Fireplaces are wonderful.
Dec. 19th, 2004 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randomnessI've spent a couple of nights this last week sitting by, and poking at, the fireplace at the house. It's been lovely. There's the adolescent pleasure of poking at fire, which many of my friends understand, even if they don't share it. But while that would be fun for a short while, the real joy comes from hanging around with friends.
You sit, read, chat, hang with people who are theoretically working but actually playing Snood, and generally get warm fuzzies inside and out.
Stoner had left a copy of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver behind, which reminded me that the rest of his Baroque Cycle was out. At the local public library I found The Confusion but not The System of the World. I've been chewing my way through that, in front of the fire.
People stop by, attracted by the warmth, talk for a while. Some stay, some go and come back with work or toys. A social dynamic that's probably as old as the domestication of fire.
While reading a friend gave me a flashing LED pacifier (thanks, Alex!). I'd wanted one of them since one ended up hanging from the doorknob of my room at the Dulwich Hill hostel in Sydney last spring. Each morning it would appear on a different doorknob along the hall, and I didn't feel right about keeping it when it got to my door, so I passed it on. And now I have one.
You sit, read, chat, hang with people who are theoretically working but actually playing Snood, and generally get warm fuzzies inside and out.
Stoner had left a copy of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver behind, which reminded me that the rest of his Baroque Cycle was out. At the local public library I found The Confusion but not The System of the World. I've been chewing my way through that, in front of the fire.
People stop by, attracted by the warmth, talk for a while. Some stay, some go and come back with work or toys. A social dynamic that's probably as old as the domestication of fire.
While reading a friend gave me a flashing LED pacifier (thanks, Alex!). I'd wanted one of them since one ended up hanging from the doorknob of my room at the Dulwich Hill hostel in Sydney last spring. Each morning it would appear on a different doorknob along the hall, and I didn't feel right about keeping it when it got to my door, so I passed it on. And now I have one.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 02:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 02:32 am (UTC)If I'm misremembering, let me know and I'll recalculate.
And thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 03:29 am (UTC)You can bet that The New House[tm] is going to have one big-ass fireplace in the Great Hall, a stone hearth in the kitchen, fireplaces in the library and the two big bedrooms, and maybe one out by the hot tub... (or maybe just a chiminea outdoors)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 03:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 02:49 am (UTC)I liked them both but 2,742 pages in three volumes is a commitment not to be taken lightly. I also find myself reading for plot; this is good in that there is a great deal of it, but bad because it also means I am skipping over a lot of detail in favor of figuring out what is going on.
Also, if you like historical fiction set in the period--seventeenth and eighteenth century--you might like it more than Cryptonomicon.
Having said all of that I'm having a lot less trouble getting through it than I did the Pynchon I borrowed a while ago.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 11:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 11:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 03:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 07:58 am (UTC)What the heck is a LED pacifier?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 03:01 am (UTC)It is a pacifier (a. k. a. dummy in the UK) which has small LEDs embedded in its clear plastic.