random

this is a random post of randomness and links

I’ve had an insanely busy week and I was going to write a long involved post about cocktails with photos and things but I just don’t have time. So that will be forthcoming. Soonish.

In the meantime, randomness collected in themeless post form. Mostly links.

I really liked this piece about The Importance of Endings over on BookRiot, and not just because The Night Circus is mentioned in it. (Most of it is about Joe Hill’s Locke & Key series which coincidentally I started reading this week and am itching to have the time to get back to it. Tomorrow, hopefully.)

I’ve been posting more on my new(ish) tumblr page, which I’m loving for images and inspirations. I think half of the tumblr blogs I’m following (and therefore lots of what I’m reblogging) are all abandoned architecture, but I like abandoned architecture. Also I find it strange that my spellcheck knows how to spell tumblr.

I’m not caught up on all the episodes but I’ve been loving the BBC Radio adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.

Also it’s spring, yay, even though it doesn’t feel particularly springy yet and it was snowing the other day.

I really need to go back to working even though this post isn’t particularly substantial. Ah well. At least there are links.

By erin, ago

unpacking

My life is all cardboard boxes and interior decorating at the moment, so you get a random post of randomness today. As I mentioned on Twitter earlier this week, someday I will write a post about how The Night Circus is not Young Adult and it will probably have thoughts about what that means and categorizing books by intended audience and how I think that’s kind of unfair both to books and to Adults of the Young and Old variety, but today is not that day because I have looked at too many area rugs this week and my brain is messy, busy trying to figure out what shade of green tarragon is and whether or not it will coordinate with teal chairs.

Unpacking is taking a lot longer than the packing, partially because I had hired help with the packing and partially because there’s more stuff needed to round out the space here, like rugs in herb-named shades of green, so beyond the cardboard boxes there’s also shopping and it’s like a puzzle, trying to find the right new things to blend both with my old things and the space itself.

(There is likely a writing analogy about revising here and if my brain were up to it I’d probably find it, because I do so love an analogy.)

It’s fun, because I like puzzles, but it’s also a bit overwhelming what with options and choices and I currently have a desk but no desk chair and a lot of the books are still in piles because the new shelf won’t arrive for a couple of weeks.

I have a poster I need to get framed and the dishwasher is broken and I can’t figure out whether I just don’t know where I packed the AA batteries or there weren’t any left pre-move to be packed. I need new lightbulbs.

I feel a bit at sea, though it is a cozy sort of sea, and it is taking me longer to get the place shipshape than I had anticipated, but that’s okay. The cardboard is slowly dwindling. Someday soon I will have a chair and in the meantime there’s still the couch.

Eventually I will have a tarragon and bone rug which sounds like a morbidly lovely thing to have (or a soup) and the apartment ship will be seaworthy. I really was not expecting this boat analogy and I suspect the analogy pirates were here. I warned you that my brain is messy.

Sooner or later I will have a new routine for the new space, and I will have time to work and write and maybe even catch up on the large backlog of email and write proper blog posts with proper analogies in them.

Today is not that day.

(Today is, however, the anniversary of Dashiell Hammett’s death, National Bittersweet Chocolate Day, and my dearest darling sister’s birthday. Happiest of Happy Birthdays, Kerry!)

By erin, ago

parenthetical-laden post of not-terribly-thinky thoughts that amount to the erinland state of the nation

Hi internet, I avoided you for a little while and I forgot to tell you first. Sorry about that.

I’m also sorry I am still lacking in time for proper blog posts that involve thinky thoughts and not just quick updates and occasional kitten photos (warning: this post will not contain kitten photos as kittens are currently being kitten-sitted because I leave tomorrow for a week or so of travelling). I feel bad about that and I hope that this winter that shall henceforth be known as The Winter of Writing Hibernation involves proper blog writing as well as novel writing, which is of course the main point of the Hibernation.

Also my brain is not so good at thinky lately. I suspect it is still quite tired from being so busy over the last year and a half. I find when I am not actively busy with something that requires immediate or time-sensitive attention my brain says “can we sleep now? or at least not think?” regardless of time of day. I’m trying to be nice to it and feeding it books and avocados and other brain-happy things. I suspect it will still need some time to recover from the whirlwind, not that the whirlwind is completely non-whirly yet. Off to Minnesota tomorrow, Toronto next week and then after that the travel will be finished but then I need to move, trying not to think about that too much just yet.

For the moment, I am sitting on my couch in my Bon Iver hoodie and comfy pants, drinking dark roast coffee and wondering if the rain outside my windows is going to turn to snow. Here, have photographic evidence that includes a plushy white lion in the background, which is sort of like a kitten:

I’m happier than I look, I just feel strange smiling at the computer. I’m particularly happy about a lot of last night’s US election results, and probably tired-looking from staying up to hear them. I did drink a lot of really nice wine while watching & compulsively twitter refreshing and this is currently my favorite thing on the internet: isnatesilverawitch.com

I’m reading Cloud Atlas right now (not very far through, hopefully I’ll finish it in time to go see the film while it’s still in theatres) and I really will post a proper long blog post about Books sometime… let’s not say soonish, but definitely before the end of the year. Possibly I will roll it into a 2012 Favorite Reads post. (Hibernation time will also include lots of Reading, I hope.)

I just picked up my mail and had two galleys (one unsolicited, one expected) to add to the unmanageably tall pile of quote-requesting galleys along with a package from Random House that had my name misspelled on the label. In email mail I have a not-yet-completely-final schedule for Minnesota.

I should probably pack. I will likely wait and pack in the morning. I should do my nails today, though. First I need to finish this post and also finish Friday’s flax-golden tale and possibly figure out dinner. Oh, and laundry.

This turned into a non-thinky stream of consciousness post, didn’t it? Ah well. Haven’t done one of those in far too long, either. Let’s make it extra random, here is a photo of the vintage 40s evening bag I bought last week that is one of my new favorite things:

The top slides up the handle to open and it’s in really good condition. Also, I love having an evening bag that doesn’t fall over when I put it down. Also also, sparkly.

It’s practically dark outside even though it’s not quite 4pm as I type this and it reminds me why I hate/love this time of year, with its early darkness making me sleepy and cold. I want to curl up with warm beverages and tall socks. It’s starting to feel like winter already, you can smell it in the air. I will like it better when there is proper snow and twinkly lights on strings.

I suppose this is enough babbling for now and I should get to the non-babbling things on the to-do list. I’ll try to babble more coherently relatively soon.

I hope your days are merry and bright, even if it is early to wish such things.

By erin, ago

conveniently inconvenient

My refrigerator is broken.

Yesterday while I was making my tea I happened to open the freezer (I don’t even remember what I was looking for, there wasn’t much in there other than frozen fruit and vanilla vodka) and discovered that my ice cube trays were full of water rather than ice. And the water wasn’t even particularly cold or frosty or in any manner on its way to becoming ice.

Then I checked the fridge and noticed it was remarkably close to room temperature.

The night before we’d had a bunch of little power outages, the power would go off for 30 seconds or so and then switch back on and the tv would come back with much higher volume on the Olympics coverage. (We’ve become addicted to the Olympics, completely unintentionally. The opening ceremonies were gorgeous.) This happened about half a dozen times, so I’m guessing something burnt out some magic cooling something or other. We tried a few easy things to see if we could fix it but alas, it appears to be unfixable.

Our very nice landlord is buying us a new one. I plan on getting ice cream once I have the ability to freeze again.

Oddly, though this is really inconvenient and has me drinking lots of tea and eating lots of Nutella on various bread products, it really couldn’t have happened at a better time. The weather is cool. We didn’t have all that much perishable stuff in there at the moment. We’re going to be gone most of the day tomorrow (going to see Radiohead tomorrow night, yay!) and the new refrigerator should be delivered on Thursday, which the boy had already taken off from work so I don’t have to wrangle kittens and handle delivery guys all by myself.

I’m wondering if this is some sort of cosmic lesson in problem management, that things like this that are unexpected and annoying are still manageable and not necessarily stressful unless you make them stressful.

Or it could just be a case of a bad thing having remarkably good timing.

By erin, ago

bringing the randomness to the new blog

I am getting worse at making myself work, I think. Either that or I have always been this bad and I am just becoming more self-aware. I know that I work in fits and starts and I have lulls, but I seem to be lulling more often than not lately.

I have had a couple serendipitous encounters with things about fear of failure and fear of success, and I really don’t know which one I have. Maybe it’s both, in one big failure milkshake.

Mmm… milkshake.

A milkshake is a frappe up here. I didn’t know it was a weird regionalism until I went to college. Also in college I learned that it is not common knowledge that cranberries grow in bogs.

I sometimes think my problem is that I have the attention span of oh, look, a shiny thing!

I’ve bought a lot of jewelry lately. It is one of my consumer weaknesses, along with books, of course. I think it’s at least partially because I like things that are tangible, and things that last.

I am writing more, in a very general sense. I am blogging more and I have multiple journals (haven’t put anything in the pretty purple one yet, still pondering what belongs in it) and I’m just typing more so I suppose I am doing my mental yoga and that’s something.

One of my serendipitous fear of milkshakes things came from the very beginning of my shiny new Absolute Sandman Volume III. I’ve been trying to pace myself since I just got them all and flew through Volumes I & II fairly quickly. But something compelled me to pick up III the other day.

It’s been a few years since I’ve read all of Sandman and though I remember most of it I’d completely forgotten about “Fear of Falling.” It’s this tiny little bit of a story that is all about everything I’ve been worrying over lately, practically word for word. I should really just write “sometimes, when you fall, you fly” on my hand in Sharpie and quit my whining.

I should know by now to always listen to Neil.

By erin, ago