The Witch Within

I have to do 8 and 9 pages a day, alternating, for the next 10 days. George has indicated that he should be able to help me out with 2 a day unless his own editor cracks the whip.

The "Divide" series is proceeding; it's hard to find the time to input all the information that's streaming out of my brain. *orders Bob and Megabyte to SHUT UP FOR FIVE MINUTES, thank you, and of course they don't... it's a cliche that characters take on a life of their own, but well, sometimes they DO...*

George and I went out for lunch at Niko's (fish and chips for him, a chicken gyro with salad and rice for me). On the way back we stopped at Starbucks and I now have a sugar-free soy milk latte.

Aaaand in the catagory of "links you probably shouldn't click and which will change your worldview if you do"... Pizza Stix at urbandictionary.com. Not safe for work like woah. You have been warned.

Back to work. Again. So tired...

To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

Go read the rest of the article. It's brilliant. But then, it is Gloria Steinem.

( Funny animals under the cut )

Sarah Palin asks the library how she can go about banning books, since some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them.

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

And the article contains other WTF?-inducing examples of her conduct.

I do believe that anyone who'd seriously vote for this woman for VP needs to have their head examined. If her actions in this case weren't a sterling example of anti-American thinking (or at least against the standards of freedom that America generally claims to uphold), I don't know what is.

Courtesy of alu_chan... Totally adorable! A must-see!



OMFG I IZ DED OF TEH KYUTE!11!!1!

Painting to the right of me... fanfic to the left of me...

(Go here for a link to a reading of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Tennyson himself, recorded on Edison wax cylinder back in 1890. When I played it on our computer, Emmie, who had been sound asleep in one of the studio chairs, suddenly sat up and stared at the computer intently with her head bobbing up and down, licking her lips every so often. This leads me to believe that she is either (a) the reincarnation of the great poet himself reacting to the distant sound of his own voice, or (b) just weird.)

It's been a very busy couple of days.

The finished version of "Wishes", now titled "Sleepless" (in a classic example of Names That Should Have Been Obvious From The Start), is available here. Comments are sweeter than chocolate.

Off to work again, taking breaks every couple of hours to pound out the prose that's pouring into my brain from wherever creative writing comes from. Perhaps my own personal Muse. Perhaps the same dimension that swallows lost socks.

Yes, I am getting a little bit punch-drunk. Is it that obvious?

Courtesy of Shorpy.com, that wonderous source of old photos. Links lead to MUCH larger versions of the pictures. The detail is astounding.

The Office: 1923



Multi-Processor Computing:1924



How things have changed... I sometimes wonder what people from that era would have thought if they could have caught a glimpse of the world of 2008.

Found via an email from a family member, the amazing dance troupe Pilobolus:



A longer and even more impressive display of their talents can be found here, when they performed on the Conan O'Brien show.

They truly challenge your assumptions about what the human body is capable of. Great stuff.

Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar, edited by Mercedes Lackey

I would have to say that this is my least favorite of the Valdemar short story anthologies. For one thing, I have a serious issue with the title--there is no story called "Crossroads" in the book! Then there's the fact that three of the stories had no reason to be set in the world of Valdemar at all They were interesting stories, but they didn't have to be in this anthology.

Other stories were really enjoyable, though. I think my favorite was the one set in Karse's distant past--right when the corruption was just beginning. And it was fun to revisit a beloved fantasy world. Actually, it's made me want to reread the books--I haven't touched some of them in years, despite owning most of them. In fact, I only read this one because I was on vacation. The Forest House was depressing me, and the only other books I'd brought were its sequels! Of the books my mom had brought, Crossroads was the most appealing.

Sweet jumping Jesus!

The short version: Three Christian colleges in the States are turning out pharmacists who are going to refuse women things like birth control and the morning after pill because it's, well, JUST PLAIN WRONG. And the government is actually going to let them.

*ponders*

You know, I'm aware that my hackles are still up over the Westboro Baptist Church's attempt to invade Canada and spew filth on our soil. Therefore I'm also aware that this news of the latest success of Christian fundamentalists in hijacking the system of my friends down south is making me MUCH more angry than it should.

But someone has to take a stand and do something -- anything -- to stop these... no. I have no words. Just rage.

The Forest House by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Since The Mists of Avalon holds a special place in my Top 5 Favorite Books Ever, I had little doubt but that I would enjoy the first of its prequels, and I was not disappointed. This is another feminist novel, set many years in Avalon's past--so far back, in fact, that there are yet no priestesses on Avalon, and the women instead live in a place called Vernemeton, or the Forest House, established by the Romans to isolate and protect the priestesses after their sanctuary at Mona was cruelly invaded (by the Romans themselves, of course). The main character, Eilan, dreams of being a priestess one day, then falls in love. I really admire the way MZB made the men's control of the women, especially their sexuality, not just an inconvenience or a metaphor but a central part of the plot. The priestesses of the Forest House are only permitted sexual contact with a man if that man is the chosen Year-King, symbolic sacrifice for his people. Eilan must struggle with her choices and few around her believe that she has made the right ones.

Unlike Mists, The Forest House has a male POV character. At the beginning he is rather heroic and quite likable. However, as the novel progresses, he is shown to be more and more flawed and toward the end he really becomes a big jerk. He is redeemed somewhat, and manages to remain sympathetic for a time, but it would be nice to see a more relatable male character. (I do think we get that in the next book.) Besides that and some repetitiveness, though, I have nothing to complain about in this book.

My favorite character is Caillean, the Assistant to the High Priestess who is later sent to establish a house of priestesses on Avalon. I see in her Raven, Morgaine, Niniane, and especially Viviane--it's easy to find the beginning of a long legacy of manipulative High Priestesses of Avalon. The Merlin also makes an appearance, though not in the guise you might expect, and I'm intrigued to see how the perception of that role changes.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who didn't like The Mists of Avalon, and probably not to anyone who hasn't read it--it's a decent stand-alone novel, I think, but gains more depth if you know its future. To anyone who loved Mists as much as I did, though, I definitely recommend The Forest House!