The Dance-O-Tron!

Kelley happens to love dancing (we own 5 or 6 of the Just Dance series for the Wii). She is also a nurse. So it is entirely fitting the the anti-nausea medicine she was prescribed for a recent bout of upset tummy is in fact pronounced "On Dance-O-Tron." Medical spelling is odd, so of course it is a near-miss (Ondansetron). Close enough, in my book. Those extra syllables say so much more than the brand name "Zofran," although that does sound like it could be a good name for a dancing robot.

Kalyani and Rahul

In January I went to the book signing for the release of Firefight by Brandon Sanderson. If you aren't aware, I really love a lot of Brandon's books. He makes the top 5 list of my favorite authors, and I have some of the most fun anticipating his new releases because there are a whole lot of other fans that like to theorize and discuss. (I've been moderately active over on the official fan site ever since the build up to the release of Words of Radiance.)

For the signing, I dressed up as a Rithmatics professor, my sister came as Megan (from the Reckoners series) and I dressed my son up as Pattern (from Stormlight Archive). I enjoyed recording the Q&A and the signing line, and meeting Brandon again (for the full report, see this thread on the 17th Shard fan site). But my favorite part of the evening was definitely meeting the people behind me in line.

There I was, nearly at the back of the line (my son was getting fussy so we had left for dinner and come back). The woman behind me asked if I had read Legion, which is told from the perspective of "a perfectly sane man" whose hallucinations all have psychoses, but are also geniuses. When I replied that I had, she said, "I'm Kalyani," which is the name of one of the hallucinations. At first I thought she meant she was dressed up as that character, but as it happens the inspiration goes the other direction. Kalyani in line was the basis for the fictional person.

Along with her husband Rahul (who also appears in Legion), Kalyani makes an impressive effort to extend hospitality to their friend Brandon. Whenever he has a signing within 8 hours of their home, they drive to the location and cook him an Indian meal for dinner. Both of them were also wearing T-shirts with their own fan art on them (a chasmfiend and the oathgate network.) I'm glad I got to meet them.

As a result of some questions asked by KalynaAnn, who has put a lot of thought into the geometry underlying the chalk magic from The Rithmatist, I got excited about possible variations and extensions of the defenses described in the book. Here are three hypothetical Rithmatic constructions that could be valid defenses, depending on how many of my assumptions are accurate. I discuss them in this post on 17S.

Starting a dream journal

Recently I have had some very odd dreams. This is not unusual for me--I often have fantastic adventures in my sleep. Last night's was too good not to record. I have considered keeping a dream journal in the pest but never actually done it. This might be a good place to try. At least for the interesting ones.

In last night's excursion into dreamland, I found myself in a small team infiltrating a damaged star destroyer full of storm troopers. (Yes, I had listened to the Star Wars soundtrack recently. Why do you ask?)  The best route to the bridge, where we would try to hijack the ship, was through the exercise and recreation area. Everything was going well even though I embarrassed myself on the basketball court, until someone tried to rob my teammate and I intervened in the ensuing knife fight. This attracted attention and my cover was blown. I was still trying to figure out how to get away or buy time for my fellow saboteurs when I woke up.

Character Keteks (Poetry Month Day 1)

A ketek is a 5-line palindrome-like poem where each word is repeated, allowing for some grammatic changes. It is original to the fantasy world of the Stormlight Archive, and these keteks each describe a character in that series. I have previously posted a posted a reverso about a different Stormlight character.

Szeth
Unheard screams
own my life, 
still Truthless,
still alive, 
my own screams unheard.

Shallan
Lies held close
dangerously hide
self from self,
hiding dangerous
closely held lies.

Kaladin I
Protected, trained to heal;
betrayed and wronged, overcome.
Choosing honor, by honor chosen,
overcoming wrongs and betrayal
healing to train, protect.

Kaladin II
Failing again, never protecting,
Oaths betrayed.
Renew honor,
renewing betrayed oaths,
protecting, never again failing

Taravangian
Brilliance without compassion
required this action today
for salvation, yet salvation
for today's action, this requires
compassion without brilliance.

low 40s

Night drizzle in early February,
the damp cloud cover keeps it warm enough
that a soggy gray morning sees mist in the air
instead of frost on the ground.

And on the third floor
around 1 a.m.
a tear-sodden pillow kept
a heart from freezing over.

Luncheon Cinquain

Taste it:
soft brown heaven,
soothing cream of softness
a full jar of peanut butter
for me

Poetry Challenge Fail

As you may notice by looking at the previous post, the number of poems written in April was a bit shy of one-a-day. In fact, the final completion score comes in at 20/30, which is a D in most schools. Moreover, nearly a week's worth of those poems were written together on a relaxing Sunday afternoon. I didn't actually approach poetry more than half the days in Poetry Month.

While writing daily is the main spirit of the April poetry challenge, I also failed to take advantage of the opportunity to experiment with new styles and forms. My 2011 challenge month was much more successful.

I keep promising regular posts, and if I said something like that again it would be getting redundant. Know that good intentions are still persistently paving my way, and I'm hoping that pavement leads to a happier place than it does in most versions of the idiom. (If not, I guess we will have more posts like these ones.)