The Godferrets are looking for me!

I think I may have gushed about Eric Flint before, for 1632. And now - oh god - I just finished The Philosophical Strangler. I knew he had a good sense of humor from the Belisarius books - the military parts are pure Drake, but the humor and the quips are all Flint. But the two he wrote with David Freer, Rats, Bats and Vats and Pyramid Scheme, were a little more offbeat than I had expected from Flint. I attributed it to his coauthor and moved on.

I was wrong.

The guy's hilarious. A prison named Durrance Pile? A city called New Sfinctr? Hrundig the barbarian, who can and does slip into norse verse? Beautiful, bizarre and fun.

I'm in love.

And I have two more books of his (Forward the Mage and Shadow of the Lion) to look forward to! Oh frabjous day!

The Seattle Library's having their semi-annual booksale in April this year - the 12th through the 14th - we could totally have a book party and wait in line and then tea afterward while we gloat over our purchases. Oh, and cake. And maybe if I get really ambitious, those little cucumber sandwiches or something.

We've got, what, two air mattresses, a futon and a couch, plus a gazillion square feet of floor? And, hey, we have to clean up for Lori's mom in May anyway.

Office supply fetish

I don't go gaga over things like paperclips or staplers, though I do appreciate a good, hefty hole-punch.

No, it's the pens. See, when Gordon and I were dicking around in Bellevue, waiting for Saturn to finish with my car, we spotted a pack of Girl Scouts (treacherous beasts, these, lying in wait for their prey...) in front of a Safeway. I didn't have any cash on me, but Safeway does cashback, and I'd been craving thin mints. So I wander past the books and magazines, and my eye gets caught by the black paper and the gel pens.

My inner seven-year old and my inner twelve-year old were in cahoots, I swear. I came out with a half-dozen sparkly gel pens and a little black-paper notebook. (And, oh yeah, the thin mints.)

I love these things. The green's my favorite - darkly silver against the black paper, tinted green on white, and terrificly smooth on skin. Doesn't bleed or run at all. I've just finished a letter to my brother, and now I'm sitting, trying to not doodle on my forearms and hands and failing miserably.

Skin glint transforms you
From human into canvas
Art, live, transcendant