I was at Jo's all day long today for the party, which was really fun, except that I was excruciatingly aware that Jo was often miserable and overwhelmed, but had no solution for that... It was hard not to be able to feel connected to her... but I had a good time with the kids, and playing Carcasonne with A. and Rook, and Blokus with others, and generally messing about... mauling the babies and occasionally letting the big kids beat the hell out of me with balloons as we pretended to fight with slow motion karate and fencing moves and then just gave up the pretense & whaled on each other while screaming.
and then went right to WWD, and got home to find no connectivity. crap! am on dialup. sllllooooooowwwwwww mmmmmmotionnnnnnnnn.....
just so you don't think I'm in a weird sulk or anything, dear internets. I'm so not!
The 5-minute goofy cheering-myself-up-outfit won me high compliments. the faded electric blue satin brocade tight flare pants that Jo gave me, and my pink flowery shirt, very tacky... and purple leather jacket bought long ago at goodwill (thanks minnie!!!!) You have no idea how it cheered me to walk around feeling ridiculous and over the top like that. If only I had glitter on, too, but there was no time.
writing all fabulous! I dug cindy emch's poetry - I had not realized what it was like somehow from 1 or 2 scattered examples heard. Squid and Ep and I nearly burst into tears while Ayelet was reading her article on her Enormous Blog Incident involving bipolar meds and a sort of suicide note... which I only vaguely had remembered I'm embarrassed to say... but which you can read - I think it was in Salon and I'll link to it tomorrow when I can try to fix the net connection. the gorgeous and charming Keith Knight read from his book The K Chronicles... funny!! I wish I had bought the book from him. I also enjoyed Bianca's hilarious and filthy story ... and she was awfully cute. I recall saying something totally obnoxious to mary T. in the bathroom about how mary has the best boobs. Why do I do it? I don't even have the excuse of drinking. I was intoxicated by her outfit, or something.
At dinner I had a great time talking with Rita, who was taking photos at the bar and who is into queer theory and gender studies, and with Becca who turned out to have interesting things to say about translation!
*huge yawn* it was both good and bad to be internet-less for the whole day.
Squid gave me velvety microwaveable booties, which all of today and tonight I have been longing to wear but I got home and realized I left them at Jo's house. DAMN.
Iris sent me a HUGE PACKAGE OF BOOKS, I was screaming with happiness and felt that I have the nicest friends ever... All these Mitford books! ay, i have to do a bunch of translating really quick and also get ready for Wiscon, but I'm going to read them so fast it will make your brain hurt. Oh also this morning I read Hammered & liked it a lot.
Must blog funny conv. at Eliz's birthday party about women sf writers and then about Air. I did not even know what book the dude was talking about but he went, "I loved the whole book but then there was this one thing, that bothered me..." And I knew what book he meant and what the one thing was! Ahahaah! Of course.. the one thing I like. I explained my take on it a tiny bit and even while he was objecting I could see him chewing on that thought. He and the Hippie recommended that I read... oh hell... someone whose last name starts with D and who wrote a ton, a TON of books that are sort of historical, and she is British ... You will all know it, and tell me in comments! A first name something like Rosemary or Florence, but not. D...... something... Oh help. Clearly someone I should have known about all along but didn't.
Begins with D and wrote ton of historical novels: I am 99.9% certain that this must be Dorothy Dunnett, who hasn't actually written that many books (well, in comparison to e.g. Dame Barbara Cartland!) - 1 series of 6 and 1 of 8, 1 standalone, plus 7 what I suppose one might deem romantic thrillers.
The place to start is with the Lymond chronicles. They are crack.
Wheee for Mitford!
Posted by: oursin | May 21, 2006 at 04:55 AM
Re: connecting, it is much easier right now one on one. Not the best time for a big party... oy...
Also I wondered where those booties came from! They are so soft! Hard not to simply steal them.
Posted by: Jo | May 21, 2006 at 07:12 AM
Dorothy Dunnett! Just what I was going to say!
YOu must must must read the Frances Crawford of Lymond books in particular. (Well, I say that because they're the only ones I've read; could be her other series is even better, but I wouldn't know). Books 1 through 4 are the best, but then it's hard to not read 5 and 6 just to find out what happens...
Yay Iris for sending you the Mitfords! I have longed to do the same myself.
Posted by: elswhere | May 21, 2006 at 10:19 AM
dorothy dunnett is god. was god. anyway, there are two series, the lymond ones, which she wrote in the 60s, and then the Niccolo ones, which are a sort of prequel (Niccolo being an ancestor of Lymond a century prior--the 15th--in some way i can never quite put together because if it says, then it's a year or more since i've read the others and i can never pick up all the clues at the same time; somebody published a "companion" but i don't play that)which she wrote in the 90s. altogether 13 huge and wonderful books, i believe, each better than the others. I would start with Niccolo Rising and then just go straight through, narratively, not the way she wrote them, but if you want to read them the way she wrote them, with the Lymond ones first, that works too. people say the lymond ones are the best, but it think that's mostly because they were so beloved for so long when they first came out. me, i can't declide which is best, i love them all. i was devastated when i found out she died and there will be no more. the last one was written at the dawn of this century, i believe.
hmmm, maybe enough time has passed, and i can read them all again, again...
Posted by: e | May 21, 2006 at 09:00 PM
Oh, you haven't read Dunnett!!!! What a treat you have coming!!!
I've read and love both series. I have heard a theory that most people like one or the other; I can see how that might be true. The Lymond Chronicles are swashbuckling and more compact than the Niccolo series. I read "Niccolo Rising" very first, and in the middle of waiting for the last several books in the series to come out, read the Lymond Chronicles - which I think I read straight through over a period of, oh, six or eight weeks? "Niccolo Rising" didn't ge me hooked until I was about a hundred pages in, although the very opening is, ah, rather strking.
Both series are dense and complicated and full of big and little mysteries. Next time I read them, I plan to take notes. (SERIOUSLY.)
Posted by: Lisa Hirsch | May 22, 2006 at 01:12 AM
Yes! I knew y'all would know instantly. It had the sound of something that I should have read long ago & will definitely enjoy.
can't wait!
Thank god there are endless new fabulous books to read and I will never, ever run out and will someday be 90 in a roomful of people telling me "WHAT!!!??? You have never read or even heard of SO AND SO?!!!"
to think I grew up without having read Antonia Forest!
Posted by: badgerbag | May 22, 2006 at 08:49 AM
thanks! a lot. I am glad you liked the poems.
Posted by: emchy | July 28, 2006 at 11:30 AM