By request

[pameladean]

Someone in a Delicate Condition has requested that people post.

Well, I'm still sick from Wiscon, though I am somewhat more confident than I was a few days ago that the sore throat and even the lingering cough may be gone by Fourth Street. I am not attending the playreading on Thursday, just in case.

This is a truly evil virus and has partially eaten my brain. I had a very odd experience a week or two ago. I was reading Cat Valente's The Orphan's Tales and was relieved that my feverish brain was not having any trouble at all with her lovely prose. But several narratives in, I started getting confused about how deep I was and who had done what to whom. I had already devoured The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. It was perfect for reading while ill, though I expect to find things I missed while foggy when I reread it, which it also seems very well suited to. I really loved the book. The blurbs list influences like James Thurber, which I can very well see, but I think they left out Lewis Carroll. A lot of the peculiarities of my own dialogue come from the Alice books, and I think I know them when I see them. Fairyland is both warmer and darker than the Alice books, containing more humanity and more strangeness.

Anyway, I had finished that, so I reluctantly laid aside The Orphan's Tales and picked up a Kage Baker novel I had gotten at Uncle Hugo's some time ago. The prose is very different, but it, too, is a first-person narrative that begins with a young girl encountering terror and wonder, and for about the first half I kept thinking, "All right, the last tale before this was the grandmother's tale, so I have to remember that we'll back out of this at some point and I wonder when we will get back to the girl with the stories on her eyelids -- oh, wait." I loved the Baker too. I wonder if illness makes me uncritical, but I don't think so. I got very cranky about several other books I read while ill.

I signed up for my Fourth Street panels before I got sick, and am now muzzily looking at the descriptions and wondering if I can remember what I wanted to say.

Today's muzziness, however, I think is not caused by the virus. There were endless thunderstorms and torrential downpours last night. I was finally sleeping around five a.m. when the doorbell rang. I picked up the phone and listened, and heard a couple of voices saying things like, "I don't know if that's their open door there." They sound like the police, I thought, so I said, "Hello?" They were the police. I put some clothes on and for some reason got not just my keys but my cellphone, and went downstairs. Yep. Police. They said they had gotten a hang-up 911 call. I was much too sleepy to either recall their names or to ask what number the call had come from. I hope our house is not going to just suddenly start calling 911 at random. We have an ancient PBX intended for small offices, not readily replaceable except for huge sums. I hope it is not getting frisky in its old age.

I am reading you all, truly.

Pamela

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

When in doubt, start every sentence on your panels with, "In my book...." That'll help things right along.

(Seriously, your books are quite relevant, but I know you better than that.)

[pameladean]

At least I can probably remember what's in my books. That's a strong temptation right there.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We all really do want you to talk at least some about them, I feel safe in saying.

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Not only do you entertain me with your musings, but you provide book recommendations in the bargain - this is true friendship. :)

I hope you're feeling better soon, and that you've made a complete recovery by Fourth Street. I wish I could be there this year.

[pameladean]

Well, since it was you, books had to be involved. I might have done a different post for somebody else.

I wish you could be there too, but I do see the problem.

P.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, that virus sounds wretched. I am sending virtual soup. And I hope all phone devices behave in the future.

[pameladean]

Soooouuuuup.

It's kind of sticky for real soup, but the virtual kind is just the ticket.

P.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

the ancient PBX, contact cleaner, and blow the dust out of it... sometimes it just wants a little love.

[pameladean]

I'm not sure it's quite ancient enough to have anything one can blow the dust out of or clean the contacts on, but I'll mention it to the relevant household member.

P.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Pump out the vacuum tubes?

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I, on the other hand, am reading The Habitation of the Blessed, with Deathless, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland ... and Under the Mere all on the to be read pile. Does yuki_onna ever sleep?

[pameladean]

No, wait, Under the Mere? *makes note*

I have no information on that point (whether Cat ever sleeps), but I am wildly admiring and envious.

P.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

A slender collection of Arthurian stories (or so it seems), from Rabid Transit Press. And it turns out that it's called <a href="http://www.taverners-koans.com/rabidtransitpress/inthemere.html>Under in the Mere</a>.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

My first answering machine was called Alma the Depressed Answering Machine ('...I hope you'll leave me a message, because I feel so depressed and lonely when people won't talk to me...'). At some point in her late middle-age, she began a torrid affair with the Telstra lady - I'd get all these messages on my machine saying things like "The number you have called is not connected. Please check the number and try again."

I have no idea just what Alma and the Telstra lady were getting up to or how this happened - Telstra didn't seem to know either - but the affair persisted for about a year before Alma succumbed to old age.

Alma the Second was the recipient of lengthy rants and confidences from a friend of mine, but she did not consort with Telstra's automated messages, which was probably a good thing.

(Alma the Third is still going strong, though she can be a little eccentric about letting us know if someone has actually left a message. I think she likes to hold her secrets for a while.)

I hope you feel better soon.

love

Catherine

[pameladean]

Maybe if we had named our PBX, it would be feeling better!

I have to go Google the Telstra lady now.

P.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

Telstra = Telecom Australia. The Telstra Lady is the very mellifluous recorded voice who tells you if you have dialled a wrong number, or if the person you are calling is unavailable, or what the weather will be.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I do hope you feel better by Fourth Street. (Some year I will make it to that con. This is not that year.)

[tithenai.livejournal.com]

Ach, I hope you feel better! Would that soup were more readily faxable. But I am delighted to see so much reading of yuki_onna. :)

Here are some pics of Under in the Mere, which, though it came out in November 2009, was something she began years and years ago. It's Arthuriana in the California desert.

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

I hope you feel much better soon. That sounds just wretched. :/

I had a friend whose cat once called 911. They were all very confused when the police showed up at the door...and then the police and my friend found the cat still pouncing on the phone.

/irrelevant story

[thinkum]

Oh, dear. Fred & I both send you our best healing thoughts!

(I think you are the only person I know, who has a PBX in their house.)

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

The call is coming from inside the house! //carbon dates self ....I think the only other place I have recently seen a PBX mentioned is a Chandler novel.

I struggled with a virus that turned into a nasty sinus infection for months - I hope your illness clears up quickly and completely. Damn little bugs.

[lcohen]

i bring what i hope is encouraging news that that cold does finally go away. i hope that even as we speak, it takes the hint and leaves.

*germ-free hugs*

[maruad.livejournal.com]

I hope you are feeling better soon. There has been a fairly nasty virus going around up her. My sister and brother-in-law both ended up in hospital when pre-existing health problems flared up when they got the virus. I have been fighting what seems like a mild case of bronchitis since I got it.

I am impressed that your 22 yr old PBX system is still working. Other than some lamps, I think the only functioning electronics we have that are that old are my clock radio (bought in the early 80s because I had demolished 2 cheaper models by driving the snooze controls into the workings) and a coffee grinder of the same age. Everything else either became obsolete or ceased working.