Mr. Excessively Italicized Guy

Candy Update
Birthday thanks to grumpy bastard

The red spherical ones are cinnamon jawbreakers
The smaller sherical green ones seem to be... apple jawbreakers?
The cubic sugary ones that look like jujubes are actually blocks of very dense citrus-flavoured sugar
The little rosebuddy things (deceased) had coconut in them
The mini-turtles went first

Me Update

Hi-ho. Yesterday's grumpy post has gone Private so that I can consider my folly at my leisure. You'll just have to reflect on my folly from afar. Something about birthdays just wrecks me. Actually, anything that's about people appreciating you, or failing to, wrecks me -- giving or receiving. Did I appreciate right? Did I appreciate enough? Was this the appreciation you were looking for? Why don't you appreciate me the way I want to be appreciated?

Eugh.

*Boy* am I moody. What with the whole turning my life upside-down and giving it a good shake thing.

Thinking longingly about sodding about in my house in my undergarments writing books. Speaking of garmenture comma suitable for writing in, even though the rads are apparently permanently on in my apartment, it's not always warm, especially since I leave all the windows open all the time (I sort of need to for ventilation). I think I need some good slobbing clothes. All I have right now are a pair of baggy track pants that aren't actually track pants; they're leggings, but I can't come right out and admit that to you. I've had them for six or seven years. They have a big bleach stain down them, and did I mention they're leggings?

I'm just saying. Writing Wear. Like sportswear only not sporty.

In between feeling titanically sorry for myself last night, (no, really, I almost sank), I made a really good dinner of vegetables cooked in a little olive oil, and a huge amount of polenta (I didn't actually mean to make that much. It just sort of happened.) It was both filling and comforting, and more to the point, it was very cheap, which bodes well for the next oh say twenty years of scraping by.

( Fairy Tale Update )

( Scary Social Update )

Note artful use of cut tags, above.

Reading Update

There are only about 250 pages, or the length of an ordinary, shortish book, left to JS&MN. It hasn't entirely lived up to my earlier ecstasies. There are a number of redundant and repetitive scenes that could have been collapsed. I'm divided in my reaction to the structure. My reading preferences line up with docbrite's writing ones; she said that she wished she could just write about her characters' everyday lives without having to worry about making things Happen. When I'm reading a book, especially a spec book, I'm often annoyed that the characters and setting I'm enjoying end up getting twisted around a conventional plot arc. I feel cheated and frustrated. I'd rather just read about the characters Doing Stuff.

JS&MN doesn't do that, but I don't really find myself satisfied by it. Instead it feels stagnant, like Something Should Be Happening.

So. There you are. The critics are never satisfied.

{rf}