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juushikaI'm no longer sick! I think the death of the cold can be timed to about midday yesterday (it's 4a? now the day before yesterday), but it was certainly gone by this morning (now yesterday morning). It left as quietly as it arrived, though much faster, thank goodness. Period has also passed, and with it my cramps. Back still hurts, but it's normal hurt now, and so easy to ignore. So, on the whole, I am back to my old self: achey and whiny and headachey, but without the chest cold or the dizzy spells. Yay! Thank you to all of those that wished me well. ^_^
On the other hand, the boy has been complaining of congestion and sneezing, and it seems to be more than just my piggies, so he seems to have picked up my cold. But he looked better today than he did the day before, so methinks he's fighting through it well enough—and definitely faster than I did. Fingers crossed.
What else does no longer being sick mean? I could wear BPAL—and smell it! Today was Jack, because it's autumn (true Halloween pumpkin, spiced with nutmeg, glowing peach and murky clove; this is very light and sweet and innocent on me, almost creamy but mostly waxy, like the smoothness of a candle with a pale orange pumpkin scent) with just a dot of Casanova to bring out the spices (a rakish blend of leather, anise, lavender, bergamot and amber with tonka, lemon peel and lusty patchouli, which still makes me sneeze on the drydown but is my ideal spicey layering scent). It's wonderful what just a touch of Casanova does—it gives a spicy, deep brown edge to sweeter scents, and worked wonderfully with Jack. It's interesting—Casanova was a frimp, and yet I have a deeper relationship with it than almost any other BPAL perfume. From layering it with Antique Lace to having it bite my finger to layering it with other sweet scents like Jack ... well, it certainly has proved useful. And, since I just add the smallest little tiny dot of it, I really never have to worry about the imp running out.
Anyhow.
I went out on a walk through the nearby wetlands preserve today. What, you don't have a local wetlands preserve? I knew there was one nearby, but I wasn't sure how close it was—I have lived in this town for almost my entire life, but I did my traveling by car, not on foot, and things are a different distance when you're walking. So, to celebrate feeling better and to remedy the fact that I feel like the season is passing me by and I'm missing it, and to try and remedy also the fact that I tend not to get out much, I went on a walk. Wandered through the cul-de-sacs up the road to see if there are any cut-throughs to other streets (there aren't) and found a lovely white cat on the way, then went down the main road. Managed to time it just as the nearby middle school was getting out, so that was a bit surreal. Many young things about.
As it turns out, the preserve is definitely within walking distance, and the preserve itself (which I only vaguely remembered from prior visits) are lovely. A boardwalk runs through it to keep people on the path and suspended just over the reserve itself. The loop through isn't that big, but it is peacefully distanced from the road and the sights are lovely. And it is most certainly in the throws of autumn right now—not in violent explosions of sunset orange and blood red, but rather in the cold and fruit and the start of death. The pear trees drop tiny wild fruits on the path; the rose-hips are flowerless and bare red on the branches. The grasses are long and brown, and the ground is sodden. The wind knocks off the leaves that still cling to their branches, and whistles over the grasses. The harvest is here, and is pulling to a close. Soon, the fruits will be no good to eat, and must be left to nature. Death creeps on in.
Those that watch Post Secret (and if you don't, you should), did you see this recent selection, including "I feel most alive when everything around me is dying"? With that single fallen leaf...
Cute comments about my own self-labeled "Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder" put aside, I've always felt most alive in the autumn myself, and so I identify—and I wonder why such a statement would be considered a "secret." Does it seem malign or somehow wrong that we would enjoy our own lives in a season of death? The stigma, really, around the darker halves, the death halves, keeps coming up and always confuses me. I just finished Black's Ironside (review pending) and in both this book and in Tithe, I was disappointed in the characterization of the Unseelie court as this dark, overtly grotesque, scary place that was evil—perhaps a necessary evil, but still evil. The same was true of Marr's Wicked Lovely, where the dark/winter/Unseelie court had overtaken the Seelie court, and the protagonists had to fight for the side of summer/light/life. Now while I'm all for balance between the two forces, and while I commend neither author for trying to get rid of the forces of dark and death and winter...
The darkness and death is essential, necessary to life itself, and in many ways it is also beautiful—as those fire leaves around me attest to. In part, because with this death comes life: the harvest, of fruit and grain, that provides the food that we live on. In part, also, because death makes room for new life: after the leaves fall, fresh, healthy, green ones grow again to give life to the plant. Death is like sleep: a period of hibernation—thought and rest—that comes after life and before life, and which perpetuates the cycle so that life than come again and again.
There's nothing strange or shameful or unnatural about enjoying that beauty, nor of enjoying it while recognizing what it means. I come alive in autumn because I hate strong sunlight, because I love (and with my red hair, rather suit) the colors of the turning leaves and wet ground, but also because I love the contrast of the life and death in the autumn, of the harvested apples only weeks before they rot, of the flushed green grasses before the too-heavy rains drown them out. I wish I embraced it in a more concrete way, and I wish I enjoyed it more fully and more often, but at least I've never seen anything weird about it. The landscape is dying around me—and I love it, and I think it's beautiful.
That's enough lengthy and grandiloquent wordsmithing for a bit, wouldn't you say?
Other wordsmithing is going wonderfully well, which is to say I wrote just over 2k words today, typed about 1.5k, and know where I'm going next with the novel. More than that, I'm delighted with my work, and will probably do a bit more of it before I sleep. I was surprised by how smoothly it came today—I could not write fast enough, and only got to an ending point when I ran up on a few paragraphs that I had scribbled ahead of time and now have to slightly resituate into this altered setting. I felt like I could have kept going for quite some time. I also managed to work out a surprising number of kinks without quite noticing: where they are (well, what it looks like and why; I did at least know where they were going ahead of time), how they got there, and what trouble they're in now. There is still some more dekinking to be done before the end of the novel, the biggest of all is, um, how does it end? But on the whole, today's progress was exceptional and I'm feeling confident, again, with where I'm going.
On the other hand, I killed another pen, and now only have one that's comfortable in my hand, and the ink seems reluctant to flow well for me, so—I may need to go pen shopping. I suppose there are worse evils.
Wordcount: 110,000+ typed, 7,500 handwritten.
Previous Accomplishments: Getting to the vampire city, getting writing in general back on track, more male characters (yay!)
Upcoming Challenges: How quickly should they get to where they're going within the city? How long does this New Male Character stick around?
Currently Reading: Dracula, Bram Stoker; Season of the Witch, Natasha Mostert; Tales of the Witch House and Other Weird Stories, H.P. Lovecraft.
On the other hand, the boy has been complaining of congestion and sneezing, and it seems to be more than just my piggies, so he seems to have picked up my cold. But he looked better today than he did the day before, so methinks he's fighting through it well enough—and definitely faster than I did. Fingers crossed.
What else does no longer being sick mean? I could wear BPAL—and smell it! Today was Jack, because it's autumn (true Halloween pumpkin, spiced with nutmeg, glowing peach and murky clove; this is very light and sweet and innocent on me, almost creamy but mostly waxy, like the smoothness of a candle with a pale orange pumpkin scent) with just a dot of Casanova to bring out the spices (a rakish blend of leather, anise, lavender, bergamot and amber with tonka, lemon peel and lusty patchouli, which still makes me sneeze on the drydown but is my ideal spicey layering scent). It's wonderful what just a touch of Casanova does—it gives a spicy, deep brown edge to sweeter scents, and worked wonderfully with Jack. It's interesting—Casanova was a frimp, and yet I have a deeper relationship with it than almost any other BPAL perfume. From layering it with Antique Lace to having it bite my finger to layering it with other sweet scents like Jack ... well, it certainly has proved useful. And, since I just add the smallest little tiny dot of it, I really never have to worry about the imp running out.
Anyhow.
I went out on a walk through the nearby wetlands preserve today. What, you don't have a local wetlands preserve? I knew there was one nearby, but I wasn't sure how close it was—I have lived in this town for almost my entire life, but I did my traveling by car, not on foot, and things are a different distance when you're walking. So, to celebrate feeling better and to remedy the fact that I feel like the season is passing me by and I'm missing it, and to try and remedy also the fact that I tend not to get out much, I went on a walk. Wandered through the cul-de-sacs up the road to see if there are any cut-throughs to other streets (there aren't) and found a lovely white cat on the way, then went down the main road. Managed to time it just as the nearby middle school was getting out, so that was a bit surreal. Many young things about.
As it turns out, the preserve is definitely within walking distance, and the preserve itself (which I only vaguely remembered from prior visits) are lovely. A boardwalk runs through it to keep people on the path and suspended just over the reserve itself. The loop through isn't that big, but it is peacefully distanced from the road and the sights are lovely. And it is most certainly in the throws of autumn right now—not in violent explosions of sunset orange and blood red, but rather in the cold and fruit and the start of death. The pear trees drop tiny wild fruits on the path; the rose-hips are flowerless and bare red on the branches. The grasses are long and brown, and the ground is sodden. The wind knocks off the leaves that still cling to their branches, and whistles over the grasses. The harvest is here, and is pulling to a close. Soon, the fruits will be no good to eat, and must be left to nature. Death creeps on in.
Those that watch Post Secret (and if you don't, you should), did you see this recent selection, including "I feel most alive when everything around me is dying"? With that single fallen leaf...
Cute comments about my own self-labeled "Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder" put aside, I've always felt most alive in the autumn myself, and so I identify—and I wonder why such a statement would be considered a "secret." Does it seem malign or somehow wrong that we would enjoy our own lives in a season of death? The stigma, really, around the darker halves, the death halves, keeps coming up and always confuses me. I just finished Black's Ironside (review pending) and in both this book and in Tithe, I was disappointed in the characterization of the Unseelie court as this dark, overtly grotesque, scary place that was evil—perhaps a necessary evil, but still evil. The same was true of Marr's Wicked Lovely, where the dark/winter/Unseelie court had overtaken the Seelie court, and the protagonists had to fight for the side of summer/light/life. Now while I'm all for balance between the two forces, and while I commend neither author for trying to get rid of the forces of dark and death and winter...
The darkness and death is essential, necessary to life itself, and in many ways it is also beautiful—as those fire leaves around me attest to. In part, because with this death comes life: the harvest, of fruit and grain, that provides the food that we live on. In part, also, because death makes room for new life: after the leaves fall, fresh, healthy, green ones grow again to give life to the plant. Death is like sleep: a period of hibernation—thought and rest—that comes after life and before life, and which perpetuates the cycle so that life than come again and again.
There's nothing strange or shameful or unnatural about enjoying that beauty, nor of enjoying it while recognizing what it means. I come alive in autumn because I hate strong sunlight, because I love (and with my red hair, rather suit) the colors of the turning leaves and wet ground, but also because I love the contrast of the life and death in the autumn, of the harvested apples only weeks before they rot, of the flushed green grasses before the too-heavy rains drown them out. I wish I embraced it in a more concrete way, and I wish I enjoyed it more fully and more often, but at least I've never seen anything weird about it. The landscape is dying around me—and I love it, and I think it's beautiful.
That's enough lengthy and grandiloquent wordsmithing for a bit, wouldn't you say?
Other wordsmithing is going wonderfully well, which is to say I wrote just over 2k words today, typed about 1.5k, and know where I'm going next with the novel. More than that, I'm delighted with my work, and will probably do a bit more of it before I sleep. I was surprised by how smoothly it came today—I could not write fast enough, and only got to an ending point when I ran up on a few paragraphs that I had scribbled ahead of time and now have to slightly resituate into this altered setting. I felt like I could have kept going for quite some time. I also managed to work out a surprising number of kinks without quite noticing: where they are (well, what it looks like and why; I did at least know where they were going ahead of time), how they got there, and what trouble they're in now. There is still some more dekinking to be done before the end of the novel, the biggest of all is, um, how does it end? But on the whole, today's progress was exceptional and I'm feeling confident, again, with where I'm going.
On the other hand, I killed another pen, and now only have one that's comfortable in my hand, and the ink seems reluctant to flow well for me, so—I may need to go pen shopping. I suppose there are worse evils.
Wordcount: 110,000+ typed, 7,500 handwritten.
Previous Accomplishments: Getting to the vampire city, getting writing in general back on track, more male characters (yay!)
Upcoming Challenges: How quickly should they get to where they're going within the city? How long does this New Male Character stick around?
Currently Reading: Dracula, Bram Stoker; Season of the Witch, Natasha Mostert; Tales of the Witch House and Other Weird Stories, H.P. Lovecraft.
