eleneariel: (it are fact)
I just realized that when I hear people with accents speak, I see the words written out in my head in specific styles of handwriting - for instance, Indian accents are written in that bubbly, round handwriting favored by fourteen-year-old girls (with circles for dots). Australian accents are written in spiky handwriting that slants heavily left.

I have no idea what this means.
eleneariel: (voice of doom)
I would just like to point out, for any who haven't noticed yet, that today is Friday the 13th.

ALSO, I just heard on the radio that the world was supposed to end today, but apparently it hasn't.

It was also supposed to end yesterday, but I guess that didn't work out either.

Which means that I have to go to work.

And under the "So good, it should be posted twice, and also because it fits with the theme of this post" category, I once again give you:


Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
             (Robert Frost) 

Celebrate?

Apr. 25th, 2008 10:23 am
eleneariel: (out of cheese error)
Apparently, today is World Malaria Day. So ... um ... happy Malaria Day, everybody!

Two things

Mar. 10th, 2007 10:00 pm
eleneariel: (Hagen)
Hagen has gotten so vocal lately. He used to not make a peep and now he can be positively persistent in meowing -- especially when hungry, which seems to be most of the time, but also for many other unapparent reasons. He will also meow on command into the phone for [personal profile] savetheolives, heehee. But it makes me wonder if he's doing this because we talk to him all the time? 

I have trouble remembering how old I am. Sometimes I think I'm already twenty-three, but more often I have to catch myself from answering "how old are you?" with twenty-one, or even twenty. Twenty-two seems like such an odd, in-between number, almost as if it doesn't exist.

eleneariel: (green mari)
There is something very old fashioned and romantic about walking up to a blue mailbox on the streetcorner and dropping your envelopes in and hearing the little door clang shut. And when it happens on an autumn day and you are eating an icecream bar for lunch, so much the better. Yes, I had icecream for lunch. A butterfinger icecream bar. I hadn't had one in over a year and it was Time.

The library has nothing by Voltaire.  ??? Just when I decided I wanted to read Candide, too. 

Welcome to [personal profile] elvishcalarilme. I'm sorry, Clara, I think I've only grown more strange since the HH days. But then again, if you read Prachett, there is hope that you will not find me too...odd. 

I wonder how many emails you can get in one Gmail  thread? I think [personal profile] savetheolives and I got one up to 30 or 40. In one evening, no less.

eleneariel: (ayes)

I've been meaning to post all day, but Other Things happened and time slipped by. Meanwhile, I cleaned off my desk, which in Mari-speak means that I found a whole host of scraps of paper with notes on things I've been meaning to tell you all.

That is to say, this is a warning that this post may cover many and varied topics which will not relate to each other in any way. It's hard to write nice transitions when there is no logical way one paragraph connects to the next. Just saying.

Yesterday morning when I woke up, I found a baby mouse swimming around in the toilet bowl. That was too much of a mental challange that early in the morning and I had to wake mom up to ask her what to do. Really, what is the proper action to be taken when one finds a mouse in the toilet?

(Mum was very brave and fished it out and put it in an old butter dish with the lid on tight, mostly to prove to dad that we hadn't been hallucinating.)

I've taken up a new project at the library (please don't say I don't need yet another massive project: I know that!) I'm going through the entire fiction section, book by book, and checking each volume for condition and age and usage, and repairing what needs fixing and discarding what we don't need. I started at Z. I'm not quite through with Woods yet. *facepalm* But I like the thought that when I am through, 1) the collection will be in excellent  better condition, and 2) I will have touched every single book.

(Also, it allows me to discover all the books I would like to read.)

Hagen has a new favorite play thing: a pair of purple socks. He loves them and drags them around in his mouth--only he's so small yet, he ends up tripping all over them and rolling around like a deranged rabbit. I gave them to him because I decided I was really too old to be wearing purple socks, especially when these are purple socks I have had since I was ten. (I see the odd looks. I dislike socks, wear them as infrequently as possible, and therefore it is entirely possible for me to keep a pair of socks twelve years.) (At least they don't have lace around the top!)

The Little Orphan Annie comic strip creeps me out. It's the blank eyes, I think.

I saw today that I have four copies of The Hobbit. Is that a bit much? I feel maybe that's one too many. So I'm getting rid of one copy.

Gym update: very successful, if successful = sore muscles. I, um, never realized just how puny I was before. It's pretty embarressing to see a 70 year old guy handling three times the weight I could manage. But that'll change now, uh huh. Every Friday. I'm excited about this. Yet another thing that's changed...(how does it work that I feel about the same as three years ago when most of the major things in life have changed?)

(As you can see, I have no rule about using a lot of parentheses.)

Now I'm ready for some quality time with my books. Goodnight, all.

eleneariel: (dictionary)

Courtesy of a chat between me and [personal profile] savetheolives whilst we were both feeling Odd: I do present to you, ladies and gentlemen, the newest word to enter the English Language.

Foncused: the act of focusing so intently on something that you become excessively confuzzled and confused and confounded, completely.

eleneariel: (USA)
I spent the last half hour out watching the fireworks display at the church next door and rediscovering all the wonder of childhood.

(Or at least the wonder of being a hobbit-child when Gandalf's in town.)

In one of the old dictionaries I rescued (copyright 1944, beautifully bound in red leather), I found scribbled on the back page in childish handwriting:

                stop stop
                stop THE Wedding
                  top stoP
                stop the wedd

stop stop
stop the weddi ng

STOP

I'm really dying to know what that's all about.
eleneariel: (port)
Once again, words fail me. I'd like to describe just how normal I feel and how abnormal that makes me feel while feeling normal, because abnormal is normal and normal is abnormal.

??

Anyway.

On the Saturdays I don't work [personal profile] savetheolives often calls me about 9:00 am because she knows that I find it less painful to wake up to a call from a friend than the knowledge that I just simply must get up at some point. This morning I was abnormal and got up at 6:30 to go exercise with my mom before it got broiling hot. Then I washed my car and cleaned my room and watched a movie and did laundry and finished a book, and I find myself at 3:30 with the rest of the day ahead of me, to just just as I please.

That is abnormal.

I'll spend the next bit of the day happily puttering about my desk, and when I find all those scraps of paper where I jotted notes of things I wanted to post about, you may see me again.

I feel like doing something strange.
eleneariel: (pretty)
Have you ever thought about how funny the world looks upside down?

I bought a ball gown today. It's shades of grey and reminds me of [livejournal.com profile] clothofdreams's wedding dress. I wonder at the sanity of buying a dress I can only wear once a year, but I like it. Maybe I'll wear it to church someday just to cement my oddness in people's minds.

I'm always hungrier on days when I do eat breakfast.
eleneariel: (punctuation)
Fresh mozzarella really does squeak between your teeth when you eat it.

I found my gradient tool! It was hidden with the paintbucket, for some reason. I'm so happy. PS7 is my friend again.

Last night owls were hooting outside my bedroom window. Doesn't that portend something? As Gaspod the Talking Wonder Dog would say, it bodes. It definitely bodes. It's a boding kind of thing.

Stash's Vanilla Nut Cream is my new favorite tea.

I loved the chapter I read last night in The Godfather about how Vito Corleone transformed from a small boy into Don Corleone. Like most great criminals, he didn't really mean to. It was an exceptionally beautiful chapter. The rest of the book is Michael doing pretty much the same thing. It's all very sad and beautiful.

Things To Be Done Before Leaving For Vacation (17 days!):

-Buy Mother's Day gift and plan Mother's Day events.
-Buy Father's Day gift.
-Attend city council meeting on the 16th
-Design and get online history pages for the library website. Working on this today
-Get a package ready for Sarah's birthday.
-Find a gift for Sandra's birthday.
-Find time to go to the only store in town that sells the face lotion I use and restock; also key makeup items. It wouldn't do to run out while away. =)
-Dog-and-House-sit over the weekend of the 13th (this means another trip to the antiques store, I think.)
-Attend another IPL meeting all day on the 10th. I'm a little upset that because of the time and location of the meeting, I won't be able to make it to church that night. =\
-Help organize and pull off a farewell party/secret sister activity for Linda, who's leaving the library at the end of the month. Fie! I'll miss her.
eleneariel: (leaving)
Has anybody gotten a chickenpox vaccination as an adult? I'm looking into it. I've evidentally never been vaccinated (even as a child), and I've never had the chickenpox, either.

As I was walking in from the post office a random guy accosted me. Hi! How are you! Long time no see! ...I'm pretty sure I've never seen him before in my life.

Just did five takes for the commercial. *facepalm* Further proof I wasn't meant to go into the acting world. [livejournal.com profile] elveneyes38, I admire you for that. (And a bunch of other things!)

Edit: Happy! Mom had mentioned she'd like me to search online to find the book The Mighty Whirlwind (about the Palm Sunday tornados mom lived through in Indiana). It's out of print and didn't have a large print run, so any copies that are out there are hugely expensive--some even $150. I had just called her to tell her that, and she decided she didn't want it badly enough to pay that much, when I found one copy on alibris.com for less than $30! It'll be a Mother's Day surprise. =) Perfect!

A Story

May. 1st, 2006 08:42 pm
eleneariel: (library)
I walked into the library and the first thing I saw was a young woman sitting crosslegged inside the display case.

What a perfect start to a romance that would be! Fifty years later, Grandpa would reminise to the grandkids, Did I ever tell you the story of how I met your grandmother? It was one Monday night at the library...
eleneariel: (lonely girl)
Is "if you say so" ever a good response to "Good morning"?

I think not.

Yesterday I got lost, found a coffee house, ate Chinese (best.salmon.ever...but who knew that was Chinese...?), drove an hour through pale light and mist in the morning (past those lush fields, bovines grazing bordered by forests and the unexpected lake), drove an hour back eight hours later though the exact same light and fog.

And woke up to the same this morning.

Dry world, take in water by osmosis.
eleneariel: (No fear of flying: Sonny and Ayn)
[livejournal.com profile] equuschick probably understands.

Isn't it odd that right now I miss somebody?

No, that's not odd. What's odd is that the somebody that I miss is somebody that I made up. Created from my own head, formed with my own thoughts, 50,000+ words written on paper with my own hand keyboard.

You'd think that since I have complete power over the man, I could call him up at will.

I miss Sonny.

Writing is a funny thing. You think the author gives the story life: I say the story lives and breathes itself. And sometimes the author just gets....

...swept away.


Exit Odd Mari, Enter Sane Mari: Who wishes you and yours a very happy Easter weekend and plans to enjoy hers very much, thank you, although very quietly and with a minimum of fuss and bother. She will spend her time off reading and playing in the newly green grass and trying to photograph butterflies, and possibly, if she dares, editing the book.
eleneariel: (texas tree)
Last night I was in the grocery store shopping for my grandmother. My mother was also there. We met up in the produce department and I began entertaining her by rubbing my hands gleefully in front of the basket of brussel sprouts, cackling and intoning, "We'll feed them BRUSSEL SPROUTS, my pretties!"

It was all fine and good until I looked up to see two Mexican men staring at me from across the onions. Obviously, they thought I was loco. I wondered for a moment if I should be embarrassed, then decided not. Life is too funny not to be funny with it.

All of the sudden we're thinking about moving the location of the library altogether and building an entirely new building instead of adding on. In a way, that would be very nice. No mess in the old building while construction is going on--a completely new building, without having to work around the existing structure--a new location. In the end it might be just as cost effective, due to all the renovation the old section we're in needs. It will be interesting to see what happens.

And finally:

March reading list

1. Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett
I'm actually getting down to where there are only a few new Pratchetts to read, and barely more than that to acquire for my own. It's kind of sad. Thank goodness he's not dead yet, so he can still put out a new one per year. This one was the Discworld take on vampires, and quite the hilarious one, too. Although I think reading Interview with a Vampire should have happened before I read it, not after.

2. The Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion in the Year 1764-65, Cleone Knox
I rather hate to talk much about this one, because the chances of any of you being able to find a copy is slim. I have it in the rare book collection at work. Since even I couldn't take it out of the building, I read it on lunch hours. It was so facinating--the diary of this girl Cleone in the months leading up to her elopement. It was so....so 18th century. Absolutely facinating.

3. Julie and Julia, Julie Powell
Julie cooks all the way through Julia Child's cookbook in a year's time. A little too frank with sex and a little too liberal with language to recommend to the whole family, but then again, it'll probably only appeal to those besotted with food. I liked it. And I'll never cook a lobster due to its influence.

4. On Writing, Steven King
Who knew? Steven King is actually a very good writer. I like the way he strings words together. I like his style. I like what he has to say about the writing process. I still don't ever intend to read one of his novels, but I do now appreciate his talent.

5. Blowing my Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy, Linsay Moran
Obviously she had to leave out all the really good parts (the title page tells us that the while the CIA does not indorse the book, they have read it and removed anything of interest that might be detrimental to the agency). It was an okay read, but I got annoyed at her liberalism. On the other hand, international spying is a dirty business, so perhaps she was right to be cynical.

6. Fighting Words, James Charlton, editor
Quotes from authors slamming either 1) themselves, or better yet, 2) other authors. Amusing.

7. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
It still doesn't top Thief of Time, but it's awfully good. A working knowledge of classic rock'n'roll helps tremendously, as Discworld's Music with Rocks In seem quite, eh, similar. I thought the parody was in fine form in this book. I'm so glad, [livejournal.com profile] melyndie, that we had time to go to that bookshop so I could find it for my own!

8. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
[livejournal.com profile] aftondays read this last month and had an interesting, if cryptic, comment to make about it. It's not a book I would have normally picked up, but I did because of her influence and once I started it, found it hard to lay aside. It's hard to characterize, but I really enjoyed it.

9. The Paradise War, Steven Lawhead
It's been too long since I read Lawhead. It's still wonderfully Celtic.

10. To Catch a Spy, Stuart M. Kaminsky
A book in the hard-boiled detective novel genre, featuring Cary Grant. (Albeit a very wooden Cary Grant.) Not too bad, but not that exciting, either.

11. Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Portrait, Brodie
I've been slooowly reading this for a very long time--over a year and a half, in fact. Either the book was poorly written or I just don't like Jefferson all that much. I'm not sure which.

12. The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker
Footnotes! A random novel with little to no plot but a whole host of those thoughts, nicely footnoted, that I can snap my fingers at and go, "Ah, so someone else has wondered that, too?"
eleneariel: (panic)
Weird things:

-I usually don't bother to wash fruit before I eat it.
-I can't turn off the radio in the middle of a song. If this means I sit in the car after I arrive at my destination for several minutes, so be it.
-I love books with footnotes.
-I never use washcloths.
-I keep every single scrap of correspondence. If you once gave me a post-it note with a one line message, I've still got it.
-When I sit down to read, I always have multiple books (not sure if this is a sign of ADD or not).
-I cut my own hair. Quite well, usually.
-I collect dictionaries in foreign languages.

-And this is what happens when you give me balloons on St. Patrick's day.




eleneariel: (quiet)
Last night I walked past a bank of pay phones. It was dark and quiet and very middle-of-the-night-ish.

One of them began to ring.

I took five steps towards it before losing my nerve and deciding not to answer. I regret it now. Wouldn't it have been fun to answer the phone?

Hi I needta talk ta James.

No, sorry, this is a pay phone outside of a grocery store. Where did you think you were calling?


I walked away. It was still ringing. I would have been fun, but it was just a little too eerie.

Shades of The Matrix, anyone?
eleneariel: (is that my voice?)
Adopt your own useless blob!

I adopted a blob. A clear blob. A bobbing pair of blob eyes.

I am thus so easily amused.

life moves

Jan. 18th, 2006 04:54 pm
eleneariel: (face)
It looks like we'll be recarpeting the other half of the library within the month. Also, adding on in a major way within the year (?).

Last night I finally felt like I had my life in order. All because I cleaned off my desk. *facepalm*

I think I'm skipping church tonight. I feel bad because it's happened more frequently lately, but I have a reason.

And this is the End.

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