Two baby snakes in my bathroom so far this year, both successfully scooped up and dumped in the yard, where I hope they will live long and happy lives eating annoying creatures. It’s been a few years since the last snake influx, when I removed six baby snakes (in various Schrodinger states) from the other bathroom. I really do need to figure out how they’re getting in, and I’d rather like to know what they are too — I’m fairly sure they’re nonpoisonous, but one does like to be certain.
24 April 2006
23 April 2006
ISBN-13 Away!
While I whined a lot about the gruntwork involved in converting to ISBN-13, in actuality it took me maybe three weeks to add them to all the PDF catalogs, and that definitely wasn’t anywhere near constant work.
Our site, PDF catalogs, and ONIX database are now all converted to ISBN-13. There’s still stuff other parts of the Press will have to do as part of the switch, but my part’s all done. (Heck, I’m more ready to use ISBN-13 than some of our vendors are.) Go me!
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22 April 2006
Recent Reading: Lots of Stuff
Jennie D. Lindquist, The Golden Name Day, The Little Silver House, The Crystal Tree. Wonderful books about a Swedish-American family in New Hampshire. The first two have been favorites of mine since I was eight or nine; the third I never heard of until I was in college, but find reasonably enjoyable.
Barry Hughart, The Bridge of Birds. Fantasy set in ancient China. A fun read, well-structured, set in a cool world.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow. A look at what situations tend to actually make people happy. Thought-provoking.
Ray Levy and Bill O’Hanlon, Try and Make Me. Tips for parenting stubborn kids. Mostly doesn’t apply to my own kid, but there’s a few ideas that I found useful.
Pietra Ravoli, The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy. A fascinating look at the life of a t-shirt, from cotton plant to used clothing sales, and the economics behind the whole. It’s clear that the author’s bias is towards free trade (and indeed, she says as much), but she also acknowledges the short-term problems that free trade causes.
I checked out Sarah Monette’s's Mélusine from the library, but didn’t finish it. The prose is fabulously good, and what little I saw of the worldbuilding seemed excellent. However, judging from the first few chapters, it’s a lot darker than I’m currently up for reading. I’ll probably try it again in a couple years.
Arnold Bennett, How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day. This was a book I learned about from a book; in Maud Hart Lovelace’s Emily of Deep Valley, when Emily visits Miss Fowler to set up a reading society, Bennett’s book is on Miss Fowler’s table. Since I rather enjoy time management books anyway, when I found it in Project Gutenberg, I immediately downloaded a copy. It’s interesting, and has some useful points, but what really struck me in reading it — yes, we’ve come a long way on assuming that a book’s readers are NOT all of one gender. It’s not just the use of “generic he” — Bennett is clearly assuming that his reader doesn’t care for small children, come home from work and immediately have to prepare supper, etc. It’s not coincidence that this book was on Miss Fowler’s table.
Isaac Asimov, The Union Club Mysteries. Good bathroom reading; the stories are short, and while I often don’t buy the gimmicks, they’re still entertaining.
Stephen Ratliff and various MiSTers, Premier Ma[r]qui{s}. Because sometimes you just need to laugh your rear off.
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17 April 2006
Craft Update: A Little of Everything
One small personal goal acheived! While my son was out of town, I worked a little bit on every needlework project in progress:
- a couple rows on the Mesa shawl
- lots of progress on the Parade socks — all that’s left is to knit the legs until I run out of yarn
- a pattern repeat on the DNA scarf
- a couple lace pattern repeats on Soleil
- a square on the crocheted blouse
- one seam each on the black linen-rayon skirt and shirtjacket
- a few stitches on the Fantasy sampler — the upper right box is almost 3/4 outlined
- a very few orange stitches on the pentacle
- a few threads’ worth of stitches on the Flanders map — progress on the coat of arms
- actual couching (!) on the crane
- one thread on Ruby
With luck and good bus trips, I’ll finish the scarf and socks sometime this week or next.
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12 April 2006
On Quasi-Writing
In January, I got hit with a new idea in my story universe for the first time in years.
It’s not going to turn into a submittable work any time soon; I wrote a couple thousand words on it and then stalled out. But that’s okay. This is the first inkling I’ve had since approximately 2000 that my fiction generator isn’t completely fried.
I still don’t know why I’m having so much trouble writing fiction. From 1995 to 2000, I was writing regularly, occasionally hitting snags but generally making progress. The birth of my son didn’t adversely affect the writing — heck, I wrote the first drafts of two novels between when he was six and eighteen months old. The stream started slowing after that, but I could still reliably sit down at lunch and write a scene or character vignette, or write a different viewpoint character’s take on a scene.
Lately I’ve been looking through those sketches, and noticing the dates. 1999. 2000. 2001, mostly early in the year. A handful for 2002. And then diddly-squat. If I have twenty of these sketches from 2003-2006, I’m very surprised. Since then, all I’ve written is a very few short fanfics, and those had to be dragged out of my brain with forceps.
What the heck happened?
Well, yes, there’s the obivious factor: my marriage fell apart and I got a divorce. My ex was my first reader; a large number of our early e-mail conversations were his crits of my work and mine of his. (Alas, I found that his in-person crits weren’t nearly as helpful to me as his e-mail ones were, due to factors on both our sides.) While we get along reasonably well now, and while I’ll still show him my writing, I’m not comfortable with relying on him for the in-depth crit that I used to, and frankly, he’s having trouble finding time to spend with our son during daylight hours; he certainly doesn’t have the time to read and comment in detail on my stories.
So there was the emotional fallout from that, plus the practical aspects of becoming a single mother of a mentally disabled kid, and the loss of my first reader
And maybe that’s all that was behind the writing trouble. Nearly four years post-divorce, I’m starting to think about my stories again and write more sketches in the universe. I have folks in my life who’re willing to beta a finished work; I need to find some folks to help with plot-noodling and world-noodling, but I know where to look. Maybe now I’ll finally be able to get these characters out of my head and into other people’s. Perhaps the stories aren’t publishable, but if I find that’s the case, a twenty-person audience online might be enough for me.
Right now I’m transcribing a bunch of these old sketches into the computer. It’s not creating original work, but it’s writing time, and it’s getting me reacquainted with these characters. We’ll see.
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10 April 2006
Wasabi Chocolate Bar
Ever since I first saw it in Whole Foods, I’ve been curious about Vosges’s Black Pearl Bar, a dark chocolate bar with ginger, black sesame seeds, and, the kicker, wasabi. But as the thing costs $7, it wasn’t usually in my budget. This trip I finally decided to try it.
The chocolate is amazing; the ginger bits are quite nice. However, I couldn’t taste the wasabi, and the sesame seeds weren’t a texture I’d go out of my way for.
It’s an excellent chocolate bar, and if it cost a bit less I could see buying it once in a while as a special indulgence. For $7, though….no.
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7 April 2006
Craft Update: Busy Starting Stuff
Having finished two projects in the past week, I started four new ones.
First, a triangular shawl, modified from a pattern in A Gathering of Lace, from KnitPicks Sock Memories. The colorway is Mesa, a combination of browns, orange, and navy blue. This project is definitely not for me, because I’m not that enamored of the colorway (especially since it’s more orangey than the photo suggested), but I know several folks who’d like it, so I expect to have no trouble finding it a home later. The lace pattern is very simple; I had it memorized after a few rows. I’m probably a little under a quarter of the way through.
Next, I cut out a shirt-jacket and skirt from a rayon-linen blend that I’ve had around for a few years. The skirt pattern turns out to stop just a titch below the size I’d need — and the pattern’s out of print. So I decided to extrapolate from the sizes given; if it fits, great, and if not, I toss the pattern and hope that one of the major companies will come out with a decent skirt pattern again soon. (I am a thirty-something woman who has given birth. I do not want a skirt whose waistband should more accurately be called a hipband.)
Finally, more socks. I ordered several skeins of KnitPicks Parade, since it was on clearance, so I decided to go ahead and start a pair when the yarn arrived. The site claims that the yarn is meant to be knitted on #3 to #5 needles even for socks, but I’m using #2s and so far that makes a good fabric.
This is my second pair of toe-up socks. One tendency I seem to have so far with toe-up socks is that I make at least one more toe increase than it turns out I need. Right now I’m making these at 48 stitches around; I’m going to check after I’ve knit another five or ten rows and can properly try the thing on my foot, and if it’s too big I’ll rip back and make it 44 instead.
Meanwhile, progress continues on some previously existing projects.
DNA scarf: Two-thirds through. Note to self, for future reference: Seed stitch next to reverse stockinette tends to fold at the join, and in the wrong direction at that.
Soleil: Haven’t worked on it much since starting it, but I’ve got one repeat of the bottom lace pattern done.
Flanders map: A little bit of progress — a smidge of ocean and a smidge of coat-of-arms.
Fantasy Sampler: Also a little progress; I’ve stitched across the very top center and am about to stake out the upper left box.
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