If you’re in the DFW area, and like traditional Christmas music, you might be interested in coming to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Grand Prairie for the annual Lessons & Carols service on DECEMBER 17th.

Lessons & Carols is exactly what the name implies – an evening of the Christmas Story punctuated by familiar carols, Gregorian chant, and plainsong. (There is no Mass at this service).

Fuzzy and I are both in the choir, which is usually a combined choir from St. Andrew’s & St. Joseph’s, and it’s really lovely.

I’m posting it NOW because I know how busy we all get.

I haven’t been sleeping well lately. No, that’s not quite true. I’ve been sleeping, but not enough, and not when I WANT to. I can’t focus on anything – I have these writing projects coming out my ears, and I can’t make my brain focus.

It’s like… I have all these ideas, but the number of projects is overwhelming, and I committed to NaNo but what I really want to do is finish the short stories, except the NaNo project is one that’s been stewing for a while.

And this is bad.

Here’s what’s not bad:
– Took the dogs for walkies around the neighborhood this morning, when the air was crisp and the sun was just warm enough to put smiles on our faces.
– Have now learned more about SEO and web advertising than I ever needed to know. I’ve always been very attracted to marketing, and sort of wish that was the career I’d fallen into.
– I made beef stew last night, which Fuzzy thought was bland, but I quite liked. It was warm and Novembery, and sometimes that’s what food should be. Especially on a cold November night.

I had more to say, but … read that paragraph above re: lack of focus.

Halloween seemed over too fast this year, and though mine was quiet, it was enjoyable. I decorated the front of the house with pumpkin lights in the hedges along the walk, and candy-corn lights in the front hedges, little blinking pumpkin luminaris in the grass in front of the big window, and a garland of pumpkins and black dripping from the porch light. I had my ceramic ghost candle-holders on the mantle, and the cauldron candle tree ablaze in the dining room window, and 12 bags of candy to pass out.

Here’s my thing about candy, by the way: It’s important to give the good stuff, and not be stingy. At my house, chocolate is the rule of the day (those shaped assortment packs with the peppermint ‘batty’ and the reese’s pumpkin were a hit with neighborhood kids), and I give two pieces to each kid, three if I like their costume. Usually, I enforce a “no costume, no candy” rule, but will relent if they compliment my pumpkin. Flattery gets them everywhere. (This year’s pumpkin was an Aztec sun – pix later.) This is a little extravagant, I’ll admit, but my house has never been egged, and the kids are always polite. It’s worth a little bribery to achieve that.

I set up camp in my dining room (which I never use when we don’t have company, and that’s sad. It’s such a cozy room, and it’s the only room on the first floor with a street view), with my laptop, coffee, and the requisite orange-frosted cupcake. You know, the kind from the grocery store with frosting that feels like wax coating on your teeth? They’re disgusting, but they’re a tradition I keep partly because it makes me happy, and partly in honor of one of my best friends, Jen in Colorado, with whom I’ve stopped to buy them from an all-night Safeway on the way home from the Halloween gathering in the Castro. It’s the friends you can walk down Market Street eating cupcakes with at two in the morning, who really count.

At 5:30, when it was just starting to get dark, I worried there would be no kids. At 6:24 the first kid showed up, an adorable eight-ish-year-old in a homemade Hermione Granger costume. She got bonus points for having a scarf her grandmother knitted (I asked), for being personable, and for pausing as she left, to wave her wand at the blinky pumpkins, and yell “Lumos!” just as they blinked ON. By eight, I’d refilled the candy bowl a second time, for the teenagers. I think the drama group from the local high school came en masse – they got points for BEING their characters, and I had fun teasing them. “You all get three pieces each, for being creative,” I said. And one of the guys repeated it. “We get three pieces,” he told his friends, “Because this lady’s wonderful.”

At 9:00 one last straggler showed up – she’s probably the kid whose parents couldn’t get home from work, and I let her take a handful. I kept the light on til 9:30, then closed everything down. Except the pumpkin, which is still glowing happily on the side table in the living room (it’s sporting a cool pumpkin light, this year).

During the trick-or-treating, I chatted with friends, and did some research for a series of articles on online advertising – actually learned a couple things I didn’t know – and found myself wishing one of the adorable children was mine. “I’m 36,
I whined textually to a friend in Canada. “Aren’t I too old for this?” She assured me I wasn’t.

Fuzzy didn’t seem to mind that I accosted him as soon as he came home, either.

Last night, Zorro got lost in the bathroom.

Now, my bathroom is pretty big, but he’s gone in there several times a day for water, every day for two years now, so he should know his way around.

Last night, however, something changed. He went in for water, and didn’t come out. We heard a scratching at the door, and I thought he was scratching at the bedroom door, signalling a need to visit the back yard. But Fuzzy said the sound wasn’t coming from the right place. He got out of bed, walked into the bathroom and called, “Zorro…” and waited.

My poor old Zorro dog had been scratching at the inside of the partly opened bathroom door, apparently having walked behind it, instead of through it, on his attempt to come back to bed.

We hugged him and told him we still loved him, even if he’s getting old and rangey.

He just sighed and went to sleep.

Rob Brezny writes:

Most flowers depend on pollinators to reproduce. Birds and insects brush up against a flower’s male parts, picking up pollen that they leave on the female parts of the next flower they visit. But nature has created an anomaly that doesn’t play by these rules. A wild orchid known as Holcoglossum amesianum fecundates itself. Its male bits actually move, carrying out a complicated maneuver to reach around and down to deposit pollen directly into its female portions. This orchid is your power symbol, Leo. I hope it encourages you to learn more about self-fertilization–to increase your mastery of the underappreciated art of inspiring and teaching and taking care of yourself. Halloween costume suggestion: a hermaphrodite carrying a wild orchid.

Somewhat appropriately, I’ve loved orchids ever since I first started reading Nero Wolfe novels when I was eight or nine. I even had a pet orchid once, but it got too cold and died. They’re surprisingly difficult to maintain in non-tropical environments.

Despite the headache, I’ve been really writey yesterday and this morning. Fanfic is posted to my writing blog – currently I’m playing with a Snape-fic and a Geordi-fic. (See Rana, not all my tastes are disturbing…Geordi’s wholesome. And, you know, not evil.) The original short stories are coming out a little slower, but they’re coming along nevertheless. I’m not worried. And NaNoWriMo begins on Weds, and I’ve got an Idea, and am not saying more.

Like the orchid, my creativity has been difficult to cultivate lately. I get discouraged, and writing is so internal, and I always think everything I write completely sucks. I’m learning, slowly, not to care if it sucks, because the suckage can be corrected. Hence the sharing of fanfic, and the short stories and…stuff.

So, yeah, I’m not terribly chatty these days, but that’s cuz there are orchids blooming in my mind.

Woke up to head hurting, pressure like my brain’s going to explode, but not sinus, and feeling queasy and horrid.
Drank water and took pain meds.
Still feel like brain is pulsing.
Napped some.
Ate something.
Napped some more.
No change.
More pain meds.
More water.
And some cranberry juice.
Emailed CSz director, and let him know could not make show tonight.
(I feel *that* bad)
Called also, but he replied as I was leaving message.
More water.
Some tea.
Then more sleep.
I wish I could make the room darker.
*sigh*

Thirteen Things about MissMeliss: The Joy of Dogs Tiny feet that smell like corn chips. Head-butts that invite attention. Soft fur, warm from their basking in the sun. Pressure of a gentle head against my thigh or foot. Happy tails, wagging with joy. Ears that are always alert, even in sleep. Joyous greetings, even if I’ve only been gone five minutes. Ferocious protection of the house, especially from garbage men and pool guys. Instant walking companions. So much more efficient than the garbage disposal. The way they seem boneless when you move their sleeping forms. Soft sighs when you pet them. Puppy kisses that make everything better. Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

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– Working on the short stories in fits and snatches. Am too easily distracted. Need some kind of competition.

– Posted chapter two of Snapefic “Plans” and 2nd fanfic100 TNG fanfic to my blog at MoonChilde.com. Also posted them to fanfiction.net. Username is Ms.Snarky.

– Am re-reading Liner Notes which has inspired me to write more. (Great book, highly recommended.)

– Have urge to bake chocolate chip cookies.

– Am woefully behind in correspondence. Writing letters TODAY. Really. No, REALLY.

(Mooched from MoonChylde at LJ)

The folks at Wired write:

We’ll be brief: Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”) and is said to have called it his best work. So we asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers from the realms of books, TV, movies, and games to take a shot themselves.

To read the offerings they received, go here. (Opens in new window) Then come back and get creative, if you dare, by posting your own Six Word Story in comments.

Mine (as posted in my friend MoonChylde’s livejournal):
Drought expanded. Seattle survivors remembered rain.

It is a grey, damp, autumn day, of the sort which require the warm glow of lamplight to soften the edges of life.

It is the kind of day best suited for tea, soup, and grilled cheese, for lit candles and the quiet murmur of NPR, for hiding in a garrett and scribbling.

And so that is the plan.

Except, I don’t have a garrett, but a 2nd-floor bedroom-turned-officestudio.
But it’s in the treetops, so it counts, right?