Gillian Polack's Blog, page 305

gillpolack @ 2010-07-17T23:24:00

My time-sense becomes unanchored in July. It also unanchors when I'm quite ill, but it always becomes unanchored in Canberra in July. Nowhere else. Just Canberra.

I use little clues to remind myself what day it is. If Iron Chef is on then it must be Saturday. If the hall outside my flat smells of bleach then it must be Friday.

Except life tricks me. Friday isn't really Friday anymore. Thursday is ammonia-day because the cleaning regime was changed recently. No-one told me. You can see w...

gillpolack @ 2010-07-16T23:09:00

I had a lovely morning tea today, with some friends. It's totally too long since I last had morning tea with friends. I took some fricaseed mushrooms, because I felt like making them last night. Very Jane Austen. Very well-received. Me, I enjoyed a piece of toast with a piece of the mushroom on it (sounds plain - tasted anything but), a scone with jam and cream and two cups of coffee. I enjoyed it so much I forgot all about lunch.

The rest of my day was life as usual. Except I forgot to...

gillpolack @ 2010-07-15T23:26:00

Today was less bizarre than yesterday. Still passing strange. It's all left me a bit on the tired side, so I shall leave the details of my life to your imagination. If I do anything truly exotic, I trust you will let me know.

gillpolack @ 2010-07-15T00:04:00

Today was simply bizarre. The very odd thing is that my life has been perfectly ordinary. Storm-ridden (which we knew) but ordinary. It's my friends who had bizarre days.

After the phone stopped ringing, I sat down at my computer and made myself lists of saints and started thinking about early fourteenth century streetscapes, to normalise things.

I'm hoping that everyone (but especially Rachel and Sharyn) will have better days tomorrow.

gillpolack @ 2010-07-14T01:26:00

Today was evenly split between sorting out some of the politics of early fourteenth century Langedoc, getting upset about the politics about early fourteenth century Languedoc, reminding myself why this is not the sort of history I enjoy everyday, doing stuff for Baggage and working on the Conflux cookbook.

I had to make that list because it was really a pretty bad day, painwise. That's a pretty substantial amount to have accomplished when on high level pain relief that never quite worked a...

gillpolack @ 2010-07-12T15:43:00

I keep forgetting that my eyesight is more limited than it was last year. It feels the same unless I'm very tired, because my eyes have mostly compensated. How they compensate, however, is by creating patterns for me to interpret. They join the dots. If the dots don't make sense, then my eye and brain will conspire to create more dots so they can be joined in a pleasing fashion. Typos in proper names are a particular bugbear - I see a correct name even when it's not correct if the bad se...

gillpolack @ 2010-07-12T11:54:00

I have a new article up at Bibliobuffet. It's about history in fiction. Also about painting. It was nearly triple the length because I had so much to say.

gillpolack @ 2010-07-12T11:52:00

Until ten minutes ago, I was certain today was Sunday. I do remember yesterday, so I was obviously thinking I needed a second Sunday. I even know why I needed a second Sunday. Most of yesterday was fine, but the only bit of it that felt at all like a Sunday was the time I spent online with my best friend. In fact, yesterday felt exactly like a Monday.

By the power invested in me (which is great, if undefined) today is Sunday and yesterday was Monday and tomorrow will see a return to normal...

Baggage - with Laura Goodin

As Baggage gets closer to release date, I have some treats from the writers, just to keep you interested. Today's is from Laura Goodin. Laura's story looks at science fictional hoemsickness and reflects her own past more than somewhat.

Laura has focussed on just two questions, looked at from several vantage points, exploring some of the ideas she addressed in her story. Along the way, she provides a bit of a brief for some those of you who will be descending on us for AussieCon.

Laura will...

gillpolack @ 2010-07-10T15:41:00

For the record (because it's annoying me still) the two not-quite-thought-through notions that kept throwing me out of the novel I was reading yesterday (and finished today, despite everything) were a tavern in the wilderness with no passing custom and town level specialisation of occupation in the same wilderness, with no-one to sell goods to. It's made very clear that the local population is miniscule and that there is no travel on the small unused track through the forest, too.

I kept on h...