mrissa | Five Random Things Make Up An -- I can't type that without missing her posts.

And I'm not sure I ever will be able to. But better to miss

wilfulcait than to forget her, by a long shot. Anyway.

1. Dear friends: if you come upon a startling piece of racism and it makes you think of me, for heaven's sake do not purchase it and send it to me. If a startling piece of racism makes you think of me, I am dreadfully sorry and would appreciate it if you had a quiet word with me somewhere so I could mend my ways. Even if it has to do with Scandinavia. Startling piece of racism != optimal contents of

mrissa's mailbox. Okay? Okay. I'm glad we had this little talk. And I'm somewhat taken aback that we apparently needed to.

2. There will be elephants somewhere along the way. Colonialism is much better if the invasive colonizers really get elephants on a deep level, right? I think so.

3.

timprov is currently putting away the contents of the grocery delivery so I don't have to go downstairs and stick my head in the veggie bin and like that. Dinner is here for whenever we want it. Yay, Byerly's!

Also

timprov is making farmer cheese, so I'm singing cheese carols, like, "It's beginning to smell a lot like Cheesemas," and "Farmer cheese is coming to ~~town~~ us."

4. I think it's generally a good thing that I keep extensive notes on story ideas. They're there when I need them, and at this point I have enough ideas to keep me busy until my mid-90s, when I can retire comfortably and live out my later years in peace, only writing when I really feel like it after that. But sometimes it's a really good thing to sit down with the blank page again. Not to try to finish anything old, not to try to get something out of my hair, just to see what comes out now, not yesterday or three weeks ago or three years ago. I will never chase down all these ideas, and keeping the flow of new ones encouraged is a feature, not a bug.

5. It's very strange watching what my brain does when I can't do a lot of the stuff I usually do. I don't just mean the cheese carols, because that's stuff I would usually do. I've cleaned out some parts of my desk that have been sitting for ages, because that's something I can do. There's often some way to be useful, and I am hell-bent on finding it. It's just sometimes a bit more obscure than other times.