Accio Moxie and other stories

This is my thousand-and-first published post on this blog. And here we are, just a few days shy of A Light Inside's seventh birthday.

Happy milestones, little blog. I love you dearly.

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This week, I've had—as I recall—my first cold of the season. I got off easy: my primary symptoms were a few days of inability to drag myself off the couch, a headache whenever I stood up, a scratchy throat whenever I started talking, and acute perfectionism mingled with a beastly lack of focus whenever I tried to write. Everyone else around here talks about having three straight weeks of significant malaise.

(The [theoretical] secret: elderberries. Yeah, I know, your mother was a hamster, etc. I'm not kidding. Elderberry brandy taken by the teaspoon every two hours the moment you begin to imagine you might be getting sick... let's just say it's well worth the try.)

My own biggest problem with getting sick was missing Ash Wednesday Mass. I love Ash Wednesday Mass. It was hard to make Lent feel like it had officially begun without the black cross-smear on my forehead, especially since I was sick enough to not be hungry, which felt like cheating.

Also, I missed my dog, who died about six and a half years ago. She used to cuddle down in the crook of my arm when I was sick. Maia, not so much.

Me: "Maia, please stop walking up and down me. I feel lousy enough."
Maia: "I'm just looking for someplace to sleep."
Me: "Stop looking. One trip back and forth should be sufficient."
Maia: "Your knees aren't pulled up into a respectable sleeping nook."
Me: "You know, my dog used to cuddle in the crook of my arm. For hours."
Maia: "Did you have a point with that statement?"
Me, sighing: "I guess not. Just pick somewhere and lie down."

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The YA Book Queen has a list of the top seven comments she's received from non-YA-reading adults. It would seem that either people are bigger jerks where she lives, or I don't spend enough time in public with my copy of The Goose Girl.

Anyhow, all I've got to say is: Go ahead, random stranger. Make a snide comment about how I "must love Twilight." I'll summon up all my moxie—in my imagination, I have moxie to summon—and say, "I do, actually. Meyer did some fascinating things with literary alchemy and tie-ins to nineteenth-century classics. And I loved her thoughtful portrayal of loss and grief in New Moon."

It would be fun to see if the random stranger had a response to that.

Dear The Internet, please stop using Twilight as a symbol of trashy literature. No, it's not The Great Gatsby. It wasn't trying to be. It's also not nearly as bad as people make it out to be; no, not on any level. Thanks.

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Music of the week: Beethoven. I don't link enough of my favorite composer, probably because most of his pieces are longer than the ten minutes I try to keep these linked videos to. But here's the beautiful second movement to his seventh symphony.



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Happy weekend!