Workado

Yea, it's gonna be a busy week.

Luckily, also lots of free dinner, free lunch, free breakfast, free drinks. We've got lunch dates and dinner and drink dates with the reps for the company we're teaming with for this project.

And, as per the usual, the hotel we're staying at is awesome. It's the size of a one bedroom New York apartment. Separate room for the bed, with a closet, a tv, a desk, a living area with a couch and easy chair and another tv, a huge desk/eating table separating the kitchen from the living area, a big bathroom.

Yea. At least it's comfortable.

Though I must say, I'm really looking forward to those drinks.

I'm Feeling DownToday: Time for a Random Useless Quiz

KNIGHT

You are the Knight, the
legendary, romantic hero of great kingdoms. The
Knight is a true warrior and an epic hero. He
will do anything to defend his honor and his
kingdom. Whatever his lord or king commands he
will do without hesitation. He is very
virtuous; he holds honesty, loyalty, and
bravery in very high regard.

Color:
Purple
Animal: Lion
Gem: Ruby
Symbol:
Shield

Image:
http://www.deviantart.com/view/7339749/


Who would you be if you were a character in an epic fantasy? (beautiful pictures)
brought to you by Quizilla

What's with all this "he" crap?

(via tempest)

Total Book Count For The House:

2,749

Dude, we're so hitting the over 3,000 count by next year.

My sad, paltry piece of this count?

A mere 544 of these actually belong to me.

What kind of writer am I?????

Ah, yes: a poor one.

Need to work on that.

Off to Indy

Well, work is crazy mad wild and they're sending me to Indianpolis next week from Monday-Thursday. We're bascially living out of a hotel room there. I whined and complained about Indiana as much as possible, but it only served to delay the trip. We've got some insane amout of work to get done in the next twelve days.

Bah. But I was so happy spending all day writing and playing computer games!

So it goes. There's gotta be at least a couple times a year where I actually get paid to do my actual job. I guess. So I'm told.

Ha Ha

Ha ha. I see a new market has arrived for my Body History story.

This makes me happy. Goal is to have five stories total in the mail as of Monday.

Just Think of How Much Better the Ratings Would Be!

::cough:: ::cough::

(via Nick)

What a Slow Day

Slooooooooooooooooooowwww

Note

Do not use nasty wine even as cooking wine.

It is still gross after it is cooked.

Ug

Yea. Getting back to the gym after a break: now everything hurts.

In a good way, but damn, it hurts to raise my arms.

I Tucked in My Shirt Today

And the world did not recoil in horror.

Being Rachael Ray

I admit it, I have a huge crush on Rachael Ray, and I'm sometimes found secretly sighing over her on The Food Network.

As I'm a totaly sucker for the small-time-girl-makes-it-big story (for obvious reasons), I was delighted to find this:

Most of the thousands of recipes Ms. Ray has "canoodled" over the years were written in her cabin. She rented it 13 years ago and has lived there off and on with her mother and, sometimes, her younger brother, since. Some months she could barely put together enough money to cover the $550 rent.

"It was check-to-check living," Ms. Ray said.

She had grown up around Lake George, but the cycle of small-town life and low-paying jobs was wearing thin. In 1995, Ms. Ray headed to New York City. She worked first at the Macy's Marketplace candy counter and moved up the ranks quickly, learning about everything from buying cheese to how to shop for Liza Minnelli's holiday food gifts. When Macy's tried to promote her to a buyer in accessories, she moved to Agata & Valentina, the specialty foods store.

She stayed in the city for only two years. After a bad break-up, a broken ankle and a violent mugging in front of her Queens apartment that left her scraped and shaken, she headed home.

Ms. Ray moved back into the cabin and eventually landed a job at the fanciest food and equipment store in Albany. She was a buyer and a cook, preparing hundreds of pounds of food every day. As a holiday promotion, she developed a class to help people get dinner on the table in half an hour.

It caught on, so Ms. Ray started teaching the concept at a chain of local grocery stores and on a Schenectady television station. Anywhere they would let her, really. By 1998, she figured she could sell a companion cookbook, so she talked an independent Manhattan publisher into turning her pile of photocopied recipes into a book.

Then her moment arrived.

In 2001 a Food Network executive heard Ms. Ray cook on an upstate public radio show. The same week, a "Today" show producer saw her book and called.

Ms. Ray and her mom drove nine hours south in a snowstorm, and she nailed the "Today" show appearance. The next day, she said, the Food Network signed her to a $360,000 contract to teach America what she had been teaching the folks upstate.

My favorite part:

A favorite slam is that her meals take more than 30 minutes, which, especially for people with little kitchen acumen, they often do. They say she is untrained and relies on too many shortcuts, like shredded cheese and frozen French fries.

To which Ms. Ray says, they're right.

"I have no formal anything," she said. "I'm completely unqualified for any job I've ever had."

ha ha. Translation: Fuck you.

Tuesday Poetry

All Those Inuit Names for Snow
by Tom Tempkin

My mother is watching her mother die.
Gravity has declared war against the lower lip.
Salt has worn to fine gauze the threads

sprouting from the inner ear. For each one
that goes, we must learn a new word
for what we think life is, what we dream

it will be. Among our tricks and screams
and flowered boudoirs, we must all wear once
the wedding gown stained with mother's blood

or dance the implicit waltz while meandering
to victory with a swollen hand.
I will feed the cat when you're gone.

This is my promise.
The first one to wake whispers to the other:
poinsetta, aspen, sweet fig, dream of orchid, rose.

Why Arming Women Won't Stop Violence Against Women

So here's our heroine's choices. She can shoot him and get convicted of a variety of crimes, because you can't just go around shooting guys. The only guys you can shoot are burglars and guys who Don't Look Like Us. So she goes to jail. Then what do the rest of us do? She becomes like Andrea Yates or Susan Smith---the real life version of all those Evil Disney Mothers, while real life male scumbags get tossed into the collective dustbin of consciousness. We can't think ill of those that rule us. We can't look too closely at how they do it.

So tell me how giving women guns without changing the culture will do any damned good at all. It won't protect women, and chances are it will enrage the men who laugh at the idea that a woman has a right to enjoy her body while he does not. I have to say, too, a stray thought occurred to me. Guys who think they have such rights to women's bodies---what do you suppose their attitude is toward other methods of controlling those women's bodies? Do you really think you have to right to do anything with your body if they don't get off on it? Do you think they care about your body except if it gets them off? Do you really think they give a shit at all?

Giving women guns is just going to put more women behind bars. The very men who proclaim that this will solve the problem are removing themselves and their buddies from the responsible party list by suggesting it. "Hey," they whine, "We gave you an option, you chose not to take it. Not our problem any longer."

Writing Today

Got a couple stories back in the mail this weekend. Now I need to work on some new material.

Ah, I love the fall. I'm making a tasty vegetarian pasta tonight.

World Fantasy Schedule, Revised

I've finally nailed down the last bit of info I needed in order to book for the World Fantasy Convention in Madison, WI.

Jenn's got her proposal dissertation defense that Friday, so instead of bumming a ride up with her, I'm taking the train up late Thursday. I'll be getting in around midnight, but should be good to go for Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

I cancelled my reservations at the Doubletree because for the same amount I could get a lakeview suite at the Hilton Madison Monona Terrace, where Jenn and I stayed for our first Wiscon. We love it there, so I booked and prepaid for a slightly better rate.

Hope to see some of you there!

Once More Around the Mulberry Bush

Back to my morning weights, back to the gym tonight, back to drinking coffee.

Ahhhhhh

Here at work, Blaine's back from his honeymoon. Apparently, "Glad to be back," which says something about what a workaholic he's become. Dude, give *me* your two weeks in Hawaii, dude...

My Eyes Are Small And Squinty

Oh, I need to sleep more.

Octopus Vs. Shark

Cool.

Surreal Moment of the Day

Explaining to the new counterperson at the very new Starbucks on our corporate campus what "breve" meant, after repeating my order four times with varying degrees of slowness, so she could map down all the Starbucks-speak.

It was surreal not because she didn't know, but because I did.

Sometimes I worry that the corporate card and the nice shoes will turn me into a yuppie. All I need now is to actually be making money and driving an SUV.

I'm such a liberal hippie.

Friday Beer Blogging

Woman! Someday is Today!!

Women! Someday is today

Is motherhood instinctive or learned behavior? Both religion and science tell us that it is instinctive, much to the distaste of the feminist ideologists, who have never been overburdened by a solid grasp on either. But one need only watch the way in which a young girl mothers her stuffed animals to see the maternal instinct at work.

Her stuffed animals???

Researcher 1: As you can see, this female engages in play activities with her stuffed animals. This is instictive maternal behavior.

Researcher 2: And yet, this male child here is also engaging in play activities with his stuffed animals.

Researcher 1: He is learning animal anatomy in order to prepare him for the hunt.

Researcher 2: But this girl's stuffed animals have been separated into two teams, and one is mounting a strategic air attack against the other. And this boy appears to be... feeding his animals and calling them "Floppy."

Researcher 1: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.... ::waves hands in front of colleague's face:::

Although the Equalitarian Society is now, by most statistical measures, structured so as to favor its female members, it nevertheless poses a cruel choice to those women cursed by its costly blessings

Wow, I'd love to see how our Western Equalitarian society "favors" it's female members. We get to go to prison, too! Where are these "statistical measures, I wonder? hmmmmm

And a woman foolish enough to wait more than two decades before attempting to have children has no one to blame but herself.

And the fact that the state doesn't provide child and healthcare. And the fact that it took her those two decades to go to school and have a career that would make it financially possible for her to raise a child responsibly. Oh, and she had to find an actual, you know, willing partner to help her out with all this, and let's remember that men aren't all that eager to have kids at 20 years old, either. For reasons outlined above: want to go to med school? There's a decade, right there.

Oh, I'm sorry. I mean: women, it's all YOUR FAULT!

As for the likelihood that the technological future will eventually solve such problems, it is worth noting that no society that possesses artificial wombs, robot sex dolls, multiplayer video games and 24-hour sports networks is one in which men are likely to show a tremendous amount of interest in relationships or the opposite sex.

But I thought this was all women's fault? I'm confused now.

Bring on the babies in jars, in any case.

Fortunately, as we have not yet reached Nerdvana, there are a number of steps that a woman whose priority remains marriage and children can take in order to happily achieve those goals:

Well, thank Jesus for that!

Don't engage in casual dating relationships after 18. They're fun, and they'll also prevent you from pursuing more fruitful relationships.

Become a nun.

Make those potential long-term relationships your top priority. If you put college or your job first, there's a reasonable chance that a job is all you'll have at 40 ... and 60.

You should remain poor and illiterate. Men like women this way.

Consider the president's new Supreme Court nominee. The unmarried and childless Creepy McCrypto is on the verge of becoming one of the two most powerful professional women in the country – does she really represent the ideal American woman?

Wow! Kudos for getting Miers in here. No wonder the right wingers all hate Miers. She's unmarried and childless! This all makes a LOT more sense. *These* are the credentials they're looking for and can't find. They don't care that she's never been a judge. They're freaking out cause she's not married!

Settle earlier rather than later.

If it breathes and has a dick, hop on.

Those who are not still single at 35 are now married to men generally considered to be of lower quality than the men they spurned before.

Who are now gas station attendants.

Remember, your choices narrow as you get older, while men's choices broaden.

After 35, no man will ever want to have sex with you. Ever. Not even your husband. He has statstical measures, I'm sure. Though, I mean, we don't get to see them.

Luckily, if you're a lesbian, you get to luck out of this fate. Oddly, he doesn't mention this. Perhaps he thinks lesbians are mythical creatures made up in liberal hippie fairy books.

Let everyone know that marriage and children is your ultimate goal. Too many women, fearing the wrath of the Sisterhood, secretly wish for them while publicly and piously professing feminist-approved cant to the contrary.

The Wrath of the Sisterhood? Who be these sisters of wrath? Yea, cause, like, everybody from my hometown who was like, "I want to get married and have kids. That's my ultimate goal," I totally beat them up and strangled them.

No. If that's what you want out of life, you go for it. If you want that and a shitload more, I intend to remind you of that.

Unlike their female counterparts, men who say they don't want to get married or have kids usually mean it.

Ummmm. Yea. Cause we EVIL WOMEN LIE ALL THE TIME about such things. I really, desperately want 16 children and three husbands. I want to become a Mormon and move to Utah and make my own clothes and give up coffee.

And if you believe that, I have a some Nigerian money scheme I'll let you in on for only $29.95 a month.

Shed your man-hating friends, as well as those who buy seriously into the Equalitarian dogma. Misery loves company and miserable women like nothing better than to make everyone within a five-mile radius miserable, too.

Oh, finally we get to the lesbians. Kick out those lesbian friends of yours, and those closet-lesbians who sleep with men but say women need equal rights and access to contraception and equal pay for equal work! Those lesbian-friendly douchebags should be dropped like jeans and replaced with skirts, dammit.

The lesbians and lesbian-friendlies are just out to make you miserable, to teach you that you can fulfill all of your greatest hopes and dreams and live the life you've imagined! And who the hell wants that when you can marry the gas attendant at the local 7-eleven and bust out a couple of babies at 16 and live in poverty married to a guy who doesn't love you and who you aren't all that into?

Because isn't that what every woman wants?

Be brutal when assessing the men who are interested in you.

Castrate them.

Oh, sorry, different rant.

The way he treats others is the way he will eventually treat you.

Well now, how can I argue with that?

If you want the odds of easily bearing healthy children to be in your favor, set a goal of marrying by 25. You can always go back to school, you can't go back in time.

Because having children with the wrong person who steals your money and your self-esteem and fighting over your kids is a lot better than finding your own self-esteem, figuring out who you are, and boldly engaging in an equal partnership with a strong, smart, person who shares your goals and values.

Babies are more important than you are.

Remember that love is a choice, an action and a commitment, it is not a feeling.

Wow. That's very medieval. On to arranged marriages, anyone?

You Throw Like A Girl

TORRANCE, Calif. -- When the Bishop Montgomery High School quarterback went down with a fractured leg, his replacement stepped in and completed four of five passes for three touchdowns.

There's nothing too unusual about that, except that the replacement quarterback was a girl.

Miranda McOsker, 15, is one of 253 girls out of 100,000 high school students in California who are playing football this year, according to the California Interscholastic Foundation. She joined the private Catholic school's football program last spring.

"I didn't try out for quarterback, I was just looking to play anything," said the 5-foot-9, 140-pound sophomore. "One day I was throwing with the quarterback after practice and the coaches watched me. They told me to play quarterback the next day and ever since I've been playing quarterback."

WTF is "hard fantasy"?

Just when I thought I'd heard it all...

More on Food Obsession

My run with the flu pushed me off track with my gym and weights routine, and screwed my eating habits. Well, no, that's not true. My eating had been getting out of hand again as I was swallowed by stress, most of it having to do with trying to get the rewrites on the fantasy saga done. I felt like Iwas caught up in a tornado and then dropped into a big pool of sludge and I was floundering around, sinking faster and faster with every pitiful stroke...

It's no wonder I was literally bedridden and starving for a week, dreaming of food and the day when I could once again read a book without feeling like I was puzzling out a physics equation written in ancient Egyptian.

My week post-flu was spent being hungry all the time, eating lots of bread, pasta, yogurt, and soup and worrying about how much I was eating.

Last weekend, B came into town and said, "You know, I hate to say this, but you really have lost weight. It's a little disturbing."

Well, yes, it is. Because secretly, I really don't mind the way I look. For all my wishing and hoping that I'd drop two fucking sizes, I really don't mind looking the way I do. I like being substantial. But... but...

Now that the book's gone out, the major stress is off. I'm still living too much with my credit card, but I'm hoping to take care of that by the end of the year. My eating this week has been reasonable and very filling. I feel terribly content. I've been eating a big breakfast, snacking on grapes and yogurt during the day, partaking of communal roommate dinners at night (usually consisting of pasta and salad or fish and salad and asparagus, or eggs and vegetables, and etc.).

I've had no binging stress at all.

And I worried about that.

I worried about my weight, worried that I hadn't been able to get back to the gym, worried about what pancakes for breakfast every morning would do to my waistline. Worry, worry. Not a big worry, just that little, nagging voice, "You're eating too much. You're enjoying yourself. You won't lose weight this way. You're going to be confined to buying clothes from the same 3 stores for the rest of your life."

Boo-hoo

But nonetheless, there I was, sneaking out of the house last night and going to Borders to look for a list of books about compulsive eating, overeating, and body image.

I spent an hour going from shelf to shelf to shelf. With no luck. I couldn't find any of them.

And as I perused the "Recovery" section of the bookstore, looking at books purporting to cure me of smoking, bulimia, alcoholism, anorexia, and drug addiction, I thought, "What the fuck am I doing here?"

I was struck again at how much time, energy, and effort I put into thinking about dieting, weight loss, body image. It's not on my mind all the time now, but when I get to being worried, when I'm uncertain of myself, this is where I go back to. I think, "If I could just fix this one thing, everything will be all right."

Which is horseshit. Utter, utter horseshit.

I'll still be me. I'm the same person at a size 12 as a size 16. There's no difference.

And the real kicker? The real fucking kicker is that there's nothing wrong with me. I'm totally healthy. I take the stairs everywhere. I walk over an hour every day. I eat reasonably. I have no health problems whatsoever except that I overstress about things. That's going to be the source of any of my ill health problems, not the fact that I weight 200 lbs (or whatever). No doctor has ever told me to lose weight. I don't have any strange aches and pains in my back or my knees. I don't have diabetes. I don't smoke.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with me, and here I'm standing in the "recovery" section like I'm slowly choking to death on whipped cream.

Hardly.

So I left the Recovery section and went to the "General Military History" section and picked up a ridiculous number of books for God's War.

Fuck this shit.

I have more important things to do with my time.

Yea, I'll get back to the gym and hopefully jogging next week, but I don't intend to lose one bloody pound doing it.

I'm so tired of hating myself over a number.

Writing Schedule

Oddly enough, I've still got God's War slated to be finished by year's end. Not sure how I'll pull that off, but I've got a strong beginning, a strong outline, and strong research. I've taken some downtime for research recently, but this weekened should get me back into the groove.

I'd also really like to get back on the short story route. I'd like to finish:

The Boxing Magicians of Faleen

A story about a boy who wants to be a boxing magician, set in the same world as God's War.

Heroes

A dark little peice about madness, torture, flying women, and cannibalism. Yay!

I'd also like to send something to a couple of anthologies including Clash of Steel, and From the Trenches (war stories, baby!).

I had a depressing look over at Ralan at the current OK-paying SF/F zines out there, as I've been doing so much work on novels, I've ignored short markets. For good reason, it seems: they're mostly closed to submissions.

Yay.

This is Why You Really Need to Prepare For Your Interview With (INSERT FAMOUS AUTHOR HERE)

Seriously. Some people just suck at interviewing. Margaret Atwood takes her young interviewer to task.

(thanks, Jenn)

Free Books

Just a reminder, there are over 16,000 free books over at Project Gutenburg.

It's pretty cool.

Send Twisty Some Presents

Twisty, now uniboobal, is in recovery.

If you'd like to send her some stuff to peruse, go for it:

What I really need are mystery novels, or old movies, or even some good old patriarchy-affirming yet diverting SF. Email me.

You're a Super-Fatty: I Make Fun of You Because I Care

In the eighth grade, I had a science teacher who decided he was going to teach us about health and nutrition and exercise. I really liked the guy, all told, but he really, really didn't like fat people. Well, no, I'll amend that: he didn't understand fat kids.

Let's call him Mr. H.

This made dealing with him kinda tough, because I'd just put on 30lbs of puberty weight, and I wasn't skinny to begin with. I would later lose 20lbs and grow a few inches, but looking back at some of my 8th grade photos, I was startled to see it was my second highest height/weight ratio.

Was I horribly unhealthy? Well, I sure could have used some exercise, and I probably ate too many sweets. But my diet was just as shitty when I was thinner as I hit highschool as it was in the 8th grade - I just didn't eat *as much* shit food. But I sure did *look* "healthier," I'm sure.

In any case, Mr. H. decided it was time to do something about all the fat, unhealthy kids in the class. We did a 2 or 3 month "course" in the class on health and nutrition. So in addition to PE classes, we came to science class and did circuit training and kept food journals. People got to marvel at how much or how little other people ate. I discovered I could do just as many exercises as some of the skinny girls who ate less. And of course, I got my ass kicked by everybody who exercised regularly.

Mr. H. arrived on campus at 6:30 am every morning and went jogging. It's just what he did. He invited other students to join him in these morning jogs. Which was a great thing if you were already in shape and could keep up. People like me would have to work into doing something like that. And, of course, I have. I can jog three miles now. Not a fast three miles, mind you, but I can jog it nonetheless. I can more-or-less find clothes that fit me, though I've got a narrower range of stores to go to than my size 4 roommate, who can shop anywhere.

What I appreciated about Mr. H. is that he did seem to care. What he didn't seem to get, though, is where all the fat kids were coming from. I don't think he got that we didn't feel we could go jogging with him at 6:30 am without feeling like fat lazy slobs because we couldn't keep up. Being harrassed or feeling like a slothful moron at 6:30 am isn't anything anybody wants to experience.

Keeping food journals and then sharing them with your teacher (binge sessions included) and having other kids comment on them isn't fun either. Nor is being compared to an athlete in how many circuit exercises you can do.

Being an overweight kid who's been made fun of everytime you try to do something active (which gets worse, particularly for women, at puberty when you've got all sorts of things jiggling all of the sudden) is pretty off-putting. I'd rather go home and read books.

So it was with in mind that I read this article by a Canadian high school chemistry teacher commenting on the health risks to her "Super Fatty" students:

Another problem is that its a taboo to make fun of fat people. We make fun and harass smokers regularly, but we think its rude to make fun of fat/obese people.

And yet how else will fat/obese people gain the willpower to exercise/eat properly if they don't get negative feedback/concern about their weight.

I MAKE FUN OF YOUR FLABBY BODY BECAUSE I CARE! THAT'S RIGHT JABBA THE HUTT! GET OFF YOUR FAT ASS AND EXERCISE! PUT AWAY THE COCA-COLA AND THE GREASY FOOD! GO WALK IT OFF!

For the record, I can't think of anyone in high school who made fun of smokers.

I can think of a whole hell of a fuck of a lot who made fun of me and others for being chunky, tubby, fat, slothful, ugly, lazy, overweight, obese, bovine-like.

Hear that? Nobody makes fun of fat people enough. That's why high school students don't exercise. That's why they're not keen on understanding nutrition. They's why we never went out running when our uber-friendly science teachers at 6:30 am.

If we just make fun of fat people more often, they'll be thin. It won't depress us and send us into our rooms to binge on cake and ice cream for three days and watch Titanic and cry. And absolutely nothing of our weight has anything to do with genetics, as researched, scientifically and everything, below.

No, we'll be invigorated if we're made fun of! Just like in the Marines! We'll want to go out and get thin!

You want to know what invigorates me to exercise? I want to be strong so I can kick the shit out of assholes like this fucktard.

(via bfb)

Those Pesky "Fat Storage" Genes! Just Think How Well the White Folks Would Have Populated the West Without Them

DURHAM, N.C., Oct. 12 - A gene that programs muscle tissue to store fat is over-expressed in obese women, researchers here say, and may be a key reason why dieting fails...

For now the take-home message for clinicians treating obese people is that diet alone is unlikely to have much effect, Dr. Muoio said.

Well, first of all:

1) Duh.

2) Why is it always *women* only who get put into these studies? Because fat women are scarier than fat men? Why can't you look at both in the same study? Or do dual studies of men and women?

3) Does it worry anyone else that if we start trying to mess with something like a "fat storage" gene, the more at risk we are of living in a society that looks a lot like Stephen King's novel Thinner?

Boy-Gamer Porn Poetry

Though I must say, I'd like to see the girl-gamer version of this. Any takers?

Nerd Porn Auteur

But I don't wanna watch this misogynist he-man woman-hater porn.
I want porno movies that are made with guys like me in mind:
Guys who know that the sexiest thing in the world
is a woman who is smarter than you are...

My porn starlets will come in all shapes and sizes.
My porn starlets will be too busy working on their PhD to go to the gym.

In my kind of porno movies the girls wouldn't even have to get naked.
They'd just take the guys down to the rec room and
beat them repeatedly at chess
and then talk to them for hours about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
or the underlying social metaphors in the Aliens movies.

Woe to the Unbelievers

Biology, in the western world, acts almost like the Qur'an in the eastern world - it is the ultimate excuse for why things for women cannot and will not change. In a secular world you are told that inequality rests on nature; and in a religious world you are told that it rests on God's word.

Haunted Alaska

Alaskan ghost stories...

Here's a couple from places I've been:

Circle - Circle Hot Springs - haunted by a former owner, they don't like renovations. Beers often move across the bar on its own. foot steps heard walking across the porch of the rental cabins

Fairbanks - mile 8-12 Chena Hot Springs Road - This road is haunted by ghostly lights. Late at night two lights that resemble headlights follows passing cars. Sometimes it will start to fly and form one bright light and other times it will just look like a fast moving car or truck with bright blue, white and orange colored lights.

(thanks, b)

Better Late Than Never

I'm catching up on my e-mail just now. Here's a worthwhile request for ya'll from Colleen Mondor:

As you may have read in the Bookslut blog two weeks ago, (I am a regular contributor over there), or over at Moorishgirl, I am working with a group in Baton Rouge who are helping children sheltered with their families at Southern University. We have put together a couple of wish lists of books and games that the folks at Parkview Baptist Church will happily deliver to the SU kids and other area shelter kids, all of whom would love to have a diversion right now. We are also trying to contact authors, illustrators, publishers, book and comic book reviewers in particular to let them know that any children, young adult or all ages titles they have lying around would certainly be welcome down in Baton Rouge.

If you could mention my project on your site, it would help get the word out. Also, feel free to buy off the lists, and send the links on to everyone you know and pass on my email to anyone who has any questions.

Take care and thank you for your help in spreading the word.

Best,

Colleen Mondor

Mailing Address for Donations:

Josh Causey
Parkview Baptist Church
11795 Jefferson Highway
Baton Rouge, LA 70816

Good Morning, Chiklits

Another day, another dollar.

B's in town for the long weekend, so we have been quite busy. Eating good food, watching shows. Stayed downtown Friday and Saturday night. Really neat to be bunking down a couple blocks from the Sears Tower.

Lots going on. More later.

I'm Sorry, I Had to Do It

They just make it so goddamn easy:

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- The court that made Massachusetts the first state to outlaw slavery will now decide whether slaves from other states can be freed there.

The case is being closely watched across the country. If the Supreme Judicial Court strikes down a 1913 law, slaves from across the country could be freed in Massachusetts and demand human rights at home.

Eight slaves from surrounding states, all of whom were denied freedom papers in Massachusetts, are challenging the law. It forbids nonresidents from being freed in the state if their freedom would not be recognized in their home state.

Massachusetts last year became the first state to outlaw slavery. Forty-one others have passed laws or constitutional amendments reinforcing slavery.

Michele Granda, a civil rights lawyer for the slaves, argued Thursday that the 1913 law "sat on the shelf" unused for decades until it was "dusted off" by the governor.

Granda said the high court, in its historic ruling recognizing the freedom of slaves, found that under the Massachusetts Constitution, black slaves had the same human rights as white people.

"Nothing in (that ruling) says that our officials can discriminate simply because officials in other states discriminate," Granda told the six-judge panel.

Attorneys for the state argued that the law is being enforced in an evenhanded way.

Assistant Attorney General Peter Sacks said Massachusetts risks a "backlash" if it flouts the laws of others states by freeing slaves from states that allow slavery.

"We've got respect for other states' laws," he said.

The high court is expected to rule in the next few months.

The eight slaves who sued are from Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and New York.

They include Sandi and Bobbi Cote-Whitacre of Essex Junction, Vermont, who are considered slaves in their home state but would like to be legally free.

What's the Lyndon Johnson quote? "Sometimes you do something because it's right, not because it's popular."

She Makes a Wonderful Sweet Potato Pie

Hitting the Media's Glass Ceiling

Harriet Miers may have broken through glass ceilings on her way to a Supreme Court nomination, but President Bush’s “work wife” has a long way to go with gender stereotyping in mainstream media coverage. Need proof? Compare news coverage in the days after her nomination with coverage this summer of the John Roberts nomination:

ROBERTS : “A career that had been marked by distinguished and relentless advancement.” (LA Times, 7/25/05)

MIERS: “She’s not somebody who is a gossip.” (AP, 10/4/05)

ROBERTS: “Brilliant but self-deprecating, earnest but not humorless.” (Boston Globe, 7/21/04)

MIERS: “She never misses a birthday.” (LA Times, 10/4/05)

ROBERTS: “Exceptional intellect. Exceptional temperament. A conservative judicial philosophy.” (LA Times, 7/25/05)

MIERS: “She makes a wonderful sweet potato pie. Many marshmallows.” (AP, 10/3/05)

ROBERTS: “Disciplined, self-assured and performance driven.” (Chicago Tribune, 7/24/05)

MIERS: “She would look at you blankly if you mentioned the name of a designer.” (Bloomberg, 10/4/05)

MIERS: “A pit bull in size 6 shoes.” (New York Times, 10/3/05)

ROBERTS: Sorry. No word on what size shoe John Roberts wears.

I just love our media.

What I've Been Up To

I've been spending a good deal of time recovering from sickness and catching up on all the things that didn't get done while I was sick. There were a lot of things.

I had several writing-related commitments to finish in addition to regular things like house chores, bills, and laundry. Got my book out to the Agent, wrote a recommendation for promotion letter for my academic advisor in SA, edited a paper for my brother, and have started in on my first contracted writing assignment for a software company.

On top of that, the Day Job has been busier than usual (meaning I'm actually doing things work-related during work hours), and everybody on our Indy team is wound a bit tight, especially Yellow, which makes working with him a little twitchier than usual. I've got a number of daily updates/reports to generate, which are annoying more than difficult. Been working on cutting myself away from work when it's over. I've been letting stress get the better of me, which is likely one reason I got hit so bad with the flu. I need to wipe my hands of work when I leave the office. It's just not worth stressing over. I'm not going to be doing this stuff much longer.

B is in town this weekend (yay!!), and we're snagging a hotel for a couple of nights because Jenn has a couple of friends in for the weekend and, well, we've only got one bathroom, alas. Looking forward to eating junk food, watching boxing and movies, and going to the Field Museum with B. And sleeping. And sex.

You know, good stuff like that.

I'll be heading back to the gym next week. After a week and change out with sickness, I started back up on my morning free weights this week, so I figure progressing to gym work next week is a nice, steady way to get back into things. I really don't want to wear myself down and get sick again.

The real fun month will be November. I've got the World Fantasy Con in Madison from the 4-6, flying to NY to visit B the 18-20th, and visiting my buddy Stephanie and her husband Ian in Ohio from the 23-26 (I'm bringing the wine, baby!). I've got more traveling in December. Because of B's school schedule, I'll probably be doing NY again December 16-18th and then hitting my parents' place for the holidays from the 22-28th.

There are a few more things that need to start happening in these next couple of months, too. I need to get out my application for the MFA program at Brooklyn College, and I need to start putting away money for my move to NY next July. I've been doing preliminary work looking into prices/areas of Brooklyn/Queens/Manhattan and looking at what sorts of jobs are available, and that process will increase in intensity as the time for movement nears. We'll need to start looking in earnest for a place in April, and by May I need to be looking into jobs if the BC College thing doesn't pan out. And, of course, temp jobs if it does. And let us not forget that my book God's War has a January completion date.

Busy life, good life.

Who Will Be Eaten First?

The Elder Gods are going to rise and eat us all!!

Orgies are the way to ease social tensions, claims US judge

..it turns out that there is another side to Justice Antonin Scalia: he thinks Americans ought to be having more orgies.

Challenged about his views on sexual morality, Justice Scalia surprised his audience at Harvard University, telling them: "I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged."

It seems unlikely that this is what President Bush meant when he promised to appoint more judges like Scalia to the court, should the opportunity arise.

The first major study of an experimental vaccine to prevent cervical cancer found it was 100 percent effective

No shit?

I'd like to see a study that wasn't done by the maker of the vaccine, but if this turns out to be true, it's hellacool:

The first major study of an experimental vaccine to prevent cervical cancer found it was 100 percent effective, in the short term, at blocking the disease and lesions likely to turn cancerous, drug maker Merck & Co. said.

Gardasil, a genetically engineered vaccine, blocks infection with two of the 100-plus types of human papilloma virus, HPV 16 and 18. The two sexually transmitted viruses together cause about 70 percent of cervical cancers.

I Want to Grow Up to Be Just Like You!

(thanks, K!)

How Time Flies

At the weekly office meeting today, I was startled to hear that Blaine, my old boss, had been at the company two years as of this week.

I was startled because I started working here a month after he did.

I'll have been here two years next month.

Where did the time go?

Work

Work has picked up (the old 3 months on/3 months off cycle), so things will continue to be slow for a bit.

Will be back later.

Good Morning, Chiklits

I seem to have weaned myself off coffee during my sickness.

This is very sad.

Comment Spam

Dealing with it. Hang in there.

Serenity

It's good. Go see it.

Hat & Coat Weather

I am clawing up from the dregs of sickness and discovering that there's a whole bright, beautiful world out there.

I'm also catching up on the three trillion things that I had to let slide while I was confined to bed, too weak to even read for long periods.

It was a bitch.

I've gnawed at the pile of stuff, and am feeling better about it. House chores, bills, e-mails, ticket reservations for Thanksgiving in Dayton, need to reserve my damn hotel room for World Fantasy, new contract writing job with a software company (paperwork, first little assignment), tackling the huge mindless waste of space that is my day job (full of dates and numbers and five daily reports and bullshit, bullshit, bullshit Xs 2), finishing the last of the Book rewrites so I can get that out by Friday/Saturday, and itching to get back to working on God's War.

I'm feeling awake, I have energy, I'll just be stirring around the rest of the week finishing up my backlog. I have lingering weakness and some trouble eating certain foods as yet, but I'm definately in recovery mode.

An Encounter with the HR Manager

I bumped into the HR manager in the hall, and she asked if I was any better.

I said, well, no.

JZ, one of the lead architects, is still out with the same thing (he still has PTO time. I burned all my up on writing days and trips to NY). After lamenting about the fact that I've been barely able to get down toast and soup for the last week, she said, cheerfully, "Well, you're getting really skinny!"

ARRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHGHGHHHRRHRHHRRHRHRHHRHRH

That's because I'm FUCKING STARVING!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOW IS THIS A GOOD THING????

And I know it's all muscle mass. You know the amount of retraining I'm going to have to do?

America.

You're sick and starving, but hey -- YOU'RE LOSING WEIGHT! Be joyful!

I just want some goddamn nachos.

Still Down for the Count

Tried to eat real food on Friday, and promptly gave it back over to the porcelain god. I've been living on a bowl or two of soup and two slices of toast a day, because that's about all I can keep down.

And I've been dreaming of food. DREAMING of food. Nachos, Taco Bell, hot dogs. It's a good sign that I have cravings, but I'm filled with a nausea that won't let me consume very much of soft bland foods, let along anything hardier. I'm still very weak, and I hate the nausea. It's like there's a fist in the middle of my chest, and beaneath that, this broiling slosh of burning stomach acid that refuses to let me eat anything it doesn't like.

Drinking lots of water, soda, apple juice. Apple juice is good. I just can't believe this is going on this long. I'm afraid that if I do buckle and plop down $150 for a doctor they'll say "Sleep a lot, and drink some apple juice." ARRGGG

We'll see. I tend to have more energy in the morning, less at the end of the day, when I tire myself out. I'm optimistically saying that I do feel a smidge better each day, but I can't really back that up.

I'm still down for the count, irritable, weak, tired, and have trouble concentrating. This is crappy for a number of reasons, because I have a lot of shit to do, but my body's telling me to STOP, and I have to stop and wait for it to recuperate before I can even start thinking again about doing something non-useless.

I Went To Work Today

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.

If Pirates Ruled...

Photoshopping contest.

P.S. i am still sick ug ug ug

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.

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.

I am a little drunk

This is a healthy thing

yaarrrrrr!!!

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!

Check Out This Scurvy Crew!

(via Sisyphus Shrugged, via Pharyngula)

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.

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!!!

The Most Useless Quiz Ever

(via tempest)

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)

Collect Them All

Katrina: The Gathering

Propaganda Poster Remix

I love this stuff.

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

Friday Beer Blogging

Oh how I am glad it is Friday.

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

Now There's a Musical I Could Get Behind...

Wouldn't it be lovely?

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.

In Which Everything Starts to Feel Like Work

Ug. Tired.

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.

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.

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.
Name?

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

Why is it these days that I'm having more and more trouble realizing I'm reading something from The Onion?

Geez.

(via twisty)

Good Morning, Chiklits

I have coffee. It is good.

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.

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!

Lemons and Melons and Pears, Oh My

I'm just gonna second Scalzi:

Now things get really interesting.

Blog Down

I'll see you all Tuesday.

I have a shitload of work to do...

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.

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.

What a Boring Frickin Day

Please call me back, Sarah! I want to go HOME!!!

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"

Persistence

Is up.