I'm always pleased when my dreams reach a new level of weirdness
So last night I dreamed that I was trapped in the early 90s, I was making gold celtic jewelry, for some reason I was going to be rich, the Mafia (and later the Police) were trying to blackmail me, a woman I knew wanted to join the circus, I tried unsuccessfully to telephone my younger self, I wrote about twenty letters to lauzeta , and I was a centaur with a kind of barrelly fluffy pony body with clip-cloppy hooves. And there was a sequel in my dream, in which I made it back home and was famous (and my jewelry was worth a lot, but I gave back my wealth because I hadn't earned it because of the time-thing), and Star Trek Voyager was involved somehow, and someone was holding the circus-woman hostage, and north of Iceland there were huge stone structures and an Elvish kingdom. And I met a centaur-cow-man passing a bus stop, and I gave him a high-five.
WTFaulkner, brain. :-)
I'm feeling pretty good today, in large part because I went for a run this morning! I went running with my friend Katie, her big brown lab Cash, Emily's boyfriend's dog Cyrano (who is staying with us this week), and by a ridiculous coincidence, Cyrano's litter-brother, who Katie has been hired to go for runs with, and who Cyrano hasn't seen since they were both born 2h from here, almost two years ago, but who has moved onto our street. 'Bo' is about 25% bigger and fluffier and calmer than Cyrano, but Cyrano is now super-calm because he had that extensive morning exercise.
In other news, my application for interest relief for my student loans has been officially accepted. Woo! This means that I don't have to make monthly payments for six months, and no interest will accrue during this time. This is great, because the income I predicted for this month in my application was, in turns out, optimistic to the level of 200%. :S
Next week sometime I will hear about my PhD application. *whimpers*
Reading update:
Well, it turns out I lied somewhat about steering clear of fantasy. I'm not good at keeping my resolutions. Is it Lent yet? :S
That said,
Dragonhaven, by Robin McKinley, was really disappointing. I found the narrative voice incredibly annoying, I didn't like the main character, and the pacing was awful! Thumbs down, Robin.
Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams has remained, on re-read, one of my favourite books. One of the best things about it is the way the tone of the writing shifts between wonder, humour, suspense, horror, and then finally ends with this coda of... joy and transcendence, I guess. There is one author who knows how to finish a book!! "Around it goes, then up and around around . . . Now the nameless notice how, not knowing, they had never heard: How round it goes, goes round, goes round the word . . . " <-- random awesome frog singing a good-luck song.
Seriously, though, folks - the only other ending I've read with a tone like this is The Hobbit, when Bilbo heads back and is now capable of anything because he's finally grown into his maturity. Good times.