Cashmere, JZ, Jen, Kristin, Frankenbuddha, Lyra Jane, JohnSweden, Trudy Booth, DebetEsse, Fred Pete, Laura, and Lysana have new tags.

No Princess Tickybox yet? Okay then. Carry on.

I am probably a bad person, but my new tagline just gives me the giggles. I think it's just what Lyra said early on: the word "sockpuppet" started to look really funny. I may also be entering a teaspoon state as it is late here and I'm really really sleepy.

I don't think you're a bad person, Kristin. I think you're a blonde person.

Now that a proper separation between topics has been established, Susan, IMO you are so very right about "cock." I'm pretty damn certain it's period, it's totally what a soldier would say, it's a vast improvement over candied length, and this Jane Austen-phile has no problem whatever with the word. Plus, I'm pretty sure I've seen it used in a couple of Regencies over the last year or so, so unless my fevered brain is totally making it up you've got established, published precedent. Go team cock!

Thanks, JZ! And that's the exact argument I made to my critique partner--my hero may be an extraordinarily intelligent and self-educated man, but he's a reallyo trulyo soldier, not a gentleman in disguise. Unlike a book I dimly remember from many years ago where an author had a nobly born youth enlist as a common soldier out of some sort of democratic feeling and not wanting to coast on the advantages his parentage bought him. That made me shrug a bit even then. And now that I've taught myself so much about society of the period in general and Wellington's army in particular....you've got to be kidding me. Suspension of disbelief can only go so far.

(Of course, my next book or the book after is set to feature a nobly born common sailor, but that's different--she got taken up by a press gang while running away from home disguised as a boy, and decided she'd rather take her chances at sea than go back and face the things she was running away from.)

And hurrah for Owen's signing! We haven't been signing with Annabel, but she has a few maybe-words, and she definitely knows how to shake her head "no," and very emphatically, too. It started as a way to avoid food she didn't want or having her face wiped (she hates it), but now she uses it more like a word. Sometimes she'll do something she knows she's not supposed to, like try to take down the living room lamp or pull books off a shelf, shaking her head the entire time.

Hil -- if it really is almost half the students in each class and not just a small percentage, you might look at how you are presenting the info. People have different learning styles and we tend to teach to our "own" style. Those who think like you get the way you teach, but those who don't, well, don't. If you lecture, then those who learn best by listening will benefit, those who learn best by doing won't.

Although I strongly suspect the bad evals were just from one or two malcontents and all the stuff I typed above is meaningless.

Yay Owen!

What would make me feel better is reading a post in Beep Me that we have a TICKYBOX!!! Maybe when I wake up, she will have made her debut.

No word so far. Of course, I figured we'd get the call about Princess TickyBox tonight because our internet connection has been down since 7-ish. But no.

No word so far. Of course, I figured we'd get the call about Princess TickyBox tonight because our internet connection has been down since 7-ish. But no.

Well, haul yourself over to the hospital in all of your regal, gothy glory and insist that they produce Princess TickyBox this instant. She has subjects who wish to greet her.

Jilli, even after the baby is born, it might take them a while to get back to you. The first time around we held off on calling most people, even beloved friends, until after we got home. We were just too, um, discombobulated.

[eta: ooo, pretty number!]

Eeeee!! Tickybox is here! LJ says so!