HOOOOORAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

(from a post elsewhere):
I just got my saxophone out of its case for the first time in about 5 years and I can actually PLAY it. What I thought was a hopeless and sudden lack of ability back then was just the freaking altitude or something. I can play my saxophone again! Dance dance dance dance! Okay, I will grant that it's more like how I could play it at the beginning of tenth grade than the end of 12th, and my fingers don't remember the odd scales anymore, but I can BREATHE! I have an almost respectable TONE and I'm *this* close to being able to run up and down the instrument chromatically without having to breathe at all in the middle and I can play notes for a nice LONG time and work on my tone some more and O BOY O BOY O BOY O BOY!!!!

In conclusion, it's not that I sound good, but that a) I don't sound too awful to stand myself, and b) I sound good enough that I can get to where I sound good again.

This is the most exciting thing that has happened to me in about 3 years that does not involve Jay. Dude.

astonishing row of scholars

Astonishing Animals : Extraordinary Creatures and the Fantastic Worlds They Inhabit, by Tim Flannery and Peter Schouten
Ever so pretty, and the odd device of making one of the animals one they've only imagined actually works. This book is as full of wonder as a medieval or ancient Greek bestiary.
(2/200)

Liavek: Wizards' Row, edited by Will Shetterly and Emma Bull
I think Liavek is my favorite shared world. Which, since I'm not that fond of shared worlds, is rather insufficent praise. The stories are a tumult of very different lovely things, set in a city which manages to encompass all of them without it seeming a stretch. Funny and sparkly and sad and cruel and compassionate, sometimes more than one of such in the same story.
(3/200)

A Scholar of Magics, by Caroline Stevermer
If you like your fantasy mannerly, pert, sly, and Edwardian, you should really enjoy this book. The balance of wit and earnest longing in Stevermer's books (at least the two I've read so far) is entirely to my taste.
(4/200)