I have this thing about hair...

"Nice!" screamed Howl. "You would! You did it on purpose. You couldn't rest until you made me miserable too. Look at it! It's ginger! I shall have to hide until it's grown out!" He spread his arms out passionately. "Despair!" he yelled. "Anguish! Horror!"

   The room turned dim. Huge, cloudy, human-looking shapes bellied up in all four corners and advanced on Sophie and Michael, howling as they came. The howls began as moaning horror, and went up to despairing brays, and then up again to screams of pain and terror.

-- Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

In which there are quite a lot of exclamation points, but the gist of it is this: My brain is on a slow meltdown. In the next couple of weeks, I will be battling apathy, cold fingers, finals, apathetic college students, wrapping paper, paper cuts, annoying people on the phone, and my own sense of cynicism and DOOOOOMMMMMMM!! DOOOOOMMMMMMM! I want a break from all of that, but as I can't quit work or drop out of school (again), I'm doing the next best thing, which is: bossing everybody else around. It's going to be the twelve days of Diana Wynne Jones in my LJ, because I have decided that it is my mission to sing her gospel and spread the word. I enjoy JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, but frankly, there are better writers. Diana Wynne Jones was there first, and doing it better. I am stunned that Howl's Moving Castle, the Dark Lord of Derkholm, Dogsbody, Archer's Goon aren't being talked about as avidly as the HP stories are.

They're funny, brilliantly plotted, there's more than one interesting female character per book, they draw on unexpected things like John Donne and Tam Lin, there's cats and dogs, and pink fluffy jumpers of woe, and people turning into furniture. Read them to a child you don't mind being around, or better yet, read them yourself, when the world is being oppressive and stupid and frequently noisy. They're great escapist literature.

Holiday Declaration #1: I heard Christmas Wrapping this morning, only covered by Monique from Save Ferris. I have decided I want to be Jewish.