so i'm rereading the wheel of time series in rabid, salivating anticipation of the release of book the twelfth. some things are falling into place and my overactive imagination is reeling with the possibilities, the most interesting of which i shall detail for you:

• verin, you perfect enigma—my explanation for her bizarre behavior is that she has visited the twisted door ter'angreal in tear (fitting for her being brown ajah), and gotten some clue for victory from the aelfinn, and she's working to bring it about; since she's the only one with the answer, her behavior appears to the reader to be secretive or self-serving or contradictory. she's good, just sneaky and duplicitous out of necessity. also, she is (as far as we know) the only one who knows where the horn of valere is (anyone remember the horn?), which may be the root cause of this. the saying it's time to roll the dice, which she got from her father and which mat uses extensively, is what got me thinking on this path.
• elayne will be at the center of a big cease-fire between the seanchan, the borderlands, and the aiel (rand's answer from the aelfinn). this is the explanation of elaida's foretelling that the royal line of andor will be the key to victory in the last battle.
• siuan will feel the distinctive tingling that signifies moiraine's channeling—that's how she will learn that mat and gang have freed her from the tower of ghenjei. this latter will happen very soon (the story line will begin in book 12, i'm certain), though how soon siuan and moiraine hook up, who knows.
• also related to moiraine's return: she gives thom the names of the aes sedai who gentled his nephew owyn, and one of them will be elaida. thom has a rich history of offing leaders who affront him in some way (taringail and galldrian), so it isn't difficult to see where this one is going. the 'one small thing' moiraine knows about her future is that she and thom eventually marry—they will at the series' end, i think. they have a son and name him owyn.
• slayer kills nynaeve in tel'aran'rhiod, and in an attempt to avenge her, lan fights and is also killed by slayer. either lan kills slayer also, or perrin does later.
• rand dies (everyone sees it coming), but it won't be exactly death the way we all think of it. it'll happen at shayol ghul fighting padan fain, and they'll kill each other, and i like three scenarios for rand's not-quite-death:

  1. he hangs out a while in tel'aran'rhiod, either because he has become bound to the horn, or by some other egwene/elayne/nynaeve dreamwalking voodoo. he's called back later when mat sounds the horn.
  
  2. he actually dies, and in this option, it's true physical death. death as the aelfinn see it might be fundamentally different; living in the 'to live, you must die' sense might mean his thread in the pattern still exists, and will later be reborn (just as he is lews therin reborn); or he's healed by nynaeve and everyone is shocked because omg.
  
  3. there's an interesting theme of threes with rand's character—his actions fall into distinct 'categories' of rand al'thor, lews therin, and 'the dragon' persona—corresponding respectively to the naive shepherd, the formidable madman, and the balanced one rand needs to be. in this one, somehow just the rand al'thor and the lews therin partitions of rand's existence die, but the part called the dragon survives long enough to travel to tar valon (recall the funeral bier viewing) to be healed and sent back into the fray. also: if this is what happens, min and aviendha will also die (they correspond to the rand and lews therin slices respectively)
  
  i'm currently thinking #3 is closest to how it'll be, but i'm really shooting in the dark here.

• fain is bad. also, i think some of the forsaken may be loose.

1 because 2; 2 because 1. thank a marketer near you.

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check that link out. it's a really interesting and concise read into why sundays are so consistently awful. it made me consciously think about it for the first time. i particularly liked the bit about why so-and-so likes thursday best: 'because then he can still anticipate the weekend before the clock has started running on it.' for me, the best part about this weekend's manly camping trip will be the car ride up: music, friends, the surety of freedom and charred food and cameraderie.

perhaps this is why i start so many projects but finish so few of them. after all, who wants to go on with something after it loses its luster and gets difficult? i hope this doesn't mean i'm becoming an idealist in my old age.

this will only occasionally work: in your browser of choice type 68 (dot) 185 (dot) 59 (dot) 147 (colon) 1984. if nothing happens it's because I don't have winamp running, which means I'm in bed (which is a rare (and at very least a horribly unpredictable) thing). unadulterated webternet magic by wwwinamp.


2a. WASTE_PUBLIC_KEY 20 2048 antimatt
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2b. refer to above spamproof ip address. the one with all the dots.


3. FreeMind is quite probably the neatest piece of software I have ever seen. it is potentially infinite; my fingertips tingle with delight/nerve damage. I hope soon to be able to let you in on some of the things I've done so far. oh what a juicy tidbit. best for last. (java required.)



cheers, luddites.

hopes and dreams include, exclusively, las vegas and april and you. okay fine, those top the list but it's not exclusive. yes it is.

we don't have milk for cereal or coffee or tea in the morning and guess who gets stuck with milk run duty. one guess. go on, guess; you'll never guess. yes you will.

I'm not usually emotional for no reason but I think I might cry tonight. I take it back; I have my (many and varied) reasons. no I don't.

I find myself still unemployed and still borderline unmotivated. having been jobbin' for three months, what do I have to show for it? one bollocks'd interview and a host of ignored résumés. I know that a job is just around the corner. I just have to look hard enough to find the right corner. and if I keep telling myself that, that's all it will take.

I find myself cleaning a house I don't really want to be in. I want to be out. gone. done with it. moved on.

I find myself. (no, I really don't.) recently I told a friend of mine that if humans can't find meaning in their lives, then they're pretty good at creating meaning instead. I fail it on both accounts.

blah blah blah, boo hoo. introspection is lame. why didn't I stop me?


I find myself leaving it up to chance:
heads = delete.
tails = publish.

even though either way, I know I'm going to hit 'publish post' and be done with it.

whatever.

on the horizon: uppers in the morning, downers in the evening. what a strange lump of chemicals I am, being so easily persuaded by other, smaller, pill-shaped lumps of chemicals.

when I got home tonight there were six messages on the phone. specifically there were six messages on the phone for my roommate. I don't know why I have a phone anymore. I could easily disconnect it and hide it somewhere in the house, like in the washing machine, and he would never know where to find it. if you know what I mean. all of my calls come through the mobile, because that's the only number I give out. so why do I help pay the phone bill? it's an interesting situation, really. it seems that it would be more fair to have the roommate's girlfriend help pay the bill and also some rent besides.

ROOMMATE it is your turn to do the dishes, they are developing a funk and so am I.

(I'm choosing my battles, though; you all would be very proud of me.)


where has all my substance gone? I'm afraid I must have dropped it into the envelope I used to pay the phone bill last month.



[aside: made you look.]