I've just been chosen Australia's Cool Site of the Day! Exciting!
It's a stunningly beautiful morning, though I suppose not everyone would think so. The snow has been coming down for many hours now, steadily, and all the trees and fenceposts and bushes and porch chairs that I can see from my back window are covered in powdery layers. Like ice cream, or magic. Very still and quiet -- all the normal street noises are muffled or gone (many people staying in today), and since Karina's still asleep, I can almost pretend that the world has gone away and it's just me and the snow. Some of the strongest moments of my life have been encased in snow and rain.
I wanted to tell you a little more about that LeGuin book I mentioned yesterday. I was so caught up in my own reactions to it that I didn't tell you about it, and I have a feeling that many of you may enjoy it as much as I did. See, it's the story of a geek. An intellectual. A smart guy who is caving in under the pressure to confirm. A teenager in love/lust/etc. And I liked it a lot. Even her fluffier books, (like Rocannon's World which I read this morning) has something to them that makes me think. I'm going to quote you the bit they have on the inside front cover (the flyleaf?) of Very Far Away...:
"I've had high points before. Once at night walking in the park in the rain in autumn. Once out in the desert, under the stars, when I turned into the earth turning on its axis. Sometimes thinking, just thinking things through. But always alone. By myself. This time I was not alone. I was on the high mountain with a friend. There is nothing, there is nothing that beats that. If it never happens again in my life, still I can say I was there once."
So go read it. It's a very short book.
Funny how important old lovers stay in your life. Looking back now, most of my best friends are people I once dated -- maybe it's just that they know you better than anyone else does.
Going back two nights to something I missed -- the folk gathering was fantastic. My friend Abby drove me up, and we sang from about 9:30 to 2:00 am. There's a certain high you get when you're singing well in a group -- it's like a writing high, or dancing, but the collaboration adds something to it -- each time you think you've plateaued and you're as happy as you're going to get, someone else starts singing an old song you'd forgotten you knew or teaches you a variant or extra verses to one of your favorites or you just listen to some really fantastic playing on an instrument you can't play and it just lifts you higher and higher.
The next morning I spent at Abby's bookstore (am I jealous she owns her own bookstore? naaahhh...) spending too much money and not regretting it at all. Picked up a silly/cool button too - "If you've never said 'excuse me' to a parking meter or bashed your shins on a fireplug, you're probably wasting too much valuable reading time." My friends tell me that some day I'm going to get killed because I cross streets with a book in front of my face. I think I have radar. :-)