(no subject)

Storm-addled, that's me. I did maybe a fraction of a squidgeon of work this morning, to help me pretend I existed and the rest of the day was spent being loomed over by incoming thunder. Luckily, my friend J picked me up and we went window-shopping and actual shopping and had coffee and caught up with each other's lives. I now have much food stacked away for times of need and, even better, much joy of friendship stacked with it. I have a special, secret shelf for the happiness derived from seeing friends. That shelf is very handy when life gets tough.

If the weather is like this tomorrow, then I shall absorb it into my teaching and explain how landform and weather are not neutral in novels. Well, they aren't. My brain might be storm-addled, but it's not that far awry.

(no subject)

We choose our memories and we choose the pasts we live with. We also choose the stories we tell in our fiction and in our histories.

I'm stating the obvious, I know, but I just ran across two things that reminded me that those choices can affect peoples' lives in a big way. I keep on encountering the effects of choices. I guess this means I have to write about it somewhere, sometime. And I guess that means I have to think about it some more. I know it from the viewpoint of writing history and from the viewpoint of being a feminist, but what about the viewpoint of a refugee whose past has been silenced by the memory and history choices of others, or a woman whose business acumen was there, in the archives, waiting for someone to be daring and actually look for it.

If anyone can recommend fiction that already talks about these subjects and handles them sensitively, I'd love to know. There are so many novels that could be written through looking at the obliterated and the forgotten and the ought-to-be-remembered. I'd love to know who has done what. Not Geraldine Brooks, though: I have a particular fret about the way she silenced memory by novelising the Sarajevo Haggadah in a way that made it far less Jewish. She and I obviously see history through quite different eyes.

(no subject)

My books have opinions of their own. Just now, a whole shelf (and four teeth) rebelled against my opinions (while I was in the other room, no less) and rearranged themselves. Some of the books were cast out by the others and sprawled across the floor. Most them those were not reference books. My reference books are obviously snobs.

I took the hint and have removed the stack of books that was resting on top of the reference books until I had decided what to do with them. It's an interesting stack: Le Clezio, Elizabeth Chadwick, Jay Amory, Michael Robotham, Louis Marley, Michael Newth and Ruth Park. I think I'll add them all to my 'to be read' piles for the moment, whether I've read them or not. That will give me time to work out how on earth I can fit all my books into the space I don't have for them.

I don't know where to put the four teeth, either. They're from the set of Hogfather, and a present from my niece, so they have to go somewhere interesting. I'll ponder this matter. I'll also ponder the book problem. I need to diminish my other possessions, move into a bigger space, or get rid of some of my previous volumes. None of these three things is going to happen. Unless...

How about I offer a random book from my collection and a Kathleen Jennings bookplate to the person who gives the best solution to my problem. Interpret 'best' any way you like. If you're overseas you still get the book and bookplate, but the 'random' will err on the side of not weighing too much. If no-one comes up with any intersting solutions, I shall use the teeth in lieu of lots and do a casting to determine the future of my library.