I sometimes wish that English was more supportive of the use of diacritical marks.

This occurred to me last night while putting in the playlist. One of the songs I was listening to was Orbital's "Otoño." My thoughts started racing from there. I remembered the girl in my high school whose name was Danée, and how frustrated she must have been all the time to see her name spelled Dane'e.I like diacritical marks. When studying German I found them incredibly helpful. I find it impossible to guess at pronunciations for French and Spanish words without them. I like the certainty that they give when you're reading aloud. (Bonus points, though, to the first person who can tell me how to correctly pronounce 'Björk Guðmundsdóttir.')

Considering that English is an incredible bastardization of many languages, I wish that we used them. It would make reading easier for a lot of people…

Other news. Andy has a domain now! All hail floccinaucinihilipilificator.net!

Made my Penzey's order today. Mmmm…Rogan Josh seasoning, more garlic goodness, half-sharp paprika, and cayenne pepper. I adore Penzey's—they're a mail-order spice catalogue, and they've got fabulous stuff. I've never been disappointed by them.

Edmund has been sleeping up on the top shelf of the closet while I type this; he's just now decided to come down and pay the world a visit. His aim, it appears, was to move to the shelf next to my computer desk and prop his head up against the printer. Silly fellow. He doesn't want to be petted, but he doesn't want to get too far away from me. I make meowing noises at him and he gives me the ever-patient buddha-kitty blink—and a tailthump if he's feeling generous.

I wrote my mother back this afternoon and told her about the accident. I think she's going to back off for a little while now.

Right now I'm letting the techno pound into my brain. I really don't have a lot to say this evening; today was a day to let my brain relax. I'm going on vacation in exactly two weeks. I'm going to try to wrap up my projects before I go. I'm going to do a lot of thinking while I'm away; Jeff has offered to make the cheap-old-laptop my Christmas present. If we do this, then I've got a lot of thinking to do about characterization and plot and so forth.

If I'm going to grump about writing, I need to be prepared to back up my words with actions.

Other than that, my current reading pleasure (Iain Banks' Feersum Endjinn) and a glass of milk with a couple of Oreos is calling my name.