Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

So. Here I am, still awake. One of you asked where I find markets, and the short answer is Ralan. I also hear from people on the friendslist etc., and I sometimes use other lists. But mostly Ralan.

And one of you said she wanted to hear about books, so here you go: I like books. I even know some, personally. Do you have more Arlo Guthrie moments when you're tired? I know I do.

Also one of you wanted a post brought to you by the letter T and the number 3. I forget how that used to work, though. Am I supposed to think of things with a T sound? I don't remember what T is for. I don't think it's for trums. How about blankeT, resT, and Tired? Those are three things with a T sound.

Someone else asked what books I didn't like in 2005 and why. The ones I'd be able to write about are not the ones I really didn't like, because I just put down the ones I really didn't like. Mostly this was because the writing was so bad it made me screech. I don't insist on golden, deathless prose in every line of every book, but there are some tics that annoy me much more than they used to in a work of published fiction. I think happy and unhappy books are the opposite of happy and unhappy families -- well, it's more that I think Tolstoy was wrong about happy and unhappy families. But good books make me squeal in all different directions -- this one has an excellent father-daughter relationship, that one messes with genetics implications, the other destroys the Stanley Cup because what is wrong with you people? Ahem. Anyway, the books I really didn't like are mostly dull or banal or poorly written or all of the above. A few were overwrought instead, or poorly thought-through. The books I didn't love are a much more interesting category than the books I didn't like.

Someone asked about boots. Boooots! I am usually a hiking boot girl, and not only that but a hiking boot evangelist. For awhile I thought I was in pretty bad shape. Two miles into a hike, I would be ready to go home and flop on the couch. Then I got new boots, and the four mile up-and-down-hill trail that had kicked my butt the previous week was a pleasant walk. Moral of the story: if you're getting a fair amount of exercise otherwise and don't have any medical conditions that you know would affect it, see if you have good footwear, because it really, really matters.

My new boots are not that kind of boots at all. I'd be begging for mercy in much less than two miles in my new boots. (That may not be true when they're broken in, but I expect that to be somewhere around 2010.) But they are girl boots, and they are not weak girl boots, and they are not dominatrix boots. They are just strong girl boots. I looked at some that would have completed any "Viking merchant princess whose family trades with Muscovy" ensemble I chose to wear -- and frankly I bet I could pull that off -- but it isn't, shall we say, the goal of most of my outfits.

You may wear stilettos if you like, but I will not, not even in boots.

There are more things on my suggestion list, some of them incredibly thoughtful, others silly and fun. I will probably get to them because they interest me. I'm not sure I will get to them yet today. Whichever day that is. I'm going to go downstairs and work out. Then I will drink water and some cranberry juice. Then I will have a shower. Then Mark will wake up. Then we will go to the clinic. Then I will have my test. Then we will come home. Then I will sleep. Then I will relearn how to structure sentences more than one way. Okay? Okay.