zamochit posted sexy pictures of her typewriter yesterday. Mine's not quite as svelte, but she's been through a lot, and she deserves to be shown off:

Mmm, the smell of ink and WD-40. (And that's real onionskin paper we found when we were cleaning out the attic.) However, either I've forgotten something real important, or the tab stops are jammed, so I haven't been using it much lately. And the top of the case is shoved under the desk istead of keeping the dust out like it should be. (I don't have a new haircut to show off, either. I really ought to get on that.)

I spent most of the day trying to wedge my Christmas presents into my room. And while I was at it, I messed with my LibraryThing account. It currently has all the new books we got for Christmas, about half of my library of magical/paranormal/mythical books, and all the books that I found while cleaning today. I'm also going to try to eventually post one-paragraph reviews of all the ones I've read recently enough to remember - you can see all my reviews so far here (and even syndicate them to your flist if you so desire!)

Let's see - ( TV-watching report )

In from that chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
as if this Earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
a mighty fountain momently was forced,
amid whose swift half-intermitted burst,
huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail,
and 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever,
it flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion,
through wood and dale the sacred river ran.
Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,
and sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean.
And 'mid this tumult Kublai heard from afar
ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
floated midway on the waves
Where was heard the mingled measure
from the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device
a sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice.

Doesn't that sound as if somebody had been trying to decribe a trip through a Stargate to Atlantis?

Also, "Phylos the Thibetan" (the automatic-writing gospel of Mt. Shasta worshippers) tells us: "Phylos, some day thou wilt comprehend this: Earth is a letter in a seven-fold alphabet; the stellar universe is but one book; its pages truly are myriad, its chapters legion, yet, besides this book, the library of the Creator is of endless number."

This is what happens to me, folks, when it's four in the morning and I can't sleep 'cause I've been messing with books and I keep *thinking* and I have to be up early in the morning ...

Today Mom and I took the Christmas decorations down, and something odd happened. I was packing away the nativity scene, and I suddenly realized that Mary, after all these years of living in the attic, had got bored with Joseph and had begun an illicit affair with the shepherd.

It's not as if I was consciously sitting down with them to play-pretend; it's been several years since I've taken the time to do that. I just found myself making sure Mary and the shepherd were next to each other, across the box from Joseph, so that they wouldn't be miserable all year. Meanwhile, Caspar and the smallest sheep are *extremely* fond of each other, the Angel has turned to illegal mind-altering chemicals in order to bear the tedium of these *humans*, and Joseph is afraid somebody's going to find out that he shook the baby. Balthasar doesn't speak English very well, and is still trying to get Melchoir to explain to him what exactly they are doing there in the first place, but Melchoir is in the later stages of senescense and thinks he's asking for curry recipes.

The cows and the donkey are writing a screenplay together and spend most of their time tipsy on martinis.