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Sep. 24th, 2004 05:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cleolindaUrg. Things have been happening around here.
- Remember the One-Eighth Nobly Fallen Tree? Well, it was one of a pair in the front yard--ornamental Barton pears, i.e., not fruit-bearing. Mom was saying that the other one would eventually split and fall, too, but since lightning was involved with the first one... I don't know. I really think they just got their yuppie on and decided they wanted different trees. So they decided to cut the other one down, which I found to be incredibly wasteful and borderline cruel--assuming you can be cruel to a tree, that is--but okay, whatever. And they decided, since it's only about 15-20 feet tall, that they wanted to cut it down themselves rather than pay someone to do it. Okay, fine. Now, why George had to get out there yesterday afternoon with a chainsaw and do it, I have no idea. Chainsaws, incidentally, make me hella nervous, and have ever since I was reading Reader's Digest when I was nine or ten and read one of those "Drama in Real Life" things about a guy whose saw kicked back while he was alone in the woods (!) and just about cut him in half, but of course he managed to radio for help with, like, his toe or something and they saved him after round-the-clock surgery and a radical stupidectomy. I still shudder just thinking about it. But George is a yuppiejack and he's okay, so whatever.
- Sister Girl overdosed on sleeping pills last night. Wait, let me back up--that sounds a lot more dire than it really is. Sister Girl can't sleep at night, partly because she's gotten into the stay-up/sleep-in pattern while she's waiting for the next Culinard term to roll around--she dropped out of the previous one due to a combination of illness and Lt. Boyfriend visiting for two weeks from Afghanistan. Anyway. She's hyper--some might actually say "manic"--and her doctor gave her a prescription for some Ambien to take occasionally if it got particularly bad at night. Well, I've had Ambien before, when I was in college and stressed to the max and couldn't sleep, and Ambien didn't do a damn thing for me, let me tell you what, so I understand why she took two. Strangely, it was after taking the two Ambien that she got more manic, and I came this close to popping her in the jaw--it's one in the morning and I'm TIRED and she, a legal adult in her majority, is jumping on my bed and I can't get her to leave. I kept trying to walk her back to her room but she was having none of it--it reminded me a lot of when--ahem--a currently LJ-enabled friend of mine got high the first time and shouted, "Oh, MAN! This is so AWESOME! I gotta tell Jeff about this!" Jeff, by the way, was the security guard on patrol outside my dorm. We, which may or may not include me, depending on how you define the word "is," spent about fifteen minutes dragging our friend away from the suite door lest we all get busted. But I digress. I was mostly pissed off because Sister Girl was enjoying it way too much--my theory was that she was catching a bit of a buzz off the stuff and was then playing up to it, all like, "Whee! I'm on drugs! Look at me, I'm SO HIGH!" I will confess to you that I eventually broke down and had a little Colin moment of my own with the "I hate you!" (MY SISTER IS BROKEN!).
Then she decided to take a third pill.
Sometime before I finally gave up and went to bed, I found her throwing up in the bathroom. Repeatedly. Serves her right, I guess. She got up about her normal time--noon--today, but looked she'd been rode hard and put away wet, as they say. OF HORSES, PERVS. - "I hate regurgitation," my Milton prof announces--and really, who doesn't? Sister Girl sure hates it now--so she's giving us a midterm on... three pieces we've never read before. Well, we have a week to read them. And we're going to have to write one essay about whichever piece she chooses, connecting it to the other three things we've already read (Comus, Areopagitica, some of Paradise Lost). On the plus side, she is booking the computer lab for us, and that's really the only reason I hate exams--the handaches. Since I've become mostly a typist, it makes my left hand itch to be left out of the action, and my right hand passes out and can't move for days afterwards. But I can type like a mofo--I think I may actually type as fast, if not faster, than I talk--so I am prepared to go tear it up on Thursday.
- I cramp. Not as exciting as the other three, huh?
- I got a deluge of books in the mail the other day. Lemme see:
From Vladimir:
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which apparently Neil Gaiman just thinks is the absolute shit
The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, by said Gaiman
Liberty Meadows: Creature Comforts (aw!)
From my publisher:
The Difference Engine
The Snow, written by "the king of high-concept SF"
The Ultimate DVD Easter Egg Guide
The Year of Our War
Ash: A Secret History
From myself, because presents to oneself are always a nice pick-me-up:
The Grim Grotto, which I have yet to read because I completely suck, and must read tonight
The Crimson Petal and the White for $2, hardback, because my library copy is due next week and I want to hang on to it for Black Ribbon research purposes
A House in Gross Disorder, that book on the 17th-century Castlehaven sex scandal I was talking about a while back
Seriously, everything came all in one day, except for the last two books, which came today. And I'm way behind on my own book because of the hurricane/new computer confluence--fortunately, I've given up on the October 1 deadline, as both my publisher and agent basically started laughing at me. "Deadlines? Shpfffff. We don't even get to work until 9:30 in the morning. What do you think this is, a bank? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" So I'm going to be running this three-ring circus of Milton, M15M, and Black Ribbon through October. Pray for me.
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Date: 2004-09-24 03:57 pm (UTC)I've got this thing with Mary Gentle as a writer. She's got great ideas. They're wonderful, exciting, interesting ideas. Her ideas, by and large, are so exciting that I really want her to push her characters aside and just talk about these ideas for a few hundred pages. Prime example is Rats and Gargoyles, which combined big hermetic action (decans and qlippoth and Natural Philosophy, oh my!) with a traditional fantasy world. Cool connection, (in my opinion) less than shiny presentation of story. Or, maybe, I just didn't care enough about the characters in comparison to the story.
Thus, Ash. She had me at Visigoths in Egypt hunting with owls and worlds in collision and lost me whenever she got down to people doing stuff. Might've been me, but I'm usually all about people doing stuff.
It may very well be me, as I've heard people rave about her wonderful plots and stories. Have you read any of her work?
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Date: 2004-09-24 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-24 03:59 pm (UTC)*rofl* That's great =D
Also -- Ambien never worked for me either. Eventually, they put me on two different anti-depressants to make me sleep. They worked wonders for awhile then they had to up the dosage. This continued until I was taking thousands of mgs of medicine per day and I just said fuck it and stopped everything.
Note to others -- Withdrawl is not only limited to Cocaine and Heroin addicts. It happens to us all. =\
Rock on for all those books! =D It's sad to say but I haven't read/heard of any of them =\ Though -- The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, by said Gaiman sounds a bit familiar but I may be thinking of a different book.
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Date: 2004-09-24 04:10 pm (UTC)I hope Sister Girl doesn't have any lasting side affects.
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Date: 2004-09-24 04:15 pm (UTC)hope october doesn't bring too many interuption for ya
Lorien__
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Date: 2004-09-24 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-24 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-24 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-24 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-29 12:12 pm (UTC)Ban Reader's Digest! Think of the chiiiiiildren!!!
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Date: 2004-09-24 04:38 pm (UTC)Then again, I've been informed that taking Alavert four times in one day is not recommended, so I'll chart out where this takes me. Again, in the interests of science.
Oh, and if you need some Miltonian visual stimulation -- and who don't? -- there's a Gustave Dore gallery (http://www.scathach.de/index.htm). You were the first person to come to mind....
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Date: 2004-09-24 04:46 pm (UTC)Same with me. Except I'm a lefty, so...it's backwards. Lately my teachers have loaded onto the 'Let's write essays in class and turn them in the same day, yay!' train, so my printer is being ignored. Poor printer.
I totally have to get The Grim Grotto before all my friends snap it up. Let's ignore the fact that I've only read up to The Austere Academy, mmkay?
Praying for you!
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Date: 2004-09-24 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-24 04:59 pm (UTC)I've done so much crap with people just because they wanted me to, but I can't rightly say I've ever been high. Or wasn't aware that I was when I was. It's not a thrill to me apparently.
Vlad is just too cool.
I think you spoke of Crimson Petal a while back, it was the romance bit? or the Victorian empty story of the women and their goings on?
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Date: 2004-09-24 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-25 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-24 05:22 pm (UTC)Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell just arrived for me this week too! I put it on my wishlist based on one of your posts, and a friend bought it for me for my birthday. Can't wait to read it!
I picked up a cheapo copy of The Crimson Petal and the White, also based on one of your postings, the topic is totally fascinating to me, but I am suitably warned not to expect anything resembling an ending.
I need more time to read.
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Date: 2004-09-24 05:36 pm (UTC)Indeed!
"I cramp"
Oh yeah, I feel your pain myself now.
I want to thank you for such wonderful posts. You always write so well and make me laugh.
Sorry about the trees. We frown on that kind of thing in Oregon. ;)
Now I'm going to have to get those books Vladimir sent you. Or he could just send some to me *grin*
*edit* I wish I could handle punctuation better. Blurgh....
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Date: 2004-09-24 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-24 05:54 pm (UTC)I'm also listening to my mom's Georgette Heyer audiobooks on the way to and from the new job (hourlong commute), so I'm steeped in the Georgian/Regency eras right now. Quite interesting.
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Date: 2004-09-24 08:39 pm (UTC)Difference Engine - interesting and well, I drown. It gets boring. I've read it 2x (x=n) times but it's only the dinosaur bits that interest me. And the prostitute bits too.
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Date: 2004-09-24 11:28 pm (UTC)*wipes away tears* I can think of so many people I'd like to give a radical stupidectomy to. Sometimes starting with myself.
Hope Sister Girl is better soon.
I cramp in
agonysympathy.And I heard Neil Gaiman liked that book! One of the local libraries got it in and now tomorrow I'm going to have to take my lunch break to bust in on the place and scream "DROP IT YOU H0RS IT'S MINE!!!" Since I do this about every other week over some book or other, they're pretty mellow.
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Date: 2004-09-24 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-25 02:52 am (UTC)Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is terrific, but huge - like a huge quilt you can dive into and pull around you.
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Date: 2004-09-25 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-25 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-26 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-26 07:09 am (UTC)ON AMBIEN, VERY IMPORTANT
Date: 2004-09-26 10:57 am (UTC)Stay away from dat shit!!
*tight hugs*
Re: ON AMBIEN, VERY IMPORTANT
Date: 2004-09-26 11:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-27 07:40 am (UTC)