Rome: Finale

Perfect. Absolutely fucking perfect.

At least they realized, the second time around, to keep their time in Egypt short. Whoever the fuck cast that chick as Cleopatra should have been fired. She's the weakest part of the show. Dump her for somebody who's actually interesting, and it would have been a perfect show.

But really, if that's my only complaint?

And Attia, there at the end?

Oh yes, perfect.

Perfect arc, perfect return.

Why can't all television be this good?

Book Love & Book Buying 101

150 pages into Undertow, they were still having tea and discussing plot.

There’s nothing inherently WRONG with having tea and discussing plot, but you know, you do it enough times, for enough pages, and it gets really dull.

Also, I had a tough time connecting with any of these characters. The assassin is dull and whiny. Cricket gets interesting 2/3rds of the way through, but by then, it was all just random explosions and quantum physics over tea, and I didn’t care enough about the people it was happening to. I mean, it was Neat Idea SF, but no really dynamic people I cared about fueling the story.

I also don’t know why the setting never resonated with me. I mean, it’s a lush, humid, watery world, and there are bugs and smells and things, but it wasn’t… it just never connected with me. I didn’t feel like I was there.

I’m always interested as to what makes the difference, for me, between actually being immersed in a setting and feeling like I’m looking at it through a window. Do I need to have the emotional connect to the characters before I can feel it? Do I need to have the characters more immersed in the setting, that is, do I need to connect with them and they need to connect with it, so I feel some kind of connection to it? Or is it all just writing trickery, some kind of magical combination of words, some writerly technique that does this? No idea.

This reading experience left me rather desperate to read about characters I cared about running around in a fully realized setting that I connected with. I’ve had a hell of a time finding good fiction these days. I picked up the Kushiel book about Poor, Abused Imriel Who’s Only Third in Line for the Throne, and I just wanted to vomit, the kid was so damned annoying.

So I went to the bookstore and actually started looking for another Bear novel, Dust (my experience with Undertow was with the book, not the author, as I did enjoy Carnival, though it had some of the same general issues for me), but alas, Dust’s official release date isn’t until the 26th, so finding it is a bit like a treasure hunt.

So I went through other books. Books after books.

After much browsing, it came down to KJ Parker’s Devices and Desires or Daniel Abraham’s A Betrayal in Winter.

Now, I read and more or less enjoyed Abraham’s first book in the series, but did not Love it, so I wasn’t totally sold on the second. I like the setting, and some of the characters, but I never really fell in love with anyone, and when I’m reading, I tend to either need to fall in love with a character or feel some kind of emotional reasonance while reading. I did neither of these with Abraham’s book, but you know: it had good women characters, an interesting setting, and a new fantasy world with an interesting magic system and dynamic landscape.

The KJ Parker book was quite lovely, beautifully written, and had some really interesting concepts. It was also half as much as Abraham’s book and twice as long. More for my money, and all that.

So, what decided me?

Well, I opened up KJ Parker’s book several times at random and read big sections. All three places I opened to were full of situations, conversations, and fights between and among men. Every single scene was 100% full of male characters. There was not one woman to be seen (this may be one reason I haven’t finished Jonanthan Strange and Mr. Norrell, either).

I opened up Abraham’s book several times at random, and you know what? There were women characters in there who TALKED and EVERYTHING. Some of the chapters were even ENTIRELY FROM THE POV OF A WOMAN!!! IMAGINE!!!

And, to be honest, I’ve gotten tired of stories All About Men. I’ve gotten tired of stories that ignore me or tell me I’m stupid or are, merely, indifferent. It’s as if the author didn’t even deliberately ignore, they just forgot. I read stories about men all day long. Mostly, stories about men doing terrible things to women (it’s called The News). I’m tired of reading about nothing but men all day long. Your book doesn’t even have to be, you know ALL women. Just acknowledging that women exist in your world may even be enough! That’s how desperate I’ve gotten.

So I sat down with A Betrayal in Winter, and ah yes, here it is, the difference between books that I remember and books that I don’t. Though he does that annoying Martin thing where he introduces a character in the Prologue and makes you care for him and then kills him, well, you know, he proves up front that he can write characters I’m interested in. I may not fall in love with them, you know, but they are interesting, and I’m invested in their adventures.

And, you know, as ever, the women characters Don’t Suck. Honestly, you have no idea how rare it is in SF/F just to find more than one woman character, and have her Not Suck. Abraham’s women characters don’t suck. I may be annoyed that most of them are defined by their relationships to men, but you know, when dealing with some of the societies he’s built, that’s how they’re defined in those societies, and it’s not like the men aren’t defined by their relationships to other men, either. Just sad that all those societies are like that. In, you know, fantasy.

You gotta mix it up sometimes.

In any case, I’m enjoying the Abraham book, even if there still aren't any women chopping off people's heads.

I'm sure they'll get there. Maybe there will be a Rome-like network of women playing politics behind this big brothers-who-kill-each-other-for-the-throne thing? I mean, maybe not all of them shuffle home in defeat when they're husband is toast, but become active players. Like women do when all the men are off at war all the time. I don't buy that we all just sat around sewing, or that all that sewing was totally benign.

I'm just saying.

UPDATE: pg 57 of A Betrayal in Winter. Yes, indeed, we do get to the Rome-like female politicking and backstabbing... yay!

Well, That's Done

Registered for Wiscon today. I'd been back and forth about going for awhile, but Jackie was looking for a roommate, and *I* was looking for a roommate, and it started to seem like a good idea again.

So, it's on.

22 Days

I stepped out of the elevator at work this morning and was confronted by a big countdown paper sign that said "22 Days."

Ah, yes... It's now 22 days until Tax Season.

If you didn't know that, well, then, like me, you've never worked in the tax business before. It's like a whole other way to live, an entirely new seasonal model. "Christmas is in February" is my new mantra.

Things are balls-to-the-wall (tits to the wall? I like that expression much better) from now until February 20th.

And if I still have a job in May, it means I did well and we made money. If I don't, we (and/or I) didn't.

Tra-la.

1500 stores open January 2nd.

Wheeeee!

Actually, I Think I'm... Bored.

Wrote 1500 words today. Tonight, there's nothing to clean because I caught up on all that on Saturday. Bills are paid and filed. Ate some cheese. Watched the first half of "Out of Africa." Just reading the last 50 pages of Undertow. Already modded two ponies this month. I guess I could could go back to threading the hair on the third. Once I finish Undertow I could start reading Acacia, I guess...

But mostly, after realizing I was nearly done with Undertow, I've been wandering around the house, wondering where all of this time has come from. I'm caught up with work at work. And yes, the cleaning, again, is caught up. The sheets are washed. I'm stocked up on neccessary drugs. Black Desert is on track for that March completion date. Supplies are bought.

This is why I have that gym membership, because these long, cold nights in Dayton start to get realllllly long this time of year. Back to the gym tomorrow, it appears.

I guess I could always work on my French.

I should be happy I'm caught up on everything, but mostly, there's this sense of loss. I always need to have eight projects going on at once, or I start to feel empty.

Also, for some reason, I have a headache.

Gym tomorrow.

I should go bowling Saturday.

I should join a book group.

I wish real writers lived in Dayton.

Also, that there were better places to eat.

And I wish I made more money.

And had a car, so I could just up and drive somewhere for the weekend.

I miss the ocean.

Tra-la

Black Desert (Excerpt)

So I've got a new writing soundtrack. I'd forgotten how great the soundtrack to The Fountain was, and now that I've got it, it's great to write to.

That said, here's another excerpt:

---------------------------------------

7.

The night train to Beh Ayin took Rhys southeast, across some of the most contaminated habitable wilderness in the world. Unlike the interior, much of Tirhan was vividly green and verdant, so full of color it hurt Rhys’s eyes. The abundance, however, was deceptive. The blue morning laid bare groves of giant, twisted mango trees draped in ropy clematis and pink-budded coral vine. Swarms of giant flying assassin bugs clotted the air above the groves, and though they were too small to see, Rhys could feel hordes of mites and scalebugs chewing at the mango grove, ladybugs and mantids eating at the pests, and more – mutant cicadas, wild locusts and wasps; giant, pulsing wasp swarms with nests so big he felt their heartbeat from the train.

As the second dawn swallowed the first, the train passed through the mango groves and into the sprawl of the jungle. Rhys watched the tangle deepen, the color of the wood darken, the light change as the train pushed on. The trees here were monstrous, three hundred feet high, and the world went dusky violet. He caught the smell of wet black soil and loam, sensed the stir of leaf beetles and mutant worms. Giant orange fungus, bleeding yellow pus, cloaked the bases of the trees, and the swarms here were vibrant, more alive than anything else he’d felt outside of a magician’s gym. It was a beautiful world, and dangerous. Nothing human lived out here. Not for long.

The train went on.

They pulled up out of the dense jungle sometime around mid-afternoon and ascended into the more habitable part of the southeast, up into mist-clouded hills shorn of their undergrowth. Rhys had never been to Beh Ayin, though he knew it was once a political and cultural center for the Ras Tiegans before the Tirhanis invaded and burned it out. The flat black plain of Beh Ayin was not a plain at all but the top of a low mountain, shorn smooth. The mountain was called Safid Ayin, after the Tirhani martyr who died there while trying to burn out the Ras Teigans. In the end, the last of the Ras Tiegans had thrown themselves from the sheer walls of the mountain rather than face death at the hand of infidels. Not so long ago, by Chenjan or Nasheenian standards – a hundred and thirty years before, perhaps. The city walls were fitted stone, no filters. Tirhani magicians were in short supply, and they did not have enough to maintain filters around most cities, even those prone to contagion like Beh Ayin.

The train moved into Beh Ayin from below, curving into the dark recesses of a smooth tunnel bored out of the mountainside. They ascended into the belly of the train station - an airy, amber-colored way post made up of delicate arches.

At the station, a thin Tirhani woman immediately approached Rhys as he stepped off the train. She introduced herself as Tasyin Akhshan, special consulate to the Minister of Public Affairs.

“And what exactly is it that a Special Consulate does?” Rhys asked.

Tasyin smiled, but her jaw hardened, as if she clenched her teeth. She was, perhaps, forty or fifty, difficult to say this far from the filters and opaqued windows of the cities. She could have been far closer to his age, though by the look in her eyes and the set to her shoulders, he doubted it. She dressed in simple, professional Tirhani garb; long loose tunic and loose trousers, pale gray khameez. But out here in the jungle, she wore boots instead of sandals. She wore a deep purple wrap around her dark head, and it made her eyes stand out all the more, the pale whites with dark centers.

“We spend too much time on mountaintop train platforms,” she said, “wondering why we’ve been sent a Chenjan for the translation of Nasheenian.”

“I spent six years in Nasheen,” he said. He was always a foreigner and a Chenjan, even – or perhaps especially – among the Tirhani. He’d spent his entire adult life proving that being foreign did not make him incompetent.

“Explain that to the Nasheenians,” Taysin said. “Come, it’s warmer at the hotel.”

The hotel was a squat, white-washed residence at the top of one of the city’s artificial hills. A rolling curtain of dark clouds obscured the sky, and the wind was high and cold. They passed through an old Ras Tiegan gate and up a cobbled way that dead-ended at the hotel.

Tasyin buzzed him through the gate and into the courtyard, a tangle-filled garden with broad palms and heart-vines dressed in leaves twice the size of his head. Giant yellow lizards scampered through the undergrowth. The house staff had prepared a late breakfast on the porch.

Rhys sat down with Tasyin and ate a light meal of lizards’ eggs, burst toast, and cinnamon squash while she explained why it was she needed a Nasheenian translator at the edge of the civilized world.

“You’ve done work with the Minister before, so I trust you are discreet,” Tasyin said. She crossed her legs at the ankle and stuffed a pipe full of sen. “I want you to convey my words exactly, and if that means it takes you extra time, fine. The client is sensitive, but I need to be clear about their intentions. Do you know anything about Nasheenian culture?”

Rhys considered telling her that he’d once spoken to the Queen of Nasheen, but thought better of it. “I’m familiar with several different strata of Nasheenian society, yes, and the social mores of each. Are they First Families? Magicians? Or a lower sort?” He was more comfortable with the lower sort. He’d been a member of the lower sort for eight years in Nasheen.

Tasyin cracked the carapace of a fire beetle and lit her pipe. “What do you know about bel dames?” she said.

Rhys choked on his toast. He covered with a mouthful of juice, and took his time recovering. Why were Tirhanis doing business with bel dames?

“You know something of bel dames, then?” she asked.

“I’ve known a few, yes," he said, and drank again. More than a few.

“Excellent.”

“You do realize that bel dames are not representative of the Nasheenian monarchy? Your negotiation with a bel dame won’t be honored by the Nasheenian government.”

“We’re well aware of how the Nasheenian government operates,” Tasyin said. “This is a personal negotiation of goods and services.”

“Of course,” Rhys said. “I meant no disrespect.” Whatever he said and did would be relayed back to the Minister. Remember that you’re an employee, he thought. It’s not your place to question.

But there it was, tickling his mind, nonetheless: Tirhanis were doing business with bel dames.

“They’ll meet with us here for high tea,” Tasyin said. “If all goes well you should make the evening train back to Shirhazi. I’ll ask that you don’t make any calls or outgoing transmissions while you’re here. We’ll be filtering the hotel in an hour.”

They sat out on the porch for a few minutes more while Tasyin finished her pipe and Rhys finished breakfast. She had one of the house staff, a veiled Ras Tiegan girl, show him to his room. High tea was a Ras Tiegan custom, and generally occurred in the early afternoon. He had at least four hours. If he could not contact Elahiyah and the children, his time would be best spent working on some of his side translations for local merchants and friends of Elahiyah and her family. But Tasyin’s invocation of Nasheenian bel dames had put him on edge, and there was an old Tirhani city to explore. He wanted a mosque. A cool, quiet, mosque. Sanctuary.

Rhys exchanged his sandals for sturdier shoes and asked to borrow a coat from one of the house staff. He pulled it on under his khameez and walked back through the old Ras Tiegan gate and into the city center. The big red sandstone Ras Tiegan cathedral had been converted to a mosque, and much of its somber, image-heavy exterior had been defaced and resculpted into images of magicians and shifters, half-human forms.

It was still sometime before the next prayer, so he walked into the mosaic-tiled courtyard, across brilliant crimson and green figures of thorn bugs and fire beetles and glittering yellow farseblooms. He stepped into the covered promenade and then under the archway that led into the deep mouth of the mosque. Inside, the air was cool and dim. He waited just inside for his eyes to adjust. Before him stretched colonnade after colonnade, staggered like pawns across the sandy red floor. They supported a peaked ceiling so high and shadowed he could not see its end.

As his eyes adjusted, he began to walk further into the mosque. He saw light there, at the center of the forest of columns, somewhere just ahead of him. He followed the column of light, drawn to it like a thirsty man to water. The light fell into a small round courtyard, by accident or design, he wasn’t certain. As he approached, he saw water bubbling up from the center of a smooth layer of red pebbles. A single thorn tree grew there, scraggly and thin, clawing toward the bruised sky.

He heard the far-off scrap of footsteps on sandstone, the low whisper of the wind outside. But as he stepped into the light he heard another sound: the rustle of wings; a bird taking flight. He turned his head up, too late, to look at the top of the thorn tree. He saw no bird. Instead, he saw a single feather float down from the top of the tree there along the edge of the open roof.

Rhys watched the feather settle there on the crimson stones at his feet.
A single white feather.

Something inside of him stirred. Old memories, a place better forgotten. And there, somewhere deep - an old, aching, missing piece.
He reached for a pistol at his hip that he no longer owned.

“Rasheeda,” he said aloud.

And suddenly the mosque was dead stone, cold and dark. No sanctuary.

He knew who waited for him back at the hotel.

What he didn’t know was why it had taken so long for them to find him.

"Chances Are, You Will Die in Poverty." But...

"If you are any kind of an artist at all, somebody somewhere is going to hang his or her life, emotional well-being, and/or recovery on your work. It’s a sacred trust.

Try not to screw it up."

One for the Road

It Only Took Me 27 Years to Get There... But I Sure Do Feel Better

The Minnesota research suggests that girls who felt good about themselves were more likely to be physically active and pay more attention to what they ate. They didn't lose much weight, but they made healthy lifestyle changes that at least prevented them from gaining more weight. Meanwhile, the researchers found that the girls who were the most dissatisfied with their size tended to become more sedentary over time and paid less attention to maintaining a healthy diet. Those who were unhappy with their bodies were, in fact, more likely to gain more weight.

Really, we've gotta stop with the "fat is an indicator of health, happiness, and quality of life" thing.

Like so many of the bullshit "truths" of life, this one really heads people down the wrong road.

The Whole World Goes Dark

Hit a vien this morning with my insulin shot.

Man, I hate that.

Sugar crash, whole world starts to goes flicker-dark, 45 minutes after shooting up.

Really hate that.

One for the Road

Ahhhh, right.

Another good reason to watch Rome.

Cause I found Nyx:



OK, so she needs to be taller, darker and put on ten more pounds of muscle, but watch her take on the guys in Rome (in every way), and oh yeah - that's Nyx.

I love it when that happens.

But why aren't they writing strong heroines for actresses like this one to play who aren't, you know, whores and crack addicts?

That's for me to write, I suppose.

Sometimes I get this feeling that I'm the only one who wants a woman to seriously kick ass in a not-sexy way. I want her to be fucking SCARY.

First Snow (Still Snowing)

Today's Song, Stuck on Repeat

I find it vaguely annoying that I've had a song stuck on repeat the last two days that spells "You"... "U."

Gah.

In any case. Clarkson's got a couple Alanis-like songs. This one and "Never Again" are favorites of mine. Shades of Angry Woman, marketed as bubble gum pop.

Proving that you can mass-market Angry Woman so long as you sugar coat her in bubble gum pop.

------------------------------------

Since U Been Gone
Kelly Clarkson

Here's the thing
We started out friends
It was cool, but it was all pretend
Yeah, yeah, since you been gone
You're dedicated, you took the time
Wasn't long 'til I called you mine
Yeah, yeah, since you been gone
And all you'd ever hear me say
Is how I picture me with you
That's all you'd ever hear me say

But since you been gone
I can breathe for the first time
I'm so movin' on, yeah yeah
Thanks to you, now I get what I want
Since you been gone

How can I put it, you put me on
I even fell for that stupid love song
Yeah, yeah, since you been gone
How come I'd never hear you say
I just wanna be with you
Guess you never felt that way

But since you been gone
I can breathe for the first time
I'm so movin' on, yeah, yeah
Thanks to you, now I get, I get what I want
Since you been gone

You had your chance, you blew it
Out of sight, out of mind
Shut your mouth, I just can't take it
Again and again and again and again

Since you been gone (since you been gone)
I can breathe for the first time
I'm so movin' on, yeah yeah
Thanks to you (thanks to you)
Now I get, I get what I want
I can breathe for the first time
I'm so movin' on, yeah yeah
Thanks to you (thanks to you)
Now I get (I get)
You should know (you should know) that I get
I get what I want

Since you been gone
Since you been gone
Since you been gone

What Else?

Nothing else to say, really. All 1500 of our stores open January 2nd. It is tax season, and the Crazy has just begun.

Really, not a lot of tangible things happening. I don't have much time to overthink, rethink, or contemplate. Still Too Much Boyfriend, but in a good way. I have added gymming, French, pony mods, and getting my sugar numbers back under tight control to that, so all's fair. Am succeeding moderately well with these.

Still need to do more writing. I am overfull of writerly angst right now, however. Probably something to do with being on crazy work writing deadlines.

It's a matter of getting my shit together. Tra la.

I do wonder if there's a limit on things you can do well all at once. I'd really like to write a lot, succeed at my day job (which pays my health insurance, thanks), and have a happy personal life, but I'm thinking you can only get two out of three at a time.

I don't like that math, though.

Latest Pony Mod

Because when it gets cold and dark, you can only spend so much time at the gym, working on your French, or writing.

Just Because

Cold

Right about the time winter starts, I'm already ready for it to end.

Also, I can't wait until the end of tax season, mainly because it'll be interesting to know if I still have a job.

I would love to still have a job. That's what I'm working toward.

Praise Be

I got my health reimbursement check today.

Also, my endo loves me and filled out my paperwork so I can get one of these. Yay! I'm just getting my bloodwork done, and they'll start negotiations with my insurance. Which now appears to be working.

My A1c is a stupid 6.6, which, yes, is perfectly acceptable for a t1 (anything under 7 is good), but dammit man, I had a 5.9 last time! 5.9, people!! That's the A1c of a NORMAL PERSON.

Yes, I'm shooting for under 6 for my next visit. Might be tricky, but hopefully the pump will help, too.

Overall, she was once again very happy and impressed with me, which I find... really strange after my terrible endo experience in Chicago. I'm getting all of this praise for my great A1c and 110/62 blood pressure, instead of having somebody beat me down about my weight at every visit and try to peddle me more drugs (yes, I'm still only taking insulin. My last doctor tried to get me on metformin and something for high blood pressure. High blood pressure? 110/62? WTF? Yeah).

I was dreading this appointment like you just can't believe. I didn't realize how those horrible Chicago visits had trained me into believing that visiting the endocrinologist was the worst thing in the world. I always left there feeling beaten down, defeated, like I was a completely worthless person with an out of control weight "problem" and appetite who had to be heavily medicated and was going to get her feet chopped off any day. Getting all that bubbly praise today was just so weird. I wanted to cry all over again.

Stupid diabetes. Why can't doctors treat their patients with respect? We're not all actively trying to get our feet chopped off, you know. Some of us work really fucking hard every day to do well. We'd appreciate some help. And a kind word of acknowledgement that pulling off even a 6.6 isn't easy.

No More Corp Writing

Do corporate writers get a writers' strike?

No?

Cause if we do, I'm ready to take one.

Yes, January 2nd is the beginning of tax season.

The Crazy is nigh, and we're about to head down the pipe.