I’m all done with copy edits on Rites of Spring (Break). The next time I see it, it will look like a book, not a manuscript. Which doesn’t mean the work is done, but first proofs are always so…. final-looking to me. According to a lot of book contracts (mine, certainly), after your book has been typeset, if you make changes that affect a certain percentage of the manuscript (that aren’t typesetting errors), you get charged. Usually, the only marks I make on my first pass pages are to check typos or last minute clarifications, etc. A few times I’ve added a line or two because, at the last minute, I dreamt up a joke that was too funny not to include. But I try to get all my last-minute changes in at copyediting, before we get to the first pass.

In other news, I leave for Europe in three days. I’m having a tough time believing this, because the past week has been so busy! Tomorrow, SB and I kick into high gear in our final planning stages. I will make him start packing. I swear. I feel very unprepared, but I always get this anxiety before we’re due to head somewhere. I’m also a planner, and he likes to wing it. He did not appreciate the color-coded Excel file I emailed him that explains where we will be going, what we will be doing, and where we will be sleeping during the trip.

In turn, I do not appreciate the boxes of the color-coded Excel file that remain blank and unfilled-in. Especially the boxes that speak of sleeping arrangements in Naples. Dinner I can wing. Beds not so much. And of course, this is never something we worried about in Australia and New Zealand. Have tent, will travel. Also, when you’re spending months abroad, you have all the time in the world to wing it. When you’re doing a whirlwind trip to London and Rome for research, you need to make sure you get done what you went there to do.

Meticulous travel planning aside…

At a lot of holiday events these past few weeks, the topic of my new book has come up. SB and I have our standard answer: “It’s a young adult fantasy about killer unicorns and the virgin descendants of Alexander the Great who hunt them.” I never know how much to talk about my WIP. It’s probably my strongest superstition in writing (because I don’t think I need a particular pen or computer program or cup of tea to write). It’s not that I think someone is going to steal something, though for some reason, that’s always the conclusion that people jump to. It’s that I like to keep things in the darkroom for a while. While the book is still in progress, still in flux, I’m not quite sure what’s a spoiler and what isn’t. I’m not quite sure what’s going to make it in and what’s not. For instance, I thought I knew where my heroine’s first kiss with the love interest was going to take place — nope. Not even close, in either plot point, motivation, location, any of it. I even changed the love interest’s name. There was something in the draft of the book I sold that I had a whole debate with my editor about keeping, and it turns out, in the rewrite, it doesn’t fit!

So how can I go around saying, “The killer unicorn book has warp-speed attack mongooses in it!” and then you are a big lover of mongooses and in fact you run a Mongoose Appreciation Society up in Ottawa, and you get your whole club to run out and buy the book in 2009 only to discover that I had to take the mongooses out. I can’t have Ottawans hate me.

This I know: The book is about killer unicorns. It is about virgins. It is about the descendants of Alexander the Great. The heroine’s name is Astrid. Artemis help me, it had BETTER be set in Rome.

And though I also know hundreds of pages of other things, I can’t really talk about them yet on a blog, because I can’t have those Mongoose People after me.

I’m so swamped. Hence the lack of blog. Because not only is there a ton of work-work to do, but my brother-in-law got Rock Band for Christmas, and that needs to be seen to as well. We’re quite the band, SB, SB’s brother, and I.

Just kidding. It’s mostly work. Interesting discovery of the day. Sometimes, my fingers like to type their own thing, like some bizarre inter-body version of telephone, with the result that words sometimes only bear a vague resemblance to the word I meant to type. This not only confuses critique partners and copy editors, but it also confuses the author when she gets back the notes and tries to figure out what the critique partners and editors THOUGHT she was trying to say. Bless them, they usually take the typo at face value, then go into elaborate contortions trying to make the rest of the sentence make sense in light of the typo.

For instance: “she lowered her face into a whisper.” Note: “lowered her face in order to whisper?” “Face” sounds odd here. Should it be “head?”

I think it’s because, to my finger-ears, face sounds like voice.

For further instance: “I liked it better when uniforms were imaginary.” Note: Perhaps something about how they’re being forced to wear uniforms? There’s nothing else about their uniforms in the chapter.

Ah, you know those crazy killer uniforms.

My finger-ears may need a hearing aid. Or a leering raid. Whatever.

I have new boots to traipse about Europe in. I’m remarkably excited about them. They’ll go well with all the new socks Santa brought me for Christmas. (Yes, new socks. Want to make something of it? They’re super swanky. SmartWool.)

Now, if only I could convince SB to pack. Or, you know, get a costume for the masquerade ball. I have mine. Petticoat and all.

1. Spending QT with family and friends in for the holidays.
2. Copy editing Rites of Spring (Break).
3. Judging Golden Heart Entries.
4. Preparing to Leave for Europe.
5. Making my own petticoat, because the one at the store was highway robbery and I needed a petticoat for the masquerade ball. It turned out great!
6. Rampant. Many Chapters.

What about you?

I am fascinated by yesterday’s comment thread. We were discussing chemistry, and the variety of the responses were so intriguing! Some people said they liked the idea of Andie from Pretty in Pink ending up with Duckie, but others thought Duckie was merely annoying and couldn’t picture it. Some people loved the idea of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Spike, or hated the idea of her with Riley. One commenter takes issue with the fact that I’m just not into Mick St. John from Moonlight (though I’d happily take a dozen Josefs, or Logans, or oh, just give me some Jason Dohring, and I’m a happy camper!) I especially loved Maureen’s comment that her perceived lack of chemistry between Kristen Bell and Teddy Dunn actually led her to draw conclusions about the plot line.

This just goes to show that chemistry is very subjective. Our taste in human beings varies, as does our preference for human interaction. I know some people get all hot and bothered by the alpha male and the damsel in distress roles. They are drawn to romantic stories that feature these types of characters playing out these types of roles. Others prefer different types of relationships — something more offbeat, or more role-reversal, or what-have-you. One person’s “McDreamy” is another person’s “When did he change his name from Dempsey?”

I think when you have a character like Veronica, or, more particularly, like Buffy, who is able to have several long-term, very intense and passionate relationships with different partners, you can drawn your own conclusions as to which “type” best complements her character, and what each partner can bring to the hero. It’s like that scene from Pulp Fiction, where Mia Wallace claims she knows all she needs to about a man from the answer to: “Betty or Veronica?”

On one hand, we can talk about archetype ’til the cows come home. But there’s a lot more to character than archetype, and you can see characters going for the same “type” over and over again and having very different relationships (::cough::Buffy::cough). But the folks who are going to be drawn to the doomed star-crossed whatnot of Buffy and Angel may not find the sado-masochistic thingamajiggy going on with Buffy and Spike all that appealing.

And maybe what you never thought you’d find appealing may hit you right, if the right chemistry exists.

Actually, Dohring is an especially interesting case there. I have never, EVER been into the bad boy. Ever. And when I first saw Dohring in the role of Logan, I didn’t find him especially attractive. But somehow, over the course of the season…. gah. By the time we got to “Weapons of Class Destruction,” I was a complete goner.* And now I’ll watch that dude read the phone book. I watch Moonlight to get the occasional glimpse of him. On a mental level, I don’t know if those two characters are good together. But the chemistry between the actors is so undeniable that it sells the story beautifully.

I’m not quite sure how or if this translates to books, though. I do know that I’ve written things or plotted things that didn’t translate in the text. Is that the equivalent? Are they even comparable?

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* Okay, so I gradded out my V. Mars DVDs, and Logan actually apes James Spaders’ blocking in several scenes — I knew I’d seen that somewhere recently! There’s this scene where Steph talks to Blaine, then points at the bell right before it goes off. Logan does the same thing to Veronica in the episode “Hot Dogs,” in their first conversation after The Kiss.

So I was minding my own business on Sunday night, when suddenly and with no warning whatsoever, I was attacked by the Ninja Flu. Within the space of two hours, my throat was completely closed up, I couldn’t speak, I was hacking up a lung, my sinuses were blocked, and I felt like someone had clunked me over the head with an epic mace (Dork Alert).

No idea where it came from. Very very Ninja. I spent the majority of Monday in bed, hopped up on cold medication and searching in vain for that cool ginger/lemon/orange concoction that I think Gina Black, Robin Brande, or maybe EatRawFish once sent me. I wish I could remember who or where (comment thread? email?) but, as mentioned, hopped up on cold medicine. Please, please, person who sent it once before, send it again!

I’m not good at being sick.

I’m praying Sailor Boy doesn’t get it, since he has two exams tomorrow, and one on Friday. I’ve been trying to force him to take some Airborne, but Sailor Boy will not be forced. Methinks he shall regret it.

In other news, I watched Pretty in Pink for the first time in many years yesterday. When I was a teenager, I thought it was, like, the most romantic thing ever. When I was in college, I was disappointed that Andie didn’t end up with Duckie (judging from Jon Cryer’s complaints in the Special Features, I’m not the only one, and the poor guy has had to answer to that every day of his entire life). By the way, DO NOT be taken in by the ads on the DVDs that say the movie has the “original, Duckie ending” on them. It doesn’t They don’t actually have the original ending scene, just some footage of them shooting the original ending (which they apparently lost or something) while the cast and production crew talk about why they didn’t do it.

Watching it last night made me wonder not only why Andie (Molly) ends up with Blaine (Worst. Name. For. A. Hero. Ever.) but why she’s ever with him to start with! Their date is a positive disaster. He doesn’t take her anywhere, she doesn’t WANT to be taken anywhere, whenever they are together, they both appear to be on the verge of tears all the time, all they ever talk about is how they shouldn’t be together, and then she flips out on him in the hallway like an utter harpy (which I think is deserved by that point, but still). I just don’t see what they see in one another. The only cute scene is the computer trick one.

HOWEVER, watching it last night also made me realize what an utter fan of this film Rob Thomas must be. I mean, I knew he liked it, and I got the PiP references sprinkled throughout Veronica Mars (such as when Meg and Duncan dress up as Andie and Duckie at the 80’s dance), but holy crap — I never realized how much of VM was set up on the PiP template. There’s this great interaction between sexysexy Steph (James Spader) and Blaine early on in the film where Steph tells Blaine about how he’s slumming with Andie that I swear, I swear, I saw Logan and Duncan have re: Veronica. And the whole close daughter-father relationship with the missing mom and etc… And of course the class bias and all the scenes of Andie waiting around at the lockers while Blaine walks on by… it’s very interesting when viewed post-VM.

In the extra where they sit around and discuss why they cut the Duckie ending, one of the main reasons given is that Cryer and Ringwald had more of a sibling like chemistry. Ringwald actually says that she thought the ending worked when they had considered casting Robert Downey Jr. as Duckie, because she was attracted to him, but when they cast Cryer, she was all, nope. And apparently, when they screened it, they got boos. So the director said that he had learned his lesson, that when he’s filming, he needs to watch the chemistry of the couple who are supposed to be together.

Which I also think is interesting vis-a-vis Veronica Mars. Because Kristen Bell never had any chemistry with the dude playing Duncan — none — so though I felt bad that she’d been dumped and all that, I never really felt for her on a romantic level. It was more like Duncan was a symbol of what she had lost: her innocence, her place in society, and of course, her best friend Lilly, who I can imagine that Duncan’s presence couldn’t help but remind her of all the time.

But Jason Dohring and Kristen Bell had heaps of chemistry (much, much more, IMO, than she had with Milo what’s-his-face-Peter-Petrelli). They melt the screen with that chemistry. (I’m not watching Moonlight, so I don’t know what kind of chemistry he’s got going on that show, but I’ll tell you this much: the two leads have NONE. They can be writhing around in the shower with her moaning: “Turn me, Mick, turn me!” as they were in one episode, and I just yawn.)

And I’m glad the writers on Veronica Mars realized it and put those two together, and wrote Duncan out. I think it’s important to follow the chemistry, even if that’s not the plan.

This is important in writing, too. In a movie, something may work fine on paper, in the script, but when you cast the characters and start filming, it’s off. In a book, something may work fine in your head, or in your synopsis, but when you start writing it, and the magic starts happening on the page, it could be off as well.

I’m a big believer in following the chemistry, and not just in the matter of romantic pairings. Another example from film: the character of Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer was originally written as a one-off. He was just supposed to appear and be a monster of the week, and a further complication in the relationship between Buffy and Angel. But he was a great character, and he had a ton of screen chemistry with the lead, so they kept bringing him back. (I do not agree that they made a good couple, but I loved all the seasons of them sparring and forming alliances and whatnot, so Seasons 2-5 were great Spike years for me.)

Of course, looking at Pretty in Pink, I didn’t see that the leads had too much chemistry either, though I remember being overwhelmed at sixteen (I think it’s the way Blaine touches her face and neck while he kisses her. That was a big thing for my teen hormones.

However, the lesson remains: follow the chemistry. Trust your instincts. If a character or a relationship is working, go with it. For instance, in my own work, I didn’t plan on Poe being a major character in the story, I didn’t even give him a real name. But he was so much fun to write in the initiation sequence that I kept bringing him back throughout the book (he was always so handy, story-wise) and then gave him an even bigger part in Under the Rose.

I also wrote a character in another book that wasn’t working at all. I kept trying to make him do this or that, and I wasn’t buy the result. So I recast him. I gave him a different name, and bam — he glimmered. (Not that I think Robert Downey Jr. would have made a better Duckie. I thought Cryer rocked.) But sometimes you do have to recast so that the chemistry all works out.

Right. Back to the cold remedies. Darn Ninja Flu

So I spent way too long the other night reading a blog post with a comment thread that got totally out of hand on account of the fact that the blogger made a passing crack at a very popular author with legions of die hard fans. I found the thread especially amusing because any discussion of this author or the work causes me to break down in hysterics, and, as you might imagine, the work was discussed a great deal in the comment thread, until the blogger got frustrated with the whole thing and told everyone to cut it the hell out. Which was the end of my amusement. (Sad face.)

I read the author in high school and I don’t remember experiencing this level of hilarity, but now, it’s like an anaphylactic reaction, to the point that I can’t even use the jargon associated with this author without breaking into giggles. I can’t even type the words without laughing, which is good, because I’m attempting to fly under the radar of Google detection here.

So here’s what happened. It’s the first week of college. A friend and I hear that, in the evening, there is a recruitment meeting for the campus sketch comedy group, so we head over to the campus building where such meetings are usually held. We go into a room where, at a seminar table, sit a group of folks who are totally the type who populate sketch comedy groups (i.e., they bear more than a passing resemblance to the cast of Freaks and Geeks — no offense to comedy sketch writers. You know what I mean). And the meeting starts.

I don’t know how long we were there before we realized that this was not, in fact, the sketch comedy group, but rather, a meeting of the people who are followers of this particular author’s work. They were called the Shmashional Shoshmecktivist Society, (those words are ones which Google will flag and which will cause me to spit lukewarm tea all over the keyboard). But it was longer than we had an excuse for.

When we did figure it out, the fact that we’d been in the meeting for as long as we had without discerning that they weren’t actually rehearsing a gut-bursting yet deadpan comedy sketch was about a hundred times as amusing as any comedy sketch could have been, and to this day, I regret the fact that we didn’t immediately interrupt the ongoing sketch comedy troupe meeting next door and hand them that nugget of pure comedy gold.

I do, however, remember being in hysterics for the rest of the evening, through a whole pizza run and the tummy ache that followed. And, to this day, I cannot hear any words associated with that author or the author’s work without being similarly affected.

You’d think the dog-eared copies of the author’s most famous book, which is a two word title, one of which is a proper noun and one of which is a past tense verb, clutched in every member’s hands would have been clue enough for us. But, firstly, I’d grown up in a town with a large population of people who based their beliefs on the writings of another novelist, and people regularly told jokes about that, so the idea was something I was used to.

Secondly, I was 18 and a freshman in college, shmashional and shoshmecktivist were words that sounded pretty much like all the other words being thrown around in my introductory philosophy class, and I wasn’t really sure what they were attached to, and they seemed generic enough to fit in with all the other schools of philosophic thought. And when the people at the meeting started talking about it, it sounded so outlandish that the idea that the whole thing was some elaborate skit rehearsal about a fake philosophical society based on the philosophy of a novel did not seem out of the realm of possibility. After all, this was Yale. They had all kinds of crazy societies to make fun of, right?

Yes, they did, but none, not even the Tories, seemed as instantly amusing to me as this group.
And I can say “Tory” without laughing, though you will see a definite smile.

And no one ever makes cracks about the Tories on blogs, and if they do, you don’t see all kinds of Tories crawling out of the woodwork to amuse berate you. So it’s not as fun.

I was laughing so much, reading the blog, that Sailor Boy emerged from his finals studying, concerned that I had started playing his video game. You see, SB has recently purchased a video game that can be described as Resident Evil meets ProperNoun PastTenseVerb (i.e., this author’s famous book), and whenever he plays it, I try not to pay attention, as the characters in the video game regularly pontificate on the joys of Shmashional Shoshmecktivism, in between ordering you to kill genetically-enhanced-yet-demonic little girls so as to steal the parasites from their brains (it’s a deeply weird video game). Anyway, it seem inappropriate to laugh at all this little girl killing, particularly when it is couched in the terms of Shmashional Shoshmecktivism, and I’m pretty sure it distracts him from his infanticidal missions, to boot.

In passing, I think the idea of using Shmashional Shoshmecktivism as an inspiration for the setting of the game is a brilliant move, because the whole zombie apocalypse idea does get tired after all, and I’m sure I’d discuss it more if I could do so without cracking up. But one night, in college, I couldn’t tell the difference between a philosophical discussion and a parody of the same, and you just don’t get over stuff like that.

So though I know you found the whole thing annoying, blogger, I appreciate you taking one for the entertainment and amusement of us all. Or at least, those of us who thought we were into sketch comedy.

________________
* Please note. Anyone dropping the deleted keywords is going to get laughed (and moderated) right out of the comment thread. I can’t help it.

So this is what I’m doing on New Year’s Eve.

I’m so excited. This is one of our favorite bands, and when we usually see them, we’re in an Irish Pub somewhere, drinking Smithwicks out of a plastic cup and wearing jeans and t-shirts, so I’m super excited to see what a black-tie Scythian concert is going to be like.

Plus… costumes! I love costumes, and I’ve always wanted to go to a masquerade ball… ever since I saw Labyrinth at an impressionable age.

May I have this dance?
And then creepily hypnotize you and steal your baby brother?

And of course, I’m going to be spending a lot of time thinking about what to wear to this shindig. A few of my ideas:

1. A storm. (I actually have a great costume for this).

2. A water sprite. (Ditto.)

3. A dryad. (I’d have to make a costume.)

4. Old reliable: the dark angel. (Except, I feel like I’ve already been there, done that.)

5. Mrs. Coulter. (Pluses: Glamorous, plus I already have a golden monkey. Minuses: might be a bit obscure if I can’t convince SB to go as Lord Asriel, and that outfit just is as much fun, what with the toting around of the giant snow leopard all night, and besides, I’m pretty sure he’d rather be Lee Scoresby anyway…)

6. The Snow Queen. (Wearing my wedding dress… again! W00t!)

Okay, that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I’m sure we’ll be brainstorming more this afternoon, though.

This is Repulsive.

The fact that the Hillsborough County School Board (the county I went to high school in, I might add) could make such a comment, the fact that TBO.COm could then use that word to describe the book, and the fact that all those parents making comments at the end of the article could then parrot it to describe a work they feel is uncomfortable.

You want to know what’s repulsive? This is repulsive. A few statistics from that page:

• Victimization rates for sexual assault are 12.9 per 1,000 women age 16-24
• Young women between the ages of 14 and 17 represent an estimated 38% of those victimized by date rape
• Studies indicate that dating violence affects at least 1 in 10 teen couples. It is one of the major sources of violence in teen life
• Over 50% of high school boys and 42% of high school girls believe that there are times when it is “acceptable for a male to hold a female down and physically force her to engage in intercourse.” (Okay, this last one is from a 19-year old study. I really hope things have changed.)

You want to know what’s repulsive? that considering all of the above, a public school board can still see fit to consider censoring from teenagers a powerful and nuanced book about a teenage woman dealing with the aftermath of an attempted rape.

Why? Because the description of said attempted rape is disturbing. Gee, you think?

Does the Hillsborough County School Board think that this is an issue that teens are not dealing with? Do they, as one commenter said, think that it’s a book that should only be read by a “student that has no behavioral problems, has good grades, and is a certain age permission to have the librarian check the book out to them.” [all sic]

Because students that don’t get good grades and do have behavior problems have never been date raped, or is not in danger of being so.

The woman who challenged the book actually said that she was going to let her daughter read it!

Sarah Dessen is one of the most talented young adult authors around. Her books deal with family issues, with death and abuse and yes, attempted rape. She says in the above-linked blog post:

I want to add something else to this debate, and that is that I have gotten SEVERAL emails from girls who had also been sexually assaulted, read this book and were compelled, partly because of it, to tell the people in their lives about what had happened to them. I’m not saying my book was the only reason, only that it played a part, even if it was a small one. And to think that maybe someone who needed this book couldn’t get their hands on it, because of one passage that someone plucks out of the book and reads aloud for shock value, not seeing how it fits with the rest of the story, and why it is important…it worries me.

I’m appalled by the way books are being challenged in high schools these days. A few months ago, Maureen Johnson’s book was being challenged on the grounds that it contained sexually explicit material (there was no sex in the book). Now, a book dealing with the disturbing aftermath of an all-too common and terrible teen experience is being challenged on the grounds that it… deals with the disturbing aftermath of an all too common and terrible teenage experience?

Look, I could go into a school board meeting and read excerpts from a lot of the books on a high school reading list that, in a paragraph or two, are going to sound super-repulsive. 1984, anyone? Books are supposed to engage our emotions. They are supposed to use powerful imagery that sometimes is disturbing to get their point across.

I don’t think I realized how lucky I was in high school. I don’t think I knew that when we read The Crucible, The Sun Also Rises, The Scarlet Letter, The Magus, and Brave New World, without dispute, that we were the lucky ones. We weren’t being told by some concerned parent who saw fit to read one passage of that novel to a school board that she should get to decide what our reading material contained.

Like many writers, I was a voracious reader as a child. I really wanted to read Clan of the Cave Bear when I was around 12 or 13. My mom had some concerns about it, due to the depictions of rape in the movie (it’s not quite as graphic in the book). She read it first, and then gave it to me and said if I wanted to talk to her about what happened in the book, that I should. And that was when I was in elementary school. In high school, I could read whatever I wanted. My mom gave me Go Ask Alice when I was fourteen. This is how it works. You get to decide for your own child. Not everyone else’s.

How many teenagers who have been sexually assaulted will shy away from the idea of going through a permission/screening process in order to determine if they are worthy of reading Dessen’s book? A book written for them. About a girl just like them.

And keeping your teenage children from information about a dangerous topic is not going to protect them from that danger. Knowledge is power. That’s why Just Listen is on the Florida Teen Reads list — because it speaks to teens about an important issue in a sensitive, non-exploitive, and powerful way.

If you wish to write the school board on this issue (and parents in Hillsborough County, I urge you to do so!) this is the contact information:

http://www.sdhc.k12.fl.us/board/Form_Board.asp

I have no children, but I wonder: do parents have to arm their kids with a letter to the school librarian saying, “Please give my child a skeleton key to all of your “restricted” shelves. I believe he or she should be allowed to read whatever he or she damn well pleases without your interference. Thank you.”

____________
Thank you to fellow YA author Leigh Brescia for alerting me to this issue!

Please note: all letters to the school board become public record.

So after posting about parapets yesterday, I had that Decembrist song “Infanta” in my head all day.

“And all across the parapets a multitude of coronets…”

Grrr… not exactly the music I was looking for. Though I do love that elephant trumpeting.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here, not least because the lobby of our building is playing carols twenty-four seven and all anyone will talk about is how behind they are on shopping. And after last week’s snow, well, it’s all downhill from here. This weekend, I’m going with friends to see the D.C. Revels, and I’m so excited! they put on such a great show.

So this Christmas is being spent with Sailor Boy’s family, which has led to some interesting conversations about various Christmas traditions. The other day, I walked in on SB and his mother debating the main dish at Christmas dinner. “Ham,” suggests SB’s mom. “Turkey,” SB argues. I sit there and blink for a few moments. “Wait, you don’t have lasagna and prime rib?”

So I mentioned this to another friend of Italian extraction and she said, “Oh yeah, lasagna on Christmas Eve, roast beef for Christmas Dinner.” Thank you! You crazy Northern Europeans and your crazy geese and turkeys and hams.

And though I only had one Christmas of it, I still think of it every time the season rolls around: Pavlova. Dear lord, I love Pavlova. I love listening to Kiwis and Aussies debate who it “belongs” to while I eat Pavlova. the first year SB and I lived here, I attempted to make Pavlova, and I failed miserably. I am not good with meringues. Meringues and crusts. This year, I am on a campaign to have my chef friend create for me Pavlova. I even like saying Pavlova. Mmmmm, Pavlova.

Pavlova and lasagna. And wine. That sounds like a Christmas dinner to me!