richlayers

A sister and madness

....
She stops babbling and starts burbling. The burble rises to a sound you barely recognise. Is that a song? Her neck convulses as if the muscles of her throat are in revolt. But the effect is weirdly calming. Each note follows the last like a stylishly dressed assassin: dramatic, unexpected, inevitable. You find yourself nodding along. Even Hephaesta seems relaxed.

The song ends and your friend starts making a little more sense. Someone was hunting her down, but she couldn't abandon her twin sister, the Eccentric Opera Singer. Her sister has been driven mad, though, and is in the place mad people go. Will you make sure she is safe? She pulls a locket from her neck and presses it into your hands before she slumps back into a deep, calm sleep.

[To find her sister, you'll need to increase your Nightmares enough to get into the place that mad people go.]

I had a pretty good day on Friday. I slept in, then slowly got myself together in time to go to lunch with mom. We went to the Mexican place and had chimichangas and margaritas. Then I went to the library to see if any of my ILLs were in (they weren't, but I have plenty to read).

I went home in the afternoon in time to meet Gregory and Chris at my house. B called to wish me happy birthday, which was fun. We hung out and played Magic until my grandparents showed up for dinner, when we had Dad's homemade pizza. There were some presents presented, among others: Got a gorgeous Blue Willow tea set from mom, as well as an iHome. Greg got me The Child Thief by Brom -- yay! Chris got me a nice hefty external hard drive and a cover for my iPod (which he got me for Christmas). Then there was The Greatest Birthday Cake in the World, which we consumed with mighty amounts of ice cream.

Then Gregory, Chris and I went over to Chris's to watch The Shawshank Redemption, since Chris works in a prison and he's never seen it. Only I wanted some wine, and there was no bottle opener, so we went to Walmart for that, a new lightbulb, and I found a copy of Tropic Thunder at a buy-myself-a-birthday-present price.

We watched Shawshank Redemption with wine for me to drink and pizza bites for us all to eat... and then decided to rock out with some rock band. Only... we didn't have enough batteries for the guitars. So another trip to Walmart and a $5 copy of Super Troopers later, we were back in the warm apartment rocking out.

Overall, it was a little too much Walmart for my birthday. Oh well.

Finally came home and crashed around 5, a little after Gregory headed back to Manhattan, where he had to be late in the morning to help a friend move.

It was an awesome day.

And NOW the holidays are over.

Current Mood: groggy

Christmas picture, originally uploaded by richlayers.

I've gotten a few requests and questions about Mom's ever-growing Lord of the Rings collection, so I thought I'd take some pictures and meander on through the books, the other books, and the other things Tolkien-centric in our household.

This seems like a good place to start:

( Many Pictures! )

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