Lilith Saintcrow

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, as my Nana used to say. There are four, count them four chapters left in the book. Conversation with Lucas, the arrival and meeting/big twist/prestige, the showdown, and the mop-up-wrap-up. I wrote about it on my regular Friday post at the Midnight Hour.

So. Off I go into the blue. Wish me luck, for Japhrimel has that glint in his eye and poor Danny’s halfway to insane and trigger-happy to boot.

Seriously. I do love this job.

It took a while, dear Readers, but I finally got my act together and put the winner of the Japhrimel Slogan Contest (voted for by you) on a coffee mug. There’s a large mug and a smaller one, available through Japhrimel’s Corner at CafePress. Congratulations to my fabulous Reader Jane Hong, who submitted the winning entry! Jane, your mug is in the mail.

This contest got such a large response that I’ve decided to run it again, with one important difference. This time, dear Readers, you and you alone will decide on a slogan for a coffee cup dedicated to our favorite Necromance. That’s right–what do you think Dante Valentine would have on her coffee mug?

Please send your short, witty slogans here, with “Valentine Slogan Contest” in the subject line. On April 6 the contest will close, and I’ll send out another survey where loyal Dark Siders can vote on their favorite saying. (Sorry, but you will need to be signed up for my newsletter in order to vote. Them’s da rules, buttercup.) The winner gets a free coffee mug with their saying blazoned on it, and credit for the slogan. Isn’t that cool?

It’s a lovely sunny day, and it’s been hard to sit myself down to actual work rather than taking a blanket out into the back yard and lying in the sunshine. But I persevere, you know. Have to earn all those cookies I’ve been eyeing atop the fridge…

I got out about 10K words on Valentine 5 yesterday. Notwithstanding the fact that some of them were stripped out from other drafts and Frankensteined in, my brain still hurts. (Mrs. Shelley is rolling in her grave over my verbing of her character’s name.)

Thought for the morning: my kids love watching Barney on OPB in the morning. All I can think of while it’s playing is how those child actors must be under so much pressure, and the hideous effects that pressure will have on them in ten-fifteen years. The plastic smiles. The smarmy songs. The lines straight out of Dick & Jane. What parent would let their child get involved with something like this? It’s the same problem I have with any other children’s show except Sesame Street. Maybe I’m just old and crotchety.

It’s sunny, and I have coffee, and I’m going to see just what new trouble I can get my favorite Necromance in. I am playing the Cure at high volume in my headphones, mixed with very old Carlos-Gardel-type tango.

Life is good. But children’s television scares me deeply.

Is it so wrong of me to want a subscription? Because, you know, I don’t read enough about books. *boggle*

Am I the only person who thinks Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading is a perfect parable about life in a fascist state? Yes, I know dear Vladimir would be the last person to call it such, and would probably consign me to the deepest depths of reader hell for it. But I keep reading the book, over and over (it’s one of the few I read compulsively, usually right before bed) and I can’t help but see M. Pierre as the Great Leader (a Stalinesque figure) and the jailer etc. as different functions of the totalitarian state. Marthe is the poisoning of human relationships in such a state, and Cincinnatus C? He’s the artist, struggling to break free and see the true world under a fabric of lies.

I’ll probably have another analysis for the book as I grow older–that is, after all, the point of a good book, to grow older with it and discover new meanings and complexities, like a good friend. But for right now the book as parable of the hideous state that even wants to control its members’ dreams is foremost in my mind. Reading Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad only brings the comparison home more deeply when I read about the NKVD shooting troops that fled from battle, or Stalin’s son sent to the gulag.

*thinks for a moment*

I keep compulsively checking bookstores for Nabokovs I haven’t read yet. My favorite would have to be Invitation to a Beheading, followed closely by Ada. I’m also very fond of The Defense. But any Nabokov is a good thing. I am reserving his translation of Eugene Onegin for a special occasion, like a truffle carefully wrapped up and gloated over at night before it is finally eaten. The sensuous anticipation of a book is precious, and should be luxuriated in.

*grin* What a nerdy hedonist am I. Prose makes me quiver in delight, and few things match the pleasure of opening a new book I am sure of enjoying or even intrigued by the premise of. And I almost forgot I have a copy of Pnin I haven’t read yet.

What bliss.

I am writing this post from my papasan, on my laptop. Yes, friends and neighbors, I bought a wireless router–ostensibly for the Sullen Teen, but so far I’ve been the one to use it the most. I am listening to my Pandora radio stations while typing, and so far it has been lovely. I can flip back and forth between email and actual writing, and if I need to send something I can do it right from my laptop instead of a jump drive physically carried to my PC.

Ah, laziness. Thy name is Lili.

Special thanks goes out to Crab Caution, who came and checked the setup after I went officially on the rampage and informed every person I lived with that I was unhappy, that I was going out to dinner, and that I fully expected every single one of them to tidy up while I was gone. I didn’t care what they tidied, as long as they tidied something, and when I returned I would be in a better mood.

That was Saturday evening–the same Saturday we brought the Sullen One’s old black cat home to live with us. He is declawed and a very mellow beastie, and has integrated into the household with a minimum of fuss. So that’s good, but it was stressful.

And Saturday night, after I got home from an absolutely lovely dinner, was a St. Patty’s Day Blowout. (Note to the Martian Moon Crab: your kitten card was an absolute scream. I laughed myself hoarse.) A Romanian friend of the DHM’s had brought him something like Romanian apple brandy, I believe.

I am here to tell you, friends and Readers, Romanian liquor is nothing to fool around with. It could literally crawl out of the bottle and sock you silly. What I did not realize upon commencing my drinking (we had friends over to watch a Certain Movie which shall remain nameless since it was so very…well, the less said the better) is that the bottle, deceptively skinny and small, held liquor that was literally 100-proof.

Yes, read that again. That statement has been verified by the DHM. It was 50% alcohol.

I am surprised I am not blind. But the real kicker was the sake I drank beforehand, I think. I did not pass out but I did not sleep well, and Sunday morning was…interestingly painful. I am too old for that ever again.

The funniest part of this happened Sunday afternoon, when I stopped at the local health-food place on my way out to visit some friends. Day after St. Patrick’s, and I decide in a fit of remorse to go check on the milk thistle and detox section again. I figure after the night I’d just spent, my liver would want some help.

What to my wondering eyes should appear but a completely pillaged detox section. Apparently liver guilt was widespread this weekend. Hee.

Well, back to work. We are writing right along, footloose and fancy free. Further bulletins as events warrant…