backpack

Here are my magic words for the day: "I'm afraid that's not going to get done today." Just quietly, cheerfully, calmly: "I'm afraid that's not going to get done today." And then on we go. The one that is striking me hardest is that I need a new backpack. My old backpack is disintegrating, and it's disintegrating in a way that leaves the exterior intact while causing the interior to flake all over anything you put in it. I had to dispose of an otherwise perfectly good set of Calvin College playing cards, a Christmas gift from mattgritter when he was a freshman, because they had been in the backpack when it started to go. But do I have time to go shopping for a new backpack today? I do not. So I will find a duffel bag or something else in the closet, and we will move on with the schedule. (Canvas bags from previous World Fantasy Cons are very fine for what they are, but they have no pockets and do not close and therefore are not carryons, to my way of thinking. At least not for the trip out.)

What I really want -- sorry I'm hung up on this -- is my old backpack. You know the one, scottjames: the one I took to France with us. Yes, that was more than a decade ago. But it was an awesome backpack. It was green canvas, and the pockets were the right size -- big enough for my graphing calculator, small enough that I didn't try to stuff too much crud in them or forget what was in there -- and it sat just right on my shoulders, and it smelled right from the minute I first put books in it, and I loved it. I mended it several times. Then I got home from college for a break, and my mom expressed horror that I had been mending a green backpack with whatever threads in my prepackaged college sewing kit I expected not to use for anything else -- pink and bright purple, mostly -- and a black backpack appeared at Christmas. And it's been fine, very serviceable, never dumped my stuff all over O'Hare or anything like that. But we never emotionally bonded. It was always a strictly functional relationship, me and this backpack.

And maybe I'm past the point in my life when I can love a backpack. Maybe a girl passes a certain age and her relationship with her backpack just loses its magic. I don't know. I don't think I'm willing to give up on finding my backpack yet. I may end up settling for a backpack, but first there will be a search. And the search will not be today, because while I have had four real meals in a row now, plus a snack, I'm still a bit shaky and not going to push the issue. After my return, there will be the search for the backpack. Hither, thither, yon, and possibly Bigdale if I get desperate and can't find anything at hither, thither, or even yon. Wish me good questing. Backpacks can be very elusive. Especially if you don't want Dora the Explorer on them.

books read (with bonus wee penguin)

My niecelet was a penguin for Halloween. She may not be the absolute cutest niecelet ever, but it is certainly a near thing if she is not.

This has not been a half-month for reading a large number of books, but here's ( what I read in late October )

Mostly.

Mostly packed. Mostly healthy. Mostly eager to get to WFC tomorrow. Mostly tired. But mostly done with a book I'm reading, so I might as well finish it; I dislike taking a book on the plane to read 10 pages of it, and I also dislike leaving a book home with 10 pages yet to read.

Also, regarding the photo poll, most of you are ingrates and probably Red Commies for not appreciating what the good Marshal has done for you in keeping Finland independent of Soviet influence. I'm just sayin'. Some of you have already admitted to being Red Commies, which is fine.

The latest thing is that the washing machine has decided not to have a spin cycle any more. Not mostly. Totally. So I sang under my breath, "we shall come rejoicing, wringing out the towels," and thought that maybe I don't have to sing everything, but by then I was too tired not to. jenett has talked about being too tired not to cope. Sometimes I am too tired not to sing. "How Can I Keep From Singing" is really more a practical question sort of song for me than rhetorical: really how can I, lest someone get annoyed.

Do not expect gratuitous bursts of song at WFC, if you're going to see me there. But, um. Perhaps don't expect their lack, either.