favorite line of the day

Ok, so I know I've pimped this story before, but it's just so amazing and wonderful and beautifully heartbreaking and genius.

AND I've finally decided what it is about it that draws me to it; it has personality. It speaks to me the way the buildings speak to Oscar and Felix. I revel in the way the hotel and the church and the various other places they visit become characters in the story, very much personalities in their own right. And by making the places so personable, the sense of place and the sense of person meld and become one and give the story a richness that I could only ever dream of.

Five new chapters got uploaded today, and I am basking in the genius. So, without further ado, my favorite line(s) of the day:

Portia watched Oscar. "If you scrap this [project] it'll break his heart."

"And mine," Felix said. Portia glanced at him. He was also watching Oscar. "When did the two become so completely intertwined?

From A Law Divine by Sam and Jaida

*Lacy melts, dies, and is dead*

the duck joke

Because Allison reminded me of the duck joke, which I had somehow managed to forget:

Q: What's the difference between a duck?
A: His feet! One of them are both the same!!

On Killing Turkey

I realize that Thanksgiving has come and gone, but this was just too funny to let pass us by.

Top Ten Pointers for Killing a Turkey

(6) Should you be a vegetarian, don't kill your turkey. Just stare at it and say, "You and I are one." Then eat a radish.

Favorite line of the day = evil bake sales

"Oh, yeah," said Harry, who was shaking with rage and hardly knew what he was saying, "me and the Slytherins, we all got together and had a bake sale, raised loads of money for evil, no worries there."

From Draco Dormiens by Cassandra Claire

P.S. Hahahahahahahahahahah!

Daily Drabble

Gwyn, grinning madly, put her hand up and started rubbing the top of his head. "You look," she said around gasps and giggles, "like a very ugly Buddah statue. If I rub your head, is it good luck?"

"Not. Funny," Harry growled.

"And you," she said, turning to Ron, "look like Cousin It, in technicolor."

From Chapter 23 of HP and the S of the S

favorite line of the day

More bakers should know astronomy. There's something very cosmic about yeast.

From "Evil, With a Twist of Lemon" by Sam

favorite line of the day

There was a beauty here that went straight to the heart -- less painful than divinity but equally inaccessible for it was not, could not be, human.

From the untitled NaNo Novel by Ms. Nitt.

fnrgh

Full... So full.. of TURKEY!!!

Random Thanksgiving Fact: Last year, Brandon was inordinately vexed by this commercial that came on that said that triptophan was the enzyme in turkey that made you sleepy. He freaked out every time that commercial came on and started ranting about how it is an amino acid, not an enzyme and that those commercial people should be shot for their stupidity.

Interestingly enough, the same commercial came on this year, but it has been corrected to say amino acid. Brandon was placated. His world returned to normal. Thank God.

Thanksgiving is not a holiday designed to be celebrated by two people. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to cook Thanksgiving dinner for only two people? I bought the smallest turkey breast I could find -- five pounds -- and I assure you, we will be eating turkey well into the New Year. The stuffing recipe I looked up serves twelve, a pumpkin pie serves eight generously, and according to the label, there are six servings of cranberry sauce in one can. Needless to say, we will be celebrating with leftovers for many moons to come.

But honestly, food issues and fraction fear aside, it is a little weird to me to celebrate a holiday with only two people. Holidays in my family normally mean LOTS of people. My family had dinner for ten today -- and that's WITHOUT me or Brandon. That's a lot of people. I feel somewhat at a loss with such a minimalist holiday.

I did all the requisite holiday things: I turned on the Macy's Parade when I started cooking so that I could vaguely listen to the show tunes and marching bands while I baked the pumpkin pie, but it wasn't really right because I kept looking around for Emily to walk into the kitchen with her flannel blanket wrapped around her like some sort of ancient pie goddess and yell at me for starting without her -- because the pumpkin pie is her job and has been practically since she was old enough to walk.

I cooked things in stages, all planned out, just like my Mom always does, but somehow it just seemed strange without at least two other people bustling around the kitchen with me, bumping into me, sharing the flour and the sugar and oh-my-god we didn't just put liquid smoke in the pie again, did we?

I mixed up the stuffing and put it in the fridge to sort of marinate, but it felt awfully strange not calling my dad in to taste it to make sure it had enough sage in it.

Finally, as Brandon and I were shaping the rolls, I realized that there should be at the very barest minimum two happy blonde children at my elbows making turtles and snails and pikachus out of bread dough and raisins and pecans. We had no pikachu rolls this year, and it just made my whole holiday feel askew.

So, when we set my table with out holiday bounty, everything was there: Granny's stuffing, Mom's rolls, Emily's pumpkin pie, Daddy's corn, Poppy's sweet potatoes. I even had a few new things, like my very first turkey made all by myself, and the wine Brandon picked out.

But still, it just wasn't quite the same.

I love you all with all my heart, and I'm so thankful for all the years that you made my Thanksgivings complete, and for all the years to come when they will be whole again.

Missing you in far-too-sunny-and-cheerful California,
~Lacy

P.S. Go Cowboys!!

Yahoo! News - New Mexico Declares Winner in Presidential Poll

Yahoo! News - New Mexico Declares Winner in Presidential Poll

*SIGH* Manana anyone??

daily drabble

The floor of the sixth year boys' dormitory was not a bad place to be, all things considered. Aside from the usual school related flotsam of broken quills, confetti of torn parchment, and half eaten bags of crisps, the sixth year Gryffindor boys had covered the common space between their beds with extra blankets and pillows nicked from the laundry, the Slytherin Quidditch robes they had pinched from the changing rooms at the beginning of term, and most of Sirius' wardrobe which was piled about haphazardly in a complex system of clean versus not-so-clean versus rank which only Sirius understood. The house elves blatantly refused to come within ten feet of the door, which was exactly how the boys liked it.

From The White Hart, a work in progress

(Actually, I didn't write this today, but the more I read it, the more I like it, so I thought I'd flaunt it.)

The Amateur Gourmet: On Feasting and Family

The Amateur Gourmet: On Feasting and Family

I love me some Adam the Amateur Gourmet. He taught me how to spell Amateur. And he makes me laugh. And he published my rant on eddys in the fabric of gastronomic space time (link at left), which makes him my all-time-favorite amateur gourmet.

=D

Plus, I love the grandma comment. YOU DON'T OWN MY LIFE!!! Hahahahahaha.

favorite line of the day

"Who the hell put foliage in my office??!"

Deven From Allison's World

Yahoo! News - Bidding Ends at $28K for Cheese Sandwich

Yahoo! News - Bidding Ends at $28K for Cheese Sandwich
What is this world coming to? Is this the second sign of the apocolypse?

french phrase of the day

Qui seme le vent recolte la tempete.

He who sows the wind harvests the storm.

AHHHH!

OK, so they didn't turn on the voting until today (for my HP fan story)!! All you have to do is go to the page where my story is

http://www.fanfictionworld.net/contestarchive/viewstory.php?sid=64

and click the link either at the top or the bottom of the page. Mine is #18 in the second column. =D

I only have 5.9% of the vote right now. =( But only 17 people have voted. Anywho, since it didn't ACTUALLY go up until today, I have no idea how long it will last so if you're reading this on Monday, go ahead and see if you can still vote.

THANK YOU!!

literary gems

I never knew there was so much talent on the internet.

(Well, actually, I've been toting the genius on the internet since way back in the day. Anyone remember that email "newsletter" I used to send out with cool sites I'd found? Ah. Good times, good times...)

Specifically, I'm talking about the writing talent going unpublished (in a traditional sense) and largely unrecognized. There are some amazingly talented writers out there, just blogging away. (Check out Allison's blog for some of her reccomendations in the blog universe.) When I got into the fan fiction thing a few months back, I originally thought, "Wow! This will be fun to read other people's silly HP stories!" How wrong I was. I had no idea that I would find such superb art and literary craftsmanship disguised as fan fiction!

Of course, if you've been reading this blog carefully, you will have heard me mention Sam as an excellent example of this. Sam is amazing. Sam is my new personal hero. He writes the 100% single best fan fiction series that exists, plus tons of short stories, plus four original novels (in various stages of revision), plus a fifth that is in the process of being written, all available free on his web site and all every bit as good as the novels you would pick up from a "new releases" table at the bookstore. I especially reccommend Rebuilding Ozymandias, which is about an American architect and his cleptomaniac assistant, their rich French playboy employer, and the Hotel L et L and its ghosts which bring them all together. Lacy gives it an A++ on her genius scale -- and it has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with Harry Potter, just for the record. ;c)

But he is not the only genius. My darling beta reader Kris is also a genius in her own right! She is a vet student and does all kinds of horribly tricky things like biochemistry and so on in addition to writing her beautifully lyrical fan fiction. Hers is prose that reads like poetry. Some of her descriptions of setting and place will absolutely take your breath away; I know, because I have been priveledged enough to take part in the revisions process with her by betaing her work. Her newest, Paper Wings, is an alternate universe HP fan fiction:

What if Sirius Black sent a final message from Azkaban? Enter the home of the last Marauder in the days following Voldemort's downfall. Lost and alone, Remus asks a question of the void, a question whose answer will send him around the world. Meeting puppies, Kneazles, dementors, and nomads, Remus learns more about himself and his friends than he ever thought possible. Learn the secrets of the Marauder's map and the world's best chocolate, how various Death Eaters occupied themselves after the fall of their lord, and why you should never leave Remembralls lying around.

And these are only two of the dozens of talented writers I have discovered thus far!! So, in the spirit of all this genius that I find myself surrounded by, I've started collecting my "favorite lines of the day" from various sources. If you appreciate a well-crafted turn of phrase as much as I do, I think you'll be blown away by what I've culled from the net.

And because art -- especially literature -- does not exisist in a vaccume, I've also started doing "daily drabbles" as you may have noticed. In fan fiction jargon, a drabble is a 100 word short story or scene. I'm not too picky about making sure that my daily drabbles are 100 words, but they are short snippets of what I have managed to churn out each day; my favorite few lines from my daily pounding of the keys. These aren't meant to be stories in themselves, merely glimpses of my daily literary forays.

I hope you will enjoy reading these gems I pluck from the electronic firmament, and I encourage you to follow the links I provide to the stories themselves and bask in the genius. If anyone out there is an HP fan fiction fan, you can also look at my livejournal, Lux Aeterna, for more HP-centric suggestions. =)

favorite line of the day

He creeps up on him, sand warm on his feet and he knows just how to make his footsteps sound like the waves, because nobody ever suspects a force of nature.

From Five Ways to Open Your Arms by Imochan.

Happy birthday charlie

Today (I think) is my best good friend Charlie's birthday. He is 24 today.

Charlie and I are that kind of friend that can just pick up where we left off whenever we see each other or talk to each other. It doesn't matter how much time has passed since the last time we spoke, we just move on like it was only yesterday.

I don't think Charlie really liked me all that much when we first met. I think he thought I was annoying and bitchy and bossy. I kind of thought he was a pompous ass. But we were in Mr. Spaulding's communications class together, and we got teamed up for a project. One night we stayed at school until almost ten pm working on a project. I didn't drive yet, so as soon as we were done, I called my mom and headed down to the front steps of the school to wait. Charlie came down with me and sat on the steps with me. I remember thinking at the time that he was waiting for his mom. Well, my mom showed up, and as we were driving away, I saw Charlie walking to his car in the parking lot. He hadn't been hanging out waiting for a ride; he had been hanging out with me, keeping me company, making sure I was OK, whatever. That's when my opinions of him totally changed.

And we've been friends ever since.

Charlie, I don't know if you read this, but if you do, Happy Birthday, Man! I love you!! =)

it should stay dead

This is really very disturbing news: Sam Rami is planning to make *yet another* remake of Evil Dead.

Wasn't Army of Darkness torture enough?

And wasn't the whole point of Evil Dead the fact that it was bad and poorly made? How would you remake that? Make it bad on purpose?

The mind boggles.

there's a story in this somewhere...

My friend Suzanne wrote me this story today. Creeped me the hell out.

A young woman who worked in a 19th century wig factory in Boston went to the hospital for an upset stomach. They discovered that she had an enormous hairball in her stomach. When it was surgically removed, the matted hair actually had formed a cast of her stomach.

My boss, the curator, [of the medical museum in Boston] was on the look out for this missing hair ball, as a lot of the patrons would ask about it. One day at work in the warehouse, I picked up a huge wad of newspaper in the corner to find that there was something inside of it. I unwrapped it and there was the missing hairball!!

The woman had a nervous disorder (like biting nails, only on a grander scale) where she felt compelled to eat hair. A wig factory was perfect for this.

That's so disgusting. I love it.

daily drabble

From St. Jude's School for the Gifted, Chapter One

"Hi," he said again, hoping this time for better results. "I'm Bobby."

The boy directly in front of him did not even look up. Bobby could see the top of his head through the space between the two seats, and could see that his hair was dyed black, tousled, mouse brown roots starting to show. His head was bent over something in his lap.

"Hi!" the other boy said eagerly. He was sitting across the aisle and had pushed back the armrests and stretched out across his two seats like a bed. He had longish wavy blond hair and cunning hazel eyes that peered out from under thick brown eyebrows that seemed to be constantly in motion as he talked, sometimes in chorus, other times wiggling independently like furry brown caterpillars.

"Nice to meet you! I'm Geoff." He spoke with a thick British accent. "That there's James. He's from New York. Really boring bloke. Barely said two words to me the whole trip. Met him on the plane. Want some peanuts?" He dove under the seats suddenly, rummaging through his knapsack.

"No thanks," Bobby said with a grin, "I had some on the plane."

"Oh right, then," Geoff said happily shredding his own packet of peanuts and tipping most of the contents into his mouth. "Only, I've got loads if you change your mind. Loads. Stewardesses took a shine too me, innat right Jamey?"

"It's James," the other boy replied flatly. "Not Jamey, or Jimmy, or Jim, or Jack or anything else." He glanced up and over his shoulder through the crack in the seats at Bobby. "And I think they gave him the peanuts with the hope that he couldn't talk and eat at the same time." He went back to studying whatever it was he had in his lap. "Pity it didn't work."

Geoff waggled his eyebrows across the aisle at Bobby as he crunched his peanuts noisily, a huge grin plastered across his face despite James' harsh words.

"What'd I tell yeh. Manky swot, inne? I like him."

losing your planet isn't the end of the world

I am very VERY excited. VERY.

Actually, there aren't enough verys to tell you how excited I am.

I found this little tidbit on FilmFodder and about burst into my very own rendition of the halleluja chorus. Then I remembered I was at work and curbed my enthusiasm.

A bit.

May 5, 2005, folks.

That's how long you have to wait before The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Movie hits box offices.

I am so VERY excited! One only has to look at my user name to see the level of love I have for HHGTTG.

The project has been in the works for years -- literally years -- and then the author, Douglas Adams, passed away very suddenly. I personally thought all hope was lost when I read that he had sold the rights (before his passing, of course) to Disney.

But lo! As I was reading on one of the fan sites referenced in the FilmFodder article, Mr. Adams himself wrote the screenplay! It has undergone several rewrites, of course, but we can all hope and pray that it will remain true to his original intent which, according to the same site, includes new plot twists, new characters and so on.

So Don't Panic. It's really going to happen. REALLY!

Excuse me while I go do a little happy dance.

!!!!!!!

favorite line of the day

It smelled like time, if Forever had a scent.

From Paper Wings, Chapter One by KrisLaughs

favorite line(s) of the day

"Oh," he said. "I know what that is."

"One of the few remaining pieces of the wall," Felix said, crossing to the fence that protected the wall, hooking his fingers in it. "I asked about it this morning."

Oscar joined him, eyes raking the ground in front of the wall, littered with detritus and rubbish, before rising to study the graffiti-scrawled cement.

"I remember the day it came down," Portia said. "My mom came into my room and told me to come see the news. I had no clue what it meant."

"Byron had a piece of it," Oscar said.

"Your mentor?" Felix asked.

"He said it reminded him that not everything man builds is sacred," Oscar chuckled. "Not that it ever served much purpose, since I don't think he ever tore anything down if he could help it, but the spirit was there."

"My tutors never mentioned it until it was already history," Felix said. "I didn't even know what the Berlin Wall was until it hadn't been anymore."

"Do you really think you could live in a city with a scar like this?" Oscar asked.

"It's only a scar," Felix shrugged.

From A Law Divine, Chapter 11 by Sam (aka: Copperbadge)

New happy links

I've added some links on the left over there...

Lux Aeterna is my livejournal. I started it as a place to host HPatSotS, but it got a bit unweildy. Now it's a place for me to waffle on about all things fan fiction, post drabbles, and reccomend other peoples' fics that I like so that I don't have to do all that over here (you non-fic people can thank me later).

Virgin Insanity is for Dad's band. It's not really up and running yet, but it will be, so I went ahead and added the link while I was busy linking things.

link link link

website for the band

So, http://www.virgininsanity.com/ now belongs to us. I went ahead and registered it this morning so that some crazed Japanese fan didn't snap it up before we could!! =) I also upgraded my webhosting account so that I can now host two sites

SO! If you visit the web address, all that you'll see is a place holder (but it's a pretty fun placeholder, thanks to Bert's pdf), but I'll be sure to keep you updated as there is certain to be more to come. =D

Also, the domain came with 999 free email addresses, so if anyone wants to be yourname@virgininsanity.com, just let me know. *snark!*

daily drabble

From HP and the S of the S, chapter 23, in which Malfoy is a slimy cur...

Keeping his wand firmly in his grasp, Malfoy pinned her shoulder against the wall. With his left hand he cupped her face, stroking the skin across her cheekbone with the ball of his thumb. His eyes never left hers as he bent towards her in a fluid motion and pressed his lips firmly against hers. She tried to turn away but he tightened his grip, pressing his fingers into her face, digging his nails into her cheek. He tasted like salt and licorice.

random fact

Asparagus is a member of the lily family and, if left unpicked, can grow to over six feet in height.

Daily Drabble

So, Allison and I were really bored at work today, so we decided to do something creative and come up with the best sentences we could write. Just random sentences. The ones in italics are mine, the others are Allison's. Enjoy!




I bent my will like the orchid bends its stem- always towards the sun,
the sun that was my father.

"She reads the way she eats," Michael said disdainfully; "It's all junk
anyway."

Privilege is a badge on your character. You earn it by performing to
the height of your talent in the towering chaos that is society.

He watched the scene unfold in front of him with growing horror, unable
to think past the abject revulsion, unable to act past the gape mouthed
staring, unable to reconcile the fact that the images he was seeing had
actually happened; he thought he might be sick.

If she had to smell the stale sausage miasma creeping quickly through
the office for one more second, she would surely vomit.

As quickly as the memory had come, it was gone, like a puff of twinkie
smoke up the ventahood in the chemistry classroom.


"It sprouts!" she said excitedly.

"I'm sorry, did you just use the word 'sprout' as a verb?" he regarded
her with empathetic caution, the way he would regard an old woman on
the street waiting for a bus three blocks away from the bus stop.


It is these thoughts that flash and return, flash and return, ever
present in the cobwebed corners of the forgotten rooms of our mind, yet
waiting, ever waiting, for the least opportune moment to flash and blind
us once again.

Have you ever seen a tiger stare at the box of animal crackers and
wonder what the hell has happened to society?

The bookshop smelled of age, of accumulated memory and thought, of
history boiled down and condensed to fill a page, of ink and dust and very
strongly of burnt coffee.

She wondered if it was strange that the symbol she equated with her
entire childhood was the squeak of her bedroom door. Her room was her
sanctuary, and no one entered it without her knowledge, thanks to that
squeak. It was the sound of that squeak that alerted her to his presence
on that fateful night three years ago.

What is there left to say when all the words have been spoken, the
letters rearranged, the syllables torn apart, until nothing remains of the
original meaning, and all that is left is the scattered, broken
detritus of a conversation gone horribly wrong?

what herb are you?

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme....


YOU ARE ROSEMARY


What herb are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Heh heh.

What herb are you?

The death of the greatest wizard that ever lived

Hey everybody! So, there was this contest on one of the fan fiction sites I post on, and the prompt was to write a story with the title "The Death of the Greatest Wizard that Ever Lived."

Well, it got my gears a turning, so I wrote a very short (just barely over 2,000 words) story for the contest! I haven't posted it on any of the fan sites yet, as I'm not sure how the contest people would like that, but I have posted it over at my livejournal account (mainly because it's a lot easier to read over there than if I were to post it on this blog!).

Anyway, head on over and take a look at my interpretation of "The Death of the Greatest Wizard that Ever Lived."

P.S. I'll let you know if I win anything! =)

my dad is a japanese rockstar

So, Once Upon A Time, a Long Time Ago, in a Land Far Far Away called Austin, my dad was a member of a band called Virgin Insanity. They played kind of folk rock music and they cut a record. Unfortunately, the music was well beyond all their contemporaries, and they never really hit it very big.

25 years later, my dad receives a phone call from a fellow Virgin Insanity member named Bob (no really, that's his real name). Dad hasn't talked to Bob in as many years, and is therefore not a little surprised to hear from him.

Turns out, a man has recently contacted Bob asking for permission to cut 1000 copies of Virgin Insanity's debut album on CD.

Now every once in a while, my dad (and apparently Bob as well) has gotten a call from some vinyl afficianado asking him to sell his copy(s) of the Virgin Insanity record because there are only a few that exist and they are collectors items.

This is not, however, the reason this particular man was calling.

In fact, he wants to make CDs of Virgin Insanity's record because apparently the band has quite a cult following.

In Japan.

Apparently, the guy tried to buy a tape of the record off of a fan in Japan and they would not sell it to him! Bob, however, agreed to the deal and has begun remixing the masters on his home computer!

Out of curiosity, I googled "Virgin Insanity," and here are the results I came up with:

Apparently, the song "Time of Sorrows Gone" is a regular on the Bill Zurat show (Sundays 2am-6am) on WFMU 90.1 FM, an indy station out of New York City.

The band is listed on the amazingly all-inclusive RockRom CD, which is apparently a database of every album from every band that ever existed... ever.

The album is also listed on many various LP "want lists," which, as far as I can tell, is a place for people to post albums they are looking for in the hopes that someone will have what they're looking for. Someone was even offering a 3rd or 4th generation tape of the album. Woah.

I also found this, which seems to confirm the Japanese cult following theory.

But I think the very best thing I found was this description from the Acid Archives:

Virgin Insanity Tx "Illusions of the maintenance man" 1972 (Funky 72411)
Obscure and still fairly unknown basement folk/folkrock with short songs and male/female vocals. Hard to describe accurately (always a good sign), though comparisons drawn to the third Velvet U LP are not without merit, esp as the lady vocalist seems as tonedeaf as Moe Tucker. The sound is disarmingly honest and stripped down, and indeed the concentrated minimalist vibe of the LP seems wholly deliberate. This is not for everyone, but I was impressed.


I think I need to learn how to say "rock star" in Japanese. =D

drabble of the day

From the still percolating story with the working title "St. Jude's School for the Gifted...

"It doesn't look very... hygienic," Michael said disapprovingly from the back seat of the rented BMW. He had ridden with his face pressed to the glass for most of the trip from the Denver airport, watching with unabashed awe as the land slipped away from the edge of the highway into deep narrow valleys studded with aspen and granite and pine. He had been eagerly awaiting his first glimpse of St. Jude's School for the Gifted where he would be going -- no, living -- for the next nine months; now that he'd seen it, however, he really rather wished that he could stay in the back seat when his mother and father turned the car around and headed back to Denver, and from there, back home.

"Nonsense," his father said with a chortle. "You're just saying that because it doesn't look exactly like that monolith of steel and concrete you called a junior high school. This place has got history..."

Michael wrinkled his nose. History should be stored carefully under glass and artfully back lit or distilled for consumption into book form. History, to his mind, did not include rambling ramshackle buildings, faded banners, or peeling coats of paint. He physically shuddered as he wondered which of the drafty looking tenements the dormitories were.

It's 11:10 on a Monday morning -- do you know where your sanity is?

Work on Mondays is the cruelest invention of all humankind. How, precisely, are we meant to concentrate or even THINK on a Monday morning after the shenanigans that we got up to on Saturday and Sunday?

Actually, I didn't get up to a whole lot of shenanigans. I bought a pair of $58 jeans from the Gap -- which was a first for me -- and sang in an interfaith choral music festival.

I know how to party.

The music festival thing was pretty cool. It was seven different choirs from different faiths and traditions, and in between each one, a different speaker from various traditions. We all got together and sang one song as a big huge choir at the end, and the man who directed us all was ENORMOUS and treated us like a Junior high band. Probably because he was a junior high band director. Eh.

The most exciting part of the whole evening, however had to be when my choir got up to sing. We were pumpped. We were ready. We started to sing, and about three bars into the song, the pianist STOPPED PLAYING.

I wish you could have seen the director's face. I thought his eyes were going to pop right out of his head. But he kept directing, so we kept singing, and eventually, the pianist came back in with us.

Turns out the over zealous airconditioning in the Jewish temple we were singing in BLEW her music right off the piano. There was nothing she could do but stop, bend down, and pick it up!! Anyway, big kudos to us for a) not panicking, and b) not STOPPING!!! Luckily, the second song was accappella -- on purpose -- so we didn't have to worry. Thought the pianist would die from embarrassment!! =)

Brandon said we were still the best choir of the night, regardless.

Other than that, the only other big excitement of the weekend was going to see The Polar Express in 3D at the IMAX. Wow. Let me tell you, I'm sure it's a cute movie on the regular screen, but in 3D it will blow your mind. And be sure to sit near a group of kids, because it is indescribably precious to watch them all reach out and try to catch the falling train ticket. =)

Aside from the wicked 3D, the movie is generally cute. It's a bit thin on plot, but that's to be expected when you try to translate a 36 page picture book into a 90 minute movie. =)

I especially enjoyed the scene near the end when they're all waiting for Santa to show, and the elves start singing very slowly...

"You'd... better... watch... out..."

Felt oddly like a Phish concert or something, but I liked it. =)

make a joyful noise

I think that there should be more singing in everyday life. I was in the ladies' room earlier today, and I was humming, and it echoed so nicely off the walls and tile floors that I was sorely tempted to break into song, but I resisted that temptation. Why? Well, because if anyone were to see or hear me singing in the ladies' room at work, I would probably receive a great quantity of strange looks and be known as that girl, you know, the one who sings...

But I think that we should just open up. Let it out, people! Repressing only gives you ulcers. Sing! Sing a song! Sing out loud! The whole day long!!!

Do you know why people like musicals? It's because, on some deep subconscious level, people are drawn to the idea of randomly breaking into song about everyday kinds of things: Oklahoma! Rent! Pirates! Secretly, many of us wish that our lives were like that. We long for the ability to break into song about how much we love our cats, or loathe our malfunctioning computers; we want to spontaniously errupt into perfectly choreographed dance routines with those we love, and even those we barely know. It is a deeply embedded genetic memory of a time when people who sang randomly in bathrooms, or malls, or in the workplace were not shunned as freaks or weirdos.

Did anyone see that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that was done as a musical? BRILLIANT! Granted, their sudden onslaught of musical and choreographic talent was the result of a suave yet undeniably maladjusted demon who liked to watch people burst into flames when they got a bit too excited about their solo number, but aside from the spontanious combustion bit, it seemed like a good deal to me! People were dancing and singing in the street! Picking up the dry cleaning became a valid excuse for bursting into song!

All I'm saying is that I think people in general would be a lot happier if they thought they could get down get down get down get down get down and boogie now and again without the social reprecussions we now know are there. Singing is good for you! It frees the mind and enlivens the soul!

So do yourself a favor, and sing to someone today. They'll look at you with an expression of mild perplexion and thank you for it.

the new willy wonka

All I can say is, thank goodness they didn't decide to give Johnny Depp a Gene Wilder afro puff.

general waffle

Well!

I'm pleased to say that response to chapter 20 of HP and the S of the S has been really good so far! Two of the scenes were "fits of brilliance" scenes, and thus probably deserve the praise. *sigh* It's just too bad that I don't have more of those kinds of fits...

My weekend was much too short. Saturday I spent the entire morning rehearsing with the choir for our Requiem mass on Sunday, which came off brilliantly, I thought. But MAN OH MAN was there a lot of music!! We did six mass movements, two octavos, and three hymns! AND there was a solo at communion. A LOT of music. But it was lovely. David hired two cellos, one viola, one violin and an oboe, which really rounded things out nicely.

Brandon and Rebecca (a friend from work) agreed that Bach's "How Lovely is thy Dwelling Place" was their favorite. Ha! Brandon likes fugal pieces, and Baroque music in general, I think. =) Speaking of which, I was reading a HP fan fic called "The Harpsichordist" in which a Muggle music teacher is hired to teach at Hogwarts, and there was a lovely little tidbit where they talked about "the Bach effect" and how Bach's music was magic and taken directly from the substance and existence of nature and that sometimes, magical things happen when people play his music. I couldn't agree more.

Spent most of the rest of the day Saturday AND Sunday "working" on my original idea. Actually, I was just sort of pounding out ideas and trying to filter the flotsom out of my mental ramblings. Things are going well there, I think. I have three characters sketched, (and about three dozen to go) and I've already started thinking of scenes and so on. Haven't even begun with the teachers at the school yet -- just the students so far -- but I've got time. Heck, I've got nothing but time!!

Chapter 21 has moved into the revisions process. It's quite different from my other chapters, inspired by the brilliance of The Shoebox Project (particularly chapter one which made me laugh so hard I almost fell out of my chair -- literally). It should be a kick to see what people think of it.

Nanowrimo begins!

I just wanted to let you all know that thanks, in part, to this blog, my best mate Allison is participating in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Her goal is to write a 50,000 word novel (or 50,000 words of a novel) in 30 days.

I, for my small part, am helping her by blogging her progress for her at her new blog called Welcome to Lake Renner (and yes, my dear Brandon was inspiration for the name of the town).

I want to encourage all of you to go on over to Lake Renner and read what Allison has written and leave her a bit of encouragement. Writing is a tough thing to do, and writing 50,000 words in one month (which comes out to just under 2000 words per day) is a monumental challenge.

To put this in perspective, I write approximately 5,000 words per week, or one chapter. She is trying to do half of that in a single day -- every single day. It's a huge challenge, but one I'm sure she's up to.

More power to you, Allie, and to all the NaNo Writers out there!!

"i voted"

So, today, November second twenty-oh-four, I, Lacy Boggs have done my civic duty. I have participated in the long-running and occasionally successful public experiment we call Democracy. I voted for president, congressman, senator, state representative, mayor, city council members, county supervisor, Santa Ana Community College board of governors, and more than a dozen ballot measures. My participation involved having my polling place inexplicably changed twice, going to the wrong polling place anyway, standing in no less than three different lines, filling out a provisional ballot, and being made to wait for five additional minutes for my sticker which says "I voted."

Am I discouraged? Am I disheartened or disenfranchised by this? No, I am not, and I will tell you why.

I did not have to worry about being blown up at the elementary school where I cast my ballot.

I did not have to worry about my ability to vote -- even thought I was apparently in the wrong precinct -- being challenged by poll watchers.

I did not have to wonder if I would be discriminated against, turned away, harassed, or threatened while voting based on my gender, race, creed, or political party.

I did not have to wonder if I had any hanging chads on my ballot.

Even if we do not have a clear winner when all the votes have been tallied in the wee hours of the morning, I will not have to worry that the country will fall into civil war. Regardless of who wins and who loses in the end, the transfer of power will be made peacefully and easily, which is the true measure of the success of our democracy.

On my way to work, more than an hour later than usual, and stuck in a horrendous traffic jam, I heard on NPR about a woman in Ohio. She is 103 years old and has voted in every election since women were granted the right to vote. She made me proud of the "I voted" sticker I am wearing.

If you haven't already, go out and vote. Vote your conscience, but vote. Now more than ever, every single vote counts and every single vote makes a difference. Even a voice that is stifled makes an impact. Better to speak and be heard by a few than not to be heard at all.