Cut and paste

I hope you have a nice day today.

For the writers in the crowd:

Are you the type of writer who knows what they are doing from the start and can write in a straight line from point A to point B or are you the type of writer who puts down bits and pieces and rearranges them until they fit the way you want them to? Do you have a different method from the two I have listed?

Make a wish

If you the type of person who makes wishes on airplanes, now is your chance.

I have it on good authority that there is one in the sky.

A little birdie has told me Google and its affiliates (including blogger) are inaccessible in China as of May 24th (they used to route through Hong Kong, apparently), so I apologize in advance for allowing my blog to wilt. There are a few prearranged posts coming up but there probably won't be any of the spur-of-the-moment traveling posts I had hoped to make.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

You may have wondered if I had been bit by a zombie, hence my failure to post anything of late.

Your guess would have been close. I'm preparing for a trip to China and any time I try to work on anything resembling a creative outlet, 14 pairs of socks... 14 pairs of socks... takes over my thought waves.

Even as I type this, I'm thinking about the uncharged batteries in my camera.

There are a two things I want to see while I am there:

• A cherry blossom (preferably more that one, but one will do).

• The great wall.

As it is The Year of the Tiger, one of my airplane books will be Marjorie Liu's Tiger Eye. The book is set in China and Marjorie blogs about her trips to China, so it feels appropriate. Feel free to read along with me.

I have to go. I'm on the verge of hyperventilating as my suitcase is totally full and I know I want to bring back a zillion (give or take a few) souvenirs.

Book chatter and shiny, shiny pictures to follow. Any tips from people who have visited China?

Find umbrella... Find umbrella...

'Blogs For You' aka 'Janet made my day'

Janet, from Janet's Journal has been kind enough to award me with the One Lovely Blog Award. If you haven't seen it already, I'd recommend stopping by to visit her blog. She has some interesting posts and every Friday, she posts some of her current work in progress.

With great power comes great responsibility. Recipients of the One Lovely Blog Award are required to:

1. Post the award on your blog with the name of the person who has granted it to you and his or her blog link.

2. Pass the award to other deserving bloggers.

3. Email the bloggers to let them know you've given them the award.

4. Just kidding. There are only 3 rules.

So here are a few blogs I really enjoy:

The Chocolate Chip Waffle

Terresa Wellborn is the author of this blog and I know I'll be visiting some place beautiful every time I type in the url. Poetry, art, famous quotes, chocolate chip waffles. You really have to see it to believe it. Her writing is also protected by an invisible ninja force field. True story. I read it on her blog.

Dark Angel's Blog

I've been following Sherry's blog for some time and enjoy her writing advice, author interviews and the snippets from her work. It has a deliciously paranormal atmosphere.

The Regency World of Author Lesley-Anne McLeod

This blog is filled with research from the regency period, writerly advice and fun literary information I would have never come across otherwise. Something about it draws a person in (especially a person interested in historical research and / or writing). Some of her recent posts have also been striking a personal chord with me. Ex. My father is doing a lot of genealogical research for our family. The day he told me my great-great grandfather and grandmother were hat-makers who lived on one side of London and worked on the other, Lesley-Anne had a post about how she had to find a milliner in a somewhat unfashionable area of Regency London.

The mermaid in the cathedral

This is the Nidaros Cathedral (Nidarosdomen) in Trondheim, Norway. It is a beautiful cathedral with lots of gothic architecture, secret rooms, winding stairways and a great place to look out at the North Sea. This is the view as you enter the room:

It is hard to see, but there is a slightly raised marble platform with six pictures on it (left to right, far to near): a centaur, a dragon, a pig (boar?), a lion, a mermaid holding a mirror and a scorpion.

I was drawn to it, thinking, "What is this doing in a church?" The nave looks very impressive from this photo, but as you walk in the room, the first thing you see is this large altar right in front of you. Once you can stop staring, you live your chin up to look at the ceiling and don't put it down before your neck gets sore.

There is a very old Norse document, called Speculum Regulae, or The King's Mirror that dates back to the 1200's. Part of it gives precise details regarding the physical appearance of mermen and mermaids (merman = hafstramb, mermaid = margygr). It suggests the sighting of such a creature forebodes poor weather in the near future.

I came up with all of these theories about why there would be a mermaid on the altar front. I finally decided it would need to have something to do with Saint Olav (an ancient Norse king from days gone by - there are murals and statues dedicated to him in the cathedral and all over town).

Perhaps Saint Olav was once in love with a mermaid or rescued by one when he fell out of a Viking ship. Maybe there was a whole contingent of mermaids and mermen that were a part of the Viking conquests.

I needed to find out what it meant.

I probably looked too hard, because the altar front is not nearly as old as I thought it would be. The Altar of the Holy Cross was built between 1986-1985 by Wenche Gulbrandsen - I think the marble platform was made by the same artist. There is no explanation I have come across yet. Nor are there any other pictures (photography is not allowed inside the cathedral. This is a scan of a postcard I got in the gift store. Egil Rein took the picture for the postcard.).

So I figure, what the heck? My explanation is as good as anyone else's (except for the real one, I suppose). King Olav loved a viking mermaid who saved his life. Who knew?

Your explanation is also as good as anyone else's. Five mermaid points to anyone who can tell me an explanation for / story of the centaur / dragon / pig / lion / mermaid / scorpion. Ten mermaid points to anyone who can come up with a theory involving all six. It doesn't have to take place in a church or in Norway, for that matter. Let your imagination do what it wants - it will anyway.

I have no idea what the points will add up to. We will worry about that later ;)

The Dark Highlander Book Review

Based on my past posts regarding reading material, you may have inferred I have a thing for vampires / anything paranormal. You would have inferred correctly. I'm about to let you in on my darkest of secrets: my love of vampire / anything paranormal books is nothing when compared with my love of highlander books.

What trumps a highlander book? A paranormal highlander book.

With that out of the way, I would like to suggest you give Karen Marie Moning's Highlander series a read, especially one of my favorites: The Dark Highlander. It isn't the first book in the series (its the fifth), but it is the first Karen Marie Moning book I read, thus I am qualified to say it was a great introduction to the series and it made me want to read more of the related books in both directions.

A series-related warning from your friendly neighborhood book nerd:

If you want to read in chronological order, feel free to start with Beyond the Highland Mist, or maybe Kiss of the Highlander. If you have the urge, try not to read The Immortal Highlander until you have at least read one or two of the earlier books (ex. this one) so you really have a feel for the world - it's worth the wait.

Anyway, why should you want to read this book:

As you may have inferred from the title, Daegus MacKelter is a dark and brooding highlander who has used his Druid powers and a set of standing stones to travel through time to protect his brother who had been spelled into a sleep spanning over five thousand years.

The use of the standing stones may have protected his brother, but it caused Daegus to become possessed by the spirits of thirteen evil druids imprisoned in the circle. Through the search for (and theft of) ancient texts that may possibly free him from the evil spirits and the inevitable madness as a by-product of their possession, Daegus meets Chloe Zanders, an antiquities dealer.

How do they meet? Daegus finds Chloe under his bed, snooping out the antique texts he stole. What is his solution? Kidnap her, of course. Or rather, not allow her to leave until he can find the answers he needs (without her reporting him to the authorities). The upside: Chloe offers a second set of educated eyes as well as a few extra tricks she has up her sleeves to help him find how to break the curse before the madness overtakes him and he becomes The Dark Highlander.

This book has it all: Laughter. Adventure. Mystery. Steamy moments. Shirtless Highlanders. In fact, I would consider this a keeper / reread book. Let's all take a moment to enjoy the cover art.

Are there any Karen Marie Moning fans in the crowd?

Sweet gesture? Villain in sheep's clothing?

Lately, I have been hearing lots of man-to-man tips and tricks on how to get a girl to like you - mostly radio advice. They are comprised of ways to a) impress a girl or b) emulate an alpha male.

Tips like:

• Insult her

• Wait five minutes after meeting her before paying any attention to her

• Touch her (arm taps etc) somewhere in the area of 10 times within an evening

• My favorite: at lunch, some guy went to a restaurant, left his credit card number and instructions that when he asked for the bill after his date that night, they were to say, "Oh no, ___. You eat here free!"

They might be sweet if a guy wants to impress someone he cares about (although it seems a bit manipulative to me). I guess if you get a girl's emotions up, even if its anger, she will be thinking about you. As for the 'insult her' advice, I have never wanted to date someone because they insulted me - although I may have wanted to bat them up-side the head with one of those cardboard tubes wrapping paper comes rolled around.

I thought these tips might be something to keep in mind if I ever had a guy (imaginary) trying to get a girl (also imaginary) to like him. Then, today I was getting my hair cut and a supplier was in, trying to get one of the hairdressers to buy a electric trimmer. She didn't like it. He started shaving the hair on his arm.

Here's how it went (I couldn't help but listen. My toner was setting):

Her: It isn't even working.

Him (with an insulting tone of voice): What? Have you been drinking today?

Her: Pardon me?

Him: Have you been drinking today?

Her: No

Then he showed her a different electric trimmer. They chatted about it (warranties, etc) and she ordered it and a bunch of other stuff. The guy wandered around the store, making sure to say by to all the hairdressers ("Bye, ladies.") and left.

Aside from his one jerk-face moment, he seemed like a nice enough guy. So why had he been so rude to her? They didn't seem to have a chummy enough relationship to talk to one another like that. Why had she ordered anything from him after his bad behavior? Had he applied one of the dating tips to make a sale? Had she let him because he was the official shop supplier?

Where does the sweet guy trying to impress a girl become a villain? For me, I think it is the comment, "Have you been drinking today?" It may have worked for the two of them, but as an outsider, the situation felt absolutely contrived.

I suppose there is room in a story for this type of character, but the hero-type I had in mind isn't it. The old adage Be Yourself should slide over to Let Your Character Be Himself as well. If he uses some out-of-character trick, perhaps she should be attuned enough to know (maybe too polite to let on, but she should know - perhaps this was the hairdresser. After all, she didn't buy the sub-standard trimmer), or maybe there should be some catastrophic disaster (no electric trimmer sale).

Anyway, got to go. I have all sorts of villain ideas swirling around in my mind.