Deborah Kalin's Blog, page 23

no, i'm not pining, whyever do you ask that?

Those of you who follow me via Faecesbook Facebook may have gathered that I fell in love with the horses while I was over there.

I was always taught that the official definition of horse vs pony was simply that a pony was under 14 hands high at the withers. Turns out from a quick google this may actually be a competition-only definition, and that ponies have a different conformation to horses. Whatever, my point is that I had a terrible time not crying out "Look at the PONIES!", which I...

tell the rambler, the gambler, the back-biter

I have been the slightest bit remiss, of late, in my authorly duties. Or rather in broadcasting to you all just how my authorly duties have been carrying on while I wasn't watching. (Damn things require careful supervision, or they start nesting in the corners. You know how it is.)

So!

First up, a little whiles back I participated in an discussion-type interview about writers and writing.

Writers deal in conundrums and contradictions, striving to "open a vein", as the saying goes, and tap...

impatience for the new excludes … the new

A couple of weeks ago, I heard a new song I instinctively liked, which turned out to be by … Let's call this artist Hot New Thang.1

But after a couple more listens, I just started to feel cheated and, eventually, resentful.

The reason is simple: HNT's song has a very distinctive sound to it. Someone else's sound.

Now, being a writer rather than a musician, I haven't spent a whole lot of time analysing music and its nuances, so it's possible my ear is simply not refined enough to hear the...

what do you mean this isn't a photoblog?

now THIS is how you drive an ambulance: backwards. in a crocheted cardigan and corduroy pants. watch and learn, my friends, watch and learn.

Also, does it alarm anyone else that the ambulance looks more like a hearse with a red cross hastily pasted on? Like some kind of horror-story-esque vehicle that vivisects its patients en route to the "hospital"?

Well, that, or the Ghostbusters car.

it went like this: girl. gift. grin.

she's clutching a mickey mouse colouring-in book

i am this close to declaring to-do-list bankruptcy

Since the old routine was proving difficult to groove back into, post-Mongolia, I've been trying out a new routine. It's not quite working yet.

Previously I'd been landing early at the dayjob, and writing after I clocked off. This has the benefit of my morning tram not being a peak hour one, and the library, where I'm sure not to be interrupted, is open for my writing session. But the library is in the wrong direction, away from home, and errands tend to be scheduled in my writing time. All...

real post coming, er, yeah. yanno.

I cannot TELL you how much I want one of these:

photos just don't do it justice

I find there are two things I keep saying about Mongolia.

First, that I frustratingly couldn't fit the country into my camera, and second, that its extremes of weather, and the swiftness with which one extreme followed the other, gave me climate whiplash.

I started off in UB, which to my delight was unseasonably warm for the time of year — daytime temperatures of around 27°C instead of the 15°C I'd expected.

Then I headed south, towards the Gobi, and the days got hotter. If you've ever been...

can somebody please tell me why i'm starving?

Mongolian men have no qualms about asking for directions when they're not sure of the way,1 which is lucky because I could count on one hand the number of road signs I spotted — and the road signs follow the same rules as maps in Mongolia.

Namely, they're just supposed to be, you know, vaguely approximate.

or, wait, is that downright confusing you meant?

Even leaving aside the whole left/right dilemma,2 I'd swear to you that monastery was far more than 35km beyond the sign.

The trick is...

because

I suppose the most famous Mongol is as good a place as any to start.

When I first decided to visit Mongolia, mostly people reacted with a stunned blink and the question "…Why?" It's one I find impossible to answer briefly without sounding dismissive, and equally impossible to answer at length without starting to ramble and get repetitious, so in the end I gave up and grinned and said, "Because!" or "Why not?!"

Sometimes I'd throw in a comment about Genghis, because he was an astonishing...