Quick About This
Nov. 25th, 2010 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastYesterday, I wrote only 810 words on "The Prayer of Ninety Cats," but I spent hours and hours picking though words from the Great Nothing. The story is, at this point, 6,145 words long, so I'm guessing it'll go to 7,000+ words. This month, Sirenia Digest subscribers, you get no mere vignette, but a full-fledged short story.
Great talk with my editor at Dark Horse yesterday. Details as soon as I may.
No Thanksgiving here today, and if you want to know why I do not observe Thanksgiving, well I wrote this last year, on November 23rd:
This whole Thanksgiving thing came up yesterday. That is, the fact that I do not observe this whole Thanksgiving thing. And various people (including my mother) were like, oh come on, you have a lot of things to be thankful for. To which I can only reply that, in this instance, thankfulness implies that there is someone or something out there to thank. I would say that yes, sure, I am appreciative of many things in my life— Spooky, my mom, Spooky's mom and dad, Rhode Island, being able to mostly pay my bills, the sea, and so forth. But being appreciative does not entail being thankful, in the sense that is generally meant when people speak of Thanksgiving. I am not thankful, not in the Thanksgiving sense, which implies gratitude towards some "higher power," even when you've completely stripped the holiday of its Christian roots and made it just "Turkey Day." I can appreciate turkey any day. I don't need a special day to eat turkey, or cranberries, or that disgusting stuff made of sweet potatoes with melted marshmallows on top. And there's no one for me to "give thanks," other than myself, and Spooky, and my readers, and maybe half a dozen other people. So, I'm not trying to be a wet blanket. I just don't do Thanksgiving. I try to make sure the people in my life to whom I am grateful for this or that know that I am grateful for their kindness and concern. I don't need to set aside a special day for it. To some, it may seem like I'm worrying over semantics and only mincing words. But that's what I do. All day, almost every day. I mince words, in an effort to get to what I genuinely mean. Usually, I choose my words with obsessive care.
That said, as I was too busy and tired to properly observe either Mabon or Samhain, we'll be having a huge autumnal meal to retroactively celebrate both. I am told there will be Brussels sprouts.
Great talk with my editor at Dark Horse yesterday. Details as soon as I may.
No Thanksgiving here today, and if you want to know why I do not observe Thanksgiving, well I wrote this last year, on November 23rd:
This whole Thanksgiving thing came up yesterday. That is, the fact that I do not observe this whole Thanksgiving thing. And various people (including my mother) were like, oh come on, you have a lot of things to be thankful for. To which I can only reply that, in this instance, thankfulness implies that there is someone or something out there to thank. I would say that yes, sure, I am appreciative of many things in my life— Spooky, my mom, Spooky's mom and dad, Rhode Island, being able to mostly pay my bills, the sea, and so forth. But being appreciative does not entail being thankful, in the sense that is generally meant when people speak of Thanksgiving. I am not thankful, not in the Thanksgiving sense, which implies gratitude towards some "higher power," even when you've completely stripped the holiday of its Christian roots and made it just "Turkey Day." I can appreciate turkey any day. I don't need a special day to eat turkey, or cranberries, or that disgusting stuff made of sweet potatoes with melted marshmallows on top. And there's no one for me to "give thanks," other than myself, and Spooky, and my readers, and maybe half a dozen other people. So, I'm not trying to be a wet blanket. I just don't do Thanksgiving. I try to make sure the people in my life to whom I am grateful for this or that know that I am grateful for their kindness and concern. I don't need to set aside a special day for it. To some, it may seem like I'm worrying over semantics and only mincing words. But that's what I do. All day, almost every day. I mince words, in an effort to get to what I genuinely mean. Usually, I choose my words with obsessive care.
That said, as I was too busy and tired to properly observe either Mabon or Samhain, we'll be having a huge autumnal meal to retroactively celebrate both. I am told there will be Brussels sprouts.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-25 04:53 pm (UTC)thanking is for every day
Date: 2010-11-25 04:59 pm (UTC)today is a day to celebrate pie.
i have a bit of a headache too. i think there's a low pressure system hovering over the east coast.
Re: thanking is for every day
Date: 2010-11-25 05:05 pm (UTC)i think there's a low pressure system hovering over the east coast.
Probably the cause, for me. Last night, all my teeth hurt. Today, I'm feeling the sinus pain.
Re: thanking is for every day
Date: 2010-11-25 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-25 05:07 pm (UTC)I'm also uncomfortable with the implications of who/what we are "thanking" for the good things in our life, because thankfulness is not the same as appreciation or recognition. I also think it's odd that everyone obsesses about traveling and making huge plans around an arbitrarily chosen day; why doesn't each family just make plans to get together at some mutually convenient time? True, a government/school holiday often makes it convenient, but the costs of travel, particularly flights, are becoming outrageous.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-25 05:11 pm (UTC)I enjoy Thanksgiving for the family and friends aspect. It's just another harvest holiday, to me, so if I'm thankful in the sense you mean, it's the Earth and harvesters I'm thanking. It's also the only fall holiday the rest of my family observes -- and it's a lonely feeling when no one else around you celebrates the holidays you actually care about.
In honour of yesterday's post...
Date: 2010-11-25 08:38 pm (UTC)Enjoy your Brussels sprouts!