Looking in the Weatherglass

Like a little girl, occasionally I am seized by the urge to play dress-up or experiment with makeup. Playing dress-up is always totally fine, because even if you put on the most ridiculous outfit ever, you can always change before leaving the house.

Makeup is a little bit less forgiving. When I play with makeup, I usually end up looking either deeply, tragically gothic (not the goal), or like I have two black eyes (on bad days). Neither is a look I really want to wear out into the world, but when you've caked that much product onto your face, it's not going to come off immediately, however much soap you get in your eyes in the attempt.

I bring all this up because, with lots of work before me this evening, I am naturally distracted by the thought of producing an exciting, rock-star-esque, smoky eye (my enthusiasm in the face of many past failures is inspiring, really). This is a terrible plan -- about a quarter of the time heavy eye makeup makes my eyes water, so applying it when I know I have to stare at a screen would be a poor life choice -- but it's not like I can do it tomorrow, because we have plans with friends and I'd prefer not to show up looking like the World's Saddest Clown.

Decisions, decisions.

( There really is something to this writing-as-a-habit thing. )

Anyhow.

I also made the mistake of beginning to read a novel yesterday, before I did any work in the evening. As I have said before, I am almost completely unable to stop reading a(n engaging) book once I've started it (if only this were true of literature, or academic papers.) So three-and-a-half hours later, I finally got up off the couch, but by then it was too late to do anything but sleep. This is why I am on a no-fiction diet, people (I am also avoiding fic like the plague).

I think I'll wrap up with a couple of things that are awesome:

1. When I was in my early teens, I had a tape of a radio play the BBC made for Murder on the Orient Express. I listened to this tape while falling asleep for years, until finally both cassettes were lost and/or eaten by broken tape players. For me this is the definitive edition of this story.

I've tried and failed to find it on the internet before, but I decided to try again this weekend and it was available on iTunes! (And also as a torrent, which I confess is how I actually acquired it.) I am so happy to be reunited with this radio play, you have no idea. I also have several other plays in which John Moffat plays Hercule Poirot!

I would heartily recommend these dramatizations, but I have no idea if they're objectively any good or if I'm blinded by a fog of sentimentality. I leave it to you.

2. I have new shoes! Mine are off eBay in a discontinued colour (cognac?), so they didn't actually cost $110, but they are wonderful. My feet have been getting increasingly cranky about any heel in a shoe, and insufficient width, and these are absolutely flat and very wide. They are also "minimalist" shoes, which feel slightly more like walking barefoot than a normal shoe, and I really really like that about them. I want all the colours, and it is only their exorbitant price tag that is preventing me.

If they had a winter boot that wasn't absolutely hideous, I would totally drop $250 on a pair.

Once, talking to a councellor*, I was listing the kinds of books I like to read in my spare time (science fiction, fantasy, and romance), and she was like: "you realize those are all very escapist."

Yeah, no shit sherlock. I've known that since I was a pre-teen, though at the time maybe I didn't know the actual word 'escapist'.

In recent years this escapism has developed such that when I'm stressed I go into lock down mode and read some really epic sci-fi/fantasy romance fic. If I can't find any, I look harder. And when I'm finished the first one I find more.

And then suddenly it's 3AM the night before I have to give a practice talk and I don't have my handout finished. *headdesk*

Faced with exactly this situation, some time ago I commented here that I was going to try to stop reading fiction until I could develop a healthier relationship with it. That is slowly moving up my list of priorities, in much the same way that quitting smoking probably figures for other people. While it goes against my character and my upbringing to ever admit that reading less could possibly be a good thing, I am forced to admit that maybe in this case it would be.

In other news, wedding of cousin was very nice, and the caffeine necessary to manage the 7.5 hour drive home is also helpful when it comes to pulling all-nighters.

*Did you know that the 'e' and the second 'l' in this word are both canadianisms? I thought this was one of those words I Just Can't Spell, because despite all my efforts it remained underlined in red by my computer, but it turns out I'm just being oppressed by my resolutely American spell check!