Mostly amusing to Carbon Leaf fans and my beta readers

I was listening to Carbon Leaf's Love Loss Hope Repeat on the way home tonight, and found myself startled and amused that it seemed uncannily appropriate not only for my general frame of mind after the week I've had, but also for the three central characters of Lament.

"Learn to Fly" is apparently a Kestar song as far as my brain is concerned. Especially with the bit about "I can feel your heart and I can hear you cry".

"Under the Wire" is Julian. "I need to feel redeemed"? Oh, hell yeah. It's all Chapter-16-y, in particular.

And, the location of the title not withstanding, "Texas Stars" is Faanshi. "So breathe, breathe, breathe in the night / Your journey's just begun"--yep. Girl's only getting warmed up as of Book 1.

None of which of course will make the slightest bit of sense to any of you who have not actually beta read Lament of the Dove for me, but for those of you who have, if you happen to get hold of this particular Carbon Leaf album, think of Lament when you listen.

And next I'll teach her to say VERTICAL MOVEMENT!

kathrynt, llachglin, and casirafics came over to the Murk tonight to play some serious Rock Band 2 with spazzkat and solarbird. Me, I mostly hung out to watch, but I frequently applied myself as well to distracting Lily, kathrynt and llachglin's two-year-old girl.

I would like to categorically state for the record that few things are more charming than a two year old who actually understands that you must have a pick in order to play the guitar. (And for Lily, 'guitar' is apparently a general class of noun that also includes bouzoukis and mandolins.) She is quite ready and willing to help me play by hitting the strings of Rags with the pick while I do chord changes.

Also, since Kathryn had already told me this kid was all over the GBS album Road Rage when her mommy played it for her, I couldn't resist breaking out the Great Big DVD to see if she liked it. I had her attention for about the first five songs, but she also kept coming back to ask for 'more music'. <3 And she was quite attentive as I pointed out Alan, Séan, Bob, and Darrell, and she was particularly attentive to the fact that they had guitars, bouzoukis, and a bodhran, and there were an actual guitar, bouzouki, and bodhran in immediate grabbing distance.

So Lily and I played the bodhran along with "Excursion Around the Bay", in between her frequently grabbing my hands and piping "STAND UP!" and "DANCING!"

This is clearly a child after my own heart. <3