A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

The light in Vail is bright bright white, as if everywhere else was on battery power and in Arizona, they plugged into the wall. There's no visible pollution, and the sky hangs low. The clouds stand out in crisp 3-D, every detail sharp as if it had just been carved. The dirt is pale red-brown, and cracks into plates when you prod it. Pebbles are white quartzite, agate, flecked with mica: every one a little gem.

...but mostly we hung out and chit-chatted. If you have any interest at all in sagas, join our new community, sagafans! Critical analysis, commentary, and fanfic all OK!

coraa and I, bemoaning the TMI of many Facebook updates, decided that being telepathic would be like Facebook with more sexual fantasies, a horrifying running stream of

My butt itches.

I just ate a taco.

I just burped.

interspersed with porny imagery. We decided that being telepathic is one of the worst possible powers. Telekinesis would be cool, though we'd get even more out of shape due to the possibility and amusement factor of being able to sit on the sofa and float Cokes out of the refrigerator and mentally flip channels on the TV.

Sherwood and I drove back together - actually, she did nearly all the driving - which was much more tolerable than doing it on my own. Though we did little physical writing, we worked out a whole bunch of plot, character, and worldbuilding-related things for one of our collaborative projects, all of which I'm very excited to actually write in. The world is feeling very lived-in to me, partly because it's an altered version of actual places I know. And though we don't actually see Arizona onstage (maybe in some flashbacks or reminisces) it's there, just miles away from where the action's taking place. It's good to know what's beyond the places you're writing about, or at least if you're a place-fixated writer like me it's good to know.

Also, we decided that our hero needs to be attacked more by plants.

In a fantastic early birthday present, she took me to Spread, the vegetarian restaurant in San Diego which is actually good (I am generally very suspicious of vegetarian food), and had lavender lemonade, spiced pommes frites with homemade ketchup from heirloom tomatoes and rose hips, fried green tomatoes (a bit soggy and over-vinegared), a stunning "grits" made from walnuts and sweet corn, and angel hair pasta with vegetables and garlic that was perfectly savory and comforting. I nearly licked the plate.

Thanks Sherwood! I am still laughing at how you kept it a total secret, putting up with me grumpily suggesting that we just go to the nearest restaurant, until you walked me inside.

This week I drove to Vail, Arizona to attend Lippicon at dancinghorse's place. Since I was only there for two nights and a day, I did not bring anything to be workshopped. But I did get to ride a horse!

The drive from LA to Vail (near Tucson) was a grueling 9 ½ hours, and I would not do it alone again. I had checked out from the library The Three Musketeers on CD, which I had not read unabridged. Now I know why it’s often abridged. There are endless details about court minutiae, it takes five chapters to get to the first duel, and I was surprised to hear that Dumas had not, as the unabridged version suggested, been paid by the word. I gave up after something like the fifty-ninth loving description of just how honest, forthright, handsome, stalwart, brave, fiery, skilled, and all-around awesome D’Artagnan was, I guess in case I’d missed it the first fifty-eight times it had been explained.

It was great to meet coraa, dancinghorse, others (I think) not on LJ, and to meet up with sartorias, tcastleb (looking very much the cowgirl in a genuine Stetson), janni and lnhammer. I roomed with coraa, and ended up a bit sleep-deprived as we bonded over talk of the incestuous bestiality mpreg resulting from the rape of a king’s official foot-rest virgin in the Mabinogion, the essential elements of the Gothic, floods we have known, and our introduction to fandom and the terrible and terribly long hurt-comfort epics we devoured. Mine was "Oklahoma," in which Mulder is anorexic, vomits, has nigtmares, vomits, is angsty, vomits some more, is bulimic… well, you can see where that’s heading. Hers was written by some genius who realized that if Q became human, he would experience everything for the first time and so even a stubbed toe would produce epic amounts of pain requiring comfort.

The most amazing part of the trip was getting to ride a horse for the first time in 25 years! (I sort of rode when I was a kid. But only occasionally and I never had any formal lessons, unless you count “hang on.”) I got to ride Capria, a beautiful white Lippizzan mare. She was extremely patient and responsive, though I got the distinct impression at some points that she didn’t understand what I was trying to convey to her, and at others that she did understand but wasn’t going to do it unless I convinced her that I was actually serious about it. This time I did get an actual lesson from a professional riding teacher. I loved it even more than I thought I would, and regret that riding is a very expensive hobby that I am unlikely to get the opportunity to further pursue.

I was told that I have a “good seat.” I have heard that from boyfriends as well.

More tomorrow...