Robin McKinley's Blog, page 15

Aftermath

 

I’m better. That’s the main thing.  I’m not frelling enough better but I’m MUCH BETTER.   And thank you for all the friendly forum messages to this effect.

So first there was the really bad ME day, as I thought, which was my warning, except I didn’t know it. And then there was the memorable forty-eight hours of twelve-hour bouts with minor hiatuses between of throwing up every time I stood up.  This would be an interesting experience anyway but it was made exquisitely more interesting by the fact of a hellmob and no back up plan.

A hellmob, what’s more, who will not crap in their own garden(s).  And only Chaos is willing to pee in the cottage courtyard which is, admittedly, small, and he only pees there because he has recently developed prostate problems and HAS TO PEE WHEN HE HAS TO PEE.  Which is often.  Pav, by the way, is the most supernaturally continent dog I’ve ever even heard of, and this talent is probably worth keeping her entire* through the dramas of fertile season, all questions of beauty and bloodlines aside, even with two entire male hellhounds in the vicinity.  Mind you, this talent often causes me additional anxiety when the circumstances are that she has to pee here and now and the vicinity does not suit her hellladyship, but I’ve given up arguing with her.  She knows what the command ‘squat’ means and she’ll piddle like three drops while looking at me out of those bright evil little eyes, and then stop when I know she’s got a full tankload on board . . . arrrgh.

Anyway. The whole staying up till three or four a.m. really comes into its own when you have stomach flu and need to get your hellmob out of their garden so they will frelling well crap, because there’s no one around to notice you heaving in the shrubbery.  Sigh.  Let’s not discuss how interesting picking up after them has been for several days, and the dizzy spells that go with not eating.**  We should perhaps also not discuss Peter’s reaction when he found me (still) sleeping on the floor of the dining room Sunday morning.  Lighten up!  If I’d wanted a bed-like object I could have lain on the frelling sofa!  I was sure I was going to be enough better any minute to amble back to the cottage as usual!  And therefore I didn’t want to sleep really! I was just . . . resting in a posture less likely to make my appalling stomach go into another of its cursed paroxysms!

The second forty-eight hours was the beginning to be able to stand upright again phase, or might have been able to stand upright if there were any available calories to provide energy for this surprisingly complicated task.***  Stomach:  We’re fine, we’re fine, stand around all you like if you want to, just don’t bother us with any food. Every other cell in my body:  We’re starving!  We’re STAAAAARVING!  Stomach:  It’s good for your character.  Every other cell in my body: STAAAAAAAAAARVING!  Every other cell in my body won, partly because of the passing out in the shrubbery while tottering after hellcritters post-acute-stage thing.  Whereupon we entered the subset of the second phase, which is the Large Burning Column Occupying Most of Your Body Especially the Stomach Area subphase.†  I’m not quite out of this . . . but that may have as much to do with the last week’s business falling on me as from a height today when I’m finally almost recognisably functional again as it does with the remains of my deplorable lurgi.

Meanwhile, speaking of life catching up with me, I have a Samaritans duty tomorrow††, Street Pastors again Friday, and a meeting with Alfrick on Saturday. From which I hope to come home inspired finally to finish the KES ep that has been dangling around hopefully for a fortnight or more.  Oh, I haven’t wasted all my KES time however:  it may interest some of you that The Story So Far list is finally up to date.

* * *

* Spaying is notoriously hard on a bitch’s bladder control. Most bitches are fine after, but you still don’t want to press it too hard.  Or at least I have always tried not to.  Among other things a clean dog hates losing it indoors.  He/she will be miserable and ashamed.  Which is how I found out Chaos really couldn’t hold it any more.  And the miserable-and-ashamed is why you don’t put your critters in a position where they can’t help it . . . if you can help it.^

^ I have mostly managed to put Boskone out of my mind, and going back to America for the first time in a decade. Not.  And if never going anywhere starts haunting me I can frelling well sign up for that homeopathy course that I’m going to take, I’m just having a little trouble finding time right now.+  Oh, and money.

+ I’m sure there’s a homeopathic answer to this lurgi, but my usual stalwart in these cases had no effect at all and I was not . . . in much shape for hunting for a better match.

** I’ve never particularly bought into the Sensitivity of Your Furry Companions theory. They may lie down beside you on the floor in a friendly and affectionate manner but that’s because you’re on the floor, and if you get up suddenly and abruptly and disturb their slumbers they will look at you reproachfully.  My experience is more that they want what they want and when you aren’t providing it they want to know why. They’re not great on compromise either:  The hellmob don’t crap in the garden and that means they don’t crap in the garden. And, you know, this around the block at 3 am thing?  Where are their hurtles? Also the hellhounds entirely stopped eating the minute I took my eye off the ball/food dish and have probably lost as much weight as I have arrrrrrrrgh. It doesn’t suit any of us.  Haggard is not kind to the late middle aged.^  As an ex-fat person I can say authoritatively, There is such a thing as thin enough. I am that thing, or was last week.  There is also such a thing as being too thin, which is what I am now.  When your frelling belt, required to keep your trousers up^^, gives you frelling pressure sores on your hip bones, you are too thin.^^^  Fortunately you, or anyway I, gain weight lost through illness back pretty fast as soon as I’m eating again, which is still a slightly aggrieved issue.

^ It’s not actually kind to anyone and as an elderly feminist who has been through the whole body image frenzy decade after decade after decade after DECADE, it makes me NUTS that nothing has really changed, including that young women—and, apparently, increasingly, young men—are encouraged, or maybe I mean aggravated or harassed, into thinking that skeletal is attractive. No!  It’s not!  Not unless you’re a straightedge or a picket fence!  It’s just you can get away with better it when you’re young and your skin still has some collagen!+

+ Me?  I’m used to the way I look.  Do I have body image problems?  Sure.  I’m still breathing.#

# And food is only the enemy if your digestion is possessed by demons.

^^Interesting Conversations with Your Stomach:  Me:  Look, you perverse organ, my jeans will fall down.  Stomach:  No!  No!  No belt!  Can’t stand a belt!  No belt!  Me:  It won’t come anywhere near you, you prat, you’re in direct contact with my backbone.

^^^ I suppose I could take a few penknives, keys, small notebooks with writing implements etc out of my jeans pockets for the moment.

*** I was knitting^ while listening to the radio tonight and there was one of these snippet-science programmes that reported earnestly that eating protein is GOOD for you. Here we go again.  Even before I officially had ME I had energy-fluctuation problems and absolutely must have not merely unfashionably high levels of protein but unfashionably high levels of animal protein including red meat.  I’ve been fighting this battle for decades too and vegetarians are fine, some of my best friends^^ etc, but the holier-than-thou brigade of [insert superfood of the week here] and pure thoughts really get up my nose.  The revelation that more than a minimal level of protein is good for you reminds me of the walking is not weight-bearing exercise allegation a decade or three ago.  No, no!  Of course it isn’t!  We didn’t evolve to walk, we evolved to train in gyms on fancy weight-bearing exercise machinery!

^ Contrary to pathetic tweets earlier in the week I actually have done a fair amount of reading and knitting recently.  I can’t remember if I told you that Aloysius loaned me a frelling great brick-like volume which is a commentary on the first four books of the Bible+ and when he was checking up on me earlier in the week he asked how I was getting on with it.  It is too heavy to read lying down.

+ With constant irritating references to the Pentateuch.

^^ Including Sunshine

† I managed to eat something very nearly resembling dinner last night which disappeared into the calorie deficit with indecent haste and I was then hungrier than ever. I usually have fruit both first thing in the morning and last thing at night and I WOULD FRELLING KILL FOR AN APPLE, I am an apple junkie and most of the year eat several a day.  I was staring at the fruit bowl last night with a savage lust and . . . eventually ate a pear, not because one raw tree fruit is likely to be less provoking than another raw tree fruit, but because I’m so deprived if I ate one apple I’d probably eat six, which I’m sure would not be a good idea right now.  But what is it about pears?  You can have totally over rotten, hard tasteless grainy meh and DIVINE all in the same pear.  Nibble carefully.

†† We are not a secret society: hey look, the hot link among south of England Samaritans^ this month:  http://forumpublications.co.uk/hampshire-people/

It seems to me a good interview with a good guy, although I’m seriously, brain-explodingly fried at the interviewer’s suggestion that the deaths of Peaches Geldof and Robin Williams may glamorize addiction and suicide. WHAT? WHAT?  Um.  No.  That would be nooooooooo.

^There are quite a few of us around:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/search/samaritans+hampshire/@51.3135647,-0.8434543,9z

 

Further delay

 

I’ve been throwing up all day* . . . sorry, I need to lie down again. . . .

* * *

* And no, it hasn’t been a great week either

Delay

 

Halloween night 2014 in a relatively small backwoods town in Hampshire, usually stuffed to the whatsit with ordinary boring people including a high percentage of relentlessly law-abiding retired Tories who pride themselves on being tucked up in bed by 10 pm, last night morphed into a David Lynch film.*

I got home at about 5:30 a.m. And I still had to feed the hellmob and myself—I am STAAAARVING after both SP shifts and the Sams**—hurtle the former, bath me and then calm down enough to sleep.***  I’m not going to tell you when I got to bed but it was well past dawn.  Well past.  And twilight came with remarkable speed today.  Like I swear hours early.

And I needed to go sit in the monks’ chapel tonight worse than I needed to finish this week’s KES. As if I have had any brain to finish KES with.

Apologies. If my brain returns from its peregrinations by tomorrow, I’ll have a go.  Otherwise it may have to wait till next Saturday.

* * *

* It could have been worse. It could have been David Cronenburg.  In which case I would be halfway to Mumbai by now.^

^ Okay, a quarter of the way, since we’d’ve had to swing by Scotland to pick Peter up first where he is enjoying a few days of family life in a well run household where meals are on the table at normal meal times and not every surface is encrusted with dog hair.  And we wouldn’t be staying in Mumbai long.  None of us would cope with the climate.  Christchurch sounds like a nice temperate city.  Does anyone know if they’ve got their temporary bell tower up and running yet?  I’ve just tried to google it and can’t find anything past that they were going to try.

Except maybe Pav.# I’m not sure bullies take notice of little things like ambient temperature and crushing humidity.  Although Pav does not like the kind of rain that hammers her to the ground and then holds her there.  And, like all dogs everywhere, she thinks her human could do something about this if said human took more notice of the intense suffering of her loyal canine companions who are obliged to go with her when she wants to saunter through rain that hammers you to the ground and holds you there.##

# B_twin sent me this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjZP21vIfgs  I do not, myself, permit pillow-worrying, but the rest looks pretty familiar.  What this video leaves out however is the middle-aged hellhound trying out his moves in parallel.  Pav is FINALLY OFF HEAT and re-permitted into the hurly burly of family life, which is to say causing the hurly burly of family life, and Chaos, who has always been a little manic~, has dusted off his adolescent end-to-end swapping and except for the fact that he’s bigger and in full ecstatic frenzy bumps into the furniture more~~, can provide Pav a little added stimulation that she does not need.~~~

~ One might wonder about his bloodlines. A bullie great-great-great grandparent, the family scandal no one spoke of?  It’s been bred out of Darkness but still maintains a rogue presence in Chaos.

~~ Especially the lashing tail. I swear his tail is about six feet long.  Knowledgeable whippet people tend to look at the hellhounds and say, oh, whip—no, they can’t be whippets, their tails are too long.  Are deerhound tails disproportionately long?  I have no idea.  I wonder how long Sid’s tail is?  I’m sure it’ll be a plot point some time.

~~~ One of the peculiarities of my hellmob is that the hellhounds bark from excitement=, when they hear me coming downstairs in the morning, when they’re pretty sure I’m about to take them for a hurtle, when a Known Friend comes through the door.==  Or when the three of them are having a gambol which sends next door’s nasty little terrier into paroxysms of murderous frenzy===.  Pav, on the other hand, only barks for proper, responsible-dog cause. Burglars.  Delivery persons%.  Neighbours wanting me to look after their cats.  Except of course occasionally when she doesn’t and so I assume I’m imagining that knock on the door and turn over and go back to sleep and come downstairs later to a postcard through the mail slot that says ‘we have tried 1,000,000 times to find you home%% so we could read your gas/electric/water meter and we’re TIRED of this and so we’re going to charge you £bazillion/month till you RING US and fix a date that you WILL BE HOME to LET US IN.’

=including, in Darkness’ case, disapproval, when Pav is getting into something he thinks she shouldn’t. If I’m up to my elbows in dishwater, say, a common occurrence at the moment because the dishwasher is on the fritz again snaaaaaaaarl @, and I hear Darkness bark I shout without moving, Pav! Stop that! There’s usually some wild scuffling, possibly an astonished yip from Chaos, and then silence falls, possibly just about long enough for me to finish the dishes.

@ And Peter is THE WORST DISHWASHER-BY-HAND ON THE PLANET. I used to not approve of dishwashers.  How long ago was that?  Well, I still don’t have one at the cottage.  It’s the Aga or a dishwasher and there’s no contest.  Besides, I’m a good dishwasher-by-hand.  I’d just rather be kidnapped by bandits or doing my tax return.

== I find this particularly amusing when it’s someone like Atlas or Niall, both of whom barely know what a dog is, let alone how to respond to canine enthusiasm.

=== I met the thing today when I was between hurtles and dogless, and so stooped to say hello, because I am a hopeless wet and when I’m not busy trying to control confrontational outcomes will say hello to any dog that isn’t actively biting me.  You could see him looking at me, however, and thinking, you don’t fool me, you revolting hypocrite, you are responsible for the ruination of the neighbourhood.

% Books. Yarn.  Dog food.  Rose bushes.&

& I didn’t say ROSE BUSHES.

%% Do you always keep your curtains closed?  You aren’t really still asleep at mmph o’clock in the afternoon are you?&

& No, only after epic Street Pastors duties.

## You could teach us to use the indoor loo.

** I find all that doing good flapdoodle very draining to a personality that basically wants to say WHY DON’T YOU GO READ A GOOD BOOK AND CHEER/SOBER UP.  I’D BE HAPPY TO RECOMMEND SOME TITLES.

*** Total exhaustion makes me disintegrate, it doesn’t make me sleep.

 

Modern life

 

There is a law of the universe that says that any house you move out of always has at least one final carload of stuff left in it.  However many times you’ve been back for The Last Load–and whether or not there’s a new owner tapping his/her foot and holding his/her hand out for the key, which, fortunately, in this case, there is not.  But this is sort of the large economy size of the Sock Planet theorem, about where all those odd socks that ought to be in the bottom of the washing machine but aren’t, go.*  You’d need a galaxy at least for all those The House Is Empty It’s Empty I Tell You nooooooo there is nothing in those cupboards** carloads.  And there wasn’t anything in those cupboards when you frelling doodah frelling CLEARED THEM OUT THE LAST TIME.***

However. I finally went round to the estate agent to discuss getting the mews on the market and I have his recommendation of a Ruby-equivalent† coming in to do the hardcore houseclean before I let him in.

Real world progress. Hey golly wow.  I thought the house move might have been my real-world-engagement allocation for this century.

* * *

* Every time a sock DISAPPEARS^ I go into Sock Fetish^^ Overdrive.^^^ This happened recently^^^^ at the same time that a line of really nice socks went on SALE on a web site I am unfortunately on the email list of.  I don’t have to tell you I bought 1,000,000 of each colour, do I?  What do I do when they arrive?  Under the bed is already full of boxes full of yarn.~

^ I try to remember to check the back of Pav’s crate first. But trophy socks in the back of Pav’s crate are not always socks any more, although she rearranges the stitch patterns less than she used to.  She nestles more now.  This would be more awwwwww if it weren’t for the little evil eye twinkling at you.

^^ It’s not all that surprising I have a sock fetish. If I didn’t, my All Star fetish might get lonely.

^^^ I also have this silly habit of not throwing out the perfectly good twin of the sock that has disimproved into bad macramé.  After all, it’s a perfectly good sock.  So it goes into a tote bag+ with all the other single socks and occasionally I find two that amuse me as a pair . . . but then when they go in the laundry THERE ARE TWO ODD SOCKS. Now, I am not completely lost to logical thought and when there are two of them—especially when I put them together and they are AMUSING—I can probably figure out that it’s not a Sock Planet raid++ this time.

BUT SOMETIMES THE SOCKS IN THE TOTE BAG ESCAPE. AND THEN THERE ARE SINGLE ODD SOCKS EVERYWHERE. AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.  Of such things are nervous breakdowns made.+++

+ Which says something like ‘she is too fond of books and it has addled her brain’ or ‘keep calm and eat chocolate’.

++ Although I’d better check the back of Pav’s crate again. And possibly the hellhounds’.  Chaos is occasionally forced by inner disquietude to steal socks, although he usually steals the clean ones that I’m trying to put on to take hellhounds for a hurtle.  I have tried to explain to him that this is counterproductive but he just does the Dog Cute Head-Cocking Thing to prove that he is listening to me very intently and then steals my socks again the next time he’s feeling interiorly disquieted.  Darkness, who has different neuroses, looks in another direction wearing a long-suffering expression.  I have, however, explained to Chaos with great care that if he steals another Steeleye Span t shirt# he will die.

# Not that I don’t have, you know, several. The collection hasn’t reached the epic All Star proportions yet, but it’s moving in that direction.  Fiona and I went to a Steeleye Span concert recently and Steeleye’s regular merchandise man recognised me. Um . . .

+++ Some of us are more fragile than others.

^^^^ I think. See ^^^.

~ AND FURTHERMORE my tied-for-first-favourite on-line yarn shop is having another flaming dingdong sale. I mean, they do this a lot, which is why they are tied-for-first-favourite and evil drooling demons from the deepest regions of the really nasty end of hell+, but a fair number of these I can pass over, the eyelash and fake fur sale, yuck, the baby and kid stuff, life is too short, you get a bib when you’re born and then you’re on your own, the person-made fibres since I’m mostly a natural-fibre snob unless the colours are really insane or the glitter is really fabulous, anything to do with Kaffe Fassett whose patterns are the knitting and needlework version of eighty-seven bell change-ringing patterns that just looking at the line in the method book makes my head explode, and so on.  There are really quite a few yarn come ons that don’t make me sit up and whine.  Aaaaand then there are the ones that do . . . make me sit up and whine. Well, I ESCAPED a really hazardous offer just last week, for one of the heavier-weight wools so you’d be using bigger, fatter needles, which is good for slow clumsy knitters like me, and I did it by simply letting the time run out.  Of course I had to chain my credit card to a stake in the back garden and take the hellmob for a run for the last three hours but it worked. And then, the fiends in marketing pulled together a Halloween sale this week of a heterogeneous selection of yarns, needles, books and patterns . . . INCLUDING ALL THREE OF THE YARNS THAT HAD BEEN IN MY BASKET LAST WEEK AND THEY HAD SAVED MY BASKET.

The internet is way more dangerous than an alligator-infested swamp. God, give me simple temptations like another puppy++ or a new car+++ or a new computer++++ and simple perils like a herd of stampeding wildebeest or one of the middle treads of the stairs to the first floor of either the cottage or Third House dissolving into a wormhole gateway to another universe# or an alligator and boa-constrictor-infested swamp. Deliver me from the internet.##

+ Not the, you know, frelling end where the hellmob and I hang out.

++ NO.

+++ NO.

++++ Well . . . yes. Which is a rant for another evening.

# It needs to be a middle tread so after you’ve found the first step and you think you can go to sleep while your feet grind up to the top step where you’ll have to pay attention again.  If you don’t fall into an alternate universe.

## You know ‘What would Jesus do?’ Jesus would not have an iPhone. Or a Twitter account.~  Or a bedroom stuffed with tote bags full of yarn and so many more books than bookshelves he can only leap onto the bed from a narrow rift that was once a doorway before it kind of silted up.

~ He might have a blog, I suppose. You know, to tell parables in and so on.=

= And if you’re wondering why my mind seems to be running on the interesting challenges of modern-day Christianity HAVE I MENTIONED THAT MY STREET PASTOR TEAM GOT THE SHORT STRAW FOR THE FIFTH FRIDAY THIS MONTH AND WE’RE OUT TOMORROW NIGHT FOR HALLOWEEN. Eeep.

** Not to mention all the stuff you don’t see any more because it’s been where it is so long.  Oh, that table? . . . TABLE?

*** What?  I haven’t seen that^ in at least fifteen years.  And three house moves.  Speaking of alternate universes.

^ Vase, casserole dish, pair of socks, fossilised panettone+, large swirly marble preserved from childhood, antique doorknob, book that you have since replaced three times, significant-occasion-souvenir empty champagne bottle.++

+ Note date on bottom of package

++ Yes. I collect these too.  You aren’t surprised, are you?

† Although I don’t think there is a giant lethal marauding creature problem at the mews. But Charlie’s doesn’t have dog hair embedded in all the corners and serving as a felt-equivalent under the kitchen lino.

KES, 145

 

ONE FORTY FIVE

I didn’t see who led Monster up to me this time because I was busy panicking. Yes, I had survived my introduction to up-close-and-personal,  the-bad-guys-really-will-kill-you-if-they-can battle, and I’d survived it wearing nothing but a nightgown, but I’d gone into it having absolutely no clue what I was getting into.  Oh, sure, I’d written any number of tumultuous battle scenes, with blood and swords flying and dazzling feats of heroism and villainy on all sides, and if you’re going to do this well . . . never mind literary merit, let’s say evocatively or in a way to make your reader buy the next in the series you do need to engage with it, sitting in your comfortable apartment with the central heating and the air con and the well-stocked refrigerator, and Joe the Doorman downstairs stopping anything remotely resembling a bad guy before he (or she) has come three steps across the threshold.

However—big duh moment here—it’s different when it’s you having the interesting time amid the whirling havoc. Also, I’m like this about first attempts, although I’d never been through such a spectacular example before:  I’ll dare all kinds of things that first time, before my over-vivid imagination has a chance to catch up with the rest of me.  Once it does, look for me under the bed.  You can figure out which bed by following the whimpering noises.  My riding career was studded with these moments:  first time off the lunge rein, trotting free around the ring I was thrilled, and I did it pretty well too.  Second time I was a nervous wreck and upset not only my horse but my riding instructor.  First time jumping over something bigger than a pole on the ground?  Best moment of my life thus far, except I didn’t sleep at all that night and almost gave up riding forever.

Just as well I hadn’t, I thought fatalistically, as Monster stopped in front of me and Murac moved beside me, ready to throw me into the saddle again. I’d weigh more this time, with the chain mail, maybe flying through the air would be a little less like being shot out of a cannon, a little less alarming.  I’d be grateful for something being less alarming the second time.  Maybe he’d forget to allow for the mail and toss me like a skinny broad in a nightgown, I’d hit my head on Monster’s saddle and knock myself out.  And then I wouldn’t have to ride back into battle with all these morons yelling Defender at me.

Putting off the inevitable a moment longer, I put my hand on Monster’s shoulder.  All the whinnying stuff you get in movies is Hollywood, it’s not horses.  Horses are mostly pretty quiet.  It’s a big deal if your horse whinnies at you, and it’s probably because he’s hungry and hoping for food.  But Monster turned his head—whoever was leading him was hidden on his far side, I could just see an arm through a loop of rein—and while he didn’t whinny, he put his ears forward and his nostrils flickered in an almost-whinny.  Defender and Defender’s horse having a bonding moment.  Monster clearly didn’t know that he outclassed his rider by about half a gazillion parsecs.

My hand still on Monster’s shoulder I turned, desperately, to Murac. He was standing way too close because he was waiting to toss me up.  Way too close.  His hair was still wet.  His eyes were too steady on mine.  “I—don’t know what I’m doing,” I said.  I was conscious of the weight of the mail across my shoulders, draped several inches down my arms.  It was heavy enough it would slow my own paltry strength, dull what physical instincts I had.  Well it was Silverheart’s—and Glosinda’s—game anyway.  They’d know how to adapt.  Or this gang were going to need a new Defender really soon.

“I know,” said Murac, and stooped for my leg. My good leg, fortunately.  He grabbed and heaved.  I shot up into the air again but to the perfect height this time—the perfect height for managing to clear my bad leg before I came down with a thump.  Monster stood like a rock, of course, his ears now tipped back toward me, although presumably war horses were trained to put up with being mounted from either side, in expectation of certain of the unpredictable exigencies of warfare.   One of Flowerhair’s more exciting escapes had been dependent on her horse staying steady as she came blasting out of the shadows and dived for the saddle—from the wrong side.  He did, but she didn’t wait to be fully astride—she seized a handful of mane and yelled Go! and he went.  Circus pony stuff, with her dangling from his off side.  But she and the Gentleman had been together a long time.

It wasn’t exactly news that Murac knew that I didn’t know what I was doing.  It shouldn’t hurt.  It didn’t hurt.

I rubbed a hand down Monster’s neck, feeling for the cut.  There it was . . . it hadn’t been sewn, it had been glued together somehow.  I sniffed my fingers:  there was a strong green smell, like plant sap.  Why couldn’t they have done that with my leg?

I was finally ready to look back at Murac who was waiting, apparently, for me to look at him. “We follow tha anyway,” he said.

Last flash

 

I almost wrote ‘slash’ and remembered that this could be misinterpreted in Today’s Internet . . . I just now had a last crash, then, through last night’s reddit AMA, answering most of the latecomers and adding a few twirly bits to earlier conversations.  If anyone’s interested.  The Nice Man sent me some figures today and said that it was a good AMA and I’m glad he thought so because it seemed pretty good to me but then most of the posters wanted to tell me how great my books are and that does kind of sway a writer’s attitude. . . . Thanks again to everyone who posted, I enjoyed it too.   But I’m also glad to be back to my footnotes.*  The reddit formatting didn’t ALLOW footnotes.  It’s about the only complaint I have.

I did say once or twice, questions I wasn’t answering during the AMA because my brain was melting under the strain, feel free to post them to the forum here–or for that matter Twitter or Facebook although I’m even less reliable** on both of those virtual-social real-timewasters than I am here.  But if anyone reading this has a BURNING question, whether or not they’ve asked it 1,000,000 times before in a wide variety of media, you can try asking it again saying ‘the reddit AMA reminded me that I’ve always wondered blah blah blah’ or thereabouts and I’ll try to pay attention.  Of course it’s always possible that I keep blowing you off because I don’t want to–or can’t–answer your question, but you might finally get that much out of me.***  Maybe.  I’m really world class in the disorganised and absent-minded**** stakes.

Anyway.  So long.  And THANKS for all the fish. . . .

* * *

*  YAAAAAAY.

** I realise this is slightly mind-boggling.  My unreliability pretty much starts in the negative numbers and approaches absolute zero with breathtaking speed.

***  I don’t know!  You don’t want to know!  Mercury is in retrograde!  Please go away!

**** And whimsical.  Or you could say cranky, but that would be unkind after I’ve just spent ALL THAT TIME answering questions.

AMA link is live

 

Anyone in England who doesn’t stay up late, or anyone in America who has other plans for the evening, or anyone in [insert other part of the world] who can’t make the official AMA live time for whatever reason good and  significant to you, you can post questions NOW.

Reddit – Robin McKinley AMA

Niall has convinced me I really need to go bell ringing tonight, but as the AMA intro says I’ll be back later to answer questions.  Having a look at the ones already up . . . I may have blog material for the next several years . . . .

THANKS, ALL YOU ASKERS.

PS:  And for those of you unaccustomed to internet society wailing brokenly about the need to create a reddit account to post a question–and I am totally with you on this:  I only joined up because I’d agreed to the gig–the Nice Man says:

There is a link towards the upper-right corner of the page that says “login or register.” All they need to do is pick a username and password, and fill in the text thing to prove they’re not a robot. No personal information is needed; even an email address is optional. 

 

Italics mine. Hey, I did the register thing.  You can too.

 

 

Ask me anything*

 

I’m doing one of reddit fantasy’s Ask Me Anything, AMA, sessions this Thursday, the day after tomorrow [as I write during what is to me still Tuesday night]. The poor suck—the nice man who originally invited me and is attempting to shepherd me through the technical aspects of this gig** says that if you go here:  http://www.reddit.com/r/fantasy

. . . while you’re waiting you can poke around*** and when the AMA session goes ‘live’ at approximately noon (American) Central Time on Thursday the link will go up on that page. The game plan seems to be that I (or rather the Nice Man, which means I have to have written it in advance for him to deal with) post(s) a brief introductory doodah at noon as part of the going-live process, and people post questions then if they feel like it.  Perhaps I drift in during reddit’s idea of afternoon (my idea of evening) and answer any of these there are and maybe I don’t, but I do show up for live-ish keyboard interaction around 6 pm Central time which I think is midnight mine, and respond—I do not say answer—any and all questions then.  I admit midnight is not particularly late by my standards [hey it's past 4 am where I'm sitting] but it is late to be articulate to/with a bunch of strangers.†  If I were living in the same part of the galaxy as the reddit fantasy admin the AMAs usually go live at about 8 pm—as some of you, who’ve been to talk to other authors, already know—but it’s going to be early with me.  If the conversation suddenly heats up at 2 am I’ll stay on, but the alternative, if people are absent-mindedly expecting it to have begun at 8 pm reddit time and show up after I’ve left to give the hellmob its final hurtle††, is to post questions anyway and I’ll come back on the far side of sleep and caffeine and answer them then.

One or two guidelines: I can’t tell you when PEG II or III will be out because I don’t know.  I said pretty much all I have to say on that burdensome topic in the ebook-announcement post: I’m working on the rest of the PEGASUS story, sure, and believe me I’d finish it yesterday if I could. But I can’t.  I am finding the writing experience lately like cleaning the Houses of Parliament with a toothbrush or watering the Sahara with a teacup.  I’d rather prune Souvenir de la Malmaison††† without full body armour and a face mask than face the PEG II file.  I’m getting calluses and tendonitis from clutching my forehead/chair/nearest hellcritter.  So you can ask when PEG II and III will be out, but don’t expect a useful answer.

And, speaking of useful answers, there’s still no sequel to SUNSHINE. And there are at last count approximately three hundred and twelve Third Damar Novels, but I haven’t written any of them.‡

Some authors are more perverse than others. You might want to embroider that on a sampler.  But do come round on Thursday at whatever o’clock and ask me about roses or dogs or bell ringing or life as an American expat in England or knitting (badly) or singing (worse) or even about suddenly and involuntarily converting to Christianity two years ago and coming all over social-welfare volunteering like a bad case of measles.‡‡  I’m still cranky though.

* * *

* . . . answers not guaranteed. But then you blog readers know that already.

** AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.

*** It’s frelling HUGE. I keep getting lost.

† So, you know, please come hang out so it’s not all strangers.

†† And wave at passing patrol cars

††† Which in my tiny garden is presently about twenty feet by twenty feet and putting on a rather amazing autumn show for a rose known for not repeating in this climate. She is also implicated in the disappearance of several annoying small children and neighbourhood cats which insist on crapping in Third House’s flowerbeds, but we don’t know anything about that, except to say that a rose responds well to generous feeding and I’m delighted she has settled in so happily.

‡ Please try to remember that I can only write what I am given to write.   The Damar stories are there—like PEG II and III are there—like the frelling sequel to SUNSHINE is there—but I can’t write them because they haven’t come to me in writable form.  It’s like one of those scenes out of Dickens—or Frances Hodgson Burnett—when the main character is standing on the wrong side of a window watching other people having a good time.  You can see what everybody is wearing and eating, you can see the champagne sparkling in the glasses, you can see who’s flirting with whom, you can maybe even hear a faint echo of the live music.  But you can’t go in because you weren’t invited.  And besides there doesn’t seem to be a door.

‡‡ Which also makes a change occasionally from staring at the frelling blank page . The eleventh commandment:  Do what you can.

KES, 144

 

ONE FORTY FOUR

Claim me! What the—what the—claim me!  I was going home! They were going to get me to the—the multiplicitous Gate and I was going through it to where Sid was waiting.  And I wasn’t coming back here for six months out of every year either, whatever happened to Persephone.

(All right, multiplicitous isn’t a word. But it should be.)

I surged to my feet, thus discovering I could. It was a somewhat wavery surge as my wounded leg attempted to do its fifty percent of the bipedal situation leg thing and almost managed it while my brain clattered to a halt when my blood stayed sitting down as the rest of me lurched upward.  But my mouth was already moving and my brain would have to catch up when it could. “Claim me!” I said, or possibly howled.  “What the rancid effing scrambled bulltweeting horseradish has the last—the last—has all this been about!” and I threw my arms out to include the blood and the dirt and the horses and the people and everything else, most of it undesirable, in our immediate vicinity.  Especially the blood.  (Throb throb said my leg.) “If you haven’t blistering claimed me yet!  What’s my bonus then!  Do I get a free toaster and ten percent off my next order!”

Murac looked started. I thought perhaps his insta-translate was having trouble with ‘bulltweeting horseradish’. Pustular, offered mine delightedly. Feculence. “So you hadn’t got round to claiming me yet!  Do you pick up random confused strangers regularly to lead you into battle?  If you wanted blood, couldn’t you have just pricked a finger?  And I’ve been hungry since—since—”  I had no idea how long I had been wherever it was that I was.  Long enough to work up an appetite.  Pitched battle will do that to you, even when your sword is doing all the heavy work.

Maybe he was looking startled because my grand gesture had made me drop my blanket. Pustular feculence.  I bent (carefully) and picked it up (ow ow ow ow ow said my leg) and wrapped it around me again with as much of a flourish as I could manage.  Think Greta Garbo throwing the end of a cape over one shoulder.  No, don’t.  Bela Lugosi maybe.  On a bad day.  But it was hard to be flashy with an old horse blanket (going by the smell.  And the hair.  I wasn’t complaining.  An extra embedded layer of hair is warm.)

“And fuuuurthermore,” I said, sneezing horsehair, “you can’t claim me, you—um—” It occurred to me it would not be in my best interests to alienate Murac, appalling as this awareness was.  “You can’t claim me, you said so yourself.  I’m on the wrong side of Ga—of the Gate, and you want me on the right side. I want me on the right side.  I never dog-eared-and-red-tailed wanted to be your flaming Defender,” I said, starting to lose my don’t-alienate-Murac focus again, and then I was going to start crying, I was not going to start crying.  I was not going to start crying.  I sneezed again.  Violently.  If my tear ducts exploded that would neutralise certain weak places in my self-control.

“Defender is stronger, tied to Gate by blood and bread.” I muttered something about there not having been any bread on show recently but I’d been ready to eat maggots and pencil stubs, I might not have noticed mere bread.  “Tha’ll not forget us, now.  Tha’ll not leave us behind.”

“Oh yes I will,” I said grimly, shivering in spite of the warm hairy blanket. “I’m moving to California.  Tomorrow.”  Northern California.  Sid was too furry for the south.

“Gate’ll come with tha,” said Murac. “Wherever tha go.  And if we call, tha’ll hear us, and come.”

I may have moaned. My blood was circulating comprehensively enough again for my brain to produce a few flailing thoughts:  which was the decision I had made that was the wrong one, that if I’d made some other one I’d be sitting in front of my computer with a hot cup of tea right now, finishing FLOWERHAIR THE UNHINGED on time?  But if I went back as far as not poking a pin in my old paper atlas, Sid would still be sleeping rough  . . .

There was a shout. The Falcons. The Falcons can hold alone no longer.  The Falcons’ line is breaking. . . .

Murac took two long strides forward, picked up the heap of clothing at my feet and shook it out. I let my blanket fall, blank-brained and numb again, and he dropped the linen shift over my head.  Leather followed.  There were linen trousers too, with a drawstring to keep them up, and leather britches over.  Long stockings pulled up above the knee—a pad Murac produced from nowhere over the sewed-up slash on my leg—boots on immediately and laced in place.  The boots were a surprisingly good fit. Throb, went my leg, but it seemed a long way away.

The chain mail went clank, and weighed a ton.

Defender, went the shout. The Falcons call for Defender.

Oh, cool/hot/awesome/slang of the moment!

 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/oct/16/neil-gaiman-russell-brand-modern-fairytale-makeover-princess

This is a really interesting article anyway full of stuff I need to check out but don’t miss the last paragraph.*

And thanks for all the happy chirping noises about last night’s news.**

Lenni

Is it a bad thing that I already own The Blue Sword as an e-book? I would NEVER knowingly get a pirated copy of anyone’s book. That would be BAD! The e-book that I have looks very professionally done. I’m confused! I’ll have to get another copy (a legit? copy) of the e-book when it comes out.

You’ve probably got one of the ones that were briefly and in the publisher’s mind legitimately available a while ago. When said publisher had it politely pointed out to them that in fact what they were doing wasn’t totally pure and square and holy they were very embarrassed.  They were so embarrassed it’s taking a while to winkle them out from under the bed, convince them that All Is Forgiven, and persuade them that we really want to do it again, just the right way this time, okay?

Katinseattle

Well, I’m conflicted. Congratulations for the e-books. But I’ve already bought them in old fashioned, space gobbling, real book style. What excuse do I have to buy an e-reader?

Good heavens. Have you never found yourself standing in an endless queue and wished you’d brought with you that really good book you were reading but it’s large and heavy and you were only going to be gone ten minutes because there are never any queues this time of day?  Or equivalent?  E-editions are pretty much a scam that I’m allowing myself to be gorgleblorged by because of the Library in Your Knapsack thing.  I wouldn’t dream of having keeper books only in e-format.  I just have more editions of stuff I’ll want to read again.

And as Lenni says you don’t have to have a dedicated ereader. I have the Kindle app on my iPad.  If you’re portable-tech-free you have a slightly more epic struggle with your conscience ahead of you but . . . well, I’ve told this story many times before, but I only bought my first computer because the office shop could no longer get parts for my IBM Selectric I typewriter.  I forget why I let myself get gorgleblorged*** by the idea of an iPad† but I use her constantly, however often I want to throw her against the wall for her tantrums about Microsoft.

Cmarschner

I can’t wait to be rescued from a long wait somewhere by pulling up a comforting favorite story on my phone.

Yes, exactly. But I am fascinated by you people who read on your phones. My eyes can do it but, dunno, my brain can’t.  It’s like people with little tiny writing.  My hand can do it BUT MY BRAIN CAN’T.  I have big sprawly handwriting.  I guess I must have big sprawly eyes†† too.  I was actually going to buy the next size down of tablet for portability reasons next time but then I thought about the pleasantness of reading double page spreads like a REAL book on the iPad . . . and then I read about the iPad Air which weighs about two butterflies and a feather and I thought, fine, I wasn’t seriously planning to downsize my knapsack anyway.

* * *

* Thank you, Gomoto^, although why one of my American readers was faster off the mark than any of my English ones . . . is one of those little mysteries of the modern global-internet world.

^ Also Rachel on the forum, but her post went up later, and I also don’t know which side of the pond she’s on. Or even which pond.

** One person out in public on Facebook and a few people more privately on email have said that they aren’t buying anything of mine till I produce the second/third/ninety-seventh/final volume of PEGASUS.  It’s not always easy to tell tone of voice from a stranger in print, but I have the impression that these declarations are typed in some dudgeon, possibly high.  What people choose to do with their disposable income is up to them, of course, including whether or not they buy books and if they do buy books whose books they buy.  But just in case this has slipped anyone’s mind . . . I’m not not producing PEG II, III and LXXXIX out of any disturbingly perverse desire to alienate readers.  Um, why would I?  I need to keep eating.^ Also I’m a storyteller by blood and bone;  I don’t exist in my own mind let alone anyone else’s if I’m not telling stories.  I would love to have PEG II already out and PEG III being wept over by final-stage copyeditors^^ and myself be contemplating writing that story about the bottle of sentient champagne.  But I’m not.^^^ I’m not because PEG II is moving approximately as quickly as it’s going to take all those plate tectonics to bring Africa back to West Quoddy Head.  I’m not happy about this.#  But it’s not up to me—rather like producing my books in e-format isn’t up to me.  You can, of course, nag me, about ebooks## or PEG II or LXXXIX, but it won’t produce any results except making me miserable.###  Control freaks seriously don’t like things to be out of their control.  And storytellers hate not telling stories.

^ And buying other people’s books.

^^ Tears of joy, mind you.  Supposing it ends with III, which is to say it better had or I may become a full-time professional practising homeopath after all, not everybody is going to be spectacularly happy in all ways after the climax but this is still a McKinley story and there will be some kind of a big shiny hurrah somewhere near the end.

^^^ Except at my 3 am equivalent which is about when most people are heading off to work, or the local builders are arriving and turning their frelling radios on to the Maudlin Pop Drivel station.+

+ I keep forgetting to check if U2 are trying to break into my iPhone.

# In fact I am wildly, frantically frustrated and crazy over it.  Just by the way.

## Including, inevitably, what goes wrong, because things will go wrong.

### You can’t make a horse win a race even if you’ve bred, fed and trained her perfectly. You can’t make a rosebush cover herself in huge fabulous flowers+ ditto.  And horses are horribly expensive to keep and rose-free rosebushes are mostly pretty ugly.  It goes like that sometimes.

+ Unless you’re a character out of ROSE DAUGHTER

*** Or ‘sandbagged’ if you prefer

† NO NOT COMPUTER GAMES. COMPUTER GAMES ARE THE DEVIL’S SPAWN.^

^ Yes of course I play several. I might not be so outraged if I played them a little better.

†† And a big sprawly brain. If it were tidier I might be getting on with PEG II quicker.  Sigh.