postcards, plotting, and library woe
Today I received a postcard from barefoottomboy "for your pinboard" (well actually it is more of a ribbon board; I don't know if there are any proper names for this), which reminded me that I have yet to show it to you lot. This is important because it rather showcases my flist and the awesomeness thereof. It hangs over my desk, and is covered in cards, postcards, photographs, pretty miscellany, and business cards I nicked from various enterprising places with emotional significance to me (charming antique shop in Baddeck, Nova Scotia; Susu's Bakery Boutique in Wellesley; the Stan Rogers Folk Festival in Canso, Nova Scotia; and, um, Waldenbooks).
Represented on this board are barefoottomboy, bornofstars, builtofsorrow, burningstarsxe, charismitaine, cherise,
lady_moriel, midenianscholar,
miss_baxter, and spockodile. The TARDIS card of awesome and win is the fault of builtofsorrow; the black and white photograph at the bottom is Kyra and Jonathan and me, respectively, playing Munchkin last summer when Kyra was visiting me (!!!). The vintage photographs on the far right are my father's parents as young adults. My grandmother is reading a book very picturesquely, which pleases me. Also present are a starfish I found on a beach on Cape Breton and dried (it was long dead when I found it; do not accuse me of cruelty towards starfish! ^-^), and one of the many skeleton keys that came with this house. I love this board, because it is a delightful sort of clutter, and full of things and people and ideas that I love, and so it is directly above my desk, where I can look up at it frequently and smile.
* * *
In other news (...ha?), the Novel is boiling away beneath the lid of my brain again, though I have yet to set, er, fingers to keyboard, or... keyboard to specific Word document, or... whatever the idiom is now. Mostly, re-reading War for the Oaks for the thousandth time (well, more like the fifth or sixth: a day will come when I do not compulsively re-read it every few months, but it is not yet that day... anyway I just got my own copy in July), I keep running into the folkloric significance of blood -- mortal blood, as it were -- and its effect on magic, life, warfare, et cetera. Okay, so... in my 'verse, blood is full of imprints and memories, which is partly why it's so important to the vampires. Evangeline is extra sensitive to this storykeeping aspect of blood, for whatever reason. Somehow this helps with her being able to fight the vampires, and the government sees this, so they draft Mr Caruthers as her Watcher have her trained. And by "see" I mean "make Mr Caruthers tell them". And I could have sworn I had some sort of minor brainstorm about how understanding of blood/memories connected vaguely to Being Useful Against Vampires and it seems to have slipped away rubbish rubbish and rot. But I don't think Fighting The Vampires is really the Big Deal, it's finding out whatever it is that's at the bottom of all the unrest and solving that. And also re-enacting Tam-Lin for some reason. Maybe there are vampiric tribal squabbles. The Faerie Queen = Some Vampire Leader, after all. (Possibly Mr Caruthers' former lover who possibly goes by Reynardine and good heavens that sounds silly when it's all in a sentence without context.)
However, the conclusion seems to be that the government doesn't have an Immediate Specific Use for Evangeline, either... they just know there's something interesting going on, and they're in rather dire straits, so they press-gang her, as it were. Now, self, go write that, you pathetic twit.
* * *
Today I walked the block and a half to the library and it was closed for maintenance. Until Monday. I stared blankly at the sign for several moments before sadly turning back home. I don't know what to do with myself! Saturday is always library day! Libraries should be open twenty-four seven with graveyard shift librarians so that the insomniacs can make emergency midnight library runs. I volunteer to be a graveyard shift librarian, although I'm sure I'd have to get extra training in Defensive Magics and Martial Arts for that one, as I am sure all sorts of things happen in a library at midnight.
Represented on this board are barefoottomboy, bornofstars, builtofsorrow, burningstarsxe, charismitaine, cherise,
lady_moriel, midenianscholar,
miss_baxter, and spockodile. The TARDIS card of awesome and win is the fault of builtofsorrow; the black and white photograph at the bottom is Kyra and Jonathan and me, respectively, playing Munchkin last summer when Kyra was visiting me (!!!). The vintage photographs on the far right are my father's parents as young adults. My grandmother is reading a book very picturesquely, which pleases me. Also present are a starfish I found on a beach on Cape Breton and dried (it was long dead when I found it; do not accuse me of cruelty towards starfish! ^-^), and one of the many skeleton keys that came with this house. I love this board, because it is a delightful sort of clutter, and full of things and people and ideas that I love, and so it is directly above my desk, where I can look up at it frequently and smile.
* * *
In other news (...ha?), the Novel is boiling away beneath the lid of my brain again, though I have yet to set, er, fingers to keyboard, or... keyboard to specific Word document, or... whatever the idiom is now. Mostly, re-reading War for the Oaks for the thousandth time (well, more like the fifth or sixth: a day will come when I do not compulsively re-read it every few months, but it is not yet that day... anyway I just got my own copy in July), I keep running into the folkloric significance of blood -- mortal blood, as it were -- and its effect on magic, life, warfare, et cetera. Okay, so... in my 'verse, blood is full of imprints and memories, which is partly why it's so important to the vampires. Evangeline is extra sensitive to this storykeeping aspect of blood, for whatever reason. Somehow this helps with her being able to fight the vampires, and the government sees this, so they draft Mr Caruthers as her Watcher have her trained. And by "see" I mean "make Mr Caruthers tell them". And I could have sworn I had some sort of minor brainstorm about how understanding of blood/memories connected vaguely to Being Useful Against Vampires and it seems to have slipped away rubbish rubbish and rot. But I don't think Fighting The Vampires is really the Big Deal, it's finding out whatever it is that's at the bottom of all the unrest and solving that. And also re-enacting Tam-Lin for some reason. Maybe there are vampiric tribal squabbles. The Faerie Queen = Some Vampire Leader, after all. (Possibly Mr Caruthers' former lover who possibly goes by Reynardine and good heavens that sounds silly when it's all in a sentence without context.)
However, the conclusion seems to be that the government doesn't have an Immediate Specific Use for Evangeline, either... they just know there's something interesting going on, and they're in rather dire straits, so they press-gang her, as it were. Now, self, go write that, you pathetic twit.
* * *
Today I walked the block and a half to the library and it was closed for maintenance. Until Monday. I stared blankly at the sign for several moments before sadly turning back home. I don't know what to do with myself! Saturday is always library day! Libraries should be open twenty-four seven with graveyard shift librarians so that the insomniacs can make emergency midnight library runs. I volunteer to be a graveyard shift librarian, although I'm sure I'd have to get extra training in Defensive Magics and Martial Arts for that one, as I am sure all sorts of things happen in a library at midnight.