February 2014 – Page 2 – Allegra Sloman's blog

Parade’s End

It was a perfectly nice BBC/HBO 5 parter. HBO, so, of course, boobs. I may have to look for the books it was based on; Ford Madox Ford was a feminist when that really wasn’t a popular view for a man to take, so good on him.

Word count yesterday was spiffing. I will complete the book in less than two months at this rate, at which point I’m actually going to EDIT it instead of pronouncing it done and shelving it, and then I’m going to find a decent agent (I have some ideas) and if I can’t sell it, I’ll self publish.

When I’m no longer actively writing it, I’ll go to my next project, Tarot for Atheists, and finish that and see if I can get it published (it will be easier than this one, for sure), and then when that’s done, I’ll probably self-publish my homilies. (Homilies, Essays, Rants and Reviews). Then there’s Broad Hints, which includes my ephemeral writing and then A Filker’s Life for Me (all my filk tunes and lyrics in book form), and A Sacrifice to Chronos (all the other songs worth keeping). After that, there’s Child Rearing for Anarchists, whatever materials I’ve put together for the anti-racism workshop (The Racist in Recovery, with free embroidered hankie for those white women tears, dearies).

Cough, which had been much better, is now suddenly much worse, so I’m glad I’ve got DMDE cough medicine in the house. For the first time in my life I’m actually measuring the dosage. Next dose at ten am – I’ve been up since quarter to 2. Don’t know if it’s the moon, or the coughing, or my brain spinning with what new idiocies my characters are up to (reading Michel’s dialog aloud with a Montreal accent made me start coughing again) but sleep has been hard to come by these last few nights.

Fetched home some schnitzel yesterday for supper. Lost my keys and Jeff found them.

I am so glad Keith is having a good and educational time in Australia. I am so happy and proud, I just can’t express it enough.

Word of the Day: rebarbative.

Church, chocolate, coffee

Despite the last two series of Sherlock being golden moments with half hours of ludicrous illogical crap in between, I’m quite taken with this young Cumberbatch fellow, and hope to watch Parade’s End, which features him prominently in some kind of period love triangle. Oh, yeah.

Church had our former minister Harold Rosen, who traversed through Judaism and Unitarianism to end up being Baha’i. He spoke on the processes of justice from an interfaith / Baha’i perspective. Had a brief meeting with Sally about my homily on the 9th of March – exactly a month from today. We squared away some things I hadn’t thought of.

The coffee, as always, was excellent. I picked up some chocolate for Jeff… fair trade organic chocolate does taste better.

I have learned that someone I only know through the internet is going to run as a Libertarian candidate. His campaign promises so far…. are so ludicrous and hilarious that I would vote for him in a heartbeat. He’s the only Libertarian I’ve ever run across who’s a feminist. If there were more like him I wouldn’t be hating on Libertarians so much.

Jeff got Keith’s call last night. Sounds like he’s still having magical amounts of fun in the land of Oz.

I’m feeling kinda sludgy… hope to make word count today.

The world on the slowdown

Katie came by yesterday to cut my hair and listen to the message Keith left (so burbly! So full of enthusiasm! and his pa will join him soon!) so it was a brief but useful interaction. We’re obviously still pretty sore with each other, but life f*cking well goes on.

No word count yesterday; it was a disappointing day but at least Thursday’s trip to the doc reveals me as being, yet again, a dirty great hypochondriac. Honestly, sometimes I think the best thing about me breaking my shoulder was that there was no arguing about it. Everyone agreed, yup, dislocated AND broken; no hypochondria there, girl.

Third series of Sherlock so wombly and disappointing that I nearly screamed with frustration. I put my Darth Vader blankie over my head a lot. (I bought a Darth Vader blankie for 15 bucks at the Interfilk auction at Conflikt).

Jeff took me to breakfast this morning and will be heading out to work at a couple of customers later. I hope I quit coughing long enough to do something useful, like make word count, or rehearse, or do laundry.

Racism workshop two Wednesday afternoons hence at my place. It will be a corker.

I need some tea.

They just sang this in England, at the filk convention there. http://www.leafpress.ca/Mondays_Poems_2013/Chris_Hadfield/Is-Somebody-Singing.htm

Happy sigh.

Doctor today

But soft what crap through yonder email inbasket breaks?

I just got asked to take down a link from SEVEN YEARS AGO on my blog, which PRAISED the site asking for the takedown. My response.

You are cordially invited to use your conscience and your brain and actually look at the link.

When you have done so, you can either contact me and apologize, or you can deal with the consequences of me reposting the email you just sent me, with your name attached to it, and have all thirty of the people who read my blog on a regular basis laugh their asses off at you. That’s right, 30 people read my blog. I am NOT and could not be under any circumstances a threat to your brand, the protection of which I have to assume is the point of what looks like an exercise in you attempting to look like you are actually accomplishing something for your company.

I did nothing, repeat nothing, to injure your brand. I praised it. If you think I injured your brand, it’s because instead of looking at the link in context, you fired off a canned email that makes you look like a magisterial asshat with a certificate in Vaguely Threatening Correspondence earned during a workshop in a function room in a run down hotel.

Say sorry and rethink your strategy. I’ve done nothing wrong and if you had any grace you’d admit it.

On my way to the post box…

I think I have walking pneumonia. The bubbling and crackling in my chest is quite obscene.

However, I managed to stir my stumps enough to get to the mailbox, and on the way there I met a nice young man wearing a purple and black checked hoodie, who was pushing a purple motorbike up our rather steep alley. I sternly asked him if he was stealing it and then asked him if I could help push, which help he accepted gratefully, and I only had one coughing fit. We got it where it was supposed to be and I continued with my errand, arriving home from the minus 4 weather wheezing like an old lady and coughing when not wheezing.

It’s jeezly cold out there.

Jeff’s off to one of his customers, and he’s bringing me foodicles on the way home, so I am happy I don’t have to go out again today.

I got word back from the energy company – they sent a lovely email (like, the only company so to do…) saying they’d chosen another candidate. Hey, the response was reason enough to want to work for them…. and I found another job I really liked on line today and tried to knock the application out of the park. I also got an email asking me if I wanted to work from home for a decent wage; we’ll see if it comes to anything. I’m certainly not going to hand over my personal info without a personal interview to go with it.

We shall see, if we’re lucky anyway. Despite everything, I am feeling cheerful, because there are people who love me, and the anti-racism workshop is getting off the ground, and I’m writing every day, and Margot has perked up (although she’s right noisy when Jeff’s away!) and I have a dishwasher, which I should finish loading and run, seeing as how Jeff is being so kind as to fetch a chicken.

Walking pneumonia

I have bubbling and crackling in my chest and when I cough I feel like a tectonic version of Camille. I slept about 12 hours yesterday, which is about double my normal 6-hours-no-matter-when-I-fall-asleep.

Another 350 words after I thought I’d wrapped it up for the day yesterday; I sure am having fun.

Margot seems to be off her food and a tad listless, but she was happy enough to chase after a treat last night so I’m not sure it’s all that bad. I think the cat food is a bit rancid, it sure smells that way. But of course if cat food smelled good to humans, that would be kind of weird.

Superb owl over this year

That was a righteous shellacking, was it not? I turned off the game at half time.

A thousand words yesterday. I don’t seem to be having any problems making word count.

Church was pretty sad yesterday. Two long time members of the church are facing their last illnesses, and I know they are old but I love them both dearly and it’s just sad to see how their wives are bearing up under the strain. Also, one of my favourite church members has cancer and another one is also going for cancer treatments. Ack. Make it stop please. At the same time church was pretty awesome; the service was about the life and work of Bruce Cockburn. Night before at the housefilk I said, “Well I can’t imagine them playing “If I had a Rocket Launcher” in church” and I was wrong! How Peggy and I giggled about it afterwards. Congratulations to our minister for daring and being all she is. Thanks also to Marylke for the ride home.

I practiced for about an hour yesterday. It was a bit painful because the con crud finally set in and I’ve got a ghastly dry cough. I will probably head out to the pharmacy today to get something to kill the cough, or maybe just load up on Throat Coat tea with honey. I went looking for cold meds and everything was time expired by 12 months.

Welp, that’s enough for now. I’m heading back to sleep, after another broken night.

Here’s a lovely version of Danse Macabre.

today, church and other things

I’ve got to deal with revision 5994 of Mt. Washmore,

Yesterday I baked banana bread (with orange zest, cardamom and almond butter, lordy but it was good) and took it to the house filk at Tom and Peggy’s, which was so poorly attended nobody else was there so I called Rob (who apparently is not getting my emails, which is troubling, especially since he doesn’t have either text or voicemail enabled on his phone) and he came by with pie. We ate Reuben sammiches, stir fried veggies and green salad (and it was om nom nom) and sang and played. I am now apparently part of a group called Harmonic Anomaly, or something like that, and we’re going to sing songs that need lots of harmony and provide same.

I woke up super early this morning

So I took out some trash and put salt down on the back deck so Jeff doesn’t skid down on his ass, cause it be icy out there.

Jeff is off to Victoria this morning. He will be watching the Superb Owl with pOp.

Otto is back from the shop. I paid because it was the only way to get him back, cause I’m not giving them another crack at him. I am very unhappy with the results, and super unhappy with the tech, who didn’t even restring the mandolin properly. The world is full of competent people who only fuck up when I’m their customer, and I’m in line to receive customer service from every last one of them. It is my karma for all the exceedingly crappy service I’ve given to others in my life, I suppose. At least the Mac came back genuinely repaired, although the new layout of the function keys is going to take some getting used to.

I wrote 3200 words yesterday. Don’t know if I can meet or beat that today, but mOm isn’t complaining, as I’m basically forwarding everything to her as soon as I write it. I need to completely finish that scene and then I’m off to the hardest scene of all….

Housefilk at Tom and Peggy’s this afternoon to evening, happy sigh. I’m getting a sore throat but I’m going to load up on Throat Coat tea and fluids and vitamin C.

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