My Gracious Silence

Cold and dark and grateful for heating. December bit with a vengeance yesterday, with ice on the lakepuddle on the way to work - thick ice, which suggests an odd micro-climate there. It was frosty elsewhere, with the sugar-dipped leaves on the grass that I forgot to cut towards the end of summer, but not obviously ice-cold.

The calendar is slightly frightening; somehow (and I should really know better by now) I'm working on two Christmas plays. Thankfully one is a one-night-only special, and the rehearsals are mostly on separate days, but the next couple of weeks will be a succession of is-it-panto-or-is-it-Treasure-Island-tonight? That said, somewhere in all that I also got 90% on my maths assignment (Open University - it seemed like a good idea at the time ...).

Last night's best rehearsal moment: the Court of Appeal judge who announced that "there are too many ho's in this". The generational gap was evident in looking at those who collapsed with laughter and those who wondered why we were laughing. He's playing one of Snow White's dwarves, by the way. Hi-ho, ho-ho ... wanders off to work, whistling

Reading: The Tax Lawyer - American Bar Association. For curiosity mostly, as my insurers would have a fit if I tried to actually advise on US tax law.

working from home, listening to the rain. The train drivers on my route are working to rule, and the schedule is a mess of cancellations and late-running trains so - as I had no meetings, and I keep copies of everything in the cloud - I decided to commute to the study downstairs instead. It feels less like playing truant than it used to.

At some point today, I will go for a run. Probably once the rain has eased off.

Reading: Telling Tales - Melissa Katsoulis (a history of literary hoaxes, with a great cover)

Fog blanket morning; porridge with bananas and raisins; coffee steaming gently, as the heating hasn't made much of a dent in the cold. No run this morning, it's a rest day as I'm trying to ease back to fitness gently, to at least try and minimise the risk of objections and refusals from joints and other parts.

Outside my room at work now is the chapel, wherein there is a new organ. Yesterday passed in a succession of practices and odd notes as the tuners settle it in. It takes a month to tune an organ, it seems, so I have a few more days of background music.

I have my gown now, a thing of wonder and beauty and miscellaneous folds and buttons and history. The wig can wait until I need one; the gown is needed for dinner in Hall and sufficient other formalities that it seemed better to buy than to rent. Practicalities aside, the symbolism meant something.

The rediscovery of a love of learning, of researching, is just glorious. No timesheets, no targets - the client deadlines are mine to manage in any way that I want, so there's little obstacle to digging into obscure facts and tangents, to reading cases settled over 150 years ago and wonder about the lives of the people whose dispute has passed into legal history. I find I can think again, find links and develop theories, and not be constrained by petty mismanagement. Which is not to say that the mortgage no longer needs to be paid, to be prosaic, but I choose how I get there. I've underestimated choice for a long time.

Reading: Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy L Sayers (the Wimsey kick continues), and countless caselaw on domicile.

Done. Finished. Exams passed. Plan A can continue uninterrupted.

Reading: Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts - not up to anything more demanding.

Early morning, late night. It's dark and I sit in a small pool of light, a single and not especially powerful lightbulb as the only light on in the house or hereabouts. Even the streetlighting is off. The cats are asleep, snuffling softly after imagined rabbits. I've been reading Virginia Woolf's Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid, as it went with the mood and the recent re-listening to A Presumption of Death and a sudden burst of wimseyfic reading.

Odd how many people who write wimseyfic also seem to write vorkosiganfic; then again, as they seem to write Cordelia/Aral, perhaps it's not at all surprising. Harriet Vane and Cordelia Vorkosigan: perhaps the closest I come to having heroes.

More wimseyfic albeit disguised. Chalet Girl fic is always welcome too, so the combination makes for a lovely evening's reading.

A bookshop I need to visit. Soon. Maybe tomorrow, since it'll be closed now and it's a four-hour drive/train ride away.

Wrestling technology. Sigh. The damn toner cartridge still has plenty of toner in it, why won't the printer just let me use it already? By all means, tell me the toner is low, but let *me* decide at what quality I want to stop using it.

Reading: webpages that might help me override the technology!

Procrastinating this evening: I should be updating my notes for tomorrow's seminar. Instead, I'm hoping that my voice will hold for the six hours I have to lecture and am delighted with the discovery of new (good) Wimsey fic. It'll go nicely with my current re-re-listening to Edward Petherbridge's readings via audiobook of various Sayers and not-Sayers novels. Blow the quality of the latter, I just rather love his voice. I do wish he'd do Busman's Honeymoon, though. My recollection of seeing him at the Lyric in the play of the novel of the play ... or whichever way it was ... grows fainter, which is tiresome.

It's getting dark early again; autumn curling around the house. The last of the tomatoes have come from the vines, what's left there won't ripen now although there are still a few lettuces making a valiant effort.

Early morning darkness, with coffee and last night's washing up. A cat curled up on a box of books in a comfortable solemnity of repose. We're slowly re-decorating the book room, so the books are now in boxes decorating the rest of the house. A child next door is unhappy about something and the kitten is mewing upstairs as he wants to be let out, to come downstairs and eat grown-up cat food. Some things are a universal constant across species.

I have another hour of quiet until I need to start to review the material for the seminar I'm giving this afternoon. In the meantime, I skim the internet, drink coffee and eat toast made from Sunday's bread.

Reading: Copywriting, Mark Shaw; Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett, and How to Hepburn, Karen Karbo (about Kate, not Audrey)

( heh, I'll settle for that )

New York to Chicago - Lakeshore Limited (Train #49)

A poster at Penn Station for the Acela states that "all our cabins are depressurized", which is a rather nice line to take.

At Penn, the guard at the bottom of the escalator calling Train 49, the Lakeshore Limited for Upstate, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. Something rather romantic about the rattling list of states, heading westwards.

( to save your friends page from flooding ... )

Random drive-by update, as I had to log in to comment elsewhere. Work, some more work, and some knitting (http://www.girlfromauntie.com/patterns/shop/rogue/detail.php - body and hood done, first sleeve started).

Reading: Last Ditch - Ngaio Marsh. Not the best of her books, but still quite fun. I've been watching the BBC "Inspector Alleyn Mysteries" DVDs as well; against rather a lot of other reviewers, I like them a lot, possibly because I see them as an adjunct to the books rather than an attempt to reproduce the books directly. Yes, they take hideous liberties with the stories and Troy's hair needs to be shorter, but I do like Patrick Malahide as Alleyn. Belinda Lang is also good as Troy, and when the relationship does finally get going between them, the chemistry does seem to be there.

from streamsandpools and blackwingedboy:

Found on a random blog, figured it made an interesting counterpart to the book one some time back:

The Omnivore’s Hundred

"Here’s a chance for a little interactivity for all the bloggers out there. Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects - well, swallowed midges whilst cycling. That counts, right?
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

too good not to pass on: The Grauniad's Weird Olympic Photo Gallery

Because it amused me - filched from lillithj:





Currently reading: x-files fanfic (blast from the past) and various random ebooks

Bought: none for a few days, mostly because of the availability of free ebooks and the general awesomeness of the iPhone as an ebook reader for commuting.

Summer Streets

More fun than I'd have thought possible - traffic-free Park Ave & Lafayette - cycling down to the Brooklyn Bridge and back to 51st (ETA: thanks to the Hub Station (no website, but it's in the East Village) for the free bike loan!)



... including cycling on the elevated section around Grand Central, which was unreasonably amusing

I'd forgotten just how much fun the X-Files was. Is.

newly acquired bike cleats & shoes = grazed knee and elbow. A learning curve to be learnt there ... but they do make cycling rather more effective when I'm not trying to reassure myself that I can unclip my feet from the pedals.