Yuletide recommendations

I have gotten nowhere near through the Yuletide archive for this year. But I fear that if I keep waiting until I do, I’m going to lose momentum and never post my recommendations. So here, then, is a partial list of some of the Yuletide stories I have really liked. Dust of the World, based [...]

December 30 2011

1. J is still recovering very nicely from surgery. Excellent. M, on the other hand, is sick with some sort of flu-esque something, which I am hoping I do not get. Poor guy napped for two and a half hours yesterday and is coughing rather a lot. 2. I worked out yesterday with my new, [...]

2011 Year in Music

What a very weird year in music for me. I spent a lot of this year writing or editing. And, when writing or editing, I can’t listen to music that has words. Not even opera, with words in languages I don’t speak. I spent a great deal of the year, therefore, listening to classical music. [...]

December 28 2011

We had a rousing day at the hospital yesterday. J was in for some some-day surgery. We all got there at nine in the morning, and left at six in the evening. The kids were really great troupers. They played about two hours of games with N — Spite and Malice, Uno, Wild Wool, maybe [...]

Things I Like: Too Much Eyeliner Girl

Here. Go look at the Too Much Eyeliner Tumblr. Full disclosure, my friend Anika started it as a response to our conversation about the character of the Too Much Eyeliner Girl. Note the subtitle/tagline of the Tumblr: wearing their damage with defiance. In many of the formative movies and tv shows I watched, there was [...]

Things I Like: To Have and Have Not

To be clear, we’re talking about the movie, here. I’ve never read Hemingway’s novel of the same name. No, I mean the Howard Hawks film To Have and Have Not, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. This isn’t the best work from any of the people involved. Most people think it wasn’t Hemingway’s best novel. [...]

Christmas Eve

I’m posting now, because later today will be full of the church Christmas pageant, and then we will open presents and have a fire in the fireplace and listen to carols. Our family traditions. This morning is off to a lovely start. I slept in and was awoken by a snuggling, cheerful family. I got [...]

December 23 2011

1. The people building the house next door do show up early, my goodness. Of course, we get up pretty early, so it’s not really a problem. I just have to remember to be wearing an appropriate amount of clothing when I walk past the windows to go wake up the kids. 2. I am [...]

December 22 2011

1. N and I took the kids to see The Muppets yesterday evening. There were hijinks (the first theater was not actually showing the film, we almost drove to the wrong second theater) en route, but on seeing the film all four of us really enjoyed it. We were the only people in the theater, [...]

Winter Solstice 2011

As always, my thoughts on solstice turn to John M. Ford’s poem, Winter Solstice, Camelot Station. I’ve blogged about it last year and in 2009. I was talking on Twitter a few days ago with someone, discussing a shared belief. The belief I seem to share with this other person is that entropy wins in [...]