Last five so far

[mrissa]

Good morning! I think I may be the only person affected by time zone changes who is looking forward to "springing forward," because then maybe I'll be able to sleep to a humane hour for a week or two. Stupid body.

greatestofnates asked me the five questions that follow: 1) Do you ever listen to books on tape/CD?

No. If I'm on a long car trip, I enjoy music (and sometimes conversation, depending on our moods), and if I'm in a situation where I can actually read, I will. I don't fidget with normal books. I do when there's a book on tape/CD.

2) After they cast Jodie Foster and Keifer Sutherland for a movie about you and Mark's life - what (sub)genre(s) would it be?

Is there a genre where people stare a lot at computer screens and occasionally engage in frantic fits of typing? Because that would be our movie. I suppose the three of us in this household find ourselves immensely funny, but we haven't even successfully been able to explain half our jokes to people who are around us all the time, so "comedy" doesn't seem like quite the thing from the outside. From the inside, though, totally.

When I was in Oregon for the summer, we occasionally would play "who survives," the "if this was an action movie, who would make it out alive?" game. I was the only woman in the group, so I was guaranteed to be all right, because you have to have at least one woman alive at the end of the action movie. One of the guys was invariably toast, because he was a fresh-faced farm-boy, and everyone knows how they fare. Etc. But I don't think my life is an action movie.

3) If you could bring in a ghost-writer to slog through the hard parts of your book - who would you choose?

Well, awhile ago athenais and I were joking that we should finish each other's books....

Seriously, though, I wouldn't. I don't have a ghost-writer because I don't want one, not because I couldn't get them to agree or couldn't afford it or something. My books are my books because I did the hard parts as well as the easy parts. I am a writer. Writers don't hire writing, they get hired for writing. I would far rather be a ghost-writer than have one.

At Minicon, Steven Brust was talking about collaborating and writing until it wasn't any fun and then handing the manuscript to his collaborator, who did the same. That seems to me a different thing: a credited collaboration is worlds apart from a ghost-writing gig. There are several people I'd consider collaborating with, first among them timprov if he was feeling good enough to do more writing.

But if I didn't want to write books, I wouldn't write books, and that includes the hard parts. Other people write a great many books, and if I want to read their writing, I can do so. My books are different from theirs. Clearly so: they're mine. If someone else had written them, they would be someone else's.

4) What do you think happens after people die? Is it relevant to how you live your life?

Oh, sure, go for the easy questions.

I believe that the statement "God is love" is not a metaphor but a definition. I believe that when we die, we join that.

The nice thing about this is that even if I'm wrong about it happening literally, I absolutely know that it's true on the figurative level at least. My dead loved ones are part of how I love others in my life. I can point at concrete things I do in loving people that are the legacy of my Gran or my grandmother-in-law or Nanu or my uncle Lloyd or my cousin Dave or my friend Steph. Whatever is true of anything after, I know that that is true now. I can even point at things that I do that are the legacy of Great-Grandpa Lingen, who died when I was three, or my grandmother, who died before I was born. The continuity of some of these things is quite visible.

So in that sense, it affects everything I do. The literal truth of a heaven is not so much my concern. I don't do good things in hopes that someone will pat me on the head for them after I die. I don't avoid doing bad things for fear somebody will poke me with a sharp stick after I die. I try to behave with love whenever I can manage it because it's the right thing to do, and I don't think I'll be sorry even if there's an afterlife and I'm drastically wrong about what it contains.

5) What should I have for dinner next Monday?

Oh, sure, stick me with the hard questions.

Do you like chili? Have chili and cornbread. It's good stuff, and the leftovers save well for later. Or you could go get some Ethiopian food in honor of Ed's birthday, I suppose. Or a beer. I mean, probably not for dinner -- I don't think drinking your dinner would be a very good way to honor Ed's birthday -- but with your dinner, if you like beer.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Closing the bedroom shades gives me another hour.

B

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Our horizontal blinds are closed, but we're looking into getting Roman blinds or some other kind of shade that would block more light. Just another thing on the list.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

We have Roman shades in the bedroom.

B

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

My dead loved ones are part of how I love others in my life.

Yes. Exactly.

And for that matter, my dead not-so-loved-ones are, too.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, for better or worse.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I have venetian blinds AND a heavy curtain I draw over them. No problem sleeping late.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I tend to think we return to our sources when we die. What's of the earth returns to the earth; what's loving returns to Love; what's mindful returns to Mind, etc. Though, as Thurber says,
"Where most of us end up there is no knowing,
but the Hell-bent get where they are going."

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Re #4: I like that. If there's one thing I am sure about in re my dead grandparents, it's that they are now with me. What I don't know is how; I have no data to say if they are spirits guarding or just present via the imprint they've left in my mind. Maybe I'll find out someday, or maybe I won't (and if I don't I probably won't be in any condition to care). But whatever the details are, no question they're here.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

I've got some questions for you, and I'd like a set from you, if you please.

1. Who is your favorite physicist, living or dead?
2. If your life were a science fiction or fantasy novel being written by someone other than you, who would you want the author to be?
3. If you could instantly gain the ability to play any musical instrument, what would you choose?
4. If you had to choe to play one sport (team or individual), what would it be?
5. In this 5-question meme, do you think you learn more about people from the questions they ask or the questions they answer.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

1. Do you like your name? Would you have chosen it if you got to choose all over again without any consequences?
2. What's the best present you've ever given (that you're willing to discuss on lj)?
3. What is the single most useful thing you travel with?
4. Is there anything (book, game, TV show, movie, toy, whatever) from your childhood that you wish was available now, but it isn't?
5. What one piece of science fictional technology would you like to have available right now?

[greatestofnates.livejournal.com]

Hah ha - Frantic fits of typing reminded me of Barton Fink even though there was no frantic typing in that movie. And definitely no computer screens.

#4 is sort of how I feel too. That is the way I would like it to be at least.

Chili sounds good. But I'm not sure I can swing that on a Monday night with work. Doesn't chili take a couple hours to cook? I think Guinness has a lot of calories. I could drink a Guinness with some meal-supplement powder and then take a multi-vitamin. That's a healthy meal? Maybe I should have a banana too.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Chili doesn't have to take a couple hours to cook. With my recipe, you can either put it in the crockpot and leave it all day while you're working, or you can make it at the last minute no problem.

Yes, definitely go with the banana.

[greatestofnates.livejournal.com]

I'll trade one last minute chili recipe for a one hour guinness stew.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Take 1# of beef (not ground beef). Chop it up. Chop up some onion (1/4 onion for my taste, more for most people's). Throw a tiny bit of olive oil or veggie oil in your soup pot and cook the beef and the onion. Drain a can of black beans and dump them in. Dump in a can of tomatoes. Add:
1 1/2 T chili powder
1 t cumin
1/2 t each garlic, oregano, black pepper
1/4 t salt
Cook until it's all kind of together and bubbly and smells good.

I also have a vegan chili recipe, but I seem to recall you being a carnivore.

[greatestofnates.livejournal.com]

Oops - I misled you about the cooking time. It will actually take about 2+ hours.

2 lb round/stew steak (1/2 inch cubes)
2 onions (sliced)
2 cloves garlic (sliced)
1/4 cup flour
1 pint Guinness
2 large carrots (sliced)
2 potatoes (sliced)
2 bay leaves
1 sprig thyme
ground pepper
1/2 cup prunes

Saute onions and garlic then drain on paper towels.
In the stew pot:
Quickly brown meat (no need to cook thoroughly). Reduce heat and stir in flour to coat the meat
Add 1/2 guinness and stir until you have a smooth sauce
Add remainder of guinness, onion, garlic, carrots, herbs, potato, and pepper.
Cover and simmer for 90 minutes.
Uncover, add prunes, and cook until sauce is reduce/thickened.

If you prefer your potatoes and carrots to be more firm than mushy you can put them in midway or toward the end of cooking. I also never use bay leaves, but that came with the recipe.