(no subject)
Last night it snowed: an inch, maybe two, wet and heavy, and when I took out the garbage the cans stuck and bumped and dragged over the soft blanket of it. By early morning, though, it had turned to freezing rain and then to a drizzling sort of mist, the kind that settles like raindrops on everything even though you never feel it fall. The snow was still white on yards and cars, but in the streets and sidewalks it had mostly turned to icy slush.
I wore my new snowboots, the ones I bought in the $1.50-a-pound bin at the Garment District. I've found three pairs of shoes there, and it never fails to fill me with astonished triumph; I have to look around to find shoes I like in normal stores, let alone thrift stores. But these are dusty rose and fuzzy and awesome (if slightly ridiculous), and they make me happy. Especially because when one lives in New England, it is generally considered a good and wise thing to own a pair of snowboots.
The bad side is that they're about half a size too small (a fact which was not apparent when I was stomping around the pile of clothing in the Garment District basement to try them out), and I had never worn them on any significant walk to break them in and/or determine how bad a problem that would be. And now I have a blister covering half my heel. On a day that involves much tramping about between buildings, it turns out. But on the bright side, they are conclusively proved waterproof even through slush! (I'm giving them a little while longer, at least after my blister heals up, to see whether they'll break themselves in sufficiently or if I need to give up and buy myself a real pair.)
But now it's snowing again, in great tumbling flakes, and the world is white and grey and faded slate-blue, and it's winter, real and glorious winter, with perfect timing at the beginning of December.
And that, my friends, is excellent consolation for a blister.
There have been a blue million things I've intended to write about recently. And all of these entries have ended up staying inside my head, because I have been busy and also am consistently forgetful when it comes to this.
To sum up the past month or so, in no particular order: I had a lovely Thanksgiving; I have been doing Tae Kwon Do all semester after a hiatus of two or three years, and have officially earned the green belt I already possessed; I have not been going to Scottish dance very much at all, but I went to a fun ball on Saturday; I adore autumn; I heard Susan Cooper give a lovely talk about fantasy books and childhood, and now possess a signed box set (with highly mediocre covers, but it could be worse; my cat is whiny yet adorable; Antje Duvekot and Richard Shindell are fabulous in concert; half the windows in our apartment are now shrink-wrapped, and I have not yet adjusted to the sight but nonetheless plan to wrap the others soon; I can't believe we're only a month from 2008. And I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting. Ask about any and I will ramble further!
Unrelatedly, there's a meme I've always liked going around again: Ask any of my characters anything, and I'll reply in-character. (For the purposes of the exercise, we will assume that the character trusts the person asking the question enough to be at least reasonably honest.) I will throw in my retired characters too, just because.
The Milliways characters are:
River Tam river_meimei
Lan Mandragoran taishar_malkier
Piotr Rasputin/Colossus steelartisan
Regan Tam regan_tam
Edmund Pevensie iustus_rex
Alain Johns honest_johns
A-ko the shadow girl a_ko_chan
And the Lodge characters, for all I don't play there anywhere near as much as I should:
River Tam, pre-canon still_can_dance
Alain Johns, pre-canon son_of_chris
I wore my new snowboots, the ones I bought in the $1.50-a-pound bin at the Garment District. I've found three pairs of shoes there, and it never fails to fill me with astonished triumph; I have to look around to find shoes I like in normal stores, let alone thrift stores. But these are dusty rose and fuzzy and awesome (if slightly ridiculous), and they make me happy. Especially because when one lives in New England, it is generally considered a good and wise thing to own a pair of snowboots.
The bad side is that they're about half a size too small (a fact which was not apparent when I was stomping around the pile of clothing in the Garment District basement to try them out), and I had never worn them on any significant walk to break them in and/or determine how bad a problem that would be. And now I have a blister covering half my heel. On a day that involves much tramping about between buildings, it turns out. But on the bright side, they are conclusively proved waterproof even through slush! (I'm giving them a little while longer, at least after my blister heals up, to see whether they'll break themselves in sufficiently or if I need to give up and buy myself a real pair.)
But now it's snowing again, in great tumbling flakes, and the world is white and grey and faded slate-blue, and it's winter, real and glorious winter, with perfect timing at the beginning of December.
And that, my friends, is excellent consolation for a blister.
There have been a blue million things I've intended to write about recently. And all of these entries have ended up staying inside my head, because I have been busy and also am consistently forgetful when it comes to this.
To sum up the past month or so, in no particular order: I had a lovely Thanksgiving; I have been doing Tae Kwon Do all semester after a hiatus of two or three years, and have officially earned the green belt I already possessed; I have not been going to Scottish dance very much at all, but I went to a fun ball on Saturday; I adore autumn; I heard Susan Cooper give a lovely talk about fantasy books and childhood, and now possess a signed box set (with highly mediocre covers, but it could be worse; my cat is whiny yet adorable; Antje Duvekot and Richard Shindell are fabulous in concert; half the windows in our apartment are now shrink-wrapped, and I have not yet adjusted to the sight but nonetheless plan to wrap the others soon; I can't believe we're only a month from 2008. And I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting. Ask about any and I will ramble further!
Unrelatedly, there's a meme I've always liked going around again: Ask any of my characters anything, and I'll reply in-character. (For the purposes of the exercise, we will assume that the character trusts the person asking the question enough to be at least reasonably honest.) I will throw in my retired characters too, just because.
The Milliways characters are:
River Tam river_meimei
Lan Mandragoran taishar_malkier
Piotr Rasputin/Colossus steelartisan
Regan Tam regan_tam
Edmund Pevensie iustus_rex
Alain Johns honest_johns
A-ko the shadow girl a_ko_chan
And the Lodge characters, for all I don't play there anywhere near as much as I should:
River Tam, pre-canon still_can_dance
Alain Johns, pre-canon son_of_chris