Daily Archives: February 9, 2013

Asia, GeekWorld, Latin, Literature, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Just Stuff

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Imbolc                                                                                 New (Valentine) Moon

The images, each moved from their numbered folders into new folders named for the organizational scheme that moved me at the moment, have a new home.  I’ve checked the prior machine for missing images, found a few and they’ll get added in tomorrow, but in essence the big image reorganization, self-inflicted, is over.

(Valkyrie (1908) by Stephan Sinding located in Churchill Park, Copenhagen, Denmark)

On March 1st I’m going to hit Missing with my third revision.  I’m hoping this one puts me close to finished that I can begin shopping it to agents.  I think it will, but until it’s done, I won’t know.  Research for Loki’s Children goes well, too. I’m almost done with all the Eddas, then I’ll go back over them again, looking at my notes and underlining, taking pieces here and there that I’ll use.

With the image reorganization I’ve felt a bit off my game this last week, but I’m back now.  Time to step up again.

Each day, though, I have (for the most part) finished a sentence of Jason and Medea.  That doesn’t sound like a very ambitious rate, but by the time a sentence is done, which can be between 2 and 14 lines long, I’m ready to put away the Lewis and Short, the Wheeler and the Anderson, close Perseus and go upstairs.  It’s a pace that, for now, allows me to work at an intense level, get work done steadily and yet allows enough time to do a quality job.

Been reading Civil Servant’s Notebook by Wang Xiaofang.  Author of 13 novels, all about Chinese bureaucracy, this is his first translated into English.  Published by Penguin.  Of all the material I’ve read on China of late this one seems to have the most insight into contemporary China.  Wang gives a satirical perspective on life inside municipal government, but he also strips the veins of a culture deep with history and short on ethical guidance.  I’ve read elsewhere of a moral aimlessness that inflicts contemporary China, but I was never able to put my finger on it until reading Civil Servant’s Notebook.  I don’t have it down here with me now, but tomorrow I’ll quote a few lines from it to show you what I mean.

Dogs

Gertie Update

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Imbolc                                                          New (Valentine) Moon

Gertie has become funnel dog again, wearing the E-collar, E for Elizabethan.  The plastic cone used by vets to stop the obsessive licking dogs get into when they have wounds.  And Gertie has many.

Her tail wags today.  She eats well.  She moves better.  Her resiliency amazes me.  She’s a strong little dog.

Dogs

The Next Day: Gertie

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Imbolc                                                                     New (Valentine) Moon

Gertie whimpered much of the night, resting her head near Kate’s, her bed on the floor next to ours.  She got up this morning and, in the way of dogs, Vega tried to play with her.  Gertie was too much in pain to respond.  She will, however, get back to playing with both Vega and Rigel.  The dog world tends not to carry grudges.  They are, in many ways, our moral superiors.

This morning we tried to get her back in the bedroom, but she wanted to go outside through the front door.  That’s where we let her out after her ACL surgery.  She’s in pain; so, she goes out the front door.  Only problem is our front door has a broken lock and we’ve not gotten it fixed yet.  So Gertie stands in front of the door, waiting for me to open it.

After finally convincing her to go out the back door, she wanders around a bit, slowly, then returns to the inside and, after several ginger repositionings, plops herself down in her crate.  That’s her home and her refuge.  She feels safe there.  I imagine she’ll sleep much of the morning.

We have hypotheses but no definite proof about how she ripped her right canine free from her jaw.  This is a tooth that goes up into the bony structure of the face as far as it extends outward.  It’s made for tearing, pulling, fighting.  It’s designed, in other words, for stress.  What kind of event could wrench it out of its forever home, and cleanly at that, we’ll probably never know.  But it must have been something.