When in doubt

Watch Julie's tape of Brian Jacques (author of the Redwall series) addressing fans at Borders last weekend! What a delightful fellow! I laughed, I cried, it moved me, Bob. And when that fails, put on the extended CD of Les Miserables. And when that fails, read Terry Pratchett. And all the while pray the rosary and wait impatiently for Saturday confessions.

Lessons tomorrow. Lessons Saturday. Must needs take a vacation somewhere. Must needs make (icky) phonecalls (not to icky people; just icky because I don't care for weilding my secretarial skills). Must needs take a break. Must needs take a holiday.

This seems to be my constant refrain. And now Christmas Carol begins Monday. (Must needs finalize stuff on that.) And - nada - no emotion, nervous, excited or otherwise. Oh Lord! Halp! I'm in danger of becoming that pillar of salt, of becoming Galatea! Urg urg urg! Anywho....

Right. Finishing up test for Freshmen for tomorrow. Bwahahahhahah.

Mood: Meh
Music: "Stars" from Les Miserables
Thought: I liked Brian Jacques' declaration that teachers first spent ten years in the CIA as part of their training.... BWAhahahhahahah.

Desolation

All is ruined
Hope is gone
Far from me....

Yeah. Let's just say that on this glorious day, I've Phantom on for a reason. AAAAAAUGH! The vagaries of life! Senseless self-stupidity!

Mood: Just a little beyond "poot"
Music: The title song from Phantom
Thought: Technology is and isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Silliness is:

Being seriously concerned over rumors that David Anders won't be as prominent in season four of Alias - GIVE ME MY SAAAAAAAARK!

Driving in the pouring rain an hour and a half to a RenFest that was cancelled, having lunch, and driving back.

And back to Alias - what's with killing Lauren? I mean, c'mon - that was a great plot thread. Is this just so we won't see more Sark?

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: Comic Book Goodness.

Having deprived myself of much needed sleep this weekend. Fortunately, I've finished season three of Alias, so I'll only have the excuse of late-night reading....

Writing more and more in The Natural Son. Hoopla for ghost stories! Now if only it wasn't sounding so Regency and would slip into early Victorian....

And, yeah, why are people complaining about season three of Alias? Honestly - it was the best of all the seasons thus far! Perhaps the season needs to be seen as one 20-hour film for full impact.

God bless the folks caught in these hurricanes. It makes my grousing at the gloomy sky irrelevant.

Hrumph - cliffhangers for seasons one and two were better than the end of season three of Alias. But that's what happens when folk leak information and endings have to be scrapped.

Did I mention Alias goodness?

Must sleep. Must turn over laundry. Must remember to take out contacts. Must not do so in order listed.

Mood: Fractal
Music: Alias from another room - familial unit watching, lagging several disks behind me
Thought: Only a week now. I'm so unprepared. Lord, I seriously would not mind out, some days.

OK - just one more

Really interesting article: Santificarnos - The Misappropriation of Marriage: A Jungian View on Efforts to Redefine Marriage. It's long, but well worth it. If you're interested in more, check out Sed Contra (and give him your sympathy for recent NOR polemics).

And on another note, this article is interesting re: overpopulation. Need to look into it more for stats, etc. - but sehr interesting starters! In related news, this is just plain disturbing; as Mark Shea commented, "One of the surest signs of the Satanic is the mysterious hatred of children."

And this is oldish, but still a great equal opportunity abuser! And P. G. Wodehouse always brightens my day.

Mood: Right, right, right - I'm off
Music: See Jibjab
Thought: So much to do, so little time - look! A butterfly!

Brain candy!

Soooo.... Matt (aka Bluewoad) has been picking my brain about the subgenre of Fantasy of Manners and it is brain candy.

My appetite to write TSV is thoroughly whetted. All the moreso because I was able to delve into a Giselle entry that gave me a better introduction to Juste than Juste's own journals. Hurrah! Poor little Giszi!

Mais, maintenant, je dur aller. Rest ought to be sought at a decent hour (S&C will keep one up so!), and I've essays to correct (although thank God for second and third periods!). Other details of schoolwork must also be put together, retreats most noticeably. Must needs do that tomorrow. Tomorrow as well is another meeting with Pere J., hurrah, and then music practice for Sunday's parish mass.

Took Jules' adoration hour today, which was wonderful. I kept nodding off into slumber though that first half hour - very light, more like a deep daydream without the dreaming - but I kept thinking of the Little Flower and how fortunately He gives graces even if we're so infantile as to merely collapse in His presence. Rallied a bit the second half hour when I could sing in tongues (once the other adorers had left). But mostly it was looking at Him, and He returning the gaze. Warm goodness.

Bon soir, mes cheres et mademoiselles! Je dort, je dort, je dort - hallelujah!

Mood: Slumberly
Music: Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert
Thought: Only one more Diet Coke can left! Must needs replenish caffine supply!
Thought Redux: Oboe! I do so love the simple use of pizzicato strings and oboe in the aftermath of the barricade as a repetition of "Bring Him Home" - ah, they just brought in the clarinet. Sweeeeeeeeeeetness!

For whatever reason

I feel vastly disgruntled. (See picture, right!)

Oddish day. Ended up going to evening rather than morning mass, said rosary (good), read Sorcery & Cecelia (really good), got myself together, went to mass and then the meeting after (good), picked up a few things at CVS, have just printed out the "quest" for the Juniors and am about to answer a few e-mails and then betake me to bed with S&C once more.

So why am I disgruntled?

Ugh. Emotions. Bah.

I've a huge rack in my room. (Put her in...the COMFY CHAIR! BWAhahahahahha!) I looks as though it'll hold my clothes quite well. It's in the middle of my room. I need to do something about that. It's looming. Anywho....

Must needs do laundry. Empires rise and fall, but laundry remains. Thus quoth Zarthrustra. QED.

Mood: Regardez-vous!
Music: Classical a la stereo
Thunk: How much has been accomplished through sheer bloody-mindedness?

Apres la anniversaire

Je dort.



Sleepy, sleepy day. Had music lesson, wandered over to Borders, picked up copies of Sorcery and Cecelia (but they didn't have The Grand Tour or A Scholar of Magics - poot!), as well as Maurice and His Educated Rodents (or something like, by Pratchett, currently commandeered by Dad), and two Georgette Heyers, The Black Moth and something "Wig"...Wig and Patches? Alas, they did not have The Grand Sophie. Forwent Monstrous Regiment for a day when I'm desperate for a new book. Eyed Lars Walker's latest - looks super good - will purchase with next check, one thinks. Current funds can only go so far. But it's good to have new books - and one that has been too long out of print!

Ah! My dearest Sorcery and Cecelia! My only sorrow is that I don't get the same jolt of "whuh/fwah/thwack"-ishness when the Marquis proposes to Kate as I did that first time I read it. Curious, that. I still get a marvellously warm jolt when I read a certain dogeared page in Illusion, when I read the "good parts" version of Goblin Moon and The Gnome's Engine or two certain scenes in Magician's Ward. So why not S&C? No fair! Hrumph.

I've been doing some background work today on Arianja and how it came to be - esp. who colonized what areas of the world when. So doing, I came up with another novel about how the original pagan Aztecesque (it was too good a word to be passed up!) Jing-Jangese fought the westernmost people who then became something of a piratical nation until they settled Vetyl and Wharl and started going about enslaving other folk - you know. Anywho, it all had to do with hostages and love and rescues and it could probably become something. Took up fourteen bullet points! I have a better timeline idea of Gaetain Empire/Arianja Penal Colony - now I just have to figure out the Alten/G. Emp./12 Kingdom timeline - mostly because Agnes Bakersdaughter said that she came from there (Alten). But then, that would make sense, because the 12 Kingdoms aren't invaded by the Second Khlaov Empire until several centuries after Niamh. *sigh* Silly, silly Coliseum of Gates! Mucking up things and complicating them! 'Tis fun, though.

Only, some days I worry that I won't have all the time I need to write out these stories. I suppose, though, that every author goes to his grave with at least one more story that he never gets to complete here on this earth. Which begs the question whether stories are told in Heaven. In one sense, I think they must be, because I'd love to know the stories of other people in other times, but in another, they generally involve someone in the stories doing distinctly non-Heavenly things and nothing sinful can exist in Heaven. But then, the knowledge of sin is not sin - merely knowledge. But then again, stories are given to us to help us aim for perfection: are they therefore unnecessary in perfection? I've no idea. I can only tap God on the shoulder and tug at His celestial hem and ask Him to tell me a good story! So there! Hrumph!

I am promised to write more about the separation of church and state. I still cannot do the subject justice. Because in one sense, I do long for a state of being wherein we are all ruled by moral laws. However, in a far more practical sense, such a governance will simply never exist on earth. My difficulty therefore lies in "to what degree are Church and State meant to coincide." Specifically, I take umbridge with those who would use "separation of Church and State" to destroy either Church or State - we get into difficulty when bishops, etc., are also politicians, rather than mentors to politicans. But in the same light, we get into trouble when the state tries to suppress religion altogether. In the West, esp. in America, I don't think we'd be able to see our way to a Theocracy - such as we see in Eastern countries - but I do think that we're moving more towards an a-theocracy, or an anti-theocracy, with secularism being the new religion that dominates all our politician's actions. My difficulty is in the current lack of balance. But even here I'm not doing the subject justice. I'll attempt to address it more when my brain isn't mush. (Ha ha.)

God bless Renee and Will, who are now some five hours married! God bless and keep them! And bless Jules, too, who is at last freed from all the insanity leading up to said wedding what with making the wedding dress and all sorts of other truncated wedding preparations - that and being in the middle of what she's in the middle of. I boggle that in the middle of everything she made me a silver bracelet! I'm wearing it now and I love it. Granted, I'm still getting used to the weight - but I love it. *singing* Oh, Julie is my hero, my hero, my hero! Oh Julie is my hero, and she is just great!

Speaking of heroics, so apparently Steubie-U seriously put a crimp in Kerry's campaigning. Hurrah! And duh. I mean, it really doesn't take more than two seconds worth of googling to discover that Steubenville, while perhaps "traditionally democratic," is centered around FUS which is "way traditionally Catholic." What were his campaign managers thinking - having him have a rally while school's in session. Duh. One almost wonders if the Kerry-folk aren't trying to sabotage his campaign. Which is fine by me, personally. Oh, Heavens - I wish we had STATESMEN! Not all these schemers and self-idolaters running about.

B-day yesterday. Loverly dinner with family. Purtiful presents - esp. the box Peter got me and the bracelet Jules made and Peter's card and Jules card and parental units got me a clothes rack (much needed) and wonderful Terry came over and gave me a substantially largish bottle of Pinot Grigio which is currently sitting next to me still corked. Will open later on this week and sip whilst feeling Parisian over writing. I can't remember if I've tried Pinot Grigio - I tend to stick to White Zin, when I do - but it is white and that is all we ask for, cherie! Ah, and saw Goodbye, Lenin! today as a sort of tag to my b-day. Interesting - not as hysterical as I would have hoped, but some very touching parts. It used a lot of music from Amelie, which I thought odd. Watched with parental units - have remembered why I watch things downstairs that I'm curious in watching - am simply not cut out to view things for the first time with other folk. I've vastly improved since we first bought A Little Mermaid oh years ago, on VHS, but there's a part inside me that's still screaming, SHUT UP! I'm watching a MOVIE! So, to conclude this account of l'anniversaire, I will say that pork chops, blooming onions, and coconut shrimp are wonderful, as is Mom's chocolate frosting. And it is good to be loved by one's family, even if and especially if one is a total idiot!

Curious, that for having a pleasant day, I've been simply dragging myself around! I feel as though I've no energy, which is bothersome. Yet, regard, petite chou! Music lesson, Borders books and backstory writing, more backstory writing, reading first three chapters of S&C, more writing, visiting with Mrs. Brown and discussing cons for half and hour, more writing, watching Goodbye, Lenin!, more writing, and now blogging. Pas mal! Oh, but I do identify with Pratchett's listing of how he spends a day writing...by not writing! Aie! A common affliction. Regard, Emily - alles gut. (To mix our languages, once again!)

So I shall leave me, and perhaps write a bit more about the world or perhaps be "sworded" a few more times in Trogdor or perhaps do the Veggie Pile-Up, or perhaps read S&C or perhaps betake myself to bed. Which would be the most reasonable thing. Which is why I probably won't follow my own advice for another half-hour. Which is why I'll be cursing myself in the morning. Gute nacht, meine kinder! Schlaft, Emily - schlaft!

Mood: Floaty-sleepiness
Music: Amelie because accordians and pianos are good
Thought: Kein.

Je veux ecrire

Mais, je ne peux pas. Alors! Quelle domage! Donc, je dur ecrire voici, dans "la journal insipide." Right - con going well, enjoying it, many panels, much philosophising and lunching outside the recreated Mended Drum. Skipped the Hugos and the Masquerade last night and this. Wrote approx. 4 pages last night in The Natural Son - seems to be coming along. Wrote the first scene and a bit of The Havisham Effect, a possible short story, today at lunch after the Time Travel panel. May or may not finish said story. It has a great first line, but I'm not really sure what my premise is other than time travel in this reality and Miss Havisham refusing to move with time and what is the nature of her stance and modern feminism...you know, the usual stuff.

Clothes all over my bed. Socks seem to have slithered off to sock heaven and are refusing to return to the land of my laundry basket. This causes distress. Wore hat yesterday. Fwah. As expected, I am currently longing to make this life my life...now that is. Some moments I seem to have no patience! However, it is a truth universally acknowledged that Emily throws herself into whatever's of the moment with her whole heart, mind, soul and longing. Silly Emily - kicks are for Trids.

Sleepiness overcomes me. Caroline Stevermer has written a sequel to "A College of Magics," and she and Patricia Wrede have written a sequel to "Sorcery and Cecelia" which has been reprinted, which means I don't have to a) steal it from interlibrary loan or b) drudge up an exorbitant amount of money for a rare edition from ABE.com! Hail the publishing houses that save us from a life of theft and debauchery!

Have purchased a collection of Terry Pratchett's short stories. Mwahahahhahahha. Saw him at a panel today. He's rather slight man, where I thought he would be a striding Sean Connery giant. He's a tenor where I thought he would be in the lower spectrum of the bass. He has a slight lisp where I thought he'd speak rather clipped BBCese. Just shows to goya!

One more day of con. Then return to work and return to work and return to work. Return to extracurricular stuff - all mondo heaps of it - and putting together stuff for this year's Masses and chair stuff and internal politics nonsense mixed with this infernal election year and all those joys attendant. One author said that he lived in Maine, 14 miles from the nearest MacDonald's. That's sounding rather good about now! But I know that when once I return on Tuesday, everything will realign around that goal again and I'll struggle to retain the scrivverly inspiration this weekend has provided.

Ah ca! For timelessness and the fullness of time! One more hope for the kingdom to come NOW, if you don't mind, God. Because I'll be too busy for such a thing later in the week. ;P

Right. Shall try to cudgel out what Miss Carrisford's handsome young midshipman relates to my heroine, apparently named Mariah Burgess, about her future employer. I do so want to name him Orlando, but he's leaning towards Orsino. But Orsino what? The banal thought is Bloom (although I didn't think Orlando the Elf to begin with but Orlando, Rosalind's Orlando), but...Scrudge? No, that'd be a villain. Something gruff and harsh and darkish but with a romantic flare. Ah, to be a true British daughter and have such marvellous, absurd names spring to mind immediately! I should name someone Scrudge. It's a fabulous name. Ah, the groundsman - yes, he might be a Scrudge. Now to find a similar name for the housekeeper.... I've Mistress Wendleton, but she's already claimed for Elspeth-y novel(s). Must think.
Mrs. Dunthinkin'? %} Donnegan? Oh, nevermind.

Mood: Not - enough - caffine - in - my - blood - to - write - ahaughack - - -
Music: Master and Commander, commandeered from Jules' collection
Thought: Oh, for a Cornish phone directory!

Going to the conf'rence and I'm

Gonna get ah-ah-autographs!
Going to the conf'rence and I'm
Gonna listen to-o-o-o-o-o panels!
Gee, I'm glad I write prose 'cause I
Stink at all this poetry and I'm
Going to the confrence I love!

Or, to mangle Cole Porter's de-licious De-Lovely:

I feel the sudden urge to pen
Another novel now and then
So control your desire to scream
While I prosify my dream!
This dream I've written, I hope could mean
A Hugo award that's all for me
But to keep my ego low
I'll use a pen name, so nobody knows!
I'm not me me me me
I'm Ray Ray Ray Ray
And so far I've writ ZERO...!
(Take it away)

The night is young
The time is right
To pull another
Insomniatic night
It's obsessive
It's compulsive
It's - de-writing!

I understand
The reason why
You have writer's block
'Cause so do I!
It's de-stracting
It's di-sturbing
It's - de-writing!

To the pop of caffine
Off I'll hop on a Midsummer's Dream
To the sweet beat
Of my Les Mis on Stero -
Dream of Hugo!

So, please be sweet
My chickadee
And when I call,
Please, muse, come to me!
It's de-votion
It's di-lemma
It's de-motion
It's da-trauma
It's de-epic
It's de-blank page
It's de-writing!

Significantly better attempt. And, 'struth, the caffine is kicking in now. I ran across the third section of Long Have I Loved Thee, and found myself absolutely cracking up over those two chapters and a half (the terminus of that particular abandoned novel). I'd forgotten the Odious Mr. Chelmsford who wrote that terrible note requesting that our poor heroine, the rather willful Julia Garvers, not wear any scent when she attended the opera with him (she's been forced into going to save what's left of the family name - silly b(r)others!). The prose goes something like this:

Book the Third: Chapter XIX. Wherein Julia Attends the Opera and Mr Delford is a Nuisance.

By seven a note came round from Lady Branwell that she had been asked to Lady Montague's card party, and did not expect to return until much later. The actual letter ran something like this:

Humphrey -

Am having a splendid time at Lottie's. Have decided to stay for her card party. Certain well-placed friends to come - should not like to miss it. By all means, keep the wretched girl at home! Have the jitters merely contemplating her sharp tongue in such genteel society. Greatly deserve a night to myself, after all my sufferings. Lottie always provides such marvellous strawberries and cream.

- AB

Lord Branwell brought the news to Julia, as she began her toilette for the opera. He did not comment more on the curious position he had found his wife's charge in that afternoon - for he privately suspected that Miss Julia Garvers' life was one passionate embrace after another and, if he were honest with himself, he was quite enjoying her tumultuous career, as were the other peers at the Club, to whom Lord Branwell oft repeated the escapades of one Miss Julia Garvers.

But, for all that, Lord Branwell felt some sort of tenderness for his harridan wife's protégéé, and so asked the highly practical question, "You're, eh, you're going out, then?"

Julia sighed and handed him Mr Chelmsford's note in return for Lady Branwell's. Lord Branwell inspected the note, muttering around his pipe, "That's the fellow from today, or the sallow one?"

"Neither," Julia said, taking back her note. "The first is Mr Delford, a…a dear friend. The other is Mr Smith, my dancing master. Of sorts."

"Hum!" opined Lord Branwell. "And this fellow?"

Julia's expression of distaste answered well enough for her.

"Here at eight, hmm?" Lord Branwell continued, tapping his pipe against his teeth. Then, "Well, I suppose I ought to wait until you've gone off, before hopping down to the club. Seems the thing to do. Agatha would thank me."

And so, at eight, it was Lord Branwell who met Mr Chelmsford at the door, and conversed with the fellow until Julia could be sent for. My Lord's impression of Mr Chelmsford agreed in every particular with society's opinion at large, and so when Julia descended the stair, he pulled her aside, and asked her if she wouldn't like him to make some excuse or another for her.

Julia shook her head, and patted his arm, saying, "You are very kind. But Mr Delford has promised to attend tonight, and so I am in very good hands, as you see."

Lord Branwell only replied that he hoped Mr Delford's hands were better than his lips. So fully stocked with tales for the club, Lord Branwell handed over Miss Garvers to Mr Chelmsford, muttering as he watched Julia step into the carriage, that it was almost strange enough to make one suffer through Gluck and Handel to see how things would turn out!

Our heroine, alas, had no idea that she was the delight of the port and sherry peers - nor, I am sure, would she have been gratified to learn with what hearty laughter her sufferings were greeted. She had no sooner pulled her skirts about her, and folded her hands primly on her lap, than Mr Chelmsford closed the door, and took the seat - not across from her - but beside our heroine, and - I shudder to relate - he sniffed.

"You are wearing scent, Miss Garvers," he noted.

Julia nodded. She was, in fact, wearing half a bottle of rose hips.

Well, it makes me laugh. I'm only sorry that although I managed to get up through the chase within the carriage (much shifting of seats), I didn't get to the bit where Mr. Delford is a nuisance. Oh, Eduard! Eduard! I'm almost sorry he debuted in Not All Wealth rather than in his own novel. Poor guy.

Which brings me to the thought of free will. (What doesn't?) I was using the metaphor of how when we create we put ourselves into our works, although we are NOT our works (e.g. if I paint a tree, it's not because I'm a tree but rather because I'm in a state to appreciate the beauty of said tree). The difference between what we create and ourselves as God's creation, of course, is that He gave His human creations Free Will (oh, and created us in truth - little things ;). Which got me to thinking: "True, but don't we give our characters a modicum of free will as well?" I'm thinking, naturally, of the all-too-common occurrences of when a character begins taking hold of his own plot. The answer might be that our characters, when we're writing well, have a sort of free will because we ourselves are in possession of free will. Which mean that God must have free will. However, since God is perfection, His Will is always perfect - as He showed us while on earth. But it's an interesting mental puzzle.

In complete antithesis to this, I've The Producers playing in the background. Silly stuff. Good music, though. Which gets me to thinking (oy! I'm sounding like Fagin in Oliver! - "I'm reviewing/The situation/Can villain be a villain all his life?"): how much are we willing forgive for good music? In the case of opera, apparently a lot. Phantom as an opera is really rather shallow, La Boheme, Tosca and all the rest are too, for the most part. No offense to Cole Porter, but frequently it's his music which makes the show and not the other way around. Frustrating. In this form which is meant to be the culmination of all arts, we more often than not put too much emphasis on the music and almost never enough on the plot. Which is why, one imagines, Les Miserables is the fiery wonder that it is. D'ja know that it's the only show that earned a unanimous "10" from the Theatre in England group - the group which goes to all these amazing London season shows and so Really Know Their Theatre. Int'resting stuff.

Anywho, enough random musings. P'raps I'll actually write. That'd be nice.

Mood: Yup. I've got one.
Music: "I Wanna Be a Producer" from The Producers
Thoughts: Thank Heavens for the Book of Wisdom.

Fraaankensteiiin

Cue Twilight Zone music: ThisisLondon. OK - this guy is paying for dead bodies, two of them children, one of them a year and a half old, and then using their cells to clone them, and then killing the clones. But all in the name of science, right? Yeah - nothing, including murder, is wrong if it's for the god of science. Y'know - a few authors wrote about this waaay before it was possible. Calling all SF writers - get your butt in action now: it ain't fiction any longer.

*shudder*

Mood: Seriously disturbed
Music: Mental "DOO-doodoodoo" You are entering another dimension...!
Thunk: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh! The world has gone mad!

What bothers me about this

article isn't the shake-up of "Team Kerry" (to which we say: yaaaay and duuuuh!), but rather the casual acceptance that America is bought and sold by strategists, that the President is a product, that the American people are no more than willing dupes.

Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree
~ Orson Wells, 1984

New York Daily News - Home - Furious Kerry orders staff shakeup

Mood: Sleepyish
Music: Was Phantom
Thought: Oh, to sleep! To dream! Perchance to wake on time!

C'est finis!

Pour la nonce! Halleluja! King Thrushbeard (rough draft) is dooooo-hoooooone! And I'm an idiot who needs to seriously get her patootie into bed.

Mood: *Does a dance of joy*
Music: None - tough to write a musical with other musicals on
Thought: Gah. T-minus 4 hours.