My alarm went off this morning and I rolled over in bed and my body said NOPE. :(

So I called in sick and went back to sleep for another four hours. Then I got up, showered, and puttered around for two and a half hours after which I fell back into bed for three hours or so. Then I got up again and decided to take a walk into town both for general health reasons -- fresh air and exercise and the psychological high of movement and seeing running water and maintaining a pretense of routine -- and to pick up a library book I had on hold since the next time I could get to the library is Monday evening.

I intend to go back to bed around 9pm, which will make a grand total of, uh... six and a half hours spent awake during a 24-hour day. Ugh. Being sick is exhausting.

I also blew some brainpower on helping Mom figure out exact times and dates for airplane tickets for my June vacation (but she did the actual ordering because I'm not sure I should be trusted to navigate financial stuff at the moment), and then I... may have just been gently recruited to run for my church's Board of Trustees? I mean, I said up-front that there's a strong possibility I may move to Minnesota next year, but even so. I think I also promised to attend the Board meeting this coming Tuesday evening. I am... pretty sure? that my Not the IRS schedule allows that?

Um.

Yeah, definitely time to read innocuous fanfic and then hit the sack.

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Tangentially, I have little song I sing to myself when I'm sick, and on other useful occasions. It goes to the tune of "On top of Spaghetti" (which I guess itself is the tune of "On top of Old Smokey"? but whatever), and the words are as follows:

The human body
Is totally gross
It's badly designed, dear
And hopelessly gross.

So when your own body
Does something gross
Just remind yourself, dear
That dead's worse than gross.

Repeat as necessary. :)

You know what? I'm going to post the terrible poetry after all.

All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation faithfully reproduced (though you are missing half the effect of the purple ink and my weird handwriting). I have inserted line breaks between the poems for clarity, though the original text marks them only by a single blank line.

( cut for length and embarrassment )

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Now I kind of want to find twelve- or thirteen-year-old me, give her a hug, promise her she'll make it at least to age thirty-five without humanity blowing up the planet, and gently suggest that if she wants to keep on writing poetry, she might find the constraints of strict poetic forms a useful challenge. *wry*

Since my house burned down
I now own a better view
of the rising moon.

---Mizuta Masahide


...I am quite sure I could not manage that degree of equanimity, but it's a good reminder that the way one looks at a situation can make a huge difference to one's emotional state.


---------------

I did some more encyclopedia article editing today, both before and after work at the smoke shop. Dad says he'll send more tomorrow. I am crossing my fingers that my current can-do productive mood will last!

Other things I have done today: responded to an email about another potential editing job (for a smoke shop customer who runs a historical society about trains) which I had left hanging all last week because I did not have the spoons, answered several reviews, written 300 words of "Trollstuck" and 300 words of what might turn into an Aradia<3Aradia kinkmeme fill (hey, if the timeclone thing works for Dave, why not for the ladies?), and made a serious stab at cleaning out my real-life email address's inbox, which had become dangerously overgrown this past month and a half.

I am of the school of thought that says you should move any emails you want to save into specific sub-folders and delete everything else, because clutter is dumb and inefficient. Also, who cares about a series of six emails between me and my mom deciding what restaurant to eat at each time my parents come to Ithaca? Posterity does not need that kind of junk and neither do I. So away it goes!

ETA: 600-ish words of "Trollstuck," and part 20 is ready to post. Buuuuuuuut, I want to draw Jothan's picture first, for reference. So you will have to wait for Monday night. Sorry.

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ETA, 2/16/17: For the record, the customer with the editing job I mentioned? Is Longwinded Man. That interaction did not end well.

1. A few days ago, someone did another non-traditional poetry installation. It consists of a series of clear plastic bags, filled with water, tied to the railing along Cascadilla Creek between Tioga St. and Aurora St. Inside each bag is a short poem.

This is not as reader-friendly as the poems tied to the shrubbery from a couple weeks back. For one thing, these poems are handwritten, which makes them slightly harder to read in the best of circumstances. Some of the inks bled into the water, staining the bags interesting colors but rendering the poems completely invisible. Some poems have partially disintegrated. Some poems twisted in the bags so they are curled up and, again, impossible to read. Even the ones that are both in clear water and facing in a visible direction are difficult to read, because of the creases in the plastic bags and the refraction of the water.

But it's a nice idea, and the two poems I've been able to read were interesting.

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2. I filled in for my absent co-teacher at church today. I was expecting to teach a lesson on Beltane, but when I received the lesson plan on Saturday, I discovered that the curriculum had been adjusted.

We did a lesson on Earth Day instead.

Now, this is less far-fetched for UUs than for many other religions -- we do, after all, include "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part" as one of our Seven Principles -- but still. I was under the impression that Earth Day is a secular thing. *sigh*

Also, I have now led guided meditation twice, and I have led basic yoga exercises. This is not at all what I am used to in a religious education program!

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3. I'm still poking away at "Intervention," which is now at 11,450 words. I actually wrote more than that tonight, but I also rewrote some previous scenes to tie in better with current and future plot threads, and to give Jahiem a few lines via ship-to-ship com, which required me to cut about 150 words from a scene to remove a suddenly extraneous com conversation.

"Intervention" requires a lot of thought and logistical planning: to keep track of who is where doing what when, to track who knows what when, to make sure the characters' actions are practical, to integrate technology into the plot or explain the absence of tools that should be in use, to hopefully not violate physics and biology too badly, and to clue in readers what's happened in the time jumps between scenes. I am very glad I am writing it all of a piece rather than trying to serialize it, because I keep running into things that I need to have laid groundwork for in previous sections, and every time I go back and stick that groundwork in, I have to make two or three other adjustments to pick up the logical consequences. It's like putting together a puzzle, only each time I slot another piece in, the other pieces change shape around it. *beats head against desk*

Also, when I'm finally done I will have to go back and work in some more descriptions of people dying, of the Cordites dealing with the sick and the dead, and the Red Cross people having, you know, emotional reactions to the tragedy they find themselves in the middle of. Because right now, it's a rather dry story -- there's some worry, and a fair amount of people expressing anger because it's easier to get angry than to break down crying (and also, they are genuinely angry at the way the Cordites are dealing with the plague and their attempts to help, and at the mineral Macguffin's interference with their diagnostic technology), but there should be more depth.

But I would like to get the actual plot finished before I do too much elaboration work on scenes (or puzzle pieces) that may well get shuffled around a lot more before I am done.

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4. The new ink cartridges did indeed seem to fix my printer, so apparently the problem with the black ink was just a dud cartridge. :-/ Anyway, this means I ought to finally print ch. 14 of "Secrets" and edit it. Except, oh god, I do not want to deal with that right now. I really, really don't. I don't even know why, but every time I think of that I have this... I dunno, non-physical total body flinch.

Very weird. I should buckle down and edit it anyway. Perhaps Wednesday, which I have off from work?

As I was working on Tug of War, my 15_minute_fic response for this week, I at one point looked up Shel Silverstein's poem "Hug o'War." That ended up having relatively little to do with the fic as written (though if you were wondering about the title? now you know where my head was), but it did remind me of another Silverstein poem I have always loved:


Listen To The Mustn’ts

Listen to the MUSN’TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN’TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me-
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.



...So is that Naruto's theme poem or what? :-D

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you. These words were given to me by snaegl.

(If you ask for words, be prepared for me to flail and take a day or two and perhaps crib them directly from your journal's interest list, because I suck at this sort of game. If I ever went on a TV show where they ask how well you know your 'fill-in-relationship' person? I would fail so hard you'd have to invoke ESP 'overlook me' fields to explain how I could possibly miss so many details.)

I got a little long-winded for some responses, which I have cut to be polite and to avoid spamming people with boring details about my life.

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1. Fanfic

Hello, pastime that has eaten my life since 2002! (Has it really been seven years? Wow. Where does the time go?)

( Hmm. I still think sometimes, that reading and writing fanfiction is a weird hobby in a lot of ways... )

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2. Homework

The former bane of my life. *grin* Seriously, I never saw the point of homework when I was in school, and somewhere between 1/3 to 2/3 of the time, I didn't bother doing it. This is the main reason my grades were so variable. When teachers did not grade homework, I usually got As. When they did grade homework, I often dropped down to Cs. *shrug* I got a little more responsible about assignments in college, but not much. And I confess that I still fail to see the point of homework in general -- if you can't teach a concept during a lesson, why do you think your students will learn it on their own when they're tired, distracted, and resentful at the theft of their free time?

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3. Star Island

Home of the only lake-within-a-lake in North America! (Or at least that is the claim.) Also home of my family's summer cabin. It's been in my dad's family since shortly after WWII -- I think Grandpa bought the lease in 1948 or 1949 -- and when my dad and aunt die, it will pass to me, Vicky, and our cousins Eric and Brian. I know Vicky and I will latch onto the cabin with both hands. I suspect Brian will also, but I am less sure about Eric.

Anyway, Star Island is in Cass Lake, on the Mississippi River in north-central Minnesota. The island is mostly contained within Chippewa National Forest, though the south shore and scattered patches here and there are still private land. Our cabin is on forest land, and as such, we don't own it; we lease it, long-term, from the Forest Service. This means we have fairly restrictive codes about cabin appearance, septic fields, etc. Our cabin has a red roof, which is grandfathered in because it was red before the Forest Service decided green and brown are the only acceptable colors for blending into the trees and underbrush. We are on the east shore, which is a huge, curving bay with at least three miles of open water between the island and the mainland. Most of the east shore is a tall, sandy bluff, but it flattens out to the north, allowing a portage in to Lake Windigo.

Star Island is named because it has a number of sharply defined points, rather than being sort of lumpy and round like many other islands. It does not, however, look anything like a star. It looks like a giant mutant chicken. (Seriously. Go to Google maps, search for Cass Lake, MN, move the view a little northeast out into the lake, and see for yourself.) The northwest point is the head, Anderson's Point (northeast) is the tail, and Lake Windigo is the folded wing. (Alternatively, Lake Windigo is a giant mutant egg visible through the miracle of ultrasound. Variety is good!)

You know, I am going to take this opportunity to post some poetry I have written about Star Island over the years, because I really do love the place that much, and I don't know a better way to convey the sensation of a small, semi-tamed sliver of the North Woods, adrift on miles of water.

( Instead of a Rainbow (1998) )


( Reflections (1998) )


( Inland, Walking South (2001) )


( Island Dreams (2002) )


( Being Apart (2003) )

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4. TJS

Torey J. Sabbatini, my elementary school -- the "all round school," as the slogan went. It was a circular building, with a square jammed into one corner to hold the principal's office and related rooms. The library was in the center of the circle, surrounded by a ring hallway, with wedge-shaped classrooms outside that.

This is where I met snaegl, back in first grade.

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5. Reading

I read, therefore I am.

(You think I am kidding. Well, yes, I am... but not nearly as much as you suppose.)

( I can, a little, remember times when I did not know how to read -- or rather, I have memories from before I could read... )

Like I said: I read, therefore I am. Or perhaps: I am, therefore I read.

It comes to the same thing either way.

In honor of National Poetry Month (speaking of which, why is there not an international poetry month? inquiring minds want to know!), I am going to inflict one of my old poems on you. *grin*

I wrote this in summer of 2001, after taking a walk on Star Island.

---------------

Inland, Walking South

This is the trees' graveyard,
here along the grassy path, lined by mounds
and hollows and thin, many-trunked birches,
ghostly in the leaf-green light.

( Fifty years ago and more, )

---------------------------------------------

In other news, I definitely overdid it yesterday at work -- my cold struck back with a vengeance overnight. *sigh* But I seem to be getting moderately better, and tomorrow is a shorter shift (7 hours vs. 9 hours) which I can probably cut down even more (leaving at 5:30pm is a long and honorable tradition), so hopefully I won't relapse again.

*scuttles off to try writing "Secrets"*

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: "Chamber of Secrets" from Ginny's point of view. Ginny tries to convince herself that she isn't guilty of Tom's crimes, with rather limited success. A Valentine's Day catastrophe does not help anything.

Author's Note: Once again, I apologize for the ridiculous length of time it takes me to write each chapter of "Secrets" these days. There are only 5 chapters left. I'd like to have them done before I turn 25, but the way things are going, I really don't know how likely that is. Sorry.

The singing Valentine, in canon, is open to a fair bit of interpretation. Did Ginny actually write it? If so, did she mean to send it? Were her brothers playing a trick on her? Was Draco just trying to embarrass Harry and bringing Ginny into the trick as icing on the cake? It's never explained, so I think my version works as well as any other. I'm also trying to account for the ridiculously long period of time when Ginny knows that Harry has the diary, but she doesn't do anything to take the book back. Again, I think my explanation works within canon.

Thanks to Lasair (lasultrix) and Quetzle (aichmetes, aka Cat), my betas, for cleaning up this chapter -- Lasair told me what to take out, and Cat told me how to rearrange the remaining stuff so it works better. Special thanks to Lasair for Ginny's first and third poetry attempts. Any remaining canon goofs, grammar mistakes, continuity errors, bad dialogue, implausible characterizations, boring passages, and Americanisms are my fault, not theirs.

---------------------------------------------

( Chapter 10 - Slings and Arrows )

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( Special Bonus! More Bad Poetry! )

...I join Lasair in being slightly worried about her flatmate's sanity.

Also, I think I shall go and make backdated entries for my other Secrets chapters, or at least a master page with links to both the (mostly up-to-date) FF.net version and the (sadly out-of-date and badly formatted) FictionAlley version. Then I can put that in my lj memories and finally have all my fic listed in one central location! Mwahahahaha!!!

World domination will be attempted next Thursday. Donations accepted. *holds out hat*

World Blog Haiku Day:

Today was boring
But I have no class tonight
Holidays are cool

There. Anyway, I helped Pat out for a while, and washed her hair properly (some of her other people either put it off, or don't rinse the shampoo out thoroughly enough). And because of the legal celebration of Independence Day today, I don't have evening class! Muy mucho cool.

*beams cheerfully and wanders off to eat shishkebab*

Here we are, with more poetry from the vaults.

This poem is, to a large extent, about my old friend and ex-boyfriend Ryan. He's a great guy, really; he just has way too much emotional baggage that he refuses to effectively deal with. Which is why he can't keep a healthy, steady relationship, but just try telling him that... *grumbles about the general stupidity of men*

---------------------------------------------
My Dear Faust
---------------------------------------------

Listen to me truly: I don't pity you.
I grieve for the boy you were -- he went through hell.
You seem intent on staying there, a lost soul,
Self-damned, seeking a Gretchen;
I am not she.
I don't know anything about heaven.

You say I am an angel, that I put on a halo and flew away.
Like hell.
You say I am a diamond, that my flaws make me perfect.
Like hell.

There are no angels for men like you,
Drawn to your suffering, lonely and lost.
There is no Beatrice to guide you.
I am my own woman -- no angel, no lost love;
I am not your absolution.
Find your own forgiveness; it is not mine to give.

You made your devil's bargain.
Find your own way out.

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Summer 2000
revised 21 May 2002
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I'll probably post some old stories over the next couple days, as I have nowhere else to put them until such a day as I get around to acquiring a website and properly learning html. Which will not be anytime soon, more's the pity.