Boys are Great

via thisgirl:



Boys are great.

Speaking of boys, there's an interesting discussion over at BuzzMachine about what a "terrorist" really is... Are Chechens rebels, freedom fighters, or terrorists? What should our media be calling them?

Who decides?

I've dipped a toe in, but I'm not sure I want to dive.

The Body Project

My buddy and roomie, Jenn, and I were walking out to dinner the other night, and I was ranting about a paper one of my buddies and colleagues had just sent me (among many others) to review before his presentation at the Cultures of Violence seminar in England at the end of the month. I was being lively and animated, as the subject - the culture of violence in South Africa, its roots and reprecussions - is one I'm really interested in, and touched a little on my own work regarding female ANC members and their relationships to violence during the 80s and 90s.

As we paused at a stop light, Jenn turned to me and said, "You know, why aren't you going to those African Studies seminars at U of Chicago that Bernard invited you to when you first got here? You've been leaving work early all week. Why not head south and join in the discussions?"

Here followed my usual excuses, "It's on Tuesdays. I have Tuesday prep to do on Tuesday, you know, it's the day between martial arts classes. And with work, I never know when we'll be busy again.... and..."

"But Kameron, you're prepared to add another jogging day and *another* Saturday workout day to your schedule. Why not go to the seminars? You just seem so happy right now, talking about history and South Africa and cultures of violence."

Ah.

I flashed back to an anecdote from Paul Compos' The Obesity Myth: a highly successful female lawyer, who'd been on various boards, edited various publications, and was pulling a substantial salary, confided that the time in her life when she felt the most accomplished were those moments when she briefly (often for no more than a few months) "acheived" her "goal weight."

Arg.

A woman's biggest accomplishment. Bigger than law school. Money. Mate. Children. Friends. Publications. Professional esteem.

Her waistline was her biggest accomplishment.

Can you imagine asking a male CEO what he felt his biggest accomplishment was, and getting that answer?

Here I am, investing in 30lb free weights this week (up from 20lbs), getting ready to spend another $24 a month to add another day a week of martial arts classes, finding another day a week to squeeze in a jogging session... and in the mean time, I've been banging my head against a novel no one else seems to be interested in, I only have four stories in the mail (instead, of say, my top-out of 14), and I keep staring at Ph.D. programs in Women's Studies and thinking, "Shit, I'm just not up for *that*! Think of the pay cut!"

The pay cut. Of all things.

Gawd.

See what getting all comfy with the system gets you? A body that will always be imperfect, as standards of beauty always change, an obsession with whole-wheat pitas, and the ability to lift 100lbs above your head.

Useful? Only if I'm carrying buddies out of a raging fire. And there are no pitas about.

I'm currently reading Joan Jacobs Brumberg's The Body Project, a history of women's relationships with their bodies, sexuality, and the meaning of being female from, roughly, the 1890s to the 1990s. Brumberg uses adolescent girls' diaries to gauge differing attitudes about mensturation, acne, and the virtues of "being a woman" over the last 100 years. What she's beginning to show is the progression from conceptions of female beauty in forms of virtue and good works, to having fine skin, a robust disposition, and now, an increasing obsession with the size and shape of the actual physical body without the aid of undergarments. As corsets and girdles went by the wayside, the sculpting of the body has become the signifier of a woman's beauty and success. Moving through merely obsession over calories in the 1920s, when the "flapper" style became popular (it was a style that meant not wearing a girdle, yet having a skinny, boyish physique - oddly around the same time women got the vote in America. hm.), to the obsession with fitness and later toned, muscular female bodies (like Madonna) today. Our obessessions are now becoming increasingly medicalized (plastic surgery) as undergarments (the private) are thrown out in favor of the skin of the body itself as the undergarment (though I think most people would wonder what on earth the skin is keeping private. If anything at all).

It's been fascinating watching this romp through obsessions with various bits of the female form. It's never the actual woman that's all wrong, it's just her "parts," as if we women are a Frankensteinian assemblage of inadequate appendages (It's interesting that Shelley's Frankenstein created a male monster and not a female: because the writer was female, perhaps?). But the overall impression I'm left with, after trolling through bits of diaries, is this:

This is an amazing expenditure of female energy. Obsessing over calories, over "incorrect" body parts, huge thighs, small breasts, etc. etc.

What could we be doing with this energy, instead?

All of us. Every single one. If I halted my own body project at its subsistence "health" level right now, if I didn't try and overdo it, make it into my own personal obsession to the extent of everything else, if I kept myself in check and didn't apologize to people who look me up and down and say, "You do all that? You really eat that way? Then why aren't you thin?" If I instead loop myself back into the land of the living, focus again on acadamia, push the writing forward, leave the martial arts to casual recreation, and remind myself that trekking up to Macchu Picchu really isn't until 2007.... If I do all that, what sort of amazing person could I be?

Eliminate the body project, the depression and angst about eating whip cream with those strawberries, the needless sleepless nights worrying "If I ache so much and work so hard, why aren't I thin?", if I eliminate those nights and push them back to studying for the GREs, going over graduate school applications, researching programs, and getting these goddamn stories in the mail, well, hell... I might be able to beat the self-hate cycle and be really damn cool. Because I think it's not neccessarily increasing my martial arts classes that's the problem. It's the motivations behind it. I need to clean up my motivations.

As my buddy Jenn said, after I took up wall climbing on Sundays in addition to those boxing classes, "When you're 30, Kameron, you're going to be really scary."

I hope so.

And I hope my smart, brutal woman self remains not only physically strong, but isn't taken down by the trivial shite this culture keeps heaping on me. Somewhere in the middle, my strong brutal woman self will meet my academic sensibilities, and they'll dance.

Though, knowing me, they'll box.

Maybe they'll kiss afterwards?

It'll be a good show, in any case.

Notes of All Sorts

So, my latest Realms story's finally gotten through the slush pile, though it'll be at least another month before I know whether or not it's gotten through that round, or'll be returned with a Blue Form of Death. Granted, it's been a while since I got one of those: I graduated to Yellow Form of Encouragement some time back. Let's be hopeful and hope that I place this one, OK? I could sure as hell use the money...

I've stalled out on my rewrite again. I'm spinning my wheels with chapter 27 - I have five storylines going on all at once, two of which diverge at this point, and I have a shit load of clean up due to the subplot I added in *after* I finished what I thought was the final draft of book one (biggest note from Clarion: "Civil wars do not make good subplots." I'm bad at taking this sort of reasonable advice). I'm doing some ritualistic cleaning. Still. Again, I don't think this book'll be "done" until somebody buys it and sends it to the printer. Till then, I'll be fucking around with it.

The 62nd annual World SF convention is currently going on right now, and I must admit, I'm a little jealous of everyone who's there, though I had no interest in going to Boston this year. It's quite lonely to read most of my daily blogs and hearing con reports and not being there. Cory Doctorow's got some great pics up (does anyone else think Cory was cuter before he lost weight? Maybe just me... I haven't seen him in person in years). Ah, yes, it's a geekfest. These are my kinds of people... Next year in Glasgow, baby. I'll be there. I miss my people!

Back to writing... er, that is, after me and my buddy Jenn get back from seeing Hero. I hear it's awesome.

More later.

Beer & Writing

Gblah gblah words & beer.

I was such a writing slacker last month. I've got to catch up. Good music, good beer, piles and piles and piles of words.

Gblah gblah.

OK, I'll take out my internet card now....

Do-Whop-Doo-Eeee

Matt Cheney over at the Mumpsimus has a conversation going on about the equation of fantasy fiction with escapism. Join us here.

Other interesting things include, Why Young Women Reject the Lable "Feminist", some coolish story links at Lithaven, they're making a live-action movie of Aeon Flux with Charlize Theron and directed by Karyn Kusama (director of Girlfight) (who'da thought?), these fuckers would like you to believe unemployment is down (and yet, nobody says that all those "new" jobs are minimum wage, and several people are working two or three of them just to eat food and live out of their cars), and in other news, I've got a three day paid weekend, and will be writing my ass off.

I *will* get this next goddamn set of stories done and in the mail. Goddammit.

Unloading Gmail Accounts

Anybody else want a gmail account? My brother's already got one, and I just got more invites.

Send me an e-mail, or post a comment (peeps get priority).

Homage

As a Homage to mymagro's blog (where our protagonist was able to lost 9 lbs of water weight in a week by subsisting on fruit, not drinking enough water, and becoming dehydrated), here's what my 5'9 200lb Brutal Woman self does so I can walk confidently down the street with the knowledge that my right cross ain't too shabby:

A typical weekday:

6am: protein shake (1/2 banana, 1/2 cup milk, four strawberries, 1 scoop protein)
10am: half whole wheat pita with chicken & veg.
1 string cheese
1-30pm: other half of whole wheat pita with chicken & veg.
1 string cheese
1 protein bar
4pm: 1 protein bar
6-7pm: pork and veg. omelette or flatbread wrap from Quizno's

(optional pm snack: 1 cup red berries with Splenda)

Walking travel time (to/from train):

Martial arts days: 70 minutes roundtrip
Non-martial arts days: 30 minutes roundtrip

Workout days per week:

Monday: Strength training 60 min
Krav Maga 45 min (variable)

Wednesday: Boxing 60 min

Friday: 1.6 mile jog (yea, yea, I'll be at 2 by the end of the month, blah)

Sunday: 40-60 min. bike ride

If I don't weigh 99lbs while working this way (I do, in fact, have other things to do besides count calories, and I don't aspire to concentration-camp-chic. Isn't it weird that I feel guilty for admitting that being a thin woman scares me?), well, fuck it. I throw in my towel. Congratualtions, I'm not a supermodel. I find being hungry terribly boring. It's just nice to know that now that I'm in Super Kameron mode, nobody can harp on me with the "but I just want you to be healthy" euphemism when what they're really saying is, "Damn, woman, you're intimidating."

Fuck `em.

In other news, I'm hoping to ramp up these workouts pretty soon, likely adding another boxing day on Saturday and a jogging day on either Tuesday or Thursday. There's a hiking trip up to Machu Picchu that I really want to take, likely in 2007 (I've got a big trip to Britain next year, and I have no idea where I'll be the year after, but MP is on my list, and I'd like to do it this way. Far more rewarding).

Anyway, I'm off. Things to do. Novels to write.

Play Feed the Model

This is a bad, bad game.

For the record, my model starved.

"How do you expect to save a model, with those throws?"

I am bad, bad, bad.

National Terrorism Awareness Month! (No Shit)

Just in time for the ramp up to election day, our Republican government is launching a National Preparedness Month, starting this month, right after that holy-of-holies: the Republican National Convention.

I could rant, but why, when someone else has already done it for me.

A whole month of fear propoganda. Wheeeeeeeeee!

White Guys and etc.

Some interesting linkage:

Tools for White Guys who are Working for Social Change … and other people socialized in a society based on domination

Can Men Be Feminists?

And some more Women's Blogs:

Pinko Feminist Hellcat (c'mon, how can you *not* check it out?)

Culture Cat

Willow Tree

Wicked Muse

The Secret Life of a Girl

Beautiful Snarkiness

Amanda rants about those happy bullshit MSN advice columns:

You know you want one of those annoying, cute, happy marriages...
And MSN is here to help! With all their lame advice - not doing this stuff? Then you're fucked!

We all know a couple like this: after years together they still hold hands, make each other laugh and blush, get along famously, and seem to enjoy a dynamite groove the rest of us only dream of.

Yes, I do believe Bridget Jones called them the Smug Marrieds.

But what really goes on behind the scenes? Have these two soulmates actually found their perfect match in this big wide world, or are there secrets and strategies to making sure that romantic spirit continues to flourish over time?

Or are they putting on a big show to hide that they are living lives of quiet desperation?

If you too are looking for a way to better condescend to your single friends, MSN has a multi-point plan for you.

Start solid. Remember that best friend you had when you were a kid? Whether blissfully playing side-by-side in the sandbox, or building an awesome fort together, you two just grooved on being in each other’s presence. Happy couples share that same serendipitous groove, if in the all-grown-up world. Romantic chemistry aside, they genuinely like each other as people, and truly enjoy walking down the path of life hand-in-hand.

It helps to be boring, as that minimizes points of conflict.

Highlights Of Why Women Don't Blog! (Or Do They, Pigfuckers!)

So, there's this ongoing discussion about why the blogosphere is mostly male dominated (you know, like the rest of the country), and why aren't more women blogging, and blah blah? I stumbled across the most recent pissing contest, begun apparently at Matt Stoller's blog and continuing at Trish Wilson's, Amanda's, Feministe, Desfemmes, and Utopianhell.

The comment slurry is mainly contained to Stoller's blog, where you'll get all sorts of discussion: mainly from pissed off female bloggers who he's talked down to, as in this section:

That said, there's a top-down style to the feminist movement that leaves little room for flat hierarchies that blogging needs to flourish. This is a cultural issue, and can be reflected in a lot of the strategic missteps of these groups. It's very similar to the lack of blogs in the environmental movement, which is also somewhat identity-oriented, top-down, and reactionary. This is not a slight to these organizations - there are very good reasons why message control was critical and direct mail was a lifeblood, but the era of the atomized organization is coming to and end. And these groups know it, and are changing already. Still, the residual culture is still antithetical to blogging.

There's also the fact that the male political blogosphere doesn't help at all. It's obviously a boys club (with select girls who act like in specifically stylized ways allowed). For instance, my style of blogging is very male - I feel like I have to conclude everything, which leaves less room for the more deliberative communication patterns I find among women. That's common, but usually in a more extreme version. Guys don't really feel comfortable saying 'I don't know' or just going through inconclusive cognitive exercises. Jay Rosen does it very well, but he gets flamed quite frequently just for asking questions. The flame war pissing contest that motivates so many communities is another example of boys raising their hands in class and just generally being more aggressive. So Respectful of Otters gets ignored by the 'big boys', even though it's great. There's also the fact that it deals with uteruses and other stuff that boys don't have and don't think of, like career/family conflicts.

I trolled through the comments hoping somebody was going to pick up the really obvious points, here. People did, individually, but the men who hopped in got pissed off, Stoller got really defensive, and the only people who actively engaged with what women were saying were other women.

There are a couple of big reasons that you don't see women blogging. The first being yes, the blogosphere's a reflection of our society. You hear more men's voices. Why? Because women work a double shift. They're still primarily responsible for child care and housework, in addition to being if not the sole breadwinner for a family, then part of a team effort. Women are already working more hours than men because of the gendered division of labor. Blogging takes time. And money. Unless she's single, got great child care, or making bank, a women in less likely to have access to the time and financial resources required to get her voice out there: whether in the blogosphere or the public in general. Women are kept busy being so obsessive-compulsive about calorie counting and staying in their highschool dress size in order to be socially "acceptable" that there's no time to actually get out there and get involved (if I added up all the time I spent angsting about food, clothing, and what my hair was doing, I could run for office - and I'm relatively relaxed compared to some of the women I know who are caught in the gender loop. If you think the artifice of femininity and female oppression is a coincidence, I'm going to laugh).

Women are likely less interested in ranting about politics because, c'mon, people, look at the candidates: they're old white men. We can relate to them as people, but we're very clear that there are issues about where we stand and the processes of our bodies that they're not going to understand and likely, not even going to respect.

Trish had a good point in the Stoller comments:

It's interesting that this "where are the women bloggers" discussion comes up every three months as if it was something new that the guys were just discovering. There isn't a dearth of women political bloggers. They are out there, it's just that I don't think the more prominent male bloggers really bother to notice all that much. They're too busy referring to each other. As for women who talk about "uteruses" (huh?) and career/family conflicts, lots of guys talk about their children, families, wanting to spend more time with their families (career/family conflicts), sports, movies, and other stuff (like their dicks?) on their blogs, but when they do, what they say isn't considered fluff the way it is when women talk about it.

It's just a bit disheartening to see this same old meme come up every three months as if it's a brand new thing some male blogger suddenly notices. The "where are the women bloggers" debate comes up quite regularly without any changes or progress being made at all.

She's right about the perpetual cycle of "where are all the women" discussions... If you want women to be more visible, start linking to more women, comment on their blogs, reprint their posts. Get their names out there. Stop going over the old bullshit, shrugging your shoulders sympathetically, and sighing. If you're a woman, create a blog, and link to everyone (a good ratio over at Mouse Words is trying to keep to the 50/50 rule: keep 50% of your "linked to" blogs female, and %50 male).

What I found fascinating in the comments discussion was the huge amount of defensiveness on Matt's part when Trish called him on some of the bullshit. Instead of engaging with her, he accused her of intolerance. He took her posts personally, instead of thanking her for her viewpoint and urging others to engage with her ideas. By dismissing her as "intolerant", then ignoring her, he effectively silenced her opinions and discussions on her opinions by invalidating them.

And I think he didn't even realize he was doing it. Shelly called him on it:

What surprised me is that when Trish gives a very mild response, reflective really, you bury her with a staggering display of defensiveness that if you were a woman writer, you would get labeled 'hysterical'.

What gets me about the whole "men are feminists too" thing is that there certainly are a lot of well meaning guys out there - but most of them get really rankled when somebody (women) disagree about their broad generalizations about "the way women are" or people (women) speak up and say, "Uh, dude, you may not have meant to be offensive, but saying that all I talk about or am interested in is my uterus, and saying a women's reproductive power is *trivial* (when the prescence or abscence of a woman's uterus has been the symbol and sometimes method of her oppression for so long) was really fucking offensive."

If I were to go up to a black woman and say, "I'm a black woman at heart. I totally understand race issues. I'm going to let you into our secret white person's club," she would hopefully punch me in the face and tell me and my club to fuck off.

If I'm *really* lucky, I can open a discussion about race and colonialism and culture and subculture with, "Hey, would you mind talking to me?" and if I'm really, really, lucky, somebody who's a lot different than me might actually answer me, and question *my* assumptions, and maybe we can work together to make a new club.

But let's not be too hopeful.

In Case You Didn't Catch It...

In case you didn't catch it, Michael Moore is covering the Republican National Convention for USA Today. Entertaining stuff.

Hanging out around the convention, I've encountered a number of the Republican faithful who aren't delegates. They warm up to me when they don't find horns or a tail. Talking to them, I discover they're like many people who call themselves Republicans but aren't really Republicans. At least not in the radical-right way that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Co. have defined Republicans.

I asked one man who told me he was a "proud Republican," "Do you think we need strong laws to protect our air and water?"

"Well, sure," he said. "Who doesn't?"

I asked whether women should have equal rights, including the same pay as men.

"Absolutely," he replied.

"Would you discriminate against someone because he or she is gay?"

"Um, no." The pause — I get that a lot when I ask this question — is usually because the average good-hearted person instantly thinks about a gay family member or friend.

The World of the Book Review

Well, uh, at least he reviewed it:

"This book shows every sign of being a hasty first draft; it does its author no credit at all and is a significant disappointment."

Eeeek.

For the record, I actually do enjoy Adam Roberts' work in a purely entertaining way. I do, however, like Priest's work far more. Different expectations for different works, I suppose.

Vegas, Baby

Back from Vegas. Had a great time catching up with my writing buddies, most of whom I hadn't seen in several years. The funny thing about meeting back up with people in person who you talk to all the time online via e-mail and messageboards is that you've already caught up on the smalltalk by the time you meet up. "I was going to ask you what's going on," my buddy Patrick said at dinner the first night, "but, well..."

Yea.

I think the most amusing part of the trip was watching our buddy Greg (who had never been to Vegas) staring, stunned, at the cocktail waitresses and birdwomen (alas, he missed the Sirens of TI! show).

This was the first time I'd been to Vegas when I was old enough to drink and gamble, and I gotta say: it's much more enjoyable that way. I lost $10 at the slots and bought several $8 drinks. The highlight "event" of the trip was trekking over to the Bellagio and seeing Cirque Du Soleil's latest show, "O". It was worth the exorbitant price, and I'm glad I went. This was one of those, "Let's do everything we usually do, only more of it, in water, with bigger costumes, and a ship hanging off the ceiling. Can you bend that way and then *dive* off the trapeze?" Amazing shit. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

I arrive home poorer in pocket, but richer in experience. Most of our time was actually taken up lingering over our meals. We often spent two hours eating, talking, and playing keno.

It was just what I needed.

And now: back to work.

Yes!?

Just about to head to Vegas, and stumbled on a "breaking news" headline at CNN.

Federal judge finds Partial Birth Abortion Act unconstitutional. Details soon.

YEEEESSSSS!

Corporate Socializing

So, it turned out a couple people didn't show for our corporate golf outing, so I got shut out of chauffering the boys around in the Beer Cart - fine with me. I hung out at Borders for a couple hours, then met up with the Boys at the steakhouse.

The Boys arrived an hour late (I was liason with the steakhouse), drunk and in highly good spirits. It doesn't get much more surreally interesting than hanging out with a bunch of drunken executives (the least senior of which makes just over 90K a year) at a posh steakhouse while running up an exorbitant bill on a corporate card.

I was worried that this would be one of those staid, fake roundabouts with smily, boring people. I need not have worried. Only about fourteen people showed for dinner, which ended up being a perfect batch. Blaine was in high form, drunk and expositing football stories. Ned, the Big Cheese from our group, was just as sloshed and fun (and everyone was very careful with their hands - nobody put a hand on me anywhere but my arm or shoulder, though Yellow ended up sitting next to me, and had his arm on the back of my chair for some minutes, which nearly set off my "pissed off" radar. But all in all, I appreciated being treated like a real person).

As they all arrived drunk (lots of cigar smoking and beer drinking on those golf courses), I had to do a lot of catching up. Pete, who works with the firm we're partnering with, ordered the wine. I sniffed and sipped the first glass and was surprised at how good it was. These are a bunch of blue-collar background types who've worked their asses off and done well. Very few of them actually came from old money, so I wasn't expecting fireworks when Pete ordered.

Turns out the wine was $85 a bottle.

It *better* have been damn good.

The damn good wine flowed all night. We took out at least a case and a half, and wiped out the restaurant's whole supply of the stuff.

I got a great table, Ned on one side, Yellow on the other, sitting across from Sarah, who's one of our on-the-ground construction managers, and Bettie and Pete, who both work with our partner company. Everybody was damn fun. Yellow took the opportunity to announce to the table that I was selling a book -- I knew I should have shut my mouth in the car during our three and a half hour drive down to the golf course. He kept prodding me for more information about my books. After admitting that I had wall maps, languages, and had, in fact, written eight previous books before trying to sell this one, he announced:

"You're a Trekkie!"

"No, Yellow. No. Some kids had ballet lessons or football practice. I wrote books. We all have our things. What the hell do you do every night?"

"Probably fuck around with my motorcycle."

"See," I said. "We're all weirdos."

After Yellow's speech about my writing at the table (we'd pushed the round table between two longer ones, so we were all at one big table), he sat back to watch the conversation fly.

Ferdinand, a big mucky-muck from our corporate offices, was very interested in what I was doing.

"He wants to know how the company's computers are actually being used all day," Yellow said.

I think my biggest gaffe of the night was saying to Ferdinand, "So, you grew up in Switzerland --"

"Sweden," he said.

Blah. I knew that. But hell, if that's the biggest gaffe of the night... I didn't even hit on anybody. A night when I don't hit on anyone present is generally considered a successful one (though Yellow was looking damn fine the next morning in tight, long sleeved white shirt and baggy gray cargo pants. But my twinges of attraction for Yellow are few and far between. Most days, I just think he's damn funny).

After dinner, we migrated to the bar and drank still more wine, and smoked cigars.

"I've got to see Kameron smoking a cigar," Ned said, doling them out.

So I smoked cigars (god only knows how expensive they were) and ended up talking with Bettie and Rhea. Rhea's also working with our partner company. She and Ned have known each other for something like 20 years. You can't throw a rock around this business without hitting someone you've worked with before.

I think Rhea's damn cool. She's gotta be over fifty, has bleached short hair, a deep tan, and wears skimpy shirts that show off her bellybutton ring. And she's wildly successful. She apparently got her engineering degree in 1978, and was the only woman in her class.

"I wasn't trying to make a statement or anything," she said, "I just really wanted to be an engineer. My dad was an engineer. I never really wanted to do anything else."

She also imparted a valuable bit of information to me - when I told her and Bettie that I didn't make enough money to afford a cell phone, Rhea leaned into me and said, "You'll be all right. Blaine *adores* you."

I had suspected I had a pretty secure job place, so long as Blaine could afford me. Now we just have to sign another contract, and I'll be taking advantage of this liking to get myself a frickin' reasonable wage (like, say, *double* what I'm making now).

After we wiped out the last of the restaurant's case of our chosen wine, we migrated back to the hotel. I tried to flick the ashes of my cigar out the window of the car and ended up losing the whole damn cigar. That was one of those stealthy, "Gosh, I hope no one noticed that" moments.

By this time, it's after midnight, and we're all plastered. Those of us staying at the same hotel congregated in the lobby's bar, and I had another cigar, and part of a glass of cheap wine which then made me sick. Blaine was in fine form, likely talking more football stories, though honestly, I don't remember actual conversation topics from that point in the night. He and Ned finally bowed out, as they had an earlier flight back to Chicago, and the rest of us said goodnight.

The next day, at breakfast, Yellow said, "Kameron, you must have talked the most of *anyone* all night. I knew you were going to have a good time."

I've found that the older I am, the more I know, and the more I've done, the easier these social bullshit things are. And, let's be honest: I really liked the people. I thought Bettie and Rhea were awesome, Ned treated me with total respect, Yellow kicked up conversation about my writing and his motorcycles, Blaine was just a big sweetheart puppydog drunk (which I suspect is his default form), Pete and Bettie had great stories, Sarah and Garret (our construction managers) spent an hour before the dinner talking shop with me while we waited for the drunken golfers (I really need to know more about the actual groundwork than I do), Rhea was just a frickin' powerhouse, and everybody was really easy going and cool. I had a great time.

At the end of the night, Ned handed me the bill so I could add on a little extra tip to the automatic one and write the new total before he signed it (he was toast, and had forgotten his glasses). I was a little dumbstruck at the sight of the bill total. I've never seen a dinner bill with that many digits. I was also pretty drunk by this point, and my math was off. I undertipped by at least $40, but seeing the "automatic" tip added in ($400), the thought of writing more hundreds underneath it made me vaguely nauseous.

When we moved to the bar and I caught site of the bar tab as I handed it off to Yellow (almost $300), I realized how addictive this sort of life could become for people. I mean, I was sure as hell fired up about it. Wouldn't it be great to be like Blaine or Ned, and do these things all the time? Order $85 bottles of wine and sign off on dinner bills that cost more than most undergraduates' first cars? Hob-nob all night with movers and shakers in companies worth billions of dollars?

It's gotta be addictive.

Me, Yellow, and Dee (our lead architect for the project) drove back the long drive to the office, and then I went straight home, packed for my Vegas trip where I'll be meeting up with my writing buddies (let's talk about my real addiction), and slept for 12 hours. Seriously. I was so exhausted and hung over I thought I was going to fall over.

That was damn good wine.

And, surprisingly, damn good company.

Work-a-do

Yellow just took off for the day (it's, um, 10:30am). I love working for these guys.

Anyway, I've got about 3 short stories I need to finish up and get out Cheira-Cheira, Heros, and Locust Dreams - today's gotta be a pure working day. So, for your amusement:

I've finally picked up Nick Mamatas' book, Move Undergound, largely because I'm enjoying his blog, and have given into the "buy my book," "have you bought a copy of my book" comments. We'll see if he's worth all his posturing. Of course, he's got a great review from Matt Cheney, which also helped push me over. The book is Cthulu meets Jack Kerouac, apparently. Not exactly up my alley, but I like the internet personae behind it, so we'll see.

I've also got a couple more book orders coming in: Christopher Priest's Fugue for a Darkening Island, Iain Banks' A Song of Stone. Very much looking forward to this set of books. These last two are absolutely brilliant writers (I may have mentioned that I've read Priest's The Affirmation about five times. It's a brilliant, brilliant book about a man creating and living in his own fantasy world. A great making and breaking of the world book).

OK. No ranting today. I really need to be working. Really.

On the Morbidity of Flora

I live with a lot of plants.

I managed to kill about four batches of basil and cilantro through lack of light before I got a potting table and tossed it out on the enclosed balcony at the back of the house. This'll be fine until, say, late September, when I'll need to buy a heat lamp and move everything inside. I'm adept at slaughtering plants. I went out the back today and realized I missed a watering day on my basil - it was deathly ill. I repotted and rewatered. Another batch bites the dust...

In other news, I got a very nice personal reject from Sheila Williams at Asimov's for my story, The Women of Our Occupation, (my first personal rejection from Asimov's in, what, 8 years of sending stories to them? This new editor switch over there is a damn good thing for shaking things up) and I'm going to go ahead and slip it off to Datlow and see what happens. It's the last of my latest batch of Brutal Women stories I finished up a few months ago that Datlow has yet to see. Invariably, she appears to end up liking them, and I get personal rejects every time - they just aren't "Sci-Fiction" types of stories. I won't go on a rant about what that means. This is a public forum, afterall.

Anyway, I've got hours of weekly prep stuff to do today. I've got a crappy corportate golf outing on Tuesday, and I'm off to Vegas Thursday to hang out with my Clarion peeps. I also really should go jogging today. Blah. Blah.

Ciao.

Blah

I'm drowning in RFPs.