Do you still think that way about me now?

So. Update.

These days, I tend to access the net by tablet rather than desktop computer. Which is great for speed but awkward when you want to type something, say, an email or a blog entry. The way sites appear on tablets keeps changing and not always in a more user-friendly manner (Outlook, I'm looking at you). And trying to log off LiveJournal is an exercise in frustration as the drop down menu repeatedly refuses to open and I keep getting sent to my Recent Entries page. Hence, quietness.

I actually prefer using a desktop. A mouse and a proper keyboard are marvellous inventions. Using the desktop, however, leads to a whole day vanishing with me in my room doing... not very much as it happens, apart, perhaps, from getting a headache.

I should probably buy a laptop or lapbook or whatever they're called now but I was brought up not to 'waste' money on 'luxuries' like the latest model of gadget unless they were absolutely, totally necessary. Or unless someone else bought them for me. (Which is partially why I'm still using a pre-paid phone when everyone else in my family has switched to contract.) I am a late adopter - so late, it's a wonder I can operate in the 21st century at all.

It's annoying.

New job. Well, initially it didn't turn out to be all that new. The powers-that-be decided I should do the exact same work that I was doing, just in a different place. I was not a happy bunny but met with the usual 'business needs' bullshit. BUT. The new workplace has a greater variety and number of job posts available; three transfers came up in quick succession and third time, it seems, is the charm. I now have an actual, new, I've-never-done-this-before job. Although I suspect I got it because I was the only one who applied... but hey! New job! :D I am much happier.

Other news. I love living in the city again. I was born and raised in the country and don't get me wrong, I'm quite content there, but I love the city-life too. I love the streets, I love the bustle. I love the walking, the public transport, the sense of convenience: that you can just hop on a bus or train or walk out of the door and go somewhere. I love that sense of being surrounded by people, even if they are strangers who don't talk to you.

I still need to arrange a social life outside of work, though. It's a little too easy to come home at night and veg out with my sister in front of the TV...

Cicisbeo (pronounced chitch-is-BAY-oh) - a married woman's male companion or lover.

This is awesome! I didn't even know there was a word for such a thing :D

(I am such a language nerd lol.)

...EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am FINALLY getting Karen Hallion's Belle and the TARDIS on a T-shirt which is NOT that hideous green which is the only colour it was available in up until now!!!! (I went with the charcoal.) IT IS SO STUPID THE LEVEL OF EXCITED I AM ABOUT A FRICKING T-SHIRT EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

I also got the Cinderella one in navy because it just looked so good! But Belle's the one I've really been after. She and Mary Poppins are my two favourites of Ms Hallion's Disney/Doctor mash-ups, and I got the Mary Poppins one about a month ago through another site. My collection is now complete *happy sigh*

"Hello Lovely Scientist..."

Seriously, if this doesn't make you squee, you are clinically dead or maybe a particularly hardline Vulcan XD

I went with my mum to see Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty at the weekend. Yes, this is the Matthew Bourne who did the all-male Swan Lake. Sidebar: actually, it's not all-male; I watched a recording of it on TV and there are plenty of women in the cast, including the main roles of the Queen and the Girlfriend. Also, the central love affair is not so much homosexual as it is bestiality; the Prince has a nervous breakdown in the middle of a park and falls in love with an actual swan (or the vision of one - it's hard to tell with the Prince what's real and what's hallucination).

ANYWAY! Back to the Sleeping Beauty - it was brilliant! ( Spoilers ahead )

And the baby - every review I saw on-line mentions it, so this doesn't count as a spoiler - the baby Aurora is the most adorkable rod puppet, which crawls around the servants' feet and sits up in her crib, shaking hands with the fairies, and tries to climb the curtains at one point :DDDD

The music was pre-recorded, which I was surprised at. At first, I thought that maybe Bourne had gone with some extended symphonic version of the score and it simply isn't possible to fit a proper symphony orchestra into most theatre orchestra pits. But apparently it was done to cut costs so they could spend on the costumes and set designs (which are deliciously lavish, btw). The recording was fine, and I've been to a ballet with recorded music before so I didn't mind. Still you kinda wonder what a live orchestra might have added. I also thought that there was more plot and action - i.e. the entertaining bits - in the first half than in the second; the latter had a few too many atmospheric dreamscapes where nothing much was happening apart from half-nude men in white leggings...

But altogether, Mum and I had a great time!

( Sidebar on the Rose Adagio )

...I think too much about these things, don't I? #^.-#

Sorry I know you guys can't see this, but there's a FOX out in our neighbour's field, in broad freaking daylight, just wandering about, having a sniff :DD There are a handful of cattle in the field; they're just grazing on, foxes don't worry them. I suspect it may be after their dung; I know dogs will eat calf- and cow-dung, foxes probably do too.

2 o'clock in the afternoon. Brilliant.

This past weekend, I happened to look up from my computer just in time to see a buzzard skim low across the back field and then, with two lazy flaps, rise into a tree and land. I raced downstairs to grab the binoculars and get a closer look.

Oh, it was beautiful: broad-chested, marked in brown and black bars against white, with a vivid yellow bill and eyes. It skulked among the leaves, wings hunched, looking around nervously. And with good reason; after a few minutes, two magpies arrived and started hassling it, hopping about the branches. (Sidebar: I'm rather fond of magpies - except when they start making that smoker's-cough noise in the early morning outside my window.) The buzzard bore it for a while but then it just dropped from the tree and flew away, low to the ground.

I wish I could have gotten some pictures but (a) I didn't know where my camera was and (b) it doesn't have a good enough zoom to take a shot at such a distance (I was viewing all this through the kitchen window). But it lifted my heart to see such a lovely and unexpected sight. I love watching birds in flight. The elegance, the control, that sharp silhouette of wings and tail. And when they're flocking, the way they wheel and glide, rise and fall in eerie, rippling coordination, makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. We live in an amazing and lovely world, and (at the risk of sounding like one of those slighty manic/creepy Christians) I am very grateful to God for that.

50 246!!!



*cue Hallelujah Chorus, 1812 Overture, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony... you get the idea*

*collapses*

Oooooooh, man! Saturday and Sunday, I thought for sure I would NEVER make it in time. Sorry I haven't been keeping you updated on progress but I simply didn't have time; I was spending every spare second I had, furiously trying to bring my word count up!

*collapses again*

For the record, the novel is not finished. I'm only at chapter 14! But that's an amazing achievement - Company of Ravens has been stuck at single figures for YEARS. Word counting is obviously the way for me to go. And yes, I do intend to finish it. I will take a brief break from writing - I didn't get my chapter-by-chapter outline finished before NaNo began and I will do that now - but then, I'll pick another word target, another time period and to quote Dorey, 'just keep swimming just keep swimming just keep swimming swimming swimming...'

I will post later with my word counts leading up to today and a deeper analysis of the whole experience. Right now, I need lunch.

Got a text from a friend just now, asking me how I was getting on. I replied:

"Working like a dog! If a dog could read and type and was allowed in the library."

Just occasionally, I can come up with a witticism like that, and it makes me feel actually clever. *smirks and preens*