My Brains Are Melting
. . . . And there follows a Very Long Pause because, well, my brains are melting. I dreamed about PEGASUS last night—not in a good way*–and lately as hellhounds and I pelt over the landscape, and I, of course, am busy worrying about some arcane plot lacuna**, I am occasionally surprised when I realise my companions are small, canine, and wingless.***
So maybe it’s just as well I had to stop for a while this evening and go ring some bells for the Combined Bishops of Mauncester and Greater Footling. Marilyn’s church is finally getting its very own clergyperson after a long stretch of whatever the ecclesiastical equivalent is of supply† teachers and they’re making a proper high holy day of it. And Marilyn—who is tower captain—was informed that there would be ringing. Ahem. Marilyn’s got an odd crew: she actually draws up a rota for Sunday ringing—the usual thing is that it’s just whoever shows up, which is why Sunday service at many towers, including mine, is a trifle haphazard—and people do show up on their assigned Sundays, and they ring their call changes††, and they go away again. Marilyn is the only local who shows up regularly for practise: which is why Marilyn’s tower only rings call changes on Sundays.†††
I don’t know if Marilyn’s local ringers came over all peculiar at the idea of ringing for not one but two bishops‡ or what, but last Wednesday she said to us hard core practise night visitors, I need volunteers for Monday. I have a book to finish, and two sets of proofs to read, I muttered under my breath, but I still volunteered. Niall was there tonight too, and one more of our Wednesday crew; and Marilyn had clawed two more locals out of the woodwork, which made six ringers for six ropes. And we rang perfectly respectable call changes. And I hope the bishops were pleased.‡‡
And right now the question is, can I squeeze out another page of PEGASUS first‡‡‡ or had I better go straight to the piano and try to finish my easy-enough-for-morons-so-maybe-I-can-learn-it piano accompaniment for The Miller of Dee and my voice lesson tomorrow?§
* * *
* When I was younger and crazier I used to live the stories I was writing with a rather pathological intensity. By the end of the last draft I was like Frodo after he got stabbed by the Black Rider on Weathertop. And I dreamed about them a lot. But at least I got good dreams sometimes, and not just the bad ones, where the villain of the moment^ is on my tail and the heroes are all attending to more important matters. Kelar never wakens in my blood. I still get villain of the moment ones—and there’s an evil magician in PEGASUS^^—and I also get those really dumb ones where you’re sitting in your accountant’s office^^^ and suddenly realise that he’s Bo or Maur or Guy of Gisbourne or something. The worst of both worlds. Arrgh.
^ There’s no villain in BEAUTY, you’re going to say. Sure there is. Your own stupidity. You get back to the castle too late and he really is dead, and it’s All Your Fault, and everything was going to be wonderful and you’ve screwed it. Forever. This is a pet terror of mine anyway: the life-destroying ‘if only . . . ’ What I wonder is if I was that way before I discovered Beauty and the Beast as my story at the age of six or so—if the narrow escape at the end is one of the reasons it became my story—or if it’s the other way around: I became preoccupied with that particular kind of walking blindfold on the edge of the precipice (‘oh one more day won’t matter’) because I’d taken B&B as my story. +
+ The obelisk that the climbing rose of my life was going to twine up around, one might say, but one had better not.
^^ And some drooling monsters
^^^ Or your dentist’s chair. Of course, your dentist is Bo or Maur or Guy of Gisbourne or the star-spawn of Cthulhu.+
+ Have I commented here before that Word does not recognise Cthulhu? Come on. I’m losing my faith in programmer geekiness.
** Okay, how am I going to wage this war?
*** They get pretty impressive lift off for critters with no wings. I’ve tried feeling along their backs for the invisible wings, but no again.
† Substitute, in the States.
†† For those of you who would rather not retain a lot of bell jargon: call changes don’t require you to remember anything, except what bell you’re on. They’re not a method: you move when the conductor tells you to move. Four to five, he’ll say, whereupon the fourth bell, which has been following the three (rounds, which is where you start, are the bells in numerical order: one/treble, two, three, four, five, six, however many bells you’ve got), turns her head to the left,^ and starts following the five. The five, which has been following the four, can’t any more, because the four is now following her, so she begins following the bell the four was following, which is the three. Got it? Yes, it does require you pay a little attention—and you do need to be able to handle a bell—but the person whose brains are melting is the conductor, who has to remember where everybody is. The rule that a bell can only change one place in the row is absolute for all ringing. Niall, when he’s running practise, usually makes me call some call changes. I should learn to call call changes.^^ I hate it.^^^
^ The bells in most towers are hung clockwise. Occasionally they aren’t.
^^ Some of you will remember the trials of poor Boadicea last Christmas.
^^^ I still hate it.
††† There’s a significant minority of bell ringers who ring because it’s something they do for the church, like be a lay reader or a greeter or something. These people may like the noise that bells make and get a kick out of learning to pull the rope, but they are not on fire to learn unhinging, brain-torturing methods. They get to call changes—just possibly they get to plain hunt, which is the almost-a-method before your first real method—and they stop there. ^ This is perfectly valid, as I have to keep reminding myself, being the crazed obsessional type.
^ And just by the way, really good, crisp, accurate call changes require a lot of skill. There are hotly contested call-change tournaments where I wouldn’t get in the door.
‡ And worse yet, the bishop of Greater Footling rings. I don’t think he rings much—I think he’s one of these call-change people—but he knows what it is, which is more than a lot of priests do.^ But I rang a dedication ceremony a couple of years ago that the Greater Footling bishop came to and he made a point of chatting up all us ringers. Nice chap. Although the funny hat is disconcerting.
^ You really, really need the priest of the church your tower is attached to on your side. Our priest, although he doesn’t ring, is on our side.
‡‡ And I hope that the new incumbent likes bells.
‡‡‡ About that war. . . .
§ And will my brains resolidify overnight?
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