I wasn't expecting a line -- this is a very small town indeed -- but when we went to vote this morning, there were OTHER VOTERS! This has never happened before. Either we timed it better this year, to catch the 'crowd', or turnout is in fact, larger. The ladies who volunteer said that the turnout has been 'pretty decent', which makes me smile.
Now, of course, I'm torn between wanting to know what happens and being fearful the ending isn't the ending I want.
This might be foolish -- I often am -- but I am fiercely, insanely, to the point it makes me ill at times -- in love with my house. And it's not a great house: parts of it are a hundred years old, and parts of it are fifty years old, and there are parts of it that would make anyone who knows anything about proper building just weep.
But it is mine, paid for solely out of money I made writing. And it wasn't until it was actually paid for that my husband, who had a childhood that could be best described at tumultous -- he moved seven times, one year -- broke down and cried, for now he never has to move again.
I know, it could go away, in a blizzard or a fire, or a flood. But I prefer to think it has stood this long, and it will last long enough that he never has to go without 'home' again.
On Anbar's Falling off a horse, #9
This morning, my tongue's still a little sore from the sharp edge of a tooth, broken over the weekend by a firehouse dinner perhaps too well done.
This tooth sits next to a wide vacant space, where my first wisdom tooth decided to erupt, many decades ago, when I was still a teen. The dentist was scheduled, the day after I was to spend the afternoon with some friends.
We'd gone riding. My mount, a friendly old mare named April, who was just this side of twenty and not given to spontaneous anything, really.
Until we went past a stone fence that put April in mind of her filly days, and with a grace that belied her years, took flight, jumping headlong into nostalgia.
The memories weren't mine, which is perhaps why I slipped from the saddle. My jaw and the stone fence collided, knocking my wisdom tooth clean out of my mouth.
I was most pleased to avoid the dentist, though I can't tell you this extraction was any less painful. It did have the advantage of surprise.
An odd sort of good thing, but today is also the anniversary of the Battle of Plattsburgh, the largest historical event to happen in my neck of the woods. Local reenactors really knock themselves out, with boat battles on Lake Champlain, fully garbed docents at every historical site in town, and so on, teaching the public about the event. It's education in action, and it's very popular, and kids really love it.
It's just brain breaking. I mean, this isn't even plausible deniability: they can't say they don't KNOW. They KNOW -- and they're not going to do anything about it.
It's the arrogance that gets me: We don't need to open your report, neener, neener, neener!
I'd love to have the job where I don't have to open emails I don't want to. It'd make my life much easier.
Maybe I should run for office. My platform could be "Avoidance and Denial: Why Stop Now?"
Wow. It isn't easy to render me speechless, yet this did the trick. What a bizarre, bizarre show.
I will never, ever understand Japanese TV.
Living four miles from the border, I can not tell you how happy this makes me. I can't imagine having to get a passport because I want to take a quick jaunt to pick up smoked meat or some annuals or lumber -- yet the best sources for these are far closer to me by leaving the country than by seeking out an American vendor.
#11: Stones from the River, which I received as a gift from an Oprah devotee who didn't know much about me beyond the fact that I like books, turned out to be a surprisingly good read. It isn't something I would have sought out on my own, but I'm glad it was brought to my attention.
I sometimes think Oprah picks her books to challenge the viewership -- there was the whole, "Let's all read Faulkner" kick a few years ago that had legions of very earnest blondes looking puzzled in nearby parks while their kids toddled nearby.
(I am sure the hair color was wholly irrelevant here, they were just all very, very blonde, as if half a dozen Swedes somehow relocated to upstate NY)
[/tangent]
A strange sort of question:
If I were going to do a calligraphy piece for a gift for a friend, using John M Ford's Against Entropy poem, who do I apply to for permission? Do I need to get permission? Do I pay a royalty for the use of the poem? Any advice would be much appreciated, as this would be the absolutely perfect holiday gift for my friend (who luckily more likely than not will not read this comment)
#15: Au Sable Chasm is most wonderful -- if everyone in your party is over the age of 18, the rafting trip through the chasm is very cool (although I don't think it's running at this time of year, you'd be risking hypothermia!) Otherwise, you can take a self guided walking tour around the top of the Chasm for a few dollars, and it's really quite beautiful.
*Resists the temptation to go on and on about all the cool North Country things -- especially for history buffs*
(You can tell I'm a transplant. This level of enthusiasm is taken as decidedly not normal by the locals)
If for any reason, your travels take you either up or down I-87 (The Adirondack Northway in NY) make sure to look out the windows. The colors are awesome! But things change very quickly here. I'd give it another week or so TOPS and then we'll be in that gray, dismal, pre-snow phase.
Congratulations Teresa! Much happiness in the new endeavor.
*I would do the happy dance on your behalf, but I'm in the upstairs office and I think the people sleeping downstairs would complain at the noise*
For a long time, I thought Ray Bradbury was dead. No reason, no logic, I just assumed. On some level, I think I thought that someone who had written something that changed my life so much OBVIOUSLY couldn't share the same planet I'm on:
Later a friend told me he was still alive, and this made me happy and I wanted to invite him over for dinner.
Now I read this, and find myself sadly reflecting that I was happier with the first state of affairs. Mind you, though, that I've been known to say monumentally stupid things now, and I'm not even halfway to 87. I'll file this in the things I'd rather not know file.
I'd just like to add that people are going on and on about other drivers and how they impact our safety, but in my experience, seat belts have saved my life in accidents where no other drivers are involved -- but plenty of moose, deer, and other critters who have a very poor handle on traffic law!
Until the critters learn the rules of the road, everyone in my vehicle gets buckled up.
I seem to remember certain peers managing to blow things up quite adequately long before the internet was around to tell them how to do it.
It is a long held theory in my family that some people are born with a pyro-gene and others are not. (Mind you, we're rednecks, not geneticists -- but our bonfires are legendary!)
While I am hardly a disinterested party, all I can say right now is Hooray!
Now maybe we could concentrate on all the other things facing our kids: insane foreign policy, failing schools, chronic hunger, danger in their homes, and some slightly more pressing issues.
Aconite @ #3: They don't have to. They could use pseudonyms.
But I'm glad they do, or I'd be out of work!
*Scurries back to my lace-lined trenches*
Okay, I've officially wasted too much time playing with this. 9/10 of the time, I'm obviously male, regardless of whether I've pasted in fiction or non-fiction samples.
When I first started writing professionally, one of my editors told me (and he intended it as his highest praise, believe me) that I write like a man. All this time I thought he was just full of beans, but now the internet is confirming his opinion.
Apparently men write a lot of romances! And ghost write books on the bridal industry.
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