long time, no post

Not that I haven't had a lot to write about, but it's just been wholly unpleasant. More layoffs, pay cuts, stress, grief, panic, are we going to make it? Et cetera. Nothing I want to re-live by blogging about it.

Ready for all of it to be over and for this thing to start turning a corner. I've had quiet enough of building my HR repertoire, thanks very much.

But that's that.

Our weekend has been fabulous. Maybe not fabulous for those living in climates that don't toughen the soul. But for us, hitting 60 degrees on a weekend in April is quite a major event. Of course, the really sunny, 70's weather is going to fall on Monday. Figures!

And I can't believe I just let myself eat coffee ice cream and 2 Milanos. Woman, do you have no shame?

Yeah, that was a rhetorical question.

Have been feasting otherwise on Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint, which was recommended by friend. I'd only read one of his previously, The Onion Girl. I liked that one, but it really started to drag toward the middle, and I ended up speed scanning through sections of it just to get to the end.

Not so with Memory and Dream. It took me a little while to pick up this one since, like The Onion Girl, it is a huge book with very small print! That's a substantial commitment for me. But he is simultaneously inspiring my unadulterated worship and insane jealousy at his talent. I am so utterly enthralled with this story that I'm forcing myself to keep a steady pace to savor it. I'm terrible at breakneck reading in order to find out what happens. I still have a couple hundred pages to go, so I've put it down for the evening so I can finish it tomorrow.

It's so layered and beautiful and haunting and.... All about art, writing, and magic. An artist whose paintings open a doorway for creatures from the Otherworld to enter reality and the writer's stories that connect them. Truly, urban fantasy at its best. I'm in awe of his ability to blur the lines between fantasy and reality so that you just believe that these things could actually happen. Especially for anyone who's ever pursued writing or art. You know how characters come alive inside you, so the leap you have to make while reading this book - that these characters can actually come alive - doesn't really feel like such a leap at all.

And today I had to laugh out loud during one chapter where the writer, Kathy, is talking about a story that's coming out complete crap, but her characters won't leave her alone until she sees the story through til the end. She makes the comment that she just wants to write: "And then they all died. The End."

How many of us have felt that urge about eleventy billion times through the course of writing something?