Jekyll's view on the end of the world

Not a problem, really. Whatever.

Shooting Stars

Tonight is the Geminid meteor shower. I got off work at eight, and had to stop by the store on the way home (since tomorrow after work I leave to go visit my brother and his family in Pennsylvania). By the time I got home it was well after nine and getting colder and colder. As I walked from the garage to the house, I looked up to see if the night was clear enough to maybe see a shooting star. I'd never seen one before.

The stars glittered like ice against a black sky. But I had stuff to do before I could stay out and look. I changed clothes, started a load of laundry, finished wrapping a couple of presents to take up north with me, and slurped a mug of hot tea. Then I put my heavy fleece jacket back on and went back outside.

I have a pair of white adirondack chairs out front, and I sat down in one. It was covered with a glaze of frozen dew, I discovered too late. Also I was wearing shorts since my jeans were in the wash and I couldn't find my sweatpants. I huddled in my jacket and stared up at the sky.

And almost immediately, a flash of white light streaked past in the sky. It was gone so fast I almost couldn't believe what I'd seen. It really did look like a star had loosened from its pin and fallen, vanishing almost immediately. I gasped and whispered to myself, "I saw one!"

I'd only intended to stay outside long enough to see one. It was just so cold. But I kept telling myself, "Just one more," and then I would see another and it would be one more, and one more, and one more. They weren't constant, and I had long minutes in between to shiver while I stared upward.

I thought about how the stars are so far away, and I wondered how many of them have planets around them and how many of those planets have creatures living on them. And I wondered if somewhere on one of those worlds, in an impossibly alien countryside, someone was watching the stars and wondering if somewhere out there someone else was watching the stars too....

This is why we can't have nice things

Tears were shed. That's all I want to say about that.

The cat brought the tree down, of course. I wasn't in the room so I don't know what he did, but I don't think he'll ever do it again.

So yes, I was foolish to put the glass ornaments on the tree, but look on the bright side: most of them broke so now I don't have to worry about them breaking. Also, fewer ornaments to put up after Christmas.

Some of the ornaments that broke were very old, but some of the oldest ornaments came through without a scratch, like the porcelain bells that belonged to my great-grandmother* (and which I have moved to the mantel now). I guess they've been through toddlers, dogs, and cats before. Likewise, the tree is fine. It's made of wood and aluminum so it's pretty much indestructible unless you actually set it on fire. And I hid the matches so Jekyll couldn't do that.

The clean-up was not fun, especially since I was sobbing hysterically. I mean come on, who wouldn't? But as I swept and mopped and mopped again to get all the glass up, I contemplated the ephemeral nature of Christmas and glass ornaments, and reminded myself that it's just stuff. If the whole house had burnt down (it won't; I hid the matches, remember?) it would still be just stuff I'd lost. The memories live inside me.

It still wasn't any fun to clean up. But the floor is really clean now. And the tree is up again, although I need to do a better job distributing the remaining ornaments because it's kind of lopsided. Also, I will have to get the boxes of ornaments out of the garage again because there were a lot of them that wouldn't fit on my little tree, and now they will.

*or my mom found them in an antique store, hard to remember

Your future is too loud

Putting this here solely so I can get twitter to post it with text. Carry on. I took this picture at work--I work at a state college--and the only staging I did was to move the quiet please sign over about a foot so it would be even funnier.

Welcome to December

I put the tree up last Sunday. I was cleaning that room anyway and thought, "What the hell, it's time." I had considered not putting up a tree at all this year, but I suspect that would have made me even sadder. I did do some crying while I decorated, but was fortunately distracted by Jekyll investigating everything. He didn't try to treat the tree or the decorations as cat toys, just batted at them a few times and sniffed them, so I put the glass ornaments on. So far none of them are broken.

Here's a picture of Jekyll and the tree. I wasn't done decorating it at this point; it's even more loaded with shinies now.

Yesterday I crossed the finished line of NaNo with just over 50,000 words! I finished Wharf Rat entirely and wrote 8,000 words on Adventures in Zoology, getting me very close to the end. I'm going to try to finish Adventures in Zoology by the end of December, which will mean I wrote two books entirely and finished writing three this year.

Next year? My next project will be YA, as high concept as I can make it. I've got to start selling books, not just because it's just ridiculous to me that I haven't broken through yet despite all the effort I put into writing and improving, but also because--to be blunt--I'd like to keep my house. I don't make a lot of money in my day job and I never expected I'd need to pay the mortgage alone. So in 2013 I've got to be commercial and practical. Suggestions for high-concept, whizbang, this-has-never-been-done-before-yet-somehow-it's-very-similar-to-things-that-sell-well YA plots welcome.

The End that isn't

I finished the draft of Wharf Rat this evening, finally! It needs some work, mostly because the denouement dragged out way too long. Next week I'll reread the whole thing in one or two sittings so I can get a feel for where the pacing sags. It's only about 72,500 words in all, which is short for a fantasy; I'll probably need to add some scenes and maybe another subplot too.

But for now, I can't stop writing. I still have almost 8,000 words left in order to complete NaNoWriMo. I've opened up the old, neglected Adventures in Zoology to continue writing it. It would be nice if I could finally finish it--I've been meaning to work on it all year, and I even have the rest of it outlined, I just haven't gotten around to it.

Now's my chance!

More pictures of food

If I didn't cook (and didn't have this awesome little camera), I don't know what I'd blog about.

I made these from this recipe, only I added a tsp of almond extract to the dough, and for the filling I mixed about 1/4 c. raspberry jam with about 1/4 c. unsweetened, smooshed-up raspberries (because I wanted these to taste like raspberries instead of jam).

As it happens, I don't much like rosewater. I bought it on impulse last month and found this recipe because I wanted to know what to do with it. It's very strong and perfumey, naturally, but it makes me feel like I'm eating face cream. Next time I make these I might use lemon extract in place of the rosewater.