(no subject)

Some people were chatting online about a book and delineated between the French family and the Jewish family. Did the French family not have any religious identity (in which case, fair enough)? Was the Jewish family doomed to spend so many generations in refugee camps that they lacked ethnic identity and national affiliation (in which case, tragic, but fair enough)? Or maybe the Jewish family denied any French heritage and conspired to bring down French society (not a Jewish thing to do, actually, but it's been suggested to me that I would be happier if I gave into my inner evil and joined the Great Jewish Conspiracy, so I must hazard it as a possibility)? Wait! It was probably a book about one family and the different nomenclature was making a point about who they were. No? Actually, no. The book was about two French families. The Jewish one was the least religious, for the other was devout Catholic. The reader wanted to distinguish between the Catholic and the Jewish French.

Next time someone does that, I'm going to ask if the family not assigned by religion is 'pataphysical, for 'pataphysics is the science of meaningless solutions. If that two-family description wasn't 'pataphysical, then it was anti-Semitic, and I choose to believe that the conversation was not being held by bigots.

Actually, the conversation wasn't being held by bigots. No-one had thought through what they were saying and they fell back on stereotypes. Those stereotypes feed into the bigotry though, for they give fuel to idiots who believe in Great Conspiracies and Jewish strangeness.

I still get the "You can be Australian or Jewish but not both" discussion. Only twice a year, but I get it. Almost every time it's because the person in conversation with me wants to assign people to categories and the categories don't reflect the reality. Just as the second family in the book was Jewish and French, I am Jewish and Australian, both in equal measure (more Australian when I vote, more Jewish when I argue that my nephew is a sea vegetable). And yet some people (this happens rather regularly) assume I speak 'Jewish' or Hebrew because I was born that way. In fact, my Latin is better than my Hebrew and I only read other Jewish languages (eg Ladino) because I am a Medievalist and so have languages. The non-English language I speak is French, of course, which reminds me of where I began.

I am in a bit more pain today than yesterday, but the swelling is diminishing. Alas, the pain means I'm grouchy and have almost no tolerance for other people being idiots. One idiot at a time, is today's rule. And today, that idiot is me.

(no subject)

I am procrastinating. I've cut my work down to only 7 more things today (for I hurt) and still, I procrastinate. I've managed to clean, disinfect and rebind my fingers (I had killer skills with this sort of thing as a teen, for I was a girl guide, and it seems those skills have returned) and to do a load of washing and to answer some emails. Also to get very, very excited about a new review book. And sleep. I'm managing sleep. But typing is slow and my brain is slower.

Let me procrastinate for a moment longer and remind you of where I've been online recently (not just for the new book), and then let me remind you of my fabulous competition. After that, I will have run out of excuses.

My snapshot interview is here: http://www.davidmcdonaldspage.com/2012/06/2012-aussie-snapshot-gillian-polack/
My Momentum blog post where I talk about chocolate (of course) and Sharyn's memory of the original draft novel.
CSFG kindly jubilates.
I drop in on Sue Bursztynski
and on Mary Victoria
Nicole Murphy interviewed me on writing habits and processes.
And Donna Hanson asks me about beta reading.

And, of course, the post about the competition is here: http://gillpolack.livejournal.com/1015248.html

Sorry about the lack of mark-up in some places. My bandaging skills are amazing, but my keyboard skills suffer as a result.

(no subject)

My seven things to do today become ten and I've actually done seven of them. I'm only fine for a short while before the hand swells again, so I might have to leave it at seven. Or eight. If I can do just one more thing... This is not ambition. This is keeping my life (just) under control.

For those Sydney friends who missed hearing, I shall be sociable when I visit this time round (to teach on 22 July at the NSW Writers' Centre - book now or miss out on my grammar and punctuation edification and especially miss out on my Star Trek joke).

On the Friday there may well be a group of folks meeting somewhere in Haymarket (need suggestions of place and also, maybe, someone local who can book - Claire suggested Asian food and I have a strong preference for Malaysian or Indonesian) for dinner and on Saturday a group of us are congregating in Haberfield, also for dinner.

And now, do I hurt at my computer or do I hurt in bed? Such important questions. I can, of course, be greedy and do both, sequentially.