Lilith Saintcrow

A short run today–I’ve worked up to running five days a week, but two of those days are going to be short 20-min sessions (not counting warmup and cooldown). I was considering leaving the house today, but after yesterday’s cook-a-thon (we had MakeMe and her boyfriend over for dinner) I’m kind of nixing the notion. Besides, I need to get revisions out of the way so I can write, both on contracted stuff and on the New Shiny Project. After a long bout with revisions, all I can think of is creating anew.

I am waiting with bated breath for my next issue of Cook’s Illustrated. The kids love Scientific American and I like it too, but there’s just something about CI that makes me so so happy. I hear the next issue has a chocolate-chip cookie recipe. You can guess what I’ll be baking soon.

Someone asked me about cookbooks yesterday, so here we go. The first one–the one that started this whole thing–was Baking with Julia. After I actually started producing good bread, I got a couple other bread cookbooks too, the best of which is this one. Then I got Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, which actually goes into the chemistry of foods and why they behave the way they do. Just like CookWise and BakeWise, which I consider essential.

This was a revelation to me. I had viewed cooking as some weird alchemical art whose secrets were only given to the few with the proper handshake, kind of like some people view getting published. And after being told over and over again that I was no good at it, the way I was no good at anything practical because “your head is always in the clouds”, I’d given up.

But “cookbooks” that tell me WHY food behaves the way it does, and how to tweak recipes? ZOMG. The idea that I could learn how food reacted so I could put recipes together and get consistent results was a complete and very gratifying shock.

If I had to tell someone one cookbook to get, I’d recommend the McGee even though it isn’t technically a cookbook, because understanding how and why food behaves the way it does is way more useful than a list of ingredients. Then I’d recommend CookWise and BakeWise; then this vegetarian cookbook (since the UnSullen tends toward vegetarianism). With those you’re pretty much covered.

I do also occasionally rely on my faithful old red-plaid Better Homes and Gardens, and my old Joy of Cooking when I’m looking for something kind of fancy-dancy. And now I’ve started branching out–I did a cheesy-chicken-rice thing from leftovers the other day that vanished in a heartbeat. If I’d had sour cream it would’ve gone even more quickly.

So there you have it, my list of “essential” cookbooks. Still, all the cookbooks in the world won’t help without the willingness to get in there and make mistakes, experiment, and have some fun. (Just like writing. Okay, I’ll stop flogging that point…for now.) The kids love watching and learning and helping to cook, a valuable life skill that will contribute oodles to their adulthood. And I don’t eat out as much as I did now that I’m enamored of the process of cooking itself. Quelle disastre, right?

Right. All that money I’m saving is probably going to go toward some Le Creuset. I keep telling myself it’s quality cookware that the Princess can have after I’m gone, therefore it’s an investment…

ETA: Thanks for telling me about the broken code. HTML, she is trying to keel me…

See? I’m hopeless. Completely hopeless.

Tragedy. The ball to my Marilyn piercing fell off somewhere during the night and I can’t find it. Despite tightening it every day I’ve lost it, and I had to take the post out. *sigh* Which means it will close up, since I can’t get down to pick up another ball until, jeez, sometime this weekend? If I’m lucky?

It’s awful; I no longer feel like a pretty pretty princess. Still, a piece of metal on my face isn’t THAT important. Mostly I just loved how it looked and how it made me feel.

I still have my nose ring, though. World without end, amen. It’ll take more than rough sleeping to dislodge that. And to tell the truth, it’ll be nice not working around the Marilyn for things like moisturizer etc. I just loved it, though. I’m sad.

But not TOO sad. Today is for fifty more pages of revision, and if I get that done and get all other obligations (hoovering and the dinner party) out of the way, I will reward myself with some of the shiny pretty new project. It’s not something I’m getting paid for, which means I have to get it done in the cracks and gullies, but it’s awesome and has a great first line. Maybe it will turn out to be something, maybe not. Either way I’m having fun.

And I can always get my Marilyn repierced if I feel like it. It’s not forever. I’ll just have to be a pretty pretty princess only on the inside for a while.

There are worse things.

Cross-posted from Deadline Dames, where there are reader contests and giveaways. Go take a look!

Guys, I’m sorry. My brain is a big smooth billiard ball inside my noggin. I’m pooped. A big in-depth post about writing today? Forget it. Instead, I’m going to give you a Bulleted List. Because a List is what I do when I’m too tired to tango, you know.

Five Guilty (Book) Pleasures

You read that right. Five books I love, that I feel a little bit guilty when I read. Maybe because they’re pulpy, maybe because I enjoy them so much…maybe for no good reason. They’re not quite Cheeto reads, but they’re still guilty pleasures.

* Stephen King’s It You know, it just doesn’t get any better than this monster. I really think this is King at the top of his game, even if I stop reading the moment Bill puts Audra on the bicycle. For me, this read is all about the Losers growing up, and I love every minute of it, even the terrifying parts. You know, it probably says something if this is one of my comfort reads. I’m just not quite sure WHAT it says.

* Nancy Price’s Sleeping With the Enemy Forget that silly movie with Julia Roberts. The book is seven different flavors of awesome. I think I love it for some of the same reasons I love Frankie & Johnny–not so much for the main characters as for the glimpses of life that go on around them, and the characterizations of the secondary and tertiary people in the story.

* Charles Bukowski’s Factotum On nights when I can’t sleep, Bukowski helps. Yes, the book is about the adventures of a misogynistic, alcoholic, ugly, and emotionally stunted individual. It is also one of the most searingly honest looks at poverty and wage slavery around. And even though I hate Bukowski’s attitude toward women, I also think he was terrifically talented as an honest writer. Oh, and Post Office kicks major ass too.

* LJ Smith’s Forbidden Game series I love LJ Smith’s YA novels, specifically the Forbidden Game and the Dark Visions series. I loved them like candy and read them over and over again. Her Vampire Diaries series is enjoying a resurgence, but it didn’t set me on fire the way the other two did.

* Last but not least in any way, Peter Hoeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow, quite frankly one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. From the very beginning (I can quote bits of the opening chapter from memory and get a chill each time I do) to its inexorable conclusion, to everything in between–it’s just gorgeous, and Smilla herself is one of the best female characters in fiction. Hoeg’s other stuff hasn’t really impressed me the way Smilla has, but I keep coming back to this book over and over again–and, like White Oleander, I buy copies to give to people.

There you have it, five of my guilty pleasures. Some of them are books that I enjoy and luxuriate in so much it feels, well, sinful. (There’s the Puritan in me struggling against the chains of reasonable hedonism. I like to sip a mint mojito while I watch that struggle.) Others are books that just feel like eating junk food, but won’t make me feel slightly queasy afterward. (Much better than junk food.) And all of them, I think, are worth a try.

So, what’s your guilty reading pleasure?

Welcome to my random:

* It is very, very hard to sit still when one hears, “Oh, no…Get a towel!” It is even harder to sit still and listen to the kids cleaning up a mess they’ve made and hoping I haven’t heard. So much of parenting is keeping a straight face. I am fairly sure it’s just spilled lemonade on a pair of pants. Nothing that requires my immediate attention.

* I love Cleolinda’s Secret Life Of Dolls posts, and today’s SLOD just about made me crack a rib laughing. I needed that.

* Ah, yes. The lemonade has been mopped up. They managed to clean it up themselves and change into clean clothes. Then they came and informed me proudly that I hadn’t been necessary. Ah, the little darlings.

* It’s sunny again. What’s with the sunny days creeping me out? I get a little uneasy when I wake up to sunshine and birdsong. It’s like a Disney movie…but then I start looking for the zombies.

* I’m glad today was a light workout day–just a 20 minute run and some shovelgloving. That and some Midol have evened out my mood a bit. I don’t feel like running through the house with my hair on fire. This is good.

* I am considering canceling my subscription to W magazine. They used to have some really avant-garde advertising in there, stuff I could cut up and use for collages. But alas, no more. And I’m getting really, really tired of looking at everyone in there either needing a ham sandwich or preparing to shed their human form and bite their mate’s head off at climax. I’d rather read Cooks Illustrated and Scientific American, frankly. I suspect it’s because I’ve gotten old…

* After I finish reading the current crop of Tantra books, I think I’m going to go back and take another whack at Meditation Secrets for Women. I get so tired of male-centred philosophical systems; and Western writers writing about Tantra (because I can’t read the original texts) have a male bias all its own–the female is still treated as the exception to the male norm. As per usual. I need a palate cleanser.

* Next up on my personal reading quest: poetry! Anna Akhmatova, Sylvia Plath, and ee cummings. If the Plath and Akhmatova end up depressing me, I have a stock of Neruda and St. Vincent Millay on hand too. (Hey. Shush. I like Millay.) I have to finish Young Stalin first, though. No more Stalin bios, dammit. They give me weird dreams.

* Shiva the corn snake was fed yesterday. We defrosted a pinkie and got Shiva in a separate feeding container, then dangled the defrosted mousicle in front of him with tongs. (“You’ve thought of everything, Mummy!” Astronomy Girl said.) Everyone watched as Shiva struck, then everyone watched as he dislocated his jaw and the mouse went down in a matter of minutes. We waited until the mouse lump was somewhere in the middle of his body, then set the food container in his enclosure so he could slither out on his own–better than handling him right after he’s eaten, since he’s such a little guy. I thought the kids would be a little squicked, but they were just fascinated and watched the whole process with something resembling awe.

I, of course, was very happy with this because he was eating a rodent. Things that eat rodents are Good. We all know how I feel about rats. Things with naked tails and beady little eyes freak me out. I know rats are smart and make good pets, but the atavistic shudder I feel when I see one…no. Just no. I’m happier with the snake.

And that, my dears, is all. Revisions for Flesh Circus are in my future. I like being busy, and I’m in a revisions sort of mood. Kismet books are hard on me emotionally, and I think I’m ready to get this one revised and out the door…and make some headway on something else. I’m itching to write something new instead of endless revising.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The one day a year I’m especially glad to have green eyes. I am not so glad about the drunken shenanigans, but it’s better than New Year’s, right? Right?

Anyway.

The kind and gracious folks at Cover to Cover Books, where I occasionally volunteer, have given me permission to do something awesome.

If your life is not complete without a signed and personalized Demon’s Librarian, you can now get one from Cover to Cover. If you live in the continental US and don’t mind media mail, the cost is $15.50. If you live overseas etc., you can email them and ask what the charges are. They generally cut fans a good deal.

This is a great thing for fans, but it’s also a good thing for C2C, which is one of the last indie bookstores left in the Vancouver area. (Powell’s is still going strong in Portland, but I rarely get over the river.) I love this little store so much, you have no idea. It’s been a refuge and an awesomeness to me ever since I was aware it existed.

So, if you’re interested, drop C2C a line. Be sure to include where the book is being mailed to, who you’d like it signed to, and if you want further personalization. You’ll hear from them about payment options, and then they will drag me down there by my hair to sign (hopefully) stacks of books.

And if that’s not a cool deal, I don’t know what is.