I said "aren't you the woman who was recently given the Fulbright?".

Did Dorothy Parker win the Fulbright Scholarship? I seem to recall she did, because I remember being surprised that both she and Sylvia Plath had won it... *frowns* actually, maybe it was Ursula Le Guin, or maybe it was that they all went to Radcliffe.

I just checked, and Ursula Le Guin won the Fulbright -and- went to Radcliffe College, I know for a fact that Sylvia Plath won the Fulbright, because otherwise she woudn't have met Ted Hughes at Cambridge, and well, Dorothy Parker I'm just not sure about anymore, my head's so stuffed with cotton wool that I can't even remember if a poor Jewish girl like her had a chance to go to college.

The beginning to this diary entry really does show my flustered state of mind. I've been feeling really rotten, like I might faint. My whole brain feels a little right of "drawing on the right side of the brain"... I've drifted off into la la land.

I wrote about The Dispossessed today, but forgot to note that it is subtitled "An Ambiguous Utopia" and a whole lot of other things, and the thing's so long and my computer so slow at the moment, that it's impossible to edit, so I decided that I'm going to have a Dispossessed II. This suits me fine, because what I wrote earlier was really just a whole lot of sentimental rubbish, I was gushing too much and not getting the job done. *grins* kind of like when I said "if you're out there Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker changed my life" Now that! was embarassing.

I wish I was Ellen Datlow... how cool would it be to be an editor of science fiction and fantasy for Tor books... I'd revolutionise it... not the science fiction, that's fine... but I would make all the fantasy urban or rural... philosophical stuff, no swords or easy answers brought about my magic... it would all be like the Dubious Hills and Someplace to be Flying... I would create a whole new genre.

*frowns* that's all a bit totalitarian of me really isn't it... and prejudiced... I mean, if people like swords and magic, then I guess I have to let them... I can't exactly put swords and magic on my censorship list can I? and some magic is actually okay... and so are swords for that matter.

I remember my friend Rob's Dad lending me Roger Zelazny's Amber series, and despite never really having liked fantasy.. I was hooked, I read that misogynistic series one book after another, mainly on the bus... they made the bus-ride go very quickly. Another thing I'm not a fan of is long-drawn out series' with many volumes, each one more drawn out and pointless than the last, but as I said, with that I just picked them up one after another.

I think part of that is probably because one thing I do like is alternative worlds (I'm going to refrain from adding 'dimensions').

Guy Gavriel Kay does wonderful alternative worlds, and also, he can put into one or two volumes what sopme authors put into 6-8. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Anyway... I know, and you probably know, that I think I should do my MLis and become a reference librarian (all that information) but I'm also habouring a lovely little dream about being an editor... I just want to get my name into Locus magazine, somehow *grins*

I think I can compare this to Elisabeth's desire to be on SNL, except she has more conviction and dedication... I'm just full of pipe-dreams.

There's this book in the Children's Proffessional Collection at the Library about Mr. Dewey of the Dewey Decimal System... and let me tell you... he was a control freak... who else would systematically organise every subject known to humanity into a series of arbitray numbers?

Sure, it works, but as I said... control freak.

I've been looking for two quotes over the last few days... one by Yevgeny Zamyatin about Revolution and Entropy, about the icy-cold state of entropy and the fiery blast of revolution... and the other by Ursula Le Guin, about the difference between the yin and the yang, the linear and the cyclical types of Utopia... I've managed to locate one of them.

I guess I'm using this as a sort of informal personal Thesis proposal... because I am quoting that so that I can have it recorded and stated that that pulls me, that that's going to be my own personal pre-occupation as I study Le Guin... if I were going to write a thesis on Le Guin, it would be based around the opposition in that quote. I would look at the way Le Guin represents both kinds of utopia, or society, in her writing.

Nothing is more fascinating to me, right now.

I shouldn't have put it in here... someone will steal it... *grins neurotically*

I wish I could think half so well as that woman.