Winter in September

I remember LA, Santa Cruz, Altanta. I remember September being one of the "hot" months. In LA even October might well be so warm you would want to choose your Halloween costume by how light-weight and breezy it was.

Not here. I'm already wearing long-johns under my jeans and layering sweaters. And that's for inside. And I'm still cold. The winter coat, hat and gloves have come out already and I'm still cold outside unless I've been walking awhile. You know, I used to pride myself on my resistance to the cold. Not now. I think it was last winter that broke my nerve--because it is nerve as much as biology, I'm convinced. Now I don't want to wear down my resistance, my immune system. Because we're still in the same blasted building as last year. We tried to turn on the heat today, finally admitting the summer was long gone. Nothing happened. Then we remembered that the heat only works at certain times of day (and then, not well). At least the light it better in the new room. I remember huddling near the narrow basement window--the coldest point in the flat and farthest possible from the heater--wrapped in blankets and trying to read to get my mind off my flu.

It has occurred to me that it is somewhat suspicious that I don't have terribly fond memories of any of the books I read that winter. I remember them all fairly well since I read most of them twice having few to choose from and no energy to go out to shop for more. Diana Wynn Jones' Chrestomanci books are quite good, but there is a sort of horror in me at the thought of re-reading them. I read a David Gemmell book for the first time and while I have legitimate complaints--yet another story where the woman only shows up long enough to be a martyred love interest, her death providing the motivation for the hero to go on his relentless nothing-to-loose-now quest for victory...Braveheart anyone? Gladiator? You get the idea--and yet still I wonder if reading it during that miserable flu biased me against it. The Ropemaker similarly gets only a grumpy "pretty good, I guess" from me. The Wheel of the Infinite escapes the doom of the others I read simply because it was a re-read, having first read it the previous summer during the wedding madness.

Then again, I don't think I could hate anything Martha Wells wrote. I suppose Wheel of the Infinite is my, dare I say it, least favorite of her books. But that is only because the others are so incredibly awesome. The Fall of Ile-Rien series, my first introduction to Wells, was superb and I'm trying to figure out how to get my hands on the prequel short stories appearing in Black Gate (maybe they deliver to the UK? Oh yeah, need money. Keep forgetting that minor detail. Oh well, I'll figure it out somehow. I've already tortured myself by reading the clip they give you for free online and of course they cut away just as things are getting tense for our heroes.) But The Element of Fire and The Death of the Necromancer are both fantastic as well. Maybe Wheel of the Infinite feels like the odd man out to me because it is the only one that doesn't belong to one of the two main worlds from The Fall of Ile-Rien? I'm still trying to get my hands on City of Bones which is out of print. Last year I tried ordering a used copy but it never came and the book seller did not respond to my emails. Very vexing. I have little hope of running across a copy here, but I'm keeping an eye peeled just in case.

Ron and I did go to an interesting "Book Fair" this weekend. We were rather skeptical seeing the sign on the entrance to the Botanical Gardens--we figured they had to either have the books outside which was just asking for soaked books, or they were inside the Botanical Gardens which was asking for damp books given the very high humidity in such places. Instead we followed little signs through quite a maze of back-buildings until we were sure they were luring people to be eaten by the carnivorous plants or something when finally we came to a non-descript back door which proved to have quite a good used book fair inside. Lots of Scottish history which was great. After much deliberation I limited myself to two: one for the great pictures of ancient sites and the other, on Queen Mary's Women, because it seemed like a good read and pertinent to a few of the books I'm writing (ok, mostly "Prophesy Girl" which still needs a new name). Ron, however, chose as one of his two a book he quite liked so that I could read it: Magician. I'm nearly half way and it is quite good (in fact, yesterday is the first time since I got here that I squandered almost an entire day reading, well, the day until I went to prayer meeting).

Speaking of which, prayer meeting is hard. Many of the prayers are for individuals I don't know. So while I can certainly join my energies in praying for health or safe travel or comfort during grief for these people, I can't really add any prayers up (and it's done in a "jump in" kind of way). And the larger issues they pray about...well I know my beliefs do not quite align with theirs (these are not followers of the Church of Find Your Own Way, not by any stretch) and so, well, it's awkward. Plus I have a low attention span and keep finding myself wanting to write. However, I find this to be more a reason to stick it out and try to learn to concentrate in prayer than a reason to give up on it. The funny thing is I prayed the whole way there. I know community is supposed to be important but really, it can be far easier to talk to God one on one than to try to filter what you say for an additional audience (which is why I end up mostly silent in prayer meetings). And they are lovely welcoming people...yet I feel more at home in the community of gamers in Glasgow. What does this say about me, I wonder?

I played in a very fun one-off on Tuesday. I forget what it was called, but it most certainly did not resemble the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in any way. Nope, nope. We played our 17-year-old selves, but all living in Elgin, Scotland (which took the most mental adjustments for me, I think) and talking 6th-year English together. I ended up Green Ranger with a mighty Pterodactyl robot and a big green axe. Rwaw! We beat the bad guys of course. Great fun.

People keep asking when I'm running my Serenity game so I guess I'd better finish preparing it, huh? It's rather scary in some ways. The not-PowerRangers game was the first I'd played in in many months (since Amanda's game at Easter I believe) and it's been years now since I played in regular week-to-week game, let alone tried to GM one. And I also remember how the last one I GMed fell apart, though I maintain that that was as much inter-player angst as my own GMing skills. Of course the one game I have been playing is Witchfire (which is not based on the Witchfire books but on the Black Jewels books. Long story.). That at least is going fairly well. (Kharian's queen up and left! With no warning! Now what on earth is she supposed to do, stuck in a foreign land with a title she doesn't really deserve at such a young age (not even 100 yet!) and an unknown enemy who tried to kill her a few months back? Agathar on the other hand has just conquered the neighboring province and named it a district within his own province. So I guess that counts as "doing well." His loyal advisor seems not to be posting right now though. I may have to prod her and see if she is still around. I quite like Kalian, I hope she's still playing.)

By the way, Ron mailed (or Ron prepaired and I mailed, more accurately) a real honest to goodness job application off on Monday. (rolls eyes) While this should not be such a monumental event, it is a good start. That one is for Cambridge and he has several in Dundee he's applying for. Did I mention it's COLD here? And that it's probably still relatively warm in California? Oh well, if we can get him settled in a good job and get me living at his side I'll be content...for a little while anyway. If there are plenty of blankets and sweaters around. I'll try to get him to apply for some California jobs too. I think he was looking at one in San Diego the other day. That's at least in California. I hear they're being rather bastardy about housing and some other things. I didn't get the whole story on that though, so I'll have to look into it myself if that begins to look like a likely location. As for Dundee, it seems I did not get to see the nice part of the city (I didn't even know the coast was nearby!) so perhaps I misjudged it. It would be nice to have a coast again even if I can't have the coast I want.

All right, I think that was sufficiently rambly, don't you?