yes. yes, i should be (a) studying or (b) writing a (dear god, another) paper

...and then there was Edmund? Good God, Edmund during the Golden Age was a cocksure bastard. The first time he meets Mehcal!

Okay, brushing my teeth, taking drugs, and going to bed. Why, yes, I did get a bloody nose from blowing my nose so much, and yes, I have taken four different kinds of cold and/or allergy medication today. (Not all at the same time, with proper waiting periods in the middle.)

Paper tomorrow, but perhaps at some point in time there will be further Lucy and/or Edmund drabbling. Or Peter and Susan. You never know.

...dear god, I'd forgotten that one of my character lists of doom was Peter's lovers, because I had to keep track of them somehow. There are ten people on this list! (Not counting Susan!) And I know that there are more; these are just the ones that have been named.

Okay, bed.

this is officially my "sick as a dog" icon

You know, I don't know what's worse, having a cold in the midst of pandemic panic or having a cold in the midst of finals. OR BOTH.

*blows nose*

I am getting up close and personal with cough drops, Tylenol, tissues, and hand sanitizer. What I should be developing an intimate relationship with is Helidorus's An Ethiopian Story; I have a paper due tomorrow. The good news is I already have a rough draft. The bad news is that I wrote the rough draft when I was in my feverish haze last week and therefore it's about as coherent as a pool of muddy water.

The other good news is that my mother sent me cookies and jerky. The other bad news is that I have yet to start packing up my room. Anyone have any advice on packing up a dorm room for summer?

number five hundred and sixty-eight on a list of things c.s. lewis never yelled at his typewriter

EDMUND PEVENSIE STOP MACKING ON THE MARRIED LADY.

You have known her for all of five minutes! All you have done is talk about trade and make vaguely flirtatious comments regarding the quality of Lycoran liquor! You didn't remember her name three minutes ago!

(Yes. This is how he met Mehcal. Yes. Her husband was in the next room. Yes. It's a miracle no one ends up dead. Those are Peter's relationships.)

Being a king of Narnia excuses a multitude of sins, I see.

(Fun fact: when Saiet was born, Peter was missing.)

national poetry month: rudyard kipling

It is the last day of National Poetry Month! For...about another hour CST, anyway. I was hoping to get the Narnian poetry up this month, but that's a no-go; I'm still supposed to be writing a paper as we speak.

So instead: my favorite Rudyard Kipling poem.

( The Song of the Dead )

I know Kipling gets a lot of crap because of The White Man's Burden, but he's a gorgeous poet; probably the only other poet that comes close is T.S. Eliot, and he's gorgeous, but he's no Kipling. Kipling can be hilarious, gorgeous, and poignant. If you've never given Rudyard Kipling a chance, or if all you've read of Kipling is "The White Man's Burden" and despise him for it, please go and check out some of his other works. Both his prose and his verse is available online here; I'm going to admit that I haven't actually read most of his prose (I read the Just-So Stories when I was a kid, but it's been an age), but I love, love, love his poetry, so go ahead and check that out. For sheer beauty, go for the "Song of the English" series in The Seven Seas; Barrack-Room Ballads has the majority of his soldiering poetry ("I done my six years’ service. ’Er Majesty sez: 'Good-day— / You’ll please to come when you’re rung for, an’ ’ere’s your ’ole back-pay; / An’ fourpence a day for baccy—an’ bloomin’ gen’rous, too; / An’ now you can make your fortune—the same as your orf’cers do'"). That's a starting point. (And I don't remember which poem is about the guy who crawls into the sewers to hide from an elephant and then complains about how dirty they are! Kipling, man, Kipling.)

Rudyard Kipling: Favorite. Poet. Ever. Shortly followed by T.S. Eliot, but Kipling has Eliot beat, man.