Where Gillian realises stuff

I walked into my kitchen this morning, having solved one of my neck problems overnight. This doesn't sound very exciting from anyone else's point of view but mine, but it's actually important for more reasons than me hurting less.

Yesterday Kate solved one kitchen problem (all those uncontrollable pots and pans) and today Jennie is starting to solve the matter of the dying fridge and the issue of the almost-dead stove. This meant I suddenly had some weight off my shoulders.

It's really stupid, in a way (at my end, not theirs). I have had cramps during summer for years. Since I was quite little. I dehydrate easily and cramp even more easily. Somehow, last summer, those cramps decided to attack the back of my neck. Every night I would wake up several times feeling that a had had just grabbed me from behind and was squeezing me tighter and tighter. The thing was that I didn't realise it was cramps till the other worries were lifted a bit. Late last night I realised and I treated my neck for cramps rather than for headache. I still woke up, but the clutching hand was less harsh and I got back to sleep quickly and I actually got eight hours sleep by the end of the night. This morning I can turn my head to both left and right with only the faintest of twinges. And no pain relievers. None. Yee-hah!

My immediate thought is that if ever we want to help the chronically ill, we should ask what the friend wants help with and do what needs doing, no matter how mundane it is. Who but me would have known that the disorderly pans spilling out and covering the kitchen bench were causing me such angst? And who but me would have known that I was willing to withdraw superannuation money to deal with my stove and fridge if only someone was willing to drive me round and help me make decisions and do the negotiations? That's the big thing I relearned yesterday. Help has to fit the real need, not the need perceived by the person who doesn't have the problem.

(no subject)

I'm curious.

Ignore the fact that I'm insatiably curious and just focus on today's morsel of curiosity.

I get lots of suggestions to read best-selling books. I read them. I get lots of recommendations to read small press Aussie speculative fiction. I read them, too. I have read lots of older books ('older' does not mean anything published after 1970 and right now it's most likely to mean 18th century novels or 1920s pulp.) and rather more than my fair share of Arthuriana. It's time to branch out.

I want to have a list of books I should read in 2008, just for the joy of the writing, the characters, the universe. Ignore the best-sellers. Ignore the well-known classics. Ignore the writers everyone else lauds. What books need to be on my list that other people are likely to overlook? Tell me!

Yes, I'm bossy today. I think I'm suffering teaching-deprivation.

I'll start you off with something I bought using the book voucher Donna gave me: John Scalzi's The Android's Dream. OK, so he has a good readership in the US, but he's hardly known at all in Australia. Which is a pity, and which prompted me to ask for the writers you think deserve to be seen more and whose novels will improve my existence measurably (laughter and crying are both measurable improvements as long as I'm laughing and crying with the book and not at it.)

(This leads me to what may well be my last gratuitous advertisement for the year, only useful for Aussies. Dymocks has a 20% off sale and Dymocks Belconnen stocks my book, so you can buy it for the same price as it would be if it were *not* an import. Go and make my publisher happy! Or you can buy other books and make other publishers happy. I doubt it's possible to own too many books, really.)

(Don't you love the totally irrelevant brackets? I am feeling parenthetic, to indicate an improvement from feeling pathetic. I don't yet know what the next step of improvement from parenthetic is. I hope it's not hyperparenthesis, since I am trying to recover from using brackets inside brackets inside brackets. It's a sad little illness that hits at late high school or early university - some people never recover from it. They often become public servants.)