A still more glorious dawn awaits / Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise

Seen today on a busy corner in Hollywood, Florida: a woman in what looked like a wedding dress, holding the leash of the biggest mastiff I have ever seen. They jogged across the street together through the traffic, and she was smiling and the dog’s tongue was lolling and I think she had tennis shoes on underneath the dress. It was awesome, if slightly less surreal once I remembered that it was Halloween.

Things from the internet!
The throne clones. Vaguely creepy.
An exceedingly lucky and determined tortoise.
Those pesky hay vandals! I was not responsible for this, seeing as how it was in Queensland, but I would totally do this.
Carl Sagan sings! Or, one of the few times that auto-tuning is actually cool.

In two weeks, I’m going to Camelot Days, which is sort of a mini renaissance fair being held at the park only about 2 miles from my apartment. It’s considerably less fun to go to these things alone than with my posse, but I still anticipate having a blast. And I am absolutely dressing up.

Bookwise, Inkheart was, as my friend Rachael so aptly described it, “pleasant.” Sadly, it was not more than that. I won’t bother with the rest of the trilogy. Then I read Mister Monday by Garth Nix, the first in his Keys to the Kingdom series, also for young adults. And that was likewise pleasant. By then I was so sick of pleasant young adult literature that I read Candide by Voltaire, which certainly was neither young adult nor pleasant. I felt terribly academic again and also slightly dirty. Currently I’m starting The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings, which is the story of his experiences in WWI. I’m not far enough in to have an opinion yet, but it’s quite different from his poetry, that’s a surety.

Go cough up something witty.

It has been at least three days since this morning. Today and yesterday were ENDLESS. Except, obviously, that they ended, finally. I am currently sick as a dog with some sort of flu type thing and feeling utterly miserable. My head is also exceedingly muzzy, so this entry may not be entirely lucid.

My brain doesn’t work the same (or at all) when I’m really sick. I left the oven on for about two hours after I was done cooking last night, and I keep getting up to do things and then standing there blinking in the middle of the room because I’ve forgotten what it was. Also, and I always forget this until it’s rather too late, when I’m sick my verbal filters don’t work properly. I end up saying whatever comes into my head, which can be both entertaining and dangerous. I think I talked a lot at work today. I don’t recall specifics, really, but everyone seemed awfully amused. This will probably come back to haunt me on Monday, assuming I’ve attained full consciousness by then, which is by no means a given.

There was a rather magical moment today, though. I bought some groceries (after staring blankly at the interior of my refrigerator yesterday, unable to comprehend why there were no eggs inside) and hauled them inside, then realized that the thump I heard while driving was probably the sound of the jam rolling under the seat, because it was not with the other groceries. So I put the rest away and sighed and trudged back down and out to the car and retrieved the recalcitrant jam from where it was indeed lodged underneath the passenger seat, and as I straightened up from inside the car, there in the sky above me was a lovely rainbow. It was completely unexpected (it hadn’t rained all day) and altogether beautiful.

And now for some things less magical, but still cool.

This is no place to stay.

Curse on book thieves from the monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona, Spain:
For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not,
this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him.
Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted.
Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to this agony till he sing in dissolution.
Let bookworms gnaw his entrails…and when at last he goeth to his last punishment, let the flames of hell consume him for ever.

That is pretty hardcore.