Workadooooo

I am so tired.

Autumn

Oh She of the Pink Hair

I called my hair salon today to make my new cut and color appointment.

They have, apparently, fired my old stylist, oh she of the "your pink hair will totally wash out in a couple of days" fame.

I suppose that at some point, all that Rockstar pink hair will catch up with you...

But, you know, despite the pink hair, I did ask for her again. I guess that when folks are paying $140 for a cut and color (including tip), they are less amused by folks who remind me of my sister and give them 2 weeks worth of pink hair.

Some workplaces are far less forgiving than mine.

In any case, new stylist this time around. Should be entertaining to see how it comes out. Hopefully entertaining in a not sucky way, since I have, in fact, been very pleased with all of my ridiculous cut and color appointments at this place, despite the pink.

After spending three weeks and $120 trying to fix a botched haircut at the local Great Clips, paying an assload to get it right the first time suddenly seemed like a great investment.

One For the Road

Training Daze

Now that the pool at the gym is back in order, I meant to get back to the gym tonight on the regular triathlon schedule (as opposed to last week's jogging day, 2 weight training days, and 2 biking days), but I haven't been feeling all that great. A combination of some very late (though awfully enjoyable) nights, wonky sugar, and work stress have really got me down. Healthwise, I haven't been so hot, either, which is related to the wonky sugar, which is related to the work stress. I can't wait until next Thursday when the work stress plummets.

The lousy thing about being me these days is that I'm a lot less flexible than I used to be. Schedules work great, but get me out of the schedule, and things fall down pretty quickly. Or, rather, I exhaust myself pretty quickly.

Sometimes I need to remember that, yeah... I'm just not as super-wow as I used to be, you know... stay up all night drinking vodka and cranberry juice in a cabin in the woods, then hop up the next day, drink more beer, and cram for a history final while navigating tricky group dynamics. Yeah, no more of that. Not that I miss any of that, really...

I just hate things I see as weakness, sometimes, especially when it's coming from me.

Where are my superpowers??

I think tonight is home, reading, bed. No shenanigans.

Being a Female Bodyguard

"What I hate is when you get a member of the royal family. It's the same thing every year: you have to be vetted by a guy from the Saudi embassy saying, "Oh, my God, you are a woman!" At which point you have to throw one of his blokes on the floor and stamp on his windpipe to prove you can do the job."

And if you want to know what Black Desert is about, it's basically this:

"I'm nearly 50 and I am shocked that I'm still alive. I was shocked at 30 and I was shocked at 40. I keep saying it's time to wind down, but I miss doing my job too much. I need the adrenalin."

(Thanks, David!)

V for Vendetta

I love this movie more every time I watch it.

Which might say something terrifying about the state of the world. Or a lot about me. Or both.

I Should Know Better

Workadoo

South Park: All Free, All the Time

All episodes of South Park are now available to view, for free, online.

Wow.

A Woman's Place

And etc.

Back to the Trenches

Just about done with the first pass on Black Desert line edits. Not actually typing them in, mind, just bleeding over the manuscript, which is a mess (yes, that sounds messy, doesn't it?). There's this very obvious chunk of the book where I'm just dithering away until I can come up with the ending (ie get Nyx back in the picture), and I cut out a whole chapter last night to help get over that long, boring pre-ending. I was feeling pretty pessimistic about the whole bloody thing until I pushed past that lull. Then Nyx shows back up, and the book starts again. I'm really going to need to work on that. The secondary characters should be strong enough to carry the book for four chapters, and right now, they aren't. Things which must be fixt....

In other news, I'm thinking about writing some short fiction again. I think some of my struggle is just that I've been spending so long working in one world, in one medium. I love writing novels, and I love this world, but I've been working on bel dame novels, in one way or another, since 2003.

How time flies.

Why is it...

... that writing actually gets *harder* the happier I become?

I think it's just a matter of getting back into constant practice. Giving myself a long break as a reward may not be the best way to manage my new writing all day/writing books all night lifestyle.

Because socializing and gym time have to come in there sometime. Also, cookery, modding, and WoWing... and movies. And French. And... reading. And...

I need a more structured activity schedule.

Yes, I Am Busy...

... but in a good way!

Celebrating Banned Books

I think this is an uber-kewl and terribly creative idea.



(thanks, Tyim!)

"Your Dirty Sex Makes God Send Hurricanes!"

Oh man... can't. stop. laughing...

Shit that Keeps Me in Dayton

Every once in a while, I'll get tired and frustrated with the idea of living in Dayton, and start searching through job ads.

I do this because it reminds me of the hard truth:

If you add in health benefits, I make as much (and, in some places, more - again, if you count the health insurance, which easily covers 5k a year in expenses for me for $10 a month) in this little town doing what I do than I'd make in a big city doing the same thing.

It appears that the swing over will happen once I have 2-5 years of experience instead of 1-2. There's a pretty significant wage jump between the 1-2 years experience copywriting jobs and the 2-5 years of experience copywriting jobs. Once I have the two years of experience, maybe other options will look more appealing?

But so long as this place pays me what they do and offers the health insurance program that they do, I just can't justify *not* living in this blasted heath of a red town.

Man, I love my job. I just wish it was in, like, Columbus or something. You see? At this point, I could totally be OK with the idea of living in Columbus!

And More It's a Small World Afterall

So, the other night, my date brought over a movie called The Gamers. It's a little D&D cult classic, basically a bunch of college guys with a couple of cameras, who document their D&D game in the basement of their school (which you can watch - in all its cheesy, low budget glory - on YouTube)

So I'm sitting there watching the opening where the guys are heading down the hall to start the game, and I'm thinking, man, that dude just to the right of camera looks really familiar.

And then they all sit down around the gaming table again, and yeah, seriously, that DM looks really familiar. I started paying attention to the opening credits, and, lo and behold, there it was:

"Matt Cameron" was playing the DM.

I actually had to pause the movie and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Matt Cameron and I went to elementary school together. We were best friends for a couple of years from third-firth grade. He introduced me to all of the SF books in the library. When I was 16, I saw him again when he came to a production of Macbeth at my highschool where I played Banquo. The last time I saw him, I was dropping him off at his house after taking him out to dinner with the theater crew.

Appparently, Matt got into theater hijinks of his own in college... I totally should have known. He always did have a love for text-based computer games. It was only a matter of time before he found D&D.

According to Wikipedia, he's now a lawyer in Boston, which is much closer to what I figured he'd be doing with his life. Matt was one of those prodigies who skips grades and attends Gifted classes. I loved hanging out with him, and I was sad when we started to grow apart in the fifth grade. He was a really neat friend. And, honestly, I missed all of the book recommendations.

So then today, I'm randomly clicking Stumbleupon links and I get this page on the Scientific American website, and just before I go to click through again I'm thinking, "Man, that guy looks really familiar."

Pause.

"No, really, that guy looks really familiar." I checked the name, and there it was: Chen-Bo. Chen-Bo was one of Jenn's classmates at Northwestern. He came over a couple of times, as I recall, and was in attendance at several social gatherings Jenn let me tag along on. He was pretty awesome.

It's kind of weird to realize that all of the adults out in the world now are, you know, your contemporaries? Because that means that, uh, you must be an adult now, too, with your book deal and corp writing job?

Um?

"Maybe in Ohio, But Not in America!"

Man, I'm not looking forward to voting in Ohio.

Bookery: It's a Small World

Was browsing the bookstore with my date last night and saw a copy of David Schwartz's Superpowers. I had been picking up and talking about books and authors for sometime as we browsed the shelves, but when I picked this one up, the date said, "I think I've heard of this."

He works at a comic book store, so this didn't surprise me.

I babbled about Dave Schwartz for a bit and my date said, "You know what, I think I heard him on NPR. He seemed like a really nice guy."

Man, bookery gets around. "Actually, yeah, you probably did," I said. "He had a spot on there, I remember. He's a total sweetheart of a guy. It's about kids in Madison with superpowers. I think you'll get a kick out of it."

My date bought the book. Note that it generally takes 3-4 brain taps about a book before you buy it, which was why it was interesting to watch the power of media and personal recommendations play out right there. He'd heard of the book on NPR and also listed somewhere online, and then I pimped it. Third time's the charm.

This made me terribly happy, because there are far too many people I know who write books that aren't up my alley, and then I never read them. And then I feel like a Bad Writer.

But hey, I've learned that just because it may not be my kind of book doesn't mean I can't pimp it. And, knowing my date, I think he'll really dig this book, the little comic-book nerd, Terry Pratchett-reading, Dresdan loving little goof that he is.

Sweet beans.