miscellany

on boston & tori

My feet hurt. But I am not particularly surprised by this considering I wandered around Boston most of the day yesterday and I desperately need new sandals because my old ones, while comfortable, are sort of falling apart and I think they’ve forgotten about a little thing called arch support.

Wandering around Boston reminded me that I don’t particularly miss living there, especially in the summer. I actually prefer Boston buried under winter slush to sweltering in that concrete-flavored heat.

We were in town for the day to see Tori Amos at the WhateverBankIt’sNamedAfterNow Pavilion, but we went in early and walked around and went to see Julie & Julia. I thought it was delightful, even beyond being a 2+ hour air conditioned respite from the weather. It’s a tad too long and made me desperately hungry, but overall I thought it was marvelous. I commented to the boy that it was fun to see a movie that felt like a romantic comedy but was about already established relationships and the romantic stuff wasn’t the core of the film. I can’t think of anything to compare it to, really, but I very much enjoyed it. A great deal of it is about writing, too. Recommended, but do yourself a favor and eat fist. I was crazy hungry afterward.

(After the movie we went to dinner, of course. Good, but not enough butter.)

We were pretty much melting by concert time, but Tori was all kinds of wonderful as usual. This was our sixth show, and we had better seats than we’ve ever had (17th row, dead center) and oddly most of the row in front of us was empty. The show was great, the encore was amazing and really, other than some nitpicky qualms about the setlist (we’d seen a fair deal of the same songs on the last tour and had been hoping for a bit more variety – setlist, for those wot care) and the thermal discomfort it was marvelous. Tori is simply stellar live. All the stuff from the new album was gorgeous. I’m running out of adjectives, but you likely get my point. Really, it’s difficult to write anything other than OMGILOVETORI and things about rocking socks. Not that I was wearing socks, but if I had been they would have been rocked.

Now I have that post-Tori depression where I rather desperately want to see her play again as soon as possible. And my feet hurt.

In other, less foot-hurting news: I spent a large portion of the weekend (and part of the wandering around in Bostonian hot yesterday) bouncing novel revision ideas off the boy and I think I’ve come up with a good handful of ideas worth pursuing. So I’m very pleased about that and I’m going to try to spend some time today and tomorrow outlining & organizing & letting the ideas simmer some more, and hopefully before long I’ll have a nicely seasoned revision stew to eat, or write. Analogies getting away from me again, tricksy things.

By erin, ago

flopsy yawning kitten sort of day

yawning tessa

Tessa looks how I feel right now. Maybe without the yawning. But she’s been sprawled out in front of the fan all day and I would really like to be able to do the same but I don’t think I’d fit on that table and I have work to do. Lucky kitten.

I know, I should have the a/c on when it’s this humid. But we’ve had such a mild summer that we haven’t put the air conditioners up. It’s really not that bad with the fans, but it’s uncomfortable enough that I don’t really feel like doing much and would rather flop like Tessa. But I’m trying to be good.

Tarot Queens are going slow, mostly because the humidity makes it hard to paint. I still should be able to finish them by the end of the week, the base layers are down already and they mostly need detailing.

There will be sharable news on the literary agent search soon. I’m still playing the waiting game so nothing is definite yet. I think I’m actually getting better at the waiting game because I stopped biting my nails and I don’t freak out quite so much every time I have new mail.

I am not a summer creature, despite being born in July. I’m craving autumn already, with crisp leaves and pumpkin spice lattes and apple picking and none of this horrid humidity.

By erin, ago

i *heart* my city

I think one of my favorite things about living in Salem is that you can walk by things like this on your way home from dinner. On a Monday. In August.

There were two of them, and they also had potted plants and a fog machine, but this was the best photo I got. We also passed a candlelight ghost tour and got to overhear anecdotes about executions. No rogue black cats tonight, though, alas.

By erin, ago

floppy kittens, etsy sale

It quite suddenly decided to be proper summer around here. In the last week of July. The Kitten Flop Barometer is at Very High Flop.

(Or should that be Very Low Flop, since the floppiness is very low to the ground? Though Bucket is flopped on the table in front of the fan, while Tessa is flopped by my feet on top of a pile of papers that need to be shredded. The Kitten Flop Barometer is not a precise device.)

I seem to be in the middle of all sorts of things which involves a lot of thinking and waiting and not necessarily a lot of interesting blog fodder. Also, it’s hot, which is demotivating.

Things I am waiting for in the mail:

  • BPAL order including bottles of Belle Vinu, Imp & Lawn Gnome
  • DVD of Watchmen
  • New bank card, to replace the unfortunately compromised one.
  • Notice from the bank about all that fun bank fraud stuff. It’s like a money adventure, but not as fun as shopping. When all this is done I am totally buying new shoes.

And of course, I’m keeping an eye on my my e-mail inbox for agent responses. It’s been pretty quiet lately on that front.

I’m writing bits of all sorts of things. I have two big works in progress plus a fairy tale for my writing group and I’m pondering the queens for the tarot deck.

Also, I’m having a sale on original art over on Etsy. Breakdown of ridiculously low prices is over on the art blog. Here, have a very pretty widget to click and go check stuff out:

By erin, ago

knights & orchids

On Saturday we went to see Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince, which was enjoyable for about an hour and a half and then boring and badly paced for the last hour. And when the credits started I immediately turned to the boy and said “Today we have learned that a good director can elevate a mediocre screenplay to something decent but cannot salvage a final scene as horrible as that one.” Really. Love the direction, love the look of everything, love Luna, love Alan Rickman, Daniel Radcliffe has some brilliant comic timing, but that screenplay was awful.

On Sunday we found out someone has been using my debit card to go on a spending spree in the UK. Bright side: some card monitoring place called to alert me, plus froze the card for me. According to the bank I need to go fill out fraud paperwork. There’s some confusion at this point as to what charges went through and what didn’t, but it’s several hundred dollars, at least. Joy.

In better news, I finished the Phantomwise Tarot Knights today. They’re up in the gallery on phantomwise.com. They were rather difficult, but I’m pleased with how they came out. Only 8 cards left, which is just crazy. Since I started in October of 2006 I’m thinking they’re going to end up finished almost exactly at the 3 year mark.

In other news I’m toying with multiple writing projects in hopes of finishing a draft of something by the end of the year, I just got these bracelets from Bullfinch & Barbury on Etsy and I’m in love with them, Tessa is in love with the huge cardboard box, and I’m going to go make dinner now.

In closing, here is a photo of the gorgeous orchid the boy got from his office, apparently they raffle off the old flowers when they replace them and he got this one. We’re trying not to kill it.

By erin, ago

monday miscellany, with photos

Went for a twilight walk last night in this oddly gorgeous weather. Met a black cat who liked pets on the head. Hadn’t met a black cat in Salem before, though we’ve seen a couple. This one was sweet and liked having his picture taken.

Have all sorts of things to do this week. The tarot knights are in progress, sitting on the workbench in blurry shades of grey. I have a huge stack of books to read that will get taller when my box of birthday books from Amazon arrives. And lots of writing to do. But not this Friday’s flax-golden tale, that’s already finished.

I wrote out a to-do list, something I don’t do nearly as often as I should. It is manageable, I think, and doesn’t look as daunting all typed up as it seemed in my head.

I’m also listening to all of my Tori Amos, in order. According to iTunes we have 1.2 days worth of Tori. The boy started it yesterday as cleaning music, and I’m about halfway through The Beekeeper now. Getting very jazzed to see her in August.

By erin, ago