Random updates
Liver transplant-- My daughter finally asked about the green ribbon I'm wearing (and the matching magnetic one on my car). I explained (in simple terms) what organ donation/transplantation is. After asking if she would need a new liver, and hearing, "Yes, eventually you will," she said, "OK, can I have dessert now?" We meet with the liver transplant team for more info at the end of the month.
Alexander-- I really, really, really wanted to see the movie. I wanted to be free to drool over Hephaistion/Alexander/Bagoas in all their slashy goodness, and after my dh hated Troy, I didn't think he would apprciate sitting through this movie (especially after the bad reviews), so I made tentative plans to leave him at home and go to the movie with my neighbor. Unfortunately, her schedule and mine didn't coincide, so we kept putting it off another week. Finally, I decided to go alone--only to discover it had been pulled early from all the local movie theaters. I'm so disappointed.
The Charioteer-- This is my latest reading obsession. I simply cannot put this book down. If you aren't familiar with this Mary Renault title, it's the best of her contemporary-era fiction (set in WWII and written just after) and the last book she wrote before switching to writing historical fiction. It's been described by reviewers as, "The best book in the English language to come out of World War II," and "One of the three seminal books on homosexuality written in the 1950's."
The passage takes place shortly after Laurie learns that the Head Boy of the school, Ralph Lanyon, whom he admires immensely, is gay, and then has an epiphany about his own feelings for Ralph.
"So this, he was thinking, is what it's all about, all Jeepers' snufflings and fidgetings, all that bated breath. In a mingled exaltation, pride, and sheer consumming interest, he smiled back into Lanyon's eyes. Scarcely aware of continuing the unheard, instead of the heard, conversation, he said,
'Jeepers is just a dirty old man. People like that don't know.'
'Do you?' asked Lanyon, watching his face.
'Anyway,' said Laurie, 'I do now.'
Lanyon seemed about to step forward; and Laurie waited. He didn't think what he was waiting for. He was lifted into a kind of exalted dream, part loyalty, part hero-worship, all romance. Half-remembered images moved in it, the tents of Troy, the columns of Athens, David waiting in an olive grove for the sound of Jonathan's bow."
Of course, there is something to be said for rereading a book multiple times; it took until my fourth or fifth reading to realize why Ralph grew a beard--and it wasn't just a plot device so Laurie wouldn't recognize him at Dunkirk.
The Charioteer has infected my brain so throughly, that I've actually started writing a HP/Charioteer crossover. I've made Laurie and Ralph (in their later years) neighbors of young Remus. I'm almost up to the first time they meet Sirius.
Alexander-- I really, really, really wanted to see the movie. I wanted to be free to drool over Hephaistion/Alexander/Bagoas in all their slashy goodness, and after my dh hated Troy, I didn't think he would apprciate sitting through this movie (especially after the bad reviews), so I made tentative plans to leave him at home and go to the movie with my neighbor. Unfortunately, her schedule and mine didn't coincide, so we kept putting it off another week. Finally, I decided to go alone--only to discover it had been pulled early from all the local movie theaters. I'm so disappointed.
The Charioteer-- This is my latest reading obsession. I simply cannot put this book down. If you aren't familiar with this Mary Renault title, it's the best of her contemporary-era fiction (set in WWII and written just after) and the last book she wrote before switching to writing historical fiction. It's been described by reviewers as, "The best book in the English language to come out of World War II," and "One of the three seminal books on homosexuality written in the 1950's."
The passage takes place shortly after Laurie learns that the Head Boy of the school, Ralph Lanyon, whom he admires immensely, is gay, and then has an epiphany about his own feelings for Ralph.
"So this, he was thinking, is what it's all about, all Jeepers' snufflings and fidgetings, all that bated breath. In a mingled exaltation, pride, and sheer consumming interest, he smiled back into Lanyon's eyes. Scarcely aware of continuing the unheard, instead of the heard, conversation, he said,
'Jeepers is just a dirty old man. People like that don't know.'
'Do you?' asked Lanyon, watching his face.
'Anyway,' said Laurie, 'I do now.'
Lanyon seemed about to step forward; and Laurie waited. He didn't think what he was waiting for. He was lifted into a kind of exalted dream, part loyalty, part hero-worship, all romance. Half-remembered images moved in it, the tents of Troy, the columns of Athens, David waiting in an olive grove for the sound of Jonathan's bow."
Of course, there is something to be said for rereading a book multiple times; it took until my fourth or fifth reading to realize why Ralph grew a beard--and it wasn't just a plot device so Laurie wouldn't recognize him at Dunkirk.
The Charioteer has infected my brain so throughly, that I've actually started writing a HP/Charioteer crossover. I've made Laurie and Ralph (in their later years) neighbors of young Remus. I'm almost up to the first time they meet Sirius.