So...

A couple of things. The big one, of course, is that I got my suitcase back today. Greyhound called me this morning, and told me they had found it (over two months after the fact). It's funny that it should have happened today; yesterday, my sister offered to crochet me a new blanket to replace the one that was in my suitcase, and the day before, I was in a Coles, totally unable to bring myself to buy a new copy of Pride and Prejudice, my favourite one (I thought) having been lost forever. Yesterday was the first day I stopped believing I would see any of this stuff again.

Also, the response to the fact that Aigaion Girl is available has been overwhelmingly good, but as of yet, not particularly profitable. Everyone is very pleased, but so far, no one has bought a copy. I'm trying not to let this bother me; everyone in the world is poor right now and not a lot of people have credit cards and/or the money to buy random books. Besides, if I manage to plan a signing event, that should help me some, as should a table at FanExpo. Plus, I haven't even sent out a press release yet, so no one who doesn't know me will know that this book exists. Anyway, I'm mostly excited about it.

I think that was it for tonight. Another craptastic day at work, and I missed my workout and am a little bummed about that and some other stupid stuff going on, but on the whole, things are good.

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

I haven't posted one of these for a while because most of the countries that appear in my FictionPress readers list any more are ones I've heard of. Of course, I've heard of Libya, I just didn't realize that its official name was the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya until I saw that I had a reader there and looked it up. It's a country located in North Africa, which borders the Mediterranean Sea to the North, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the South and Algeria and Tunisia to the west. Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa by area, and the 17th largest in the world. The Libyan flag, which is solid green, is the only national flag in the world with just one colour and no other design.

I Was So Excited About My Book That I Almost Forgot to Check PostSecret

I guess elated would be as good a word as any, to describe the way I'm feeling. Maybe a bit shocky. Nearly a year and a half ago, I started writing Aigaion Girl ...a story of the end of days for the 2009 NaNoWriMo contest. I knew I wasn't going to win the contest, and I didn't care, I just wanted to write something. I picked Aigaion Girl because I didn't think the plot was very strong and I wanted to write something that if I trashed it by writing too fast, I wouldn't be that worried about. When I started posting chapters on FictionPress, I wasn't expecting much of a response, and at first, I didn't get one. Then, slowly but surely, I started to get comments. Those comments kept me writing and eventually, I fell in love with my characters and their story. Before I knew it, I couldn't stop writing.

And now, now my book is for sale. Actually for sale. People who are not me, people who don't even know me can find my book, buy it and read it. It's out there now.

It'll probably be a couple of weeks before it's available on Amazon; right now, it's only available here, on a little out-of-the-way corner of Createspace, but this is still an amazing feeling. I want to run through the streets shouting and I want to break down and cry. I can't even... Oh Lord, there aren't even words.

One of the things I look forward to most about the weekend is on Sunday, when the new secrets go up on PostSecret. I just love reading through them and composing my own, even if I know I may never send any of them. One of the secrets for today, I thought, was just so fitting with respect to my book and my excitement, that it would have been a real shame to have missed it (because of my book and my excitement). I love that secret, because I think it is the exact way to look at the end of the world and I love that it was posted this weekend, just a day before Aigaion Girl went on sale, because it makes me think that there might be some kind of higher meaning to the universe, which is something of a comforting thought.

Alice in Shutter(is)land

I know I have a million things to review, but these are the most recent, so I thought I would mention something about them while they're still fresh in my mind.

Shutter Island: ★★★★★
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo Dicaprio team up once again for a psychological thriller about an inescapable island which contains a hospital for the criminally insane. Dicaprio plays a federal marshal, who goes to the island to find a missing patient. Wackiness ensues. First, let me just say that both of the full yellow stars go to the cast for outsanding performances. In fact, the bits of the movie that were just movie were really, really good. Unfortunately, there were parts of the movie that tried to be art, fell drastically short, and just ended up being annoying. The biggest bone I had to pick with this film was with the soundtrack. Honestly, this rates worse than the Troy soundtrack in terms of trying to convey meaning to an audience which is apparently too stupid to gather it from the information provided. Instead of music, they may as well have had a voice over saying "something suspenseful is happening" or "something is going to jump out at you now" or even, "this is creepy, in case you didn't know". For a better understanding of what I'm getting at, both in terms of music and movies attempting to be art, see the Mirror, Father Mirror scene from Ghost World here.


Alice in Wonderland: ★★★★★
Being that this was number (I think 7) of the Johnny Depp + Tim Burton movies (I think it's number 4 with Helena Bohem Carter (with Johnny Depp), number 2 including Alan Rickman), I expected to thoroughly enjoy it. I was not disappointed. Along with the aforementioned cast members, Stephen Fry joined the mix, and was, as expected, quite excellent.

This movie does not follow the book (thank jebus). It's more of a sequal to the book, with some familiar scenes, but mostly just completely original. Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter had a lot more depth to him than I was expecting. Also, newcomer Mia Wasikowska did very well as Alice, and Chrisopher Lee was the best Jaberwocky ever, even if it is actually called a Jaberwock in the book and Jaberwocky is the name of the poem.

The only things I wasn't thrilled with were the ending (which made me kinda sad) and the Mad Hatter's dance (which was just ridiculous). Those two things cost the movie a whole star, but still, I'd watch it again (and again, and again)

Erp

Wyatt? Who knows?

Anywhom, on to other stuff.

I'm going CRAZY waiting for proof #2 of Aigaion Girl to show up at my door. It should be here sometime within the next few days.

Also, I'm uber tired on account of it being 2 and me still being up. I think I'll go to bed now.

The Work Out

After seven months of doing next to nothing (partially due to my going to B.C., partially due to my ankle crapping out on me and largely due to my own laziness) I've decided to start working out again. The night before last, I went and bought an ankle brace and my sister brewed some tea (we are taking Marrakech Mint right now) and yesterday morning, after accidentally sleeping in, we set out for a trip around our old work out route.

I was surprised, both by what I can still do and by what I no longer can do. Sit ups, I can still do. Apparently, buried in there somewhere are some abs, nearly forgotten, but still strong enough to bend me in half. Also, I managed to do seven reps on the knee killer yesterday, which given the state of my knee, I thought was pretty amazing. The dip station gave me a little more trouble. It wasn't quite as bad as the first time I tried it, but yesterday, once I had lowered myself down, I still couldn't get back up. Today, I did two whole reps before my arms gave out on me. Also, even though I've been extremely tired post-work out, I feel like I could keep going indefinitely.

Today was beautiful, and on top of the nice weather, we met a nice lady who was been doing the circuit with her dog since the beginning of February (and I thought we were being troopers for starting in March). She goes three times a week, she said.

Tomorrow, all things being equal, my older brother will be joining us for our work out. I'm also going to message my younger sister and see if I can't convince her to come along as well.

Now, if I could just remember to write in my work out journal, I'd be all set.

PS - We've already started planning for 2010's trip down the river. It's going to kick ass.