The winners of TAR Asia!

An all-female team won it!!!

(And man is it cold in my apartment. Two pairs of socks aren't enough to keep my feet warm!)

Jesse, yes! Thrillers, sff, and Jennifer Crusie. Part of me tries to make me feel lowbrow about my choices, but that's not the part that knows krav, so it's a pretty short tussle.

Then you should be reading the Lee Child for sure. Jack Reacher is good times. (Also, I blame you for the fact that I couldn't find these books for the longest time -- I kept looking under Lee Pace.)

This is my work insurance, not the communist universal health care. Heck it's not that generous--we're no Sweden.

But still!

As an English major, I'm pretty sure I should know what a Villanelle is, but I don't.

A good example is "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." 19 lines long, (6 stanza of 3 lines each, except the final, which has four) with the same 4 words repeating at the end of each line in that particular pattern.

One of the last massages I had was a fluttery gentle one, because I was having a migraine and the masseuse didn't want to risk aggravating it while she worked on the bundle of steel cord I call a left trap. I wasn't even lying face down. She loosened it so much I was amazed. I drifted off to sleep, and woke up able to move without the pain.

The very first professional massage I had was like that. Incrdibly gentle, yet I was totally loose by the end of it. I'm a bit of a brute myself when I massage, so it inspired me to try to be gentle and effective.

with the same 4 words repeating at the end of each line in that particular pattern.

Actually, it's a rhyme pattern (aba) except there is a dual refrain that is also repeated, not just words at the end of the line. So lines 1 and 3 are the dual refrain and they are repeated completely in a specific pattern throughout the poem.

Also, to add to the joy, it's usually written in iambic pentameter, at least 20th century American villanelles.

I.DO.NOT.HAVE.A.HEADCOLD.

A great (if, as many of them tend to be, incredibly depressing) villanelle: Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art."

I.believe you.

It is FREAKING COLD here. Dear dog. I left at 8:15 this morning for a job fair and it was 10 degrees. I left the job fair at 3:00 (and only interviewed with 7 school districts...dear me there were a LOT of people there) and it was 5 degrees. It is now -3. I'm home and do not intend on leaving until Monday morning, but my, I thought my ears would freeze off just walking to my car this afternoon.

It's so weird how winters here are so much milder than where I grew up (about 220 miles north of here). It doesn't seem like a real winter to me until it gets below zero.

I was gonna pull the carb out of my Mercury today, but previous experience has shown that car repair when it's below zero is not fun.