book geek

Thanks for everyone's answers about school clubs. I still think I win the prize for nerdiest school club (Library Club), though Paul Bristow does well with his Physics Club. :-) My high school Library Club's activities mainly consisted of helping the librarians put away books, but also learning more about how libraries worked in general. I did so love being in libraries, and still do. I could easily see myself being a librarian in another life. I love being surrounded by and working with books. Despite the chaos in my office, I'm also fascinated by the whole organizational process. I don't know if I could have been a very good children's librarian, though. I would likely not be very objective when it came to letting kids pick their own books. "Oh PLEASE, don't read that one!" I'd cry, ripping a book out of some poor child's hand. CHILD: "But I want to read that book." ME: "No no no, it's crap. Here, try this one." CHILD: "But I don't want that one." ME: "Take it." CHILD: "No." ME: "Take it or else." etc. The biggest perk of being in the Library Club was that members got first dibs at taking out new books that looked interesting, and first dibs at any books and records (yes, LPs) that were going into library book sales. That's how I got my Elvis Presley Harum Scarum record! I know you're all jealous. Okay, so this kind of perk may not excite some of you. I LOVE book sales and used book shops. It's pretty much impossible for me to walk through a shopping mall, see a book sale table, and NOT be drawn inexorably towards it, even if the only titles I can see are out-of-date Sams Net tech titles or cheesy-looking coffee table books with torn covers. There's always the possibility that a gem might be hidden in between the cheese. I especially love library book sales because of the chance of getting well-loved titles in a good quality hardcover format with library binding, rough cut edges, thick paper, and generous margins at a price I can afford. I'm such a book geek. Lyanne Quirt says she has a photo like the one I posted yesterday. "Except it's in colour. And I'm the flute player three from the right. And it was 1995 and it was the Stephen Leacock Public School Concert Band playing the national anthem for the Jays' game. I'll try to scan it and send you a copy if I can still find it." Yes please, Lyanne! :-) I think it's very cool that a couple of my recent Blatherings have inspired other people's new journal entries: Sherman Dorn on school clubs. Paul Bristow on school clubs. Hope you're having a great weekend, everyone. Jeff and I are having lunch with Bryan and Elizabeth in Aurora this afternoon. Today's Blatherpics: Rand and Allison at The Keg last night. Fun Randvisit but as usual, not nearly long enough. The three of us lingered at the restaurant for several hours last night until compelled to leave because of increasingly strained smiles from passing staff; there was a huge line of people waiting for tables at the front door. :-) See Allison's Livejournal entry. Jan/2003 comments: Read | Post | LJ

Asian fish, Local Hero, school clubs

(Click on image for larger version)



Last night I tried my first recipe from The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks At Home, a Christmas gift from my sister and her family. Recipe: Asian Fish In A Packet, which is basically fish fillets (I chose halibut) on cooked rice with bok choy drizzled with a soy-ginger-sesame sauce, wrapped in aluminum foil and stuck in an oven. Dead easy to make, and it turned out great.

Maybe I don't suck at cooking as much as I thought. Or maybe I just need to find more good no-brainer recipes. :-)

Watched Local Hero on DVD last night while Jeff was out gaming. Wow, I had forgotten how great this movie was. And what a different perspective I have now compared to when I first saw it while still a student. Big company approaches naive little town about acquisition. The whole negotiation dance. Anyway, I loved it even more this time around. Funny to see how dated some of it was, like the mention of telexes, which was a communications systems consisting of teletypewriters connected to a telephone network back in the Old Days.

Today's Blatherpic is an old newspaper clipping from The Bramalea Guardian in July, 1977, when the Brampton Summer Band played the national anthem before a Jays game at the National Exhibition. I'm third from the right.

That was 26 years ago. Talk about the Old Days, whoa. :-)

Poll question: What clubs were you a member of back in school? Nerdy or cool? I definitely leaned toward the nerdier clubs, like the school band and the Library Club. I tried to join the Games club so I could learn to play D&D, but found that I made the boys too nervous because I was a girl. They kept apologizing to me (in all sincerity) whenever anyone swore or did something violent. Exasperated, I only attended one meeting.

Rand's coming to visit today, yay!

Links/News:

Thanks to pandemo for pointing me to the What Kind Of Band Geek Are You test, according to which I am an "Ultimate Band Geek". :-)

Wow, I had no idea so many of you are or were musical! To read a full list of responses to my "What musical instruments have you tried learning?" poll, see Blatherchat and my Livejournal Blatherfeed.

In his blog, Harald complained about the number of pages in the upcoming Harry Potter book, supposedly more than the last one. HA! Keep the pages coming, J.K.! I'd be delighted to read a Harry Potter book the size of War and Peace.

Erasure's coming to Toronto on March 5th, Massey Hall, woohoo!

Jan/2003 comments: Read | Post | LJ

musical instruments

(click to see bigger image of my harp)



I've been practising more harp. I hadn't played in a couple of weeks, and was horrified to find that my "harp calluses" had nearly disappeared. My fingers were so sore after an hour of playing that I couldn't play the next day. Now I try to play for at least a few minutes every day.

Poll question: What musical instruments do you play or have ever tried learning to play? Any particularly good or bad experiences? (Click on the POST link at the bottom of this page)



My worst experience was when I tried learning to play the trumpet in Grade 13 in high school. Learning to play a new instrument for two weeks was part of the curriculum that year. I have no idea why I picked the trumpet.

What a disaster. The best sound I could ever produce during those two weeks could be compared to a leaking whoopee cushion. My parents nearly went crazy during this period, as you can imagine. Not as crazy as they went while I was trying to learn the violin on my own, but it was still pretty painful for everyone in the house even though I practised in the basement with the door closed.



I've started playing a bit more piano these days, inspired by my sheet music reorg. Yesterday, went through some of Elton John: Greatest Hits (1975 Warner Bros) and The Blues, Boogie and Barrelhouse Piano Workbook (by Aaron Blumenfeld, Ekay Music, 1992).

Got lots of work done on my novel revision (Puck's Hollow) yesterday. My Writing-World.com column is due next week, a magazine article due in two weeks (got the go-ahead on another query two days ago), and I owe a Muse's Muse songwriting column to Jodi by the end of the month.

Links/News:

Check out this site to see the ongoing project of a fellow gradually creating an amazingly detailed visual record of everything in his house. Yes, everything. You can look in drawers, peer at his book shelves, etc.
(Found via boingboing.net)

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Today's Blatherpics:

These are photos that Larry Fisher sent me while he was making my harp. The photo at the top is the studio photo that he took when the harp was finished, for use on his Web site. The comments below each photo are mine. If you're interested in seeing more "harp in progress" pictures, go here.

Jan/2003 comments: Read | Post | LJ

babysitting, hollylisle.com, blatherchat

Thanks for the advice about running outdoors, Andrea and Lissa. The neck gaitor thingy definitely sounds like something I need; I'm going to see if Mountain Co-op has any, else I'll check The Running Room.

Did some babysitting late yesterday afternoon. Jeff had offered to help out, but I asked him not to show up until just before bedtime. I don't often get Annie and Sara to myself, so it was a nice treat for me.

Annie proudly showed me her First Permanent Tooth, just starting to come in. I expressed much admiration. After Sara did her homework (1.5 hours!) and we had dinner, the girls and I played Labyrinth and then Junior Monopoly. From time to time, Annie would offer to show me her tooth again.

Jeff showed up in time for the bedtime story ritual, and the girls immediately jumped all over him. :-)

'Twas a wonderful evening.





So remember a while back, I had mentioned that I wished there was something like the public NaNoWriMo boards to post about writing goals? Turns out that HollyLisle.com has exactly what I was looking for! (Thanks to Harald for the tip) I spent a few hours over the weekend exploring this site. I made a donation.

Wow, what a fantastic online community for writers! This is pretty much exactly what I had envisioned for the community area for Inkspot, had Inkspot survived. There is a ton of stuff here, and I haven't even started exploring the rest of the site yet. One of the staff reminded me that Inklings was the first place that ever highlighted the Holly Lisle's Vision newsletter.

Anyway, I think I'll mainly be hanging about the Challenges & Inspiration section of the board, where writers are encouraged to publicly set reasonable deadlines as well as set and meet their own challenges.

Have to admit I'm really enjoying being on the user end of things rather than on the management end, and I'm grateful that there are others who are willing to create and maintain communities like this.





Thanks to those who answered my Blatherchat poll. Most of you seem to prefer keeping the comments posting venue as it is. To make it easier for the others, I'm going to be making the in-entry Blatherchat link directly access the specific Blatherchat forum for the central discussion. The lefthand sidebar will still access the general index. Those of you who prefer posting your comments in my Livejournal Blatherings feed can continue to do so; comments are automatically e-mailed to me.

Jan/2003 comments: Read | Post

Links/News:

Looks like the fifth Harry Potter book is coming out on June 21st, yay! Thanks to Lissa for the alert in Blatherchat.

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Picture by Annie.
	Annie proudly showing me her window art. She drew them with special pens specifically made for children's window art (can be easily cleaned off).
	Jeff's Geomags creation last night.

outdoor run

Thanks to Beckett Gladney for the photo above, which was taken out in California.

Went running outdoors yesterday. Asthma or no asthma, I couldn't stand the idea of running on an indoor treadmill yet again. I've been taking brisk walks outdoors every day to avoid going to the gym, but I knew that I wasn't getting as a good workout as when I run.

So I put on some trackpants, a turtleneck (synthetic material), a sweatshirt, fleece vest, my light running jacket, hat and gloves, went outside. It was cold, but I warmed up as I ran. Whenever I started to have trouble breathing, I'd walk for a bit. I noticed I mainly had problems when running into the wind, so stuck to the side of the street that was more sheltered.

I don't have bad asthma, or I wouldn't do this. I used to have an inhaler, but don't anymore; I'm usually fine except sometimes when exercising in cold weather. At its worst, it feels like my lungs are constricting. No matter how deeply I breathe, I feel as though I can't get enough air, I start wheezing a bit, and sucking in air is painful. By the end of yesterday, my chest was starting to hurt a bit, but otherwise I felt great. SO much more enjoyable than treadmill running.

When I got back, I did some research online and decided that next time I go out running, I'll wear a scarf over my mouth to help keep the air warmer, plus stick to non-windy areas as much as possible.

Canadian winters are way too long.