Syzygy.

Jonathan Harker's Journal

Later: The Morning of 16 May. – God preserve my sanity, for to this I am reduced. ( Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past... )

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This is an experiment in posting Bram Stoker's novel DRACULA in "real time". Feel free to comment, or to read along at your own pace.

All entries will be tagged. You can link to any and all entries by clicking on "blog-stoker's-dracula" or on "haunted-summer".

Thanks for joining me!

New faces, new names again, due to summer travelling and assorted Friending Frenzies.

* I saw spydielives off on the next leg of her journey a few hours ago; we had a too-brief-but-still delightful time. It was a needed respite in a week that's been too much in the "nose-to-the-grindstone" mode for me.

* Welcomes to new Gentle Readers editgrrl, karlita, and mlle_jumel. I have posted a "handbook" of sorts at http://norda.livejournal.com/437376.html.

Many happy returns of the day!

Days like this really make me wish for a STAR TREK transporter to deliver a birthday kiss in person.

Jonathan Harker's Journal

15 May. – ( Once more I have seen the count go out... )

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This is an experiment in posting Bram Stoker's novel DRACULA in "real time". Feel free to comment, or to read along at your own pace.

All entries will be tagged. You can link to any and all entries by clicking on "blog-stoker's-dracula" or on "haunted-summer".

Thanks for joining me!

Taking a break from straightening and organizing after getting whomped with incoming deliveries, outgoing packages, and packing supplies, and it's been a while since I've done one of these.

Things that have made me happy this week:

* Talking to spydielives on the phone in anticipation of her visit tomorrow.

* Hearing what seems to be half the Internet commenting on how gorgeous my hair is.

* Finally seeing things come together for the folks doing all the work on planning for 3Pi-Con and for Philcon. I may ride them mercilessly and may seem a thorn in their sides, but I had a very good time at Pi-Con last year and at Philcon the year before, and I want to see both cons succeed this year.

* Getting my own body clock back. I am getting up earlier in the mornings, although I'm still not getting to bed as early as I should.

* Having people seem to really be enjoying Blog Stoker's DRACULA, not to mention the send-ups of each entry that mariness is doing. We didn't plan it that way, but it's working out wonderfully.

Things I've done right this week:

* Housework.

* Dishes.

* Paid bills.

* Laundry.

* Necessary "other" financial juggling.

* Exercise.

* Eating well.

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If you're curious about this series of entries, click on the tag "anti-apollyon" and go back to the first entry for an explanation, where I say...

"I'm not going to commit to trying to do these things daily, and my gargoylish temperament will always be closer to that of Apollyon than Pollyanna. But a wise fellow told me this week that someday the ground will be all we have, so why not touch the sunlight once in a while?"

Yes, my mind is littered with literary references.

Hope it's a good one!

I got a phone call from a celebrity yesterday while I was making dinner, which flustered me so much that I forgot a key ingredient in the casserole I was concocting... an ingredient that I didn't even miss until I heated up leftovers for a late night snack.

The celebrity [no, I'm not telling you who] paid me some very sweet compliments on our customer service.

That kind of flattery can tuna girl's head.

Biography of Nosferatu star to be published.

Jonathan Harker's Journal

12 May. – Let me begin with facts - bare, meagre facts, verified by books and figures, and of which there can be no doubt. ( I must not confuse them with experiences which will have to rest on my own observation, or my memory of them... )

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This is an experiment in posting Bram Stoker's novel DRACULA in "real time". Feel free to comment, or to read along at your own pace.

All entries will be tagged. You can link to any and all entries by clicking on "blog-stoker's-dracula" or on "haunted-summer".

Thanks for joining me!

Hope it's a good one!

The last two days have been "downtime" days for DRACULA entries according to real-time chronology, and real life has been a little too hectic for me to write any of the in-between essays I'd mentioned earlier. So I apologize, Haunted Summer fans, if there's been nothing new for you to read, and I hope the respite has given you all a chance to catch up.

New entries tomorrow. However, I have discovered something in the meantime that will be a great springboard for next year's project... a Spanish version of DRACULA in real-time, chronicled in draculadiario.

I've been meaning to brush up on my Spanish again, so that I could re-read Cervantes.

Yo leere con gusto.

A year of continued happiness for you!

Gentle Readers in the Southeastern US, please check in.

In lieu of writing a proper Anti-Apollyon Diaries entry, I'm posting this to myself, in case the article from which I snatched it disappears.

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In 1820, English writer Sydney Smith wrote a letter to his unhappy friend, Lady Morpeth. He offered his tips for how to be happy – and his suggestions are as sound now as they were practically 200 years ago.

"1st. Live as well as you dare.

2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75 or 80 degrees.

3rd. Amusing books.

4th. Short views of human life - not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.

6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.

7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.

8th. Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely - they are always worse for dignified concealment.

9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.

10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.

11th. Don’t expect too much from human life - a sorry business at the best.

12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion, not ending in active benevolence.

13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.

14th. Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.

15th. Make the room where you commonly sit gay and pleasant.

16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.

17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.

18th. Keep good blazing fires.

19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.

20th. Believe me, dear Lady Georgiana."

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A toast to present company and absent friends.

Hoped to do six miles, could only do four and a half. Sedentary life has not been kind to me.

However, I did stop in to the library, where my copy of anghara's SPELLSPAM awaited me.

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The irony is not lost on me that as soon as I made sure our air conditioner was set up correctly for the summer, the temperatures dropped like a rock. I'm happy for sweater-weather for a little longer... it keeps the spring-anxieties at bay.

Back to work.

Two more notes before I head off on my chilly-damp morning stalk:

* I managed to miss the birthday of the lovely sharoneym. Horrors! I will make it up to you, dear.

* Welcome to new Gentle Reader badlydrawnjeff, who used to work with me before I became my own bookstore and Dalek-peddling emporium.

More later.

My new routine seems to be off to on the right foot.

Although, speaking of feet, I seem to have slept oddly on my left one. Hopefully it's just a cramp that will work itself out before I walk six miles on it.

Anyway, I'm actually out of bed on time and getting myself in gear.

My boy and I buy presents for ourselves about as rarely as the rarest thing you can think of, but we broke that rule last week. We found a bit of our mutual childhood [not easy, when you consider our age gap], and now I can watch WACKY RACES on Saturday mornings.

The astonishing thing to me, as I've previously mentioned in this journal and elsewhere, is how many of my memories of kid-favorite things are in black-and-white. We didn't own a color television until the mid-Seventies. So all my beloved Four Thirty Movie gems, all my cartoons, all my Chiller Theater nights... I'm continually and repeatedly shocked when I see something old for the first time in color.

Oh, yes, I realized that the Red Max was, indeed, dressed in red, and I'd hazarded a guess that Penelope Pitstop wore pink, but other than that, it's a whole new world to me, fresh out of a 1968 bandbox.

May your day be filled with all manner of good things.