Goodnight, Cora.

Thank you for everything you gave us. So much of what we have, we owe to you... to your generosity, your wisdom and your love. Even those of us who never met you.

For my own part, I wish I'd been brave enough to have gone to meet you, to have told you that in person. Silly me. I'll learn one day, I suppose.

In the meantime, see the fires we burn this Beltane: all these twinkling candles, all these balefires, all these burning hearts. We burn now for you, as well. Your name is on our lips and in our hearts, and we will remember you and shine all the brighter for that.

And please, pass some of that on to Victor too, if you would.

Be blessed. Ashé.

When you lie to yourself, you lie to everyone.
—Marillion, "Map of the World", Anoraknophobia

This is just a post to remind me of an interesting lyric and has nothing to do with anyone or anything in particular.

I am, of course, lying. But at least I'm honest about it.

Sometimes, I hate being right.

I am amazed at how often people forget that I am an observant person.

I know I said this at least twice, but once more for posterity: my sincere thanks to all of you who came over to help with the loading. Your help made a nigh-Herculean labour much easier, and I am indebted to all of you.

Now, on to part two.

[EDIT: This post was originally titled "(gr)attitude", but then munoz and ideaspace got all syntactical on my ass. Blame them.]

Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I who saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?

— Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, Part I, iii, 76-80

...happy anniversary, pooka.

I love you.

I don't know how to explain the significance of this news to anyone who wasn't there, so I'm not even going to try.

The True Love Coffeehouse is back.

As you're all probably aware, I am not a professional comics reviewer—or, for that matter, a professional reviewer of anything else. If you read my blog on any kind of regular basis, however, you're also aware that I do occasionally write about books, movies, music, and even comics. I make no claims to critical objectivity or special training in this; I just write about whether or not I think it's any damned good, and why.

The reason I bring this up is that I received a copy of Flytrap: Juggling Act in the mail the other day, and it's really damned good. Thus, this post.

The first disclaimer I should mention is that I did not, in fact, pay for this comic; I received it in trade for a copy of The Kimberly Trip's new album. I'm told by reasonably sober sources—well, they were reasonably sober at the time, anyway—that this is common practice among us "media artist types", and that it doesn't necessarily skew my perspective, but I thought I should mention it.

The second disclaimer is that Sara Ryan, the comic's writer, is, in addition to being a damn fine novelist, an old friend of mine. Steve Lieber, the other half of the comic's creative team, is an award-winning comics artist whose work can be seen in Whiteout, Whiteout: Melt (a panel of which, if memory serves, I modelled for), and lots of other keen places.

The point is, I actually know these folks In Real Life. Again, that doesn't necessarily skew my perspective, but again, I thought I should mention it.

Flytrap: Juggling Act is a short story about Maddy, a nice young woman who is having The Hands-Down Worst Day Of Her Life. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that the title is a pun, and if you're reading this and you can't relate to this story in some way, I want your job. (Hell, I want your life.) Maddy has all the conveniences of modern life: a good job, a car, a boyfriend, and a lot of self-deception about what's really going on in her world. She's set herself up for a fall, and Ryan and Leiber show us that collapse as a quick series of chain reactions, each leading to the next. It's realistic, it's painful, and it's funny in an "ever have one of those days?" way. The artwork adds to that almost-rushed feeling; some of the panels look almost sketched, while others have an attention to detail that borders on the kind of hyperfocus you get when your world is falling apart around you. The subject matter may seem a little mundane, but the story brings home the point that nothing is mundane when it's happening to you.

The only realy criticism I have is that it's too short. The story, while ostensibly complete in itself, is clearly the first installment of a much larger story, and I wanted more time to engage with the characters. The last few panels are clearly intended to leave us with a "what happens next?" feeling... and in my case, it worked. I'm curious to see where the story is heading, and to see what Ryan and Leiber do with Maddy as a character.

Which is probably the point.

So, yeah. This definitely gets a "thumbs up" from me, and is emphatically worth the cover price. You should go check it out.

(Oh, and I like the part where Maddy's in the shower too, Steve.)

And, in addition to everything else going on right now—just to up the ante on my stress levels, you know—I'm getting grief at work for not catching other people's screw-ups, on the principle that, since I know they screw up, it's part of my job to catch those screw-ups and fix them, in addition to everything else I do.

I'm about two clicks away from screaming. No, really.

I do not need this right now.

This past weekend was largely focused on tour-riffic madness with The Kimberly Trip, except for the parts that werent.

( It just goes on, and on, and on... )

After finally finding the damned iPod, I also finally got around to updating it. Now I can listen to my own band's new album without having to borrow someone's CD player—oh, the humiliation!—as well as several other albums (Genesis, the Dresden Dolls, Babalon, Nuit, Yes, etc.) I've been remiss about actually getting loaded onto the iPod after I ripped them. This brought me to the not-terribly-surprising realisation that 10gb is, I'm sad to say, simply not enough space.

Oh, well. At least I found the iPod and put new music on it. We take our victories where we find them... which seems to be a theme lately.

I think it's time to go clean the litterbox and go to bed.

Goodnight, LiveJournal.

This quote is on my desktop wallpaper, and it's been coming up in my head all day:

A rational person will not expect the world to conform around their ideas.

They understand that they must conform to the conventions of the rational world.

Therefore, all of the important breakthroughs are accomplished by irrational people.

— David Mack, Kabuki

Small consolation, I suppose, but we take what we can get.

I think I need to reread Kabuki now.

I really should be in bed... but I'm a moron with too little blood in my caffeinestream.

So, as ganked from copperwise...

1. Go to this site: http://www.musicoutfitters.com/
2. In the search box in the upper right hand corner, enter the year you graduated from high school.
3. The first item returned should be the top 100 songs from that year. Cut and paste them into your journal.
4. Bold the ones you like, underline your favorite, and strike through the songs you loathe.

( The Top 100 of 1990, complete with editorial snark by Yours Truly... )

I keep trying to type something in here, only to delete it half-written or fail to type it at all. I think this is probably a sign I should shut my proverbial mouth and go to bed, or at least close the Xjournal window and do something else.

Good night, LiveJournal. Sleep well.

From ericfate...

( Books, buying habits, childhood games and posterity. )

(Wanna play? Click me.)

From erce...

( Personality typing, old guitars, DIDs, school and old-school. )

(Wanna play? Click me.)

From uncledark...

( Religion, writers and sprogging. )

(Wanna play? Click me.)

From wildchildfbnbg...

( Love, sex, success and fruit. )

(Wanna play? Click me.)

From mamarhi:

( Fish, books, eyes, siblings and crayons. )

(Wanna play? Click me.)

Questions from mermaidinblack...

( Kitten, guitars, mystic woowoo, candy and childhood! )

(Wanna play? Click me.)