21 October 1999

I didn't read yesterday's book yesterday. I read the first twenty-five pages and came to the conclusion that the lead female character was a bit of a slut. (Actually, she hadn't slept with anyone yet, in the book. But by page twenty-five, we had encountered her and four male characters, and she had slept with two of them before the book opened, and was having lustful thoughts about both of the other two.) To see if this trend was going to continue, I opened the book randomly to a point in the middle.

It seems that by this point, a second female character had been introduced - an eco-nazi biologist who had just stripped for the creatures they found living in the upper atmosphere of Saturn, so that they could see what a real human looked like. The creatures were talking to each other in the section I was reading (and they sounded like a stereotypical old Jewish couple in their speech patterns, if you ask me) and one of them commented on the novelty of covering bits of yourself as a decorative measure... And flew off wearing a pair of panties on his claw or horn or something.

I gave up right there. I've been in the mood for some hard sci-fi lately - and this isn't it.

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I had this extremely vivid dream this morning. I'm planning (for real) to go to SheVaCon in February, so that I can meet Steve Miller and Sharon Lee, who have written some of my favorite books, and because I'm on a mailing list dedicated to fans of their series, I'm also looking forward to meeting some of the other "Friends of Liad" as we're called. (Liad is the home planet of the primary family involved in the books.)

In the dream, I was at SheVaCon, standing by a table and talking to various people while watching Steve Miller sign autographs. On a board next to the autograph table was a sign that read: "Clan FoL: Private meeting at..." I don't remember exactly what the sign said, but it was directed at the Friends of Liad. (Liadens divide themselves up by clan, and so we fans have taken to calling ourselves a clan.) At any rate, someone in line said something like, "What's a 'FoL'?" and I said, "Well, I'm one..."

Then, a bit later, I was sitting in the hallway talking to Mycroft, who is one of the list's most frequent posters. On the list, we usually abbreviate his name to Myk (there's a reason, but if you haven't read the books, then it won't make any sense) and I was trying to determine whether "Myk" was pronounced "Mick" or "Mike".

Then I decided to make some brownies. For some reason, they had to be made in a microwave, but my friend Mike P., whom I've known since college, had one and was going to get it. Two things you should know about Mike for the rest of this to make sense: 1) We dated very briefly in college, before he started going out with his now-wife, Katie; and 2) once he starts talking, it's hard to shut him up.

So Mike was supposed to go get me this microwave so I could make these brownies, but he wouldn't shut up and he wasn't going and he wouldn't shut up, and finally, I put my hands on his cheeks and said, "Mike, sweetie, go get the microwave now, okay?" And he went to get it. But then Katie got mad at me for calling her husband "sweetie" and accused me of trying to steal him back, and I was trying to explain that no, I just really wanted to make these brownies... and then my alarm went off.