felis_ultharus

So for anyone who isn't aware, I'll be in BC from this Saturday to the Sunday of the following weekend. I might detour to Vancouver at some point, but I'll be staying mostly around Victoria area.

The last few days I've been mostly making preparations -- including a few shopping trips. I used the trip as an excuse to buy new clothes, which I've needed due to wear-and-tear, and because I've gone down several waist sizes this year. Maybe I'll be able to fit my kilt at Pride.

Other than that, I've been working heavily on my preliminary edit of the novel. I'm nearly 70% done. I want to finished -- and ready for the big edit -- by the time I go to BC.

I'm doing a fair bit better today than I was yesterday (see f-locked entry). My flu already seems to have peaked -- I probably shouldn't have gone to work yesterday -- and a good night's sleep and some gunpowder tea have worked wonders. I might be able to handle socializing tonight.

One thing about having lived that kind of poverty is it really does make you appreciate little things like warm tea and warmer blankets. It may have killed a perfect sense of routine in me, and made me have trouble seeing the point of things like equity and RRSPs, credit ratings and real estate. It's probably why I have such a hard time conceiving of property.

But it's also a good thing because learning the stupidity of accumulating stuff is a very good lesson to get early on. Half the people I interact with on a daily basis seem eaten by the things they believe themselves to own.

I've been getting rid of a lot of unnecessary stuff I've packratted away the last month, and it feels good. What feels even better is that last night, after a long nap that took the edge off a growing nausea, I finished the latest draft of the novel. Now it'll require a couple of weeks of editing, and then go back into my editors' hands, if they're still willing.

I'm also reading The Tombs of Atuan -- the sequel to my favourite fantasy novel, A Wizard of Earthsea. That's been my favourite now for more than half my life, and I've read it three times, but only now am I getting to the sequel.

Yesterday, I got the manga I'd been waiting six years for. Neon Genesis Evangelion -- volume 10.

I loved it. It's still a little ambiguous, but the homoeroticism is much more front-and-centre than in the anime, and the relationship between Kaworu and Shinji is better developed -- and Kaworu's transformation is better plotted, too ^_^

The story's better, too, at this point. The manga was written by the anime's art director, not its writer and director, and didn't begin very well. Over the sries, it's gotten better and better -- much more lucid and understandable, at least -- and the changes in the plot actually work.

In other news, I'm doing better, but I'm not quite okay yet. I started eating more solid food yesterday -- I'd barely eaten anything for five days -- and that seems to be helping my recovery.

I was in bed with a fever most of yesterday. I tried my best to go into work this morning, but started throwing up. I left a message with one of my coworkers, but she didn't come into work either (her daughter has the same thing), so I got an irritated call from another coworker around 9 asking why I wasn't in.

I'm doing a fair bit better, now. I can get around, now, and even went down to Pharmaprix to get my allergy medication.

I only got 800 words written yesterday.

I did finally finish reading the Peredur cycle in the Mabinogion. Turned out that half the women Peredur interacted with (including the maiden carrying the Spear of Longinus, and the severed head that replaces the Grail in this version) were actually a shapechanging teenage boy in magical drag.

I'll let you make of that what you will.

Finishing Henry IV, part 1 is a little disappointing. It was the first time I'd read a Shakespeare play without stumbling across one of the famous quotations or sayings -- no "Romeo, Romeo," no "All the world's a stage," no "To be or not to be."

After a brief stop at Shakespeare's sonnets, I moved on to John Donne. I'm still a little surprised -- given how censored my high school experience was -- that we studied "Batter my heart three-personed God" in high school.

I mean, it ends with Donne asking God to rape him -- "Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me." I'm surprised the guardians of morality that pared sex education to the bone (as it were) at my school didn't have a heart attack over this one.

Now I'm done (Donne?) with the Renaissance, so I'm on to John Milton -- the only truly great poet of puritan England.

Meanwhile, for those who are keeping track, my dentist says that my problem is inflamed gums -- nothing serious, just painful. It's relatively easy to fix, and she told me it's the kind of thing I can wait for, so I'm waiting until my insurance kicks in.

In the meantime, the pain is coming and going in waves.

Life

I thought I was on the mend, but I had to come home dizzy from work today. It was still too soon after the surgery. I hope I'm not coming down with a fever (my doctor was worried).

Politics

I flew off the handle yesterday when I discovered that hole in the government records. Turns out it's not something Harper's been plotting, but a procedural void. All four parties are responsible -- I don't think they even realize that their votes aren't being recorded in some circumstances.

I'm going to present an emergency motion to the NDP's convention in September. This procedural hole is fairly easy to fix, as soon as politicians notice the hole is there.

Even if Harper isn't responsible for the hole in the records, with his attacks on the press right now, we need accurate government records to keep track of what all the parties are doing. This is the worst time to have gaps in the records, and so far there's been a gap for every single vote this year on a government bill.

General Geekery

Everyone who's ever seen Neon Genesis Evangelion is actually required to go here. Yes, that's the law. I checked.

I'd issue a spoiler warning for everyone elese, but I think they'd all just be lost.

I love Evangelion. But it is really pretentious. I think I'd hate it as a book. Too James Joyce.

Maybe if Finnegan's Wake was done as an anime, it would be more enjoyable. If Joyce had giant cyborgs, badly-done quantum mechanics, and homoerotic subtext, I'd like him more.

Okay, Shakespeare is really creepy. I can't believe it took me so long to notice.

I mean, it's not just the co-dependent 14-year-olds with their suicide pact (Romeo and Juliet).

I'm re-reading the sonnets right now, and about 126 of them are devoted to a young man who the poet is in love/in lust with. Shakespeare goes on and on about this guy's beauty, and about how he must reproduce to preserve that beauty in another generation. Shakespeare promises the young man immortality through his poetry, and the poet laments that he has a penis because the young man is heterosexual. Then he goes on some more about the guy's beauty.

I was trying to imagine how a straight man would react to 126 poems from another man obsessing over his beauty, and whether or not he reproduces and generates good-looking children. The words "restraining order" came to mind.

On a less ethereal plane, I seem to have developed a minor peanut allergy. So far, it's nothing dangerous, but I've heard these things can get worse with repeat exposure, so I'm going to have to be careful to avoid things with nuts in them :/