Which was a mistake. I feel terrible. Not as bad as on Tuesday night, and yea, I can eat whole food, but damn, I feel like I've been hit by a truck. Drinking lots of fluids. Should have brought some chicken soup.
Turns out yet another guy from the office was out with the same thing. Add me to the list, and that's four people from my office, so I'm not sure what's up. In any case, ready to go home. The commute was a bitch them morning. I was such a clueless, invalid-looking zombie that somebody actually stopped and tried to help me off the bus.
Oh dear. Do I look that weak? Well.. I guess I am, actually.
Friday, September 23, 2005
I Went To Work Today
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
In Which the Protagonist Gets the Plague
ugugug Stomach flu: vomiting, shaky, chills, achiness ug ug ug
Dee, the design manager, was out with stomach flu yesterday. Tuff was out a couple days before. Damn, who else had it? ug ug ug
The protagonist will be staying home from work tomorrow and living on green tea.
ug ug uggugug gu ug
Good morning, chiklits
Coffee is guuuuud.
I am a little bleary-eyed, but functioning. Jenn, the astonishing roommate of doom, picked up some more computer ink for me yesterday (thanks again, Jenn!). I've got a huge print job for Friday...
Worked on God's War yesterday as well, and I'll likely post another excerpt soon. I love that little book.
Now I'm going to get more coffee.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Drunken Persistence, Redux
I got hooked on Laborie pinotage some time back, when I took a tour of the Winelands in Cape Town. It's amazingly gorgeous there. Trader Joe's had a special on some South African pinotage this week, and I snagged a couple bottles. Laborie it ain't, but it's made me nostalgic. And a little drunk.
Sometimes, I am struck by where I am in my life, the people I've known, the places I've seen, the accomplishments I've made at 25. I have been running, running, running, working so hard to get to this place, to have these experiences behind me, to be looking forward to more, to life, to what lies beyond the horizon.
I was talking to both Jenn and B about how tough the last couple of years here in Chicago had been. Not the actual living part - the living has been happy and mostly easy. I can pay my bills. I love my roommates. I enjoy the weather, the public transit. But I've invested two years of my life working an admin job, turning down career opportunities that would require me to curb my writing (and my health) in order to advance. A career in the cell phone industry just wasn't what I was looking for.
Every time somebody asked me what I was working toward with each successive degree, with each job, I told them I was just *this* close to making the books pan out, to making money writing, to being a writer, working to build *that* career above all others. That was my life. That's what I was working toward.
But two years of giving up on more traditional opportunities can get to you. You can start to lose hope. You start to wonder what you're doing. You start to wonder if you're crazy. I'd been talking with both Jenn and B about getting other jobs, about finding ways to take in more money, about sacrificing writing time for something more tradtional, some other life. And I talked about it like a woman who was ready to grow up, to put away childish ideas about what could be and what might be and start worrying about how these student loans were ever going to be paid off.
I started to understand how people got trapped in jobs they hated, so they could buy things they didn't need, so they could have a life they didn't want.
I've bought some of my favorite wine, and I'm sitting here drinking it and staring at line edits I need to finish by Friday, and I'm haunted by the life that I want, the life I know I can have. I've said to myself, over and over, I just need to work harder. I can have this. I just need to work harder. Because there's always somebody out there who's willing to work harder than you are.
I have a blind belief in what I do, in this writing, in what I have. I'm not a genius, but I'm getting better every year. Each book is better than the last. And I have a secret:
This is it. This is what I want to do. I want to write fantasy books. I want to make a living at it. I want to be the best at it, whatever that is or means. I want, I desire, and it's a desire that eats me up.
I want to write for a living, I want to travel, I want to dip my toes in every ocean. I want to go bungee jumping in New Zealand. I want to climb Kilimanjaro. I want to hike up to Machu Picchu. I want a big, wide, bold life. I want to be an old woman on her death bed, gazing out over the pictures of her life. I want, I desire.
How does one want so much and keep going, keep striving in a world that tells you every odd is against you; you're too fat, too slight, too tall, untalented, too talented, not pretty enough, too pretty. It's a world that doesn't believe in anyone or anything, a world that watches faces get their 15 minutes and then moves on, callous, regardless.
And there's no answer to that, really, and whatever answer you do find is a little mad.
Because the answer is you just keep doing it while people tell you no. You keep getting better at it, because you want it. And you do it as long as you have to, if you have to spend five years at a shitty admin job and traveling to foreign locales on credit cards. You do it because the alternative is not to do it, and that's a far, far, more frightening fate.
B sent me Amanda's post over at Pandagon today, about all the things men had told her was wrong with her, about how she'd finally decided to ditch her boyfriend. And I was reminded of another time, another place, when I cared what people thought of me, when I valued myself based on my attractiveness to others, when I tried to mold myself into what other people thought I should be.
I wanted to reach out to Amanda and hold her and cry and say, "Honey, fuck everybody and leave the whole world. Go buy a one-way ticket to somewhere you've never been and start a whole new life and find out how strong you are. Don't go out finding yourself, go the fuck out and fucking create yourself. That's what life is. You find out what the fuck you can do. You realize how strong you are. You realize you can fly."
I can fly.
Even in the darkest times, when I'm freaking out and stress eating and missing the gym and scared and lonely, I know exactly what I can do. I know I can trek alone 160 km into rural Africa. I know I can buy a one-way ticket to Fairbanks, Alaska. I know I can pull together an entire person from the ashes of someone else entirely, and I know that even in the darkest times, during those dark teatimes of the soul, I will come back out of it awake, alive, ready to pursue my desires until the end.
Because this is who I am, this is what I do.
And I seem to have finished this bottle of wine.
Wasting Time
I am sitting here at work spinning around and around in my chair. I am kinda sick.
Yellow and Sarah are off to Indy until Friday.
heh heh
I'm going to go eat some cookies.
It's not a bad life. Still wondering why I haven't quit this job yet?
Back to line edits...
Reading NOLA in Dhalgren, or, the Dhalgren in NOLA
Dhalgren in New Orleans - what an old science-fiction novel can tell us about the Big Easy.
Well, yea. Disaster novels will certainly have similiarites to, um, actual disasters.
Yarrr~! Instead of Having Babies, Women Could be Pirates!
Oh, look! Another hysterical "OMG, I FORGOT TO HAVE CHILDREN!!!" peice! Yarrr!
Women who wait until their late 30s to have children are defying nature and risking heartbreak, leading obstetricians have warned.
This assumes:
1) all women want to have children
2) not having children is heartbreaking
2) women don't want to become pirates
Yaarrr!
I Just Can't Stop Laughing
Yarr! How I love ta'day's new photoshopped header...
Harrdy harr har
Fuck, I just can't stop laughing.
Email Day, Me Chiklits!
Arrrr! I will be catchin' up on the e-mail me chiklits, so for those of you expectin' mail from me, get yerselves a bottle o' rum fer the mornin' coffee and sit tight!
Harrrdy harrr harr har
Aye! Avast, Me Chiklits
Arrrr! It's that time o' the yar agin me chiklits!
Ta'day be talk like a pirate day!
Check out me matey Pharyngula's digs! It's all pirate talkin' all the time!
Here be some excellent pirate loot.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Getting There
I have 34 more chapters to line-edit by Friday. I'm on pass 3. Haven't done much else this weekend except laundry, grocery shopping, reading the first chapters of all of the big fantasy sagas on my shelf, and trying to ignore the Lost marathon that Jenn & K are indulging in.
Ignoring Lost has been very difficult. It's a sweet little show.
But NO!! I MUST BE STRONG!! I can't get addicted to another tv show. I... must... work... write... yes... must... work...
Also, I slaughtered a bunch of nations playing Cossaks.
heh heh
That was great.
Then I worked on some fight scenes for God's War.
That was sweet.
Lost is still playing.
Arg!!! MUST RESIST!!!
Michelle Rodriguez is guest starring in season two.
FUCK!!!
It's Catching
And yet, why is it that something tells me the bisexuality has been there the whole time and isn't something that has only recently come upon college co-eds?
I'm interested in how common it becomes among both men and women to have sexual experiences with those of the same sex the more we take down the social barriers that dissuade people from acting out their desires.
You Mean Men and Women Are Just People?
A study has found that the differences between men and women have been vastly overestimated... The American study found significant differences in only 22% of traits. These included sexual behaviour, where men were less willing to show commitment, and in aggression — men were more prone to anger. Men were also, the psychologists found, better at skills involving co-ordination such as throwing.
Hyde analysed the studies by recalculating the data from them so they were comparable. In 30% of the traits analysed, she found almost no difference that was statistically significant between men and women, while there were only small differences in another 48%. “This means 78% of potential gender differences are small or close to zero,” she said.
And even these differences could be largely explained away by the ways men and women are raised to use their bodies, how to rate relationships and commitment in their lives, and how to react when threatened or frustrated.
(via Jennifer Warwick)
Friday, September 16, 2005
An Open Letter to Myself:
Dear Kameron -
STOP SPENDING MONEY.
You have to get to World Fantasy in November and visit Stephanie & Ian in Ohio for Thanksgiving.
THIS WILL INVOLVE MONEY, WHICH MEANS YOU NEED TO HAVE SOME.
SO STOP SPENDING IT.
Thank you.
- me
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Feel Like My Eyes Are Ready to Bleed
Finishing up the big round of edits, which is Pass 2. Pass 1 was just find-and-replace. Pass 2 is cutting and rearranging hunks of text to delete and compress characters. Pass 3 will be re-reading from start to finish for logical errors (wrong name, a mention of someone who doesn't exist anymore, lingering scenes that don't go anywhere). Pass 4 will be cleaning up spelling and grammar issues, which will also involve reading the whole thing again.
I print it out and send it by the 23rd.
Persistence.
You Know You Created a Shitty Character When...
You can substitute another character's name for theirs without changing the dialogue.
heh.
Lotto Money
Illinois state lottery's up to $250 million. Our office is pooling resources and buying a bunch of tickets.
Oh, why not?
I Love My Androgynous Name
I work as a project assistant for a company that builds, designs, and upgrades cell phone towers (I don't know why everyone was so surprised when the towers went out in NOLA. Towers in Indiana are only enginneered to withstand 70 MPH winds. Every time a hurricane goes through Florida, we wait for a repair contract to come through. A couple guys from our office are down in NOLA right now fixing towers whose equipment shelters were under 20 ft of water. Radio equipment, in general, usually doesn't work under 20 ft of water).
In any case, what this means is that I hang out with a lot of architects and construction and site acquisition types, and they're overwhelmingly male. I'm used to being the only woman at meetings, and I've had several of the older guys ask me to get them coffee at some of the bigger national meetings, which left me with my mouth hanging agape (I told them I wasn't out of this office and had no idea where the coffee was. Having a vagina doesn't mean I know where the coffee is, let alone mean I'm gonna get it for them).
We have about 34 people in our office. Six of them are women. Me (the project assistant), Cyllia the secretary, the sole accountant (the other one just got fired for the second and final time), the HR/office manager, one of the architects, and Sarah the construction manager (she is very cool).
Not only do I have an androgynous name, but I'm in a field that's mostly guys, so whenever I start corresponding with a new vendor or client contact, I invariably get "thank you, sir," or "Thanks, Mr Hurley," responses. And the gender marker titles always come from guys (or, people who have guy-like names).
It amuses me, so I never "set them straight." It's worth it for the look of surprise on their faces when they finally meet me, or the odd moment of startled silence when I introduce myself over the phone.
heh heh
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Well, Wouldn't That Be Obvious?
Use Lohin, not Zhodai. Zhodai is a redundant character. And Lohin makes more sense.
snip snip
More On God's War
Working on God's War, which helps me shift gears from the rewrites on The Dragon's Wall. It's the nice thing about working on two, well, three books at once: if your brain stalls on one, you can switch to the other.
Things are going to be pretty quiet here until the end of the month when I finish up my edits for The Dragon's Wall. I've just got a lot of projects going on at once.
I've also got an application for the MFA program at Brooklyn College that I need to get out. After considering a lot of diff't options, I've decided on applying to just one program and seeing what happens. It's only two years, which would be the max amount of time I could do in NY. If I don't get accepted, then I just do one year in NY.
We'll see what happens. I'm holding off on the law school option for awhile. It's still something I'm interested in, but I'm not keen on doing it in New York, and I'd like to be in New York next year, as flying in and out of there is getting exhausting for me and B, and I'd like to wake up next to B every day instead of two or three days a month.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
57 Percent Of College Girls Want To Sleep With Angelina Jolie
Who would have thought?
But isn't that kinda gay?
heh heh
Proving That My Naming Schemes Are Actually Pretty Good
British Office Compiles List Of Odd Names
... discoveries included Boadicea Basher, Philadelphia Bunnyface, Faithful Cock, Susan Booze, Elizabeth Disco, Edward Evil, Fozzitt Bonds, Truth Bullock, Charity Chilly, Gentle Fudge, Obedience Ginger and Offspring Gurney
Oh, Danika Darling
VS.
I think she looks hotter in the jump suit, personally. I'm hoping that her new promotions involve her wearing more clothes.
Why?
Would you see a male race car driver posed with no clothes in front of a car?
Um. No.
See, I have no problems with selling products using your image. The Williams sisters got some great Nike contracts, and Nike has some great ads (of course, with their religious upbringing, I don't think their father would let them be caught dead half-dressed for any reason, which gets into issues of why in the hell 20-something women are still getting bossed around by their dads, but I digress). Anyhow, as somebody who's always looking for ways I can get my passion to give me two pennies to rub together, I can see the allure of throwing on a bikini and photoshopping in front of a car.
But ideally I'd prefer the ad to say something more about my image than, "I can wear a red bikini and look super sexy after a good airbrushing."
I mean, shit, after a good air brushing I'd look good in a red bikini.
If you want to sell shit with bodies, why not sell us people instead of flesh? Why not sell greatness, talent, people who are really fucking good at stuff? I guess it's easier to sell stuff if you think, "Hey, I'll buy XXX and then I'll be hot!!"
Instead of, "Hey, buying XXX will help me on my way to being a super athlete!"
I gotta say I'm not surprised Danika's taking her clothes off, but I was hoping for better.
I've Been Found Out
Got a call at my desk from Yellow yesterday.
"Can you come back here?" he said.
I walked back to his cubicle expecting that I was going to get into trouble for putting in the wrong dates for something or miscalculating the number of LMUs we've installed.
I saw that he was surfing the internet.
Yellow: "So how does this thing with your agent work? How did it go?" (I'd mentioned in my e-mail about time off that I was taking last Friday off to work on my book because an agent was interested in it).
Me: She wants the whole thing, but I've gotta do edits first. If she likes it and thinks she can sell it, she'll sign me. If she doesn't, she won't.
Yellow: So, like how much money can you make off something like that?
Me: Depends. Low end, 5K-20K. I'd like to make 40K, which is enough to pay off all my student loans and credit cards. If I'm really, really, lucky, the la-la land figure is six figures for book one with an option for book two.
Yellow: I'm soooo getting your resignation letter in a couple months.
Me: Uh. It'll be a lot longer than a couple months. And then, I'd only leave it was six figures. Anything less, and I have to keep the desk jockey job.
Yellow: You know, I'm thinking about writing a book.
Me: I'm sure you are, Yellow.
Yellow: What? I totally knew you'd laught. So, you know all about this blog stuff, right?
Me: ??
Yellow: What are some good blogs to read? Tuff over there is looking for some love poems.
Me: Love poems? (????)
Yellow: Yea. He's Italian. Love poems.
Me: Yellow, you're asking the wrong person.
Yellow: But you know all about blogs (??). What's a good blog? What do you read?
Me: (is he fishing to see if I'll recommend mine?) I mostly read feminist and science fiction blogs.
Yellow: So, what's a good one?
Me: (does he really think I'm going to recommend mine??) Well, there's this one called Bitch Ph.D. She's pretty cool.
Yellow: (covers his face with his hands) Oh, man, you would recommend a blog called that.
Me: Yup.
Yellow: Tuff! Hey, Tuff! Kameron says she doesn't know of any love poetry blogs.
Tuff: That's OK, I'll google it.
Yellow: Google "love poetry."
Tuff: Oh, yea. There are lots of love poetry blogs, I just know it.
Yellow: You know, Tuff, you can google all sorts of things.
Me: Yellow, did you actually call me back here for something work-related, or are you just bored?
Yellow: I'm just bored.
Me: OK, Yellow
I have a sneaking suspicion I may have been found out.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Good Morning, Chiklits
I emerge from NY well rested, well fed, and have a shitload of edits to do on the Fantasy Saga. I need to alter some names and compress several characters into single characters (the problem with cutting 60K from a book and keeping all of the original characters is that you realize some of them only exist to accomplish one task, and they're the sorts of tasks I can make other people do). Once those are done - I've given myself a 2-week deadline - the whole thing goes off to the Agent, and then we'll see what happens.
It's like roulette, with no death involved.
My parents called last night to let me know that I apparently had a parking ticket on their old station wagon from 1999 that I hadn't paid.... hmmmm I'd almost forgotten about this one. They never sent me anything about it, so I ignored it. At the time, I recalled that it was $350, and impossible to pay, but according to my dad, it's only $150. I'm sending them a check...
Meet the Parents weekend went well. B's parents are very cool and smart and funny and nice, and they use the word "fuck" at the dinner table, which made me feel right at home! They live in one of those Brooklyn brownstones whose price tags make you choke on your coffee.
Anyhow, looking forward to a very productive week. Lots to do, very exciting, all the hard work is starting to pay off.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
I Find it Appropriate That My Cure is "LIGHT SELF ON FIRE"
What kind of disease are you? Kameron Hurley: | ||
Kameron Hurley is caused by monkeys. | Kameron Hurley disease causes deadly flatulence upon infection. To cure Kameron Hurley, light self on fire. | |
Off Again & Clarification
I have a good deal of things to say, but I'm channeling a lot of energy into fiction writing (selling fantasy's going to be getting more and more popular, eh?). Hopefully, I'll be resuming something more like my usual blogging schedule on Monday. Tonight, it's off to NY for some good-old-fashioned quality time with B. It's "meet the parents" weekend.
I'm bringing a very nice shirt.
Also, since I just can't resist, after nearly a year of gender-neutral blogging, I realize that I've previously been somewhat ambiguous about who exactly Jenn's SO is. Now that Jenn's Out, I get to use the pronoun SHE, and for blogging purposes, let's call her K.
Yes, that's right! I'm now officially able to say that Jenn's SO is, in fact, a GIRL!! Yes, I live in a houseful of BRILLIANT LESBIANS! They've been watching TENNIS all week and comparing notes about hot female tennis players (I don't much care for blonds, alas)! We go through oddles of FEMININE HYGIENE products! There is all sorts of GIRL LOVIN' in our house! They are both getting DOCTORAL DEGREES!
And, wow, our house hasn't been struck by lightning.
Neener neener neener
So ends that clarification, which I know several readers had asked about at some point...
You can all go back to your regularly scheduled programming.
CEO Barbie Gives Girls Unrealistic Career Images
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
I Sure Do Feel That in My Ass
Totally revamped my morning weights routine, which had gotten stale and boring and wasn't doing much for me anyway. Now it's back to kicking my ass, literally.
I've added front squats and deadlifts, and ohhhhh does my ass notice.
Keep in mind that I've only got 20 lb and 30 lb weights at home, so it'll be sometime before I deadlift 100 lbs at home, as I need to work up to 50 lb free weights. Right now I'm just happy I can do one set of eight squats.
Don't push me just yet.
My ass is already upset with me.
Wow, People Actually Buy This Stuff!
Wow, people are buying stuff at my CafePress store!
Superkewl. I make a buck or two for every sale, so hey, send me to World Fantasy in November!
And if I see you wearing BW apparel at the Con, I'll, like, sign it or something.
Hey, I might be famous in twenty or thirty years! And oh yes, wouldn't you just love to have such a token to sell on ebay, and then you can use the money to go to a Con or your daughter's wedding in, say, 2025.
Now that's planning ahead.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Good Morning, Chiklits
Thank goodness it's a short week.
Off to NY Thursday night.
Only 3 days of mind-numbing desk jockey work until then! Yay!
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Thursday, September 01, 2005
A Million People Homeless
Still trying to get my head around that one, let alone the fact that an entire city just basically sank.
I'm reminded of a local city of mine that did a similiar disappearing act. They didn't recover. Try finding Vanport, Oregon today:
Vanport, the 2nd largest city in Oregon and the largest public housing project in the nation was flooded when a dike holding back the Columbia River gave way at 4:05 p.m. on May 30, 1948. Vanport, 15-feet below Columbia's water level, was completely underwater by nightfall. Fifteen people died in the flood. Houses were washed off of their foundations and the entire town was lost.
Vanport, a combined name of the nearby cities -- Vancouver and Portland -- has been erased off maps and all visible traces of the city have disappeared.
Just like that.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
I Miss Beating the Crap Out of Stuff
I've spent the last week or so mourning (again) the loss of my martial arts and boxing classes.
A lot of it was the money. Paying $120 a month was killing me. So was the commute. Going downtown and back two or three times a week, catching buses, trains, transferring, was wearing me out. I was also plugged into making class times, whereas with a gym, I've got more freedom as to when I go. And a lot of it was that the last few months (like, FOUR) of my membership, I just wasn't going. I had a bunch of flying to do with the job earlier this year, then problems with the pill, then three months of hell while my body adjusted to the IUD.
But I miss it. A lot.
I miss beating the crap out of stuff twice a week, working out my aggression. I miss hanging out in a class with a bunch of buff people, many of whom are women who aren't afraid to look buff. I miss the rush of confidence after class. I miss that kind of strength.
Sure, I go to the gym, and I'm looking buffer now than I did then, actually, cause I'm targeting other stuff and eating much better than I did while in MA classes.
But there's something different that happens when you beat stuff up for a few hours a week. Something different in the way you hold yourself, the way you look at people. And I miss that.
The first thing I do when I move next year is find a boxing gym.
I mean, after I get a job.
Yea. Sure.
Revenge of the Binge
The last couple of nights, I've been stopping off at the local pharmacy before I get home and greedily stocking up on chocolate and twinkies and those ritz crackers with the processed cheese in them.
Monday I did OK. I bought four chocolate bars, had a bite of each, and threw them away. Not bad.
I could cope.
Yesterday I got through the donut, the cookie, and yogurt pretzels before I managed to stop. I threw away the twinkies and the king-sized chocolate bar uneaten. I could have just stopped at the yogurt pretzels. Nothing wrong with eating some yogurt pretzels if you're hungry, but when I'm freaking out about food, I obsessively grab anything I can get my hands on.
It's not even about eating it. I throw most of it away. Realizing I could feel just as good buying it, eating one thing, and throwing the rest away was pretty liberating. But that's the fascinating part about it: it's not the eating, it's the having stuff to eat part that I'm craving.
The thing with knowing I'm a binge eater is knowing exactly what's triggering the obsessive need for a calorie-rush composed mainly of sugar and salt in processed food form. I didn't buy myself lunches this week, and was too tired to cook lunches on Sunday, which turned into me frantically looking through the freezer, finding something sub-par, trying to eat it at work and gagging on it, and being starving by the time I went home. I tried loading up on other frozen meals, but I bought cheap sub-par ones again because the choices at the place I stopped were limited, so Tuesday I was freaking out as well.
I'm also seriously stressed out, and stress is a big trigger. I know it's stress because it's the acquiring of the food that seems to be the part I'm really, really craving. The hunger part could be satisfied with one serving of something. The binge part has to do with stress. When I'm stressed out, I want food around me. It's the idea that I somehow internalized growing up, "If we have food, everything will be OK."
And being stressed, I also crave a sugar high, which would certainly make me feel less depressed - for a short while, until I came down off it and spent the rest of the night looking and feeling despondent. Which, of course, is exactly what happened.
Binge behavior is really, really weird. It's almost weirder now that I buy stuff and just throw it away. It seems ever more weird and hysterical than actually sitting down and eating ever everything did. I mean, eating would make more sense. It would be more clearly about hunger. But then, of course, it's not, so obsessive-collecting behavior makes more sense.
The moral of the story is: I've gotta fucking take care of my food issues at lunch and not try and cut calories there or eat something sub-par that's primarily composed of processed foods stripped of all nutritional content.
It's a great way to send me tail-spinning.
And that's not a place I need to be right now.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
The Boys Do Dove
Dove soap’s European-wide "Campaign for Real Beauty" has taken on a local twist in Düsseldorf, Germany. The people next door at the local Ogilvy & Mather office have not only sold their souls to their client, but their bodies as well. These local posters are being used in conjunction with the real "Real" campaign and placed on bus stop shelters. The headline reads: "They’re not models, just soft Dove admen from Ogilvy Düsseldorf."
That's awesome.
(thanks, b!)
Writing Today
Unsurprisingly.
Now I'm really behind.
Song for the day: My Chemical Romance, "I'm not OK"
Monday, August 29, 2005
Writing Today
Have I mentioned what a great book this is going to be?
It's going to be great. In a fun way.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Boxers
Is is wrong that I find it terribly amusing that I've got a section labeled "Boxers" on my character list for God's War?
heh heh heh
Friday, August 26, 2005
Talk Like A Pirate is Coming!!
Mark your calendars!!!
September 19th is....
Talk like a pirate day! You can bet it will be a regular celebration here at BW.
Whiskey is My Friend
In any case, I sure did sleep well.
Dead day at work today. Should have some ranting up soon.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Dear Santa:
I know it is quite early to be thinking of Christmas, dearest Santa Claus, but I've been lusting for many things for the last two years that I don't seem to know how to aquire for myself.
I suppose I have not recieved them as yet because I'm not a very good girl, but you know, I haven't gotten any coal, switches, or rocks either, so it's not that I'm bad.
Perhaps you have just forgotten me. After all, my address has changed many times and I've switched continents twice! So I am writing this letter to remind you that Brutal Women have needs, too.
Please send me:
1) A flat-screen monitor.
This makes writing and computer game playing very good, as my laptop has the smallest screen ever. I promise that I will solve Myst III: Revelation if you send this to me.
2) Wireless mouse and keyboard. I saw this at Costco for like $39.99
3) A free standing punching bag.
Because you know all the fun I'll git up to with that.
4) I also have a Wish List, because I am shameless.
Thank you, and goodnight.
Wishes,
Kameron Hurley
P.S. It sucks being old. I should get some compensation for no longer getting presents. Like superpowers. I should be able to fly, or some shit like that.
To Work, To Work
Ok. I've reworked all of my novel writing schedules so the two books I'm working on will get done on time. I've fallen behind on my schedule, and I need to get back on track. This means a whirlwind writing weekend over labor day.
And here's some breathing space, courtesy of New Zealand:
Good Bye, Viagra Guy
A Farewell Letter to Viagra guy:
Good bye, Viagra guy.
Congrats, good luck at your new job! I sure as hell am glad you got hired on somewhere else.
I do not envy your new coworkers.
Oh, hurrah, I shall never have to listen to you again at 8am on a Monday morning trying to make small talk about the consistency of coffee creamer.
Truly, the the universe is merciful.
Goodbye!
Buried in Books
I used to make fun of my roommate, Jenn, for the number of books she kept on her queen-sized bed. Last time she cleaned it off, she came back with a count upwards of 50 hiding in the sheets.
Now that I've switched from a single to a queen and shoved everything into a much smaller room, and having an out-of-town boyfriend who only visits once a month or so, I have discovered something quite peculiar.
The other night, I was startled to roll over and discover that I'd left a pile of books in bed with me.
Jenn has a really great coffee mug that says, "Book lovers never go to bed alone."
Ain't that the truth.
We're at over 1700 books right now, and the rest of Jenn's SO's books will arrive this weekend, which will likely but us close to 2000, so we can relate to the plight of the poor buried bibliophile:
For the bibliophile, what to do with the books is life's central decorating issue, an ongoing discourse, a debate, and often an outright décor war, between aesthetics, the practicalities of storage and the consuming mindlessness of passion.
I can't wait to have a proper library. In the meantime, there are books in every room in our house. I'm glad we don't live in earthquake country.
Rushdie on Writers
"my view is that writers need to go everywhere. You need to put your hands into as many pieces of life as you can. You've got to go to the whorehouse or the ball game or the prison or the nightclub, it doesn't matter. You've got to go everywhere. Because otherwise you don't know enough."
(via Culture Space)
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Judging a Book By Its Cover
Rick Moody, author of literay book The Ice Storm, had some advance copies go out for his new book, The Diviner. The cover was a "garishly illustrated blaze-orange cover depicting a shirtless, Conan the Barbarian-type warrior standing atop a mountain peak, a shield in one hand and a forked branch lofted, spearlike, in the other."
Sounds great, right? Well, yea, if you're marketing to a different audience. And the audience he wanted wasn't going for it.
"I saw a lot of people, particularly women, just turn away from the cover," said Michael Pietsch, the publisher. Before long, "I realized we were making a mistake," he continued, adding, "We loved it and the author loved it, too, but it was not communicating the information we wanted about the book."
I was reminded of the perpetual chatter about why women aren't more involved in gaming and comic-book reading. It's often because, well, women aren't marketed to.
Now, in this instance, a Conan-like cover would have been great as far as marketing to *me*, but last night I was reading through another comic book (I've been interested in getting more involved with reading comics, since they tend to have some really neat ideas and visuals), when I started getting kinda turned off by it, and wondered why.
It was an interesting story with organic tech, bugs, things exploding, a strong female character and etc, all of which I really like. So what was the issue?
The female character had boobs nearly as big as her head, fell for the dorky guy for no apparent reason, and the other two female characters in the story answered to a dead guy who directed all of their movements.
But really, it was the boobs thing.
I mean, nobody has boobs that big and a waist that small unless the boobs are fake. Boobs are made up of fat, which is why fat women often have bigger boobs. I lose a cup size when I drop weight. That's how it is. OK, yea, everybody in comic books is stylized, and I accept this, and I appreciate that comic books have beautiful, impossible people in them (well, mostly beautiful women, though the men's forms are exaggerated to some degree as well, I wouldn't call most of them beautiful).
But OK, so, it's a comic, there's big boobs. What's the big deal?
I guess what kept gnawing at me is that I felt the female characters weren't there so much to be cool and heroic and advance the plot as they were there to have their boobs looked at. Watching the two evil powerful women turn out to be getting orders from a guy, and watching the one "good" woman cuddle up with the male freak for no apparent reason just bugged me. It became abundantly clear early on that the author and illustrater weren't talking to me at all. They were talking to adolescent boys who they hoped were really fascinated by big boobs.
I mean, how many lesbians are fascinated so much by big boobs that they buy comic books for the sheer titillation at seeing something so "monstrous"? (please, feel free to disagree with me here)
I sometimes feel that women in a lot of comic books are just rolled up into bed with the rest of the "monsters" in the cast. This isn't always the case, and I know there's good stuff out there, but in general, I just don't see this stuff talking to me.
It's something the gamers at Utopian Hell bitch about as well: games that just don't talk to women at all, that just don't include them. It's why you'll see more women players with stuff like the Myst and Riven games (which I love) and less on the ones where we aren't treated like people but just like some of the other monsters. I can certainly run around as a guy, but if every female I run into during game play is a fiesty vixen who tries to seduce me or a dumb blond, I'd still get pretty insulted, and bored. Bored is probably the best way to describe it. It's like, "Can't you come up with some interesting characters? Do they all have to respond the same way? You've got an entire fantasy world to work with, and you're using a bunch of gender stereotypes the whole way through? What gives?"
Don't get me wrong: men act as monsters too in the games, but I'd like some of the women to be real people as opposed to monstrous Others. I want to be a Cool, Kick-ass Chick. And, being a woman, I recognize that monstrous boobs would really get in the way of being really active and kickass, particularly if you were trying to do it on a tiny frame. And really, what's the tactical advantage of boobs? You can't take them off and hit anybody with them (now there's a gaming idea!). You can put armor on them and jut them at somebody, but if you get that close, they'll gut you. And not every villain you run into is gonna be straight, interested in your boobs, or so incredibly stupid as to be "charmed" by your "feminine wiles." Or, they shouldn't be.
Again: how boring.
It is, in fact, possible to write up female characters with sensible boobs, for goodness sake. It happens. They can even show some skin and still be sensible people (even if they're named after flowers).
I'd like to play cool characters, not characatures of people who have the same genitals I do.
As with any story, I want to read about people. I want to be able to identify with them, and I want to take them seriously. We live in a culture that infantalizes women with boobs as big as their heads and small waists because it's something that doesn't happen naturally, and we associate those sorts of body-transformations with women who aren't taken seriously, women who seek to play the part of object.
There's a duel fault there: the stereotype we carry for women who choose to get implants, and the stereotyping we perpetuate in the entertainment we create.
Who wants to be to dumb, bitchy monstrous woman who always gets hacked up in the end by the guy who gives her orders?
That's not fantasy. That's not escape. That's not entertainment.
It's too much like watching CNN.
Show me some alternatives. Let me be taken seriously. Let me be cool and smart and strong, and maybe it'll help me realize I can be cool and smart and strong in real life, too.
Good Morning, Chiklits
I am awake, sort of.
I am alive, sort of.
My morning routine just isn't working out anymore. New house rules involve making sure to wipe down all counters, clean out the drain in the morning, close the shower curtain, medicine cabinent, and toilet seat, and trying to do all of that and make breakfast too has me stressed for time and swearing and running into things in the morning.
So it looks like I either need to 1) get up ten minutes earlier or 2) switch from eggs back to protein shakes, which take 10 less minutes to prepare.
Protein shakes it is.
I've also been overspeading myself on food again anyway, and I need to cut back (buying too many books didn't help either). I've got to get into the habit of cooking for the week's lunches on Sunday instead of opting for the more expensive but far easier frozen lunches.
I seem to be really cramped for time, and I'm trying to find more of it. I've been getting to bed by 9pm instead of 10pm because I tend to function better throughout the rest of the week with that extra hour of sleep. Unfortunately, this means that I lose 5 hours every week of actual "doing stuff" time. The goal is to start parsing out my "work" time so it's more productive to writing and other pet projects of mine.
I need to spend this weekend getting stories back into the mail. I need to spend my commute time reading more books. I've been more stressed out this month than I thought I was. I realized just how stressed I'd been when I opted to spend the whole of last weekend playing mindless computer games, something I hadn't done in ages, and something I'm sure I'll repeat for a few more hours this weekend. I just want something I can focus on that doesn't involve thinking about my life and everything I'm not doing.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Home Again, Home Again
Cooking some dinner for roommates and guest, got in some good time at the gym, good books have arrived, need to prep for tomorrow and get some sleep.
Also, currently reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
Quite fun.
Good Morning, Chiklits
Sorted things out this weekend. It was a pretty shotgun of a week, and I had roommate stuff and relationship stuff to work out. The house is stocked up with victuals once again, we've got a week-night cooking schedule worked out, and I'm feeling level-headed enough to get back to the gym (I only went once last week. The goal is 3-4 times a week).
Oddly enough, after beating myself up about weight issue the last few years and up-and-down binge cycles and sporadic exercise schedules and deprevation followed by binging, what everybody tells you really is true. Now that I'm actually eating 2200 calories a day and lifting heavier weights, I'm fitting way better into my clothes. Even after a crazy week like last week when I only went in once.
And the kicker is that I'm not even killing myself doing it. There's a huge belief that you've gotta feel like you're gonna die after a workout and not eat anything in order to see any kind of change, but you know, I'm not killing myself. I even cut my cardio from 40 to 30 minutes to get in a little more weights time, and I'm still fitting more and more easily into my clothes.
I like not killing myself at the gym. I enjoy it as some "downtime" for myself, particularly because I now have two roommates, so getting some space to myself is healthy for all invovled. It's nice.
So, to sum up: I'm still tired, feeling slightly brain-dead, but last week's stress shouldn't be repeated this week, all willing. I think that's sorted out.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Linkdump from Jenn
My roomie was pretty productive yesterday, and sent me lots of links for amusement:
Curvy Butts Are Great. As someone who's got a pretty bony ass, I can tell you, I'd much prefer having some more cushioning down there.
Luckily, Comcast isn't our internet provider anymore.
And, Bitch Ph.D. already posted about this one, but it really is classic: Check out all the exciting career choices deemed desirable for young girls circa 1966.
Finally, last but CERTAINLY not least:
Three guys decided to go to New Orleans for a College football game. One of their fathers works for Roots Canada and gave them each a Canadian Winter Olympic jacket to wear. So with that said, they decided that when people ask them about the jacket they would tell them they represent Canada's Hide and Seek team. Well, they b.s.'d enough to get interviewed live during the game on ESPN.
View the clip.
There's a sucker born every minute. Proof that if you stand up and bullshit like you know what the fuck you're saying, you can make people believe anything.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
I'm Surrounded By Idiots
Work tends to fuck me off a lot more when I'm tired and irritated.
I'm going to go do something useful and write. I've decided to take up meditating to control some of this anger and irritation and stress, cause it ain't going away anytime soon. In the meantime, here's some more Alaska-themed breathing space:
Yet Another Open Letter To Viagra Guy
Dear Viagra guy:
Shut the fuck up.
I do not want to talk to you.
In fact, after two days of up-and-down hysterical roommate antics, long hysterical conversations with the boyfriend last night, five more freaked-out e-mails from said boyfriend this morning, and an out-of-bed alarm at 5:30 in the morning, I really have NO FUCKING INTEREST in exchanging pleasantries with you or ANYONE ELSE after I've just stumbled, bleary-eyed and exhausted, into the office at 8 O'CLOCK IN THE FUCKING MORNING.
So don't take my lack of "niceness" as a personal affront.
Before 10 am, I don't really like ANYONE.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Evil Psycho Bitch
P.S. DO NOT TALK TO ME YOU FUCKTARD!!!!
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Writing Today
Because writing is healthy, and hot damn, this is turning out to be a great book.
For your workaday breathing space, I give you random pics of Alaskan abodes, which I've been thinking of ever since I wrote this post:
Too Bad, You're Fat!
I was at the gym yesterday and saw a guy there who was probably close to 400 lbs. Obviously, this doesn't happen often, or it wouldn't be cause for comment. He was diligently using the lat pulldown and a series of other pull-strength exercises. He used a balance ball to sit on because, well, the machine seats are too narrow and hard for *my* ass, and this guy's twice as big as me.
I thought how cool it was that he was there doing some weightlifting, and wondered why he wasn't doing some cardio, too. And then I took a good look around at the cardio machines. I looked at the narrow handrails on the treadmill and the elliptical and the uncomfortable seats on most of the bikes, and I realized he was likely going to steer clear of those and... oh, and most of the weight machines, too, with their assumptions of "average male" (which works for me, cause I'm about the size of the average guy, but if you're really small or really big, not so much).
We live in a world that gets pissed at fat people for being fat but won't put together exercise equipment for them and welcome them into their facilities. There are very few exercise programs for really overweight people, but rich, usually thin, people like to bitch and bitch about all that "gross, unhealthy fat," while not recognizing we're living in a culture that so stigmatizes the fat that some women haven't had the nerve to get in a swimsuit and swim in 20 years. How screwed up is that?
Anyhow, it was cool to see him there, making the routines work for him. It would be great to see more big people at the gym. Gym culture tends to breed a lot of people who look really alike, and it's nice to see some variety. In the real world, people are a lot more diverse.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
I'm Late, I'm Late
Still bumbling around the house here. B was up at 3am to catch a flight back to NY, so I slept in a bit (as much as I hate my job, you almost can't beat the flexibility).
I need some more coffee.
More later.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Hijacking of VanderWorld Has Begun
Superkewl.
Starting today, I'll be dual-blogging here and at VanderWorld for a couple weeks (I'm not double-posting. VW and BW will have different content), so check-in periodically.
Who knows? It might even be interesting.
(thanks for the reminder for a reminder, Scott)
Ode to the Lesbian Swans
Boston's beloved pair of swans -- feted by city leaders, residents, and tourists alike as one of the Hub's most celebrated summer attractions -- are a same-sex couple. Yes, scientific tests have shown that the pair, named Romeo and Juliet, are really Juliet and Juliet.
Massachusettes is spreadin' the gay! This proves it's contagious. Interspecies contagious, even.
If we make same-sex marriage legal in Texas, the swans will all turn gay!
Just watch.
There's A "Diet" for Everybody
The McDonald's Diet: health = thinness.
Because at no point in this article to they say her resting heart rate and cholesterol have decreased, at no point does she say she took up exercising, and at no point does anyone with a medical degree say she's lowered her risk of cardiovascular disease by "losing" thirty pounds.
Because it's not about health:
"It feels great," she said. "Because, the truth of the matter is that beauty is power, and if you're fat, or your overweight, then people don't really take you seriously."
At least she's honest.
Monday Monday
Oh yes, chicklits, it is Monday. That time when all coffee bites back with that saccharine-savvy aftertaste and the fucktards leer from the rooftops to snicker at your workaday commute from Hell.
The good news is that once again, there's fuck-all to do but blog and write and snicker.
It could be worse.
I might actually have to work for a living.
Could you imagine???
Friday, August 12, 2005
Moral of the Story: Don't Cheat on Your Boyfriend
Following on the weird dreams caused by hot weather post of Wendryn's, here's last night's weird caper:
I dreamed that I met this really attractive doctor who was working with poor people around Lawrence. His sister, who was a reader of my blog, brought me there and introduced us. He was obviously hot on me from the moment I walked in, and we kept glancing at each other as she showed me around.
The sister noticed this and gave us some time together, and we chatted, and he was kind, funny, charming, socially responsible, successful, and smart. He was also quite attractive, not in a plastic-guy way, but in a kindhearted, superkewl way. The sister finally just told her brother to ask for my goddamn number already.
I hesitated, and considered telling him I already had a boyfriend, but Oh! he was soooo obviously into me, and I was soooo flattered, that I gave him my number anyway and when I left, I began to plot what sorts of activities we could engage in before I was actually cheating, and could I ever leave B for this doctor? I mean, this doctor was so polished and normal, and without any neuroses or weirdness at all, and he paid for everything without worrying about it and lived well, and he did all this volunteer work, and he was totally wild about me! Just imagine what my friends would think!
I left Romeo and headed out onto the street to get home, and he ran after me, climbed up a fire escape and yelled after me, saying he was going to call me, I was great, we should do dinner.
We had dinner, and he was sweet and smart and funny, and told me that my brain needed cleaning.
Why yes, he said, everyone did it. He was quite skilled at it himself.
I was still trying to figure out if making out with him would be considered cheating, and if I should break up with my boyfriend, and I agreed to a good brain cleaning. I knew I couldn't have sex with him because I 1) could expose B to some kind of bizarre disease, which was rude 2) I've got an IUD, so if he had chlamydia or something I'd have to have all of my internal organs removed, and I could die.
So, no sex. Not even in my dreams, do I get extra sex!! I have to get it all in real life. Poor B.
Anyway, Romeo then removed my brain and stored it in his refrigerator, where it had strange tubes poking in and out of it that bathed and drained the brain of fluid, washing it super clean.
Apparently, I could live without my brain for 48 hours before my system shut down and I became brain dead, so I could still walk and talk while this guy "bathed" my brain.
But once he had my brain, he started acting pretty weird and controlling. He wanted to tell me what to eat, what to wear, how to do my hair. He tried to convince me to break up with B. He waxed on about how romantic he was, and how nobody would love me like he did.
Then he went back to the refrigerator to retrieve my newly bathed brain, but he slipped, and knocked the entire brain and petri dishes of fluid on the floor, and the brain burst into a zillion pieces.
He was trying to decide what pieces he could salvage to restore basic motor skills to me when I woke up from my dead sleep and thought:
OMG I'M SO GLAD I'M NOT DATING.
Whenever I worry that B and I are too neurotic to be together, I remember that we both layed out our weirdnesses up front instead of trying to decieve each other until we were both so far gone in the relationship that getting out was sticky, and though he thinks my brain is superkewl, he definately doesn't want the rest of me without it.
And yes, I'm looking forward to an end to this weird-dream-inducing hot weather.
Sour Duck's Take on Inhibited Writing, Anger, and Brutal Women
Sour Duck had some thoughts on my Intelligent Blogging post. Cool, right?
She disagreed with some of the things I said, and got all riled up to write, and then:
I initially felt very charged and excited by the prospect of writing about some of the issues Kameron inadvertently raised for me through her post; however, as I was mentally formulating responses to it, I also became very aware that I should be careful not to tread on her toes. In other words, I became concerned that if I disagreed with her, she might come on over to my blog and leave a hostile or semi-hostile comment, or post one at her blog. This concern/fear/anxiety, as you can imagine, greatly inhibits your writing. I have no idea how much of it has to do with the fact that she is a well-known blogger, but certainly that has something to do with it.
Dude, if I ever show up on anyone's blog and personally attack them and tell them they're a flaming freakshow, please delete my comment, OK?
Disagree with me, please! Conversation is what this is all about.
Some of her other comments in the post also bring up that funny fear of hostile comments. Apparently, fear of trolls was a big topic of conversation at the Blogher conference. There is a desperate fear that speaking one's own opinion will... make people angry with you.
Well, yea.
Yea, it will.
If you haven't pissed somebody off, you're not trying hard enough.
I haven't had much of a problem with trolls, because I adhere to Teresa Nielsen Hayden's advice about trolls. She's consistently got comments numbering in the hundreds, and the conversation stays civil, intelligent, and relatively on-topic. They're always worth reading:
9. If you judge that a post is offensive, upsetting, or just plain unpleasant, it's important to get rid of it, or at least make it hard to read. Do it as quickly as possible. There's no more useless advice than to tell people to just ignore such things. We can't. We automatically read what falls under our eyes.
10. Another important rule: You can let one jeering, unpleasant jerk hang around for a while, but the minute you get two or more of them egging each other on, they both have to go, and all their recent messages with them. There are others like them prowling the net, looking for just that kind of situation. More of them will turn up, and they'll encourage each other to behave more and more outrageously. Kill them quickly and have no regrets.
This is one of the problems I have trying to read comments over at feministing, because they've let a lot of rather useless assholes propagate, and comments often become off-topic and unreadable.
I know they've got a great hit count there: there's no reason they shouldn't be having consistently great conversations with comments in the hundreds. Unfortunately, one or two assholes are hijacking threads and pissing people off, and a lot of great threads devolve into off-topic pissing matches.
As said, I haven't had much trouble with trolls. Comments like, "Feminists give the best head," and "This is just a FUCKING STUPID POST. U R STUPIDDDD!!!" get deleted outright. Stuff like, "I completely disagree. You're killing babies," might get engaged with if they're willing to get teased out into having an actual discussion instead of just screaming, "U R KILLING BABIES!!!!" over and over again.
I had one persistent heckler whose post I had to delete two or three times. He was a right-winger who tried to start pissing matches at other blogs, and ran in here and guerilla-posted about homosexuality being a "birth defect" and felt it neccessary to give me his permission to go "muff diving" with the nearest "homosexual" I could get my hands on.
Assholes like that aren't looking for an intelligent discussion. They're looking for a fight. And I'm not going to give over any of my time or attention to them.
Delete.
This is my space. I own and control it, and it's my job to make it a place where my readers can come and engage in a discussion without feeling like somebody's gonna be able to get away with calling them a "cunt" or an "angry feminist." I don't tolerate personal attacks. Attack the issue, not the poster. You may very well get somebody telling you your opinion omits certain facts, or they disagree with your take on things, but when we get to the "you're fucking stupid" place, I step in.
As for anger, and disagreeing with me, I'll steal my response at Sour Duck's blog wholesale:
Oh, lord, please disagree: goodness knows the boys have no trouble doing it. Disagreement does *not* mean you hate a person, it just means you think differently about their ideas. That's a *good* thing. A place without dissent is a place without conversation, and that sort of place stagnates.
As for the anger bit: don't get me wrong, anger is an absolutely fantastic tool. The problem with blogging while running on sheer anger, however, is that you often don't pause to think over the particular issue you're discussing, so your thoughts are more likely to come out disjointed.
When I blog angry, it tends to take the form of linking others' thoughts without commentary, which often implies that I completely agree with those thoughts (and, again, *completely* agreeing with everyone is the first step to stagnation. If you do agree, try a, "I thought this was interesting, but I had another take on it"). It also leads people to assume what I'm thinking about the subject, since I've just left a link and a curse word and not much else...
Anger is a potent tool. It has the ability to get you up off your ass when the shit hits the fan. It also can cause you to flail wildly and smack anything that comes near you while gnashing your teeth in a feiry, but ultimately, unproductive, rage.
The trick is to channel the anger into something more constructive. Have your anger moment, step back, feel it, and then engage the topic again with the anger running just beneath your rational thought so that what you end up with in the end is a biting, intelligent criticism instead of incoherent screaming.
Lots of people get turned off by incoherent screaming, and they just tune out. My goal is to be read. If I'm not speaking in a thoughtful, intelligent, entertaining way (and the anger can add entertainment value, particularly when irony and sarcasm are involved), then people will go elsewhere for thoughts and commentary. Not neccessarily a bad thing, but talking to myself (as noted in Burningbird's post) can get kind of dull.
What drives me is getting mail from readers who've changed their lives or looked at something differently because of what I've written. Beyond self-expression, that's what I'm in it for, and if I'm unreadable, I'm not reaching anybody.
The issue of the suppression of women's anger is a big one, and an ongoing discussion that's been around forever. It's been around so long that I'm still startled to see both men and women all over the net still use the "You're just an angry woman" brush-off. The first insult you'll get in any forum if you don't tow the party line is that you're being an angry feminist (I was recently taken to task for being "an angry white feminist" at an SF criticism blog, of all things).
I admit that when I get pegged this way, it pisses me the fuck off, and the best retort for something like that is irony and sarcasm. Getting into a bitching match with the offender just ends up devolving the thread into a pissing match about who's got the most degrees and/or life experience, and that doesn't get anybody anywhere.
Please don't ever feel you need to apologize for disagreeing with anybody (especially me - I'm really not all that "well known" a blogger!). That's the pure joy of the net, particularly for those who blog anonymously.
I *want* people to disagree with me, intelligently. I get into huge arguments with those around me all the time about things I blog about, and my take on issues. One of my best real-world friends was actually one of the people who e-mailed me about my lazy blogging style, and I was so pissed off with him for a week that I could barely speak.
In the end, since he certainly wasn't the only one who'd brought it up, I read and re-read his comments and looked at my blog again and realized there was a lot of truth to his comments. I was losing myself to the feminist blog "community" and becoming part of a thing instead of being an individual.
That's not something unique to feminist blogs at all; it happens within many, many communities, usually because of the concern you noted: you start feeling like you "know" these bloggers, and feel that if you disagree with what they're saying, you're attacking them. And who wants to attack people whose opinions they respect?
I remember taking on a post of Amanda Marcotte's (now of Pandagon) just before she won the Koufax Award and being a little leery of doing it, cause I knew she read me.
In the end, I posted my criticism, and she and some others hopped on board, and there was a conversation going on that hadn't gone on before. Doesn't mean I hate Amanda: she's superkewl and I respect the hell out of her, but sometimes I'm going to disagree with what she says, and that's OK.
I love that people disagree with me, and so long as it's well-thought out and worth engaging, I'll totally engage with it. That's the great fun of blogging.
Sitting around with a bunch of people who tell you you're perfect and superkewl all day is a great pat on the back, but ultimately not terribly constructive.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Guest Blogging
For those interested, I will be guestblogging over at World Fantasy Award Winning author Jeff VanderMeer's place starting Monday.
I'm going to try and be very polite.
We'll see how long that lasts...
Girl Crushes
As somebody who identifies as being "Mostly Straight," I've still had my fair share of "girl crushes," so I was interested to read this piece in The NY Times about the apparent "resurgence" of women feeling free to express infatuation with one another.
Oh, did I mention it's purely infatuation, not attraction?
Not at all.
Because that would be gay.
A girl crush:
refers to that fervent infatuation that one heterosexual woman develops for another woman who may seem impossibly sophisticated, gifted, beautiful or accomplished. And while a girl crush is, by its informal definition, not sexual in nature, the feelings that it triggers - excitement, nervousness, a sense of novelty - are very much like those that accompany a new romance.
It's not gay.
Now, there are some interesting bits in this article. And of course, women were able to express this kind of affection more freely in the 19th century, and often wrote one another long love letters and kissed and hugged and everybody was cool with that. And it's neat that in some circles there's a resurgence of that.
But there were a couple of things that really bothered me. The first is the way "girl crushes" were categorized as giving women "safe and valuable experience in the emotions of love" and "there's every reason to think that girls can fall in love with other girls without feeling sexual towards them, without the intention to marry them."
The first comes dangerously close to implying that oh-so-19th-century idea that romantic love felt by women toward other women is somehow childish and quaint, something to give you "experience" before you have a "real" romantic relationship with a man. The second bothers me because it's another elbow in the ribs of the "not gay" variety. People can also fall in love and get married and not have sex. Well, only if they're a hetero couple, or maybe if they live in Massachusettes or Canada or Amsterdam. Or Spain, actually. Marriage doesn't neccessarily guarantee a sexual relationship, either, and like any other sort of crush or infaturation, the urge for hetero sex/sexual feeling between partners cools down over time as well.
Anyhow, I was a little struck by how clearly both the author and researchers quoted wanted to distance this kind of attraction (and yes, I'll call it attraction) from same-sex attraction (i.e. LESBIANISM) or hetero attraction (i.e. "Real" attraction).
I would also argue that some of their attempts at differentiating "girl crush" from "real crush" are kinda lame: "Crushes are typically fleeting, and infatuation often turns to friendship in this way." Isn't that true of most relationships, sexual (hetero and same-sex) as well?
I do believe that fears of "this must mean I'm a lesbian" do still really curtail the ways in which crushes/attraction between (and among) women are expressed. I've got no trouble saying that I love some of my friends, and it doesn't bother me to think, "Hey, that feeling I have toward that woman, that's kinda gay." I don't need to go around in loops and hoops and try to justify it as some sort of "special" or "different" sort of love or attraction.
I was happy that they made a nod toward men in this discussion as well:
As for men, to the extent they may feel such emotions for each other, Dr. Caplan said they are less likely than women to express them. They are not reared to show their emotions. "A man talking about emotions about another man? Everybody's homophobic feelings are elicited by that, and that's because men aren't supposed to talk about feelings at all," Dr. Caplan said.
Let's qualify that with "Men in this culture." Guys holding hands in Iran isn't anything to look twice at.
Though if you do more than that, they'll kill you.
Not that anybody's justified in being afraid to be called gay for feeling sexual toward another woman. Cause so many current cultures are so approving of that. I think it's far easier for women to justify it as childish "infatuation" (NOT GAY!!!!), and hold out for the more socially-acceptable penis, which they may prefer anyway, but which shouldn't totally negate their attraction to particular women.
What I'd love is for somebody to just up and write the article where they admit that sex and sexual expression is a social activity. It brings people of same and different sexes together. It builds social networks. It's one of the things in our evolutionary toolbox that's helped us survive: forming bonds of friendship can and does include actual touching of the Evil Corporeal Body.
Keeping us all terrified of touching each other smacks to me of living inside some dystopian novel where we're perpetually at war with a Nameless Enemy, a Society of Disinformation reigns supreme, we're all being tracked and tagged with DNA cards, and the President speaks only in doublespeak...
Oh, wait, that was me watching CNN this morning.
Nevermind.
Good Morning, Chiklits
Had myself wound pretty tight the last couple of days.
Getting into the new house routine has been a little stressful, and getting used to my much smaller room has been a lesson in patience.
There's a trick to getting around the room without banging into bookshelves and overturning the fan that involves a lot of opening and closing the room door and the closet door in a certain order. The same attention to movement has to be applied to getting in and out of my desk chair, as well, which has about four inches of play room between itself and my queen-sized bed. In the morning, before coffee, this can be really annoying, and I've found myself, on occasion, stuck in my chair or half-fallen over onto the floor.
I'm also adjusting to new house rules. Jenn and I didn't plan this particularly well, so we've got a space that fit two people now housing three, and she and I didn't do well throwing out all of our old junk in order to make room for her SO.
Luckily, the SO is good with spaces (and drinks beer - yea! There's beer in the house!), so getting everything to fit looks nice. House rules, however, are different. The SO doesn't like doing dishes, and doesn't like looking at labels, so the labels on stuff in the kitchen (like dish soap and Lysol wipes) had to be taken off (and my "Survivor, Africa!" cup has been deemed rather cheesy, and would have been thrown out if it was Jenn's! I have compromised, and it now lives back in the cupboard instead of by the coffee maker).
There are just lots of little things to get used to, and I think that combining house-stress with gym-stress/body stress and work stress (work stress of the "I hate this job" variety as opposed to the "I actually have stuff to do at work" variety, cause I never have much to do at work. That's why I started a blog), and I was feeling pretty tired.
I've also been having some trouble with my contacts apparently drying out during the day - I don't know if it's the weather or what, but they're bugging me more than usual, and not being able to see properly is enough to put anybody in a shitty mood.
I'd like to just wear glasses, but I prefer contacts for the gym, and lugging *more* gear to the gym, even just some saline solution and a contacts case, just makes me tired. The strap on my gym bag broke, too, from carrying around too much shit, so the more spartan I can be, the better.
Work on God's War, the next book, continues. I'm still really behind, but it's moving. I'm actually really, really, loving this book. I'm in love with it. Yes. It's just a shitload of fun, and the style it's written in, the pacing, the actual story structure, are unlike anything I've done before (the subject matter, well, I've been writing women, blood and sand stories for nearly six years). Right now I'm going back and doing some editing so the rest of the book rolls a little more smoothly and I've got a better plot-setup. I'm notoriously bad at plot, and I'd like to actually *have* one this time around.
I continue to get a lot of reading done, which also helps with stress. B will be in town this weekend, which means lots of bedroom... uh, reading time, so that's good. Very relaxing.
I don't know about anybody else, but I'm really looking forward to fall weather. This summer's just been a bitch as far as the heat goes, and I'm done with it.
How the hell did I survive in Durban for a year and a half?
Who knows?
In any case, I wouldn't mind an Alaskan vacation right about now.
Looking forward to fall.... ahhhhh.....
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Honey, You Came Too Soon
Wow. Pfizer, maker of the Viagra, has patented a pill for "premature climax." No, no, not for men -
For women.
Has anybody ever had a "problem" with this? I mean, come once, you can just come again, you know? The "recovery" period for most women really isn't that long. And what's wrong with having sex *after* you come? I mean, a proper weekend sexfest would involve lots of sexual expression and perhaps two or three or four orgasms.
The company believes that women and men do not complain about the sexual dysfunction because, "male partners often choose to take rapid orgasm as positive feedback on their skill as a lover".
And I choose to take rapid orgasm as a great stepping-off point to having another one real soon.
I'm always curious as to who decides whose orgasm (male or female) is "too quick." Isn't that more an issue of partners' preferences and not the medical establishment?
(via feministing)
I Think People Who Are Good With Numbers Should Make More Money
And yet, women office accountants don't often make much more than I do. But looking at some of this spreadsheet bullshit that our now twice-fired accountant used to do, I'm wondering why the hell women accountants don't get paid more.
I wonder how much better it used to pay when more men did it?
I remember my mother telling me that for years, the bosses where she worked used to argue that the reason men got paid more for doing the same work was because they were being paid a "family" wage (even if they weren't married), and women were just going to go out and get married and have a guy with a "family" wage "support" them.
I suppose women who were working were assumed 1) not to have a family or any reason to spend money (the whole "women just work for pin money" deal) 2) not to understand that getting paid less for doing the same work sounded like something out of the "seperate but equal" south.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Women & Weight Training
Kudos to Heather for pointing me toward this site that provides a bunch of info for women who are interested in/new to weight training.
Good info on weight, sets, reps, nutrition, and tips for training before and after pregnancy (and for those interested: working out actually tends to *decrease* the discomfort of monthly bleeding and cramping, which is yet another great reason for me to stay on track).
I particularly like the photo of her pushing her car.
Monday, August 08, 2005
It Feel Like All of My Limbs Are Going to Fall Off
Sitting around the house, eating sushi and drinking beer, reading the second-to-last book of Zelazny's Amber series (one of the few old-school SF authors who actually writes women-as-people) at my new digs (pictures coming soon) in the designated reading room full of bookshelves... yea, life is good.
Overdid it a little at the gym. I think all my limbs are so sore they're gonna fall off.
I mean, in a good way. Just think of how buff I'll be. Yea.
Life is good.
I love wireless internet, too.
It's amazing, the luxeries you can pretend to afford when you're not terribly worried about leaving around an inheritance.
I intend to die in debt.
But man, I sure will have had a lot of fun.
I Have Given In To the Bread Products
And they are good.
It really is a binge eating issue. I've tried to just eat one of something, you know, moderation, when it comes to bread products, but I just can't. I either have to do what I'm doing, which is "no bread products!" and then have a cheat day once every couple weeks in which I eat a number of bread products, or have absolutely no bread products at all, which is tougher.
I hate this strange compulsive behavior. I need to go buy more books.
"Our Stories Aren't All Tragedies"
Lots of places in Africa even have cities:
I felt as if I had been invited under false pretences. I should have been born in a poverty-stricken village, brutally circumcised with a blunt, unsanitised knife with other five-year-old girls, then, a few years later, kidnapped by child soldiers, becoming a sex slave of a rebel commander before escaping dramatically and trekking through the dry bush for miles and months until I was rescued by foreign aid workers, "rehabilitated" and adopted by a gracious American family. I would end up triumphant and grateful in the US and living to tell my story; which is, of course, a story worth telling.
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