This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

So, am I insane if after traveling from Vail to Denver to Seattle to Palo Alto to San Jose to Austin to Houston to Miami to Jacksonville all in one week and doing lots of events and not getting enough sleep, I'm ecstatic that today I'll be spending the day in a very small house with my sisters (secret codenames: Cordelia and Apocalyptica), my brother-in-law (scn: Joe), my newborn twin nieces (scn: Phoenix and Isis), my mother, my father, two cats, and one flying squirrel?

In other words, it is Monday; I am in Jacksonville; my parents are here from New Jersey; Apocalyptica is bringing her flying squirrel all the way from Massachusetts; and I remember my pride. And tonight everyone will (tentatively) be at my event! BEST DAY OF THE TOUR.

:o)

In other news: I love the way Jay Smooth thinks, and I love the way he talks. This time, his subject is Roman Polanski.

So, my sister (secret code name: Cordelia) and I have a lot of deep and meaningful discussions. Often, we find ourselves on the same side of the argument. For example, we've decided that given the choice of living with a whiner, a wino, or a rhino, we would both choose the rhino. And, the other night, while driving out of the parking lot of the dinner theater, we debated whether it would be worse for us to accidentally run over a patron or a matron. We agreed that while both would be dreadful, the matron would somehow be more dreadful.
Of course, we don't always agree. I asked Cordelia once which she would rather have, a car that doesn't stop or a car that doesn't go. She chose the car that doesn't stop, on the grounds that at least that car has one more good go left in it.
*. . . .*
More recently, we disagreed on who's better, the ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov or the Irish step dancer Michael Flatley. I chose Baryshnikov (even though I adore Irish step…

So, I must confess that there are string quartets out there that bore me to tears. However, as I type this, I'm listening to Beethoven's string quartet No. 16 in F, Opus 135, and it does not bore me to tears. It's too much fun.
And now, stand back, because I'm going to tell you why. :o)
At the top of the score of the last movement of this quartet, Beethoven wrote the words "The Difficult Decision" (except he wrote them in German). Then, he wrote the words, "Muß es sein?" ("Must it be?"). The cello and viola open the movement with three notes that seem to be asking that question: "Must it be?" As the movement continues, you can hear the violins and the cello/viola repeating the question, sometimes passing it back and forth to each other. All the instruments sound very worried about it, very full of angst.
Then, a bit later on, right where the piece jumps back into happy, cheerful F major, Beethoven seems to have made his deci…