Clearly, Rowling has confuzzled my mind and left it unable to appreciate other works of popular fiction. I'm finally getting around to The Da Vinci Code, now up to page 120, and all I can think, Willow Rosenberg impressions aside, is BORED NOW.
Maybe it's because I've read so much Trevanian over the years. (No endorsement: Trevanian's one of the few instances where knowing too much about the artist has ruined the art.)
I've unpacked almost all of my remaining books, releasing a good nine or ten feet of cubic closet space, and I found my copy of The C*stle of the Pe*rl, still sadly OOP, and I'm wondering if I should use it with the C. Wr*ting students, or should I use it for blog fodder. Or both?
Or will that get too confessional and weird? Everybody thinks they like intimate, content-managed peeks into blogger's lives (that would be "everybody" as in "everybody except the strong majority of people who think all bloggers are losers"), but there are probably limits. Do we want to invite my awkward reminiscing over the time I saw my first grade teacher quietly give some clothes to one of my dirt-poor classmates?
Except it wouldn't even be that poignant; it would be more like me going on about how long I went without washing my two bras in the 7th grade. (I couldn't just put them in the laundry where people could see! Jeez!)
By the way, here is a photo of my new artsy/craftsy "workspace":
A little dark in the photo, but the light from the two windows is really good. If you're a Stampin' Up geek, see if you can identify at least 20 SU products on the table. There is no prize. The heat gun is from Michael's.
As long as you're here, check out some (most) of my stamps and my telescope:
I'm sure I don't have to deliberately draw your eye to the suspiciously vacuumed carpet. I'm sure I don't have to point out that I have yet to actually do anything with those stamps.
Station Break: This site will be on TypePad for at least the next three weeks, during which time almost all URLs won't work, leading to problems with both your bookmarks and my internal links. Sorry. It's been awhile since we overhauled the "backend" (putting on airs here) and I've forgotten how to shrug off that sensation of giving all of your hard-earned Google visitors the 404 boot.
Okay, back to Castle of the Annoying Asterisks. Let's try it. Anything to keep me here on the sofa and away from the part of the apartment pictured above or from Dan Brown's so-far overhyped novel. (Hey, why does TypePad use the EMphasis tag instead of the Italic tag for italics? Technically, EM and I are not the same thing. I definitely want Italic for book titles, not what someone's custom stylesheet might be showing for EM. This is pissing me off. Could it be that SixApart really is the devil?)
Castle of the You-Can-Follow-the-Above-Link starts out by telling you how you are on a dirt road and it is springtime and everything's dewy and you can see a castle on the hill. I'd be more explicit, which is to say I'd type in the book directly, but then Christopher Biffle's lawyers would quite rightly come after me, OOP or no.
So there you are, and there are things to your left and right (like plants and ruddy, comely young village men toiling in the fields), and you wander through the picturesque countryside for about a page or so, getting closer to the castle, and suddenly you meet a man. His name is William FitzOsbern, and he will be your guide to the castle. Maybe's he's even this William FitzOsbern! I don't know. I'm busy thinking thoughts like, "Aren't men given the surname 'Fitzsomething' when they're illegitimate? Like, 'Fitzroy' would be a king's bastard son? I'm just saying."
The first thing William... Willy... William asks you is your name. Keep in mind that the book provides helpful lines where you write in the answers to such prompts. So, I think I will tell Willy my Harry Potter name, which I learned while waiting at the Barnes and Noble in Henderson on Friday night for the orange Ws to be called to the cash register. According to one of the young ladies near me (who was reading something much more intellectual than the book cover I was hiding with my knee), you take your name backwards plus the place where you go to look at stars plus your favourite animal to describe your minions plus something she didn't finish explaining because it was time to make fun of the guy doing the announcements again.
So, William, I am Irahs Veranda, leader of the Hamsters (or, after reading the book, Pygmy Puffs!), but please (please) call me Shari.
Then there is more description and William is talking again and he more or less asks you, if you could find anyone in the castle, who would you find, and why?
This is tough. I would want to find Mike there, but I feel like the circumstances are more formal, and I should pick someone I don't spend all of my time with. Must not peek ahead. Must not peek ahead.
Okay! Shirley Jackson. Because her books feel like she's reporting from some important place that it's very difficult to visit. Sort of like one's inner Avalon.
William smiles, which he does a lot, and he turns around and you're on your way into the castle. Here we go. But wait! What's that strange emblem on the back of his cape, the one that's also on the stone arch? And what does it mean?
I think it's a pattern that looks just like this. While some may think that photo represents a highly symbolic fusion of breast imagery and Hidden Mickeys, it's really representative of the power of bubble baths.
You arrive at the castle and William makes a formal welcome and everything is quite polite. More bucolic description follows. You wash your face (and the water's really lovely and cold and comes from an elegant but simple basin and such), and you suddenly feel something you haven't felt since childhood, and you say: "Captain, I canna detect the presence of people who suck!"
(In my case I say it under my breath.)
William mentions that you'll be here for three days and can use your time in the castle to rest and gain clarity. He hands you a dreamy robe embedded with pearls and opals. You also get sandals. And a book. You start to read.
According to the book, you're on a dirt road and it's springtime and everything is dewy and HOLD ON! Yes, you keep reading until you are reading the very words that you are reading now. Holy postmodern interactive narrative, Batman.
William explains that this is a journal of your stay, and everything you learn will come from you, not him. You have to return everything when you leave, except whatever you write. He gives you a quill from a Winter Crow.
William next takes you to the mirror (ornately described, of course, like a lovingly crafted MUD object), and when you look it is almost like looking at a stranger. Now you're supposed to describe what you see.
And now I think I'll go back to reading The Da Vinci Code. There must be a reason this book is so popular. Will it explain why that character on the Sopranos got so mad when the one guy died and someone (was it the zaftig wife? Jenny?) put an Opus Dei rosary in his hand?
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