Asakiyume mita

I got five questions from osprey_archer!

1. What's a skill that you're proud of having?

... I'm realizing that it's hard to write an answer to this because as soon as I start composing in a direction, I think, Now you really sound like an insufferable asshole.

Am I perhaps proud of the skill of being able to guess when I'm about to sound like an insufferable asshole? ... Mmmm, I am not particularly proud of that. And I'm not even sure if my assessment is correct, so.

So ... skill implies something that you've worked on and honed--so not, say, a one-off accomplishment, and not something that's just part of your personality without your particularly exerting yourself.

Okay, how's this: I don't know if I'm proud, exactly, but it gives me great joy and exuberance to have discovered, in my fifties, that it's possible to learn multiple languages more or less simultaneously well enough to read them and attempt rudimentary communication in them. It literally feels like having developed a new sense, like my brain has changed its shape. ... Other people knew this delight from a young age, but not me. And there's something about coming to it later in life--you can be very consciously grateful, appreciative.

2. What's a treasured memory?

Sleeping together as a family on summer nights in Japan--the tactile-ness. The in-out of our breathing, together; our hearts are beating, together. Our foreheads are touching, or someone has an arm flung this way, or someone's toes are touching someone else's calves. Outside, insects are singing.

3. Do you have any unusual yearly traditions?

Not really; I have a hard time repeating things cyclically. For a while our family did Boston's Walk for Hunger yearly, but that's not a very unusual thing, and anyway, we since stopped. There are certain things I like to forage when the time is right (cattail pollen in June, chestnuts and hickory nuts in September and October), but I'm not consistent.

4. If you could have a telepathic companion animal, what kind of animal would you want?
I waver between something small enough to sit on my shoulder and something large enough that I could drape my arm over its shoulders. Much as it would be fun to have a telepathic connection with a dolphin (hello Ring of Endless Light) and fascinating to have one with a celphalopod, I think I'd prefer to have a connection with a terrestrial animal because delightful as water is, I can't breathe in it or even keep air in my lungs for as long as dolphins and other water-living mammals can. OTOH, if there are some telepathic marine creatures out there who are hankering for a connection, I withdraw that caveat! Come to me, friends!

... I guess not someone really small, like a tardigrade. I want to be able to see my companion. Probably someone adapted to the type of climate I live in--hello coyotes, bobcats, foxes, bear, deer, squirrels, chipmunks, mice. And I don't want to exclude birds, though I think I would want a very friendly type of bird for an animal companion--someone like a catbird or chickadee, or like the starling that drank the last of my sister's wine the other day.


5. Favorite museum?

Without a doubt, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

Anyone else like some questions?

Via sovay, in turn via kore.

What I love about seeing other people's version of this meme is discovering all the weird and wonderful song titles that I didn't know previously.

A Place: Arrested Development: Tennessee
A Food: Johnny Flynn: Cold Bread
A Drink: Shurwayne Winchester: Girl Born to Wine
Animal: Dolly Parton Little Sparrow
A Number: Pray for Polanski: 9191991
Color: Nina Simone's version of Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair
Boy's Name: Of Montreal's cover of M.I.A.'s Jimmy
Girl's Name: Cordelia's Dad's version of Katie Cruel
Profession (but this could double for the vehicle...): John Holt: Police in Helicopter
A Vehicle: The Cat Empire: The Chariot

Look at this! I'm doing a Wednesday reading meme!

I'm reading Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning (Amusingly, for the first few days I kept thinking of as Nothing Like the Lightning. My brain was in opposite land, clearly). I started it because of Puddleshark's answer to my question about hopeful futures (and because I'd read interesting reviews of it, and Puddleshark's comment reminded me of that).

What an intriguing, absorbing book. I'm equal parts enjoying it and arguing with it (but I enjoy the arguing). I feel like a cat circling something new in its environment, fascinated, but also hissing.

There was a big reveal regarding awful crimes in the middle of the book, and it genuinely shocked and unnerved me. Maybe it was because I read it at night, but even as part of my brain was laughing nervously (because the awfulness was larded on so thick) another part of me was gasping like a fish.

And then it sort of became a problem for me, not because of delicate sensibilities but because--how can I put it without spoilers--the crimes (and other things hinted at) seem to indicate an upcoming focus that not only isn't to my tastes but that I think is a real will-o'-the-wisp that writers should avoid chasing. Except that (a) I think I'm manifestly wrong: many people are equally fascinated by this will-o'-the-wisp; in fact, I'm the odd person out for thinking of it as a phantasm, and (b), maybe possibly the plot will escape that black-hole pull. But I doubt it. Although I hadn't been spoiled for the big reveal, I do know about some upcoming plot elements that lead me to believe that I shouldn't hold out hope for (b).

All the same. Quite fascinating, with lots of memorable lines. Today's:

It was the kind of anger we create to mask our guilt.

I'm also reading an ARC of sovay's short-story collection. Wow. I'm two-thirds through it, and it is breathtaking. I suspect everyone who reads me also reads sovay and knows Sovay is a person of penetrating insights and breathtaking turns of phrase. The stories are intense and mesmerizing.

These two quotes, from a story that will be new to the world with this anthology:

Her long arms were tangled with tattoos

And this:

Perhaps he could ... leave, finally, the city that had always felt like home in the same way that his parents had felt like family, demanding, endurable, unchosen.

Disclaimer: I more often than not don't play these games, so if I tag you and you're not feeling up to it, no worries at all. I completely understand. Sometimes the stuff on the seventh page at the seventh line isn't what you feel like sharing! And sometimes the magics don't align right for sharing. But if you feel like it. Oh, and pretty much everyone I know loves to write, so if I don't tag you, don't hang back--the more the merrier.

The Game

Go to the 7th page of a work in progress, go 7 lines down, post the next 7 lines, then challenge 7 other writers to do the same.

... So here is something from the novel I'm inching along on, under the working title Diet of Clouds

“Sarray” I said.

She shook her head. “Tsare,” she repeated. I tried again, and again she shook her head. Ambat said something under his breath to Citak, who swallowed a laugh. Para frowned.

“Say again,” she ordered. I tried again, and this time she smiled and nodded.

“Let’s play,” she said, dropping to her knees and drawing a wide circle.

“What did Ambat say, before Takinat?” I asked her, sometime later.

Y'know, this is one of those excerpts which is kind of a head scratcher taken out of context. Lots of made-up names and not much happening. Takinat is a game played with feathers. All the named characters speak a language that the narrator doesn't speak. Para's teaching the narrator one word of it--tsare--which means "sea eagle." The feathers the narrator's going to use in the game come from a sea eagle.

I'm going to tag some people on Twitter, too, but here I'd like to tag queenoftheskies, mnfaure, osprey_archer, and blairmacg--if any of you feel inclined. heliopausa, thinking of you, but understanding that you're occupied right now. But if this would be an entertaining break...

PS. One way to make this less daunting is definitely to drop that final seven. Tagging seven people! For one thing, with a geometric progression of seven, you run out of people pretty quickly. So yeah--maybe just make it the 7-7-7 challenge and then just tag one or two people.

PPS. I forgot to add that the person who tagged me was cafenowhere! Thank you for nudging me. (You can read her entertaining snippet--much more coherent in its seven lines--here.)