Ten first lines meme.

Courtesy of papersky, hobbitbabe, and pameladean, first lines of ten beloved novels not yet mentioned by anyone else. I have also limited myself to one novel per author. In no particular order:

Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood.

It was a dark and stormy night. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle.

Ethan said, "I hate baseball." Summerland, Michael Chabon.

I am afraid. Barrayar, Lois McMaster Bujold.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen.

There were five of us - Carruthers and the new recruit and myself, and Mr. Spivens and the verger. To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis.

Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares. A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett.

"That's another of them, don't you know," said the Major. As some people can sense the presence of a cat in the room, so the Major could sense a journalist, or at any rate claimed that he could. The Glimpses of the Moon, Edmund Crispin.

The last two books on my list are missing from my bookshelf. If I lent them to you, please consider returning them. papersky kindly provided the first lines:

There was a new house next door to Gentian's. Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, Pamela Dean.

"Lymond is back." The Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett.

Some thoughts on pain, and coping.

The knee I scraped last Thursday still hurts. I tried uncovering over the weekend, but found that taking off the bandage increased the pain considerably. At one point, when I was complaining about it, I joked to curiousangel, "Sometimes it must be hard to believe that I've had major surgery." "Sometimes," he agreed.

Here's the thing, though: I think that it's actually easier for me to cope with serious, expectable pain than to cope with minor, unexpected pain. ( medical/surgical details below )