(no subject)
Writing . . . is a license to be curious. I, for example, am interested in how things work, in how a creative movie deal is structured, how a conglomerate is formed. How a tooth is reconstructed or an aorta patched. How a geologist pinpoints a possible oil strike, how an immunologist isolates a virus. How a fire investigator knows when a fire is an accident and when because of the pattern of smoke stains in the burnt-out shell and the sponginess of the floor it is arson. How a pathologist knows that the prostate is the last male organ and the uterus the last female organ destroyed in a fire, how carbon granules in the bronchial passages indicate the victim was alive when the fire started and fat globules in the lung mean that the victim was attacked before the fire. How Fernando Valenzuela throws a screwball, how the air currents and the speed of the projectile and the angle of the wrist at the point of release conspire to make a pitch man was not intended to throw nor his elbow to endure.
Tired and fretful chez mechaieh at the moment - we just found out a neighbor passed away several days ago, and the wordcount, it incheth toward Byzantium like a leaky schooner. We'll get there, my lovelies, but be warned it may be a few days before I respond to comments and notes (quote-spam notwithstanding) - some I want to mull over for a bit, and others I'd rather save for a more mellow, less splintery mood. (There's a part of me that's still all aglow over my (ongoing) bestest birthday to date, and I've got half a pint of mango soup left, and all sorts of other happy things within easy reach. But I've also intermittent brain-cramps and terminal fussbudgetry to fight off (and/or appease with sleep) so I can get things done, and that's making me grouchy and stompety and querulous and way too self-absorbed to provide any semblance of rational company for the next 72 hours or so. *grousestompwhineflop*)
- - John Gregory Dunne; quoted in Jonathan Yardley's tribute to him
Tired and fretful chez mechaieh at the moment - we just found out a neighbor passed away several days ago, and the wordcount, it incheth toward Byzantium like a leaky schooner. We'll get there, my lovelies, but be warned it may be a few days before I respond to comments and notes (quote-spam notwithstanding) - some I want to mull over for a bit, and others I'd rather save for a more mellow, less splintery mood. (There's a part of me that's still all aglow over my (ongoing) bestest birthday to date, and I've got half a pint of mango soup left, and all sorts of other happy things within easy reach. But I've also intermittent brain-cramps and terminal fussbudgetry to fight off (and/or appease with sleep) so I can get things done, and that's making me grouchy and stompety and querulous and way too self-absorbed to provide any semblance of rational company for the next 72 hours or so. *grousestompwhineflop*)