warning: ancient crone blood

jadelennox is hosting a friending meme. Maybe you don't have spoons, you have no more time for reading more people, or even new internet people are scary right now. That is all cool! But if you want, you can check the meme out.

Rejoice! For whatever reason, my brain has decided to be nice and allow me to read books again without the annoying stumbling over a sentence five times thing until I just give up. This is very exciting, because I haven't been able to read read for oh, three years.

Yes.

I am mostly diving into "teen" fantasy, because that is my pleasure reading and when you've been deprived of reading for quite awhile it's important to nourish that core of you.

What I read recently
I read the entire Frontier Magic  series by Patricia C. Wrede (even though I'd already read the first two, I wanted to reread them to refamiliarize myself with the characters before finishing it). Overall, I liked it, though not as much as some of her other works. I do disagree with some of how she created the frontier (i.e. leaving out Native Americans entirely), but as my partner pointed out...the Lewis and Clark expedition minus Sacagawea didn't make it back, did they? And she did a lot of reshuffling of history, and the premise of the book wouldn't have worked if there were people there. Which. Is problematic too. I did really like what she did with trauma especially in the first book, and with meditation techniques, and with women's rights and also the Underground Railroad. So. The ending was also highly satisfying.

Have also been rereading some Pratchett, notably the Tiffany Aching books, which I've already read. Tried to reread the Chronicles of the Necromancer, which is a series I love at least the beginning of, but the book is too damn heavy.

What I'm reading now
Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore, which is the third in her Graceling Realm series. I am enjoying it, though not as much as Graceling but more than Fire. It reminds me a lot of what I've read about say, the effects of opening the Stazi archive to the public, versus not doing so with other secret police files in certain other former Soviet Bloc countries. In other words, how does a country deal with a history of atrocities when the main perpetrator is gone, but others must have been complicit or at least accomplices for the power system to work? How far does "following orders" go as an excuse (in the book, there's magic involved, but still)? How does a country heal from violence? And this is how you tell that I'm a history major as well as a reader of fantasy novels...

What I'm going to read soon
Moar Pratchett! I picked up Dodger, which somehow I haven't read yet (probably as it's not Discworld, or maybe it's just never at the library, so I caved and bought a copy for the Pratchett shelf). Also his new book Raising Steam is coming out in March, but that's a long way off. I might make my way through some of the Discworld books I haven't read in awhile, or maybe I'll try something new...

For those of you wondering what, exactly, one does when spinning, here is the best UpGoerFive version I could come up with (that is, using the 10,000 most commonly used words). There are many details that are lacking, obviously, but I think it gets the basic idea across...

I put a piece of animal hair on a thing that turns. I turn the thing and the turning goes up the hair. The turn makes the hair smaller and stronger. When it stops turning, I put the animal hair around a stick on the thing that turns. I do this for a long time, until I have a very long piece of small and strong animal hair. Then I can call it finished, or I can make it more strong by turning two or more animal hairs together on the thing that turns. When I decide it is finished, I have to make it wet. If I don't, the turn can come out. I put the long, strong, animal hair in hot water with a thing that cleans it and make the water move around. Then I take it out and hit the animal hair against something. After it dries, I can use the turned animal hair to make clothes or other things.

This may be old news to some of you, but dingsi  has a love meme up until February 5th.

I may have a thread...and could always use love. As could many other people. Go! Play! Have fun! If that is your kind of thing...

stolen from brigid . It's international book week. The rules: Grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence. Don't mention the title. Copy the rules as part of your post.

"Take anything you find in any instruction book, including this one, with a large grain of salt."

~Knitting Without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmerman

(also reminds me rather a bit of Buddhism, actually)

topic swiped from finch , not sure of its exact origin

Why did you choose your journal name?

I was sitting in front of the computer in Starbucks wondering what to type. It wasn't anything in particular that spurred it (except perhaps the coffee). My first name is Liz, so that part is obvious. I thought about my writing creating commotion. I also thought about co-motion, which I figured was in the spirit of dreamwidth. Of course, it was hard to fit both meanings into one spelling.

there is a new praise meme floating around, which is a wonderful way of appreciating yourself and people around you. go community!

Also, I have a thread. No pressure to comment on me specifically -I would just encourage sharing the love there. ^_^