Latest Pony Mod

Thanksgiving pics later tonight... we're having our Casa de Dayton Thanksgiving today.

Snow

Well, that was certainly a surprising thing to wake up to.

It really is winter now, isn't it?

Perfume: the movie

I really didn't expect them to keep the orgy at the end.

Really, really didn't expect that.

But, there it was, in all its glory.

Actors were so-so, nobody was very well characterized, and I didn't much care when anyone died, but the images were pretty and it's an interesting sort of fable.

Still has the same problems as the book, which I know I blogged about at some point, but can't find in my archives. Suffice to say, the whole "random murder of random women" thing gets old. Why are all 13 scents the scents of women? Would it have had the same effect if he distilled men? Why not? And, you know, I get bored with movies where all the female characters are bought, sold, captured, killed, locked up, mutilated, and/or distilled.

It gets old.

Quote of the Day

"So I've never gotten the bad boy thing... I like good boys. Nice, earnest ones with a scary intellect and a heart of pure tempered carbon steel.. So why did it take me until I was 36 to realize that this is because I'm not a good girl?"

Suddenly, my dating history makes a lot more sense.

Hitman

You know, a lot of this guy's problems would be solved if he just wore a fucking hat.

Also, worlds that include women who are more than just whores are generally more interesting than the ones that don't.

I'm just saying.

Other Reasons to Love Gymming

Cause while you're doing your 40 minutes of cardio before you yourself descend into the weights area, you can do so on the second level of the gym, which overlooks the weight training area....

...and all the folks in the weight-training area.

Yum.

And, of course, there was also the Amazon chick, who was like Nyx on crack, dude. All I could think was, "Hot damn, I could so totally have muscles like that and then I could crush armies with my mighty fists!! Crush, I tell you!!!"

It was most excellent.

One For the Road

Nothing but Angst and Dirty Words Since 1996

Get a Cash Advance

If WWII was an MMORPG

I don't know why I find this so damn funny, but I do.

Maybe cause I'm a history major who spends way too much time with gamers.

Gymming

In an effort to combine all of my various interests into one easy payment, I went to the gym at the Greene today to check it out. On their little survey of things you'd like to accomplish with your gym membership, I noted that they did not include "health reasons." They did, of course, include, "weight loss" and "weight gain." I suppose "health reasons" should have been covered by "cardiovascular fitness."

Whatever.

When I sat down with my poor little just-out-of-college gym monkey sales guy who showed me around, he checked over my reasons for coming in and did a double-take. I watched him do it, skipping over "weight loss" and coming back to it, stuttering, going back to "building strength" and "cardiovascular fitness" which I had checked, talking about those, and then warily coming back to fat loss.

"Are you interested in reducing your fat percentage or losing weight?" he asked, tentatively.

"Not really," I said. "If I lose weight while increasing my fitness level, great, but if I don't, it's really no big deal."

"Oh," he said. Long pause. I realized he had no script for that, particularly when talking to a female client. How often does a woman come into a gym and say she *doesn't* want to lose weight?

And it was like: Honey, I lost way too much of my life to that dull pursuit. I learned the thin=fit=good lie first hand, when I lost weight and everyone thought I was somehow spiritually good and greater, when in fact, I was dying. I got to eat like a normal person for the first time in my life, eat and not worry a moment about my weight, and you know what? I could only do that cause I was dying.

Not interested in that anymore. It's lost a lot of its luster.

I want to be strong.

"Oh, OK," he said, and moved on. But did, in fact, bring it up again some time later as we were walking around touring the pool and the squash courts.

"We do have personal trainers. I know you say you aren't interested in losing weight, but if you're interested in a nutrition plan or anything like that, our personal trainers can really help with weight loss."

"Great, thanks for telling me," I said. I'm polite when I need to be. He seemed terribly nervous about the whole thing, though, so I projected strength and competence, and talked about Chicago, South Africa, the rec center in Alaska.

What I'm looking for is someplace to go when I'm bored and it's cold and dark outside. Our house is pretty small, and with two jerks, two dawgs, and the Boyfriend coming around all the time, well, it gets crowded in here. I've been extra bitchy toward my roommates and the Boyfriend, and I have a feeling it has a lot to do with the fact that now that it's cold and dark, and I don't get outside enough, I don't ride my bike around as much, and just generally... yeah. I need some room to kick around.

I was actually pretty happy with the look of the gym. It reminded me a lot of the rec center at U of Alaska, where I pretty much lived for much of my dorm life. Alaska's pretty damn boring unless you're willing to get outside, and when it's fucking cold, you don't want to go outside. The problem I've discovered with my kickboxing gym is that it's not on a bus line and I'm paying a lot for classes without a lot of variety. I need someplace I can live all winter.

This place has a pool, tons of equipment, an indoor track, spinning classes, kickboxing classes, strength training classes, and much more. It might be the best place for me to spend the winter.

I need to run out some of this excess energy, and I want to feel strong again. It's time.

To Do

Find out what the next book for the SF book club is. Check out both local area Writers' Groups (cause really, why not?). Check out the downtown boxing gym. Get certified on the local climbing wall.

etc. etc.

In short, be more social.

Also, write more.

You know... the usual.

Towards a Humanist Pornography

But what if there was another history of porn, one that was filled less with pneumatic shaven bodies pummelling each other into submission than with sweetness, silliness and bodies that didn't always function and purr like a well-oiled machine? The early origins of cinematic pornography tell a very different story about the representation of sex, one that suggests a way both out of the rubberised inhumanity of today's hardcore obsession but also out of the claim that pornography is inherently exploitative. What if porn stopped being such a brute and actually started to deal with the question of pleasure?

Lock & Load

In the spirit of more roller derby, less interpersonal squishiness, Travis and I went out shooting at his place yesterday. He lives out in the Ohio sticks, so when we got bored we holstered the glocks at our hips and went traipsing around the underbrush pulling useful things out of the creek and collecting interesting-looking rocks.

I've never walked around with a gun at my hip before, and I didn't like the idea of having it loaded, even if we were just wandering around some abandoned woods like a couple of Alaskan kids. So the magazine was half empty, and nothing was in the chamber.

Travis has a CCW license, and usually carries when it's legal (most public buildings, it isn't), but I've only been shooting a few times, and have no interest in carrying all the time (Ohio gun laws being what they are, you can carry a gun in full view without a permit. You need the permit for carrying it "concealed." They're weird laws).

See, if I'm going to get into a fight with somebody, I'm going to hit them in the face. Not enough people carry guns for me to feel in fear of my life when going around without one. I'm much more of an in-your-face type of fighter.

Still, shooting is a useful skill, and it does get me out into the woods, which, frankly, I really missed during my four years in Chicago. There's a lot I miss about Chicago, but I'm a country girl at heart. So it's been fun to hang out with a country boy.

When Travis clipped the holster into my pocket, it was an interesting experience, walking around with a gun at my hip. There is a certain rush of power, and I couldn't help but being reminded of the women in Bear's book, Carnival, all of them going around with their "honor" or their hip. It's a heady, powerful sort of feeling, one that comes with that cliched "great responsibility" thing. It got me to thinking about what it would be like to live in a world where everyone - men and women - was armed.

One of the things I've wanted to get used to and learn more about for the purposes of the GW books are guns and explosives. If you're going to write about a world that's been at war for three hundred years and has armed most of its population, it sure wouldn't hurt to get a taste of what it would feel like to go around armed.

When it got dark, Travis and I headed inside and I watched him go through the process of hooking up a new motherboard into a PC. After that he taught me how to take apart and clean a glock, which took a lot more time than you might think. Mainly because he's finicky about his hardware, and I was a noob who isn't so detailed with solvent and a toothbrush:



All this while we watched Black Hawk Down (which, as everyone's said, is indeed a fucking awesome movie) and talked about the evolution of PC processors.

It occurred to me then that it's not always a matter of spending lots of money to travel to far away places or take lots of equally expensive classes to learn stuff I don't know, it's a matter of surrounding myself with cool people who can teach me cool stuff. And being open and willing to learn.

It keeps my brain busy. And that keeps me happy.

We had a really good time.

Stuff I'd Like to Do in My Copious Spare Time

Definately.

Lars and the Real Girl

Went out tonight and saw Lars and the Real Girl at the indie theater downtown... It was well worth it.

The movie turned out to be much the way I expected it to be, which was a good thing. The beginning was a little rocky, and I worried over some of their pacing/narrative choices, but they smoothed it out and cleaned it up at the end and avoided some pitfalls and I think... I think it turned out Just Right.

For those who haven't seen the premise, a lonely recluse of a guy who has trouble dealing with his family and the people around him gets himself a Real Doll (not work safe!) for a girlfriend. The remarkable part of this story is that the small town he's in pulls together and supports his delusion. They treat "Bianca" like a real person, and by extension, they show their love and support for said recluse and his family, who are struggling through their own guilt over how to deal with some of his social awkwardness.

The movie was careful to make clear that there were deeper issues around his taking up a doll for a girlfriend besides him not being able to get a girlfriend. It was more along the lines of him dealing with a desperate need he had in a way that was emotionally and physically safe for him. This was why I was a little put-out by the ending, but not a lot. Worse would have been to do the birth/funeral simultaneously, and I think that would have ruined the point. The idea is to continue being afraid and to take the risk of real human companionship anyway.

Most of all, though, this was a movie about love, and that's what really got to me. The way everybody loved this guy, the way the town pulled together and showed their overwhelming acceptance of him for who he was. That kind of love and acceptance is something you don't see a lot.

Overall, a worthwhile little feel-good movie.

400 Love Letters

Click the colored squares to view.

Next Up

Black Desert. Mmmmm juicy.

It also occurs to me that it takes more than writing and sex to sustain me.

Thing is, I spent so long judging my self worth based on what I could do, physically, on the things I'd done, my academic accomplishments, that when I stop actively reaching toward those things, challenging myself, I lose that vital sense of self, of strength. I don't get my strength from other people, or how others see me. Quite the opposite, actually.

I have to go out and push. And with all the health issues, the spastic plane jumping and angst and trying to hold onto this great job and wow everybody professionally (and personally - relationships are stressful), I haven't been doing the things that make me me. I think that's what's starting to hit me now.

OK, that and my sugar has fucking sucked for three months.

Yeah, well, there's that too. And they all feed into each other. I have to figure out how to physically challenge myself the way I used to. It's been a fucked-up three months, though. I've spent a lot of time running, surviving, you know? It's like, if I just stayed busy enough, I didn't have to think about anything.

Now I'm thinking, and I realize there's stuff missing.

Math is hard, yo.

"Too much boyfriend(s). Not enough roller derby."

Yeah. Just like that.

It Occurs to Me...

...that when I start out the day with a sudden, unexpected low cause I hit a vien while shooting up in the morning, my whole day is pretty much a wash.

ug.

About 15 Minutes...

There's a new girl at work who was introduced to us here in the IT room. She's quite lovely, petite, and blond, and the lot of us engaged her in our usual sort of introductory banter. As the boys and I chatted with her, I found myself thinking about how much easier introductions must be for the traditionally beautiful.

One of the assistant managers from one of our corp stores, also slim, blond, magazine-beautiful walked in earlier, and one of the guys commented that he now understood why it was one of the hardware guys liked to go over to that store so often.

How different it must be, I thought, to not have to prove yourself all the time, to be accorded a certain amount of respect, regard, and attention for being lovely. When I walk into a room, I feel like I have to measure everything. I have to stand tall, walk confidently, look everyone in the eye, be witty, quick on the uptake, breathtaking, interesting. In short, I try very hard to garner respect for myself because I know it's not going to just be there. I know I have to work harder to get looked at, and harder still to have my voice heard and my opinion valued.

This is not just the realm of those who don't look like the lad's mag ideal, either, of course. These women may be getting immediate attention, but real respect? People assuming they're smart? Not so much. They have to prove it as much as I do.

Sometimes, though, I feel like I have to prove a lot more.

If I can't be thin, I can be strong. If I can't be blond, I can still have great hair. If I can't get respect by sheer virtue of my loveliness, I'll get it by virtue of my wit and strength, cause we're all going to get old someday. Not all of us are going to look like spring chickens forever.

I suppose this is the stuff that spills over when you live in a culture obsessed with youth, boobs, and beauty. That's all very well and good a pursuit when you're 14, but when you're 22 you realize that if you ever had it, it's gonna go, and if you never had it, you're not going to get it. So if you haven't been cultivating a personality before 22, you sure as hell better start.

I know that there are people - men and women alike - who get by on youth and beauty and charm. God knows I've been stunned and tongue-tied by beauty quite often, and I don't expect that to go away, but you can only get by on youth and beauty for about 15 minutes... after that, you better know something.

I always get angry at myself for resenting beautiful people - beautiful women, in particular - because it's incredibly unfeminist. It's the old divide-and-conquer thing, and on top of that, it's all fucking bullshit. T&A doesn't really mean anything, though we've attached a shitload of bizarre cultural significance to it.

Whenever I catch myself straying off into that "Gosh I wish I was magazine-beautiful so life wouldn't be so hard" fairyland, I remind myself that it sure as hell beats having nothing but looks to go on, cause at 40 or 50 or 80 (or, in this culture, to be dead honest, 35), we're all pretty much in the same boat. We're all fucked by the same cultural assumption that youth and beauty are a religion, and that only those who've got it get love, respect, attention, devotion, compassion... all those terribly human things that we crave.

There's enough love and compassion to go around. Love's not just for beautiful people.

But sometimes it's hard to remember that.

What I Had For Dinner Tonight

Fried zuchinni with cheese and a slice of pumpkin pie.



Mmmmmm pie.

And then I put together all my paperwork for my endo appointment tomorrow:



MMMMMmmmm diabetes.....

View of the Day

Quote of the Day

Second Accomplishment of the Day

I just beat Turret Wars on the "normal" setting.

It's the little shit, man. Gotta celebrate whenever you can.

The Celebrations are Short-Lived

Oh yay! I've finally sent off agent-requested revisions to said agent! Oh glorious day! Oh fantastic -

Oh, gawd, I'm twelve hundred words behind on my Black Desert writing schedule.

It really is like I have two full-time jobs.

Round 85

Latest God's War revisions are done (again).

I get the feeling I'm going to be saying that a lot this year.

In Which the Protagonist Has a Small Heart Attack

Went into the pharmacy today to fill my med subscription. I'd been putting off refilling my insulin until I had my insurance card, so needless to say I was down to half a pen of Novolog and my last Lantus pen.

So I walk in and get just one thing of testing strips on top of that because I don't have the prescription refill on me cause I see my endo this week, and my last insurance company didn't cover the strips unless I had the RX.

But you can imagine my shock when the pharmacist aid said, "That'll be $342."

"I'm sorry?" I said.

"Three hundred forty-two dollars," she repeated.

"That can't be right. I have a $100 deductible, and then everything is free. They cover 100%."

She called over the pharmacist, who looked rather surprised at the slip. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "I never look at that part!"

Well, of course. Why would a pharmacist care how much we're all paying for the drugs that keep us alive.

Dude. My company is paying thousands of dollars a month so I can have this wicked-good health care and you're fucking me over.

"I can't afford this," I said, knowing full well I wasn't going to leave the pharmacy without the drugs. Because without the drugs, I will die.

So I pulled out my credit card, which now has over $12,000 on it. For just this reason.

I was so angry I couldn't speak. I wanted to scream and rage and knock something over. I was literally shaking as I left the pharmacy, I was so fucking angry. Here were all the old memories again, of being unemployed and spending putting $350 on the credit card every month that I didn't have, just so I could fucking live, digging a deeper hole just to postpone the invevitable.

And I fucking hate that feeling. I hate that dependency. I hate that my ability to fucking live could be fucked at any time by somebody fucking up their paperwork. I hate that I'll never be able to fucking work for myself because I'll always have to have employer-sponsored health insurance. I hate drugs in general and insurance companies in particular and I hate everything that has to do with anything.

Most of all, I fucking hate being poor.

NOTE: restrained phone call to the insurance company confirms that I am covered - but I must pay the first 1K out of pocket and submit my receipts to be reimbursed. I wonder if they will reimburse me for the finance charges on my credit card as well... no?

The Writer at Work

Things I Learned to do Today:

Hook up a light switch and mount an outdoor light.

Sexy.

Bloody Hell

It needs another Rhys chapter.

Bloody hell.

Hell hell hell.

Note to Self:

Too much sex. Not enough writing.

But really, how often do we all get to say that?

Jesus vs. Doctor Who

heh heh heh.

Why I Travel

Because it really comes in handy when you're sitting down to explain the smell, feel, geographical layout, and logistics of fantastical foreign cities.

Seriously.

Can I write all these trips off now?

Reasons to be a little crazy...

When was the last time I wrote new material? Not summaries and revisions, but new material?

Ah, yes.

Thing is, I'm doing so much writing at work that it doesn't *feel* like I haven't been writing. I feel like I've been... well, writing every day. And I certainly *open up* my actual writing files at least once a day. Now I need to find the headspace to get cracking again.

Working on my new writing schedule tonight. Let's start with 500 words a day and see where that gets us. I've got a long way to go to get back on track.

Gaaaaah!

Yes, sometimes you are crazy.

"My boyfriend is Type 1. Before I met him almost 4 years ago, I knew next to nothing about diabetes. He has always insisted that he can feel when his blood glucose is high or low, and that he doesn't need to test that often. He limits his sugar intake and takes insulin twice a day, so I assumed he had it under control.

Our relationship is a very close one, but once in a while he will have these mood swings out of nowhere. He gets depressed, just wants to be left alone, feels like everything and everyone is against him. During these mood swings, he often tells me he has a feeling that I don't love him anymore or that I'm seeing someone behind his back. He feels his life is a mess and that everything is going wrong.

Then, just as suddenly as it came on, the depression will lift and everything is fine again. I never understood what was happening. I knew he loved me, but I didn't understand how he could go from the perfect boyfriend to someone who couldn't even stand to be in the same room as me (or anyone else for that matter), with no warning and seemingly for no reason." Read the rest here.

OK, all you diabetics out there? Please don't do this to your partners. Trust me when I say that you're just crazy, and when you even out, life is beautiful again. The girlfriend, in this instance, had to do all the work and research about t1 in order to get this guy back under control, which also explained and controlled the mood swings when they occurred (yes, they were low sugar episodes - not terribly surprising).

If you won't get your sugar shit together for yourself, you need to do it for the people who put up with you, cause nobody deserves to go through that crap. Learn to recognize it, and make it really clear it's not the other person's fault.

If anybody speaks to me during a low, the first thing I say is "I'm a little low; I'll be OK in a minute." That way, if it turns out I can't shut the fuck up (I usually can, but not always), then they know that if I'm snappy it's not about them, it's all about me.

Please look out for the people who care about you. I caused a lot of havoc the six months before and after I was diagnosed; I was learning what was me and what was just the sugar. When you can distinguish this for yourself, you can make it a lot easier for the other people in your life to distinguish it, too.

Rhino

Somebody should tell that Rhino she's fine just the way she is. Also, I love me some pretty unicorns, but at the end of the day, the rhino's gonna win in a rumble.

Most Days, Really

No Christmas for You

I can get tickets home for the holidays for just under $700, or just under $800 if I want to avoid Chicago and Denver and get out at a reasonable hour. I used to think getting home from Chicago for just under $600 was a raw deal.

Ah, the joys of living in Ohio.

I'll get home for the holidays, sure, but nobody's getting presents this year.

Tra-la!

For Travis

Because I'm EVIL.

We Can't Stop Here...

Mmmmmm Sparta!!!

Looking Back

When archaeologists look back at something like this, what will they see? A religious complex? A city built to honor some god? A complex created to flee the mainland? A high-tech leper colony?

When I look at some of the gradiose projects we put together in our time for the amusement of the wealthy, I can't help but think that everything we assume about the cities and monuments of the past is dead wrong.

Sleepless Nights

Malaysia's Muslim men are suffering sleepless nights and cannot pray properly because their thoughts are distracted by a growing number of women who wear sexy clothes in public, a prominent cleric said.

Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, the spiritual leader of the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, said he wanted to speak about the "emotional abuse" that men face because it is seldom discussed, the party reported on its Web site Wednesday.

"We always [hear about] the abuse of children and wives in households, which is easily perceived by the eye, but the emotional abuse of men cannot be seen," Nik Abdul Aziz said. "Our prayers become unfocused and our sleep is often disturbed."

I have this problem all the time, let me tell you. I mean, there are bare-armed, bare-legged men walking around my bedroom all night long. I've even seen men wear short sleeves at church, without shame.

Hookers.

How to Make Pancakes Like a Crackhead

Oh the deliciousness!

Sugar

1/4 piece of a Killer Brownie from Dorothy Lane Market eaten at today's workadoo holiday potluck + 1 spoonful gooey macaroni + dollop of oreo cream puddy pie =

OMFG.

I never fucking eat this stuff any more.

There's this moment of loss and longing, after you eat it, realizing that you're just never going to eat the way you used to, ever again.

Yeah yeah, eating to excess is bad, blah blah blah, but you know what? I liked my holiday indugences. I liked being able to eat a whole bag of potato chips if I felt like it. I liked eating three bagels in an afternoon on occasion. I liked sitting around eating chocolates and watching mindless tv.

I didn't used to do these things all the time, obviously, but if I *wanted* to, the option was there. Sure, I still *could* eat a whole bag of potato chips, but I'll have a headache for an hour, my whole body will slow down to a crawl, and it'll send my sugar into a low/high rollercoaster that'll take me a week to get back under control.

The sense of joy and delight associated with eating really good food to excess just isn't there anymore.

Some other life.

Fear & Longing

I started plugging in dates to price tickets for going home for the holidays, and I realized that one of the reasons (besides the price) that I've been putting it off is because I'm really going to miss my boyfriend when I'm gone (insert vomiting noise here, yeah).

It's stupid, lame, and, I suppose, a fleeting feeling. We've been going out less than two months (we were friends for a couple months before that as well). *Everything* looks better at the beginning. Eventually, you get sick of each other, or he stops saying "I miss you" and he dumps you cause it's too serious or you dump him (or her) because the idea of an entire future together is just too terrifyingly permanent, like death.

The thing is, everybody tells you how to fall in love. There are tons of movies and songs and media sobfests and bitchsessions all about how to start up a whirlwind romance. It's hot and fun and you laugh and have a great time.

You start a lot of romances in your lifetime, but nobody ever teaches you how to *stay* in love. Nobody teaches you how to stay together.

It's like a writer who never finishes a book. You've got all these great beginnings. You're great at writing beginnings. But slogging through the middle? Wrapping up the end? You've got no experience with that.

Falling is easy, sticking is hard.

At least in the case of writers, we have lots of more or less successful examples to look at to teach us how. But in real life? How many really loving, successful relationships do you see? Relationships where people stayed together for some reason other than "well, I can't do better" or "we can't afford to break up" or "I guess it would hurt the kids if we split."

And maybe that's the thing - at one time or another, what kept some longterm couples together was just that one thing. Some fatalistic thing, and they pushed through it, and things were better (as Steph once half-jokingly said to me "Me and the Old Man got engaged because we needed more than love to keep us together"). But man, you know, my fear of getting stuck in a relationship that's ALL that - that's based on two people sticking together out of something other than wanting, something less than mutual respect and friendship... that's hard to swallow.

The problem with constantly waiting and worrying over the ending of a relationship is that you lose all the good stuff in-between. You miss the missing; you fail to enjoy the laughter, the amazing sex, the verbal sparring, the pancakes in the morning, because you're always waiting for that moment when you lose it.

Thing is, I guess, I already lost this particular boyfriend once for one miserable week where we both looked and felt like death. We came back to it, because being miserable sucked goats, and we laugh a whole hell of a lot more together than apart, but how long does that last? How long until the next time? Until one of us flips out again or we get bored with each other? Maybe once we're bored with each other, the break won't be as painful, or as hard. We can hope.

Thing is, you know, I'm tired of being afraid of everything and living through something expecting it to end. I'm tired of writing hot beginnings whose tough middles I can't make it through. I want an ending hotter than my beginning, and a middle that's hotter than both. I just don't have a roadmap on how to do that.

People talk a lot about the sort of courage it takes to be a writer, to put yourself out there. It takes a lot of courage to live fully, too, to put your heart out there. It's going to hurt either way. Sometimes it's pretty scary not knowing where you're going. Exhilarating, terrifying, beautiful. An adventure. But fucking scary.

We lose everybody, in the end. If not to a breakup then to death or disaster. The ending always comes, whether or not we're prepared for it. Unlike fiction, there's no putting it off or setting it aside.

I want to find out how this one is going to end, no matter how much it scares the hell out of me. Because I wouldn't trade this beginning for anything, even if it's going nowhere; even if it ends tomorrow.

Good German, Bad German

The Good German, the book: Excellent.

The Good German, the movie: WTF?

If I hadn't read the book, I don't think I'd have any idea what was going on. The characters were entirely unsympathetic. Instead of good people made bad by bad circumstances, they were all (with the exception of Clooney) a bunch of black roaches feeding off a dying city (not gray roaches, but thoroughly black). The plot was mishmash, confusing. It tried to follow the story through all three POVs, starting with the least sympathetic, moving to the most, then back to another unsympathetic character.

Jumping heads was supposed to clarify what is, in fact, a really complex plot. Instead, it needlessly complexified it (yes, I'm declaring that a word).

It was really terrible, and terribly dull, which is a shame.

It's a great book.

Mmmmmm

Pumpkin PIE!!

It is always so reasonably carbed.

The Writer

I write everything at my job. Everything.

I write up SOPs for software installation, hardware maintenance, corporate store applications. I write "news" stories and announcements for our intranet frontpage. I create PowerPoint presentations from talking-point outlines. I write and edit marketing copy, business proposals, executive resumes. I write and revise panel descriptions, sales rep letters, insurance business proposals and company histories and all of our web content.

I have written talks about tax history, documents about how to use our timekeeping system and how to create service tickets. I've written sales policies, revised the company handbook, formatted and reviewed hotel directions, convention agendas, and loan applications. I've created order forms and trade brochures and email campaigns and edited four hundred pages of operations manual - twice.

I have written everything, and when I didn't know how to write it, I googled it and found formats and examples and ideas. I'm constantly learning about how to write sales pitches, persuasive copy, and business proposals, because you can never be too good at writing those, and you can always be better.

And I've spent the last couple of weeks working on synopses, one-line elevator pitches, pitch paragraphs, pitch packages, pitch copy, because you can never be too good at writing those, either. I have never written this shit before, and it's involved a lot of reading, a lot of searching, a lot of reviewing, a lot of writing and re-writing and starting over and reading.

It's a small miracle, making a living as a writer. What people never understand, though, what everyone sighs over and makes eyes at, is that writing is a job. Like acting or modeling, it seems very glamorous, but I don't think I realized exactly why it seemed so glamorous. I honestly thought all that glamor had to do with lots of money and hot bed partners and expensive toys and trips to Paris.

We've attached all sorts of associations with these sorts of professions, but the glamor of making it as a creative person isn't actually about the work itself, or even the expected perks, I think. Work is work.

The real glamor, the real perk, is the idea of spending your days doing something you love.

Sometimes I think that's what the allure is of any place: this idea that you can live somewhere, with someone, doing something, you love.

It is, perhaps, the greatest gift on earth.

That's the glamor.

Synopses:

Still hate them.

On the upside, I didn't realize I had this many backlogged novel projects.

So.

That turned out to be a very pleasant night.

I've been having a lot of those lately.

This One's For Patrick

Slaughter your world! (and kick a puppy!)

PUMPKINS!!!

Fresh, nubile pumpkins await their transformation.


Stephanie holds their fate in her hands....



I have all the right tools for the job.



Just call me the eviserator.



Mmmmmm. Tasty eviseration.


Around here, we don't need costumes to be scary.


Gutting nubile corpses is tough work, even for brutal women....


Mmmmmm... tasty pumpkin guts.


I take sinful delight in my work. Really, who wouldn't?


Stephanie has a surgeon's skill paired with a grave digger's sense of urgency. It's a deadly combination.


There's more where THIS came from....


I'm TELLING you: STEPHANIE HAS MAD PUMPKIN SKILLZ!!!!


The brutality takes shape....


Yes, EVIL has a face....


... and a not-so-steady aim.


Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... Gotta love that new pumpkin smell!!!


The resemblence is STRIKING.


Sometimes I even scare MYSELF.


And then I see THIS FACE: and I am truly TERRIFIED!!!!


Stephanie's reaction is far less dramatic. I think she's still in shock.


I, however, have moved quite quickly from awe to shock to horror to pure, unadulterated batshit-crazy lunacy. Pumpkins have that effect on me.


Later, we teach Tessa to feed off the remains. It builds character.


Stephanie's pumpkin takes the left watch.


Mine takes the right.


Our terrifying creations complete their journey from nubile, fresh-faced pumpkins to brutal jack o' lanterns in just one night.

They'll thank us in the morning.

Together

Natural Architecture

Yummy!

Insured vs. Uninsured

Money I've saved in the last three months while being insured:

Hospital costs saved: $896.94 (two more claims for over $800 are still pending)

Meds costs saved: $611.51

That's $1508.45 saved on medical costs in three months. Just three months.

I wasn't joking when I said these costs-to-keep-breathing - pre-employement - were literally killing me.

And, of course, I HAVE paid costs out of pocket. That's just what insurance paid. Total out of pocket for the last three months is still: $475.46

Which is still 1/4 of what I was paying in medical costs pre-employment.

Four Suns

Definately the star system I'll use for The Burning Fields.

Note to Self:

Just because cheese curds are carb free does not mean I should eat the entire bag, blissfully satisfying as it may be to munch without fear of sugar overload.

Things I Hate More than Anything

Summarizing my books. Whether that's one-line summaries or full synposes. Hate, hate hate.

And it's something I seriously need to get better at.

That's what I keep telling myself as I slog through.

Quote of the Day

"Honestly, I think the only difference between depression and disappointment is your level of commitment."
- via Stephanie, who heard it on "some show."

Time

"Funky Things You Discover While Living in Africa"

Yup.

Fires in CA

From here.

"You Too, Mother?"

The one line that beautifully illustrates my undying love for Rome.

Midnight Madness

One of the ways I control my sugar when it's been out of hand over several days or when I eat something I don't generally eat for dinner is, I set my alarm clock for midnight and do a midnight sugar check.

What this allows me to do is adjust my sugar to keep it from rollercoastering too high overnight. If I was eating something that's got a weird rate of absorption, the numbers usually shoot up between my bedtime test at 9 or 10 and my midnight correction (unless I did a heavy exercise/kickboxing session the night before, in which case it spikes downward). This is why I tend to eat low carb and stick to certain types of foods. When I don't, I start to rollercoaster, and when you rollercoaster, you have to work fucking hard for about three days in a row with midnight testing and watching what you eat just to get back to your happy numbers.

The funny thing is, that even if I'm eating all right, I will, without fail, jump at least forty points between midnight and 5:45 am when I get out of bed. It's just how it is. I tested one midnight at 56, another at 68, and I resisted the urge to overcorrect (I did once, and woke up at 140). If I didn't correct, I'd wake up at 90 or 100 instead of 140.

So, why do a midnight correction if the difference is between 90 and 140? No big deal, right? Well, if I don't do a midnight correction and I have Chipotle for dinner, I could go to bed at 90 and wake up at 200. Big, big difference.

And yes, I learned all this through trial and error, and every diabetic is different. Your mileage may vary.

The last couple of weeks have been a little stressful, and I've been eating crap - going out and eating onion rings and chicken strips, waaaay too many Chipotle burritos (there is a direct correlation between Chipotle burrito consumption and my stress level), and chicken wings and breakfast scramble wraps here at work. Too much weird food, and it triggers a rollercoaster sugar ride, which then affects my mood. Extreme highs and lows wear me out. I feel like dirt. Quite literally, like dirt.

So this week I'm working at recovering from last week's rollercoaster. I realized I'd taken things too far yesterday, when I was so exhausted and bitchy that all I wanted to do was go home and sleep for ten hours because I found the idea of interacting with people - including my roomies and the boyfriend - really exhausting and annoying.

People find it very funny that I take such crazy control of my sugar, that I work so hard at it, but you know - I'm not a fun person to be around when my sugar sucks. I physically feel really, really bad. If I'm too low, I want to claw people's faces off. If I'm too high, I'm tired and bitchy all the time and too exhausted to speak to people, who then thing that it's them who's done something wrong, when in fact, it's all about me.

If rollercoastering goes on too long, some of those bad feelings are going to get out, and I'll start to lash out at the people around me who I love and care about. And after what happened back in Chicago, after knowing just how badly things can go if I'm not running at 100%, I'm committed to taking care of myself to reduce if not eliminate the possibility of me hurting people like that. I hate hurting people. If you can take better care of yourself so that you *and* the people around you benefit, wonderful. To do otherwise isn't just self-destructive: it's selfish.

Sure, if you want to be a hermit in a cave and not have anybody care about you, that's one thing, but if you want to invite people into your life, you must do your best to respect them. You can start by respecting yourself.

And yes, it's fucking hard.

Things to Say When Someone Has Broken Up With You

HAHA ah HAHA AHaha ahaha HA ahahA

Recommended Reading

I've been spending the vast majority of my time reading about ADD, Islam, and copywriting. Yes, it's an eclectic, informative, but incredibly non-relaxing cornucopia of nonfiction. I seriously need a break.

Any recommendations for fat fantasy that doesn't suck? I may pick up the new Daniel Abraham book, I couldn't stand the Lies of Locke Lamora book and so have no interest in the sequel, and Song of Ice and Fire 4 and Kushiel 4 have both gotten so long-winded that I can't stand the idea of picking them up again even to finish wading through them. I even tried to read Kathryn Harrison's non-genre Envy. I love a couple of her other books, but her self-absorbed characters are starting to annoy me.

Got any recommendations?

Faith, Love & Death

"Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

And this:

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Yes.


Read the rest.

Artificial Sky

Because it's more useful here than in Vegas.

Trust me. I know.

One of Those Nights

It occurs to me that I don't handle stress as well as I used to. That, or I was just never in a position where I had to balance so many different aspects of my life - and the lives of others - all at once.

It's a challenge. I'm up for it, but it's a challenge.

My sugar has sucked since I started with the new monitor and insulin pens. The pens are fucking great, but for some reason even when I hold the button down for the full ten seconds, there's still at least half a unit of insulin that I never get, so I've had to dose myself one extra unit every time. That, paired with the fact that I've switched to an electronic monitor that records my numbers instead of recording them myself, means I don't view all of my numbers daily. Whoever made the OneTouch software program made it stupid and clunky. It's so useless at displaying the numbers in a way I find helpful that I just avoid loading numbers for weeks at a time. I have only a vague idea of where I've been at, and it hasn't been all that great. OK, Ok, probably it's got me running 130-180, which isn't the end of the world, but it certainly fucking isn't at those lovely 70-120 numbers that I so adored.

I need to get back on that, and I'm kind of pissed that it looks like what I have to do to kick my ass for that is go back to manually recording all of my numbers so I can SEE exactly how my sugar is trending overall. It's too easy to just throw out a bad number when you don't have to look at it three times a day when you enter your other readings into your spreadsheet.

So that's something I need to balance back in. I was really fucking proud of my 5.9 A1C, and I have a feeling I'm going to be closer to 6.5 or something (under 7 is still good for a t1, but 6 and under is the A1C of a non-diabetic) when I see my endo next month if I don't get my shit together. We'll see.

In any case, it's one of those nights.

But at least I'm not eating Tom.

My YouTube Debut

OK, our web developer put it up on YouTube, so it's not my fault.

I won't identify the whole team here, but I'm the last person on the far left. We're missing about three team members here (they're hard at work in the adjoining room), but these are the folks I spend my day with, for the most part.

Yes, every day is like this.

I love my job.

Updated Website

My website is very pretty now, and has been updated.

My Weekend

Was up at 6am on Saturday to prep for the franchise convention. Headed down to the hotel and worked with our tech guys to synch up my asshatted computer with the projector so my PowerPoint presentation displayed correctly. Ran through a mock-up of the presentation with the slide transitions, then attended the general session, presented two 45-min sessions about our new intranet portal and its features, lunched, and presented two more 45-min sessions to another two groups of franchisees.

I had a guy come up to me at lunch and say, "You're one of the most incredibly confident, determined, passionate people your age I've ever met."

How this came across during a 45-minute presentation about our intranet portal, I don't know. I can turn on my funny, confident, outgoing self for short presentations, and I know that a lot of the love for my job, what I do, the free health insurance, my affection for the team I work with, came out during my talk.

"Well," I said. "It's not that complicated. I just know what I want."

"Exactly," he said. "You have no idea how rare that is. Most of us still have no idea."

And me? Man, I've worked hard to get to where I am, and I'm still just renting a room at my friends' place. I certainly have a lot right now, and I'm incredibly blessed and happy to be where I am, but I have a long way to go. And I know exactly where I'd like to be. Maybe that is pretty rare these days.

It was a really good convention, in any case. This company has a fantastic group of great franchisees. They were a lot of fun to talk to. I've done theater, and spoken at writing conventions before, so the actual doing wasn't tough: it was just all the buildup that was stressful. This week has been insane getting this convention put together. I had a blast, but was ready to collapse come 4pm. I didn't bother staying for dinner (our programming was done at 3:15; after that was general sessions led by the exec staff), and went home and put in some napping and movie watching time with the boyfriend.

Besides the convention, I've been putting together the synopsis for the third book in the God's War series, Babylon. It's why I was up until 11pm at the Books & Co. down the street on Friday, and perpetually sleep deprived this week. Convention madness + personal writing deadlines + addiction to boyfriend time = sleep deprivation.

Finished up the synopsis today and got it off to my agent (MY AGENT!!!!!) and started printing out the old synopses for my old series. I have stuff for The Dragon's War and Over Burning Cities that I'll be revising and putting back together again, writing up pitch paragraphs for the rest of the series, et al.

Things at work won't be as stressful this week, and I'm thinking of taking Friday off since I worked Saturday. This will give me some time to get my Ohio driver's license and maybe go to Columbus this weekend and hang out: me, the boyfriend, Steph, and the Old Man. Might be fun.

Yes, I'm busy. It's damn fine busy, but it explains the lack of posting. I'm going to need to find some kind of balance for all of this stuff pretty soon here. I think some weeks will just be easier than other.

Tra-la

There's Nothing More Fun...

... than freaking out about the recovery of a completely fucked corrupted file at eleven o'clock at night when you have to be up at 6am the next day to present four hours worth of breakout sessions at a franchise convention.

Yuuuuummmmmmmmmmmy.

Well, It's Official

I was waiting for her to publicly post it first.... so now it's really true!

For those that didn't read it in the locked LJ post, me and God's War and all the rest are now being represented by Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary agency.

I'm uber-super-thrilled about this. She was my first pick from the start (years and years ago when I was trying to sell The Dragon's War), and I'm still sort of stunned.

I couldn't be happier.

And yeah, the amount of work I need to do, writing-wise, just shot up.

But I couldn't be happier about that, either.

My Peeps

But waaaaaaaaaaaait a minute... I tied with the Serenity crew and Deep Space Nine?

Oh well. B5 isn't so bad when the actors pretend to act and the monologuing is kept to a minimum. But really: I'd prefer the Serenity graphic.

Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in with? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) The universe is erupting into war and your government picks the wrong side. How much worse could things get? It doesn’t matter, because no matter what you have your friends and you'll do the right thing. In the end that will be all that matters. Now if only the Psi Cops would leave you alone. Serenity (Firefly) 75% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 75% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 75% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 69% Moya (Farscape) 63% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 63% SG-1 (Stargate) 50% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 50% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 50% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 44% Heart of Gold (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) 44% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 38% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 25%

Heavenly Health Insurance

We had a big meeting today at work because our health benefits will change Nov. 1st. I'd known this was coming since I signed with the company, so I was nervous and busy doing math and looking up tiered drugs and in-network providers and going through all the paperwork and thinking, wait a minute, this can't be right...

But when we went into the meeting, we found out that yes, in fact the paperwork was right.

Our new plan requires a $100 individual deductible, and then it pays 100% of in-network costs. 100% of prescriptions. 80% of out-of-network if you really want to stick with another doctor.

No, no: seriously.

100% of prescriptions and no doctor co-pay in-network.

This means, not only do I no longer pay my $15 co-pay that I thought was so fucking sweet, but I no longer pay the $70 per month in diabetic supplies.

I will no longer be paying healthcare costs of any kind except for the $10 per month the company takes out of my paycheck (so long as I stay in network, and yes, my endo is in-network).

Me and one of my work buddies went over the math some more afterwards. He has high drug costs as well, and we both just sort of looked at each other and went, "Holy fuck no shit this can't fucking be true."

It's like fucking socialized medicine.

IT'S LIKE LIVING IN A CIVILIZED COUNTRY...

LIKE CANADA.

Fucking Christmas.

No idea how long this will last (at least through next year), but living in Dayton just got a lot sweeter. I might make less than I did in Chicago, but add in the huge amount I'm saving on drugs and medical costs, and I'm easily making more than I did there.

We gave the HR Director a round of applause.

Sleeeeeeep

Seriously, all I want to do right now is sleep. We've got a franchisee convention coming up this weekend and we are crazy-busy putting together tons of materials and presentations and slides for that, and I've got a ton of novel writing work to get done when work hours end.

So I'm off to Chipotle for a burrito and diet Coke and then it's Books & Co. for another night of banging-head-against-novel.

I should chop somebody's head off next chapter just for kicks.

Seriously, I Need to Get Some Sleep

It's like being 17 again, only with professional success, self-esteem, and no curfew.

But I really need to catch up on my sleep.

And get a lot of fucking writing done.

And... but first:

Sleep.

Quote of the Day

"In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal."

Yes, This is What Happens at Planned Parenthood

Over 90% of women of childbearing age use some sort of contraception method. I quickly became aware that my male gender has allowed me to pass through medical school (and life!) totally ignorant of all of this. My patients came in using almost everything–condoms, the pill, the patch, Nuvaring, Depo–and I was left perplexed. What a humbling role reversal–this was one of the first times it’s been so painfully obvious that my patients are more informed about their health and medicines than me.

Valuing Girls

Here's a look at an all-girl public elementary school in New York. I'm not a huge fan of sex-segregated schools, but watching what they do here - naming the classrooms after women of achievement, having women speakers who are doctors, lawyers, football players; promoting a girls-are-women-of-achievement atmosphere - makes for a good look at how things could be really different.