We are so sacrireligious. And weird.

[brigdh]

My family's conversation, as we pulled into the church's parking lot on Christmas morning:

Me: Um, there's no one here.
My Brother: Why are there no cars in the parking lot?
Mom: Maybe it's a 12:30 mass instead of 12:00? Go run up to the door and see if they have their hours posted.
My Brother: But even the lights are turned off.
Me: Even if it was 12:30, there'd still be a few people here by now. Like... the priest.
Dad: I think we missed it.
Mom: Um, whoops?
Me:...WHOOOOOO! Best Present Yet!
My Brother: It's a Christmas miracle!
Mom: It is so not fair that Brigdh is the only one who got her prayers granted.

And then we went home and watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin, because if there's a movie that more accurately portrays Christmas morning family togetherness, I don't know what it is.

My tradition of getting out of attending church by bizarre events, such as major ice-storms and electricity black-outs, continues unbroken.

Comments

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

Well, the French are just sort of nuts.

This isn't a very useful mood icon, but I've run into so few people who have even heard of M -- let alone love it -- that I couldn't resist:



And in exchange for your annoyingly inspirational narrative, I'll try to post this quote I ran across on the creative process which -- for me at least -- has something of Emerson's alienated majesty; because, damn, even though it's about making typefaces of all things, it just nails what writing is like for me. Now if only I can find it again...

And I think perhaps the fundamental problem with my story isn't that it's not working -- though it's not right now -- but that I feel deeply ambivalent about what it's working towards. The emotional range is so much louder and messier than I'm used to working in, and I'm also being forced to much more explicit which frankly frustrates me to no end. And, god, the sprawl. It's like jumping from painting miniatures to Turneresque landscapes, but all you have to work with is single hair brushes. Gah!

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Oh, shiny! Thank you! And really, I fear it is indeed useful as a mood icon. It would be nice if that look of utter terror were never appropriate, but that's not the world I live in. Why, I've read stories in my time that could barely even be mentioned without an accompanying icon that looked just like this one.

Your story only sounds more intriguing the more I hear about the precise nature of the pain it's causing you. But God, do I ever sympathize with the difficulties involved. One of the maddening things about writing is the way it makes you design and build all your own tools. If you really were jumping from miniatures to Turneresque landscapes, you could at least go out and buy some big brushes (or you could if you had sufficient money to throw at the problem, at least). But no. You're a writer, so you have to figure out what kind of fiber you need to make the brush you want, and then learn to select the best fibers and bind them properly before you can even think about using them. Anybody would be frustrated, and all of us usually are.

Nevertheless, I have every faith that the results are going to be worth it. And at least once you have the new brushes you can use them forever.