The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Emma:

SylvieG: my first dog died more than fifteen years ago and sometimes I still cry. And then sometimes I find an old photograph and laugh when I remember what she was doing at that moment. It's all good in its own way.

The current occupant of my heart showed up years later, out of nowhere, sitting on the stoop of the house we had just bought. A cat, which for a dog person was an odd choice, but there is was. The Universe had sent him, who was I to refuse? So, as many others have said, you'll know when it happens.

Zander @4: It doesn't say anything like that to me. It says: if you are going to do something, take responsibility for it. Do not go Ooh Ick and run away, do not blame your creation for your bad workmanship, do not pretend that it wasn't you, and damn well carry it through to the end. None of the troubles that Frankenstein suffers stem from the fact that he created a man; all of them stem from the fact that he then abandoned it because it wasn't as pretty as he wanted it to be.

Bravo! *applause with footstomps and whistles*

OOOOH. Christmas present! For several people, including myself...Ooooh....

Yes, I do. Have many, many pretty blank books. I go to an annual conference where they hand out pretty spiral bound books with pretty logos. You're supposed to write conference notes on them. Pfft. I take a regular writing tablet -- last time I just took my Aspire One -- and keep the pretty notebooks for other more interesting things.

I miss Kate's Paperie. That's the place I learned that other people share my obsession.

This is my first NaNoWriMo, and I'm already having a nervous breakdown -- 1382 words. Tonight, Ghu only knows. Throwing words on s sheet and not going back and agonizing over them... the strain might kill me.

Have been to Edinburgh several times, all of them in the fall, and yes, I can understand why you miss it. But if I had to choose, it would be Glasgow I'd live in.

David Harmon, bless you! Hyperlexia -- now I can tell my parents!

I started to read, very fast, when I was 3. I conned an uncle into teaching me, and he didn't like children's books, so I ended up learning from The Iliad and The Oddysey. I was trying to write my own books at age 5. Some of my relatives convinced my mother that I was insane in some fashion and she nagged my father until they took me to a child psychiatrist. I was terrified.

He ran some tests and turned to my parents and said (and this is a quote, translated from the Spanish as best as I can remember): tell your imbecile relatives to mind their own business. I remember him in my prayers every night, even though I don't remember his name.

Count me in as a member of the Invisibility Brigade. I was at a Best Buy during a sale and was willing to spend quite a lot of money on the item I wanted. Instead I stood there and watched as six (male) staffers decided the girl shopping for a $20 dollar item needed their help.

On the way out I informed customer service that their computer department had lost them a $800 sale, and that I hoped the $20 all six of their floor staff had managed to make them would be enough compensation. The manager -- who had been chatting up another young female -- overheard it and rushed over offering to assist me himself. I turned him down and walked out. Told him in no uncertain terms that I would inform all my female, middle-aged, prosperous friends to ignore his store.

I do most of my electronic shopping online these days. Saves me from invisibility or from the assumption that a woman my age cannot possibly understand modern technology. This one ticks me off even more, since as a librarian of 25 years standing, I've worked with more technology than those young whippersnappers can even imagine existed.

I'm in South Florida. It's still very hot after a few weeks of constant rain that tricked my peacock orchids into thinking it was time to bloom. I'm planning the November vegetable beds and setting out seedlings this coming weekend.

And I miss winter something fierce.

Fragano @4: I have never felt the need to use that internet cliche about "winning the internets"; however, sir, you have. Absolutely. At least until the year 4520.

The most noticeable thing about some of the commenters to me was their ignorance of basic historical facts. Perhaps it is because my original training was as a historian, but really -- I'm supposed to take seriously an argument from someone who knows nothing about the Umayyad Caliphate? Arabic (hey!) numerals? Algebra? Al-Qarawiyyin University (founded in the mid 800s)? If you start the argument by telling me about those ignorant backward muslims who never produced anything great... you've lost me.

And if women who could not work out or compete in sports now can because of something like the burqini, I can only see it as a great step forward. That does not mean I'm betraying western values, or feminism, or anything else someone holds sacred.

The thing that fascinated me the most was the whole "association with preadolescent boys" bit. I would have thought someone in that crowd would have jumped up and demanded an explanation!

I'm not in the mood to quibble with the wording at this moment; maybe later... but for now, well done, sir.

Abi, thank you! I will now proceed to drive myself nuts until I have my first pattern. I am one of those people who crack their heads on instructionns at least five times before it all becomes clear and then it's "but it's so simple!"

Abi, you wouldn't have written instructions somewhere on how to use a spreadsheet like that, would you? Or know of somewhere where I could get them? I'm trying to work out a blackwork pattern that is crying out for that sort of treatment!

Many years ago I assisted a professor who was doing research into torture in Latin America. I still occassionally have nightmares. I won't go near this stuff as it makes me want to howl in rage -- a torturer is subhuman.

Emma (of the late Late Night Thoughts, as I came here the other day and found a whole bunch of posts under Emma and it wasn't me and it felt really weird. Ah, the Interwebs)

John Chu @ 23: I'm making an educated guess and saying yes, but... Some certainly seem to be in "catalog speak", i.e.:

Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Photo Essays
Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Equipment
Books> Arts & Photography > Photography > Reference

However, their phrase search is questionable. The book I took the coding from offers a "statistically improbable" phrase dusky blue sky which takes you to (1)the book I was looking at; (2)two westerns; and (3)something that seems to be sociology?

IMO, they have issues making the "catalog speak" and the "key phrase" search functions mesh.

If I can go by my (politically to the right of Genghis Khan right-winger) father's opinion, the conservatives have lost this particular culture war. He tells me that if gay people want to get into the business of getting screamed at because they forgot to take out the garbage, that's their prerogative. That's a direct quote.

When I told him one of my gay friends is hoping to marry his partner (we have known this guy for a very long time, guest at my house, etc.etc), all he said was find out where he's registered.

Am I the only one here who looked at Theresa's tiling patterns in St. John Lateran and thought, "ooo-OOOH! Quilting patterns!"?

I saw blackwork patterns myself. I have a collection of old roman tile patterns which I'm hoping to convert to blackwork; also photos of cathedral ceilings -- the cathedral at Bath will make a spectacular pattern.

I am being kept up by a rather annoying sinus condition -- and now I am choking because I cannot breathe either way from laughing hysterically. I warn you, if I pass out it's all your fault!

And if you were an intelligent man, wouldn't you run away from a woman whose thighs were shears?

Note to self, underlined, bolded: Never cross swords with one James MacDonald unless you really know what you're talking about and can offer overwhelming supporting evidence.

Although I will admit that as a smackdown this one goes into my instant classic collection.

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