incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

The ebook edition of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, one of the best books I've read in years, is currently $2.99 at B&N and Amazon. And it's a big thick book too, so you'll be saving your hands as well as your wallet.

Or perhaps is surpassed by? Punctuation: no longer just for dragon-rider style names.

I don't actually believe the universe owes me anything, but all the same:

If the Giants (Chad's team) and the Patriots (my team) both win next week, so that they face each other again in the Super Bowl:

I got dibs on the Pats winning. Not only did they lose the Super Bowl in 2008, but they lost this year when I was in freaking labor—

I am owed a victory.

I stitched Christmas presents again this year, this time "Charmed Ornament" kits from Mill Hill Beads. I really liked how these came out, and they were mostly quite fun to stitch too.

( pictures of six ornaments )

For all that these were fun to do, I'm taking a break from stitching gifts this year, because I haven't made any progress on my other projects.

Oh, and if anyone wants the leftover beads, let me know. I can look up the precise types if necessary. Claimed!

Also posted to cross_stitch.

One: our dystopic present: Slate on the business of international surrogacy.

Two: my sleep schedule is so variable that I can't say whether f.lux is helping me sleep better, but it is a lot more pleasant to look at my computer in a dimly-lit room at night with f.lux's adjustments to the screen color.

Three: I'll be at Boskone with Chad and the Pip, mostly doing the lobbycon thing since, well, the Pip. This will also preclude me from running a bake sale this year; if anyone wants to take that on, I'd be glad to advise and help. And I hope to see some of you there.

By the way, now and for the rest of the month, you don't need an invite code or to pay to create a Dreamwidth account.

ETA: if you are using an LJ S2 style (if you don't know what that means, you probably are): go to settings / display and check "View comment pages from my Friends page in my own style" to get back the missing functionality of preview, dropdown icon selection, and comment subjects (but realize that not everyone will see your comment subjects depending on their own style).

The 20 Unhappiest People You Meet In The Comments Sections Of Year-End Lists (and many other places).

So I've just finished Kalpa Imperial by Angelica Gorodischer (translated by Ursula Le Guin), and now I'm stuck for what to read next.

Here's the problem, the way Kalpa Imperial starts:

The storyteller said: Now that the good winds are blowing, now that we’re done with days of anxiety and nights of terror, now that there are no more denunciations, persecutions, secret executions and whim and madness have departed from the heart of the Empire and we and our children aren’t playthings of blind power; now that a just man sits on the Golden Throne and people look peacefully out of their doors to see if the weather’s fine and plan their vacations and kids go to school and actors put their hearts into their lines and girls fall in love and old men die in their beds and poets sing and jewelers weigh gold behind their little windows and gardeners rake the parks and young people argue and innkeepers water the wine and teachers teach what they know and we storytellers tell old stories and archivists archive and fishermen fish and all of us can decide according to our talents and lack of talents what to do with our life -- now anyone can enter the emperor’s palace out of need or curiosity; anybody can visit that great house which was for so many years forbidden, prohibited, defended by armed guards, locked and as dark as the souls of the Warrior Emperors of the dynasty of the Ellydrovides.

(Nicked from papersky's review.)

That is, as you can see, kind of a hard act to follow. I'm thinking maybe I want something with a very strong first-person voice? Or something elegantly minimalist? Any suggestions?

(Hmm. Maybe Octavian Nothing, but that might be kind of harsh. I'd go for some nonfiction, but I want strong narrative too.)

ETA: I have just remembered that what I need to do next is review source for a Yuletide beta that I said I'd do, but further recs are welcome all the same.

So I feel the need to put two disclaimers on this post: first, it contains medical unpleasantness that might be considered a bit gory, and second (for those contemplating their first delivery), it is absolutely not a typical chain of events.

The short version is that I had, not the worst of both worlds (since nothing irreparable happened), but the most: a C-section, with some complications, at about the furthest point possible in labor.

( the long version )

And so, in conclusion:

1. Chad and I apparently have babies with big, hard heads;
2. I have comically long contractions when in labor;
3. I don't know if, after this, my doctor would let me attempt a vaginal birth again;
4. But it shouldn't matter, because we were already planning on two and only two kids, and so when I told Chad, first thing when I saw him in the recovery room, "I love you very much and we're never doing this again," it was not actually a new decision prompted by the whole experience;
5. Even though I meant it (and he agreed);
6. Look, an adorable baby!