Gillian Polack's Blog, page 285
November 14, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-11-14T20:14:00
I want to make severely intelligent observations tonight. Do you, for instance, that it's exactly the same temperature outside right now as the coolest temperature we achieved overnight last night? Lifechanging, that data.
What I've been spending my time today actually doing is not studying air temperatures, however fascinating they might be. I've almost finished sorting out that big pile of notes I created and sorted and then resorted. What this means is that I have a structure and can do more bibliographying and then start on the note cycle again. Or I can write love scenes, which I also did. I nearly wrote a love scene with attendant bibliography, but decided that the bibliography didn't add to the mood, so it had to go. It was a sad, sad moment. Life is always better with bibliographies. One day I shall write a love scene with bibliography *and* footnotes. It may be unpublishable, but it will be a lot of fun. Bibliography, footnotes and recipes, in fact.
I think that last means it's dinnertime.
PS I've also been looking at Middle French proverbs. I'm totally full of them right now (normally I'm just full of other things) so if you want to know how to say that something is hard as a diamond (which is 'hard as a diamond' in actual fact*) just ask.
*By 'actual fact' I, of course, mean fourteenth century French. Every other time I use 'fact' or 'in fact' or 'actual fact' I don't mean fourteenth century French. This useful bit of information was brought to you by the world of footnotes.
What I've been spending my time today actually doing is not studying air temperatures, however fascinating they might be. I've almost finished sorting out that big pile of notes I created and sorted and then resorted. What this means is that I have a structure and can do more bibliographying and then start on the note cycle again. Or I can write love scenes, which I also did. I nearly wrote a love scene with attendant bibliography, but decided that the bibliography didn't add to the mood, so it had to go. It was a sad, sad moment. Life is always better with bibliographies. One day I shall write a love scene with bibliography *and* footnotes. It may be unpublishable, but it will be a lot of fun. Bibliography, footnotes and recipes, in fact.
I think that last means it's dinnertime.
PS I've also been looking at Middle French proverbs. I'm totally full of them right now (normally I'm just full of other things) so if you want to know how to say that something is hard as a diamond (which is 'hard as a diamond' in actual fact*) just ask.
*By 'actual fact' I, of course, mean fourteenth century French. Every other time I use 'fact' or 'in fact' or 'actual fact' I don't mean fourteenth century French. This useful bit of information was brought to you by the world of footnotes.
November 13, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-11-13T17:55:00
My handwriting never ceases to entertain me. I just read "Deus in loco sancto" as "Deus in 1000 sancto."
Weather is *still* incoming. I am so tired of it (and the pain that goes with it) that I've taken to eating icecream.
Weather is *still* incoming. I am so tired of it (and the pain that goes with it) that I've taken to eating icecream.
gillpolack @ 2010-11-13T14:01:00
The numbers on Canberra busses are very clear and rather big, I just discovered. Shopping centres are full of writing and the people in them have eyes and interesting hair and lines on their faces. Space has three dimensions, which is something my brain knew about but which I couldn't really see before. And it's much easier than it used to be to not bump into people, now dimensionality has returned.
The only message not done is my honeydew melon (I needed one - I wonder if I imagine having one, will that be the same?). It's amazing how much faster it is to find things and do things when one can see.
I want to lyricise for six hours, but that would make a long blogpost. Instead I'll point out that the messages were all done before there was more than a spit of rain (sometimes weather sense is handy) and that my new glasses are lighter than my reading glasses which, until an hour and a half ago, were the lightest glasses I had ever owned. The lady helping me in the optometrist's laughed aloud when I asked "Is this how a normal person feels when wearing glasses?" Apparently it is. I'm wearing glasses that are not any heavier than anyone else's. It made my day and my joy in it made her day and the whole shop took on an air of having sampled nitrous oxide.
The only message not done is my honeydew melon (I needed one - I wonder if I imagine having one, will that be the same?). It's amazing how much faster it is to find things and do things when one can see.
I want to lyricise for six hours, but that would make a long blogpost. Instead I'll point out that the messages were all done before there was more than a spit of rain (sometimes weather sense is handy) and that my new glasses are lighter than my reading glasses which, until an hour and a half ago, were the lightest glasses I had ever owned. The lady helping me in the optometrist's laughed aloud when I asked "Is this how a normal person feels when wearing glasses?" Apparently it is. I'm wearing glasses that are not any heavier than anyone else's. It made my day and my joy in it made her day and the whole shop took on an air of having sampled nitrous oxide.
November 12, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-11-13T02:06:00
It's an ill wind tonight. Or it will be, very soon. And it's already blown me much good.
We're on the verge of a weather change. I don't hurt from it yet, but it's stopping me getting to sleep. I gave up on sleep a few minutes ago as a bad job, in fact. I decided that the best possible thing I could do at 2 am was to finish going through my shelves and hauling out the books I intend to finish with this weekend and put back on Monday. So that's all done. Along the way I found my missing manual of demonology. It had cleverly hidden itself with a bunch of Renaissance plays, a book on the Medieval underworld, soem theological stuff, and a life of Nostradamus. Also with much dust.
Now that I have my manual of demonology back, I shall do a few minutes work. I want to take advantage of my tremendous good fortune while things are still quiet outside.
I have kept the manual out, in case any of you have longstanding questions about the use of bat's blood and etc. It's been missing for three years, after all.
We're on the verge of a weather change. I don't hurt from it yet, but it's stopping me getting to sleep. I gave up on sleep a few minutes ago as a bad job, in fact. I decided that the best possible thing I could do at 2 am was to finish going through my shelves and hauling out the books I intend to finish with this weekend and put back on Monday. So that's all done. Along the way I found my missing manual of demonology. It had cleverly hidden itself with a bunch of Renaissance plays, a book on the Medieval underworld, soem theological stuff, and a life of Nostradamus. Also with much dust.
Now that I have my manual of demonology back, I shall do a few minutes work. I want to take advantage of my tremendous good fortune while things are still quiet outside.
I have kept the manual out, in case any of you have longstanding questions about the use of bat's blood and etc. It's been missing for three years, after all.
gillpolack @ 2010-11-12T15:11:00
Overwork pays off, at least 50% of the time. I just got a phonecall. My new glasses are ready for pickup. Tomorrow afternoon I shall be able to see properly. Actually read the numbers on busses and the credits on television. Hooray for the return of distance vision!
gillpolack @ 2010-11-12T14:16:00
Today is one of those days where I look at the work I have to do and get as much of it out of the way as possible. By Monday either some of the other stuff will happen (emails and phonecalls - where are they?) or I shall be an annoying bod who whistles while she works and finds time to make bad jokes. On Monday, fifty books go away, as well. Maybe more, if I take more out and work my way through them tonight, as is my plan.
My way of dealing with interminable waits (and I'm in the middle of a full half dozen interminable waits right now) and things that go wrong (too many to count this week) has always been to stack work up in a pile next to my comfy chair, put something I half-know on TV, and gently work my way through. As I finish with each book and my bibliography gets longer, I feel that at least I'm not marking time.
Right now I have 150 notes that still need processing, and that's what I do at my computer, and I'm about to stack more books next to the chair. When I get sick of one, I move to the other.
At the very least, I shall terrify my PMT out of existence.
My way of dealing with interminable waits (and I'm in the middle of a full half dozen interminable waits right now) and things that go wrong (too many to count this week) has always been to stack work up in a pile next to my comfy chair, put something I half-know on TV, and gently work my way through. As I finish with each book and my bibliography gets longer, I feel that at least I'm not marking time.
Right now I have 150 notes that still need processing, and that's what I do at my computer, and I'm about to stack more books next to the chair. When I get sick of one, I move to the other.
At the very least, I shall terrify my PMT out of existence.
November 11, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-11-11T22:40:00
I should have signed up for NaNoWriMo: I written 20,000 words since the start of November (not counting blog, email and ephemera). Only bits of it are novel, though. And this is not a particularly profuse month. I don't think I want to tally up how many finished publishable words I write in a year. I think the number might worry me.
In other not-news, I'm exactly two thirds through what I intended to complete today. I do suspect that I might have to do some of it tomorrow.
It's hard to be bored in November. I might have to work at it.
In other not-news, I'm exactly two thirds through what I intended to complete today. I do suspect that I might have to do some of it tomorrow.
It's hard to be bored in November. I might have to work at it.
gillpolack @ 2010-11-11T14:57:00
Those emails don't arrive. Nor do the phonecalls I want. What I get instead are phonecalls to repairmen because things break down. Also, one expected but unhappy call from my mother - her aunt just died.
Auntie Peggy was the last of my grandmother's sisters and was a frail-as-cut-glass ninety-nine. I said my farewells to her at the consecration of my stepfather's grave earlier this year. I shall miss her. I shall miss that whole generation. They're all gone now.
I've been thinking this last few weeks how strange it is that I now live in a world where no-one I know was born in the nineteenth century, where no-one I know remembers World War I, where no-one I know can tell me how to wash clothes in a copper from their own experience. I still have many people in my life who know the thirties and the forties, but the early part of the twentieth century is now a thing of books and film.
With the loss of all those people, other family members are taking on the stories. Just the other week, my cousin said "When I was a child C used to tell me that she walked barefoot for miles in the snow to get to school." I had been told that part of the family came from Bielarus, but she thought it was the Ukraine. I need to sort that one out with a map and timeline. Auntie Peggy though, was from another branch of the family. She was born somewhere between Kishinev and Perth - that's another thing I need to check out. My grandmother was born in Cairo, but not, I think, Auntie Peggy. She was born a refugee. Both of them were refugees from when they were born until 1913.
I like it that Auntie Peggy died on Armistice Day, given she came to Australia on a military vessel during World War I. She had a good life after that. I miss her. Not the exhausted aunt of old age and frailty, but the robust aunt I grew up with.
Now they're all gone. Uncle Max died first. I never knew him. He died over France during World War II and is buried with his British crew in a French churchyard. Everyone else endured. Uncle Sol did some amazing community work for returned servicemen and was one of the group who was responsible for cleaning up the Yarra and giving it back its social nature. Auntie Pearl made skirts and somehow kept us all together. Grandma was writ large in life (I need to tell more of her stories one day). Auntie Nyn was a flamboyant square dancer. Auntie Teddy was... I don't need to list them all. Just miss them.
I am so grateful that Australia's refugee policy permitted my great-grandparents and their children to come here in 1913 - even with a dodgy passport and the White Australia policy (and Jews from Kishinev were not 'white') my great-grandmother was allowed in. Ten years they wandered before they found a home in Melbourne. it's a long time to be running from hate, and a long time to keep finding it. Some of the things that happened on the way were appalling. This is the branch of the family that survived the Kishinev pogroms. My grandmother's grandfather told his children "Kids, run away" (except in Yiddish, obviously).
The earliest picture we have of my grandmother and some of her sisters is on the passport that allowed them into this country. As boat people. And so I am here, making no sense, because mostly, I'm beginning to realise that Auntie Peggy is gone and with her, her generation. I can't talk about her herself yet. I haven't quite sorted that she's gone.
Auntie Peggy was the last of my grandmother's sisters and was a frail-as-cut-glass ninety-nine. I said my farewells to her at the consecration of my stepfather's grave earlier this year. I shall miss her. I shall miss that whole generation. They're all gone now.
I've been thinking this last few weeks how strange it is that I now live in a world where no-one I know was born in the nineteenth century, where no-one I know remembers World War I, where no-one I know can tell me how to wash clothes in a copper from their own experience. I still have many people in my life who know the thirties and the forties, but the early part of the twentieth century is now a thing of books and film.
With the loss of all those people, other family members are taking on the stories. Just the other week, my cousin said "When I was a child C used to tell me that she walked barefoot for miles in the snow to get to school." I had been told that part of the family came from Bielarus, but she thought it was the Ukraine. I need to sort that one out with a map and timeline. Auntie Peggy though, was from another branch of the family. She was born somewhere between Kishinev and Perth - that's another thing I need to check out. My grandmother was born in Cairo, but not, I think, Auntie Peggy. She was born a refugee. Both of them were refugees from when they were born until 1913.
I like it that Auntie Peggy died on Armistice Day, given she came to Australia on a military vessel during World War I. She had a good life after that. I miss her. Not the exhausted aunt of old age and frailty, but the robust aunt I grew up with.
Now they're all gone. Uncle Max died first. I never knew him. He died over France during World War II and is buried with his British crew in a French churchyard. Everyone else endured. Uncle Sol did some amazing community work for returned servicemen and was one of the group who was responsible for cleaning up the Yarra and giving it back its social nature. Auntie Pearl made skirts and somehow kept us all together. Grandma was writ large in life (I need to tell more of her stories one day). Auntie Nyn was a flamboyant square dancer. Auntie Teddy was... I don't need to list them all. Just miss them.
I am so grateful that Australia's refugee policy permitted my great-grandparents and their children to come here in 1913 - even with a dodgy passport and the White Australia policy (and Jews from Kishinev were not 'white') my great-grandmother was allowed in. Ten years they wandered before they found a home in Melbourne. it's a long time to be running from hate, and a long time to keep finding it. Some of the things that happened on the way were appalling. This is the branch of the family that survived the Kishinev pogroms. My grandmother's grandfather told his children "Kids, run away" (except in Yiddish, obviously).
The earliest picture we have of my grandmother and some of her sisters is on the passport that allowed them into this country. As boat people. And so I am here, making no sense, because mostly, I'm beginning to realise that Auntie Peggy is gone and with her, her generation. I can't talk about her herself yet. I haven't quite sorted that she's gone.
November 10, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-11-11T10:52:00
Today is a day for waiting. I've been waiting for things in the snailmail for a week and a half now, and also various emails.
I've decided to make it into a little competition with myself. How much other work can I get done before those slow emails and even slower snailmail arrive? I've made myself a list of the least amount I should do in a day without other interruptions: one manuscript evaluation (don't wince - we're only talking a few thousand words), 150 pages of fact checking for someone, the next section of notes turned into outline for my own novel, all my urgent emails, a recipe test for Conflux, some housework, some reading of fiction (because this whole lifestyle falls down if I don't read - and why do all the writing and study and etceteras if it means I have to give up reading fine novels?).
When I've done all this I'm allowed to watch DVDs, but only if that dratted mail stil hasn't arrived. After TV, I need to do more PhD, so maybe it's better if the delays accrue...
I've decided to make it into a little competition with myself. How much other work can I get done before those slow emails and even slower snailmail arrive? I've made myself a list of the least amount I should do in a day without other interruptions: one manuscript evaluation (don't wince - we're only talking a few thousand words), 150 pages of fact checking for someone, the next section of notes turned into outline for my own novel, all my urgent emails, a recipe test for Conflux, some housework, some reading of fiction (because this whole lifestyle falls down if I don't read - and why do all the writing and study and etceteras if it means I have to give up reading fine novels?).
When I've done all this I'm allowed to watch DVDs, but only if that dratted mail stil hasn't arrived. After TV, I need to do more PhD, so maybe it's better if the delays accrue...
gillpolack @ 2010-11-10T22:35:00
When the serial storms pass, then I shall cease making stupid errors in everything I write. This is a firm instruction to myself. Now I have to make sure I remember it.
I still haven't found yesterday's list. This means I'm listless and should cease work in a gentle way and fade softly into the evening.
If anyone knows what I intended for my novel in the note that says "cat #11" I would be most grateful for the information. Although if you think I intended to mass-murder cats, I would be more grateful if you washed your brain out and did not communicate this intent to me AT ALL.
I still haven't found yesterday's list. This means I'm listless and should cease work in a gentle way and fade softly into the evening.
If anyone knows what I intended for my novel in the note that says "cat #11" I would be most grateful for the information. Although if you think I intended to mass-murder cats, I would be more grateful if you washed your brain out and did not communicate this intent to me AT ALL.
