the girl with violets in her lap

[Poll #922525]

With that out of the way, the next time some would-be stoic attempts to tell you they're not crying, they've just got something in their eye! well, you just coolly demand a sample of the tears so you can conduct a chemical analysis! You'll show *them* up.

I'm cold.

[Poll #742687]

Ahem.

* * *

Dearest Julie Andrews:

I love you, Julie. I really do. I love you, passionately. So please don't misunderstand me when I say that I feel there are a few things I should draw to your attention, for your own good. Like, okay, well, for starters. So, Julie, when you learn a song, you probably get some sheet music for it, right? Like, notes on a page. I'm not sure if anyone ever told you, but those notes on the page? They're the notes you're actually supposed to sing. You're not really supposed to start with the note just below the note on the page so that you can swoop up into the note, or the note just above the note on the page so you can scoop down to the note; not even the four notes below the note on the page so you can swoop up through *all* of them, or the two notes above so you can jitter down through both of them. Oh, and when you sing a note? You could stand to sing it, like, right away. Instead of all this wacky shit with the delayed gratification singing, where we get to wait an aeon or two before you decide to progress to the chord that the orchestra has been patiently holding for a measure and a half just for you. Rubato does not mean "singing like you got your feet stuck in a puddle of glue on the previous note".

I said it before, but I love you, Julie. You're beautiful and you have a gorgeous singing voice and you look really really hot in drag. And you've even been known to write a half-decent children's book or two. So why this nonsense with the scooping and the swooping and the waiting eight years to move from one note to the next? You're better than that, Julie. Please take note.

Don't make me vote for Bernadette Peters in my own poll.

Love,
Kylie

P.S. You could also stand to dial the vibrato down a notch or two, but we'll leave that for the moment.

P.P.S. Please stay gay for Carol Burnett, though.

P.P.P.S. I hope you got your voice back after that botched vocal-cord surgery, because otherwise this post makes me a total tool.

But oo oo oo, I have a more interesting poll! That is to say, it's more interesting to me. That is to say... oh, hell with it.

It's the battle of the children's books! And Lord of the Rings. Um, so most of these are fantasy novels, but some are not; most are series, but some are not; most are at least somewhat specific (i.e., a specific novel or series) but sometimes it's a question about an author's general body of work. I don't know, do the best you can. It's not a perfect survey, as if one were to get nitpicky one could argue that it's hard to evaluate an author's body of work as if it were all of a piece, as it is often not. But none of you are going to get nitpicky, right? Because you love me. And because this is a stupid poll.

I never claimed to be... anything, really. In the last five minutes, anyway, and that's about the expiration date on any of my sentences, as I am flighty and whimsical and - damn! I just claimed to be flighty and whimsical.

Um, never mind? Vote in the poll? I'ma go hide now.

ETA: OMG how did I forget Madeleine L'Engle? I must go die of shame now. You can tell me which you prefer in the comments if you want.

[Poll #533240]