Blatherings

I really ought to have just taken an Immodium yesterday morning after the first sneak attack of the eldritch horror yeast upon my poor guts. But silly me, I assumed that I had successfully put down the uprising, when really, I had merely survived the first skirmish.

Suffice it to say that by the time I got home from work, the first thing I did was take some Immodium, and I did so again this morning, just in case. A shower was also most refreshing.

After putting in a load of laundry (yay! clean underwear!) and running through my Game of Thrones music, I spent yesterday evening in lumplike repose on the sofa, with a sleepy giant dachshund on each side, watching fairly awful television (Property Brothers, Treehouse Masters, the thoroughly gross but compelling Dr. Pimple Popper- which serves as a pretty scathing indictment of how hard it is for the average person to access specialist care in the US, even when patients face debilitating pain and/or disfigurement). When I finally moved my carcass upstairs, I fell into such a deep sleep that I didn't even wake up when Hildy needed to go out at 3am and Mr. 42 took her (usually I'm the one who wakes up). I also apparently forgot to turn on my alarm when I went to sleep, so I inadvertently slept in today and was fairly late for work. Oops.

Tonight is the kick-off of church choir season, and my contract was just sent this morning. I'm still being paid at the choral scholar rate (half the section leader rate), which is not ideal, but it's still a paid gig, the folks at the church are nice, I'm gaining experience I need, I'm singing for a director I admire and with awesome musicians whom I adore, and that ain't nothing. And singing there has turned into some other fun things, like the Willan West festival, summer Evensongs with the Cathedral Schola, and wedding/funeral gigs (including one penciled in later this month for the RSF Catholics, although that's a maybe at this point). The Catholics do make one work for it, but their music director is lovely and has excellent taste in music, so it's always fun. So yeah, we'll see what bonus goodies this liturgical year brings, besides the Faure Requiem on All Souls' Day!

I have about 1,500 words of my sshg_giftfest story written, and while I'm sure I'll reshuffle amd refine things in the opening (the part of the story I find the most difficult to get right), the key plot/character elements seem to be working tolerably well, which is promising. Alas, the aforementioned inadvertent lie-in required me to drive to work (so as not to be even later to work) instead of taking the bus, so I might not have an opportunity to work on the story today, but hopefully I'll be able to keep it simmering in the back of my brain so that the next time I open my document I'll have lots of words and ideas to throw at it. I generally know where the story is headed, but I'm looking forward to the characters deciding how they want to go about getting there.

In other news, the universe very inconveniently pinged me to work on the oratorio libretto I've been outlining. I've reminded the universe that my giftfest entry has a deadline, but I remain open to pings to remind me to do more research into oratorio structure and which format would best suit the story I've constructed. I think the hardest part will be finding a balance between the medieval poetry and plays I'm drawing from and more contemporary language. Peter Sellars deliberately cobbled languages and historical dialects together in the libretti he wrote for John Adams's oratorios, which is interesting, but I prefer the unified feel of what Charles Jennens did with Handel's Messiah (smoothed differnt texts together stylistically). However, modern composition is such that my libretto will likely require more text than Jennens did, since we don't really do recitatives alternating with da capo arias and choruses these days. And I do want to tell an actual story rather than just the suggestion of one, so maybe I'll take a closer gander at some other oratorios in English (Tan Dun's Water Passion, Elgar's The Apostles, etc.) and maybe a few in translation if I can find some artful ones. We shall see!

OK. Gotta go webstalk people because one of my professors has execrable penmanship and I need to know how to spell these lunch attendees' names correctly. Ahh, Summer Session.

Smooches to All!

Mun42

So. I have an Issue that has been simmering on low heat for a while now with occasional flare-ups of righteous ire. To reduce it to essentials, I offered to do a thing, and once my offer was accepted, the terms were unilaterally changed in a really clumsy way, and I have since been seething over having to abide by the new terms and the way they were imposed. The change hasn't affected my ability to do the thing, but I'm starting to get sick of seething. I know my annoyance is justified. I also know that I have excellent reasons for soldiering on regardless. The two just aren't cancelling one another out the way I expected them to, and I'd like to get over it.

I went so far as to write up a lengthly Butthurt Check to a neutral third party, but I haven't sent it (and won't), because in the course of putting it together I realized that there's no real point other than to whine, and I've done that already and it hasn't helped. I did, however, discuss a constructive solution with Mr. 42 last night, and I feel better having done that. So here's hoping that's sufficient to put the butthurt behind me where it belongs. (<---see what I did there.)

In other news, DUDE. Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature. I have many complicated thoughts and feelings about this. As a proponent of rhyming verse, I'm thrilled that the Nobel committee chose to honor that form and reassert its cultural and literary merit. It's kind of a poke in the eye to Academic Poetry, which largely considers itself to be post-rhyme and post-verse. I am also delighted to see song lyrics acknowledged as poetry, which honestly shouldn't be news, but apparently is to some people. During my recent flirtations with writing song lyrics, my dad sent me a rather wonderful collection of essays called The Poetics of American Song Lyrics, that's all about tying the history and techniques of poetry to popular American music, including but not limited to rock, hip hop, country, and the blues, so I'm deeply sympathetic to this argument and (like the editor and authors of the essay collection, I suspect) feeling more than a bit vindicated, especially Gordon Ball, who nominated Dylan for the Nobel back in 1996 and whose revised version of this essay about why Dylan should get the prize appears in the book.

That said, I'm kind of uncomfortable with Bob Dylan being honored because he's one of those white male artists who gets touted as a unique voice instead of lumped into a musical tradition with women and people of color. I like an awful lot of his music (though to be honest, I haven't listened to his newer stuff), particularly the sarcastic political criticism and intimately observed slices of life, but he drew (and draws) on numerous folk traditions, so between the book above and a rather on-point article from Slate about how rock and roll went from being black music to white music, musical traditions, race, and artist identity have been very much on my mind.

I'm also happy to report that after a rather gleeful and informative sidetrack into design (which shall continue at a more opportune time), I'm back into writing my sshg_giftfest story with a vengeance. The last SSHG story I wrote was based on a prompt that required SS and HG on opposite sides of a prickly social issue, so there really wasn't much opportunity to develop romance (though I tried to end it in a hopeful place). I don't know if there will be rude bits in this story or not (outright smut might be a weird tonal match, but we'll see...), but I'm having a great deal of fun writing their romance this time 'round. It's different from how I usually write it, so I'm enjoying that a lot.

And in doggy health news, Giovanni is still coughing, but less frequently (boo/yay), and Mr. 42 had an inspired brainwave to add rice to Gio's prescription dog food, which has led to greatly increased consumption of said dog food. Alas, the ricey temptation proved to be too much for Hildegard, whom I strongly suspect of eating most of Gio's breakfast after I left for work yesterday, as the bowl was 3/4 full when I left and empty, having been licked clean with surgical precision (not Gio's usual MO), when Mr. 42 came downstairs. So yeah, no more free-feeding when there is a ravenous dachshund around. This Saturday marks the last day in Gio's scheudle of antibiotics, so we'll see how he's doing then and perhaps schedule a follow-up exam if the coughing persists.

Tired today. And I have tons to do at work that I don't really want to do. But I really need to make headway on this, otherwise it's gonna start interfering with my sleep again, and I already have the election for that. :P Onward and upward!

Smooches to All.

Mun42

While writing on the bus yesterday evening, I started writing a pivotal scene in my exchange story in which there's really nifty magic and a major character revelation, and I was looking for the perfect vehicle. I kept thinking about the major themes in the story and the caster's relationship to the other characters, and the perfect vehicle began dancing around in my head saying, "It's me! It's me!" And darn it all if it isn't. It's abso-freaking-lutley perfect.

The problem is that it's more than a bit of a cliché. In fact, I'd never have considered it if I'd had every detail planned out from the beginning. I'd have chosen something more distinctive. It's like I found this beautiful little mystery sprout that I've been watering and nurturing, and it's grown into a magnificent shrub heavy with buds, and today I went outside to see that it's covered with... well, That Flower I see EVERYWHERE. Like pink roses.

So now that I've invested +12K words in pink roses, I'm looking at them with a mixture of pride and trepidation-- pride that the story's flowering and that the fragrance is so lovely that I made myself cry a little bit. But I'm also anxious because I hear my internal critic saying, "Oh come ON! EVERYBODY does pink roses! Why not something more elegant, like calla lilies?" Well, calla lilies may be lovely, but pink roses are what grew here, and no matter how self-conscious I am about them, they're MY pink roses, darn it, and they're going to be the finest, prettiest, sweetest-smelling pink roses I can produce.

So I guess the thing to do with pink roses is to stop and smell them.

And hope my recipient isn't allergic.

Love to All,

Lib
Mun42

Because someone had to.

And I'm feeling no shortage of self-mockery, (ETA) despite the fact that I have not yet signed up for another exchange. I think it may be was only a matter of time.

But mostly because pokeystar sent me an evil filk bunny. That's how all the trouble starts.

I humbly present:

The Exchange Writer's Lament
Sung to the tune of “Cain’t Say No” from Oklahoma.
With mostly proper grammar and a classical allusion because we are writers, after all. :D

It’s not so much a question of not knowing what to write-
My restless muse sometimes needs to be stomped.
I read a lot of stories and Athenean fires burn bright,
Especially when I see a juicy prompt.
To play, I know a lot of time’s required.
But when the sign-ups open, I’m inspired!

I’m just a scribe who can’t say no.
You’ll recognize my whine.
I will enroll at the get-go,
Just when I ought to decline.

When my favorite gift exchange starts up,
I know I ought to focus on my piece.
But then someone starts a Fuh-Q-Fest,
My narrative assignments will increase.

I’m not forgetting what I owe,
I’m just a person of range
Who’s fond of pairings strange
Tempted by every exchange
I can’t say no!

What am I to do when they tempt me with Lucius?
Am I Confucius? What am I to do?
I don’t want to be a writer bitter as tansy,
Not writing Ron/Pansy. What am I to do?
And now that I’ve a hankering for stories with Snape
Where he’s got to have Luna or die,
What am I to do with the Snuna Exchange?
Sit idly by?

I’m just a scribe who can’t say no.
Plot bunnies always in mind.
Constantly craving that warm glow
When my new prompts are assigned.

For a while I write with focused force
And bang out several thousand words anon.
But then halfway through I feel remorse
And want to start anew another one!

I can’t resist a neat tableaux.
Abstinence? Never! I can’t!
Extensions! I beg you, please grant!
Please be my Agony Aunt?
I can’t say no!

I had an eleven hour workday yesterday that included seven hours of driving through Orange County and Los Angeles and four hours of being an energetic-yet-approachable corporate cheerleader. Suffice it to say I slept like the dead last night. As a result, I think I've shaken the cold that has been threatening to drop heffalump-like on me and my amusement-muse has returned with a vengance. If I can make my exchange piece half as funny as it is in my head, there will be a rash of beverage snorting.

And speaking of beverages that hurt when snorted, Pizza Port's 12-hour Belgian Beer Party starts tomorrow at 11 am in Carlsbad! I've already managed to rope ccwong and her husband into coming, and we're 95% sure we'll be able to get BJ&C (warm up yer "Hey Genessee!") down here.

In honor of the Great Belgian Beer Tour of 2007 and tomorrow's Belgian Beer Party, I humbly present my second melodious fealty to the fermented beverage (the first may be taunted experienced here). If Gilbert & Sullivan had ever wished to honor craft microbrew and were seriously intoxicated, they might have written this!

I am the Very Model of a Tipp-le-er of Microbrew
Feel free to sing along!

( Snipped_for_patter_sing-along! )

Wonderful Weekends to All!

Lib
Mun42