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Do you know what I will be most glad about when we move to a new
version? No longer will my fingers automagically type 'cd 1.5' every
time they get near a command line.
My session with Norm today was bizarre. We mostly talked about how my
week had been -- interesting but light. Towards the end I tried to
explain how upset I was to realise that the female characters in the
Chinese novel I've been reading probably have bound feet (as the novel
was written in 1760, and all the women come from upper-class Han
families). It really upsets me to think that these women I've
been identifying with are quietly undergoing an intensely painful
process which leaves them unable to move naturally -- gah. Even
writing about it now makes me sick to my stomach.
I felt -- feel -- silly, for identifying so deeply with fictional
characters, and being so outraged at something that, were they real
people, they wouldn't even consider a problem. But still. Norm found
this all very interesting, and it filled up the remainder of the
session and got sort of deep. Which was good, I guess, because I'm
making progress. Light sessions are more pleasant but less
satisfying.
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Despite my best efforts I ended up working until 9:30 last night. Jim
came to pick me up (my car being at home, as I let my mom have it so
she could grocery shop). I was incredibly glad to see him -- nice, how
my heart still skips when I first catch sight of him or hear his voice
after we've been apart a few hours. Once home we sat next to each
other and looked at the pictures my mom had taken over the weekend, and
then devolved to playing computer games on the couch. Having two
laptops in the house is nice, even if it is temporary.
I have new used books! We went to Thai City Friday, and the to Know
Knew Books, where my mom found a bunch of Rex Stout mysteries she was
hunting for, and I picked up a random handful of things including Kate
Wilhelm, Sean Stewart, and (currently being read) Michelle West. She
writes huge fantasy novels of the kind that I usually find awful, but
I'm reading The Broken Crown and enjoying it. It's not
filled with ground-breaking ideas, nor is the writing incredibly well
done -- but it's not bad. It's well-done for what it is,
which is your usual invented world with a few not-quite-earth cultures
and some supernatural powers and a lot of viewpoint characters. I'd
rate it as enjoyable if you like that sort of thing, which I guess I
do, from time to time. Sometimes I just don't want to be challenged.
The book has a few other things going for it, such as excellent pacing
(if I'm going to be 350 pages into a 750 page novel I want stuff to
have Happened. Lots has.) and reasonably interesting characters (Diora
and Serra Teresa are both more than stereotypes, although not as
well-rounded as one might really like). It also wins points for having
the culture we've spent most of our time in so far be the villains;
several fairly sympathetic characters are making dangerous alliances
and agreeing to horrible political acts for reasons which seem very
good at the time. I'm sure this has been done before, but it's the
first time I remember seeing it in a book of this type.
When I'm not reading Michelle West I've been reading the third volume
of The Story of the Stone, which is the infamous Chinese
novel mentioned above. And listening to lots & lots of Eno -- his
ambient stuff pleases me more than I expected, and I badly want to find
Taking Tiger Mountain.
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