Tarr-y, Tarr-y night

Yesterday evening I went to a talk by Judith Tarr. She spoke about history and the writing of fiction, from historical fiction to alternate history, and everything in between. It was interesting to hear her take on things, including the utility of advanced degrees in writing fiction, and balancing trying to think like a non-20th century person with writing for an audience. I suppose I shall now have to read some of her books :-). Side note: she's deaf, but she spoke very clearly. I was impressed.

The room that the talk was in was wonderful, a snazzy room in a Harvard building I'd not been in before, one that originally had been someone's house. I kept thinking MissDimple would really enjoy seeing it. The walls were mostly wood, except for some panels that were pressed something (not tin) with a complicated swirly pattern of greenery in it. There were two fireplaces, each tiled with beautiful hexagonal tiles. There were two patterns for the tiles: one was fancy intertwined greenery, while the other was a beautiful peacock. There was a skylight, far above, since along three sides of the room were balconies with arches allowing people to look down. The windows on the main level of the room were old glass, all wiggly and interesting.

( other misc. )

Friday afternoon

This afternoon I did

• get some groceries,
  
• do some Shabbat cooking,
  
• play some Jotto,
  
• and wrestle with PGP weirdness.

This afternoon I did not

• get all the groceries I'd planned to,
  
• do dishes (though I admit there barely are any to do),
  
• do any errands in the Square,
  
• see correctly part of the day: vision was out of kilter (each eye is fine, but sometimes together, things are kinda sliding into each other, as if the stereo- part of stereoscopic isn't quite working correctly), which made me
  
• stop avoiding making an appointment to see a medical person; it's next week - the weird vision thing would've scared me on its own (when it happened multiple times, and for noticeable duration), but that with the ongoing tendency towards headaches this past month-plus... ick.