South, to Augusta!

[rolanni]

Appointment with the allergist, sigh. I've managed to avoid this for, oh, eighteen or nineteen years -- since we moved to Maine and all the trees in the state decided to try to assassinate me. This year...I dunno...maybe I'm just tired of it. So, we'll go find out what I'm allergic to. Fingers crossed that it's not cat dander.

In the course of excavating my office from the Rubble of Writing(tm), I find that I have...too many stones. Yes, I'm one of those intensely annoying people who pick up stones and rocks -- beach stones, lake stones, woods stones, side of the road stones... I display them among the other bric-a-brac, but -- I've hit critical mass, and I can't choose which ones to get rid of. These aren't, you understand, Just Stones; these are 'Way Cool Stones that I Found Myself. Sigh. I'm guessing the best thing to do is just gather up all of them (even the ones with the teensy crystals? even the ones that had iron veins, which rusted out, leaving a Really Interesting Shape?) and put them outside. They're stones, for heaven's sake.

Um... Maybe tomorrow.

Yesterday, Steve and I recovered the living room, got all of the boxes unpacked and books reshelved. I found the Mencken Table, and hey -- we have a floor in the living room, too! Amazing.

I have now finished reading both Local Custom and Scout's Progress and can therefore commence Staring Balefully at Nothing. Or I would, except my backbrain has helpfully provided the idea for one of stories for the Yule chapbook. You guys are gonna like this one...

I'm outta here.

Comments

a stone-use suggestion....

[lagilman]

Buy a large, flattish bowl and put all the stones in them. Place them somewhere interesting outside where you can see them from an oft-used window. Periodically stir the bowl, so new stones come to light.

(that's that I do with my shells, except that bowl stays inside, since I'm a city-dweller)

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

Stay away from glass houses. :)

[growlycub.livejournal.com]

If this allergy specialist is as mine was, it might be a good idea not to mention the cats, if you haven't yet. It seems that to some specialists, cats are the root of all evil allergy-wise.

I was injected with a higher dose of cat-'venom', because they just KNEW I had to be allergic to cats, notwithstanding the allergic reactions on the regular tests to all trees and weeds that grow in TN and to none of the household allergens like mold, cats, dogs, dust mites, etc.

And to add insult to injury the insurance company then made me pay for the injection that finally 'proved' that I am allergic to cats.

Btw, I live in a house full of cats and knock on wood, haven't sneezed yet this year, but the evil mugwort will make its appearance in July/August and I'll be in the suds then.

I'd be interested to know whether they will give you the same advice they gave me, if they determine you are allergic to cats: 'wrap the cats in saran wrap but make sure to cut little holes for their mouth and noses'.

I was not amused.

To his credit I have to mention though, that his little cocktail of Prednisone and Rhinocort Aqua eliminated allergic reactions that were thought to possibly be asthma within 24 hours and the RA has served me well when very occasionally administered over the years since.

Good luck!

[keristor.livejournal.com]

we have a floor in the living room, too!

Not one of those big flat things people walk on? I'm told there's one of those in my house, but it is safely covered with paper and computers so that I don't see it...

Yay new story! I can probably just wait until Yule *g*...

[katmoonshaker.livejournal.com]

I also collect stones. You can always do what I did when I decided to cull my collection. I chose a spot in my yard where I couldn't grow anything anyway and make a rock garden. Okay, so it isn't a big rock garden, but it's a rock garden and it's mine, so there! Nayah!

Re: a stone-use suggestion....

[queenmaggie.livejournal.com]

I like a large glass hurricane lamp: it allows more stones to display at the same time. And you can add water and use the stones to hold up a spray of flowers.

[rasmusb.livejournal.com]

Well you could always use the pretty stones as either a container rock gardern or some version of a Zen garden (but rockier) outside your study/writing room window?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm allergic to a lot of stuff, both indoor and outdoor. No known drug or food allergies. When I moved from Ohio to California, I was in a pretty bad state--continually runny nose and a cough, looked like rudolf--mainly because I'd been neglecting my health during grad school.

The minute my 30 days was up on the health insurance, I headed to an allergist. They tested me for 80 items and I reacted to at least 72 of them, including every food (corn, tomatoes, wheat). The allergist bemusedly said it would be difficult to put me on a food elimination diet...He also didn't like that fact that if I caught a cold, it always turned into a bacterial infection, and I couldn't kick it without antibiotics.

I reassured him that I'm not really allergic to the foods, but that my immune system was just kicked up. Give me an inhaler, and some non-drowsy allergy medicine and I'll get better. He threatened that if I wasn't better in a year, he'd put me on shots, but I was right. I can't remember having to have antibiotics to kick a sinus infection since '95 and get along quite well with periodic claritin, and infrequent asthma inhaler doses (usually when recovering from colds, or around cats).

Even just taking claritin or another antihistamine daily for a few weeks might help, if you don't do it now.

I will keep my fingers crossed that you may find a similar solution.

Melita

Re: a stone-use suggestion....

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is a good idea, though I think my bowl better stay inside, too, or else I'd only see it during the Six Weeks of Not-Winter.

Re: a stone-use suggestion....

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

And another good idea! *relieved sigh*

[lferion]

I always do like the chapbook stories :-)

I admit, I do keep hoping for a couple of things to show up One of These Days -- I would really love to see a contract marriage that works/everyone is actually happy with. It is such a big part of Liaden culture, but all the ones in the stories that I recall actually _seeing_ (as opposed to ones that I know happened because offspring resulted :-) but that are not shown onstage as it were) are unhappy/unsuccessful/abusive.... I would really like to understand & get inside how they are supposed to work.

And I hope that this is not an inappropriate way of expressing this desire.

Still loving Theo's story, and madly happy that there is going to be more in the Scout's Progress-Local Custom era!

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I would really love to see a contract marriage that works/everyone is actually happy with.

I was once on a panel where our task was to discuss various strategies for Depicting Real Women in Fiction -- i.e. Can We Please Lose the Thin, Beautiful Heroine?

One of my co-panelists told the story of why there are no "ordinary looking" women in comics. Long story short, it comes about that when artists drew "normal women" into comics, those characters were perceived by comic readers as "ugly." Not normal -- ugly. And, because comics are a visual medium, where story-cues are in part set up by the visuals, this created All Kinds of Problems with reader expectation regarding the narrative.

It was a fascinating discussion -- and yes, this does have a point :)

The way stories work is that characters must have something to rebel against, or to strive toward -- conflict, in a word. Most folks would find a story where everybody is more-or-less happy and everything goes off pretty much like it should -- which, yanno, is pretty much like Real Life, most of the time -- ugly. Boring. A not-story.

All that to say that most contract-marriages on Liad work out just fine -- witness All Those Liadens -- and thus are the norm against which the other stories, where things don't go as they ought, are played.

I suppose it would be possible to tell a story about a contracted couple who had to learn to work together...on more fronts than usual in a contract-marriage... We don't know that story yet, though.

And I hope that this is not an inappropriate way of expressing this desire.

No, you were perfectly polite and reasonable.

The folks who write to, um, order me to write thus-and-so story (or stop writing thus-and-so stories) are, alas, outta line.

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

What about a contract couple who don't want to split up, but have to because their clans insist? (as opposed to Anthora's relief at the contract spouse's departure). (Particularly, thinking more about it, there was Aelliana's sister who was a serial contract wife, to the enrichment of the clan.)

[otaku-tetsuko.livejournal.com]

I was tardy to the reply party, having ISSUES with the computer yestermorn, but I too instantly thought - make something in the garden to admire and add to over the years. I would suggest a decorative, disk-shaped bowl no larger than your forearm for indoor display, then the larger display outside- possibly partially sheltered some SOME snow gets to pose artistically, but not bury the display in the winter? I can imagine some really lovely ways to do this, and you could have a seat there and work on plotting while gazing at your rocks....hey, can I help it if I want the Evil Genius to be more productive? You are the cruel one of the pair, no question, but it's cruelty to one's characters that forces development, yes? Or so I think as I torture--er, develop mine.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

There's conflict there, and thus, a story. But. It's not a story where everything works out exactly as it ought. Contract-spice are, after all, supposed to fulfill the contract, then go their separate ways.

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

Contract marriage versus longer term arrangement, or even lifemating....

Hmm. Korval seems to have something of a schizophrenic attitude towards lifemating. I'm not recalling e.g. clan names, however, there are clans appalled and offending by lifemating for reasons that include:
o lifemating = wizard bonds, wizards, anathema!
o one of the clans involved if there are two clans involved loses a clan member permanently, including the earnings potential of that clan member, even when reimbursed
o it goes against proper social rule and custom, for a permanent pair-bonding of sexual and romance sort, as opposed to an arrangement of bed-friends (relating to Fledging, Win Ton's offer of staying in contact to Theo, was not one of a necessarily bed friend nature, but also wasn't one that was excluding it). (Daav seems to have have a continuing relationship over time with another Scout; I kept wondering how it was that that had never gotten a clan-to-clan agreement for offspring, given that at least Korval was severely deficient in numbers and in heirs, and that they were both pilots--especially since the next generation, Pat Rin, Shan, Anthora, and Nova also? had all entered contract marriages to each provide at least one heir to Korval, despite Shan, Anthoras, and Pat Rin all turning out to have lifemates.)

Getting back to Korval attitudes though, Er Thom's mother had indulged her older son not requiring him to contract-wed to provide an heir, and she and Chi yos'Phelium were the twin products of a severely disapproved-of-by-the-Delm/Clan lifemating between a yos'Galan and a yos'Phelium. Daav more than acceded to Er Thom you'Galan and Anne Davis pairbonding over the objections of the yos'Galan head of line, but was adamant about requiring Shan to remain in Clan Korval's direct custody and not depart Liad with his parents.

Then again, one of the founders of Korval, Cantra, was not pleased to find Jela had permanently tied him to her and her to him.