Fitnessery

The long winter was rough on my fitness level and my jeans size, as I've noted before. When I realized two months ago that I'd gone up a size over the winter, I realized it was time to get my crap together. The problem is, it's difficult to figure out the best way to get your crap together when you're already working out several times a week.

For me, it's about finding the right balance of intensity and endurance. For nearly a year, I've been up at 5:30 in the morning doing 30 minutes of pilates and free weights, but it was just so low intensity that about all it was good for was flexibility and casual activity maintenance. I was getting about 20 minutes on the elliptical a couple nights a week, too, but this was dramatically different to my workout back in November, when I had two solid 30-40 minute workouts through my day job fitness program every week (suspended in December), plus five days a week of pilates, plus biking to work five days a week, plus another 3-4 days on the elliptical. Good weather is good for fitness.

But if my fitness level drops, my mood and energy start going wonky, and it very quickly gets tougher to fit into my existing clothes - and we all know how much I hate shopping for clothes.

When I got on the scale a couple months ago, I discovered I'd gained a whopping 18 lbs over the winter. Seriously? I thought, in just four months? Besides the money-spend on clothes shopping (I've long given up hating myself over weight. It's not so much asthetic as practical anymore), the frustration, for me, was the I just didn't feel very good. I was having more trouble controlling my blood sugar, I was more down than usual, and I just didn't have any energy. Going to bed at 8:00 pm sounded like a fine idea some nights. Not because I did anything exhausting, but because I felt depressed.

So, even with a modicum of fitness in the mix (30 minutes in the morning and 2-3 days in the evening), I was not at my best.

By concentrating on cleaning up my diet (oh, I do love that low-carb coffee cake, but eating one a week was a little much), I easily dropped 6 lbs in a couple weeks, but without the fitness part, I was still tired all the time, with wonky sugar, and still stuck buying new jeans.

It was time to mix up my fitness routine. The new day job was great for switching up my fitness routine, so when I started there at the end of March, I started biking six miles roundtrip. With all the lights and switcheroos, it takes about 20-25 minutes to get there in the morning and again to get home at night.

But this still wasn't cutting it.

Pilates, relaxing as it was in the morning, wasn't the best use of my time either. The great thing about my morning routine was that - unlike my afternoon elliptical slacking - I did it every morning without fail. So I needed something in that timeslot that was going to make the best use of my time.

See, I always put off changing my workout routines as long as possible because, of course, there are a couple days of insulin adjustment involved, and highs and lows and math and needles are always annoying at 5:30 in the morning (for those interested, the magic formula was calculating 10 carbs for breakfast instead of 12 and then rounding down the number of insulin units my meter calculated for me, unless my blood sugar is below 90 during my morning test, at which point rounding up is actually better).

So I went ahead and pulled out my copy of Jillian's 30-Day Shred and said, "OK, it's time."(and if you think Jillian is like some Jane Fonda "squeeze your butt while wearing a leotard" thing, think again. Her videos are the closest thing to the tough-love circuit training I was getting at the POW gym back in Chicago, with the same immediate results).

This 25 minute cardio and strength routine regularly kicked my ass when I first got it, but I'd set it aside for awhile and moved on. So Monday morning I got up at 5:20 a.m. just to make sure I had enough time in case of sugar wackiness, changed my clothes, and got started. At the end of it, I realized that all that bike riding had indeed actually been paying off, because my endurance was much better than the last time I'd done the workout.

What I love about this routine is that the fitness, energy and endurance improvements are evident pretty much immediately. On day one I was bouncing around at 6:00 a.m. ready to start the day. By day two, I noticed a marked improvement in my bike riding and on day three the workout was already a lot easier. Last night, I noticed better definition in my arms, and this morning I stepped on the scale for the weekly weigh in and found that I'd dropped 2 lbs. Not bad for 25 minutes in the morning (and another 40-50 minutes a day of bike riding, of course, but the morning workout was the only thing I changed).

I also went ahead and took another look at my diet to make sure I'm making the best use of my calories. I made the switch from almond flour to soy flour, which has half the calories and only 4 more carbs per serving (and still less than half the carbs of regular flour). It's also cheaper, so: win!

The last big push will be to break my new daily popcorn habit at the day job. We have a popcorn machine here at work, and I regularly eat 2 cups of popcorn as a complement to my lunch. That's an extra 200 calories a day, which doesn't sound like much until you realize that's 4,000 calories a month.

It's the little things, you know? They add up.

At any rate, this week has been bursting with far more energy and alertness, much improved sugar numbers, and a noticeable toning of my legs and arms, which has gone a long way toward improving my strength on the bike, too.

I'm still looking at trying to fit in at least two more workouts per week, preferably at the boxing gym downtown. Downsizing freed up some cash for J. and I and it looks like we'll be able to start boxing classes next month. I figure that's another 2 hours of fitness a week, which should be about right to get me to the level I'm most comfortable at.

It's funny, you know, because there certainly is a genetic component to how *easily* one can lose weight. For those of us with the best of the survival genes, it's not that we *can't* be 150 lbs (or 185 lbs, in my case. I don't ever want to see the tail end of 170 ever again), it's that doing so requires a lot *more* effort than most people. In fact, I don't expect to see that wishy-washy 185 by making these changes. What I want out of this is to get me at the fitness level I'd prefer and get me back into November's jeans.

That's it.

And to do that will require about 1.5-2.5 hours of exercise 5-6 days a week. That's just how fun it is to be me. And probably another reason why I get so pissed off all the time when people assume that anybody clocking in at over 200 lbs must just be lazy and sit around eating donuts all the time. This is what it takes for me, personally, to clock in at around 200 lbs. More than that requires extreme self-deprevation of the 1400 calories per day and 2-3 hours exercise 6 days a week, and you know what? That's not the life I want to live. I love my body. I love being big and strong and scary. If I'm too hungry to throw a good right hook, what's the point?

I'm all about practicality, people.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Because in the face of Nazi invasion, this is generally the best thing you can do as a civilian.

Well, that, and join the resistance. But for those of us often overwhelmed by simple daily living, it's not a bad mantra for life-crazy. Sometimes we get worked up over the daily grind like it *is* a Nazi invasion, and you know? Not so much.

Lunchtime Limbo

While I have a few minutes here at lunch, how about some updatitude:

Pandorum was a great little lower-budget SF movie about one of my favorite tropes, which isn't done enough in movies (likely for budgeting issues). Also, unlike most French films and pretty much all apocalypse novels/movies, the desperate folks were far more interested in eating the ass-kicking female character than raping her, which I appreciated. Because, you know, when you're starving and desperate you're far more likely to eat somebody than rape them (dunno what you all feel like doing when starving, but sex - forced or consentual - generally isn't the first thing that comes to mind). Also, space zombies.

The longer I work at an ad agency, the more I love Mad Men. Am on season 2 and still in love. I had somebody say they thought all of these characters are intensely unlikeable, so they couldn't watch it. I actually find all of these characters intensely interesting because of their crazy faults. I love watching how other people justify their poor behavior. I love watching people put home/work into neat little boxes and pretending those worlds will never meet. I love watching the lies and half-truths and understandings people come to that allow them to do business every day. And I love watching that struggle. In part, what I love so much about this show is that nobody is perfect. Even more, I love watching people navigate a social climate slightly different from my own. They say that folks who read a lot of books tend to be more empathetic, in part because they're exposed to so many different points of view. I don't have to agree with what you're doing to understand why you did it. Mad Men is a wonderful romp through rich-white-people-are-crazy-land.

I finished reading Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood, which was a great little SF jaunt. Atwood's poo-pooing at SF the last few years had really turned me off to her, and I'd forgotten what a good writer she is (if you haven't read The Handmaid's Tale, how is it you're a reader of this blog??). It's a solid little book about gene splicing and the end of the world. Strong female protagonists, rich setting, fun thought experiment, and did I mention end of the world? However, unlike Pandorom, she did fall into the "all bad men want to do is rape women especially during the apocalypse when they are starving" thing, which was a tougher suspension of disbelief than aforementioned gene-splicing apocalypse. Have I mentioned that there are certain sexist tropes that just annoy the tar out of me? She does also seem to have a love of exploring the social intricacies of whorehouses, as many of the scenes at a whorehouse in this book reminded me of some of similiar tone/feel from The Handmaid's Tale. I'll be picking up Oryx and Crake and giving Atwood another go.

My preference for PCs has evolved into blind hatred for Macs now that I'm spending my 9 hour days in front of one at the new day job. Control click THIS, Mac!!! Yeah, not a fan.

Also, actually pulled out and submitted an old trunk story a couple weeks ago. I haven't had anything in circulation in a few months, and it was nice to get something out there. Need to get back on that writing schedule that I'd redone and then had to can when all the free time I was expecting wonderfully dried up. No complaints! Just paperwork.

Annnnnnnnd.... I'm off.

You Know You Haven't Blogged in Awhile When...

... you've got half a dozen spam comments to clean out. I'm alive, just work-busy and busy-busy with some promo projects for God's War (really want to have a killer FB page and flash-based site for the book. I know, I know, but fans love flash).

I promise, more content soon.

Happiness is...

In the Bag

Book 3 work this weekend. Also, bumped into yet another person who doesn't know what a "copywriter" does. Has the term just totally died out, or do folks just think magazine copy and web page copy gets cooked up all by itself?

Hrm. I blame blogging. I supposed that if just anybody can "publish" some words online, there can't actually be a job that *pays* you to do that... heh.

Open Letter to Proflowers.com (Scam)

Dear Bill Strauss,

I am writing to let you know that I am among the hundreds of people who have been defrauded of over $100 by your company's deceptive and misleading business practices. As I'm sure you're aware, customers who order flowers from Proflowers.com or goodies from CherryMoonFarms.com or those of your partners are lured into getting "free shipping" coupons or other discounts for clicking a coupon that shows up at the end of their order or in their email box after they order - what they don't realize is that clicking the coupon itself automatically enters them in a recurring subscription to an "Easy Saver" program at $14.95 a month.

Nowhere on the coupon does it state that clicking the link will automatically enroll them in this program. *After,* they click, they're told what the program is. Like many consumers, this is where I stopped. I did not continue enrolling in the program (foolishly thinking I'd have had to enter my cc information, or at least click an "OK" or "Agree" button. Ha! So naive!). Since I had deliberately chosen not to save my credit card information on your site, I believed this meant my information was secure, as I hadn't signed up for anything and a third party biller shouldn't have had access to my credit card information.

As I hadn't been using my credit card much the last 9 months (I have been working diligently to pay this off), I had no reason to check over my statements... not until the last month, when I had to lean on my credit card to get by between jobs. And then I found out what you guys were up to.

This deceptive little cash cow, I know, was concocted by Encore Marketing . The fact that they can't name you directly as the client in their "successful" case study on their website (which I can't directly link to because they built their site in flash, which tells you what a premier marketing company this is) is very telling about how proud both of you are with this strategy.

As a communications professional familiar with firms who have a similarly short-term profit strategy, I wanted to advise you against continuing these deceptive practices. I understand that charging folks $14.95 a month is wonderful for positive monthly cash flow. But I've also seen how quickly complaints pile up on the complaints boards (here and here to name a few) and the news stories that start highlighting consumers who've been defrauded, and I've seen how repeat business dries up, forcing companies to rely on more and more deceptive marketing practices just to make ends meet. The "ProFlowers is a scam" group on Facebook only has 15 friends as of yet, but I figure if I put out a few Facebook ads - investing no more than you and your company defrauded me of - will help it get some traffic.

I am incredibly disappointed in this practice not just because, you know, it's wrong, but because your products are so *good.* You have *great products.* You don't need to be fraudulent and deceptive and defraud people's grandmothers of $14.95 a month plus the inevitable 18-25% interest rate they're being charged by their crappy-ass bank.

You can run a better company than that.

I am currently working through your company's customer service channels to get all the fraudulent charges refunded to my account in full. That said, getting back the interest that's been charged to my card for these charges will be harder. I pity the grandmothers who have 20% interest rates.

Until then, I'll be sharing my Proflowers/Cherry Moon Farms horror story on my blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, and engaging with your lively Facebook fans. I have also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and am working on one for the Attorney General.

Shame on you. And shame on Proflowers.com.

Good luck.

Kameron Hurley

UPDATE:

This is why you complain, people:

Dear Mr.(sic) Hurley,

 

Please accept my most sincere apologies. I was recently informed that you enrolled in our EasySaver Rewards partner program and that enrollment in this program was not your intention.  I have called EasySaver Rewards on your behalf in order to cancel your membership and procure a refund.  When I called I found that your membership has already been cancelled and the refund of $14.95 has already been applied.  I then had them refund the additional charges of $149.50 (10 months x $14.95 a month) and $1.95, the full amount of fees charged to you for this program.  In most cases you will see the refund appear on your billing statement in just a few days, however please allow 1-2 billing cycles for the refunds to process, depending on the terms of your specific card issuer.  We have a partnership with EasySaver Rewards where we provide customers an opportunity to click on and enroll in their service from our “order confirmation page” after placing an order with us.   I’d like to apologize for any confusion you may have had over the enrollment process with this partner offer.

If you have the opportunity and would like to discuss this with me in further detail, my phone number is 858.909.3785.  I am typically in the office from 8am to 5pm, Pacific Time.  I am also always available via email. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything more I can do for you.

Sincerely,

EDITED NAME FOR REP PRIVACY

My Response:

Hi REP NAME,

Thank you for your prompt response. The monetary expenditure was terrible for me, but I know it was worse for others who have cards with higher interest rates right now. I'm more devastated by the deception. Your company has some excellent products, and it's a shame that I can no longer recommend Proflowers or their affiliates in good conscience.

Thank you again. I'll be watching my account for the credit.

Best,

Kameron

Things Which Are Great

I've been busy with the new day jobbe, but wanted to share some things which are great:

Alice in Wonderland
Never been a fan of Alice in Wonderland. Annoying little kid wandering around a crazy place eating and drinking indiscrimiately and poo-pooing about like it's all a great inconvenience. Tim Burton's take (with a lovely script by Linda Woolverton), was absolutely stunning. Not just visually, which you expect from a Tim Burton film, but a fantastic coming-of-age-and-finding-yourself story about a 19 year old Alice whose destiny it is to lead a rebellion against the Red Queen. Yes, really! Check out the Joan of Arc armor! There were some heavy-handed moments, but nothing so egregious as you wouldn't expect it in a fairytale. It was wonderfully cool to see a girl-comes-of-age movie (she even ends up on the prow of a ship at the end... like Titanic!) where she gets to pick up a sword and slay a real dragon. The performances are all amazing, too. Anne Hathaway as The White Queen takes herself just-not-seriously-enough to make her incredibly likable. Helena Bonham Carter is a perfect Red Queen, and though Depp is often over the deep end, it's not too terribly annoying because he's not on screen the whole time. Mia Wasikowska is a strange Alice - I especially like the dark circles under her eyes - but the strangeness is what makes her so interesting. Great story, great actors, great visuals - and, have I mentioned? - Alice gets to slay? Yeah. Highly recommended.

Dragon Age: Awakenings
This is the sequel/expansion for Dragon Age: Origins. I am a sucker for a lot of Bioware games, primarily because they're full of great stories, great characters, and a level of interaction with other characters that you just don't get in any other game. It's a tough followup to Dragon Age: Origins. Origins was longer, had more in depth relationships with the characters, and all that. Awakenings got off to a rough, slow start, with lots of installation issues, game crashing, and annoying lack of access to character conversations. Once you figure out their new system for character interaction, it gets easier (basically, you can't talk to your folks any time you want. When you unlock a prompt, it either automatically starts the dialogue, or you have to select an object to trigger the conversation). But, you know, the gear is better, you make more money, and the choices are sacrifice this or sacrifice that. Lots of ambiguity. Lots of gray. I love that. Also, ass kicking female characters. There's still the requisite "chick with boobs hanging out," but as with Origins, they're not *all* that way, which is what makes the difference, to me, between a lazy, sexist game and one that acknowledges that hey, yeah, woman have different characters and personalities, too! They don't all run around with their boobs hanging out! Was also pleased that my golem armor didn't have the obligatory boob-enhancements. What the hell kind of armor forms a breasplate with two custom boob-protrusions? Really? Nice to get away from that at the end with my warrior and the Sigrun the dwarf rogue. Also, very nice Buffy moment there at the beginning with Mhairi. Love you too, Bioware. Overall, A-.

Health Insurance Reform Passes

Freaking out? Here's a great party-neutral fact sheet of what you can expect the next couple of years.

For me, this means I don't have to spend my nights filled with terror about whether or not I'll be laid off or how we'll pay for J's cancer scans. It means I'm not chained to a day job for the rest of my life. It means that if I do start to make it as a freelance writer, I'll be able to afford to stay home and write books if I want to.

What a lot of people don't realize is that the biggest dream I lost four years ago when I got t1 was the dream of being a full time writer someday (that, and being a licensed scuba diver. Needless to say, the writer thing was far more tragic). It's going to be very interesting to see what kind of explosion in entrepreneurism we have now that we don't have to be employed in order to afford healthcare.

Is it a perfect bill? Of course not. It's going to be messy to implement, and people will freak out. It will be a rough ride. But when I explain the madness that was being uninsurable to my nieces and nephews in twenty years, they'll look at me like we were some kind of crazy barbarians living in a madhouse distopia.

And, to be honest, if you had an illness like mine, if you fought with insurance companies the way I did, if you had to scream and cry and beg for care you were actually entitled to (let alone try to afford uncovered care) - you were.

New Book Trailer!

New! And! Improved!


God's War by Kameron Hurley - Book Trailer from Kameron Hurley on Vimeo.

One for the Road

I am engaged in lots of web-pagery today. Here's one for the road:

Steampunk Africa

"Virtuoso" New comic of a steampunk Africa that never was... 

My Ideal Nyx

My first pick for the movie version of Nyx was always Michelle Rodriguez, but she's a bit short for the role (5'5), and notoriously a lot of trouble on the set.

A far better pick, I discovered (while watching Rome) would be a buffed-out Zuleikha Robinson (who clocks in at nearly 5'8, which is closer to Nyx's 5'10/11), who's apparently picked up a gig on Lost and some other tv shows since I first saw her in Rome. Maybe I can convince her to do the audio book version?

Interview

Interview up with me at The Daily Femme! Check it out.

WIP: Iron Maiden

In the beginning we were a Legion of 500 worlds – intrepid warriors, travelers, seers and mystics.

The first world to fall was Moswen, along the Outer Rim, swallowed by a foreign sun at the edge of known space. The second was Jung Mei. She fell from the Core – spinning, breathless, screaming – and tried to turn home, too late. She was last seen orbiting a dying star. Then the Valente clipped the Ken’ichi on the Inner Rim, and lost her inertia. The Legion listened to her dying beacon for a hundred years. Her voice faltered, then faded… then died. There was no place in the Legion for the wounded, the stragglers. We had not yet reached the Edge.

It was the Edge that broke us. When we came to the Edge we saw nothing ahead of us but blackness. We had lost nearly a hundred worlds by then – to stardust, collisions, failures, insurrection, and blight.

But that was nothing compared to what was to come.

Because when we went over the Edge, something came over with us.

- Addendum 176, The Annals of the Legion, 442 AD

1. Zahrah

I do all my dreaming in the dark. That’s all it is out here - a world of darkness. The old bottom world mechanics who work for my mother say they heard stories from their folks about a time before the darkness, when you woke up to the bright burst of light that was the Edge. But to me, the Edge is just another point of light that helps the Legion navigate the darkness. It’s the big smear we point our sextants to in nav class. The last gasp of a dying galaxy.

My mother’s in charge of our family’s worlds in the Legion - the Katarzyna worlds. Her mother and her mother’s mother boarded, mobbed, and manned the Katarzyna 1 and 2 back before I was born. They pounded them so good that nobody’s even sure what they were called before that. It was my mother who took the neighboring worlds, Aatai and Sjorka, and made them Katarzyna 3 and 4. That’s us. Our family. Katarzyna. And it’s a name that’s feared and respected all along the Outer Rim. My mother says it’s the name that will unite the Legion. I’m pretty proud of that.

My mother’s proud, too. She worked hard for it. She once brought me out to the great docking hall and opened up all the bay doors with her big iron fist. The shields were all intact, of course, but it was still thrilling, standing there at the edge of space and looking into the black. From the docking hall you can see the nearest of the Outer Rim worlds – Katarzyna 2-6, Dima, Matrona, and the two FA satellites. If you look deeper, you can see The Tern, the big world they hijacked from the Core forty years ago, and out past that, a hint of the Jagadev and the Naabhi worlds, and then – the Bhavaja worlds. All four of them.

“All this is going to be yours, Zahrah,” my mother said, sweeping her iron arm out toward the worlds slowly spinning in the darkness around the Core, the black well that keeps us together as we push farther and farther from the Edge.

She reached toward the dim shape of the nearest Bhavaja world, so it looked as if she cupped it in her palm. Then she closed her iron fist around it. I heard the metal grind and creak – solid metal skinning a heated organic core. I had seen her crush men’s heads with that hand.

“But you’ll have to fight for it,” she said. She shook out her hand, as if to rid herself of the dust of the shattered world. “Just as I did. And my mother before me. Everything here on the Outer Rim comes with a cost. You understand that?”

“I know what keeps the worlds spinning,” I said. I looked up at her. She’s taller than me by a head. Every time I see some short, umber-skinned sub-captain or petty lord, I wonder if he was my father.

Everybody on the Katarzyna worlds - the Aatai and Sjorka refugees, the indentured castes in the lower wards, even the mechanic’s guild and grower’s union and the man who was my father – they all pay a fealty tax to my family in blood or bone. That’s bodies for our grinder, genetic material for kids like me, or labor to keep the world running and the armies moving. And we have a lot of armies on the move these days, now that the Bhavaja are on the move again.

My mother looked back out into the spinning worlds in the darkness. “It’s more than just the Outer Rim,” she said. “A seer prophesized it.”

“Which one?” I asked. I know most of my mother’s seers, the spidery crones and broken old men who make a living off our family’s offal down in the sludge hall.

“She came to me before you were born,” she said. “Never told you about her. I wanted you to see me take Aatai and Sjorka, first. I wanted you to know what’s possible.”

She pointed her metal hand out toward the hijacked Core world, The Tern. It didn’t quite sit right in space. It wobbled more and more with every rotation of the Legion. Forty years it had been out there, my mother said. Someone or something had brought it up out of the Core back when my mother was born, thinking they could escape the Legion and chart a new course. But some other world had crippled it on the way out of the Core, or maybe it’d clipped a world out there, or they’d killed or maimed whatever group or thing had hijacked it. Now it hung out here on the Outer Rim, deceivingly dark, like some derelict. But it wasn’t a derelict - not yet.

“Every year I assault The Tern. You know why?” my mother asked.

“It’s part of the Outer Rim. It should be Katarzyna,” I said.

“You need to think bigger than that, Zahrah. What use do I have for a Core world?”

I watched the jagged black hull of The Tern. It was easily a hundred thousand jumps from where I stood, but I always hoped I’d see some sign of life – a flicker of light, the reflection from a survey pod, the shimmering umbilicus of a resource-strapped space walker.

“I’ve been watching that world my whole life,” my mother said. “And in the eight assaults I’ve made on The Tern, I’ve brought in no pods, no refugees, no fighters. That defense grid is automated. There’s nothing alive in there. All we need to do is wear down the grid and take the world back.”

“Back?”

“Back to the Core,” my mother said.

Nobody talked much about the Core out here. It was the first time I heard her mention it. We’re Outer Rim people - the fittest, the strongest, the keenest. It’s our sacrifices that have kept the Legion together this long. We’re the first and last line of defense. Controlling the Outer Rim meant controlling the Legion, everybody said. They couldn’t survive without the goods we brought in. They’d never survive the terrors we protected them from.

To reach the Core, you had to go through the black spaces of the Outer Rim where world after world fell had fallen among the stars, then through the Inner Rim worlds, navigating the debris and deitritus of four hundred lost and broken and embattled worlds. Then deeper, into the Rim where the worlds got bigger and the spaces between them got smaller. And finally, through the dark, shimmering Fade that protected the Core worlds. Nobody had been through the Fade, not since the Legion had reached the Edge.

Nobody but The Tern, anyway. And they were headed the other way.

“We take the Core, we take the Legion,” my mother said.

“I thought owning the Outer Rim meant owning the Legion,” I said. I come from a line of conquerors. Why hadn’t I thought of taking the Core?

My mother grimaced. “That’s a cheap story we tell ourselves to make this life mean something. No.” She heaved her big metal arm out toward the worlds of the Outer Rim. “If I wait until we’ve broken the Bhavarja to mount an assault on The Tern, it could be another decade before we’re in a position to take it again. With The Tern, we can cripple every Bhavaja world from here to the point.”

She turned and met my look. Hard face, grim as some dead spacer. Her eyes met mine. It’s always hard to meet my mother’s look. Her pupils are enormous. They swallow all the color in her eyes, even in bright light. Like most of us, she wears goggles when we navigate the inner core of the world.

She pushed her metal fist into my chest. The metal was warm. “We can take it all, Zahrah,” she said. “But we will have to sacrifice everything to do it. You understand that?”

I took a shallow breath. “I trained my whole life for this,” I said.

I wake up every morning in the darkness, for this.

My mother pulled her hand away. My chest was still warm where the metal had touched me.

“Tomorrow you come of age,” she said. “Tomorrow I give you an army. Tomorrow we take The Tern.” She crossed her arms, flesh and metal. “And then – the Legion.”

New Digs!

All settled into the new digs. Check it out! (everything here but pics of J's room, which he's still putting together a bit)

(Click here for full set)

Twilight Vs. Buffy

You know what Buffy did when she had to choose between the guy she wanted and saving the world? She fucking killed the guy. Duh. Sometimes you have to kill what you love to save the world. That's a real story. Ripping off your shirt to show off your sparkle and cliff diving because you can't live without a guy is fetishized 50s porn. When the sum total of your choices is - should I screw this guy or should I screw this guy? - you're living in a pretty boring world.

C'mon now, people. Where's my backlash against the backlash?

2010

A little stunned that the first woman to win Best Director won in 2010.

That's two-thousand-and-ten, people.

At least this happened before the flying cars?

Oh, How I Love Thee....

J. and I have nearly finished the first full season of Farscape. Last night, he looked up some actors on IMDB to see what else they'd done, then came back into our room and said, deadpan, "Did you know that most of the actors are Australian?"

Oh, J....

Looking forward...

... to spring.