kouredios tagged me with five things she thinks of when she thinks of me. Here's a brief explanation of how each of them looks from the inside.

1. bookmaking
I started binding books in December of 2001. I bind mostly in leather, using both traditional and modern methods. I am a member of the British Society of Bookbinders (though I kind of weird them out because I'm self-taught).

Now, I grew up around printing (my father has two printing presses in his basement), and I married into a printing family (my in-laws own a company that manufactures and sells printing chemicals). So, naturally, I started binding books so that I could have blank ones to write in. I learned mostly from books, and documented what I learned on my (hopelessly out of date) binding blog, http://bookweb.sunpig.com

I rebind published books as well as making blank ones. Most of my bindings are given away, or find their way onto my shelves. I sell blank books on occasion, for fairly small sums; this pays my materials bills and not much more. I am content with that, though one day I would love to be the science fiction bookbinder. (Accept no substitutes)

Binding books, for me, is about craftsmanship. But because it competes with the rest of my life, sometimes it's about being good enough rather than being perfect. The perpetual tension among all of the pressures is difficult to balance, but, in the end, good for me.

2. Dutch
Dutch is the fifth language I have studied (English, Spanish, Latin and Greek being the others). I've never managed true fluency in any language but English; my Spanish was good for a while, but not completely there.

Secretly, I am not convinced I can really become fluent in a second language. This is, of course, nonsense, but it's very powerful nonsense.

I have to overcome this mental block. We moved to the Netherlands with the intention of raising bilingual, multicultural children. But, of course, this move requires me to become bilingual and (even more) multicultural as well. (Martin is already fluent in Dutch, having grown up in the south of the Netherlands.)

It helps that I love the language, which is quirky and cranky in many of the same ways that English is. The word order is completely bats. And I love the sound of it, because I heard it when I was falling in love. (I am particularly fond of Martin's accent.)

3. poetry
I never think of myself as a poet.

I wrote sonnets during high school--dreadful ones--and decided that my muse sang only in doggerel. When I joined Making Light, it gave me someplace to post my doggerel, but I never took it seriously.

It wasn't until John M (Mike) Ford, a regular on Making Light, died that I started writing them again. He was always the master sonnetrist; poetry slams then were races for the silver. (I wonder now if that bothered him.) I was just scrambling to fill the aching hole that I could see in the community. Then, of course, the other poets came out of the woodwork, many of them much better at the craft than I am.

Sonnets, really, are a habit of language taken to formal extremes. When I was in practice I could write them in as few as sixteen minutes (good ones took longer). But at the moment, I can't seem to write any at all. I think that Dutch has taken over those parts of my brain. I miss them, and I regret that everyone but fledgist has stopped with them as well. I feel it's my fault, somehow.

I have written one poem in Dutch, a "Sinterklaasliedje" (St Nicholas' Day song) for a colleague. I enjoyed it; maybe next year I'll write more.

4. pastiche
I do a lot of pastiches on Making Light, particularly for parlour games.

But my favorite pastiche exchange is actually a tiny one with just a couple of people at the tail-end of another thread entirely, as we wrote and rewrote the same passage of "On the Death of WB Yeats" to relate to space, time and science fiction. It's only about six comments long, but I found it stretching and amusing.

My problem is that I'm flying blind whenever I try to do pastiches of writers. What ear I have for tone is unreliable with my own prose. I can sometimes hear when I strike a false note, but more often, I can't really tell when I'm on-voice or not.

I'm also appallingly ill-read. I'd never run across the plums poem until I came to Making Light and saw it adapted by all and sundry. The literary game threads are as much recommended reading lists for me as they are puzzles ("Oh! I wonder how that sounds in non-LOLcats!")

But, you know, the only real requirement for pastiches (and for poetry, for that matter) is that both I and the reader have fun. On that basis, I'll probably continue to do them.

5. motherhood
I've been a mother figure for longer than I've been a mother. I have a brother 12 years younger than me, and a sister 2 years his junior, and I spent much of my childhood and young adulthood "playing on the grownups' team".

But now I'm a reallyo trulyo mother, and it's strange to me. I'm always bemused and baffled that my children love me with such devotion and affection. I don't see myself as deserving it, really. I don't manage the transcendent elements of parenthood that well; I just bumble along.

I do try to tell my children that I love them often, frequently in detail. I'm a great believer in the value of physical contact, and make sure that we spend some time each day cuddling. And every night, when they're asleep in their rooms, I creep in and kiss them one more time, and whisper good things in their ears.

I don't know if this makes any difference to their dreams, but I can hope.

- o0o -

So that's me. If you want tagging, say so in the comments and I'll tell you five things that I think about when I think about you.

When the method that we use to determine the norms of a community is conflict, then only that subset of the members who can effectively survive the process end up deciding the rules.  The mechanisms that emerge frequently require one to be able to spend enormous amounts of time and undivided attention picking through complex, nuanced and angry arguments, at speed and under fire.  After all, everyone who lasted long enough to agree them has that skillset in common.  That's how they got there.

This is why I like web moderation.  The point is to build a conversation where a thick skin and infinite free time are not required to participate, where...

Aw, nuts, the five year old just barfed all over her bed.

(Text posted unchanged, appropriate title added; I had not expected life to make my point for me so dramatically!)

In the spirit of this, a few lines that may be familiar.

Capt: A dozen years have pass'd since this took place,
And all that time hath Parliament kept hid
The secret of this world, till River here
Unearth'd it from their minds.  They feared she knew.
And right they were to dread, since many more
Among the spinning worlds would know it too.
And someone has to speak for those now dead.
For divers reasons did you join my crew
But all have come together to this place.
I've in the past demanded much of you.
Today I ask yet more; perhaps for all.
For this I know, as I know anything:
That they will try again.  Another world
Will be the lab for this experiment.
Or maybe they will sweep this landscape clean
And in a year or ten attempt again.
They'll swing back like the needle to the north
To the belief that they can better men.
And I hold not to that.  Here from this grave
I will not run. I aim to misbehave.

- o0o -

Capt: There's more to flight than buttons, albatross,
More to the pilot's role than charts and maps.
You know the foremost rule of flying?  Aye,
I know you do, since you know what I'll say
Before I part my lips.
Riv:                         I do, but yet
I like to hear you say it nonetheless.
Capt:  'Tis love.  Though you know all the math the 'verse
Contains, if in the sky you take a ship unloved
She'll shake you off as sure as worlds turn.
Love keeps her in the air when she should fall
And tells you that she hurts before she keens.
It makes her home.
Riv:                         The storm is getting worse.
Capt: We will endure a while, till it disperse.

In the spirit of one of the greatest xkcd cartoons of all, as given life by pnh:

Two threads diverged in a blog comment,
And sorry I could not argue both
And be one advocate, on I went
Researching one, and all that it meant
Unto the limits of its growth;

Then fought the other, just as keen
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it had less buzzword-sheen;
Though as for that, 'twas just as mean,
With obfuscation much the same.

And both held promise of delight
With comments not yet answered back.
Oh, I marked the first for another night!
Yet knowing how fight leads on to fight
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be blogging this with a sigh
Someday ages and ages hence:
Two threads diverged in a blog, and I,
I took the one less comment-shy
And that has made all the difference.

tnh pointed me (and the rest of the net) to a page on the nine orders of trilobites: http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Tree_of_Life/PhylumArthropoda/ClassTrilobita.htm

It's a great page, and leads to some good clicktrance.  But it made me think of "We Three Kings of Orient Are".  And once I'd thought of it, of course, I had to write it.  (Sleep being, of course, something that happens to Other People)

Trilobites from Cambrian stone
Evolution glorious shown:
Adaptations, variations
On their ancestors unknown.

O fossil record, long preserved
Ancient hist'ry still conserved
Stone from sand made, nine of their clade
Now are classed from forms observed.

Ancient Agnostida you find
Primitive, and many are blind
Head like butt, thus isopygous
(Greek is much less unkind!)

Redlichiida's thoracic spines
Form distinctive parallel lines
Micropygus, eyes a big plus.
Order that the head defines.

Varied trilobites could conform
To Ptychopariidanic form.
Long surviving, widely thriving
Giving them time to transform.

Corynexochida descends
And from Redlichiida's form bends:
Glabella clavate, bum a tad great
Pointiest at their back ends.

Many trilobites spread their spines
Few, however managed the lines
Of Lichida, lacy leader:
Order that's dressed to the nines.

Asaphids, effacéd, could glide
Or perhaps in sediment hide.
Distinctive sutures but no futures
The order still, like others, died.

Lasting till the Permian age
Proetida, ultimate stage.
Small, with spineless tail behind, this
Order turned the final page.

Semi-circle or ovate brimmed
Rostral plate by ages' change trimmed.
Ptychopariida had Harpetida
But was by an order slimmed.

Spineless trilobites, a surprise!
What that in prehistory lies
Could but see the Phacopida
As they saw with compound eyes.

Worlds change, adapt if you can.
As with trilobites so with man?
Global warming, new plagues forming
May we run as long as they ran.

O fossil record, long preserve
All our hist'ry, and conserve
Stone from sand made, what of our clade
Will be known, and who'll observe?

The scansion gets a bit ragged on the last lines; I was kinda punchy by the time I finished it.  But it was fun; how many times do you get to rhyme "Head like butt, thus" with "isopygous" in one lifetime, after all?

The forest fires burn hotter
But campfire coals are richer
Till quenched by sand and water
From fire-pail and pitcher.
The lust for human glimmer
Made all I had seem lightless.
My hoarded fires burned dimmer
In contrast to Man's brightness.

To feed my need for fires
I left my mountain fastness.
A gleam like flaming pyres
Entranced me through the vastness.
Beyond my wooded valley
I saw a light, bright-burning
I made a winging sally
Emboldened by my yearning.

The roads were rich with red lights
Like coals they shone. I craved them
Yet brighter glowed the headlights.
I burned to keep, to save them.
But other sparkles drew me
As bees are drawn to flowers.
For I could, as I flew, see
The neon-shining towers.

I found a roof and landed
Where shadows would surround me.
My hidden perch commanded
A view of all around me.
And what I saw amazed me
When peering through the windows.
What did men as they gazed see
In panels with their dim glows?

I stayed awhile and learned from
The humans with their bright things.
I heard of "cash", and earned some,
Enough to buy the right things.
For in the nights, while dreaming,
I knew that I must go back.
My hidden fires, still gleaming,
Without my care would go black.

Returning to my treasures
Within the mountains lightless
I rediscovered pleasures
Outwith electric brightness.
The embers glowed more redly
The fires had brighter spark
The lightning looked more deadly
Against a forest's dark.

But still I miss the cities
That glisten, gleam and shine
With countless coloured pretties
All crying to be mine.
But Wi-fi goes a long way,
And now my laptop's working.
I buy my lights on eBay,
And on this blog I'm lurking.


Originally posted on Making Light.

The elder dragon stirs atop his hoard
And wakens, stretching out his scaly wings,
Rejoicing in the state of having things:
Possessions are, for him, their own reward.
He tallies up his silver and his gold,
Recalls the provenance of every gem,
But never feels the need to alter them:
He wasn't born to make, but just to hold.
But we are not the same: we crave the new.
We strive to tell, to write, to sing, to build
Until the space around us is all filled
And still we carry on. It's what we do.
But even we, when overwhelmed with stuff,
Must tidy up at times. Enough's enough!


Originally posted on Making Light.

The dragons vanished first, one day at dawn,
A close-packed mass of wings and teeth and tails
That voicelessly, just rustling its scales,
Crouched, launched itself, and in a flash, was gone.
The gryphons, barren since the hatchling blight
Around the eggless phoenix gathered near.
So when it flamed, they too began to sear,
Then sprang aloft and burned to ash midflight.
The dryads withered, and their trees fell down;
The unicorns their pearly horns all shed;
Beneath the autumn leaves curled pixies, dead;
And undines taught the naiads how to drown.
You humans mapped the world, despite the cost:
That you be found, the rest of us are lost.


Originally posted on Making Light.

The map said "Here be dragons" on the edge,
Beyond the farthest land, in open sea.
It seemed a little strange, at least to me:
Where did they build their nests? I like a ledge,
Some rocky outcrop on which I can sleep,
And hoard my gold, and dream up riddling quips
For jewel-thieves. I don't need much: just tips
Of stone between me and the chilly deep.
But I need dragons, too. I've been alone
For centuries. I want to rut, to breed,
To see my hatchlings on the wing. I need
A dragoness more than I need warm stone.
I searched for days, but all I found was sea.
Yet still the map is right, for here be me.


Originally posted on Making Light.

The first September week was barely past
When he was born. The way the seasons change
Is catching, so perhaps it is not strange
That his first tongue and nation weren't his last.
But though a tree may shed its autumn leaves
And be reclad in spring, the trunk remains.
And so it is with Serge, who still retains
The core of whom he loves, what he believes.
Beneath the puns, behind the clever prose,
Between the lines of sly pastiche, I see
The way he cares for this community
And value all the warmth his manner shows.
So happy birthday, Serge, although I'm late
(I knew the month, but just mislaid the date!)


A belated birthday sonnet for serge_lj, originally posted on Making Light.

Above the thunder-clouds it hovers high,
Its skeletal ribs lit by lightning storms,
While rags of fabric trail in ghostly forms:
A revenant adrift in endless sky.
Below, the well-lit modern planes pass by,
And unaware, they brush its tentacles,
Old mooring-cables, trailing manacles
With which it trawls for aircraft as they fly.
And when it catches something in its snare,
It feasts on wires and microchips inside
While humans, just detritus flung aside,
Plunge screaming downward through the icy air.
Beware the king of airships; fear his chains.
The Hindenberg is feeding on jet planes.


Originally posted on Making Light, based on an image from Diatryma.

All you brains are ours
Though you don't know
We're shambling here along the aisle
Our clothing ragged, marked with stinking stains.
And the dawn is breaking
Above the cloud
The pilot's seen us
And screamed aloud
Already we're so hungry
We want brains

So scream now and try to flee
See the things you shouldn't see
Hide somewhere you think you can defend
Cause we're zombies, on a jet plane
Don't think that you'll be safe again.
You'll die before the end.

There will be times you think you'll win
The door is locked. They can't get in.
I tell you now that it won't hold for long
Every time you run, we'll follow you
Every place you hide, we'll come for you
When we break through, you'll know your hopes were wrong.

So scream now and try to flee
See the things you shouldn't see
Hide somewhere you think you can defend
Cause we're zombies, on a jet plane
Don't think that you'll be safe again.
You'll die before the end.

Now the time has come to kill you
One more time
Let us bite you
Then close your eyes
We will eat your brain
Now you stir; you're one of us.
So tell your fellow passengers
Their screaming and their struggles are in vain.

They scream now and try to flee
See the things they shouldn't see
Hide somewhere they think they can defend
But we're zombies, on a jet plane
Don't think that they'll be safe again.
They'll die before the end.


Originally posted on Making Light.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innsmouth
And a small altar make there, of bones and bodies built;
Nine gravestones will I have there, a gibbet facing south,
And live alone but for those I've killed.

And I shall have no peace there, for They come creeping slow,
Creeping from the veils of the morning to where the raven caws;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon an eerie glow,
And evening full of the Deep Ones' claws.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavement sgrey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.


Originally posted on Making Light.

The first days with the flaming sword, I swore
I'd break my arms, or burn my fingertips.
My palms were blistered. Skin came off in strips.
At sunset I'd be weary to the core.
And now I can, with joyful spirit, tell
How when my widespread wings were newly fledged
I lost control, and ended my flight wedged
Inside a cliffside crack (from which I fell!)
In time I learned to better wield my sword
And not set light to quite so many trees.
I fly for days on end with grace and ease.
And doing these things well, I please the LORD.
(But I confess - His pleasure's just a part
Of my delight in mastering my art.)


Written for tnhat the beginning of her new job, and posted on Making Light.

The ti bon ange wakes and sips its tea.
The day awaits, the curled-up sleeping man
Lies ready to inhabit, so it can
In all he does, express divinity.
In cyberspace, the greater angel stirs
And spreads its bit-fledged wings, extending far
Beyond a body's reach. The shining star
Of Coming Light unfallen, it confers
Upon its willing agents powers thus:
The well-wrought pun, the gentle quip,
The tactful hint, the jest whose pointed tip
Is yet unbarbed. And so it graces us.
O Xopher's angel twins, the great and small,
Come comment here, enlightening us all!

Written to embarrass xopher_vh on Making Light.

You pull me from your shelves and lay me out:
My spine against the sun-warmed tabletop
My leather covers let to gently drop,
My coloured endsheets falling all about.
O straighten them, I beg of you, be quick!
Then spread my blank and creamy pages wide
And with an inky pen inscribe inside
Your formulae in lines both thin and thick.
The paper shivering as it receives
The graphs you draw on it. You fill my soul,
And still you write, until the proof is whole,
Then press your knowledge tight between my leaves.
You have your fleshy pleasures, but I find
I'd rather far be ravished by your mind.

Originally posted to Making Light.

A single strand of silver wire entwines
Among the gems and beads, and twists around
The finest one, a secret treasure found
Among the curves like fruit among the vines.
And when the gem is lost, the shining wire
Preserves intact its shape, its outs and ins
The places where it widens, where it thins,
Reflecting, still, an echo of its fire.
How painful for the wire to now enclose
An emptiness, a hollow in its heart.
And yet the hole is just one balanced part
Of fine-wrought silverwork. And still it grows
And shapes the gulf into its graceful whole:
A necklace and a Lioness's soul.


Written for elisem, originally posted on Making Light.

How doth the bubbling Yog-Sothoth
Improve its protoplasm,
And drink the bloody spuming froth
From thy last dying spasm!

How maddening its lights appear
How dread its pseudopods
As all who watch are taught to fear
The mighty Outer Gods!

Originally posted on Making Light.

Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood
Where all that happens is for good,
Where Roo still plays on sunny days.
Pooh and friends once desperate stood.

The Bear of Little Brain then dwelled
Where honey with a U is spelled
Among the trees and bumble bees
And hero parties oft were held.

With Piglet trembling close beside
He roamed the forest, far and wide,
Where Heffalumps and Tigger jumps
Would make our heroes run and hide.

While in the background Rabbit fussed
And griped and (sotto voce) cussed
As Pooh was stuck and then unstuck
Uncured of his great hunny-lust.

The haycorns grew in sunlit dells
While daffodils and silver bells
On riverside did thick abide
And perfumed with ambrosial smells.

But deep within the river crept
A darker force, its anger kept
In check by him who, visage grim,
His watch maintained while others slept.

Until a game of Pooh-sticks played
Upon a new bridge in the shade.
When Eeyore won, his guard undone
Released the thing from where it stayed.

The cloud that crossed the sun that noon
Was not a bear on a balloon.
The darkness spread, and with it, dread
That reckoning was coming soon.

The grass grew withered, turning grey.
The river whipped up icy spray
And in the trees the honey bees
Mysteriously slipped away.

As ruin of their home they faced
Our heroes in their centre placed
Small frightened Roo, and Piglet too
While breath grew short and pulses raced.

And at the shore they made their stand
Between the water and the land
As eye met eye they knew they'd die
And with their blood stain red the sand.

Upon the bridge brave Rabbit hopped
The shadows rose and overtopped
The parapet.  Old Long-ears met
And stopped the dark, then lifeless dropped.

Then for his dead friend Tigger howled
And in response, the forest growled
Thence came a beast, like Death released
And Rabbit's lifeless corpse befouled.

The tiger bounced then, gold and red
And from him darkness briefly fled
But the black struck swiftly back
And left him broken, beaten, dead.

Above the heroes rose a bird
By Tigger's death to courage spurred.
No longer meek, with claw and beak
Old Owl fought (without a word!)

Then Christopher Robin turned
And saw the river once more churned
With foul mud and Rabbit's blood
As revenant, their friend returned.

At that their blood froze in their veins.
Abandoning their meagre gains
They huddled in, while with a grin
The zombie rodent sought their brains.

And as they stood in trembling row
And watched the beast they used to know
He reached right through and seized on Roo.
And though they fought he'd not let go.

He pulled his tiny captive through
Their hopeless clutches and withdrew
His prey, held tight, soon ceased to fight
And then, "Oh, bother!" exclaimed Pooh.

And at that sound the noises ceased
As friend and foe and eldrich beast
Turned in awe, and wond'ring, saw
The Might of Pooh at last released.

A gentle humming sound he made
And through the grass began to wade
And all he touched unclenched, unclutched
As he spread peace throughout the glade.

With Kanga weeping in his wake
His way to Rabbit did he make.
The foul hare, with yellow stare
In unclean voice then harshly spake.

"You rob me of my prey, then, Pooh?
Three friends for one I'll trade to you
If I can choose the one you lose
I'll end it now, bear.  What say you?"

The rabbit's eyes then opened wide
And met with Eeyore by Pooh's side.
His voice was grim.  "I choose him
And will not lightly be denied."

Pooh turned and peered then at his friend
"I want this Unpleasantness to End
But what to do?  I can't lose you."
"It's OK," said Eeyore.  "I'll mend."

"Oh, not from this," the monster smiled
And Eeyore's fur with slime defiled.
As Rabbit healed there stood revealed
A tangled shadow, dark and wild.

It caught up Eeyore in its night
And he succumbed without a fight
While at his side his friends all cried
And darkness howled in grim delight.

Then in the sunlight played small Roo
While from the beach bounced Tigger too.
And Rabbit, dazed, in horror gazed
At hands still smeared with foul goo.

The donkey lay upon the hill
While darkness worked its foul will.
The friends he saved watched him, enslaved
And vigil kept as he lay still.

First he grew sqamous, then rugose
His skin drew tight and wrapped him close
Instead of hair grew tendrils bare
In writhing, twisting, twining rows.

But then he moved, and raised his head.
"I see that I'm not really dead.
I should have guessed I'd get no rest.
How typical," the donkey said.

In time the rot seemed to reverse.
And Eeyore lived despite the curse.
"These psuedopods and Elder Gods
Are not so bad.  It could be worse."

Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping by
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse gives out a cry
As, trembling, he wonders why
We stop and eye the darkened lake
Whose foul odours make him shy.

He gives his harness bells a shake
Which proves to be a grave mistake
As from the water dark things creep
To drag our wagon toward the lake.

The woods are dreadful, dark and deep
And as he screams, and as I weep,
We rue we woke them from their sleep,
We rue we woke them from their sleep.


Originally posted on Making Light.