Thursday, January 3rd, 2002 - Fairy Wings, well done
I finally found the present I had been looking for at Border's in Greenwood, IN, of all places. I had gotten the idea that I should give my old friend Craig's little girl, Zamira, fairy wings for Xmas. And I found exactly that, pink net wings with a purple flower center, packaged with a book on becoming a fairy princess for girls over 3 years old. Zamira is 4. She greeted me at the door and took the packages from my hands. She opened the first book, a beautifully illustrated storybook about the Raven legend of the Pacific Northwest. She paused to page through it, and there was something in the way she handled it that was reassuring. I could tell she liked books, respected them. Her parents later confirmed this suspicion. She exclaimed as she opened the wings, though. She looked at the book briefly, then had me help her open the box front of the book to take the wings out. I held out the wings as she laced her arms into the elastic. They fit perfectly. For the next 5 minutes, Zamira flew around the room, pretending to be a fairy. She and I settled into a hide-and-seek game with teddy bear and blue doggy. We played until Craig said it was time for Zamira to go to bed, and I had to stop myself from complaining along with Zamira. It took a long time for Craig to get Zamira to calm down, though. He told me she had wanted to hear the fairy story and then made him read on when she realized there was more to the book. He had read a couple of the descriptions of different fairies from the back, but had to save some for later. Craig and I stayed up and had grown-up talk, of course, mostly about things we were writing, and Zamira (already being encouraged to write stories). Good to see him again. At the party on Saturday night (THE party, a gathering of so many good people in one place that I haven't seen in so long . . . truly, a wonderful night), Jaime, Zamira's mother, told me Zamira refused to take off the wings. Craig said that even though he'd taken them off of her to go to bed and hung them on the doorknob, they were on her when he went in first thing in the morning. She was wearing them that night, and they matched her pink clothes. She had little jewels attached to her forhead and those, coupled with the braids on top of her head, gave her a very fey look. I was satisfied with my gift. Things I keep forgetting to mention in this here journal: We have a chapbook! "Living Together in Mythic Times" is the secret project that Tim and I have been working on, and it's finally ready to announce! This lovely chapbook contains a collaborative story ("The Ever-After Book Shoppe", and two poems (one by each of us), not to mention the "brief, but diverting, front matter". If you'd like your very own copy, we're selling them for way cheap over at Tropism Press. Supplies are limited, but we'll see what that means in the long run. Argh, there's always more to mention, but the hour grows late and I want to try to be in bed at a reasonable hour. Cheers!	Exercise log: Walking, to and from BART. Whoo. Writing log: Sent "Goat Girl" out yesterday. Should send out "Feeding Time" and "Janitor's" soon. I'm currently reading: Starlight 1 edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt Books on Tape (usually while exercising): Fierce Invalids from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins.
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