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Day 65: waking up
Oct. 4th, 2010 03:46 pmStill fighting with the RLS and the narcotics. PT exercises are both boring and uncomfortable, in the best therapeutic tradition. I can walk farther, and have in fact been dragging ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mirrorthaw on repetitive circuits of our neighborhood in the effort to tire myself out.
On the other hand, the creative part of my brain seems to be waking up again. Yesterday I wrote 550 words on something new, and my dreams last night led to this snippet this morning:
"Who was that?"
"I don't know," the Swan said, shrugging an impatient, perfect shoulder. "Some ugly little boy."
"That's right," Min Chang said softly. "You don't know."
"What?" She was so exactly like a swan, he thought, not for the first time: beautiful, vicious, and stupid.
He caught her arm and steered her into an alcove where they could have this discussion with some pretense of privacy. "Listen, Swan. Rudeness is a weapon. You don't go wasting it on people you don't know."
She was even lovely when she was scowling. It was remarkable. "But--"
"People watch you go around being rude to every random stranger, it doesn't mean anything. Just that you're a bitch. So then when you're rude to someone who deserves it, that doesn't mean anything either." There were other things he would have liked to have said on the subject--about the petty meanness of being rude to someone who had screwed up his courage and taken a risk, about how that "ugly little boy" probably felt right now--but he'd learned with the Swan not to clutter things up with ideas she wouldn't understand.
He watched her puzzle through what he had said, watched her face change when she got it. "Oh."
"Right. Now let's talk about the other reason you should never be rude to someone you don't know. Because, as it happens, I do know who he was, and, Swan, you just made a very big mistake."
I don't know who the ugly little boy is, or who Min Chang and the Swan are, for that matter. But it's a relief and a pleasure to have my brain offering me tidbits again, even if I don't have much followthrough yet.
mirrorthaw on repetitive circuits of our neighborhood in the effort to tire myself out.On the other hand, the creative part of my brain seems to be waking up again. Yesterday I wrote 550 words on something new, and my dreams last night led to this snippet this morning:
"Who was that?"
"I don't know," the Swan said, shrugging an impatient, perfect shoulder. "Some ugly little boy."
"That's right," Min Chang said softly. "You don't know."
"What?" She was so exactly like a swan, he thought, not for the first time: beautiful, vicious, and stupid.
He caught her arm and steered her into an alcove where they could have this discussion with some pretense of privacy. "Listen, Swan. Rudeness is a weapon. You don't go wasting it on people you don't know."
She was even lovely when she was scowling. It was remarkable. "But--"
"People watch you go around being rude to every random stranger, it doesn't mean anything. Just that you're a bitch. So then when you're rude to someone who deserves it, that doesn't mean anything either." There were other things he would have liked to have said on the subject--about the petty meanness of being rude to someone who had screwed up his courage and taken a risk, about how that "ugly little boy" probably felt right now--but he'd learned with the Swan not to clutter things up with ideas she wouldn't understand.
He watched her puzzle through what he had said, watched her face change when she got it. "Oh."
"Right. Now let's talk about the other reason you should never be rude to someone you don't know. Because, as it happens, I do know who he was, and, Swan, you just made a very big mistake."
I don't know who the ugly little boy is, or who Min Chang and the Swan are, for that matter. But it's a relief and a pleasure to have my brain offering me tidbits again, even if I don't have much followthrough yet.
