Great hunt yesterday (perfect, since nobody caught anything, yay) but I think it’s safe to say it was the hardest terrain yet. We had only three dogs, so the four of us who were in the chase had to climb over tremendous patches of blackberry growth, often causing us to get stuck and require use of machetes. Well, I don’t carry a machete and if you need me to stress further how densely knit the thorny vines were: even my dog refused to go first. At some point I lost balance and fell off a rotten stump of a tree, my thick woolly sweater catching the thorns, gripping me so hard I began to worry. Surely the wild boars whom we were chasing must have thought: Guys, just ignore her, she’s zero threat to us…, but if I did by a small chance walk into a pack of boars and that was how they would find me, I would have been killed in a minute and very brutally. The General even found an empty boar nest. But, apart from the threat of imminent slaughter from the things we were hunting and irony (and any time I go along we catch nothing, which I why I go along), the terrain was magnificent, the forest was beautiful and the slopes were so steep we spent most of the time either sliding down very fast or climbing up on all fours. I was so tired by the end I dragged my walking stick and my feet and just kept walking down a path until I got lost. After we got to the cars the General hitched a ride with a colleague to get our own and I stuck around near an old monastery ruin, charring with a young gay cook who worked in the oldest known pub in the country, attached to the monastery. Tired like dogs, Starbark and I sat down in the sun, on a small wooden bridge, and basked, almost napping. I didn’t bring enough water, so my head hurt a little bit, though nothing like what my hands were like – hundred little cuts, like I’ve been whipped by Lilliputians. A day later I’ve taken out most of the thorn, but they’ve began scabbing, which ITCHEEEES like crazy. Another 1:0 for the forest Vs. stupid hunters :D

Quietly disagreeing

Funny how unprincipled I find myself sometimes to be. Sometimes I very clearly and very justifiably, argumentatively disagree with somebody – and may even have a point! – but will not speak up, not even dare, because between them and me is someone whom I like and whom I would want to have a good or no opinion of me, even though perhaps at this stage they don’t even know I exist. Funny feeling indeed. And such a strange hostage for them to take, a total stranger's emotions. Mind, these are people who are very strongly against emotions and will do anything to make their 'real world problems' statements hard and clear. Problem is, I find them to be unpleasant, fanatical and slightly doomsaying. The world is not fucking ending because of some election, for fuckssakes. Every time Americans are voting the rest of the world is going hysterical. They made, like, twenty full-lenght-feature movies about Bush's election. There really is no need to commit group suicide. Oh, how I want to go into a Twitter or YouTubeCommentsSection war with some of these idiots. Yet I won’t. Because among them are some that have me in awe. Almost in love. (Not the Real world kind, the fictional character kind, that won't get me killed by G) And not even in utter anonymity would I do anything to make their day even just a little worse, not even several thousands of miles away.

I can be such a fucking fangirl sometimes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuDjMxButq8

Lovely day

Had a truly lovely day, family-wise. As soon as G woke me (this was around nine, because I haven’t really gone to bed until the morning, drawing and starting to read a horror parody of an Ikea catalogue called Horrorstör), I grabbed the car and drove uphill to my ancestors. The new dog Emi 2.0 and Illyria got into another few bitch fights, leaving Lyra with a torn ear and some fur flying, but other than that they got tired of it eventually and stopped of their own accord. Still I have to give props to myself for pulling apart a 60kg Rottweiler with one hand, a pissed off 30 kilo retriever with the other by their respective collars and kicking the rabid beagle away with my foot. Easily a way to lose a finger. Got my heart rate up better than a strong coffee. The first few times. Then it just got old.

                Mum and dad offed to ‘roll the nets’ – it’s a task after the vine harvest where you have to take the anti-hail and birds nets off the grapevine terraces. Mum brought the nets close and dad was to roll them onto a tube. Like all couples, this meant they spent the majority of the process fighting and bickering. I asked dad if he misses me much, as when I was his spotter, we worked well and fast and never fought. Still, the sun was out and the dogs were trying to kill one another and I was telling dad about my latest MRA finds. Clearly I took over from mum and did the bringing part. In the few hours we almost got a third of the first vineyard done. My sister and her dog arrived and they spent some time schooling Emi 2.0. Emi 2.0 is a wonderful dog, but she’s not been trained in any respect. It’s fun to watch her learn new things daily, like ‘stay’ or ‘heel’ or ‘release’. Sis brought a tug-of-war toy for her, because she loves to play tug, but Tara, the old Rottweiler took it, dragged my sis and Emi around a bit, then offed to the orchard and would not relinquish the tuggie until we hid it again.

                I got very hungry and ate a piece of bread and butter, but dad’s made a home-made soup, his speciality, and that was delicious, I even cut off bits of cooked ribs, dipped in mustard, which is a rare thing for me. Then again I have been yearning for iron-rich nutrient for a few days now, even buying myself raspberry-beet bars. In the end mum made me apricot fruit salad. I got home, tired as a dog (dogs have by now fallen asleep outside in the sun.). Kings of Leon ‘Walls’ was playing on the radio as I drove to town. The General asked me to go buy him some root beer and then made me go to sleep. Later I just woke up and had the lunch he made for me while I was away, watching Australian Next Top Model, one of my guilty pleasure shows, and loaded the washer with about 300 socks. Am off to hang them now.I've long stopped trying to pair them. I just put them in a huge basket once they're dry and we just pick them, matching the density, not the shape anymore :D

Starting to think, nay, see, how 3rd wave fenimism is a plague. Not just a cultural plague, but a fucking plague.

Want a list?

And this was BEFORE the coffee

 I just thought of a really hot twist… In fact I was talking to myself in the kitchen while waiting for the coffee water to boil, and it hit me: I thought of another scary way for Kay’s sanity to be tested - and her coming out on top, which she does. Namely, for someone to suggest that Marowit was a figment of her imagination all along. And that she needn’t worry about him, because he’s not real. That would be a vicious thing to try and write, considering that, yes, we know, he’s a dream. Literally.

                Following this idea, I now have to go back all over again and make sure that all of the scenes between Marowit and Kay are entirely imagined for real. Like, for real real.

                … What?

Oh, right, coffee.  

'Goose' updates....

I understand that towards the end, because almost all of Kay’s friends/team-mates have died in Startracker in the beginning of the book, to add another hint to the rebuilding of the library city, I should probably introduce new characters – new aspects of Kay’s all-over-the-place personality and so-called ambition. If Fidi represents her clever but childhood side and if Cole represents her vengeful, violent side, yes, many more ‘teammates’ are needed indeed. And I’ve considered going outside the European pool, but have ultimately decided that Paper will instead purposefully and intentionally represent European Messengers. This will serve as a neat contrast when she runs into rivals and their picturesque ensembles.

The important part of this mobilisation of new blood is people who are not Kay’s lovers. As much as she is able to have very strong feelings for her boss and have great sex with him all the time, there is absolutely nothing like love between them and that’s rare – I’m proud of it. I need more characters like that. Lovers she has a-plenty.

The first pair (totally unlike Hangele&Rhyannon) will be Camille and Shoshana, a couple of young Parisians during WWII, resistance fighters and students who try the approach with pamphlets and plotting rather than violence. Of course they die for shitty reasons, him sooner than her; she just vanishes in one of the camps or something.

This is as far as I got. I think I’ll try to get back someone like the Sherridans as well, but from an older era, Rome or some such. Or some cool old fiction.

And maybe someone from the future. But first things first.

… Hm, by the way, who is supposed to be the next Spotter? I totally forgot about that... Hm...