And not appreciating Mercedes Lackey

I cannot now find it, but james_nicoll at one point made a post saying something like:

“Dear fantasy writer,

The word “gypsy” refers to an actual, reality-based ethnic group. Having gypsies appear on your imaginary world without explanation is roughly equivalent to having the 1982 cast of The Mikado appear on your imaginary world without explanation.”

I think he was talking about a recent book, so I guess this has happened more than once.

Arrow’s Flight page 258:

“The gypsy family who died of snow-sickness two months ago—the ones in the Domesday Book report; wasn’t there a child left living?” she asked, her eyes still a little glazed.

Talia gives the baby to a woman who went mad after her own baby died, and it cures her and they live happily ever after, and it turns out the baby is her son reincarnated. I don’t think these apparent gypsies ever show up again, so I guess they just popped into Valdemar to have the baby and die. That was thoughtful of them.

I don’t know what the Domesday Book was doing in Valdemar, either - it’s not mentioned again after this page, so I guess it went home.

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English

I had Mr. Weepy by himself for a make-up lesson yesterday. It was actually a really good day for him! That means that he hit me in the eye with a plastic golf club - but only once. And he said he wouldn’t do it again. I guess when he’s by himself, he doesn’t feel the need to demonstrate to Mr. Clown and Miss Foo how much tougher he is than the teacher.

Goody Proctor also had a make-up. This is only the second time I’ve had her without the Devil, and it’s hard to get a handle on her this way, because she’s pretty self-contained. It’s not just with me; she’s like that around everyone. I was kind of surprised at first, because she’s a really flamboyant-looking person fashion-wise - kind of a compromise between a Fruits girl and the Japanese interpretation of hip-hop aesthetics. Now I think she’s kind of the shy type who tries to let her clothes speak for her. (Mr. K’s mom (who’s very young) is the same type.)

It’s hard to get her interested in just games when there’s only the two of us there. When the Devil’s there, they compete, but she doesn’t want to compete with me. I finally figured out towards the end of class that she gets more interested if I let her get really free-form in coming up with sentences, instead of giving her building blocks like I do most of the other kids. Like, to Ken’ichi, Jerkface, or Kitty, if I want them to come up with a sentence in the form, “Yuzu went to school yesterday,” I have to point to Yuzu and hold up the flashcard for “yesterday.” Any less and they stall and complain about how much work it is, and their turns take too long, and the games take forever. (Jerkface and Kitty are getting better about this, but I’m close to writing Ken’ichi off as doomed in this regard. He is not a child who enjoys having to take initiative.)

Goody Proctor gets much more interested when I give her one-word prompts, or no prompt. She started asking me for vocab she didn’t know. “What’s that?” “Garbage can.” “Okay. The Devil went into the garbage can today.” Aww, Goody Proctor. I’m going to tell her you said that.

(Mee is like this, too, but then she’s very dedicated to the craft of insults.)

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Agh!

In speaking of Mr. Weepy, I caused him to manifest himself! I was walking back from the bank just now and saw him and his mom. They live a block away! I pass their house every time I walk to the bank or the mall! They were out in the driveway barbecuing, and Mr. Weepy was wearing gigantic safety gloves. His mom ran across the street to say hi to me, but Mr. Weepy stayed over by the grill and waved at me warily, very uncertain about my presence.

I kind of feel weird about it, too. Not to the point of taking a different route, or anything, but kind of weird. Despite my constant -ing about his classes, I like Mr. Weepy, but his parents just strike me as being pretty irresponsible.

I think Miss Hee-Hee lives nearby, too - I ran into her and her mom Thursday. For some reason, before I started this job I never got into the habit of noticing family resemblances. I think I’m doing so now because now I need to be able to tell which mom to give which kid’s homework to. Anyway, Miss Hee-Hee really is a tiny copy of her mom, except for the smirk. Same with Princess, Miss Dolphin, and Miss Ko-Omote. Cookie and his little brother (nickname Cake) look so much alike that I’ve confused them a couple times - I’m betting I would recognize their dad if he ever showed up, because they didn’t get those bugged-out eyes from their mom.

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)