Drowning Nor Waving

January 3, 2008 Progress Notes:

Above

Words today: 750.
Words total: 16,500 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: My brain hurts. It took a lot just to get that.
Liquid Refreshment: Lemon blossom tea.
Munchies: Linguine with tomato sauce and roasted garlic oil.
Exercise: A whole afternoon hauling about the city.
Mail: Prezzies from stillnotbored! I now have a truly mad amount of yarn.

Darling du Jour: Whisper's father thought there ought to be young men; there comes a time (Whisper said, and the lines came out sharp in her face even by lamplight, and her fingers rubbed each other as if they were terrible cold) when respectable young women need to be out of their father's houses for the good of all involved.

(Whisper's story again. I swear it isn't really that long. Maybe three pages.)

Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: N/A

Mean Things: Teller's terrible, terrible naivete. Passive-aggressive pissed-offed-ness.
Research Roundup: Toronto water table height. Y'know, there are insane logistical issues around having an underground society. Although that's one of the things we're pointing out by writing this.
Books in progress: Barth Anderson, The Patron Saint of Plagues.

The glamour: A day hauling around the city -- mostly shopping -- with my mother and sister, after someone pulled the fire alarm this morning at nine. The fire alarm in here sounds like an air raid siren. I am so tired I think I'm punchy. *g*

No. I know I'm punchy.

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Day Three:


Oh, we didn't want to do that tonight, did we?

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Unexpected sale tonight! "A Brief History of Night, Before Sleep" will be appearing in a soonish issue of Chiaroscuro. So that's the first sale of 2008, sort of. I count them by when I sent them out, so technically this one falls back a bit in the official by-year count.

ETA: Um...and wow, it's up already. In this issue. Fastest sale-to-pub ever.

Also, unexpected yarn! I got some Expected Yarn: the required material and implements to make these, and then some sparkly blue on-sale stuff because it was there and on sale while at the yarn store with the blood relatives. However, stillnotbored's box was also full of yarn: baaaaaby alpaca, sock yarn, a pretty soft purple-pink mix. My yarn stash, previously confined to a tote bag (and my crystal fruit bowl. don't ask.) is now spilling out onto the dining room chairs and building bridges onto the table.

I put it all on my brand spanking new Ravelry profile, wherein you should friend me if you have one too, and realized I am frighteningly heavy with yarn.

I may need some new patterns. And a containment team, stat.

January 1, 2008 Progress Notes:

Above

Words today: 2150.
Words total: 14,200 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: I slowed enough to go finish making my pork buns, and now whatever I've done to my neck and shoulder is acting up and I oughtn't to type more.
Liquid Refreshment: Licorice spice tea.
Munchies: Buttered toast.
Exercise: N/A.
Mail: Nomail.

Darling du Jour: Whisper was part of what was called General Population: that meant that she was Sick, but not scary or a Freak or someone who couldn't be let out of her room. In General Population there were other Sick girls: they talked to walls too, and told her about midnight visits from angels and colours shifting bright inside the potted plants.
No, said the ghosts, who had heard of Whisper through a chain of whispering that stretched from her attic to the hospital in the park. We don't think those things are really there.
She met with the doctors twice a week. They didn't think the ghosts were really there. This made her wonder about the girls with the angel lovers.

Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: ghosty, spoked, wisping, fingerpainted

Mean Things: Everyone thinking your girlfriend's crazy. Being stuck in enemy territory with none of your stuff and maybe four friends to your name.
Research Roundup: N/A
Books in progress: M. John Harrison, Nova Swing.

The glamour: I made more pork buns, as I ran out. The urgency of me running out of pork buns leads me to believe this will be a new staple of the recipe rotation around here.

---

Day One:


Yup, I'm doing novel_in_90 again. For values of doing, because once the semester starts in earnest I'm going to drop to a page a day as the quota. There's just not enough mental RAM to sustain a steady novelling pace and coursework.

That said, it appears something decided it wanted to be written after all. Maybe six months of ignoring it, catlike, really might work. I have a narrative arc for the stories-between-chapters and everything.

Going to ice my shoulder now. Ouch. Dammit.

February 10, 2007 Progress Notes:

The Patron Saint of Nothing

Words today: 850.
Words total: 32,850 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: It's over quota.
Liquid Refreshment: Water, sauvignon blanc.
Munchies: Tuna casserole.
Exercise: N/A.
Mail: Various and sundry business things over the last week.

Darling du Jour: Tom held the lamp up – it blinded. The dead guard was bubbling, skin hissing and peeling back, holes stretching through flesh and showing white bone. Mmm. Time-lapse decomposition. :D
Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: N/A

Mean Things: Lyss: Childhood reflexes that make people look at you funny.
Case: Curses! Don't whip 'em out unless you're ready for the consequences!
Research Roundup: N/A
Books in progress: Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories; Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Takes A Holiday; Caitlin Kiernan, Daughter of Hounds; Textbooks.

The glamour: I made blueberry muffins with a little too much butter. They taste like butter cookies now. Mmmmm.

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Day Thirty-Six:

17,300 / 67,500 (25.6%)

Ugh. Feh. Waaaaay behind. Hopefully I'll catch up on reading week. After I study for those tests next week.

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The book is officially unsexy. All hail.

January 29, 2007 Progress Notes:

The Patron Saint of Nothing

Words today: 1700.
Words total: 31,000 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: Nice round number, and it's getting late.
Liquid Refreshment: Water, hot milk.
Munchies: Leftover stroganoff, beans, rice.
Exercise: An hour walking.
Mail: The acceptance from Japanese Dreams! And shiny belated holiday gifties!

Darling du Jour: Zithembe did not play snubbing games, nor was his equilibrium disturbed by men who chose to sit in shadow. He leaned over and turned up the clear-paned lamp. "District Justice."
Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: N/A

Mean Things: Catherine: Yeah, just couldn't cope with a hot boy walking by, could you?
Zithembe: Making an enemy that'll probably prove worse than he thinks.
Lyss: Getting her really kickass evening ruined by the kids' starting fights.
Case: The stabbing in the heart of someone you thought a friend selling your ass out when she thinks you're not listening.
Research Roundup: Composition of concrete, whale leather.
Books in progress: Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories; Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden; Jay Lake, Trial of Flowers; Textbooks.

The glamour: I love Zithembe. I love him. He is the best boy. *g*

I squeed with character love when my mom called me and she went "oo-kay...".

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Day Twenty-Four:

15,450 / 67,500 (22.9%)

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Oof. And after all that, plus revising two stories and a class this morning, thus endeth my day to spam LJ (tm).

*flops*

January 27, 2007 Progress Notes:

The Patron Saint of Nothing

Words today: 1300.
Words total: 28,200 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: It's a nice round number.
Liquid Refreshment: Water.
Munchies: Lasagna for dinner, then some toast with lime marmalade for snack.
Exercise: N/A.
Mail: Nomail.

Darling du Jour: She lifted her head a little: they'd not given her a lot of rope to work with. She could only lift halfway, like a fight dog all tied up before they let it into the pits. Case looked away from her. It was embarrassing, watching a grown lady like that.
Tyop du Jour: --it was full of all the stories about what Izinduna did to the kids who pissed them off – burning and washtubs full of fresh-caught singers on the back--
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: N/A

Mean Things: Case: When they drug you for surgery and you wake up tied to the bed, well, the bad thoughts show up.
Zithembe: Being pwned by his four-year-old daughter, his pregnant debate-master sister, and a small kitten.
Lyss: Here, have two rambunctious, homocidal gang children. We don't want them anymore.
Catherine: Well, now that all the dead people are bloating around our house, well we'll just have to go out for victims dinner now. Fine. Be that way.
Research Roundup: African rug patterns, birds of Venice, coral.
Books in progress: Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories; Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden; Jay Lake, Trial of Flowers; Textbooks.

The glamour: I actually got a buttload of stuff done today: slush, reading for three classes, making lasagna, kitchen-cleaning, words, miscellany, and a bath. And was weirdly tired throughout.

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Day Twenty-Two:

12,650 / 67,500 (18.7%)

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Not much to say tonight; mostly to myself today, reading and so forth.

I used one of my Lush bath bombs tonight, the one with the sunflower petals and citrus and such in it that's supposed to wake you up (I was feeling decidedly unawake). I was sitting in the bath playing with the soaked petals, picked up the centre bit and idly shredded it, spilling the little things that would become sunflower seeds into the water.

It felt like I'd wasted food. I had to get out of the bath shortly after.

January 24, 2007 Progress Notes:

The Patron Saint of Nothing

Words today: 775.
Words total: 26,075 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: Quota!
Liquid Refreshment: Water.
Munchies: Pasketti. Even crap Ragu sauce can be good if you dress it up with some good olive oil and grated reggiano.
Exercise: Two hours' walking.
Mail: Nomail.

Darling du Jour: "Get back to me," he said, and shook off his trail of tutees. They flocked at the edge of the Gardens, watching him and shifting like disease maggots who had grown arms and hands to notetake. Zithembe Bheka was about to work, and every young Arm-pupil in Charybdis was breathless to watch.
Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: notetake

Mean Things: Case: His buddy sold him out for nice dresses and (comparative) riches.
Zithembe: Yes, you have kickass magic that lets you be an awesome cop. But I will require you to eat mud to use it. :D Also, to amuse stillsostrange, you will now resemble Mr. T. I pity the foo that commits crime in Charybdis.
Research Roundup: Just some names.
Books in progress: Katherine Mansfield, Selected Stories; Mary Wollestonecraft, Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman; Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden; Jay Lake, Trial of Flowers; Textbooks.

The glamour: Apparently what happens when you read Mary Wollestonecraft before bed is you dream about being a single mother with a toddler and running away from something on the subway in a strange city. And being sexually harrassed by old men on the subway.

I am ascribing this dream entirely to coursework.

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Day Nineteen:

10,525 / 67,500 (15.6%)

Ay. I blew off like nine days. I am behind.

*calculates*

Oh hey, I'm only behind 3700 words. I can totally make that up. :)

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Spent the whole day today over at school, doing my edumacation things. Phonology is frustrating me with its people who talk in class through the whole class, its simplicity (which makes me suspect I might be missing something really, really big) and its lack of a textbook available which means our readings are on the website in unprintable, unreadable PDFs. I suspect the unprintable bit has to do with my version of Acrobat, but the unreadable is totally scan quality. Graar.

Philosophy of Feminism, however, continues to kick ass. Today we talked about the Patriarchy.

No, really. *g*

It was actually kind of stressful: I did the reading for this week on the beach, and it was Western Patriarchal Philosophy, aka The Patriarchy Does Not Think Much Of You. So we read Aristotle, Rousseau, Kant, a snippet from the Malleus Maleficarium which was just...staggeringly hilarious in its over-the-top camp psychotic break from reality way, various other philosophers. I think I was raving and cursing on the nice beach chair under the nice umbrella. Rousseau and I are no longer friends.

The mood in class tonight was sort of...well, it really does suck to have all these bright lights of philosophy saying how you're emptyheaded, carnal and wicked. We were a little snarky. Then there was tutorial, which was quite cozy and had a bunch of people from various different majors: a few Philosophy students, yeah, but some Life Sciences and Civil Engineering types too. We did some critical thinking, which according to Kant is not attractive. :p

Then I came home and did my writing, which according to Rousseau is not attractive, so I suppose I shall never score with either Kant or Rousseau. I am not crying.

Now, bath and some reading for Acquisition, and then bed.

January 15, 2007 Progress Notes:

The Patron Saint of Nothing

Words today: 1600.
Words total: 24,600 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: End of scene, and so hungry my hands are shaking.
Liquid Refreshment: Lychee tea. Also not a great idea.
Munchies: Raspberry muffins, some cheese, bananas.
Exercise: N/A.
Mail: Nomail.

Darling du Jour: Lyss turned on one foot precise as only a citizen of the Elisaria could, used to the grace of navigating small spaces on uneven and slippery floors.
Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: overpolished, smartmouthed, waterbird, unembarrassable

Mean Things: Case: Bullied by a charity clinic nurse via the simple expedient of "you let us operate on the leg or you'll lose it".
Lyss: Getting squidgy on the personal boundaries issues. And someone just let slip a secret! Heh heh heh.
Research Roundup: Just dipping back into the Zulu names sites.
Books in progress: Katherine Mansfield, Selected Stories; Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden; Jay Lake, Trial of Flowers; Textbooks.

The glamour: Soooo I went down to the office today and put in a work order to fix the hot water tap, and they said "soon" so I hung around here all afternoon and into the evening. Whence I went down to the office and said "wtf?" and they said "oh it's in the pile for tomorrow".

I sorta had errands to run today.

Hate.

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Day Ten:

9,000 / 67,500 (13.3%)

So...since I'm away four days this weekend, I only need to do 1250 words a day for the next three days to stay on target for the week. >.<

...maybe I'll catch up when I get home.

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Okay, my hands are shaking from the general lack of eating going down around here. Baaaad monkeybrain to abuse the meatpuppet so.

I will be interesting once there's dinner on the table.

January 13, 2007 Progress Notes:

The Patron Saint of Nothing

Words today: 1250.
Words total: 22,250 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: My head is hurty again! Although this time it might be one of those Eating Food issues.
Liquid Refreshment: Water.
Munchies: There was to be lasagne tonight, but I was thwarted by my lack of mozzarella. So it'll be pasketti bolognese instead. Lasagne day is moved to tomorrow.
Exercise: Two hours' walking while I did the groceries.
Mail: Nomail.

Darling du Jour: Case curled up as small as he could between the walls of the canal-boat, under the seats. He smelled it now, a bitter wild smell like a stove gone uncleaned for years and years and then stuffed full of the worst summer rubbish you could get. It caught in his throat; he tried to clear it and that just bought him a look dirtier than the stove.
Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: gravitas

Mean Things: Qara and Sakhile, Rogue Xenobiologists: Hits on the head! Getting escape dangled in front of them and snatched away! Creepiness of trees!
Case: Something in his home district is burning. It might be his house. :D
Lyss: Y'know, it really sucks when you finally get up the guts to ask the guy who's been courting you home and he says "no, too tired".
Research Roundup: History of blood transfusion. Apparently this killed a lot of people back around 1550-1800, but since Charybdis is pretty much gaslight era right now I'll let them have that one for free.
Books in progress: Katherine Mansfield, Selected Stories; Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden; Jay Lake, Trial of Flowers; Textbooks.

The glamour: St. Lawrence Market! For the first time in a long while. I decided I was tired of paying through the ear for meat from Cumbrae's (yes, city's most expensive butcher, conveniently located around the corner from me) and hiked down there to get the groceries. I have cowflesh and chickenflesh and cheese(flesh) and basil lasagna noodles and strawberries and raspberries for muffins, and a few other things I needed like more olive oil and yeast for baking. I remembered everything, actually, except the mozzarella. *headdesk*

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Day Eight:

6,650 / 67,500 (9.9%)

Thank you god we are through the riot. And add in one more transition tomorrow and we're through Chapter Four, the Chapter That Dare Not Speak Its Suck, as well. Qara and Sakhile get demerits for monopolizing almost 4000 words of action in a row.

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I needed a quiet day today, I think. Well, a Being To Myself day: wasn't exactly quiet. Went out and got more groceries than I could carry -- cabbed home sheepishly -- and read for Patriarchy Class, wrote, puttered around the kitchen some, about to start dinner. I suspect I will want to be to myself tomorrow too, and it occurs to me that I have Monday off, since the tutorial I have Monday afternoons doesn't actually start until next week. When I will miss it, being in Florida. Oops. *g*

Yes, I am going to Florida. Friday to Monday. The story of that trip goes like this:

(Scene: Early December.)

Phone: *ring ring*
Me: Hello?
My Mom: Hi. It's cold and grey and it sucks here. D'you want to go to the beach in January?
Me: Um, sure. Can we coordinate that around everyone's schedules?
My Mom: No, just you and me. We'll laze in the warmness and play card games and read books and drink margaritas and eat fresh lobster that they just took out of the ocean five minutes ago and do things like that.
Me: ...oh, oh no, twist my arm harder.

So I am going to Florida. *g* I have ordered a bikini for this from the internets, since this summer I revisited the bathingsuits I got when I was 17 (scene of my last bathingsuit purchase) and...well...no. Just no. It's not happening. I'm currently hoping the nice grey bikini with sparkles shows up before I get on a plane. It might be a near thing.

I still haven't decided what this'll mean for novel_in_90 wordcount. Clearly, LIKE SHIT am I working when I go to the beach. I guess I'll make it up a little before, a little after?

And oh yes, ping me with a snail-mail address if you want a silly postcard while I'm there. :p


Now I am going to make my dinner before I expire and never make it to Florida.

January 10, 2007 Progress Notes:

The Patron Saint of Nothing

Words today: 1000.
Words total: 20,250 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: I have been informed by Management that what I thought was my Big Evil is really more a miniboss kind of evil. And there is a Bigger Evil. I feel like I'm writing a Final Fantasy game. And then I got annoyed and quit for the night.
Liquid Refreshment: Water.
Munchies: Delivery pizza and wings. About once every six months I forget that the grease content of this -- regardless of where it's ordered from -- makes me terribly sick and I eat it. I remember now. :p
Exercise: Hour and change walking.
Mail: Nomail.

Darling du Jour: The breath of the trees smelled of foul ice, the dirty skin that formed atop the canals for three days at the very heart of a Charybdean winter. It smelled of dead fish and sewage and the last leavings of a life gone to despair, saccharine with rot, heavy with flesh.
Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: treeflesh, snugged

Mean Things: Qara and Sakhile, Rogue Xenobiologists: The treeees! The treeeees! Also, having a knife pressed up near your kidney bit is extra threatening when you're trained in biology.
Research Roundup: Kidney injuries, physiognomy, eye movement and lying.
Books in progress: Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden; Jay Lake, Trial of Flowers.

The glamour: Today there was water, but only hot water, because there was a leak in the pipe and they were fixing the cold water. I nearly burned my hand on the hot water, but I did not. Hopefully tomorrow all water will be as standard.

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Day Five:

4,650 / 67,500 (6.9%)

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Two classes today: Phonology, aka Refugee Camp for Survivors of Last Semester's Syntax Class (really, half the class was there) and Philosophy of Feminism.

The first looks like it'll be good if a lot of fiddly work: I've had the instructor as a TA before and he was great. Unfortunately, the mouthy princess who was in two of my classes last semester who asks questions about stuff she'd have caught if she was paying attention in this entitled little tone is there too. Perhaps she will have a fatal shark accident or something. Until then, I shall sit away from her.

*adjusts rocking chair and shotgun*

Philosophy of Feminism, or as it shall be henceforth called, Patriarchy Class, is daunting me. There is 80 pages of reading per week on the doings of the Patriarchy. I feel that the Patriarchy might want to slow the hell down, since I have four other classes. I'm a little concerned I don't have enough background to take this thing -- my only training in the sort of formalism aspects of equity studies is all to do with sociolinguistics -- but...well, that's part of why I'm taking it. I had a few realizations from last summer's big LJ brushfire about race and gender, and one of them was that I am decidedly not educated about the theoretical end of these issues. I can't even join in half the discussions, because I don't know the terms and their history, and people who use them can't seem to explain them because they're so entrenched in their dialogues.

I want to be in the discussion here.

We already have the first project, which is to make concrete observations on sexism and genderism in the world at large and apply certain theoretical ideas to them, analyze based on those theoretical ideas.

Yes, my homework is to write about everybody's sexism for marks.

I'm watching you and taking notes, internets. :p

January 7, 2007 Progress Notes:

The MASTER of LIBERAL ARTS

Words today: 1100.
Words total: 1100 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: I was overwhelmed by my own silliness and had to go to bed (this was on the technical side of January 7 last night).

The Patron Saint of Nothing

Words today: 1200.
Words total: 17,550 MS Word.
Reason for stopping: Going to see Pan's Labyrinth with The People!
Liquid Refreshment: Aforementioned Russian Caravan tea.
Munchies: Last of the tuna casserole, then cheese toast later.
Exercise: N/A.
Mail: N/A.

Darling du Jour: Missus Mchumba's boil was bigger than ever, and he'd felt a bit of queasy shame when he looked at it, red through the thin and picked-at hanky she had up there like a dancing-girl's veil, if they made those old and snooty and so they banged and sighed like someone was dying if you didn't adopt them your own mama just because they'd made oatmeal for the house.

(I love Case. He's such a little shit.)

Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: pantlegs, headcrest.

Mean Things: Qara and Sakhile, Rogue Xenobiologists: Getting hiiiiigh on Miracle Honey. Spoiling their research animals for a handy re-use as dinner.
Case: Ow, leg! And feeling bad about that cursing his flatmate thing he did back in the first chapter.
Research Roundup: Layout of human perinasal sinuses, history of Russia, salamander biology and reproduction.
Books in progress: Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu; Jay Lake, Trial of Flowers.

The glamour: Apricot red wine chicken for dinner tonight!

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Day Two:

1,950 / 67,500 (2.9%)

A funny thing is happening, although it is familiar because it has happened before. I have to push and shove and kick to get the first 400 or so words out two days in a row, but then...it addicts. I want to do nothing but write. I've already written more this weekend then I did all of December. When I get home from the movie I expect I'll try to write some more.

(Also, we learn that PSoN words are about three times harder to get than short story or script words. They make me sweat and stumble and stop and beg the internets longingly for a distraction.)

Hopefully I'll get the manic thing out of my system by Tuesday morning. 'Cause that's the beginning of semester... *g*

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My (belated) 2006 roundup and maybe some book reports when I get home.