Spinning Stories

My mother found this awesome photograph in a bin at an antiques shop yesterday:




Written on the back is, "May 20, 1937."

We've been trying to figure these two out. Where are they? Neither wears a wedding ring, but look at that pose - especially her hand on his shoulder. They're a handsome couple, comfortable in each other's space, but they're not married - at least not yet.

Maybe it's City Hall, and they're about to get married. That would explain why the occasion warranted a camera. But, as my mother pointed out, why no flowers? Even in his lapel?

Maybe they're about to get on a train, or a boat somewhere.

I like that rakish hat, and the look in her eyes. I hope she completely shocked his parents.

For Real?

I was in the middle of composing this really meaningful, thoughtful post when I took a break to surf the internet and I found this:




WHAT is this?? They are making another X-Files movie. Why doesn't anyone tell me ANYTHING?

I spent many years watching the X-Files. I watched it when it was just starting to catch on and they were doing cool stuff like finding viruses in the Antarctic. I watched it when it was really popular and they started doing those ridiculously silly alien plots. (Believe it or not, up to a certain point the alien abduction was actually rather compelling drama.) I watched all the boring shows and all the soapy shows and all the really, really, brilliant shows that made me wish, with everything I had, that I could someday be that good, that inventive a writer. There are episodes of this show that are better than 90% of the novels I've read. You can watch them over and over and the writing stays sublime.

That's all well and good, and Mulder was all well and good, but the really cool thing about this show was always Scully. She was brainy, and beautiful, and redheaded, but she was also short, pedantic, lonely, always working, usually humorless, and dressed in off-the-rack suits. In short, she was something like an actual woman.

I wanted to be Scully. The same way lots of young women a few years later wanted to be Buffy, I suppose. But Scully showed all of us brainy girls that being brainy didn't have to be the handicap we thought it was. You could be brainy, and be cool with it, and be you, and if most of the world wasn't up to that... well, maybe you'd be a little lonely. But at least you'd be you. And maybe you'd get to meet aliens and David Duchovny, maybe in that order.

It'll be good to see Scully again. I'll be watching.

Suggestive much?

Ah, this cover makes me laugh:





"Gosh, why can't our genre get some respect? I can't figure it out. We have some all-out geniuses writing for us. Why, oh why, does everyone persist in thinking we're silly? The rocket-ship wang just CAN'T be the reason."

In other puzzling news, one of the local stations here advertised to "watch their live coverage of Earth Hour." Um, aren't you using electricity if you're watching TV? I mean, they said to turn the lights off, but maybe you were supposed to turn other stuff off too.

Here is my sexxxxy new bookshelf:




OK, the stack of books on the floor doesn't count, because that's all the books I discarded when I went through everything. They're waiting to go to the library. Oh, and the stack of books on TOP of the shelf doesn't count, 'cos those ARE library books, also going back to the library (in the library book-bag, also messily pictured, yes I have a library book-bag, so what? I'm a nerd.)

So really, it's much neater than it appears.

The "litter of puppies" shelf pictured below did not go to the curb after all, but was demoted to secondary shelf featuring stuff like The Guy's old comics and some stuff I didn't have room for.

Oh, and I painted the wall behind it - in fact, the whole room. That's what took me so long.