Settler words&music in S'ólh Téméxw, (leanpub.com/upsun) living where privilege meets precarity in MST country. she/her/they———– Novels: Midnite Moving Co., Upsun; Sweep Off Those Waves coming soon, Hair Sinister after that. —Restore All Indigenous Lands!
Sue is coming to get me for church at 10; I’m doing coffee today with one of the youth, who is well disposed to like me since I gave her about $300 of Fluevogs the other day. I am trying to think of which stupid hat I should wear. As a concession, I will wear other clothes too.
There’s a budget meeting and soup lunch today too so I’ll be there quite late. But it’s good that I don’t have to borrow Jeff’s car.
I am going to try to complete a couple of songs in Songwriter so I can export them as PDFs and get them into the Conflikt song book.
Much as it pains me to say it, I can’t afford to make trips to the US and otherwise spend the income I have, so I am going to go to $15 worth of church event as opposed to the $500 con. Yes – I could spend less but I don’t like going to a convention if I have to bunk in with anyone else for the usual reasons, like my privacy requirements now I’m no longer a live in parent are rather absurdly high.
So I’ll be sending the songs along instead. I’ll send Gateway and Dishing with Joyce, since Fred Pohl’s stuff is going to be commercialized over the next couple of years (I believe it’s going to be a tv show, which would likely work fine, helmed correctly) and Buffy never stops being popular with certain crowds and the Scoobie gang have dozens of songs and Joyce not so much. I find it amusing that I have repurposed a song with was a song about a crush on a coworker into a filk, but one of the great appeals of filk is how it mashes things together into a great media pulp.
Saw Mike yesterday, and he popped by later, after he fed me a light supper at the Oliver Twist, and I will be seeing Sue for brekkie this morning to feast her for her birthday. She is so wonderful, I am sure we will have a lovely earflapping. For she is the Great She-Elephant, and I am her dear chum.
Okay, enough demonstrating that I left the house yesterday (I did twice, and with all the cat commotion with Buster and his collar Jeff did three times) and I have friends, I gots work to do, coffee to make and songs about Giant Squids (words) (music) to listen to for its inspirational effect on my opus.
I really hate Bell Mobility and their stupid goddamned website. I went through everything to update my plan and was told, on the same page, that it hadn’t gone through, and it had been confirmed. I haven’t gotten an email confirming the update, so I am assuming it did not in fact go through. Emmanuel on chat was helpful.
At some point today I’m hoping we can do a shop. I haven’t left the house to do more than put trash out in three days, so I should probably stir my stumps; on the plus side I can see some of my floor and almost all my clothes are clean.
I’m pissed that Shaw’s dead on PoI, as she was one of my favourite characters, but actor Sarah Shahi is expecting twins so there you go.
Sonia Sohn continued to make a contribution after the Wire.
We continue our descent into Scandic Noir, a contemporary style of television from Norway, Denmark, Sweden. We are now watching Mammon and Borgen.
I just backspaced over a thousand words of whining. THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE.
Only one thing has happened recently worth reporting. Keith came over yesterday. I said, “I’m so happy to see you I’m going to clean my glasses so I can see you better.” He’s rewatching Ken Burns’ Civil War with us.
Buster is rapidly turning into one of my favourite cats. He is affectionate, vocal without being a pain, coexisting well with Margot (she’s still not a big fan, but has started rimming him while he eats, so that’s something), athletic, a good sport about being stuck in the house while his most recent set of contusions heals, a non finicky eater and A LAP CAT. He helped me with my most recent homily, huzzah.
I should count them up, although I think one of them has gone missing. Edited later: There are actually 21 but I can’t find the text for Garbage Day. Drat. I thought mOm sent it to me.
This morning’s homily, enlivened by 4 newcomers and Alex and Katie (Alex smiling and babbling in a simply enchanting way) went very well. You can find it here. It was so cute watching Rob W in his Viking hat, being the uncleybear.
In particular, people liked the comment about the draft horse, and they loved the children’s story (different to what you’ll see, but Marilyn did a superb job of cutting it down without cutting it out AND she got participation from the chillums.)
I am going to take the rest of the day off (except for the usual snacks and laundry and whatnot) and fling myself at the novel again starting tomorrow morning.
I know, most of the world doesn’t care…. anyway, I have put aside a couple of kids books for him, being Koko’s Kitten and The Pokey Little Puppy, seeing as how they are family favourites. Katie’s going to come some time this morning and we’re going to go for a walk, since I need to mail Tammy’s sweater back to her.
Keith dropped by yesterday and we fed him crudites with crockpot pork chomps and onyums.
I found my will and my burial arrangements yesterday! I cleaned out the living room, and candidly that is not where I expected to find them. However they are now back in my room where they belong.
We tried to watch Fleming, the 4 part miniseries, but it was goshawful, so we stopped. We’re enjoying Salamander, which is Belgian and very suspenseful, and I love love love Filip Peeters, who is about as cute as middle aged men get and has one of the most startlingly asymmetrical faces I’ve seen east of Picasso. Also, Mike Verdrengh would be perfect as Jordan de Riberac.
I made pancakes for breakfast. It’s been ages since I did that.
I’d like to wish everyone who reads my blog a very happy New Year full of fun, food, family, and frolic, also paid employment and worthy activities as and when required.
I make no resolutions, but I’m going to do a couple of homilies and finish a couple of books -writing, not reading- this year. I’m also hoping to do some sewing and dejunking. We’ll see.
So the sometimes annual Feste du Fromage was yesterday, at Patricia’s place. It was lovely to see her and Leanne again; I got sleepy for a second but came to eventually to get talkative again; considering I’d been up since 2 am and didn’t leave until 11 I think I did okay. I brought cheese, which was definitely hauling coal to Newcastle.
SO HAPPY TO HAVE CHEESE in the fridge. Because cheese makes everything yummy. ALSO I watched a cheesy movie, The Boxtrolls, earlier that day, so it was really really a lot of cheese to take in. Tracy Morgan’s voice acting in this movie, while terse IS HILARITY. “I think I’ve lost a lot of blood” is his longest line…. it’s worth it.
The Drop, James Gandolfini’s last performance, was wonderful, a neatly crafted, beautifully shot gangster movie. Tom Hardy veers between lyrical romance and brute physical menace with such restraint that he can use virtually the same expressions to convey them both. Noomi Rapace is not quite wasted as the utility grade girlfriend, and my ranting pants are at the dry cleaners so I’ll skip to the next part… it had a good score.
Enjoyed Knights of Badassdom, although the overarching conceit of the movie is that if a woman wants to be a meretricious poser and dump the insanely hot Ryan Kwanten that means she should be transformed into a succubus, tortured and summarily killed while Summer Glau looks fondly on. Boys, take your relationship problems a little further downwind before you next write a script. Bechdel test oh come on now Allegra you’re being oversensitive. No, I’m not, and neither do I need to belabour the point.
I LOVED PRIDE. It was a lovely, cheerful, excruciatingly funny, tear-jerking, heartbreaking YA MY PEOPLE movie, and I wouldn’t change a thing about any of the performances. The music was so good all I can say is anybody in their twenties when this music was the bee’s knees will think they died and woke up listening to CFNY.
Sue upped and back from church one congregant viz me, plus she brought cookies so bonus hit points for her. I hope to feast her for her birthday. I love my little church. Marilyn’s been laid low with a cold for two weeks and only just struggled back to civilization, so taking on leading the service was much appreciated given her challenges.
Briefly saw Brooke and her Beancat, whose grasp of rhetorical artifice firms apace, and in whom I see alarming signs of possibly becoming an insanely highpriced lawyer. Dood be smart.
Back to the grind of a mere 2000 words. A bagatelle, if you can’t see the anchor tied to my ass!
The title of this post is taken from today’s homily, and is about a beautiful moment, not a sad one.
This is all there is so far. It’s very bluegrass.
Well my pa don’t say much but he don’t like none of my suitors
and my ma never stops like a wasp in a winderpane
My sisters they fume and they tell me it’s my duty
Though I don’t want to wed, suitors come to me again
Crowdin’ round, night and day
crowdin’ round, braggin’ and laughin’
Crowdin’ round, beggin’ kisses sayin’
When you gonna marry me?
I have sent them all off down the road in dusty twilight
and in peace I can pull down and play my mandolin
in the dark by the gatepost I hear a banjo twangin
And he’s far enough away that my pa can’t call it sin
Crowdin’ round, night and day
crowdin’ round, braggin’ and laughin’
Crowdin’ round, beggin’ kisses saying
When you gonna marry me?
All my life I’ve looked after my sisters and my brothers
now they tell me to marry and move out my trousseau
I’m worn out with this fam’ly and now must start another
Ne’er to sail foreign seas now, or hike in mountain snow
Crowdin’ round, night and day
crowdin’ round, braggin’ and laughin’
Crowdin’ round, beggin’ kisses saying
When you gonna marry me?
Some nights after my suitor let the banjo introduce him
He appears and then shyly asks me for my hand
He’d not press me with children, as having the impression
It was something a husband and wife jointly planned
Chorus
Oh you speak to my heart, but what other chains are hiding
Shall I spend all my days by a stove and a sink
Shall I gasp in a fact’ry or wait upon your presence
While you gamble in brothels and spend your health in drink
Saw the wussified, bowdlerized, defanged and diznified version of Sondheim’s Into the Woods last night with Sue. I enjoyed it. Chris Pine ripppppping his shirt off in the Agony song was pretty funny, and Emily Blunt was bloody marvellous, but really all the cast was good, and I enjoyed it. I’m actually glad I saw it on the big screen as it is quite pretty.
Also I ate poutine and drank beer (except for parties I’m not keeping it in the house anymore). Now I’m going to get up, make coffee and get stuff done. Since there is literally no more episodic tv to watch unless we’re rewatching SG1, which is okay too I guess.