Odds and ends

[icepixie]

Look at this gorgeous ten-day forecast. I think I'm going to wear a skirt to work on Wednesday or Thursday. (Okay, that might be pushing it somewhat for outside, but the office is always really warm, so I think it'll work out for me.)

It can be springtimez nao? Maybe? It's already been in the 60s since Friday!

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I read a book the other day I thought I'd recommend: As She Climbed Across the Table, by Jonathan Lethem. If Nick Hornby and Tom Stoppard teamed up to write a novel about quantum physics, love, and American academia, it would look a lot like this. Although this novel was a bit more lightweight than the hypothetical one they would produce would be, I think. Still enjoyable, though.

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wintercreek did this meme, and I couldn't resist: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. I've got non-descriptive and ridiculous in spades. Pick any of them (as many as you want) and I'll either post a snippet or explain what the heck it's about.

due South
Increments
post-COTW
ten-dance [actually, I already posted a snippet here, come to think of it]
undercover
conversation

Babylon 5
Nine Stories
Remarkable Illusions/weddingfic
baseball/hockey
assassins
looney tunes

Corner Gas
fakeout

Northern Exposure
homeless
grosse pointe

Comments

[aris_tgd]

Also, I want to hear about ALL your B5 WIPs.

[icepixie]

Okay! :)

The baseball/hockey one is snippeted/detailed in the comments to the LJ version of this post, so I'll just direct you there for that one.

nine stories
Part of my going-on-epic Ivanova/Garibaldi series. The conceit is that it's made up of nine stories, one set during each month of Susan's pregnancy. I have about three and a half written at the moment. From part four:

She was never, ever doing this again, Susan thought as she dug in her top desk drawer for the crackers she'd stashed there several weeks ago. Not only might her morning sickness be better known as "all day sickness," but while Lillian had assured her that most women got over it by the end of the first trimester, she'd passed that deadline more than a month ago and it hadn't even lightened up. If anything, the nausea seemed to be worse.

Adding to her annoyance, and her consequent vow that one pregnancy was enough, was her realization this morning as she was getting dressed that there was simply no way she was going to be able to continue wearing her regular uniform for even another week, much less the extra month she'd hoped to stretch it out. She wasn't normally that invested in how fashionable her clothing was, but EarthForce's maternity uniform was a truly horrifying work of design. Lieutenant Arakawa, who'd had a son earlier this year, had also told her that the fabric itched interminably.

Not to mention the fact that the hormones currently flooding her system were making her...well, her mood these days was to "cranky" as a two-megaton nuclear bomb was to a firecracker.


Remarkable Illusions
From earlier in the same series. Basically, Delenn and Susan talk in the half hour before Susan gets married. I'm planning to do something with Lorien's pronouncement about eternal love being a remarkable illusion humans should embrace, but I'm not totally sure what yet. Snippet:

"Here you are," a soft voice said, interrupting her thoughts. She turned to find Delenn approaching her, resplendent in formal red robes. "Are you trying to get away from everyone?"

"Yes," she admitted, "but you're always welcome." Delenn's very presence could have a calming effect when she wanted it to, and Susan hoped her friend could help her now. "You and John had the right idea. Get married in hyperspace on a ship that only accommodates a few other people rather than in front of half the station."

Delenn smiled at her. "Perhaps it will not be as bad as it seems." The smile turned mischievous. "Alternatively, you still have time to elope."

The image of Delenn, of all people, suggesting that she skip out on a ceremony and leave the crowd of people thirty feet away completely in the lurch was so at odds with the other woman's usual reverence for ritual that Susan had to laugh. Delenn joined her, and she was reminded how beautiful Delenn's musical laugh was, and how much she'd missed hearing it since her friends had moved to Minbar.

When their mirth had run its course, Delenn unfolded her hand and held out a pretty little flower, about half the size of her palm. It had six cream-colored petals arranged flat and daffodil-like around a deep crimson center. "This is for you. It's a *solla* flower." She handed it to Susan, who held it carefully by the short, thin stem. The petals were soft, like silk or spiderwebs. "We do not have a marriage ceremony exactly like yours, but when two Minbari pledge themseles to each other in the presence of their clans, females traditionally attach one to their clothing. You might call it a good luck charm."

"Thank you," Susan said, touched by the gesture. Bringing this all the way from Minbar must have required some careful packing. She looked down at her dress grays, unsure exactly where the distinctly non-regulation flower might go.

"I thought perhaps for your hair," Delenn said. This morning, Susan had woven her hair into an intricate French braid. It would fit nicely into one of the twists along her scalp.

"Let me help you," Delenn said, holding her hand out for the flower. "In some small measure, it will allow me to repay a favor."


assassins
aka The Damned Plotty Epic I've Been Working On For Almost Two Years. Set less than a week after "Remarkable Illusions." Michael and Susan travel to Earth, ostensibly for a honeymoon but really so that they can investigate death threats and assassination attempts on President Luchenko. Mostly I wanted to get Susan back in St. Petersburg so I could write this scene, which riffs a bit on my favorite Millay poem:

Two inches of snow had fallen the night before, and it crunched under her feet as she walked. Because it was early on a weekday, she was the only living person in the graveyard. It didn't take long to walk the still too-familiar path to the collection of stones labeled "Ivanov." Heedless of the fact that her trousers would get soaked, she knelt in front of them, silent and stone-faced, unsure what, exactly, she had come here to do.

She felt like a tree in winter, when all the birds that nested there in summer had vanished. Her entire family lay in that plot; mother, brother, father each interred in their turn. And there were so many others who had left her, friends and lovers and possibilities. Sometimes a woman with blonde hair would still make her turn her head sharply, wondering; a dark-haired man in the long robes of the Rangers, seen from behind, could still make her breath catch. Those birds had gone not just for a season.

The flutter of a wren in the snow caught her eye. From her school years in North America, she suddenly recalled cardinals, birds that stayed through the winter even in the coldest places. A tree with a cardinal living in it was never entirely empty.

She touched the ring on her finger. The newness of its presence was still surprising, but she was coming to like the weight of it, the constancy.


looney tunes
Not part of my series. Sometime in the first season, Garibaldi invites Ivanova over to watch some cartoons. Here's all I have so far:

She was going to regret this.

Standing outside Michael Garibaldi's door, Susan Ivanova considered just turning around and marching straight back to her quarters. God only knew what the security chief's "second-favorite thing in the universe" was, and if she were smart, she would leave it that way.

However, she had promised to come by and let him share it, whatever it was, with her, and an Ivanova kept her promises. Besides, she *was* curious--incredibly curious, though she'd never admit it. She'd asked him to just tell her what it was no fewer than three times since he'd mentioned it that morning, and each time he was more tight-lipped than the last. It looked like the only way she would find out would be to see for herself.

Against her better judgment, she rang the doorbell.

"Enter!" Garibaldi called almost immediately. The door opened, and she stepped inside.

She didn't *see* anything remarkable. His quarters were orderly, but not devoid of personality; among the evidence that he lived there were the framed poster of some kind of cartoon duck over the bed and the Mars Dodgers pennant next to it.

[aris_tgd]

N'aww :)