Another blurg day
The ME has been seriously vicious today. Bluuurg. I think yesterday’s list was a mistake: the ME had a committee meeting and said, Hey, we’re letting her get away with waay too much. New policy. Take a memo.
Getting hellhounds sufficiently hurtled has been the day’s heroic effort. Yes, they did get their two hours, but we covered a lot fewer miles than usual, and it took several tries to rack up the needful number of minutes. Other than that I’ve mostly been reading proofs v. . .e . . . r . . . y slowly.* The slowly is not great but the reading is good–proofs reading is always one of those things I put off because it’s only** reading proofs, and I was supposed to finish DRAGONHAVEN today because I have to get going on SUNSHINE.***
It’s been interesting reading DRAGON through the ME headache, and the goofyland ME headspace. Dragons? Sure. I saw one or two when we were in Australia. I remember. Although one of the ones I saw was red, and I don’t think Jake mentions red. Something in the water, maybe, or the hole in the ozone over Oz. The thing that does kinda squick me is that I wrote it before I brought the hellhounds home. Yes, I’ve been through puppyhood before, but I’ve never been outnumbered before . . . nor have I ever had dogs with some kind of unrelenting indefatigable† digestive weirdness before, where I find myself staying home all the time because you can’t really expect a dog minder to cope with sudden bouts of squirts and I’m the only person with enough authority to bully them into eating (sometimes) when they don’t feel like it. It’s not the same claustrophobia, but I get it about claustrophobia from small-dependent-creature(s) in a graphic new way.
But I’ve always done this–precogged some piece of my life from a slightly different angle in the stories I write. It began way back at the beginning, with BEAUTY: I’d never been to Blue Hill when I wrote it, but I’d seen it on the map and I liked the name. A few years later I moved there, and lived there eleven years–till Corlath, I mean Peter, kidnapped me and took me to England. Although he didn’t have to walk through any walls and I went willingly. Very. I admit I wish I had a little more control over what bit of a story gets taken up by reality: but I could at least get my screenplay finished. It’s about a famous, best-selling writer. . . .
* * *
* And I watched some television! Golly! First I had to figure out which little buttons to press . . . although that may have been the ME as much as lapsed familiarity. After marvelling yet again at the astonishing number of channels there are with nothing on them I want anything to do with–and since I watch TV so rarely, pretty well every time I turn it on Sky has provided me with yet more programmes to flick shudderingly past: Soap Stars from the Fifties, Where Are They Now? (Soap Stars of 2008, What Are They Doing?) How to Spin Very Short Fur, Like from Your Dog, Cat or Ferret, and Create Pot Holders, Bed Socks, and Turner-Prize-Winning Collages with the Result. Cricket. Big Brother.
I watched an episode of Xena Warrior Princess. I never got into Xena–I never watched enough of them to develop the necessary momentum–and the finest Victoria’s Secret Push Up Breastplates get on my nerves, although a lot of those gym bunnies are pretty damn cute, and I’m even het. But speaking of het, a friend told me that there’s this whole great controversy about Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship. What controversy? They’re gay. There’s no way they aren’t lovers. Or if they aren’t, they’re in denial, and so is everyone around them. The last episode I saw, probably a year ago, probably on another day when the ME was grisly, was Xena pregnant and throwing up, and when she told her henchfolk the news, Gabrielle’s reaction was absolutely that of a lover who knew she had no rights but. The episode I saw today was of Xena’s grown up daughter, who just by the way looks older than Xena who has herself aged not an hour–that noise you hear is the sound of the Passage of Time being hastily torn up–being condemned to death by a bunch of irritated Amazons. After she’s rescued and she’s saying goodbye to her mum and her mum’s lover she says to Gabrielle, I’m so glad of the joy you’ve brought to my mother’s life. This is not a phrase you use to a best friend or even a right-hand swordsperson! And just by the way, when did Gabrielle learn to fight? When she signed on–I saw that episode–she could barely walk across a room without tripping over something (I can relate), let alone engage the queen of the Amazons in a tricky bout of hand-to-hand (and foot-to-foot).
And do we know who the daughter’s dad was? When Xena was throwing up, she claimed not to know. Gabrielle was, I feel understandably, a little testy about this. But presumably it wasn’t Ares, since in today’s episode he had obviously been doing the daughter, and while I’m sure that wouldn’t bother Ares in the least, this is a family programme. More or less. The copy I was watching had the bad language bleeped out.
** Only! Only! Only she says! Arrrrrrgh!! Yes, it’s true, I can’t even depend on me.
*** I am praying that the UK reissue is just using the American pages and not fiddling around with them. I cannot face another set of proofs.^ On a relatively clean set–as DRAGONHAVEN appears to be–you do feel like a complete anal-retentive twit for having insisted on reading them. Lots of writers don’t: they proof the first set for the first edition, and that’s it. After that it’s up to the publisher. Such touching faith in the basic rightness of the universe, and the professionalism of professionals.^^ I bet they sleep better than I do too. But I wonder how many of them have been abruptly converted to anal-retentive twitness after the climax of Part Three, when the evil wizard falls into the pot of boiling barbeque sauce, gets left out in the paperback edition. It’s bad enough the stuff you can’t do anything about, like the third Damar novel that was in Books in Print for years.
^ And thank you to the several of you who have offered to read proofs for me. But while I can beg a spare set of pages for an old friend with professional proofreading experience, publishers will usually say, oh, tut, tut, you don’t need another reader.
^^ It’s not just publishers! Let’s talk about banks! No, let’s not talk about banks! But the idea that it’s banks that are handling my money is right up there with visions of repealing the two-term law and having the malignant Shrub for twelve years^, or that if you can’t make nine miles an hour you can’t go outdoors after dark because the vampires will get you. I’ve been through the mortgage mill twice in the last five years and I’ve never seen such direly, mind-bogglingly, hopeless incompetence! I have no idea why my hair didn’t turn white overnight! Twice!
^ Hey, he didn’t get elected the first time. Anything could happen.
† One might almost say dogged
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They’re not gay! They’re just friends! :)
A pal of mine has the dvd’s of Xena with commentary, and it’s utterly hilarious to hear Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor riffing on the whole “are they or aren’t they?” theme. As they exchange an onscreen kiss, Lawless with her thick Oz accent is screaming, “Oh yeh, Oi’m totally slippin’ ye the tongue roit there!”
Uh huh. So were David and Jonathan. I’d settle for *chaste* but that’s still a romantic attachment they’re flaunting up on the screen there. And I DON’T BELIEVE they–and the script writers–didn’t know it.
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Oh no–especially in the later seasons, it’s very clearly intentional. Early seasons, it’s arguable. :)
My standard line back in the day was that it was frustrating to me that people just assumed if two women characters had a close and intense friendship it must also be sexual in nature. People never seemed to make that same link about Hercules and Aeolus on the companion show… And I didn’t particularly want Xena and Gabrielle to be gay, or not gay–I didn’t figure it was really important to the show in the early years. But yeah, by the later seasons it’s obvious they’re totally doin’ it…. :)
Well, it depends on the closeness and intenseness. Unromantic intense is certainly possible (I should know :)) but *that’s not what we’re getting here*. So, I’m relieved it was deliberate later on. What I remember of the beginning of Gabrielle was that she had a whopping crush on Xena more or less on sight, but I wouldn’t have said it was sexual/romantic. But I hadn’t seen any of the later ones yet either. People can fall in love slowly, and later on . . . :)
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Xena I watched a couple of episodes back in the day, freaked, GREEK MYTHS, LET ME LAFFF (the misspelling is deliberate) and never went back, except when channel surfing in the wee hours and catching glimpses of the endless re-runs.
I hope the ME committee gets tangled up in its internal wangling and forgets about you overnight. Surely they have other things to do.
On a separate note, I think you would have liked the concert I went to tonight. It was in two parts and the first part was Turkish pianist Fazil Say and he was doing some wonderful improvised variations on classical music mostly Mozart (starting appropriately enough with Rondo alla Turca and then with all sorts of bits and pieces and tunes I know but couldn’t name – a general problem due to my lack of any formal musical education) and then did variations of Bach’s variations on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Very much apropos your efforts, I thought doing variations on variations.
Then the second half he was joined by Burhan Ocal, an amazing percussionist and they played off each other. I really enjoyed it. Followed by a meal at a great tavern and here I am too tired to do any more work. I hope you sleep well and feel better. I’m sending you virtual chocolate ice cream, with really good bitter chocolate wafers on it.
Yerp! I *like* being compared to a professional musician’s variations!!!! (I don’t know Bach’s Twinkle Twinkle, only Mozart’s, which I love. It’s on my list to learn to play right after alla Turca which is . . . this decade.) Eeeesh. And I’m planning to let some of my composing get POSTED here?!? . . . . Sound of person **changing her mind** . . .
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Precisely how I looked at it. A long slow fall into love. :) Which is way more interesting and romantic to me than the idea (insisted on by a number of my friends) that they were shagging it from day one.
Oh, fie. Get new friends. :)
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LOL! Glad you, at least, agree with me here. :)
Boo ME. Boo! But I’m glad you’re getting your proofs done. Now you don’t have to do them later! :P
How to Spin Very Short Fur, Like from Your Dog, Cat or Ferret, and Create Pot Holders, Bed Socks,
And you didn’t watch it for me? ;)
(Kidding. I already know. :P)
But I’ve always done this–precogged some piece of my life from a slightly different angle in the stories I write.
Huh! That is *really* cool. I…kind of did the same thing, but not through stories. I wasn’t writing seriously yet.
In school, there was a teacher whose last name was Meadows and I looooved it. It was way prettier than my stupid (and not stupid, depending on the day) last name, and I wanted to find a nice boy with that last name. And in band, we played two songs — Shenandoah and Blue Ridge Saga — that were from around this area in VA and had something to do with the Civil War, at least one of them, but I didn’t care about that part, just that they were beautiful and I wanted to go there some day to see what beautiful place must have inspired them.
Then I met one Jeff Meadows who lived in the Shenandoah Valley and oh by the way we were falling in love so he kidnapped me (hee) and took me back to his enchanted home.
Way to go us! *high five*
Ooooh. GOOD story. Have I told you that I went to Dickinson College? :)
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Have I told you that I went to Dickinson College? :)
You have not! But that’s too perfect. :D
Well, I also dropped out. (!) But that didn’t stop us from going back there and buying lots of things that said DICKINSON on them. I’ll post the pic of us in our sweatshirts some day. :)
Fellow dropout! *bonds* (I did, too, to move to VA and marry Jeff and be a writer, because college wasn’t teaching me *anything* about how to write a good story.)
Yes, please post the pictures. :D
I’m sorry to ruin your opinion of me, but I actually went back later on. Graduated from Bowdoin. It was however A BIG WASTE OF TIME. The only thing to be said for it–aside from spending three and a half years READING–is that I could say I’d done it. And I was never REMOTELY tempted to go for a grad degree.
I’m sorry to ruin your opinion of me,
I like you anyway. ;)
OH well that’s a relief. :) (And I don’t knit either. You’re a very broad minded individual. :))
(And I don’t knit either. You’re a very broad minded individual. :))
Also all right. You do plenty of other interesting things. I think I knit enough for both of us. :D
Why, that’s a lovely story!
“Shenandoah Valley” just sounds like a soft, rolling, blue, misty place. Onomatopoeia of the best kind.
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“Shenandoah Valley” just sounds like a soft, rolling, blue, misty place. Onomatopoeia of the best kind.
Oh, it is. It’s gorgeous here! If you’d like to see some pictures, I have lots: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69585952@N00/sets/72157594507755653/ :)
Oh god, the memories. My dad, sister, and myself used to stay up until 2 am on Saturdays watching very silly sci-fi (Xena) on some local channel that never came in clear and only aired re-runs, so we never got a decent through plot going on. I have tried to watch Xena during “normal” waking hours, and have discovered it should always be watched at 2:00 in the morning, it is much funnier then!
And as for the lover/not lover debate, well, I distinctly remember an episode where only Gabrielle’s true love can walk through the ring of fire and wake her from an enchanted sleep, and who might that be? Ah yes, Xena.
Okay, I want to see the ring of fire one. :)
Yes, I used to do the 2 am bad TV thing! But that was DECADES ago, when bad TV at 2 am was things like Attack of the Giant Lupus. . . .
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I’ve been watching the DVDs with my BF and writhing at the anachronisms, so I actually know the answer to this question! I think. When Xena and Gabrielle are both killed, after they are resurrected Xena’s now-reformed, former arch nemesis Callisto touches her abdomen while in angelic form. (She’s dead.) I believe it’s supposed to be implied that she is going to be reborn as Xena’s daughter. So it’s more or less parthenogenesis by nemesis. Okay, that was terrible. But there really isn’t a father.
I am thoroughly bemused by the fact that I know this. I think I’m going to have to go read a big thick book now. . .
I *like* parthenogenesis by nemesis. :)
Enjoy your big thick book. :)
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Xena also caught on with a fair number of dog people–a friend of mine has a bitch named Warrior Princess (call name Xena, of course), and she is not the only one I’ve seen in show catalogs. Once something gets into the culture it can end up in all sorts of places.
I have to ask–do you understand cricket?
Sorry to hear about the ME–may it be so bored by the proofreading exercise that it goes off to oppress someone else.
Yes, I know a few horses named Xena too. :)
Cricket . . . sort of. :)
ME *much* better today (but I’m whispering . . . )
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Apparently Xena’s baby was an immaculate conception. It’s been a slow internet morning for me, so I checked Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_%28Xena%29
**Yeep.** Archangel Michael AND Zeus (who gets bumped off)? Maybe I’d better reread this earlier in the day some day. . . . Thank you, however. In this case wiki hadn’t occurred to me (silly me).
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I’ve become a devoted fan of Wiki and pop culture. It seems like I’m always behind and wanting to strange little details like the Xena one. They’ve been perfect for answering all of my burning questions about Bob the Builder. Okay, that sounds strange but I have a four year old and an over active imagination and really did Wiki Bob the Builder. After that Xena was down right normative.
I’m still just not with it. It hadn’t OCCURRED to me to wiki Xena. I’m so feeble.