Osama

My God, that was a depressing movie.

Don't get me wrong: the Taliban is utterly fucking depressing (and fascinating. What made the movie are the ways people get around laws enforced by Draconian regimes. I've looked a lot into how Iranians have gotten around these sorts of laws, and it's a good illustration of why a Draconian society eventually breaks down, but I digress). But my God, could we get just one good thing happening for this kid?

I kept expecting her to stand up for herself. Her mother and grandmother basically force her to dress like a boy so she can go out of the house to work. The three of them are starving, her mother's always trying to get a man to escort her (since her husband is dead and she can't go outside without a male relative). But the kid never gets a break. Not once. And she's been so cowed by the system that her disguise... well, let's just say that this girl-dressing-up-as-boy story doesn't end as happily as Alanna's.

What's rough about these sorts of drag-you-down-and-out-constant-badness movies is that they always end up feeling unbalanced. There's some scenes of her jump roping where she appears to be having fun, but basically, all joy, happiness, love, and laughter is totally absent from this movie. I realize some of the lament may be cultural ("if we talk about good things, we'll jinx ourselves, so we must lament our fate"), and a good deal of it is just true... but this really needed a "life can be enjoyable" scene. Just one. Otherwise, life is not worth living, and these women should have all killed themselves by now (and, granted, many women in Afghanistan do and have, but: many don't. Why? It's not just for religious reasons. Even the worst life must have a moment - even fleeting - of joy).

At the same time, the film did what it set out to do, which is allow you to feel a fraction of what it's like to grow up a girl in Afghanistan under the Taliban. This whole time she's running around, I had this sinking feeling in my gut, this low-level terror of getting caught... and what would be done to her when she got caught. Which... inevitably, she is. This isn't a happy ending American movie. Not by a long shot.

I was horrifically sad for the heroine, as well. I wanted so badly to see her stand up for herself, to take an active role, to be an Alanna, basically. But this wasn't about an exception. This was about someone who'd grown up beaten and cowed by a system of oppression. And this is the most likely way things would turn out.

And that sure doesn't make me feel any better about it.

A good film, but don't expect to walk away feeling positive about the current state of the world or how long we have to go.

Facts About Healthcare Reform

I'm all for healthy debate, but please, folks, read the facts before you go debating. Otherwise it's not debate, it's "OMG MY DEEP SEATED FEARS VOMITED IN PUBLIC AND CRAZY KNEE JERK REACTIONS TO DEEP SEATED PERSONAL ANXIETIES AND OMG DEATH PANELS" and that's just... not helpful.

Facts about healthcare reform here.

Rough Nite

J. is out at GenCon til Sunday, so I have this nice big house to myself. Nice change of pace, but I enjoy his company quite a bit. The bed has remained unmade for the last three days...

Trying to save money by trying to eat in and eat reasonably. Failed, but not miserably. Drove around for awhile getting lost. Cheap Friday night entertainment, tho with the price of gas these days, I should have opted for the bike. Would have if my sugar was better. It's been a rough sugar week.

Pod site infection isn't getting any better. May need to pop by Urgency Care tomorrow for antibiotics if it's still red and gooey tomorrow. Antibiotics are a diabetic's best friend.

Life, overall, has been good, but busy. Health annoyances always feel more annoying when life is good. When life is bad, you just come to expect them. Like an old friend.

I need to go write something.

Back in the Saddle

Back in Ohio after a long, good, but tiring break-neck vacation in the Portland/Seattle/Vancouver area. A few highlight below.

Other highlights included: the Space Needle, eating far too much clam chowder, the excellent latte at Pike's Place Market (best I ever had), hanging with my crazy family Saturday night, the incredible view of Seattle from our hotel and amazing back porch and firepit overlooking the ocean at the Seaside beach house.

An all around swell time. More pictures later.















Cannon beach!




















Beating up a defenseless penguin on the Seattle waterfront.




















Pirate store victuals!















Moulton Falls, a bit north of my home town. One of my favorite places.
















Small Powell's bookstore outlet at PDX, right after we arrived on Tuesday.





















Voodoo doughnut Queen. The line to get into this place was half a block long.





















J's very convincing Sasquatch impression at Camp 18 on the way home from Seaside, OR.
















Cannon Beach!





















Falling asleep at the Space Needle while we waited for our table...

I'm a good writer. Now I need to fucking finish things.

For serious.

The Happening

That movie was just... retarded.

The Blood of Heroes

How had I never watched this movie?

Classic late-80s apocalypse movie with strange blood sports that make no sense and people who make a living making armor out of spare tires in a desert wasteland while these pale vampire people rule the abandoned underground cities and watch the more formalized version of the blood sport for fun. It even has Rutger Hauer. It was apparently written by the same guy who wrote Blade Runner, which is how I found it. Comb through IMDB profiles and you can find some interesting stuff.

The surprising part about this movie was that the main character - our plucky hero who wants to join the blood sport team heading through his little town so he can make it to the big leagues in the city - is actually a she, played by Joan Chen of Twin Peaks fame. And holy crap - unlike a lot of other crappy post-apocalypse movies, she actually gets to kick ass! And have meaningless sex! And kick some more ass!

The brutal band of blood sport folks (who go by the ridiculous name "juggers" and run around with chains and dog skulls and yeah, but Mad Max made no sense either handwave handwave) also includes a tough female equivalent of a line backer whose whole face is a mass of scars and a big African American guy with tribal tattoos.

Did I mention that Chen's character breaks people's legs and bites a guy's ear off? Brutal blood sport, right? And she doesn't even have to die at the end! Oh frabjuous day!

J. and I enjoyed this little post-apocalypse romp for its sheer ridiculousness, lame dialogue, silly storyline, and crazy blood sports, but it really stood out to me not because of its B-movieness (I'll watch just about any 80s post-apocalypse show and get some kind of enjoyment out of its craziness), but because it did that thing that is, sadly, really different - I got big brutal heroines and a diverse cast of characters.

I just wish they'd been better actors with a budget and a non-ridiculous script. There's a lot of window dressing here that makes no sense (and let's not even get into the ridiculous of the dog skull thing. Or the chain wielding. Or the... yeah, anyway).

I'm telling you, the Nyx books would be awesome on film.

For a more coherent summary of this bad movie, which helped explain some of the absent, meandering plot to ME, as well, see here (it is worth mentioning - which the reviewer doesn't - that our heroine has sex with two people on the team, not just the team leader, and eyes up some male prostitutes, and she pays no whore price for doing so. Her sexuality feels totally on par with the men's [read: a real person], which I appreciated).

I can be satisfied....

...when just *one* reader "gets" a story.

I'm not sure this makes me a very marketable writer.

I think we are far too in love with being mass-loved. I don't write the sorts of stories that get me mass love. I write about machete-wielding matriarchs.

It does make me wonder, tho, what all of us are writing for? The day job writing pays the bills. The night job writing... more and more these days, I wonder what it's for. It used to be a great way to funnel a lot of anger; a great way to wake people up. We get so complacent in our soft, cozy lives. I've spent the last year oh-so-cozy in mine after nearly two years of terror involving crazy people (one of them being me), chronic illness, job loss, homelessness, grunt work, and soaring medical costs. I live knowing full well that Bad Things can and will happen. You roll the dice. I know what I'm in for. And it makes the soft, quiet, cozy time that much more precious.

I already know what's in the closet. So it does make it hard to visit the horrorshow on purpose at the keyboard every night, when you know it's really out there somewhere - waiting.

Thoughts on Spock/Uhura

One of the quibbles I had about the new Star Trek was the "oh man, the one female character is having sex with her commanding officer" thing. It sucked, cause Uhura was in all other ways such a great update of the character. But see, I was reading this from the perspective of a white chick.

Here's a much more interesting take, which turns Spock/Uhura from EpicFail to EpicWin:

Uhura being single in TOS was not empowering.

She was single because the male leads were all white and as a black woman she was less of a person than them, she was less of a person than a white woman, and the fact that this serendipitously ended up meaning that she didn't have to spend all of her time mooning pathetically after dismissive men does not make that any more acceptable.

She got to sit in the back and rarely do anything and have her sexuality ignored not because they respected her so much as a colleague and a person, but because she was not a full, real human being and when you're not a full, real human being the idea that actual people would ever desire you or romance you or love you is ridiculous. You are invisible.

I love it when somebody points something out that makes me read an entire situation totally differently.

#EAFail

For fuck's sake, you guys.

Link roundup.

Busy

Yes. That is me. But I'm alive. Posting will continue when I learn to manage my time more wisely.

"Wonder Maul Doll" Live at Escape Pod!

You can check out my story, "Wonder Maul Doll" today at EscapePod!

Bonus graphic violence warning!

Twitterbots

I think the reason so many porn spammers try to follow Nyx is because she uses the word "fuck" a lot.

Today's Stats

Only had two regular workout days last week instead of four. Annoying. On the other hand, it was a short and busy week.

When J. and I stopped at Wendy's at 1 am for a "snack" on the way home from our fireworks party on Saturday and I ordered a baconater, I turned to him and said, "This is why married people get fat."

"It's one roadtrip!" he protested.

Then I was reminded of why I don't eat fast food anymore. I felt sick after eating the damn thing, and wished I would have just kept to the almonds and string cheese. But oohhhhh the IDEA of a baconator is just... well, the idea is better than the real thing.

Hot hot hot!

15 min free weights this morning
10 min bike ride to work
20 min weight lifting w/ trainer at work
20 min cardio w/ trainer at work
10 min bike ride home
20 min Wii Fit

Hot Eats

Breakfast: Egg mixed with spinach, tomato, & cheese
Lunch: Chicken curry, low carb tortilla, and string cheese
Snack: 2 tbs peanut butter mixed with 1/4 cup peanuts
Dinner: Pork chop and asparagus
Snack: 5 low carb peanut butter cookies (they were DELICIOUS)


Hot Sugar

Breakfast: 98
Lunch: 161 (had to lower my insulin before cardio at the gym)
Post lunch: 209 (I always forget that the peas in the curry have more carbs than I think they do)
Dinner: 77
Post-dinner: 80

East and West

"Superman and his buddies will be uniting with The 99, superheroes already popular in the Middle East and who personify the 99 attributes of Allah.

Created by Kuwaiti-based Teshkeel Media, The 99 are ordinary people who develop special abilities after coming into contact with a mystical glass. They do not have secret identities and include five female superheroes with one, Batina, who is fully veiled.

The characters — created by five writers who have worked either with DC or Marvel — pray or read the Qur'an."

Ok, time to do some searching on Batina...

UPDATE: Open letter from the creator about why he created The 99.

The Writing Life (or, lack thereof)

I worry these days that my writing isn’t as good as it used to be, because all the choices I make seem to be poor ones. I’ll go through a story or a scene and realize that what I chose during the first pass was totally inappropriate. I keep thinking I’ve lost touch with the words, that there’s some kind of innate feeling for plot, character, structure, that went by the wayside. It’s made the last year of writing incredibly slow-going and difficult.

It wasn’t until tonight, as I went through and worked on the heroes story, that I realized what I was doing. There wasn’t anything different about the choices I made the first time through now than there was three years ago. The difference is, they’re *transparently wrong choices* now. As I go through and clean up the words, I’m seeing the errors – and where those errors will lead – a lot sooner than I would have a couple years ago. It’s like playing a chess game. You can see where this one wrong piece is going to get you somewhere you don’t want to go. So you go back, and back, and back, and figure out exactly where it’s going wrong. You fix that piece. You go forward. Then back, back, then forward.

It’s such a slow fucking process that it makes me feel retarded. I feel like I’m making stupid mistakes that I never used to make. But when I look back at my old fiction, I can see the same mistakes. The differences is, when I wrote them then I wasn't aware of them. When I write a story very quickly - something incredibly inspired that I feel in my gut the whole way through - sometimes the emotional weight of it can mask some of the bullshit for me. That's what those nice gut-punching writing sessions were like. Now, usually, my stories come out like this: bursts and spurts and lame-duck circling.

I feel like a completely broken writer because I can actually see where things are broken. It’s not that they weren’t broken before. It’s just that I can see it now. And it gets me stuck.

I’d call it a blessing, except that’s it’s slowed my writing down considerably, in no small part because it’s caused a total lack of confidence. I just sit here and look at all these broken pieces and I think, “How the hell do these fit together?”

I’m working through the writing funk slowly, but it’s torturous, and it’s been paralyzing me this last year. I started up regular writing times again this week, for the first time in... well, the first time since I had a book 1 deadline. I gave up regular writing times when I moved out of Steph and the Old Man's place, and writing has been sporadic since then. Again, I don’t know if this is good or bad. There’s a big change going on in my writing life, and I don’t know if it’s for the best or not. I won’t know for awhile yet.

I can see broken things now. I just need to stop letting that paralyze me. Failure only really happens when you give up, and not writing much this last year has come perilously close to that. Sticking in the trenches… well, I don’t know. Sometimes you get to hop into another trench on down the line. You get to advance. But in the meantime, you’re keeping your head down a lot, and pissing in a bucket, and that does get old after awhile. I mean, when you start drinking your urine out of the bucket, do you figure you've been in long enough to quit? Or do you wait for dehydration to set in and just pray for rain?

I'm thinking I'll dig a well.

Must be a holiday

Heavy thump-thump of fireworks outside my window. We're less than a mile away from the downtown fireworks show, which plays on the 3rd and 4th. I can see the fireworks from my window here as I'm typing. If I wanted a proper show, I only need to walk out my front door and sit out on the grass in the park next to my house. J. and I did that during the memorial day fireworks.

I really like this house, especially now, when the weather's not too hot or too cold. Everything in my life feels just right.

This Month's Budget

June Budget = -$176.49

+ $247.85 in celebratory expenses

= -$424.34 last month.

All of that went on my credit card, but at least the IRS got their payment for the month?

Bah.

Doing math for July.

Burn Notice

I love this show. Yes, it's formulaic, and silly at times, but man - it's got smart writing and consistently strong female characters, which you just don't see very often in these "damsel in distress" types of shows (let's face it - you don't see this very often, period). I like that all the characters aren't white bread (this is Miami, afterall), tho they could do a lot better on that front (I heard season three mixes it up a bit more, but I'm only halfway thru season 2 right now).

I also love the formulaic episode paired with movement of the overall "bigger" plot. Reminds me a bit of Quantum Leap in that sense. Each episode is self-contained, but there's a bigger story riding just underneath, to the point where it ends up being the subplot.

Smart writing, lovable characters.

Yeah, you just don't see enough of that.

New Writing Time

Some work-in-progress. Trying to get back on the wagon here. I've got a new writing time from 8-9:30 every night. Let's try it on for size.

I've tried starting this particular story several times, but this is the first opening I've written where the setting feels right and the main character isn't a total asshole.

----------------
Yousra had always feared the bodies. Not the ones she killed, no, but the ones out on the hill that the heroes had left to the dung beetles and markflies. The children she killed were marked for death from birth – deformed children, dumb and blind, their twisted bodies already rotten and gangrenous in the womb. Those were the bodies she was tasked with gutting and burning before dawn. Some wombs drew up the pollution of the world, condensed it, spat it back out. That offal was hers.

But the bodies on the hill were men, just men. Tawny and smooth-featured, they were beautiful, all of them... The heroes skinned them from claws to tail and left them to die in the sun. A reminder to others of what waited for them beyond the thorny fence of the village. Some nights, before the double dawn, Yousra would climb up on the hill amid the babies' ashes and listen to the men scream from beyond the thorn fence.

Most days, she merely did her duty and came home. Burned her clothes. Washed her hair in her mothers' blood. Then she slept the peculiar sleep of the priests, the sleep-that-was-not. Her body remained alert while she dreamed, and dreamed, and dreamed. Sometimes she remembered the conversations she had with those who visited while she slept, but more often – especially now – she remembered little more than the dreaming.

So when Ashet, the priest from the neighboring village, greeted her that day and said they had an appointment, she followed after him willingly, blindly. She pulled on a fresh robe of hemp and thorns and tied her machete at her hip. She had never done much more with the machete than murder the village's mewling monsters and cut back weeds, but the weight of it comforted her. A silly thing, to fear another priest enough to wear her machete. What did she have to fear, from a priest? They were not heroes. She knew that well enough. But she also knew that as things got worse, the people were becoming more desperate. Just three days before, a woman burned her husbands and herself. She had run out beyond the thorn fence, covered in flaming pitch, and died screaming and clawing at the earth.

Yousra and Ashet walked to the edge of the village, side by side. She nearly took his hand. It would have been polite. But instead, they strolled along the thorn fence a hands' length apart. Above them, the heroes' ships roared across the purple sky, so high up they were merely silver thrushes.

The big amber leaves of the walking trees shivered as they passed. Every year, the trees grew a new root, pulled up the old, and slowly crept out past the thorn fence. Another three or four years and half their flock would have escaped the thorn fence. Half the flock gone over into the wastelands, the unprotected lands, would leave their fields with barely enough shelter from the ravages of the autumn winds. Ten years more, and the fields would simply blow away.

“Have you thought much upon my offer?” Ashet asked.

Yousra had to think long and hard about that. What was the last offer he'd put to her?

“The marriage?” she said, because in her mind, all of his requests – for milking ale, more time at the village school, a day with her lending library – blurred together into one long litany of need, a black hole of desires she had no interest in filling.

“Marriage is an outdated notion,” he said. “We make families from the dust out here, or no families at all. My brother is anxious to meet with you. I believe the three of us will be a fine fit.”

A fine fit, three to a bed. Yousra had never wanted more than two husbands. She was not greedy. A man to work the fields and bring in income, and a man to raise her babies and keep her house. But there were fewer and fewer women now, and she had to think of the others first. If she wanted to be headwoman someday, she must do what was right for the village, not her comfort. Was it fair to expect her sisters to marry three brothers, while she took only two?

“I'm thinking on it,” she said, which was a polite way to refuse. He knew that as well as she, but he persisted.

“It would be a good life, Yousra. My brother has a fine farm in --”

“I've seen his farm,” Yousra said. She'd tended every farm for thirty kilometers in every direction. Every farm left within the thorn fence. Fewer every year, as the wasteland encroached. “I delivered his wife's babies. All of them.”

“Yes,” Ashet said, and his expression darkened. He fell silent.

Yousra tried to remember the wife, but could recall nothing of her but the sour smell of milk and wine gone to vinegar. Yousra had delivered her twins – two sets of them – all monsters. The woman killed herself not long after. She was not the first. Would not be the last. A waste and a terror, to lose so many women to pollution and madness.

“Is it the labor you fear?” Ashet asked.

Yousra looked at him sideways, then turned away, to look out past the fence. Out on the dry, desiccated land, the skeleton of a thorn tree marked the horizon. In her youth, the tree marked the beginning of her mother's starch farm. Three hundred acres of soy, yams, and grizzled water pears. Waves and waves of it, all through the growing season. Now... just death. Barren and diseased, like Yousra's people. She absently touched the machete at her hip, thought of the dead woman.

“I don't fear birth. I fear that marriages and more children won't be what saves us.”

Ashet smiled. “It's the only thing that can.”

“Is it? To continue with a way of life that's dying? When a man comes to you with a rotten wound, do you tell him to continue with his work?”

“We aren't rotten.”

“Aren't we?” She pointed out beyond the skeletal tree. “My mothers are buried out there. Their bodies ate them from the inside, long before the heroes came. Something rotten has been planted here, and we must cut it out.”

Ashet sighed. He pulled his hands behind his back, paused. “Marry us, Yousra. There is still happiness to be had here.”

“Happiness, yes,” Yousra said, but she was not looking at him. She was looking out at the tree. “But not a future.”

On "Promoting" Obesity

Isn't there some inherent sexism in focusing on the weight of a woman who is making a living because of her singing and songwriting skills? Does every Jack Black interview have to include "relevant" information about his weight? Seth Rogen became a star without a svelte physique. No one cared if we posted about those guys without mentioning their weight, but women must be small and tiny and delicate and therefore feminine, right? And let's not pretend this is a health issue: We see images of stars smoking and drinking and frighteningly thin, and never get emails about how we're "promoting" those unhealthy lifestyles.

Tofu Shirataki

Low carb pasta (no, really!). A blend of yam and tofu that... tastes like noodles! For serious!

I ate a huge plate of this last night that only cost me 25 carbs. HUGE PLATE. It was excellent!

Right after we took our first bite, J. insisted that he's been itching to make me a threeway... (I knew it).

What about low-carb chili, you ask? That's why Skyline chili was invented.

Halva: Fudge for Diabetics

2.5 carbs a serving. No joke! It is tasty and delicious!

This was a totally random find at Jungle Jim's yesterday.

Eating well gets easier and easier as I expand my shopping range.

Team

J is a full-time student now, which means he has a flexible schedule and a bit more time around the house than I do. It means that when I come home from work, he's just come in from working out in the yard, swept the whole house, finished up the dishes, and is usually cooking dinner (I cook on Fri, Sat, Sun, and Thurs is usually a leftover day. He cooks Mon, Tues, Weds).

I clean the bathroom once a week, help with yardwork when I get the chance (generally maintaining my flower beds, sweeping, collecting yard waste), and we generally share dishes and meal cleanup.

We each do our own laundry. Once a week, I also wash the sheets. We take turns taking out trash as it piles up around the house. It's fun to see who gets to it first.

Strangely enough, the only part of this we had the conversation about was laundry. I said I'd prefer to keep it separate, since I still had a weird laundry aversion from my first relationship, where I did... well, every fucking thing. Including his laundry (this would be the relationship that woke me up to feminism. If that was what a het relationship was, I wanted no part in it).

We didn't split costs down the middle, though. We sat down and based our portion of expenses on what each of us brought in. I bring in 2/3 the money, I pay 2/3 the bills. J. still isn't thrilled about this, but I reminded him that if our positions were reversed, he'd have done the same. In time, what we're each bringing in will change considerably, and we can budget accordingly.

I really like this. Every bit of it. For the first time in my life, I feel like I'm in a truly equal partnership. I don't feel like I'm the one always picking up after somebody. I don't feel like I've got four jobs. I feel like I'm with somebody who's got my back. I feel totally supported.

It's odd to me that in many relationships (het or not, but particularly het), the more-messy partner doesn't get how much of a burden that daily chores put on the person who ends up doing them. If you actually share? My god, it's amazing. It really is. All of a sudden you have energy to do things, you're a lot more interested in sex. You're a lot less stressed. And - this is the big one - you don't you resent your partner.

And that's the big part of it that people don't get, I think. If you're a woman and you're doing more than 50% of the housework, chances are you're going to resent your husband. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But the irritation wears you down over time. For me, that kind of irritation is just unbearable. I can't stand it. Some people can let it grind away, and then they fight over it periodically, but for me... yeah.

The sheer inequality in the amount of work we did in my first relationship drove me over the edge. I was working 6 days a week, going to school, writing, doing the laundry, doing the dishes, cooking, cleaning... I was exhausted. All the time. And I thought that's just how it was, and I was the problem because I just didn't "get it." I just needed to buckle down and accept it.

But doing that... it was sacrificing some core piece of myself. Housework is a symbol. Your participation - or not - signals how truly egalitarian you believe your relationship to be (I really think this).

And I'm sure I'll get all sorts of people who say, "Oh no, it's not like that!" but it is (I also, of course, know many instances where partners pick up the slack because their spouse isn't physically capable of doing the work - because of illness or constant travel. That's obviously not what I'm talking about here. If J. or I get sick, our responsibilites will adjust accordingly).

There's just so much bound up in the "woman doing all the housework" thing. It feels so much like institutionalized slavery. This strange, nebulous expectation that so many of us hold ourselves to. I never wanted a husband. I wanted a partner. I wanted somebody who would stand next to me. Not run out in front of me screaming at me to catch up or stand behind me with a whip urging me on. I wanted a buddy. A friend. A companion.

I got that.

And yes, partnership is about a lot more than housework. But how much of your own weight you're willing to pull for your team says a lot about how you regard your teammate.

I like my team.

Motivation!

I could use some!

Also, another air conditioner!

Why I Still Love My IUD

One word:

Libido.

Today's Stats

Today is hotter than hell. I plan to spend the rest of the evening reading in the bedroom where the box air conditioner resides. I should prob'ly start tracking my wordcount here too. Need to get back on the writing bandwagon.

Hot hot hot!

15 min free weights this morning
10 min bike ride to work
10 min bike ride home
20 min on the elliptical
10 min Wii Fit

Hot Eats

Breakfast: Egg mixed with spinach, tomato, & cheese
Snack: 2 tbs peanut butter mixed with 1/4 cup peanuts
Lunch: Spaghetti squash spaghetti and 1/2 cup pecans
Snack: 2 string cheese
Dinner: Chix strips, spinach salad, and peas
Snack: Perhaps a choc covered banana later?

Hot Sugar

Breakfast: 91
Snack: 157
Lunch: 129
Post lunch: 101
Dinner: 89
Post-dinner: 137

Huzzah!

The Money Shuffle

Nobody's immune to it, and I've been hearing more and more about it as those of us who had contracts, savings, and other reserves and fall-backs slowly eat through them.

Things aren't so bad here at Hacienda Dayton, but a judder of nervousness just went round the house this evening when we realized we were very nearly just shy of being able to pay rent on time next week.

J. is now going to school full time, relying on grants and student loans - all of which have been delayed until next week (the quarter started two weeks ago). We've been getting by on my salary and his savings for the last month. I also had $300 in savings, $150 of which we burned through yesterday for a mini-celebration celebrating good things that needed to be celebrated, and which we didn't expect would suddenly mean so much.

A little creative (read: groceries on the credit card) accounting (I get paid Thursday), solved the rent issue, but it was a good reminder that now that he's in school and I'm the sole breadwinner, we need to tighten things up around here... especially with how wacky student loan payouts are (nearly as bad as book check payouts, and on the same bizarre "we're not giving it all to you at once!" sort of schedule - like they'll blow it all on twizzlers and coffee if given a lump sum).

I got the crazy news at work last month that all raises had been suspended and they'd put a hiring freeze in effect (for reasons various and sundry which I won't relate here, but suffice to say, we'd done very, very well last year and this came as a big shock to all of us. Turns out it doesn't matter how well you do if your lending bank tightens its standards because of Great Depression madness). We're not anticipating layoffs right now, but we won't know for sure until mid-July. We've had to dump some core outside help my dept. was getting, tho, and it's meant a bigger workload with no raise (and I already bust my ass at work), which was a big morale buster for me.

In any case, the "what about rent?" fiasco reminded me of just how tenuous our position is, and how much it relies on my continued steady employment (and a late - as usual - book check which I should have signed the paperwork for by now). I don't think we'll have to cancel our August and September vacations, but I was conscious when I put together the September package that I wouldn't have to pay for it until August, so we still have time to back out (i.e. it's not paid yet, just booked and a small down payment made).

Overall, we're going to be a little more frugal, going forward. I'll be going through the budget again tonight and seeing how much of the "fun" bucket can be deferred to the "savings" bucket. With just one of us employed, that savings bucket is going to be more and more crucial going forward.

There's a big neighborhood yard sale this weekend that J. is going to make possible by cashing in his petty change jar so we can free up a few dollars for deals.

We've been living very well. I just got a cold reminder of how tenuous that wellness really is.

Today's Stats

Again, pardon the lists while I get back on track:

Hot rides:

Today was an "off" day for me, fitness-wise

15 min free weights this morning
10 min bike ride to work
10 min bike ride home
40 min Wii Fit

Hot eats:

Breakfast: Egg mixed with spinach, tomato, & cheese
Snack: 2 tbs peanut butter mixed with 1/4 cup peanuts
Lunch: Rueban sandwich and cabbage coleslaw (srsly un-low-carb)
Snack: 2 string cheese
Dinner: Chix strips, spinach salad, and low carb tortilla chips w/hummus
Snack: Half cup blueberries with whipped cream

I should also start listing my "sugar correction" snacks for when I get low. Had a serious low last night of 43 and again after work today (34).

Hot sugar:
Not bothering to post my sugar lows. Been having a lot the last couple of days - due to Wii Fit and new PDM settings. Better than the highs I was having before I finally refined the settings.

Breakfast: 138
Snack: 132
Lunch: 120
Post lunch: 245 (yeah, that rueban was a killer)
Dinner: 91
Post-dinner: 79

Today's Activity

I may start keeping a little activity log here to help track my fitness/insulin/food levels. It may help me stay accountable.

Hot rides:

15 min free weights this morning
10 min bike ride to work
40 min speed walking ("free" day with the trainers today)
10 min bike ride home
20 min on elliptical machine
30 min Wii Fit

Hot eats:

Breakfast: Egg mixed with spinach, tomato, & cheese
Snack: 2 string cheese
Lunch: Spaghetti (made w/ spaghetti squash) and 1/4 cup peanuts
Dinner: Pork chop and brussel sprouts
Snack: Low carb brownie with dollop o' whipped cream

Hot sugar:

Breakfast: 81
Snack: 132
Lunch: 62
Post lunch: 107
Dinner: 154
Post-dinner: 227 (lazy insulin math on my part, adjusted)

Latest Mod

Eyepatch is the best.

Badass of the Week

Blenda.

In The Future...

"In the future, everyone will be anonymous for 15 minutes."
- Seen here.

Low-Carb Brownies

This is a modification of this recipe, as agave nectar is not strictly low carb, but low glycemic index. The carbs still get to you, they just take longer,which is a royal bitch if you you're manually clocking your insulin. But if you're a type 2, agave's probably fine.

Type 1, eh, pain in the ass.

So, bring on the Splenda.

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter
2 cups black beans, drained (low sodium if you can find it)
1 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tsp ground coffee
1 tbs cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon sea salt
4 large eggs
1½ cups Splenda
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line an 11- by 18-inch baking pan foil and lightly oil with canola oil spray.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a glass bowl in the microwave in 30 second intervals. Stir with a spoon to melt the chocolate completely.

Place the beans, 1/2 cup of the walnuts, the vanilla extract, and half of the melted chocolate mixture into the bowl of a food processor. Blend about 2 minutes, or until smooth. The batter should be thick and the beans smooth. Set aside (I don't have a food processor. I used a fork to moosh the beans and then stirred it all together).

In a large bowl, mix together the remaining 1/2 cup walnuts, remaining melted chocolate mixture, ground coffee, cocoa powder, and salt. Mix well and set aside.

In a separate bowl, with an electric mixer beat the eggs until light and creamy, about 1 minute. Add the Splenda and beat well. Set aside.

Add the bean/chocolate mixture to the coffee/chocolate mixture. Now add the coconut (yep, all in the same bowl). Stir until blended well.

Add the egg mixture, reserving about 1/2 cup. Mix well. Pour the totally mixed batter into the prepared pan.

Using an electric mixer, beat the remaining 1/2 cup egg mixture until light and fluffy. Drizzle over the brownie batter. Use a wooden toothpick to pull the egg mixture through the batter, creating a marbled effect.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the brownies are set. Let cool in the pan in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.

Tastes amazing with sugar free whipped topping!

8-12 carbs a piece, according to the meter (that doesn't could the whipped cream!)

Things are so bad we might have to layoff Andre...

(click to embiggen)

Hardworking Dawgs

... have to commute, too.

More here.

Isn't it Obvious?

Of course!

I've always thought we took old manuscripts and buildings a bit too seriously... I can't wait for future generations to work out what the religious significance of The Bean is.

OmniPod Customer Service is Full of WIN

So, I've had the Omnipod for about a year now (as of July).

Except for a truly horrifying batch of pods that arrived during month 4, it's been a pretty liberating experience. You don't realize just how liberating until you have to go back to shots for a day or two and all your math is fucked up and you have to start recalculating and calibrating everything at mealtimes in order to fit in your workouts instead of just, you know, dialing into the PDM exactly how little or how much insulin you want.

See, after a year of being hooked to my PDM like - well, like a diabetic person who relies on it to live - I lost it yesterday somewhere between my office and the bike rack downstairs.

I still have no idea how this happened. I had it when I did my post-lunch correction. But when I leaned over to put my bike chain my backpack - no PDM.

See, other insulin pumps are totally hooked up to you. They have this long tubing connected to their control unit, which is hard to lose. Omnipod is different, which is why I love it. I can run around, work out, go swimming, whatever, with no tubing sticking out. My PDM communicates wirelessly with the actual insulin pod that's stuck to my skin. You only need to be near the PDM when you're bolusing or when you're changing a program (creating a temporary basal rate, suspending or reducing basal rate in anticipation of a workout, etc.). The rest of the time, the pod that's attached to you just doles out insulin according to your pre-programmed schedule.

So, I wasn't totally fucked when I lost the PDM. I was still getting my basal insulin. But the PDM is also my glucose monitor. And the PDM controls all of my boluses. So after spending 45 minutes searching my office, the foyer, the elevators, the entire floor where my office is located, I swung by CVS.

Now let's go through just how much $$ it takes to keep me alive.

I spent $75 on a glucose monitor that I *thought* was compatible with the testing strips I already had. Got all the way home only to discover they were not.

Spent $75 on a vial of 50 testing strips (the smallest amount they come in).

When I called up Omnipod, I was told that replacement PDMs cost $400.

I was getting pretty hysterical by this point.

Lucky for me, the rep was just giving me my options.

"Our new model is also out," she said, and then she said something that I swear to god sounded like, "One thousand forty nine ninety-five."

FUCK.

"No, no," she said, as I began to hyperventilate. "It's $149.95 for the new model."

Fuck, dude, seriously.

I'd been wondering how long this would take. If you can buy a cell phone for under $100, your wireless medical hardware controller shouldn't be $400 (I have since learned that $150 is the "upgrade" price for existing customers. It's over $900 new! SRSLY? C'mon).

She transferred me to shipping. He said, unfortunately, they were totally out of the new model (this was why the rep initially quoted me the old model price). They could ship it Monday, tho.

Queue me hyperventilating again. Because, see, you have to change your pod every three days. The one I was wearing was only good another two days. Then it was all Lantus shots and wonky guessing games again - that meant three days of adjusting to that, then another three days to get used to the pump again when it came in. It meant wild-eyed, bitchy-ass Kameron for at least two weeks.

"Let me call the local rep in your area," the shipping guy said. "She should be able to have one you can borrow for a few days."

I hang up thinking it'll be a few hours before I hear anything. I'm already formulating contingency plans.

Instead, the local rep for my area calls five minutes later and says she'll drop off my new PDM at noon. "It's an old model," she said. "Just keep it. I'm a t1, too. I just got back from Italy, and let me tell you - it's really, really good to have a backup!"

By 1pm - less than 24 hours after losing my PDM - the local rep had dropped off a new (original model) PDM at my house with J. I was able to come home from work and change out the pod without a problem using my new PDM.

Monday, they'll be shipping me the new model next day air, and I should get it Tuesday.

After the hell of dealing with insurance companies, I expected similar crazy treatment from Omnipod. Because it has to do with medical stuff, I conflate my experiences with the insurance company with my experiences with Omnipod. In fact, the folks at Omnipod are pretty awesome. I always get a new pod within 3 days when there's an error with one of them (and the failure rate is down to the promised 1-2% now, as opposed to that three months of horror when I experienced the 20% failure rate), the reps on the phone are always great, and... and this. Well, this was just amazing.

Because... you know what? I hate this illness. I hate it. And what I hate more than anything is being reminded of just how incredibly weak and dependent I am on the good will of other people. It's an incredibly weak and vulnerable place to be. I'm not shitting when I say I was hyperventilating on my way to the pharmacy to get some replacement hardware to get me through the night. I keep repeating my, "I'm fine," mantra the whole time. I was suffused in this incredible, deep, ridiculous fear. When Jay Lake talks about The Fear, about getting hit with The Fear... yeah, I have an idea of what that feels like.

I'm horrified and embarrassed at how totally and completely I'm taken out when this vulnerabilty gets hit. I managed to not break down until after the local rep called back and said I'd have a PDM the next day.

Then I knew I could lose it. Once the crisis is averted, yeah... then you can totally fucking lose it. And I did. And it felt really good to lose it, because it was a crushing, penetrating, breathless fear that I never want to feel again, but that I know I'm destined to deal with because... because this is what I've got.

In some ways, I think I haven't come to grips with chronic illness yet, with what it means. Especially when you've got the pod, you can pretend you're really normal. You can do stuff without too much planning. You have fewer lows, you get more exercise. You don't have to haul out a whole shoot-em-up-kit whenever you sit down to a meal. You just pull out this PDM that looks like a cell phone, bleed on it, punch a few buttons, and you're done.

You're allowed to forget - for weeks at a time - just how incredibly vulnerable you are.

Latest Pony Mod

This was initially supposed to be a Red Bull pony, but things got out of hand. I wasn't so sure how she ended up with wings.

When I expressed my consternation over this development to J., he said simply, "Red Bull gives you wings!"

Quote of the Day

"There is no more pure love in the world than the love a young writer has for the old writer he [sic] will someday become."

- Nabokov
(via NorwichGrrl)

My House is Full of Bugs

This should surprise no one.

Tonight's Song, Stuck on Repeat

You know when you find those songs that just, well, sound like somebody wrote them about your life? That's this song for me.

Well, this and Leed's United. Heh heh.


Five and Dime
The Wind and the Swell

I sleep all through my mornings
Spend my afternoons just lying in my bed
Cause I’ve done everything I could do
And I’ve said everything that I could’ve said
It kills me to think that straight lines
Have taken over the life that I’ve led

So say fare-thee-well to the concrete
I try to stand up on my own two feet
There aren’t any more winds in the road
That will be my time to go

With my eyes glued on the road
And from my fingers to my toes
I am aware of everything that I can know
So I’ll stand tall and I’ll stand proud
I’ll sing a song, I’ll sing it loud
I’ll bury all my apprehension underground

I don’t even know which way to go
I’ll pack my things and head home

I keep smiling at everybody
Passing by me while I get dirty looks
All my friends were empty liars
So I’ve just been hanging out
With the wanderers and crooks
There’s no value in education
It’s just lies and pens and paper and notebooks

Forgot about the state of the world
So I’ll just fall in love with a girl
Got too many years left to spend
She’s all I think about in the end

I’ll take my cue from rock ‘n roll
And everything that I’ve been told
Everything that I have known for my whole life
And I’ve been too afraid to use
And I’ve been too weak to abuse
And too concerned that I might lose this silly game

I don’t even know which way to go
Pack my things and head home

I’ve got some family in Alaska
Got some friends out in old Ohio
And I’d be fine to take some sun
And I’d be more than fine to play in the snow

I don’t want to be no businessman
Don’t want to be no crooked CEO
So take me out to Kodiak Island
We’ll go out to sea for a while
With my legs hanging off the stern
See what I can learn

The Northern Lights say hi
And throw all their colours into the sky
I’ll be sure to tell them that I’m doing fine
There’s just so much to explore
That I have never seen before
There are some things that are
Just easier to ignore

I don’t even know which way to go
I’ll pack my things and head home

Beowulf

I can't believe people actually took the trouble to make this movie. What a waste of space.

Work it Out

I've put on six pounds since J. and I moved in together, largely due to the lack of gym across the street (I got used to the convenience of the gym at The Greene), and our shared love of good food. And, OK, some of this is also weight I put on *because* of the new "low rep, heavy weight" routine with our trainers at work, which has really nicely increased my muscle mass, but I'm not silly enough to delude myself into thinking I've gained 6 lbs of muscle in 8 weeks.

And... well, let's face it: I'm not functioning optiminally when I'm not eating right and exercising regularly. I've been trying to get off carbs for good the last few weeks, but there's the inevitable, "Oh, I'll treat myself to a few fries at Red Robin" or "Oh, Donatoes pizza isn't actually as bad for me as those thick crust pizzas," and then I'm back on the sugar rollercoaster again, and it always takes me a day or two to get back into prime head functioning.

I really needed to be able to write with a clear head.

So, enough was enough. I was just feeling far too doughy. Biking to work every day wasn't making up for the extra workout or two a week that I've been missing since I moved.

So I started penciling in 20 minutes of cardio twice a week (Tae bo) and 20 minutes of pilates twice a week (on the days I also do strength training at the gym). Pair this with the 2 miles on the bike every day, and it should kick me back into gear. I also decided to start packing reasonable lunches. One enchilada or chicken wrap paired with string cheese and peanuts is perfectly fine. I really don't need two.

Next stop is to curb my soda intake. We drink Coke Zero here like it's going out of style. Having cold drinks in the fridge is especially tempting now when it's so damn hot outside. I'm subbing those out again with homemade iced tea. Not only is the soda expensive, but drinking more than one or two disrupts my sleep and tends to trigger my desire for something sweet to go with it.

Strengthwise, however, I've been pretty happy with my new routine with the personal trainers at work. What I love about heavy lifting is that you can see the results within just a couple of weeks. Getting up the pedestrian walkway over the highway on my bike has gotten easier and easier. I went from 3rd gear on my bike to 6th gear in just a couple of weeks of riding, and I know some of that is a result of the lower body training I'm doing during my workouts.

Should take a couple of weeks to norm the new routine. Already feeling far less fuzzy headed. Ah, sugar sugar.

Diabetic-Friendly Low Carb Coconut Cookies

1 cup almond flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup Splenda (3/4 for less sweet)
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon of baking powder
3 tablespoons vanilla (liberal splash, really)
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup of flaked coconut (unsweetened)

Combine all ingredients except coconut and blend with a mixer. Stir in the coconut and mix well. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a cookie sheet.

Bake at 375°F for 10 minutes.

My insulin budget works out to 5 carbs a piece for these.

For 12-15 carb pecan cream cheese cookies, see here.

Excerpt: Black Desert Gets a Plot Shift

Black Desert is currently in the middle of a heavy rewrite. Here's some additional sceneage I was working on today (I'll post something with a bit more action tomorrow):

____________________


“Mercia’s mother called,” Suha said. She put out the cigarette and stuffed a wad of sen between teeth and cheek. Her teeth were stained bloody crimson from long years of use. Both habits were far healthier substitutes to venom.

“She deposit my fee?” Nyx asked.

“Yeah. Says she’s taking you off her daughter’s case, though.”

“You serious?”

“Says she heard we had some trouble downtown today.”

“Fucking diplomats. She should thank me for keeping her daughter alive.”

“I called the bounty note office like you asked,” Suha said. She started the bakkie and turned them out onto south Raban. From here, Nyx could just see the curved amber spire of the Orrizo in the distance – a monument to anonymous dead men. “There’s no record that anybody put out a note on you or Mercia. That bel dame was definitely rogue. Maybe running black work for some Ras Tiegan government official? Somebody who wanted to get to Mercia’s mother?”

“Then at least I’ve got my right ass cheek covered,” Nyx said. The left, she wasn’t so sure about.

Eshe hopped up and down in his seat. Nyx wondered if she was ever that giddy at fourteen. “Does this mean we’re going to the bel dame office?”

“It means I’m going to the bel dame office,” Nyx said. She palmed some of Suha’s sen.

“Thought you made a habit of running black work back when you were a bel dame,” Suha said. “Why do you care so much about turning her in? Burn the head and be done with it.”

“I don’t generally mind folks running around picking up illegal bounties,” Nyx said, “but she made a mistake.”

“And what was that?” Suha said.

“She tried to kill me.”

Eshe snickered.

“You sure they’ll let you in there?” Suha said.

“We’ll find out.”

The bel dame reclamation office in Mushtallah was at the base of the city’s sixth hill, known to many as Bloodmount. Particularly pious Nasheenians paid exorbitant prices to take a brief, musty tour of the interior of the derelict that made up the center of the hill. Most of the hills of Mushtallah were artificial. Their rotting cores were made up of old refugee ships, derelicts from the mass exodus from the moons back at the beginning of the world. Nyx had never been down there – she didn’t much care what came before her – but she heard most of it was sealed off anyway. What was left was just a sterile tangle of old metal, bug secretions, and bone dust.

As they came around Palace Hill, Bloodmount came into view. At the height of the hill, a single tower gleamed a burnished copper color. That was the only visible part of the ship above ground, a twisted metal spire where every bel dame took her oath to uphold the old laws of blood debt.

“You sure you want to do this today?” Suha muttered, and spit sen out the open window.

Nyx stared out at the spire. The bel dame training schools, residences, and reclamation office ringed the base of the hill. From here, she couldn’t see the organic filter that protected the hill, but she’d been through it enough to know that it was the most powerful one in Nasheen. Hard to do, with Palace Hill just up the street. The inner filters were more precise, and more deadly. She didn’t figure she’d get much past the first filter on this little jaunt.

Suha drove to the big, burst-scarred main gate at the base of the hill. This neighborhood was mostly boxing gyms and cheap eateries. There were a few shabby text stores and some bodegas. Nyx stepped out of the bakkie and looked up in the tenement windows above the shops. Teenage girls - bel dame hopefuls and university students - sat around on the tiny balconies. High pitched laughter trickled out over the street. She caught a whiff of marijuana, opium, and the distinctive milky stink of too many teenage women. A couple of leggy girls stood on the stoop of a bodega across from the bakkie. They smoked clove and marijuana cigarettes and wore calf-length burnouses and looked Nyx over with heavy-lidded eyes.

“Can I come?” Eshe asked, leaning out the window. A couple of passing girls turned at his voice and stared outright. One of them stumbled. Her companion shrieked with laughter.

Nyx pushed his head back into the bakkie. “Stay with Suha. This isn’t a good place for boys.”

“Nyx –“

“You heard me. I’ll lose com with you once I’m inside the filter,” Nyx told Suha. “I’m not back in two hours, you file a report with the Order Keepers.” Not that it would do much good. Bel dames considered themselves autonomous. How they dealt with Nyx and her news was no business of the Queen’s, so far as they were concerned - even if Nyx hadn’t been one of their number in over a decade. At least if someone filed a report her absence would be noted.

Nyx motioned for Suha to pop the trunk. She dug the burnous-wrapped bel dame’s head out of the back and slung it over her shoulder. The burnous had eaten most of the blood, but it was stained a clotted amber brown.

She leaned into the driver’s side window and nodded to the side street. “There’s a good Ras Tiegan place two streets over called the Montrouge. Get the kid a soda and some curried dog.”

Eshe grimaced. “Tonight’s fight night.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Nyx said. “Save room for rotis and beer, all right? I might be a bit.”

She wanted to pat his head, but he’d been too old for that for a long time. She snorted. Kids belonged at the coast. Nobody else knew what to do with them. She'd always thought it'd get easier as he got older. But it just got more awkward. Some days she wished he'd stayed eight years old forever.

“You watch yourself in there,” Suha said.

“You watch yourself out here,” Nyx said, and waved. She walked up to the front gate, and turned to watch Suha drive back out onto the main street.

There was a young woman at the gate, just a kid, maybe twenty. Couldn’t have served a day at the front. She had clear skin and clear, shiny eyes. Definitely not a day at the front.

“Here to report a rogue bel dame,” Nyx said.

“You got identification?” the woman said. Nyx held out her hand.

The woman pricked Nyx’s finger and smeared the blood on her desktop slide.

Nyx watched her reaction as the file came up. But the girl barely blinked. She raised her head.

“You’ve got level one clearance. You can go as far as the reclamation office without being cleaned.” She punched open the gate.

Nyx slipped inside. The gate clanged behind her. Old metal, the sort of stuff that came off derelicts. She walked across the courtyard, past the bakkie barns. A couple of tissue mechanics raised their heads as she passed.

The bounty reclamation office was a single-story building of amber stone. Most of the original arches had been whittled away by small arms fire, and what remained had been badly reconstructed. Only half of the bel dame oath was visible. The complete line, the heart of the bel dame oath, was “My life for a thousand.” All that was visible above the office was “My life.” Nyx thought that somehow appropriate, knowing what she did about bel dames.

She hesitated at the stoop. It'd been awhile since she crossed one of these thresholds.

"Well, shit," she said aloud, and hauled the bel dame's head into the office.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Don't. Just... Don't.

I'm all about a good Kevin Smith movie. This is not a good Kevin Smith movie. The characters are not only not likeable (which can be forgiven - there are plenty of unlikeable folks in fiction) but not interesting. There's this crazy misogynist bent running throughout (it's about porn, afterall. Still, I'd hoped it would be a little more transgressively about porn. I should know better than to expect transgression from Kevin Smith).

The real letdown here was Seth Rogan, who I genuinely like in 40 Year Old Virgin, and who I'd really have liked to develop a crush on. But he's actively unlikeable in this movie. He goes off on this really mean, sexist rant about halfway through, and I'd like to think it was just great acting, but I don't get that his depth as an actor could really stretch too far from home plate.

So the show is sexist to the point of misogyny, ridiculously racist, and worst of all: none of it's even funny. If you're going to be sexist and racist, can you do it in a smart, sly, *funny* way? There's a way to do this that's clever. This movie isn't clever. South Park knows how to criticize everybody in a way that's creative and... not lazy.

This is just a lazy piece of storytelling with dull characters who don't even stay in character. It's a lazy orgasm of every "nice guy"'s wish fulfillment fantasy: that the woman you've been pining after for years who insists that you'll always be "just friends" finally has sex with you and realizes - OMG! - she's actually in love with you!

See, guys, all we really need is one good lay.... Maybe if you just get her drunk enough or poor enough she'll sleep with you! THEN SHE WILL KNOW THE TRUTH.

And it's sad, right? Because in the movie, he genuinely likes her, and it made me think of all these sad, groping guys who don't understand the difference between fantasy and reality.

You know, I write fantasy novels, and this fantasy was just too over the top for me.

Lazy writing. Lazy directing. Lazy acting. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

Gods and Monsters and Valkyries Oh My!

I picked up NorseCode based primarily on the strength of the back cover copy and first chapter, which is usually a good sign (Not always. See The Electric Church for first chapter readings that went wrong). Turns out this is the sort of book that makes me second guess my aversion for books clothed in urban fantasy covers (cause c’mon, you know this is how God’s War is going to look).

I’ve known Greg via shared friends/colleagues for some time, but it’s actually rare that I enjoy a book written by somebody I know. It’s just statistics: of all the books being written by all the folks in the SF/F community, I’m only going to like a certain fraction. The folks I know in the SF/F community represent a fraction of that fraction.

So anyways, this is an end-of-the-world-comes-to-California novel, made better by flawed gods and rogue Valkyries with swords. Overall, it’s good eats: totally epic battles and a whirlwind tour of Hel. There are just enough POV shifts, interesting characters, and great settings. It’s a good beach book.

And, of course, it helps that the female characters don’t suck. Who doesn’t want to read about a Valkyrie who’s good with a sword, really?

A couple of personal annoyances: our heroine and her sister had very similar voices. Totally different characters with very different views on life, but when I was in one head as opposed to the other, I couldn’t really tell much difference. They acted/reacted in very similar ways, and had similar thought processes. I actually wondered, for awhile, if they were twins and this was supposed to show how alike they were. In fact, they’re at least a couple of years apart, which is hard to tell based on voice and their interactions.

And, you know, the pan-to-the-lamp “romance” between the Valkyrie and one of the gods was, eh, so-so, and I was reeeeeally glad it was just a “pan to the lamp” romance. I liked that she was the active initiator of the relationship (gods rape human women so much in myth that seeing a human woman initiate was a nice change), but it felt a little strained. I had no idea what they saw in each other, except that they were a man and a woman at the end of the world. Maybe that’s enough.

In any case, this was a fun read. I was pleased to see eight copies on the shelf at the big bookstore in Newport, KY that J. and I visited on our way to see a far less entertaining bit of media...

Terminator, Or What the Fuck Did You Do With My Sarah Conner

This movie would have been better if I wrote it. It wouldn’t have sucked as hard.

How about this: they could have written all the parts that had to do with robots. And I would have written everything that had to do with the people.

It's true, the new Terminator machine concept was great. I genuinely liked the new Terminator model, and the creepy goo behind it. The heart imagery was way overdone (and let’s not even get into who the fuck is going to do a successful heart transplant in a field hospital but anyway), but dial it down by 50% and it would have been neat.

As J. said to me afterwards, “Well… I liked the robots.”

Indeed. The robots were great. They were fast, interesting, and in the case of the Terminator himself, strong, brave, and kickass.

But the people? The people sucked.

Let me tell you the fucking problem with the last two Terminator movies, because it’s pretty bloody obvious to anybody who loved the first two.

The problem is there’s no Sarah Conner. And I don't just mean Sarah Conner the actual character. I mean Sarah Conner the archtype.

I had great hopes for Christian Bale as John Conner. Because, you know, like anybody else who grew up watching Sarah battle it out for the future (her son’s and humanity’s), you really want to like him. No, you want to LOVE him. You want this to be the great, awesome, heroic, courageous leader you’ve been hearing about your whole life. This was the movie where I thought I would see him become that amazing leader. When he spoke, I wanted to be inspired. I wanted to believe him. I wanted a leader.

Instead, what I got was a whiny, hesitant, terrified grunt with a monotone Batman voice and absolutely no personality or charisma whatsoever (when Bale wanted to portray emotion, he yelled. A LOT. “I’M ACTING! I’M ACTING! I’M AN ACTOR!”).

And his wife? What was her name? I’m sorry, I don’t think she was name checked once. But whoever the hell she was, she and John had absolutely no chemistry, and she had no reason for being in this movie except to give you the impression that since she was pregnant it would be OK if Conner died, so you had a bit more suspense there at the end (honestly, I was secretly rooting for Conner’s death, if only because then maybe Bryce could have become the next awesome Mother of the Future in a Sarah Conner way and not a fucked up Padme way, tho honestly, I really can’t stand Bryce Dallas Howard and I have no fucking clue why she was cast in this movie. She acted with all the emotional power of a piece of blank cardboard).

The female characters in the movie are a BIG problem. James Cameron and Linda Hamilton set the bar for female heroines in this franchise, and directors have since gone backwards in their efforts to cast and portray female characters. I suspect this is largely because they felt that the only way to make John Conner awesome was to castrate all the women around him (freeing him from his perceived strong mother complex?). What they didn't fucking realize is that a guy who has a badass mother is going to surround himself with a lot of badass PEOPLE: this guy should have Gina Torres at his right hand. This is somebody who will naturally gravitate toward strong, kickass people, and many of those people will be women.

This is THE FUTURE, you fuckers. It’s a future full of badass people. Who else do you think would be left?

But instead of writing PEOPLE, the writers decided to write (and the directors decided to direct), WOMEN. WOMEN who wouldn't upstage Conner (first tip: surrounding a leader with strong people makes them stronger, not weaker).

What’s wrong with writing WOMEN as WOMEN, you may ask? After all, you don’t just want Conan with tits, do you? DO YOU??

Here’s what’s wrong:

When people who have a lot of preconceived notions about what a “woman,” is, about what “women,” can do, about why this character, in particular, is a “woman,” they’re more likely to write cliché women characters. They’re more likely to wax on and on about the character’s femininity, and take every opportunity to make it clear that THIS CHARACTER HAS TITS. Instead of, you know, writing a person.

Some of the great portrayals of great female heroines were parts originally written for men. This is largely because we all write with a misogynist bent, some of us more than others (you absorb this shit from you culture. Deal with it).

Note that Ripley in Alien was originally written as a man. Both female characters in Alien were originally written as men. The only change they made to the script was… well, it wasn’t. They just cast women for the roles and subbed pronouns. And why did they make this decision? Because the women’s movement was “really popular” at the time, and they figured it would sell more tickets to have more women in the movie.

What is it, exactly, that we figure will sell tickets these days? Not kickass female characters, apparently. Just women in leather who look good getting their asses kicked. The supposededly “tough” women in shows these days are all form, no substance. You can’t just put a chick in leather and hand her a knife. Recall Linda Hamilton’s arms. I BELIEVED she was a crazy psycho who could kick my ass.

I actually blame a lot of this form-over-substance change on Buffy. But that’s a rant for another time.

In any case, there are still a lot of writers who go out of their way to make sure we’re clear that the only reason the women are in the movie at all is *because* they’re women… not because they’re people.

So John Conner’s wife is pregnant (something only a woman can do). And Bloodgood’s character is 1) almost gangraped 2) cuddles up to and falls for the Terminator (both generally things that would only happen if the character was female. Far more transgressive would actually have been to write this as a part for a guy). At least the kid running around with Reese 1) had a useful 6th sense 2) knew how to properly load a gun 3) knew how to get her hands on lots of useful weapons and detonators. I guess that before you hit puberty, you're still allowed to be tough, because little girls are less scary that women with Linda Hamilton arms.

In fact, the one scene where we get to see a chick kicking ass… she’s saved by the Terminator. And even then, she doesn’t even hop back into the fight with him. She just lets him take over the whole fight, and doesn’t appear again until it’s all over, so she can shoot somebody (and puullleeeez, people: she’s been fighting machines for years, living as part of a rebellious underground, and she FORGETS HER GUN when she goes outside? Give me a fucking break. Folks who forget their weapons when they’re wandering around are just stupid, and wouldn’t have survived this long. Don’t insult me by making her stupid, too).

So, the female characters suck. Upshot would be that there were actually some faces (some with actual speaking parts!) that were non-white. At least there are black people, Asian people, and Other, in the future.

Though the Sarah Conners of the world all seem to have died off.

Apparently, the machines were smart enough to kill them off first.

These women were the biggest threat.

One For the Road

One For the Road

“You’re going to get this treatment your whole life. What are you going to do, stand up every time?”

Well... YEAH.

Good Reads

J. was out and about today, so I asked him to pick up a copy of Norse Code on the way home:



I'm already clipping through this one pretty quickly. I get the sense that it'll be inevitably (and favorably) compared to Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

Don't let the cover fool you. It's real urban fantasy, not vampire porn at all! Huzzah!!

Norming Disordered Living

Last night, I was telling J. about the leftovers in the fridge:

"There's chicken rollups and spicy coleslaw," I said, and opened my mouth to add, "Watch out for the cabbage, tho. There's more carbs in that than you think. Calculate at least 30 carbs for that."

I closed my mouth, amused at my own default.

At a certain point carb, insulin, and exercise math just becomes the norm. You do it in your head all the time. Every time I choose to eat something, I start doing the cost/benefit analysis in my head. Sometimes I'll even count out stuff on my fingers at the table.

I realized last night that it’s become so normed over the last three years to budget my carbs/insulin/expected activity level that my subconscious assumes, at some level, that that’s just a concern that *everybody* has.

It was an interesting example of how we unconsciously assume that our defaults must be the “norm.” Doesn’t everyone live like this? Doesn’t everyone want what I want? Doesn’t everyone hold the same values I hold? If they don’t HOW CAN THEY LIVE!?

After all, I couldn’t live without developing this disordered mode of living.

Oh Dear

Gods, why am I watching this show?

Podcast Previews

These will have proper homes on my web page, but here's what we're looking at now:

The Women of Our Occupation (with sound effects)
Genderbending at the Madhattered
If Women Do Fall They Lie
Wonder Maul Doll (will post after it comes out in this form in EscapePod)

First chapter of GW is taking some time to get right. Lots of voices in that one.

This is a Fine Cup of Coffee

Must be Sunday.


Also, sugar is wonky, but that's what I get for going to Denny's. Mmmm caffeinated coffeeeeee!

The Last King of Scotland

"We are not a game, Nicholas."

I am sad we had to have a white male protag to follow around in order to tell a black guy's story. The Ugandan doctor who saves his ass would have made a much better protagonist.

Forest Whitaker is amazing in this movie. It's worth every blessed penny to see him completely nail this performance of a man living on the edge of madness.

Women characters were marginal to the men's stories, and end up in refrigerators 50% of the time (I should say, story: it's still the white guy's story, and he's a really, really awful character), and as said, apparently white audiences aren't expected to show interest in stories about Ugandans unless a white person's involved, but it was a powerful film nonetheless. I'd put off watching it for a long time because I knew it was going to be a downer - what I didn't expect was how incredibly intense it was. Again, watching Whitaker zoom back and forth was phenomenal.

Highly recommended.

Three Extra Years

Yesterday marked the anniversary of my arrival in the ER in Chicago for what we'd later find out was severe DKA. My blood sugar was riding at about 860 (normal is 80). I don't remember must of this, as I was unconscious for the first 12 hours or so. A few things bleed through (someone asking me what day it was, discovering I had a catheter in was allowed to just pee in bed [this took some convincing on Jenn's part], being moved from one bed to another and wheeled into an elevator).

Oddly enough, this month also mark's J's one year cancer-free anniversary. So last night we went out to Pasha Grill, where we're quickly becoming regulars. We also stopped in and had a proper ring fitting at the jewelry store across the way. Due to the wackiness that is the publishing industry, I'll be getting a reasonable infusion of cash later this year. We'd only been putting off the inevitable for monetary reasons, and it looks like those are going to go away here pretty soon.

I feel immeasurably proud that book money has let me do things I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, particularly because I was in such seriously bad shape the year before I sold the book. You don't always get everything you wanted - who doesn't want a six figure book contract and the ability to publish before they're 30? It would have been nice.

But I got *enough.* I got what I needed, and hopefully things will turn around pretty quickly and I can start building a future with short bursts of book money. That would be pretty sweet.

In any case, there is this thing that happens to you when you stare death in the face. Or, at least, it happened to me - and to J to some extent, tho he was always a far nicer person than me.

I wanted to start building toward things instead of running away from them. I ran all around the world. I ran away and away and away. But, you know, I can't run away from myself. At some point I had to turn around and go, "I'm a selfish asshole and a coward and I want to change that." I wasn't a great person. I hated what I'd become when the shit hit the fan. I didn't want to be that person anymore.

And it's been a long journey, trying to get better. Trying to get my priorities straight now that I get all these extra years of life. I've been ready for adult things for awhile now. Ready to build some wealth, buy a house, build a career. I've been doing all those things. But what I realized along the way was that my desire for a partner hadn't really gone away. I still wanted a best friend, a buddy, to have adventures with. I just wasn't adult enough to take care of myself - let alone somebody else. You're never going to find the right person if you're the one who's not right.

90% of everything is timing.

J. and I met a few months after he'd finished radiation therapy. I'd been single for about a year and had stopped seriously looking. We met for dinner because I thought he was terribly funny... and I wanted to talk to somebody else who'd stared death in the face.

Cancer had changed him, just like t1 changed me. He'd become less of a doormat, and I'd become less of a cruel-hearted harpy. We both still lean toward our defaults, which means that when we're together, we balance out pretty well. Love is all very well and good when it comes to relationships. I've loved people. I've had people love me. But... what's the quote? I read a quote from someone that said "real" love is when two people who've been heartbroken and know what they're getting into... get into it anyway. It's the courage love, not necessarily the screaming teenager love, where it's the first time you've ever felt this way and OMG if we aren't together we'll DIE!!

It's the same love, really, just made even more polished by the heat of heartache. I don't think I could have even walked into a jewelry shop and sized rings with *anybody* before having my heart broken. I'm surprised it took so many years to really, truly, get my heartbroken. But then, I'd spent years avoiding real attachment. It wasn't until after I got sick and went through the Jenn craziness that I realized all my walls - though vital to not getting hurt - weren't getting me what I wanted.

I needed some serious heartbreak.

Now I know what I'm getting into. And I'm jumping anyway. I like this future we're building. I like my life this way.

Will there be more heart ache? Probably. The other thing you realize when you're somebody with a chronic illness fixing to marry a cancer survivor is that the chances of death, disfigurement, and further disability are disproportionately high for the two of you.

I'm allowing myself to love somebody who could leave me - whether through death or something more mundane, like waning passion - and I'm terribly happy about it. I know all the risks involved in it. I know it could all end badly, horrifically, spectacularly, but I also know that the years we do get together will be pretty cool and fun. We're a team. We have each others' backs. And for the first time, I trust this, however naive it may appear.

I want a big, bold life.

It just so happens that I now have a buddy to live it with.