Of This and Other Worlds

Contrary to William Shatner's famous dictum, this is one Trekkie who does NOT need to get a life. Believe me, I have TOO MUCH OF ONE ALREADY.

Thanks to an ever-increasing host of church and family-related responsibilities as we gear up for the Christmas season, it's all I can do to skim my carefully whittled f-list for Major Happenings. I must apologize to you all in advance for not being able to participate in any of the myriad love memes and wishlist memes that are floating around -- I hope to make it up to you at some point when things are less crazy.

But what's really driving me right now is that on top of all this, I've just found out that Knife could make the summer 2009 list if only I can get my revisions done in time. When I first heard about the possibility it seemed like a nifty thing if I could do it, but lately some reasons (which I can't go into at present) have come up for me to take the challenge even more seriously than that. So whenever I have a spare moment, I'm squirrelling myself away with my laptop and revising, revising, revising like mad.

The good thing is that I am really, really happy with the first two chapters now -- happier than I've ever been before. But it's hard and absorbing work. And I get a lot more done if I work on a computer that does NOT have Internet access, so... you won't be hearing much from me for the next little while, I'm afraid.

Erm, I love you all, and Merry Christmas?

It occurs to me that I never posted about the eye-poppingly dreadful sign I saw outside a church here in town a few weeks ago:

SNAP
     CRACKLE
               POP
THE TRINITY
Sunday at 11:00

Oh, yeah, I can see serious theologians lining up at the door for that one.

***

More recently I came across this one, outside a local farm:

KITTEN     SQUASH

And here I thought paintball was violent.

***

But my favorite hilarious sign incident happened at the end of this summer, when avarill was visiting. We made a trip into Mennonite country to look at furniture and do some geocaching, and by the time we approached our destination, we were all hungry. At which point the following conversation took place:

HUSBAND: Look for somewhere we can stop. I can't believe there aren't any restaurants around here.

ME: [reading off a sign by the roadside] Tomatoes... sweet corn... quilts... schnoodle pups.

H.: Schnoodle pups! Those sound pretty tasty. I could go for one of those.

ME: ...

avarill: ...

H.: What?

ME: Er, I think those are actually, y'know, puppies. Schnauzer, poodle... schnoodle.

H.: ...

ME and avarill: *bust up laughing*

The sad thing is, they do sound like they ought to be some kind of tasty deep-fried treat.

Here we go again...

( What church do you attend? Who else should play Snape? How do you avoid Mary Sue? )

( Your real-life heroes? What draws you to a character? Your greatest accomplishment in life? )

( How would you rule the world? How did you become a Christian? Which fictional character would you make real? )

( Which country would you visit? Favorite poet? Lunch for LRK? )

( What does hubby think of your HP fandom? Why did Snape and Maud wait? Best lesson from HP? )

Shorter answers this time -- mercifully. :)

With all this talk about Mary Sues, I've been struck by a new thought.

Some people have mentioned seeing MS characters in published fiction -- Anita Blake is frequently mentioned, and of course there are other plausible candidates like Amelia Peabody, Mary Russell, and Anne of Green Gables (come on -- she's a spunky orphan with a tragic past, an unusual hair colour, and she wins the heart of everybody she meets! How can she not be a Mary Sue?*).

However, I haven't heard anybody mention an even more serious and irritating problem -- Mary Sues in real life!

Think about it. Alexander the Great? So a Gary Stu. Elizabeth Taylor? I mean, she has violet eyes**! And let's not even get started on Gwyneth Paltrow...

But that's just a tiny sample. So step right up, folks! Nominate your favorite RL Mary Sues and Gary Stus. We might even start a new genre -- RPMS fic!

--
*This is, by the way, mostly facetious. I like Anne just fine.
**Yes, I do know they aren't really violet. Tell that to the press, though.