This week I'm working through the first round of copyedits on my novel. Oh em gee.

Thing is, I've waited half my life - at least - for this experience. "My first novel arrives back from the copyeditor" is for me, in the Girlish Dreams stakes, somewhat akin to "man of my dreams goes down on one knee and produces polished rock".

(For the record, I ( Read more... )

I like Avaaz. Today's campaign is focused on getting GAP to sign a strong fire safety agreement in Bangladesh. The shareholder meeting is tomorrow, it seems.

For pig iron, here's what I wrote to the CEO of GAP:

Dear Glenn Murphy,

You and I, we live in a world where we can go to work every day without fearing for our lives. Our physical safety, ( Read more... )

TheJournal.ie had a piece yesterday about Amnesty's ad campaign for an equal health system in Ireland.

(Incidentally, for me, this comment on that article sums up exactly why a one-tier, free-at-point-of-access health system is really the only defensible approach: "...as soon as rich people have to avail of the same services as the rest of us you’ ( Read more... )

REASON ONE:
It's niallm's and my thirteenth and seventh anniversary! (We got married on our anniversary.) And we are both on for another thirteen years! Woo!

REASON TWO:The Feaster and I went to collect the Oyster from his music class, and on the way home the Oyster snapped at the Feaster and called him stupid for no reason, and I threw a totally ( Read more... )

Are you still here, lovely people?

I've been howling at this blog post quoting extracts from "Are Women People?" (1915) (via Twitter; I think ailbhe linked to it).

For instance:

If They Meant All They SaidCharm is a woman's strongest arm ( Read more... )

...or does the same-sex section of this wedding planner's "services" page start off a bit clueless (though apparently well meaning) before veering into crassly offensive territory?

I quote:

Same-sex weddings have a reputation for flamboyance and extravagance, and rightly so. Wecater for all aspects of the ‘wedding’ even down to finding an outfit ( Read more... )

The boys were having a game on the way home from the food co-op just now:

The Oyster: This is a ghost train, and I'm a vampire, and I'm going to chop off your head at midnight!

The Feaster: I'm pretenting to be a toy toothbrush with a gun ( Read more... )

12 years since the sleety Monday morning when niallm & I agreed that we'd fallen in love.

6 years since we informed the State.

Woo!

It turns out, right, that living in squalor is really not where I want to be.

But all our housekeeping mechanisms broke down in the onslaught of 2009 (the construction of the south wing) and the early part of 2010 (my vitamin B12 deficiency), and they're only just beginning to come back.

I still feel at sea. So I'm going to take a leaf out of ailbhe's ( Read more... )

Happy St Radegund's Day, everybody ( Read more... )