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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rambling: Wheels and Smoke

I have a busy brain. This is not a good thing.

I don't mean busy in the sense that it sensibly and productively runs around getting things done. I mean busy in the sense of thrashing around randomly. Usually worrying about things, sometimes pleasantly planning things, but always busy busy busy.

The times when my brain is at peace are rare. Rare enough that I have, for example, a very clear memory of the time that I was watching a James Bond movie and my brain, inexplicably and uncharacteristically, just shut up and let me watch the thing. It wasn't running alternative plots. It wasn't thinking about the last movie I saw or the next one I was going to see. It wasn't worrying about whether I'd gotten popcorn butter on my shirt. It wasn't thinking about work. I just watched. the. movie.

It was a fascinating experience. It was over a year ago and it hasn't happened since.

That is, the experience of being entirely healthy and intelligent and still having a peaceful brain hasn't happened. I do find that when I'm sick, my brain does seem to quiet down, but then I wouldn't call it peaceful, I would call it stupid. It reaches out little thought tentacles, then collapses with an exhausted, "Oh, never mind." But it never stays collapsed.

It is, all the same, a bit more relaxing. I mention this because I feel as if I'm catching a cold, and my brain is looking around, sleepy-eyed, prodding halfheartedly at things. It's pleasantly restful.

That is all.

Random thoughts: Chicken and children's books

The local grocery had fried chicken in the lunchtime hot bar. Yay.

I need to read the rest of Rumer Godden's work. She's my favorite author, but I don't think I've read even half of her books, I suspect because the older I get, the more I perceive the sadness in them. Poor Mr. Plantaganet in  The Dolls' House makes me want to cry now.

I was realizing recently that the best children's books often are sad, in  a way that haunts me more than adult books. Where the Wild Things Are. Peter Pan. A Wrinkle in Time. The Light Princess. Stuart Little and the rest of E.B. White's books. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. A Little Princess. The Velveteen Rabbit. Harriet the Spy. Hitty. Ruth M. Arthur's books. And more and more. For some reason, even the ones with happy endings still leave me with a flavor of sad.

I went Googling for a reminder of what titles make me think this, and found an article about Anne Carroll Moore's work in introducing children's books to libraries. Well, and then it goes on to some controversy. It's an interesting article.

I want a copy of Ruth M. Arthur's The Saracen Lamp. It seems to be extra out of print. Not in the sense of being unavailable, just in the sense of expensive.

I used to check out Ruth M. Arthur's books from the library shelf across from Rumer Godden's books and a few feet down. I spent a lot of time in the children's room. My brain has a hard time accepting that those books are no longer on those shelves, waiting for me.

My favorite book on building dollhouses was upstairs in the adult room, down in the second rank of shelves, roughly in the middle. They rearranged and moved it once. I was dismayed. I own a copy of that one, now. With the correct dust jacket. The correct dust jacket is an important part of the experience of that Mine Mine All Mine I've Got My Own Copy Now Ha! experience.

That is all.

Rambling: Longing for bubbles and syrup

So my daily posts are demonstrating a distinctly fluffball nature.  Is this because I'm blogging every day? Am I diluting my thoughts to the point that there won't be anything solid? Or is it just that the solid thoughts aren't going to come any more frequently?

We'll find out. I'm going for the second interpretation. Back when I was doing pretty reliable Scent Of The Day posts, some of them were solid and some of them were fluff.

I also wrote most of them while adequately caffeinated.

I want a Coke and I want it now.

OK, I'm stopping at fluffball here.

Rambling: Random Thoughts

Weeeekend! Ha!

The roses are going crazy, weeks early.

I'm thinking of learning iOS programming.

I still haven't fitted the perfect shirt pattern.

I have fitted a perfectly nice pattern that would be great for summer skirts. Why aren't I sewing them?

I haven't had a Coke in a week. This is a resumption of the sugar-cutting.

I want a different pair of walking skirt shoes. I bought a perfectly nice pair of Danskos, but the round toes make me look like I'm a six-year-old dressed for Sunday school.

We seem to have just skipped spring this year. So I'm having spring cleaning thoughts in summer weather.

I want chicken.

If I can't have Coke, I want chicken.

Did I mention the chicken?

Tomorrow I should fry something.

That is all.

Blogging: Books and books

Dang. Missed two days. Oh, well.

I’ve been reading The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish, by Linda Przybyszewski. My favorite quote so far is “I may be the only historical to lecture the Supreme Court in a suit that won a blue ribbon at a country fair.” That’s from the author herself, not from any of the historical subjects that she discusses. I'm barely two chapters in, but I'm enjoying it. And I'll leave it at that until I'm further along.

I've also been re-reading Service Included, by Phoebe Damrosch, about her time working at a waiter at Per Se. Well, and about other things. Also enjoyable.

I'm also about a third of the way through American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. Also good.

I'm halfway through each of two books about software.

I should really finish something.

That is all.

Blogging: Um.

So I'm trying to do that daily blogging thing.

So I'm sitting in front of a blank screen.

And no thoughts are coming out.

Um.

It's not that I'm not having thoughts. All sorts of thoughts happened today. We were busy and active and did all sorts of things. Ending with eating lots of Chinese food.

It's just that none of them are coming out worth posting.

Um.

This would be a great time for a nice cat picture, but that won't work, because I have yet to figure out how to add a picture when blogging on the iPad, and the Mac isn't handy. That's also why the post below has the wrong font.

OK, I'm going to try again tomorrow.

Rambling: A Wrinkle in Time (on paper, on stage, and in my head)

(I wrote this yesterday. Then I got sleepy and forgot to hit Publish. So I'm calling it yesterday's post. Yep.) 

 The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is showing a production of A Wrinkle in Time, adapted for the stage by Tracy Young. You should all go see it. Run along and order your tickets. I'll wait till you get back. I can tell you where to eat in Ashland, too.

But that's not mostly the point of this post. Part of the point of this post is that the play made me cry. That's no big deal, in general: plays often want to do that. But...

OK, digression. Really, this is going to be relevant. My mother has a story about my brother as a baby, eating creamed spinach. I think it was spinach; anyway, it was something he didn't like the taste of. He would willingly open his mouth for a spoonful, experience the taste, and cry. And then he'd open his mouth again. He utterly failed to make the connection between accepting the spoon, and his crying.

I have a similar disconnect with what's making me cry when I see this play. Or think about this play. Or talk about this play. I get a few words in, and off go all those wanna-cry body parts. (Not that I'm saying I don't like the taste of the play. Did I mention that you should go see it?)

But the wanna-cry isn't associated with identifiable thoughts. Or feelings. Or images. Or characters. There's no, "Oh, poor Meg," or Charles Wallace, or Calvin, or any of those. I'm burbling "Yeah, they did a really good job of carrying out the spirit of the book without slavishly sticking to elements that wouldn't work onstage, and the thing they did with the viewfoils...dagnabbit, why am I crying again?!"

I feel as if I'm standing outside myself getting exasperated as I crash, like an unstable computer. But there's no core dump, nothing to analyze.

Well, no feelings to analyze, but that leads to the second part of this post, where I realize that I'm seeing a metaphor in the play that I think was there all along in the book, and wondering how I could possibly have missed it, and wondering if I made it up. But, see, I can talk about that metaphor all day and it doesn't make me cry. So it doesn't solve the puzzle.

Anyway. This is going to be a spoiler. Spoiler. Not the final spoiler in the story, but a spoiler, so stop reading if you want to read (or see--bought those tickets yet?) A Wrinkle In Time without being influenced by my interpretation.

You remember the room, the metaphorical "cloven pine" and Mr. Murray (Meg's father) and Meg with Mrs. Who's glasses? Yes? Mr. Murray's trapped in the room, a prison with transparent walls. He can't see, and no one can get in to help him, or even communicate with him, no matter how loud they shout or how hard they pound on the walls. All they can do is watch him suffer.

But when Meg puts on Mrs. Who's glasses, she can walk through the cold transparent walls. She gives the glasses to her father--puts them on him herself, I think, against his "that won't work" protests--and he can see. He can see, and he can get through the walls, though now she's blind. He scoops her up and walks out of his prison, carrying her.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Was this obvious to everyone but me?

Is there a child of disordered parents who has not, at times, wanted nothing on earth more than the ability to make their parents see, and to empower them to escape from the prison of their own making? And also to give up their own self-imposed responsibility and become a child, finally cared for, rescued, by that parent?

Suddenly that's what I get from that scene, in the book or the play. Suddenly IT, and Camazotz, are all metaphor. They're Mr. Murray. The mind imprisoning and controlling him is his own mind. The mind that tried but failed to destroy his children is his own mind. I don't know if Madeline l'Engle meant that, consciously or unconsciously, but there it is all the same.

But I can discuss that, and write it, and nothing wants to cry. So there's got to be something else in there.

Or I just need a clean reinstall.

Writing: Hmmm. And I didn't mean to create a clip show post, but...

I noticed that I have a lot of little scraps of writing that I never posted. I think. If I'm going to blog every day, that seems to be a fine time to use them. Here's one, written a few weeks ago. I think.

In The Forest for the Trees, Betsy Lerner says, "If you are struggling with what you should be writing, look at your scraps. Encoded there are the themes and subjects that you should be grappling with as a writer."

A few weeks or months after I wrote my brief series of StoryADay stories, I noticed patterns in them, and then I saw the same ones, less clearly, in my other fiction scraps.

In Bitter Oranges and The Princess and the Caffeine, predators befriend prey. In Recycling and The Princess and the Caffeine, parents don't care a fig about their children. In Recycling and Tulips and Butter, children fight the pull to fulfill their parents' needs. In Coriolis Effect and Tulips and Butter, parents impose their needs on their children, with the classic "for their own good" excuse. There's betrayal in Caveat Emptor and The Princess and the Caffeine, and the last line of Bitter Oranges. Recycling involves finding love (sort of) somewhere new, walking away from where it was sought before. So does The Princess and the Caffeine. So does Caveat Emptor. So does Bitter Oranges.

Hmm.

Allies acting as enemies, enemies acting as allies, finding what you need somewhere else.

Now I want to write a new set of stories, just so several months later I can once again figure out what I was writing about.

Blogging: Considering the daily blog again

Long ago, I blogged a daily Scent of the Day post every single day for...er...a while. I have it in my head that I did was over a hundred days, but I suspect that I made that up. This Sunday (in, yet again, BlogChat) I remembered that and half-resolved to start blogging every day again--not necessarily about perfume, just about stuff. That was three days ago, and I haven't posted yet. So much for resolutions.

But I could still give it a try.

I occasionally theorize that the gotta-add-a-picture factor slows down blogging. The need for a picture seems vaguely silly--it's not as if y'all would come here, see a text-only post, and promptly shriek and run away, right? Right? I mean, a good fuzzy cat picture is a fine thing, but it's not as if it's mandatory

If I skipped the picture, I could even blog from my phone. Maybe. There's some sort of post-by-email thing.

Speaking of writing on my phone, I've been playing with (NAYY) the combination of Daedalus (an iOS app) and Ulysses (a Mac app.)  They're both text editors with bonus features for managing lots of text files, and, since, they're written by the same company, they sync with each other using that cloud thing. So if I have an inspiration for a random ramble while I'm waiting in line at the grocery, I can start to tap it into my phone, and when I get home to my Mac and an actual keyboard, the post fragment is there for me.

Now, the problem with this for general writing purposes is that while I'm perfectly happy to have my blog posts wafting here and there, I'm not as sure about trusting some theoretical future novel to a cloud thing. The very fact that I keep referring to it as a "cloud thing" presumably communicates my uneasiness. There's no logical reason to trust cloud syncing less than I trust email--I should really trust it more--but there it is.

Um.

So will I post again tomorrow?

We'll see. Meanwhile, I'm going to tack on a nice cat picture. According to Wikimedia Commons, his name is Noodles.

Image: By Antony Stanley. Wikimedia Commons.