--Splinters and Sawdust--
Gingerbread Specials
&
Fine Woodworking
I avoided the panicked plotting to get on the Island by being in the Boston area with family. I had already done as much bonding of that sort as was healthy over the roommate schemes, and instead offered some relatives an excuse to see Martha's Vineyard for the first time.
The next day I wrote up my first day at Viable Paradise, in a very non-linear fashion, spinning back to with the part where my aunt and grandmother (Auntie Barbara [awntie] and Meema) and I are exploring the rambling town of Oak Bluffs almost before I get started describing being at the workshop...
***
Yesterday, (last night, more like) I discovered a door-like aperture in the wall of our townhouse that let out into the hallway. As Pam & I poked our head out, Cory Doctorow & Elizabeth Bear were coming down the hallway behind it, so we had an Encounter. Bear* said it was rather Nickelodeon while I nattered about forcing social behavior if we propped it open. Puppets were suggested, and later Pam dug out her stuffed jellyfish couple that would serve nicely, if we took Elizabeth Bear's suggestion.
Doctorow: “That would be cool, but shtupid.”
Quite. That, as Auntie Barbara says, is the way I roll.
At lunch w/her & Meema, we ate large, but the best thing was our entertainment by cyclist club, arriving about halfway through our meal. Meema asked about their “brewer-to-brewer” patches, but was told they just drank the beer.
“We're drinkers with a bad biking habit,” the man by us told her. “We used to be drinkers with a bad running habit, but then our knees gave out.”
He earlier had informed the waitress, sent for the wine list right off, “We have our priorities straight.”
“I'm driving,” another announced.
There was an accented gentleman I do not have the acumen to place, and another with a broad New England accent of some variety, but with the features of a well-preserved hobbit (Jackson style) not the pudgy sort—perhaps just features, Celtic or something.
The loquacious gentleman retrieved a knife I'd dropped and forgotten, just after their entrance. This had been announced with clacks which I thought was a party of heeled women walking badly, until they emerged in my line of vision as tight-shorted men in the forties-fifties range. They likely knew they had an audience in us three, because we were cracking up and they were quite openly sharing their conversation. A salt-of-the-earth crew. **
The little houses of Oak Bluffs are amazing. Gingerbread/Munchkin/Victorian dollhouse, pick your descriptive.
My roommates are both lovely. Pam's jewelry store indulgence provided me with a cool ring for my pinky which is quirky. *** She's 30ish, lives in Colorado near Durango, in the mts., in the boonies. Jean is more of an East Coast hippie original, in only the best way. She took the upper single room so Pam and I can be cheap.
{I am in my 20s residing in Oklahoma currently (in the less pretty boonies), though I'm regularly thought to be in the late teens, or mid-teens. I lived in Japan in my mid-to-late teens.}
12:49 p.m.
Pam and I went for a walk that turned to a jog to the tennis court because all the walking we've done (though we walked down to the road & back up).
Elizabeth Bear and 3 other staff (well, nonstaff Ernie) were clumped on the stairs and as I got there I said to them “Walking through groups...my favorite!”****
Bear asked my name, after a brief volley of assurances that they weren't scary. We shook hands.
“I noticed you looked a little tense, Bethany,” she said, which was news to me, but—okay. *.*
“I thought I was faking it pretty good,” I told Pam. “Ah, well.”
We were between writing our crits for the morrow's 8 o'clock. After 10, we left the Mafia-Thing playing.
{Exhausted, my journal entry ends more abruptly than I am wont.}
*Being the only author who I'd read before Viable Paradise, this was my fangirl encounter. Besides, she's the kind of awesome, sharp person who makes me both intimidated and eager to perform.
**My dad is a cyclist, so I'm used to the costuming. As soon as I saw the first glimpse of the shorts I felt stupid about not recognizing the clip-in-shoe sound.
***Hematite, I now recognize.
****In retrospect, this probably sounded like a cry for help. (Esp. considering I look who-knows-how-young.) It was supposed to be a between-introverts bit of humor.
*.* I obviously was tense. It just didn't seem strange to me to be tense. I was there wondering why I looked more tense than everyone else...
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crazy
Theme much? [and, cover junkie]
blah
complacent
cold
groggy
smart
chipper
disappointed