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Happy birthday
Jan. 20th, 2003 01:32 amto ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kijjohnson (the 20th). I won't tell you how old she is, because I'll be that old in four months. She's older than me. Ha!
We talked about the ice palace book, and in the course of the conversation discovered amazing parallels between the villain in my book (unnamed Mr. X), the evil magician in the story of Aladdin, and Miss Havesham in Great Expectations. All this will prove useful, trust me. One important discovery/decision is that Mr. X's purpose in siccing Jack on Solveig is not that he knew that Solveig was the woman he'd slept with six years ago. He merely was putting Jack in position to set up the design of the ice palace, to his magical specification, and it will be an ugly surprise for him, when he discovers that the young woman on the design team with Jack is actually his old lover.
Still haven't figured out exactly what he's up to, but that's progress.
kijjohnson and mckitterick and I went out for dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant, where mckitterick and I ordered Turkish coffee, thick enough to chew, just to be sure that we'd stay up all night. Over dinner, I brought up what I'd been thinking about since breakfast with kijjohnson, about how she likes fewer books that she reads than I do. Kij admitted that when someone recommends a book to her, it tends to put her hackles up. I talked with her about a conversation I had long ago with my younger sister, when I was frustrated with her because her knee-jerk reaction was to dislike movies that I liked. She actually said to me, "I don't like the kind of movies you like; I like good movies." In the course of the conversation that followed, I explained to my sister--and in explaining it to her, understood it for the first time myself--that I like to share my enthusiasms with the people I love. And my sister had to learn that she didn't have to carve out her own territory by liking something different than me every time. I think it gave Kij something to think about.
True to our agreement, Kij and I listened to the first episode of the BBC Lord of the Rings. And, true to our agreement, all of us watched the first episode of "Sharpe" with Sean Bean. And then we immediately started a second episode. We would have started a third, but they didn't own any more, episodes. This probably means that Kij owes me another hour of the BBC LOTR. This was the first time I'd seen any Sharpe, and I loved it. "I'm so delighted that you love it, too," Kij said.
"See?" I laughed. "Isn't it nice to share something you enjoy with someone you love?"
As it was after midnight, I gave her her birthday present, a hanging double mobile called "Best Friends Forever":
She was delighted with it.
We agreed that this visit was such a success that we should probably make an annual habit of it. Home tomorrow. But we'll still be up late talking tonight.
Cheers,
Peg
kijjohnson (the 20th). I won't tell you how old she is, because I'll be that old in four months. She's older than me. Ha!We talked about the ice palace book, and in the course of the conversation discovered amazing parallels between the villain in my book (unnamed Mr. X), the evil magician in the story of Aladdin, and Miss Havesham in Great Expectations. All this will prove useful, trust me. One important discovery/decision is that Mr. X's purpose in siccing Jack on Solveig is not that he knew that Solveig was the woman he'd slept with six years ago. He merely was putting Jack in position to set up the design of the ice palace, to his magical specification, and it will be an ugly surprise for him, when he discovers that the young woman on the design team with Jack is actually his old lover.
Still haven't figured out exactly what he's up to, but that's progress.
kijjohnson and mckitterick and I went out for dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant, where mckitterick and I ordered Turkish coffee, thick enough to chew, just to be sure that we'd stay up all night. Over dinner, I brought up what I'd been thinking about since breakfast with kijjohnson, about how she likes fewer books that she reads than I do. Kij admitted that when someone recommends a book to her, it tends to put her hackles up. I talked with her about a conversation I had long ago with my younger sister, when I was frustrated with her because her knee-jerk reaction was to dislike movies that I liked. She actually said to me, "I don't like the kind of movies you like; I like good movies." In the course of the conversation that followed, I explained to my sister--and in explaining it to her, understood it for the first time myself--that I like to share my enthusiasms with the people I love. And my sister had to learn that she didn't have to carve out her own territory by liking something different than me every time. I think it gave Kij something to think about. True to our agreement, Kij and I listened to the first episode of the BBC Lord of the Rings. And, true to our agreement, all of us watched the first episode of "Sharpe" with Sean Bean. And then we immediately started a second episode. We would have started a third, but they didn't own any more, episodes. This probably means that Kij owes me another hour of the BBC LOTR. This was the first time I'd seen any Sharpe, and I loved it. "I'm so delighted that you love it, too," Kij said.
"See?" I laughed. "Isn't it nice to share something you enjoy with someone you love?"
As it was after midnight, I gave her her birthday present, a hanging double mobile called "Best Friends Forever":
She was delighted with it.
We agreed that this visit was such a success that we should probably make an annual habit of it. Home tomorrow. But we'll still be up late talking tonight.
Cheers,
Peg
