*sigh* Yeah, I know.

The pictures are sideways, but I’m so happy to have pictures at this point, that I’m not even going to question it. I tried to load a picture of my tats, since that’s going around, but alas, blogger quit at two… (I tried to load two more pix of the party, as well, but, well, two was all I was going to get…) I’m sure there is something simple stupid that I’m doing wrong, but right now, I prefer to stay with the theory that the machine hates me and leave it at that!

Anyway, I thought I’d throw some random shit that’s happened (most of it mildly amusing) and then, instead of a preview of Bitter Moon II, I’d just give you a little more of Bitter Moon I, and that way I wouldn’t feel like a ginormous plot spoiler, but I could still preen a little.

So, here we go–random shit first:

I was the recipient of a drive-by de-stashing, and my students are very very grateful–Thanks, Rae!!!! (It was great stuff–real yarn that they don’t usually get to see outside of the specialty store. They are, of course, clueless to their quality windfall, but someday they will know…)

The yarn and the kitten. Okay, you all remember that terrible pic of yarn carnage that I posted…the really pretty kaffe fasset sock yarn, right? Well, after the first skein bit the dust, I went and bought another skein to replace it. The mate to the first skein disappeared and I hung my head in my hands and thought “Fingerless mitts use EXACTLY that much yarn!” And then, the other day, the psycho kitten pounced leapt, and got the hell out of the living room, and there in the center of the living room was…the vanished mate to the first skein. It was like magic. Fucking cat.

Things Ladybug can say: Open that! (Usually chocolate.)
I want! (Usually chocolate!)
Mom take this take this take this! (trash from the back of the car.)
Stop it! (Usually her brother.)
Chiquita! (Definitley a dog, any dog, they’re all Chiquita.)
Kitty!!!!!!!
Kitty come here. Come here. Come back kitty. Come baaaaaccccckkk!!!! (They’re psychotic but they ain’t stupid.)
Eat. Eat. My bite. Eat.
Night night.
No.
No eat!
No night night, no night night!
By’r. (Chicken’s name in Ladybug-speak.)
Mooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmm…..
Daddy.
No mom, want dad. Dad. Daaaaaadddddddddyyyyyy!!!!

And we’ll just stop there.

I have finished this big, random blocked puffy-yarned harlot-ribbed scarf. I love it. I am, of course, giving it away.

Big T is still freakin’ big. And now he’s shaving and has a unibrow. Things are not shaping up for a smooth ‘dating years’ entry.

Chicken and math have been having constant problems. I’ve tried pointing out that this is not a marriage, neither is it an egalitarian relationship. That hasn’t stopped her from trying to file for divorce.

Work is heart breaking, and it’s not the grown-ups this time. I just won’t go there.

But I will give you this–here’s that excerpt I promised you, and do let me know how you like it! Roxie & Needletart, feel free to comment on my choice, and everyone else–enjoy!!!!

Excerpt from Bitter Moon I: Triane’s Son Ascending

Later that evening, Torrant found himself, Cwyn, Starren, and Yarri, all in the family room playing dice games with Aylan. When they’d turned for home, they’d last seen Stanny and Evya, the little girl with the flyaway dark who could not seem to leave Stanny be, even though he wasn’t the richest, or smartest, or most handsome young man in the village, dancing comfortably near the wilding bonfire. Roes and Aldam had apparently reached…détente. They had been dancing by the bonfire, looking in each other’s eyes as though dancing would not be the only thing they planned, but their wilding was by no means a certainty. After seeing that their older children had seemed to resolve their own romances with neither trauma nor heartbreak, Lane and Bethen had, with sly smiles and blushes, asked Aylan and Torrant to take the younger ones home before disappearing completely. Aylan had remarked in Torrant’s hearing only that it gave him hope, watching the two of them disappear like frolicking children.

“Since you won’t bunk me, maybe someone else will want to when I’m not young and pretty anymore,” he’d said dryly, and Torrant had socked him solidly in the arm.

“You’ll always be pretty, you wank,” he’d snapped, hoping Cwyn couldn’t hear him and repeat the word, “And you don’t bunk anyone during the summertime anyway, so I don’t know why you’re whining!”

Aylan stopped walking so abruptly that Starry, who had him by the hand, actually outpaced him and yanked on his arm before she realized he’d stopped. At her look back, impatient and wry in all of her seven-year-old glory, he kept walking again, but his look to Torrant was sideways and thoughtful.

“And if I did?” He asked quietly after they’d entered the house and sent Yarri with the younger children for games.

Torrant looked up from where he was lighting the lamp, and noticed for the first time in a while how Aylan’s razor cheekbones cast shadows against his cheeks, and how his full lower lip pouted, and how even in the lamplight of the summer, his eyes were so blue they were purple. “If you did what?” He replied, knowing the answer but wanting to hear Aylan say it.

“If I did bunk people in the summer… there’s no Trieste, I’ve left no one, girl or boy, pining for me—if I did take summer lovers, here in your family’s home…”

“What?” Torrant asked, trying for all innocence, but knowing that his heart was thundering in his stomach and below.
“Would you say yes?” Aylan took a step closer to him—close enough that Torrant could smell the sweat of both of them, and the dust. Instead of being unpleasant, it was animal and compelling and he wanted it.

“Tonight, while the world is a-wilding around us?” Torrant all but whispered, suddenly wanting his friend so much his skin swelled with it.

Aylan took a step closer just as Torrant stood up, and still Torrant had to look up into his eyes, and still they were beautiful and his friend was magnetic and Torrant was iron. “Yes, Torrant, while the world is a-wilding around us,” Aylan whispered roughly, his voice begging Torrant not to toy with him, “Would you say yes if I asked you to my bed?”

The moment thudded between them, and again, and Torrant knew both of their bodies were bursting and aching with the thing they wanted but had denied themselves for four years. He took in his breath to answer, and at that very moment, when he would have leaned forward, to touch his own sensitive lips to Aylan’s finely sculpted, exquisite mouth, Starry ran in and jerked Aylan’s hand, oblivious to the currents around her.

“Come on Aylan!” She pleaded, and as always, Aylan was helpless to deny her anything at all.

“Yes, Littlest,” he murmured easily, “Just let me grab the berries from the cold-box, and we can snack as we play.”

When he looked up again, stricken and exasperated, Torrant had moved towards the doorway, and was looking back at his friend with good natured longing and complete understanding in his eyes. “Yes, Aylan,” he said softly into the cocoon of silence that still seemed to throb around the two of them, “If you took lovers in the summer time, this summer, I would be happy to fall into your bed.” He smiled then, the crooked smile with the crinkled lip, and the smile tortured Aylan as much as his next words. “It’s too bad that you don’t take lovers in the summer.”

Aylan’s sigh was mighty and frustrated and relieved, because Torrant had taken the choice from his shoulders when he wasn’t sure what he would have chosen, and together they went into the front room to play rounds and rounds of innocent games with children and to retire, each to his own bed.