Cabana threats

[mrissa]

Last week I said to ksumnersmith in e-mail something I say a lot: it's not like I'm going to stop writing novels and short stories if I never get them published, so I might as well get on with it regardless of where there's progress on that front. If anywhere.

And it's true. It's not like I've been writing all these years for the fortune and glory it's been bringing me, so on any given day, not getting fortune and glory out of it should not actually be anything like a problem.

Still, I think I'm going to rewrite Sampo to be a 1,000 word short story: first the prologue, which I like, and then, "Chapter One. They all died in flaming wreckage, cliffs being in short supply in that part of Finland. The End." Maybe I will add an epilogue in which Orvokki is discovered not to have died after all and runs off to live in Jamaica with many comely cabana boys and girls.

Probably I won't do this. Probably I will just not let myself read tomorrow until I've finished the stupid mean sex scene in Chapter One or maybe Chapter Three. Still. I hold out the threat of the flames and cabana beings, just in case.

In other news, we are expecting three interesting packages this week, and we got three packages in the mail today. The two were not overlapping sets. One was some shirts I found online on sale, and they are the colors they were supposed to be (purple, brown, and blue-and-blue striped), and they fit. One was the last of my birthday gift certificate stuff, which is interesting (at least it had better be, or I'm going after you, ccfinlay) but not the previously specified interesting stuff. And one was a dress that -- surprise! -- didn't fit. I'm not even going to rant about the way in which it did not fit, because anyone who's been reading this for even a little bit already knows. But I wasn't even annoyed that it didn't fit, because the catalog described it as "moss green," and it was...er. Well. ozarque talks about conversing with other people and how you can try to think of what their statements might be true of, and I thought of that with this moss green dress. It is sort of the color of moss, if the tree that was shading the moss has died and fallen over and the moss is burnt to a crisp and then trampled by hikers or lumberjacks. (This is the same line of thought that got me to the "summer breeze blowing through a pear orchard in which there lies a rotting wombat corpse" for the "Orchard Breeze" scented bathroom-cleaning product.)

Which is really too bad, because if they'd made that dress in the color moss actually is, and if they'd made it to fit my actual body, I would have been a very happy kid. And if a frog had wings, as my grandpa often says.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

*My* grandfather used to say, "And if my grandmother had balls, she'd be my grandfather." Only not in front of me.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There are all sorts of things my grandfather doesn't say in front of me.

But with the colloquial use of "balls" to mean "chutzpah, guts, initiative, sisu," no one in my family would dare question any of my ancestresses in that regard. They would hope that they died quickly rather than living to regret it.

Jen The World's Best Lab Partner and I tried to get "ovaries" substituted into that colloquialism ("I can't believe she did that -- it really took ovaries!" "She must have solid brass ovaries!"). For some reason nobody else picked up this expression at all.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

It's a Yiddish expression originally and amusingly enough the actual word is "baytzim" - which colloqially is balls, but literally means eggs. So in Yiddish you actually don't need to substitute and say ovaries when speaking of a woman.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

There was an automobile color released a few years ago that was called by the manufacturer "tropical lime". We looked at it and said, only if that lime had been rotting in the tropical sun for several weeks, so we renamed it "rotted lime".

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Color names are virtually always poetic and misleading. It is very sad.

[ccfinlay.livejournal.com]

Uh oh!

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

I'm still waiting for robotic tailors. I mean it's damn hard to find long sleeve dress shirts for me, just coz I have 24 inches of neck and a 37 length of sleeve doesn't mean I wear all poly clothes.

[ksumnersmith.livejournal.com]

They all died in flaming wreckage, cliffs being in short supply in that part of Finland.

Hee! Well, one must make do, in absence of cliffs. In one particular work in progress, when I realized I had a city entirely lacking cliffs or cliff-like structures, I went out of my way to try to plot in a really big wall to serve the same purpose.

Should have gone for the flaming wreckage.

[onyxspydyr.livejournal.com]

I must be tired. I read the title of this post "Cannibal Treats" at least twice before I saw what it really says...

[columbina.livejournal.com]

At least it wasn't a real green dress.

I sympathize deeply with the fantasy of flaming wreckage but on behalf of those of us who would like to read the book one day, I hope you don't succumb.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's awesome. Go Yiddish.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I think if something is described as "[modifier] [basic color]," it really ought to be some shade of that basic color. Things that are labeled moss green should be some color of green, not yellow-brown.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I'm not holding you responsible for anyone else's books.

Umm. Maybe that's not as comforting as it was meant to be.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And this is why you are the Karina and other people are Not. "Why does this era of past styles of commerce and warfare exist in this world?" "Well, see, there weren't any cliffs...."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm, Cannibal Treats.

I originally typed, "Mmmmm, Cannibal Teats." That's not better.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But on behalf of those of you who would like to read this book one day, ideally one day later this calendar year -- Sohvi Vääräniemi. Come on now. Don't you kind of want her to die in flaming wreckage? Or is that an effect she only has on her creator?

moss green

[aet.livejournal.com]

Like moss after a drought? As seen here under the roundleaf sundew plant and cranberry stalks:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50797989@N00/219348592/

Re: moss green

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Kind of, yes, but darker.

[brooksmoses]

I remember, some years ago, seeing a Kona Mountain Bike special-edition Ford Focus at a dealership. The car was painted in a brown color that the window sticker referred to as "Pearlescent Dirt Clearcoat Metallic".

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

Because Pearlescent Dirt is so much more classy than regular Dirt. :)