Sara Ryan

I bought this lovely and hilarious drawing in Seattle a couple of years ago, and I could have sworn I even blogged about the artist, but now I can’t find the post in my own archives (an argument for tagging my posts more effectively, I realize) and the drawing itself is not signed. The caption: “Lillian Forsythe: this enchanting creature has the foul mouth of a sailor.” Does anyone recognize the artist, or remember me talking about her?

And in other things y’all can help me with: I note with a certain amount of trepidation, but also pleasure, that a short article about me is shortly to appear in the library’s newsletter, which goes out to approximately a zillion people, all of whom will be informed that they can come over to sararyan.com to find out more about my life as a writer. As you all know, mostly what you get here is odd photos, often of the cat; short, elliptical posts; the occasional recipe; random bouts of sadness; and ever so occasionally, something longer and more substantive. I feel like when folks stop by who’ve read the article (assuming they do) I should have a post up that’s, you know, writer-y. But what on earth should it be about? I beseech you, my Internet friends. Comics writing vs. prose? Writing for teens? Writing about The Gay? Something about my “process”? Other? I’m taking requests. Thanks in advance for all suggestions!

And thanks, everyone, for the kind comments on my last sad entry.

An interesting assortment of things left out to be claimed by passersby.

If I sent holiday cards, I might be inclined to use this as a design. (But I don’t.)

I like the juxtaposition of these two stickers.

You can’t predict them, because then they wouldn’t be ambushes. You can’t say, “Come on now, I’m on my damn lunch break, crying is just not on.” You can’t plan for them. You can’t make a note on your Outlook calendar and block out some time. You think, “For God’s sake, Dad wouldn’t want me to be this broken up still,” but that just makes you want to talk to him about it, and there you are. Square one, again.

On Alberta, where I take many of my photos.

Ditto.

Allegedly, this is what “people in Portland” call rain. I have never heard anyone call it that without irony.

Last year at this time, I invented a new measurement to express how far one’s Thanksgiving diverges from the media ideal. This year, our holiday is also nontraditional. The menu: lamb stew and tabbouleh. The tabbouleh is from the Nile Spice box, with some fresh mint added. I found a lamb stew recipe on the Internet and messed with it some:

Lamb Stew with Chickpeas, Golden Raisins and Figs

* 1  teaspoon olive oil
* 1 1/2 pounds boneless leg of lamb, trimmed and cubed
* 4 cups onion
* 1/4 cup water
* 5 garlic cloves, minced
* 1 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1 teaspoon ground coriander
* 1 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads, crushed
* 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
* 1 teaspoon ground red pepper
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 32 ounces chicken broth
* 1 (15 1/2-ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained
* 2 cups baby carrots
* 1 cup golden raisins
* 1/2 cup dried figs, halved
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
* Salt to taste

Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat; coat pan with cooking spray. Sauté lamb until browned. Add onion, 1/4 cup water, and garlic; cook until the onions are softened, scraping the pan to loosen browned bits. Add cumin, coriander, ginger, saffron, allspice, pepper, and cinnamon; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Stir in broth; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour. Stir in chickpeas, carrots, raisins, and figs; cover and simmer until carrots are tender. Stir in mint and salt.

We had the stew over couscous, and it was delicious.

For dessert, the one traditional element of the meal: Laurie Colwin’s gingerbread. Over at Paper Fort, that’s one of the things I said I was thankful for. Click that link above to read what else, and what some other Oregon authors had to say.

How were/are your Thanksgivings?

Flytrap #4, “Performance Anxiety,” will most likely debut at the Emerald City Con next April, unless I decide to make it available by mail sooner, or find a con to attend earlier in ‘09. But I am very excited about it and so I wanted to post the news!

This time I’m collaborating with the fabulous Sarah Burrini, and I’m pleased to report that she’s planning to be at Stumptown — and maybe Emerald City, too!

Here’s a preview:

Flytrap #4, Performance Anxiety, cover image

You wouldn’t like Maddy when she’s angry.

Or, I dunno, maybe you would.

Flytrap #4, page 1 preview

Sometime I’ll reveal how the strapped artisans of Flytrap Circus can afford their ratty but large rehearsal space. It doesn’t happen in this story, though.

In other comics news, I was happy to find this nice review of four of my minis over at Friends of Lulu. Thanks!

This is from my father’s sf fanzine Bandwagon #4, autumn, winter 1957. Dad was 27, living in Columbus, Ohio. I’m posting it for the usual reasons, and also for Jeff:

the man who reads dictionaries:

After some years of struggling along with two or three battered and inadequate dictionaries I have at long last come into my own. Now I am not only able to discover the meanings of such sesquipedalian and esoteric expressions as fans are wont to use, but I am also assured that “sesquipedalian” comes from “[L. sesquipedalis, of a foot and a half]” and that “esoteric” comes from “[Gr. esoterikos esoteros, inner, compar. of eso, within]“. There can be no doubt as to the value of this information.

These assurances come from the pages of Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, 1955 edition. So far, like James Thurber and Mark van Doren and all those, I find it completely satisfying. I’ve not yet failed to find in it a word I was looking for — an event that was about as likely as not under the old system. I had two dictionaries, one on the first floor and one on the second; the one I consulted depended on where I was reading at the time. One was a high school volume of the twenties which I suspected had been censored rather narrowly; at least I couldn’t find “peristaltic” in it. The other was a big fat book which never seemed to have the information I wanted. Neither seemed authoritative in providing derivations, multiple meanings, etc. The annoyances seem to be at an end now, with the New World.

This dictionary is one of three stocked by local bookstores. Students in freshman English courses have their option of the three, but for some reason I had stuck with my old ones until it became obvious that they would no longer do. By a stroke of luck I was able to get a used copy in good condition for about 25% off. What kind of person, I wonder, would sell a dictionary? Could you get that hungry?

Ah well. His loss, my gain…did you know that “science fiction” (un-hyphenated!) is defined on page 1305 — and that “fan” probably comes from “fanatic, influenced by fancier & the fancy“?

Who knew? We just had to take the paperwork out.

Not sure how that happened.

Oh, and I’d read all the magazines in the coffeeshop, so I picked up Frog And Toad Are Friends, and found this passage:

Then Toad began to bang his head against the wall. “Why are you banging your head against the wall?” asked Frog. “I hope that if I bang my head against the wall hard enough, it will help me to think of a story,” said Toad.

It’s like that sometimes, innit?

Portland, you sure are pretty today. The full moon last night wasn’t bad either, but I was driving when it was at its most grapefruit-like, and so I did not attempt to capture it. Did any of you? (I realize you’re not all in Portland, but I know a bunch of you are…)