Books, puppy, books: so just the same as usual, really.

I am very nearly to the stage of Thermionic Night known as fidgeting. I still have beta readers who will get me comments, so I have not declared it done for the time being, but the stuff I'm tweaking still is of dubious value and along the line of 5-10 words worth of change, not even 50, much less 5000.

(This last is probably a good thing, as someone who loves me will come along and whack me with a stick if I add 5K to this book without also cutting 5K. I don't know which someone who loves me. But there are options.)

In this sense, the work on Sampo is probably good, because I can roar through it with my pink pen of girly death and do something and not just twitch. So yarg, said the girly death of adverbs.

Gloom, doom, and despair: Ista has discovered toilet paper. While I was in the shower. (She is desperately jealous of my time in the shower.) From the evidence at the quote scene of the crime unquote (and no, I didn't take thirty-seven color glossy photos -- although there is one Ista pic over on novel_gazing), she first tore off a long strip and then taught herself to delicately remove one piece at a time. The tears along the perforation are perfect.

As if we needed a thirty millionth reminder that "smart" and "well-behaved" are not the same thing....

She's learning good things, too, though. When she was dancing on lydy's head with such joy the other night, it didn't sound like she was biting, just mostly licking. So yay. (I told Lydy that we could remove the dog if she wanted us to. When she could speak again through her laughter, she said no, she was having a good time. Apparently it is the rule that all members of our household have to be able to break the Lydy laughing.) She also has sniffed at timprov's toes and refrained from chomping on several occasions, although to be fair she has also bit at them a couple of times. Still, much improved.

So. What are you reading? I've finished the latest New Scientist this morning and F&SF yesterday, so I'm out of periodicals for the moment. I'm neck-deep in Dorothy Dunnett's King Hereafter, still, and it's making me want to write the Aesir noir novel, which is just sad and shows a disturbed turn of mind. (Dorothy Dunnett...Raymond Chandler...Snorri Sturlason...uhh, sure, Mris.) I'm in a part with insufficient killing right now. A killing lull. I should pick it up again right away, because I feel sure that there will be more killing, and I am in the mood to jump up and down with the shrink yelling, "Kill! Kill! Kill!"

I'm going to go listen to something that is not Arlo Guthrie now, for obvious reasons. And those of you who have never heard "Alice's Restaurant," ummmm...well, go do so, for one thing, but for another, please don't worry about me and the shrink jumping up and down yelling kill. While they might pin a medal on me, hardly anybody is likely to mistake me for their boy.

(Yes, it's one of those moods. Sorry.)