Saturday, June 28, 2014

Vignette: Nonsense

"Let's sit over there."

"On the grass?"

"You did say a picnic."

"A picnic doesn't have to be on grass. It can be on a picnic table."

"It's not a picnic if it's on a table."

"A meal on a picnic table isn't a picnic?"

"Right."

"Did you miss the name?"

"It's not my problem if they mislabel a piece of furniture. A picnic requires that you sit on a flat surface. Preferably with a blanket. A meal eaten on one of those tripping hazards is a cookout."

"Tripping hazards?"

"You have to climb over that support thing when you sit at a picnic table. I always trip."

"After how many beers?"

"None. Your burger's getting cold."

"They could use that as a sobriety test."

"I have to be back at work in an hour."

"The cops stop you, the breathalyzer's out of batteries, they pull the portable picnic table out of the trunk."

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Rambling: Rambling Rambling

OK, so the daily blogging thing kind of fell down.

I got busy.

Then I caught a cold.

Which is still present.

So I'm feeling whiney.

Those three lines seem vaguely haiku-like.

Now that I've re-read everything by Josephine Tey, I'm starting over with Ngaio Marsh.

Um.

That appears to be all.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Television: Halt and Catch Fire

I wanted to like this. I really did. AMC's advertising tried to tie it emotionally to Mad Men, and I think that was a mistake. Because Mad Men has the alien vibe of being truly in the past. People think and do things that seem inconceivable or unforgivable ("Do you belong to someone else?") but we're convinced. And we even like those people. Eventually.

Sure, I've only seen two episodes of Halt and Catch Fire. But it doesn't have that feel of a foreign country, of alien beings built from the inside out. There's a self-conscious awareness of the contrast between the past and the present. The outrageous statements seem to know they're outrageous. The predictions of the future are far too accurate. The pretty characters choose clothes that we could wear today, while the unpretty ones look as if they dressed out of their own parents' closets.

I wondered if I was being unfair, demanding too much. But Mad Men isn't the only recent-past period drama that works. The original British Life on Mars, for example,  was entirely convincing, despite having a character who knows all about our present right in the middle of it.

Maybe it'll get better.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Daily Ramble: Uh.


Also, uh.

My brain is not particularly operational today. But it's not as if it's depressed or sleepy or tired. It's just sort of empty.

I seem to vaguely kinda recall this emptiness, in the past, preceding a creative period. Maybe. Like a sort of prodrome. So maybe I'm going to create something.

Or.

Um.

Maybe not.

I might just eat chicken.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Daily Ramble: Portland Carbs

St. Cupcake is back.

Blue Star has a new location that isn't going to do the close-when-they-run-out-of-dough thing.

We're going to be spending a fair number of weekends in Portland. That's not cause and effect, it's just an additional fact.

Increased roundness looms.


Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Daily Ramble

Have you heard the actor who plays Orphan Black's Felix speaking in his real-world American accent? It's surreal.

Helena remains my favorite character. ("White Russian?" "Pork rind?")

Since I cut out Coke, I keep having a kinda-sorta-almost migraine. I'm tempted to cut out all caffeine and blast music while staring into a spotlight just to get the bleeping thing to come and go.

I read that migraines are often preceded with food cravings. Is that the reason for, well, the food cravings? Or is it just normal chicken gluttony?

Mmm, chicken.

That seems to be all.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Rambling. Poetry. Reading update. Gluttony. Stuff like that.

Why don't I write poems?
I like to write conversation, and it's much the same.
He said, she said, new line, new line.
In my narrative, they say, I have too many new lines.
Destroys the impact, they say, too many new lines.

Too many new lines.

Why don't I write poems?

OK, I'm not sure if that counts as a poem. I prefer my foot Haiku.

I've been reading:

In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden.
Blue Plate Special, by Kate Christensen.
I'm still working on American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. I like it a lot, but for some reason I keep reading a few pages and then putting it down for a while.
The Blood Royal, by Barbara Cleverly.

I'm also reading Peopleware, by DeMarco and Lister.  It's unusual for me to find a "business" or technical book this engaging.  It's making me all opinionated about programming and corporate policies.

There are more chicken wings in the kitchen.

You may recall my determination to stop eating out of worry.  I do seem to be successfully worrying less, though in a "Meh; if I'm doomed, I'm doomed, no point in worrying about it" sort of way. The difficulty is that I'm also worrying less about what I eat. Oops.

I have maintained my no-Coke-drinking progress, but there's a lot of butter getting consumed. And an occasional doughnut. And when we spend Saturday in the park the candy store with the toffee is really nearby. I ate all these things in a cheerful and worry-free manner. This was not the plan.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Monday, June 2, 2014

Slacking! I'm slacking!

On the daily blogging, that is. I'm thinking of making a rule that if I haven't posted by, oh, 10pm every night, I have to click the "new post" button and type something.

Something.

Something something something.

Did I mention that I don't believe in writer's block? Doesn't exist, right? Right.

I'm frying chicken wings. Yum.

I've been reading a lot of feminist blogs. Somehow their bookmarks got mixed up with the bookmarks for the fashion blogs, which can be a bit of a jolt. Of course, some of the fashion blogs are also feminist--that's how they got mixed up--but all the same.

I've also been reading a lot of books by female authors in which they write about their writing.

I ate the chicken wings.

I'm fatter now.

That is all.

Image: By Peter G. Trimming. Wikimedia Commons.