), I felt very -- attuned to things. Which is lovely. Let's hope it lasts, cos I've got a lot to do today, mostly of the errand variety. Want to pick up: book I put back for myself at work, paycheck(? I keep forgetting when it's been two weeks -- if it hasn't been, I'll arrange for it to be automatically deposited); scan the mall once more, rather hopelessly, for a fetching straw boater, and, perhaps less hopelessly, a pair of white or cream stockings; then to Walmart to investigate car adapters for laptop, actual not-earbud-headphones, ribbons; come home, pack, have chocolately goodness and curl up with a book. War for the Oaks, which is one of my very favourite books in this world, came the other day -- I finally broke down and bought it, and I meant to save it to read on holiday, but that resolve lasted all of fifteen minutes. (Ergo I will re-read it on holiday. Re-read again, that is; but I re-read books hundreds of times, when I like them. You find so many new things in books when you read them over again -- both things that you didn't notice were there the first time, and things that mean different things to you at different parts of your life.) And I got Mum to order Thomas Wharton's Salamander from PaperBackSwap for me, and that came a few days ago, and that's definitely a good holiday book -- this will be the second holiday I've read it on! -- because it involves a lot of concentration and immersion, being, as I mentioned, one of the very oddest books I have ever read, which is precisely why I love it so. There are a lot of echoes of it and its ideas in the Evangeline story -- Evangeline's father's job was probably subconsciously invented just so I could imagine about the same kinds of book ephemera that Thomas Wharton does. In a world with magic, how are books different? Especially ones that aren't meant to be straightfoward novels. (And, in a world with actual very present vampires, did Bram Stoker write Dracula? Did he write it, but differently? Hmm.)

Oy, brain, that is hardly what I set out to talk about! But speaking of holiday preparations, I ordered a parasol some days ago, as I have always wanted one, partly because they're lovely and distinctive, and partly because I loathe being tanned and burnt is worse, and as I shall be in the sun at Stanfest for days, I'd like to finally have a bit of portable shade. And it came today, and it is exquisite; I am so glad I picked this one! Note to all: for parasols, look on eBay. There are plenty of varying quality for auction, of course, but quite a lot of sellers with very nice and inexpensive ones, too. I chose the one I did because it is all real materials -- bamboo, wood, silk, no plastic in sight -- and is simple -- white silk, spray of painted flowers, pink spokes -- and pretty and has got a handle with a tassel. And it looks so sophisticated and quirky and I cannot wait to use it. I also keep opening it and spinning it, because I can. (Also nice that it is silk rather than paper, because I am clumsy and I am sure something terrible would happen.)

Anyway, let me see! Wonderful Cape Bretony things! First off, there's Stanfest, where I will see Sarah Harmer, Po' Girl, and a lot of other Canadian folk musicians wiith whom I am unfamiliar -- but discovery is my favourite thing about festivals. And you know how I love festivals -- dancing, community, music all day, pretty dresses, vendors, magic. But first we drive for two days. Er. Eep? But I am a bit mad and enjoy road tripping. (Though especially if siblings are quiet. Hoping to plug in laptop, watch films, sleep, read books, get deeply acquainted with some albums. Hence the purchase of headphones.) We pick up my aunt near Philly, and eventually turn up at Jonathan's family's house in Maine, stay the night -- it's the halfway point -- then continue on to Canada. After Stanfest, we've got a lovely house by a lake, and I believe it's a swimmable lake? (I hope so, as I have a lovely new vintagey polka-dotted bathing suit, the first suit I've had in five years, and the first I haven't hated the look of in some time.) And there will be relaxation and much reading and I WILL GET WRITING DONE. That is in capitals because I am sternly reminding myself of this, you see.

I have no idea as of yet what if any internet access I will have in Nova Scotia -- if our house will have any internet, if someone will have unprotected wireless nearby, if we'll stumble into a coffeehouse with free wireless. I would much prefer there to be easily accessable internet, for many obvious reasons -- not least because I suddenly realised NPR is American and therefore not on Canadian radio (most likely). With no NPR and no internet, how will I get the news? (I refuse to watch televised news anymore, as it is always sensationalised and makes me angry, and frequently goes on for hours about Britney Spears' latest exploit or talks about nothing but Michael Jackson for ten hours after his death was announced, bypassing actual important news, especially that which takes place in countries other than America -- and anyway we won't have television, either.) Also, how will I resarch things? :p

Looking forward -- oh, starwatching; I'm sure our house will be isolated enough that the stars will be clear. I feel as though I need a good star-communing at least every six months, to keep on balance. It makes me feel bigger and smaller and connected and loved and loving and amazed. Wandering about, taking pictures, exploring. Watching films with the family. Watching films all alone. The dramatic landscapes. I can pretend I'm in an L.M. Montgomery novel -- which would be magnificent! Jo of the Clifftops! Listening to music in new and interesting places. Gathering memories like wildflowers.

(Though just now what I'd like to gather is food.)

Well, I've had a lovely birthday.

It was quiet and rained all day; this has not happened since my fifteenth. I woke far too early (sleep has not been particularly normal lately), and was too sleepy to get up and too awake to sleep, so listened to quiet music for several hours (Ólafur Arnalds, Linford Detweiler, Martha Tilston & the Woods) with a little calico kitten curled up at my side until the sun finally glimmered a little through the gauze of clouds and I sat up and fetched Anna's parcel and a knife. (And by "knife", I mean "this odd little metal thing that's pointy on one end and blunt and rounded on the other and is ostensibly for keeping one's nails tidy somehow only I have no idea how it works or what it even does so mostly it's used to peel wax off the desk".) I love packages that are all sorts of little wonderful things -- she sent elegant monogrammed notecards, and bath products from Lush (!!! one is up-waking and the other is sleep-inducing), and a dear little tin and quirky 1920s-y earrings and the most beautiful soft elegant knit shawl, which happened to go perfectly with the casual steampunk attire I celebrated my birthday in.


(I am also still expecting a package from my grandparents and a small one from lady_moriel. I love packages!)

When at last I ventured downstairs, I discovered that my father had purchased my favourite Entenmann's coffee cake and some strawberries and left them at my place at the table. ♥ And Mum had already bought me bacon; so I had a delightful breakfast sitting on my trunk looking out the window and reading my pretty vintage paperback of Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water. The world flowed in a sweet, quiet, gentle pattern -- I never did picnic under the apple tree, because it was pouring rain, but I did get on my bicycle to fetch a baguette for my lunch (with sharp cheddar and more bacon), and sat on the back steps eating and reading The Perilous Gard.

There was quite a lot of quiet reading and consuming of delicious foodstuffs; Leandra and I danced around my bedroom to Rupa & the April Fishes, Benny Goodman, the Paper Raincoat, and Abigail Washburn; I streamed Penelope from Netflix (film: adorable; quality of stream: GHASTLY -- do you want to drive people to piracy, Netflix?; and James McAvoy = GUH. especially in a long stripey jacket. and a hat. and a lovely scarf. oh dear. I am quite sure I was simpering rather shamefully.), and later there was a thunderstorm, exactly what I ordered!; although the few -- very intense and lightingy -- bursts of thunder were gone fairly soon, there were torrents of rain and it was dark and weird outside so I took the iPod and our nicest umbrella and wandered about in my boots and ended up dancing on the sidewalk. Earlier, I sat cosily on the sofa and enjoyed being around people while Mum made me calzones for dinner, and a chocolate cake. At dinner, everyone sang, Dad and Timmy were sufficiently juvenile male persons and made weird noises; Leandra was patently adorable; Willowkitten tried to eat cake. The cake had M&Ms on top and there was ice cream with Junior Mints in, hurrah! (For the Tea there shall be a more elegant-looking cake with layers and fancy icing or something.)

 

 

Presents: Hockman's chocolates from Heidi; a wonderful set of blank cards + pen + envelopes + tiny notebook with adorable houndstooth patterns and vintage-fashion illustrations, all in a cloth-covered basket from Timmy; from Mum, the dearest knit owl pillow, a decorative thingummy saying "hope", and a pair of vintage postcards, one displaying the Public Library in Lynn, Massachusetts -- this was the town in which we lived in Massachusetts! I knew and loved that library! -- and the other showing the street down the block from here over a hundred years ago. The postmarks are dated 1909 and 1906, and they have mysterious notes to long-dead strangers and I love them. Dad's present was supposed to come yesterday, but managed somehow to get delivered to our old house a mile away; fortunately the Meholicks live there again instead of some strangers who mightn't know who to call. So it was delivered (along with Becca Meholick who had a playdate with Heidi) this evening, and I waited for Dad to come home from work to open it -- and was delightfully shocked to find that it was this magnificent comfortor set! My mother got me a lovely quilt a few birthdays ago, but then I got a larger bed, and it didn't fit; and it's started to get a little aged. I wanted something dramatic and quirky and sophisticated and me and had put this one up on my Kaboodle list as an example -- I love this kind of Victorian print -- but didn't think anyone would actually buy it for me. It's reversible, black-with-white on one side and white-with-black on the other, and trimmed in fuschia, and the pillow shams (also reversible) have little pink ball-tassle things on the ends and I love it. My entire bedroom looks magnificenter now.

I must thank you all for your wonderful well-wishing, especially wanderlight for the warm blanket, rainy window mix (I cannot stop listening to "Winter Song"; it is heart-achingly beautiful), and suangelita, who wrote me historical Slayer Buffy fic! You all are wondrous and I am blessed to know you.

(And now to bed! And now to bed!!)

(full disclosure: I may have to slit the tires on everybody's cars so that nobody can drive me to the airport on Monday night.) 

Kyra and I have been adventuring. Sometimes adventuring takes the form of sitting at the kitchen table (or, currently, me on the sofa several feet away and her at the table, because I'm too lazy to plug the computer in closer) reading the internet and showing each other things, and me reading the entire archive of Wondermark in two or three days (WHICH IS ALL KYRA'S FAULT), and lying about and talking about our stories and Story in general. Sometimes adventuring takes the form of Lots of Shopping, for verily we are very bad at being geeks sometimes. (But -- almost-matching LOVE IS THE MOVEMENT t-shirts! and I bought a lovely dress and several very unique pairs of shoes and odd necklaces at the thrift store and I haven't paid more than thirteen dollars for any one item and those were shoes that likely retail for $75! ...Uh, and the other thirteen dollar item was a USB mouse because my touchpad just went mad, augh.) Sometimes it takes the form of watching things, like Chuck and Iron Man and, um, Twilight, with Kyra's friend Callie, in which we laughed really really a lot and MSTed the entire thing and quoted cleolinda and Growing Up Cullen a lot...

And yesterday we drove up to Flattop to look at the mountains and take many many pictures and it was gorgeous and I am still fascinated by the way clouds cast shadows on the mountains. On the way back down the mountain, we stopped to spend forty-five minutes climbing around a lot of strange rubbish people had left on the side of the road, taking many many many pictures, because it was really lovely and fascinating -- a bathtub full of grass, ripped-up sofas, rusted dishwashers with cogs and gears and pipes spilling out of them like entrails...

And now we're off for another adventure!

Packing packing packing huzzah. We interrupt this mad frenzy to bring you Highlights From Merlefest, because two of my very favourite songs from Saturday night's Midnight Jam have cropped up on YouTube, making my evening. The Midnight Jam may have been the very best part of the festival (perhaps why festivalgoers must buy separate tickets for it, which Dad had done unbeknowst to me; I didn't find out till we were on the road to North Carolina!).

( music behind the cut )

* * *

In other news, have been packing all day, except when, um, unwinding with Angel, and playing with the little Willowcat a lot, and fetching things from stores, like nibbles for the flight. Currently working on Dad's birthday present, which I will leave with someone trustworthy to give it to him on Saturday. Dad always makes this big fuss about nobody making a big fuss about his birthday, but I think secretly he really likes thoughtful presents. (Also his fuss about not making a fuss is sometimes almost bigger than fusses made about any family birthdays. Oh, Dad.) So, yes, I am making him free and awesome presents -- burning the Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet live set that I bought from iTunes (it counts as free because I bought it for me), and I have a fabulous Nickel Creek concert, thanks to the_stook, and I'm trying to decide if i want to make a CD of the Patty Griffin b-sides and rarities I have knocking about, or if I should just wait until I can get my hands on all three discs of the semi-official rarities collection, Love from My Lips (I found disc two!). These are some of our shared very favourite musicians, so it's a fun present on both sides.

And now I must go to Wal-Mart to fetch my Ritalin, and Martin's on the way back for a baguette. My laundry's clean, and OMGOAHSOGHDKHSHF TOMORROW I AM FLYING TO SEE KYRA I KEEP FORGETTING THIS IN THE FUSS.

You guys, I have been reading frenetically over the last several weeks. It is delicious, although occasionally disconcerting -- there were a couple of days when I was so locked into a pair of books that I could not drag myself away from them, and so did hardly anything but read. The catalyst, I think, is suddenly (and at last) having so many new books to read. Library trips have mostly been bringing back old favourites of late, or books I've read once or twice in the years since we've moved here, and the book-lover's soul does get a little lonely after a long time of this. But now I've a job in a bookstore, and I can borrow whatever I please! It is delicious. Also I have been buying far more books than usual. Eep. (But my bookshelf needs Eva Ibbotson on it! And Un Lun Dun! And...) Not only because of work, but because of serendipitous recent happenings that seem to be shoving books into my lap. There was the unintended trip to Rosie's Book Shoppe, the only used bookstore in town, during which I found Those Who Hunt the Night, one of the few vampire novels I have read and loved, and discovered that it has a sequel! which was also on the shelf! and together they were only five dollars. La la la... And then Ollie's, after getting my photo ID, and its stacks of discounted books, half of which are silly Christian-fiction nonsense (nearly every book I've ever read that dealt with Christianity in a meaningful way has never seen the light of a Christian bookstore), but I found and bought three wonderful books, though I've read them all before and haven't needed to re-read them yet.

My manager finds my frantic reading habits amusing, I think; he still seems surprised when I come back with my loans a few days after checking them out, and swap them for new ones. Of course I've been roaring through my loans especially quickly the last month, because I finally started reading Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, and when I get on a series, I really get on it. And I was actually surprised at how much I've been loving this one. The characters are fantastic and I adore them all, and while Mr Butcher's prose isn't always the most well-crafted, it fits Harry Dresden's voice in a way a more talented wordsmith might not be able to match. And the ideas and imagination and the plots are wonderful, which makes up for mechanical shortfalls. Have I mentioned that I LOVE EVERYONE IN IT? LIKE CRAZY? And aslksdghg, the Carpenters are pretty much my favourite people EVER. And THOMAS. And Murphy, and HARRY HIMSELF who is so adorable and ridiculous and has the worst life ever. (If you are named Harry and a wizard, your life will be awful. Trufax. Also if you are a private investigator specialising in supernatural shenanigans, and you wear a leather duster, your life will be awful and your love-life will be complicated beyond belief. Here an imaginary Ender Wiggin interjects, "Wait until you wipe out an entire race." And my Ten action figure scowls at him and says darkly, "Wait until you destroy YOUR OWN PLANET and EVERY OTHER MEMBER OF YOUR SPECIES WITH I IT." And then he sits back on the windowsill and looks smug, as though he's pleased about winning this argument, until it dawns on him, and he goes to emo on the candelabra, while miniature Martha facepalms from the lamp.) 

And I just finished the last book this afternoon and feel kind of adrift. There are more coming out, but they're not out yet, and I miss everyone already! 

The other books that I found particularly difficult to come out of were, as previously mentioned, Those Who Hunt the Night and then its sequel, by Barbara Hambly: Those Who Hunt the Night is a vampire novel set in England, circa 1907, and the protagonist, James Asher, is a philologist and folklore expert and professor who also used to be a spy (and he has a motorbike), and his philological observations of vampires make my linguophile self twirl in sheer delight, because that is exactly how I would react. I love the book because it's excellently written, and a compelling story -- someone is murdering vampires, why?, and Asher is pretty much blackmailed (via threats to his wife, Lydia, who is also one of the best characters in the novel) into investigating by vampire Don Simon Ysidro -- and it also examines the nature of vampires and vampirism. Hambly's vampires are neither demonised nor apologised for, which gives both the characters and the reader a lot to think about. They're both sympathetic and not sympathetic at all at the same time -- and fascinating.

The sequel is Traveling With the Dead, in which Hambly nearly but not quite steals my idea (except it was really Kyra's, I think), about vampires and foreign governments and the years leading to the Great War. While the first book is mostly James', the second primarily belongs to Lydia (though it centres on James and what he is doing, the journey is Lydia's), and we discover that she is even more made of awesome than previously suspected. I love that she's a strong, opinionated woman, a female doctor and theoretical scientist in an era in which this was rare and controversial, but she's allowed to love pretty clothes, and be vain about her spectacles, which she will not wear if anyone is likely to see her. And she's brave and funny and clever and I love her a lot. I think I love the second book even more than the first, because it takes everything we learnt the first time and deepens it, examines it, develops it a little further.

I must warn you, however, that if you pick these books up, especially at a used bookstore, do not be deterred by the horrible pulpy covers and the deeply misleading sensationalistic back-cover blurbs. (Huh. For some reason the blurb for Traveling With the Dead makes a big deal about James going on the Orient Express, which, sure, he did, for a tiny part of a chapter, and that was in flashback, and the Orient-Express-ness was not even remotely important or much emphasised. Also it makes Ysidro out to be the villain of the piece, which... he really, really isn't.) 
Today it was so warm that I spent half the day outside -- I spread a quilt on the lawn and made a picnic of my lunch (roast chicken), and stayed for several hours more finishing Small Favor, the last Dresden Files book, and sometimes just lying on my back or on my stomach, marvelling in how the sunlight and warmth felt almost tangible. Later, I went to the playground with Mum and the siblings, and pushed Leandra on the swings and tried to spin on the merry-go-round with Heidi, which didn't work out so well. Mostly I read Neil Gaiman short stories and watched people in between. And I am revelling in dresses! Oh summer dresses, I missed you most of all! 

In the evening, I shut myself in the book closet with an old candle and an old mix I made for Kyra last year, and wrote poetry and made hand-shadows against the weird flickering light.

Sunday, day of mayhem: in the morning, rushing off to church, I forgot my guitar. Not only that: I also utterly forgot that Jonathan and I were doing worship at all. (I'm starting to be mildly concerned about my increased absentmindedness: I've always been rather scatterbrained, but having fairly large events slip straight out of my head twice in recent weeks does not seem normal. Have an appointment with my physician to check up on medication again tomorrow morning; should mention it, if I ruddy remember...) Called Mum, still at home with the second car, but got no answer, so Jonathan, bless him, began working out piano arrangements, which went extremely well for having about ten minutes preparation: hurrah Jonathan! (Also he put up with my absurdity, which is commendable in anyone.) Mum showed up with my guitar after all, however, so the last song didn't have to be re-arranged. After church we left, had lunch, proceeded onwards to cabin, got stuck in ice and mud at the bottom of hill a few feet away from aforementioned shelter. It took some time to un-stick our massive van, but at least we could carry everything up to the cabin without much trouble. Later in the evening, while watching a film, the left stem of my spectacles suddenly snapped off. We fixed it with tape, all was (mostly) well. Then the door to the room I was sharing with two-year-old sister somehow locked itself when shut, with baby sister sleeping inside; we spent several hours attempting to open it again, with varying degrees of contained panic. Even taking off the doorknob didn't help: at last the cabin owner was made available, the door was opened, no lasting harm was sustained. Fortunately all of these events were taken in stride and no-one panicked overmuch, and now we can laugh about them.

Mostly the holiday didn't do much for me, I'm afraid: neither good nor bad, which is better than if it had depressed me, as has happened before -- I read a lot, and we watched films and had good food, but nothing I wouldn't have enjoyed equally at home, with more windows and privacy. But last night I was tossing and turning with a wretched pulsing headache -- and then I happened to look up at my tiny window and caught a brief bright glimpse of the stars. And I had to go out to them. I was hungry for it. I love stars terribly, and in the winter I rarely see them, because I am rarely outside if I can help it, being so sensitive to cold: sometimes I've seen them riding home from work, but it's been cloudy the last several times, and most of my road is through well-lit areas of town. Stars are meant to make one feel terribly insignificant, or so everyone says, but like Madeleine L'Engle, I feel tremendously right when I can look up at a full bright star-strewn sky: there's an aloneness and a silence that is somehow more than solitude and silence, a sort of humming in the world as though the connections between everything and everyone are immediate and visible and tangible. I look out at the stars and I know that God is real and loving and magnificent and I can feel Him reaching a hand towards the world. And I feel closer to myself, somehow: less divided between multiple, inconsistent selves and more wholly, really myself. So I slipped very quietly out the back door onto the porch into the cold, wrapped in my quilt, and stood out under the stars, and it was beautiful: and after that I could sleep.
I feel very claustrophobic at this laptop on the table, dear me. And I've been wonky all day: this morning I felt a little sick, and the rest of the afternoon it was sort of a nausea of the brain? I don't know: my usual thick, soupy fogginess, but weirder, and more listless and unhappy -- but it wasn't emotional. It wasn't exactly physical, either. I felt a lot better after a hot shower, though, and some caffeine, and a little bit of drifty nappishness, but I still feel a bit wobbly now, if mentally sharper. Perhaps I've got a very small virus: half a virus, even.

And I have a doctor appointment and work tomorrow, which makes me happy -- I really, really like going to the doctor's, and I don't really know why: and work, of course, is always fun in its own way. Every day I work, I feel less terrified and nervous and silly and young! If only I had more hours...

Fairly often, when I am at my job and having to entertain myself by people-watching (which is not as interesting as it could be, in a town of this size and location and culture: nearly everyone looks the same, and sometimes their clothing is very depressing, what with the pyjama trousers and sweats and horrible horrible shoes), there is a an attractive young bloke wandering about looking resplendent in a long black leather duster. He has extremely nice hair. I mention this because he looks so very much like someone who ought to be in a story that I am trying to find one he goes to. The last time I saw him he had a dress shirt and tie under his black t-shirt. It was pleasing unto my sight. Of course someday I will find out that he has some horrible name like Ryan or Jared and can't carry on an intelligent conversation, and anyway I suspect that he is some sort of evil fey creature stalking about the mall looking for souls to eat, though he seems fairly amiable. (Despite this, the Phouka from War for the Oaks will insist on springing to mind although the coat bloke looks nothing like him except for the dark hair and eccentric dress sense.) 

Work has been absolutely as usual, though perhaps even slower, and the weather has been dismal: no, the weather is extremely pretty, and I would love it if I had a warmer house and didn't have to go out in it. Lately I have been driven to and from work, though, which is good, especially as supervisors and co-workers keep looking at me very concerned-like, and saying things like, "you didn't bicycle here, did you?" and "YOU ARE NOT BICYCLING HOME TONIGHT I MEAN IT." One of the girls quit (?! why would you quit with no notice when you only have a week and a half left anyway?), so shifts have been shifted around -- so to speak! -- and I have the evening shift on Friday, and the morning shift on Saturday; the latter in particular makes me happy, because that leaves most of the daylight hours free. You get up, do your work, and the rest of the day is ready to be used as you will.

Last night I did find my magic, almost by accident. I went upstairs and lit the candelabra on my desk and put on a new album -- Liam O Maonlai, To Be Tender, which I was attracted to because apparently Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova funded this album out of the proceeds from the last Swell Season tour (as if they didn't need another way to be awesome), and Mar sings on some of the tracks -- I think Glen sings on one, too? -- and anyway it was stunning. Otherworldly and heady with story -- story is the only word I can come up with for that feeling of being tangled up in some strange and wondrous tapestry of love and grief and joy, human experiences and textures and windows and street corners and the motions of hands. Vienna Teng does this to me; Over the Rhine; Patty Griffin; Sarah Slean; Lisa Hannigan; Richard Shindell. And sometimes I'd get a dizzying glimpse of Ireland in its ancientness and strangeness. And I wanted to do something while I listened, because I wasn't ready to go to sleep yet, and when I opened up the short story I am trying to write the mood was all wrong for the mood I was in and the music, so -- somehow I started re-writing the Evangeline story. I've got two pages into the first chapter, which is very satisfying now that I know most of the primary characters -- Lottie and Mr Caruthers are introduced straight off, and the library, and it actually feels like it's going in a direction, which a first chapter ought to do, and I think the vampire will come in very soon, as a sort of foreshadowing.

And then I played Crooked Still's new album, which I finally nicked out of Dad's office, and it is gloriousl. I had been dubious about them getting a fiddler in, because I loved that their particular flavour of newgrass was the low raw grinding moan of cello and upright bass, and fiddles are hit-and-miss with me, especially in roots music: often they are too shrill, or too -- they don't have enough huskiness. They sound too narrow. It's hard to describe because I can mostly only put it in synaesthetic terms, dear me. I love string instruments that creak and moan like ship's timbers. And Britanny Haas is fantastic and very raw and old-timey in her fiddling! And the new cellist is not a disappointment either! (He will probably not crowdsurf or dress as a pirate as Rushad Eggleston did when I saw the band at Grey Fox in 2007, but one cannot have everything. Anyway I love his name: Tristan Clarridge. Delicious. It sounds exactly like a name I would concoct.) And the album is so full of textures and going interesting places with melodies, and gorblimey, Aoife O'Donovan has a truly extraordinary voice.(She went to school for it, so it is good that it worked out, but wow.) It was all wrong for what I was writing -- very very American music (though very much part of the genre I like to think of as folkasmagoria) for a very very British story -- but it fit the mood and the candles and the late nightness.

Now I have cocoa with a stick of peppermint in, and the candles are on again, and somehow the internet has come back on on the laptop, which is very cheering. And the lovely Aoife's low lonesome sound is reminding me that I want very much to make up a sampler of my favourite female vocalists.