Friends

tLD: *stomps around the room singing*
tLD: Guess what I'm doing mom?
Me: What are you doing, Bit?
tLD: I'm doing the noisy dance! You put your feet together and jump hard!
tLD: *more stomping and singing*
tLD: It's the best!

http://www.attract-mode.net/2008/07/03/writing-update-and-a-strange-sense-of-history

http://www.attract-mode.net/?p=722

June was a bad bad month for the writing. It was a great month for learning what not to do, though. Let’s see if I can apply the lessons in July.

I’m going to skip past the section I was stuck on, and start up at the next scene I feel confident about, and just crazy-write, whatever seems like a good idea, within the boundaries of what I already know. I was torn between skipping the stuck part and rereading what i’ve written so far in the hopes of getting unstuck, but I’ve had bad luck with rereading  in the past, and I haven’t skipped a hard part since, oh, a long time ago. Ten years? Possibly ten years.

Wow. Remembering the story in which I skipped a hard part triggered a rush of memories about the house we had in New Mexico. I apparently visualized a scene right before the scene I skipped as being set in the hallway of that house. It’s been… 14 years since I was there? It was the last house of my family that felt like home. It doesn’t seem that long ago. 12 years since I left college… And so few stories I’ve really developed since then.

That’s one thing I’ve learned, or tested and confirmed, anyhow. I need to write my stories fast. I need to work on them everyday, including weekends and holidays. I don’t quite know how to manage that, but I know that every weekend I allowed myself (and I did allow them in my planning) made Mondays hard.

I need to outline a bit more than I did for this story, too. I did a ’snowflake’ outline for Citadel, but I skimped for this story. And it just means I’ll have to do more rewriting and revision. And additions. I may even add another point of view.

Satyr
Very dark smell. The website doesn't mention what's actually in it, but people in reviews mention civet and clove and nutmeg. I'm definitely getting a dark musk. It's very masculine, and it's getting positive reviews at the office. I can see ordering a full bottle of this.

A lot of the paintings by this artist are sentimental and pretty-pretty in a way I don't care for. And the descriptions are unbearably twee.

But even though it shares some of those qualities and all my defensive elitism is rolling its eyes, I'm stuck on this particular picture.

It's...it's....


I want it.

Unfortunately, I want it something like 9" x 12" or even a tad smaller, but all I could get (unless I want it on a ceramic tile, which I suppose *is* an option) is a large poster.

It's very peculiar. I live with almost entirely bare walls, these days. My first couple years of college, I did the poster art thing, like you do. Over the next several years, I switched more and more to things on the walls that weren't pictures - a bunch of lavender, a bundle of feathers, an amulet, a gift, a page on which I'd copied a few lines of a Chrystos poem and done a watercolor wash behind them.

It has probably been 17 years since I contemplated buying a poster.

I didn't get like this on purpose, it just happened.

Odd sensation.

Maybe the ceramic tile...


Or maybe in a week I'll look at it and think, "It's cute, sure, but what was I thinking?" It could happen.

The BPAL order came in today--much quicker than expected.
There were the ones I ordered:
Mead Moon, Doc Constantine and Western Diamondback in the big containers and Black Forest, Antikythera Mechanism, Calico Jack, Casanova, Dee and Golden Priapus in the imps.
There were also a buttload of random gift imps:
Kumari Kandam, La Belle au Bois Dormant, Rakshasa, Black Lily, Satyr, Deep Ones and Severin.
They must think I'm really going to like Kumari Kandam because I got two of them. (:

Been a few busy days for me this week. Rock Band with aelfsciene Monday night, a Chicago Cubs vs. San Francisco Giants baseball game with harleymae up in the City Tuesday night, and the usual "The Wire" and "Dr. Who" stuff last night.

Speaking of which: Rock Band 2! The quick and dirty summary is at that link, with links to the official announcement on the RB message boards and an IGN interview with one of the Harmonix guys. More information is supposed to be coming out in two weeks after their E3 preso. I hope among the added info is when the PS3 version is scheduled to be out, since the Sept '08 date is Xbox360 only. :P

The big 'news' of the day (and why I finally got off my ass to post) is the exciting announcement that I finally took my car in to be serviced. One of the other nice things about having a hybrid is that the maintenance schedule is a lot more lenient than for a regular gas-powered vehicle, but two years is still a wee bit long, even for a car getting less than 10K miles a year on it. Fortunately, I didn't miss any major tuneups, just a minor. Also fortunately, they found a couple of other minor issues beyond the normal maintenance stuff they wanted to do which is completely covered by warranty and will incur no extra charge to fix. ++free I should have it back tonight, and hopefully my gas mileage will improve from the deplorable depths (*) it had plunged to the last couple of months.

Also: not dead.

(*) - Still better than a regular car, but not good for this sort of hybrid.
 

It will shock no one if I say that I tend to go on a bit. For instance - delicately leaving aside the matter of my posts - my e-mails tend to be long. Even when they're relatively short, they usually would have been even shorter if most other people had been writing them.

I like to use complete sentences. I like to imbue what I say with some personality. Most of all, I like to provide context. Quite often, it's context I think should be useful, but which recipients, since they're not expecting it, do not particularly desire.

(I like my way, obviously. I understand that not everyone does. On the one hand, I get cranky when I write careful, exquisitely composed things that I proof-read and re-wrote, and get 'yes' in response - without even punctuation. On the other hand, I don't have any idea that I'm In The Right and have a RIGHT to be cranky, and My E-mail Was Good And They Are Unappreciative Barbarians. I just, you know, get cranky. I get cranky when I can't get food that sounds good made vegetarian, too. I don't think I'm a bad person for feeling cranky, and I simultaneously don't feel that anyone has an obligation to give me what I want. What I'm trying to say here (lengthily, ha) is that it's possible to have emotional reaction without having a judgmental component to it. For some reason, this seems to be a really difficult thing to grasp a lot of the time, but maybe it's just difficult for me.)

Recently, I wrote a multi-paragraph e-mail to the proprietor of the e-store from which I not only bought my henna supplies, but where I got all the information about how to prepare and apply it. Great resource, vast amounts of information, and although I don't have a lot to compare it with, the products seem good and reasonably priced to me. So I wrote saying I had two questions but I also wanted to thank her for providing such great information, and tell her what good results I had had with the two purchases I'd made, and to thank her for advice she'd given me in a previous e-mail exchange, etc..

Yes, you know where this is going - and I suspect many of you are thinking about how much you hate longwinded e-mail, yourselves, and I won't argue.

Right. She never answered. Maybe she's just busy, but...probably not just busy.

So, today, I thought of a new question. It was clear that I was not going about things the right way.

So from my work e-mail address, I sent an e-mail with no salutation and no signature, which read, in its entirety,

Can you tell me how much hair you can treat with a $1 sample of cassia obovata? Thanks.

Response within the hour. One line response, but it answered the question.

I replied to her e-mail with - still no salutation or closing -

Oh, okay.

How much would you need to do like bra-length hair once? And how often should you do it, for conditioning effects?

Thanks.


Answer within 20 minutes.

I'm half exasperated about this, but wholly amused. I would prefer to write gracious, well-worded e-mails which include social niceties. But social niceties aren't nice if people don't like getting them. If she were a friend, we could wrangle it out, but this is a different relationship.

All in all, I'm just glad I write fiction with dialogue, and can produce a very different voice when it seems called for.


(The answer, by the way, if you're curious - Cassia obovata being "neutral henna," - was "300 - 400g would do for that length ........ the effect lasts a month or two.")

There's a TV show called What Not To Wear.

I don't have a functioning TV with reception - when I watch shows, it's in some recorded format, which gives me the unusual gift of being able to look at commercials and think, "How cleverly manipulative! They're using this and this! That was genuinely witty!" instead of "Oh, god, not that $(*&(Q$& commercial again, quick, where's the mute button, I can never find it on this thing."

I have not watched What Not To Wear in recorded format, however. I know about it because my supervisor loves it and has told me about it in excessive detail. She has described the two fashion agents of the show, the structure every show follows, the funny, pathetic scenes at the beginning of Kate (?) and Clinton dramatically throwing Every Single Garment the person owned into a big trash can, while the person wails and protests and clings to badly made, moth-eaten sweaters, and blouses with rhinestones glue-gunned onto them. She tells me how they demonstrate to the person what's wrong with every garment, always finding positive things to say about the person's body type and preferences, and how they cover every demographic in different shows. She tells m how every show, the person is then give $5000 and set loose in NYC to shop for a new wardrobe, and the camera follows them the first day as they are overwhelmed and bewildered and cannot cope or gravitate back to their rhinestone standbys, or whatever, and how Kate (?) and Clinton watch the films and comment on them despairingly, and then the next day take the person in hand and help them find a new wardrobe which flatters their bodies and suits their preferences and needs.

I have, in fact, after listening to all this and nodded and smiled a lot, eventually pointed out that if they're all this similar, they must be scripted/coached, and that it seems wildly unlikely that there are not some slightly different terms being cut off camera from what's being shown on. My supervisor has nodded knowingly, and then gone back to telling me how funny and touching this or that scene was.

I am currently possessed of a desire to sockpuppet myself several times over and write to the show telling them they should approach this Calluna V. person, just to A: see what they do with some of the limits *I* would set, since they're notable for how accommodating they are/can be while still improving a person's wardrobe and dressing sense a thousandfold, B: journal about the whole thing, C: Get $5000 to buy new clothes that I like.

I think that if they're trying to cover every demographic, then they *should* have an overeducated, fat, bisexual social worker-to-be who refuses to wear make-up, any clothing that restricts her freedom of movement, or any hair style she can't recreate for herself, who says, "Feel free to throw anything you like in your trash can in front of the camera, but items X, Y, and Z are coming home with me, off camera. I assume that you have accommodations for that kind of thing since most people would have some things they're not willing to get rid of," and "I'll act surprised, shocked, offended, embarrassed, or whatever you like, but I'm not going to wail and clutch at things. Have some sense. If I sign your contract, then I know what's coming and have agreed to it, so why would I then throw a tantrum about it when you do what I already knew you were going to do?"

And so forth.

I won't, of course. It's just a bitchy little fantasy.

It's fun to imagine, though.



ETA: The woman's name is Stacy. I couldn't imagine where I'd gotten "Kate" for a minute, and then, when I did, I had hysterics.

On Sunday, my wife and I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. For my birthday this year, we went to the Rodin Museum—I fell in love with Rodin as a senior in high school taking AP Art History¹—and, unsurprisingly, I loved it. I love art museums. I entered college with some intent to major in art history, thanks to that high school class. (Thanks, Mrs. Carnes!)

So I was not expecting to be so sorely disappointed.

( Cut for length )

Anyway, that was our Sunday. Perhaps the Franklin Institute'll be better, once we get there.

¹A class that fit into the schedules of exactly three of us. I entered the school a year ahead in math, so I didn't have a math course to take senior year. The other two were juniors who'd just transferred and therefore had some similar free slot based on them having already taken something. My high school wasn't really big on "electives".
²Second favorite part: sitting on a bench not far from "Sunflowers" and having a man in his 60s with a midwestern accent walk past me, calling back to his wife, "Hey, I think this one's by Van Gogh!"

Me (to the guppy tank): Están ustedes mi vaca?

Julian, in the other room, working on the hummus sandwich I split with her: No.

Me, with dignity: Hablava con los guppies.

Julian, coming into the kitchen: I have hummus on my nose.

Me: [kisses her nose, despite her having actually already taken care of the problem.]

Julian: Thank you.

Me: Le plaisir, c'etait a moi.

Julian (vaguely): What? Oh, good.

Me (apologetically) : I'm not up to waggling my eyebrows in Spanish yet, I'm afraid.

Julian: You did pretty well.

Me: That was French.

Julian: Oh. Right.

http://www.attract-mode.net/2008/07/02/the-act-of-observation-changes-the-observed

http://www.attract-mode.net/?p=721

Whee. Now when I do research on Hannah’s condition, my own blog comes up on the first page of results for various different queries. That’s a good reminder to take it easy and not focus on it too much! But I did discover a different kind of injury: Fibrocartilaginous Infarct/Ebolism, which seems to fit the situation and symptoms, although was not, of course, the exact diagnosis. Unfortunately, the major prognositcation is still based on deep pain awareness. However, I feel a little less like Hannah’s situation is something from bizarro-land.

She seems more mindful of her rear end. I’d like to say this is a good sign. but it may just be her learning that she has these parts she can’t feel anymore and being more alert for people messing with them. She still only has a reflexive, not conscious, reaction to toe manipulation. She hasn’t been drinking or peeing very much the last 20 hours or so, which is a bit worrisome, but there’s been a little movement in both directions. I think I’m going to start adding some water to her dry food in the evenings.

*

In other news, I’ve played most of the first Phoenix Wright game (and enjoyed it), and returned to Dwarf Fortress. I’ve also started the Fantasy Harvest Moon game.

The Phoenix Wright game is not high art, but it does a great job of conveying fascinating little plots via nothing but dialogue and extremely limited art resources. It requires a healthy distance from any prior understanding of the justice system, though. I spend a lot of time shrieking during the investigation phases, when witnesses won’t talk to me, when accidental deaths are still considered murder, when as a defense attorney I’m treated like the enemy of the state, when I have to not just prove my client’s innocence but prove somebody else’s guilt– although I suppose that last gives me both the fun of defending the innocent and the aggressive pleasure of prosecution. Nothing like making a ‘witness’ break down in tears or scream in rage, right? The structure of each case is a bit repetitive so far but if you play the cases far enough apart that doesn’t seem like a big deal.

I have a small spot of poison ivy on my ass.

Nowhere else; just my ass. If I'd taken my pants down outside anytime in the last week, I would be substantially less puzzled by this. As it is, I'm both itchy and baffled.

I've been asking on Linguaphiles for recommendations of websites with exercises that I can do which will help with writing/reading Spanish, since all the Spanish I've been learning has been spoken/audio.

But I've had another thought.

I have a pretty good dictionary for a portable one.

And I've found Tiempos Interesantes for sale in the US on ABE books.

I was considering ERIC: Una Novela de Mundodisco, but the shipping from Spain is prohibitive.

One of the 3 witches books, Tiffany Aching books, or Vimes books, or else Small Gods would be even better, when it comes to books where, if I can't read the sentence, I can guess what it says even before I reach for my dictionary.

I shall continue looking. The Hobbit would be good, and so would any of the Peter Wimsey novels. And it is flatly impossible that I should not be able to find Harry Potter in Spanish.

I like this plan. I like it because it focus my attention on reading skills and vocabulary, and I also like it because one children's book will take me weeks and weeks to read, if I can make it at all. I won't just be looking up vocabulary, either - I'll be looking up grammatical constructs, too.

This could be fun.

I shall start small, considering that one book may well be a surfeit.

Sooner or later, I'm going to have to take the plunge and start talking to people who talk in Spanish. That's a terrifying prospect.

Maybe Beatrix Potter or Maurice Sendak...



ETA: MUST HAVE: Alexander y el dia terrible, horrible, espantoso, horroroso

Yesterday a very battered little box arrived at our home from Wales. I don't know who sent it, but I also know that the number of people I know in Wales is rather small so I'm pretty certain I can guess. It contains three historical maps of Cardiff and NewGate. *squeak*
Somebody is getting a big hug when she gets here.

We may not be able to remodel the bathroom and add a conservatory due to the costs.  I don't know if things are more expensive because I live in an expensive suburb, so the contractors assume everyone is a millionaire or this is Chicago and people make far more an hour than in Philly.  I've had a bathroom estimate so far that said the starting cost would be $40,000.  Now, I've been watching HGTV (since we have cable) and it seems like the type of bathroom that I want is around $5-10K.  This is also about the same number that I get when searching the internet.

As for the conservatory, it looks like we're going to have to hire an architect and get some plans drawn up.  I've had a "kit company" out for an estimate and their proposal was just ugly.  It was, as one of the general contractors said, like sticking a fish bowl on the side of our house.  I was thinking glass wart, but fish bowl works, too.  So, the costs are just adding up.

Our electrical still isn't fixed.  Our electrician has not shown up for work a few times because his truck has both had a flat tire and been in a crash.  It is starting to sound suspicious.

I haven't done any experiments at work yet because I'm still waiting for my protein and DNA to be shipped from my old lab.  The lab manager hasn't responded to my last two emails.  I don't know if he's on vacation or just avoiding me.

I am alternately thrilled and horrified.

http://io9.com/397527/amc-brings-prisoner-back-to-the-village

Sir Ian. James Caveziel.

I may need some new icons. And a shopping trip to Amazon to get the old DVDs.

Edited with a quote from the website comment forum:
Well if it's ITV doing it, they'll make two episodes then shelve it in favor of a funny animal videos show.

As I was getting onto the highway at lunch at the same exit I take to go home, mentioned in my previous post here:

"Oh my God! I can see the mountains! Holy crap!"

Confirmation that, yes, finally, the smoke haze is clearing up a little in the Bay Area.

(*) - Y'know, if anyone but me had been in my car. ;)
 

Okay, so the iTunes 'Lost Book Club' amuses me, despite the fact that Watership Down is not on the list.

Birthday lootening begins. Miss Friday's trip to Crater Lake was beautiful and full of lovely food. Tersa is taking me to see the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Ebonlock arranged for three different people to make six mix CDs for the Torchwood game (I really ought to write the second half of Thursday's adventure tonight).
And, just like Jimmy Sommerville, I feel loved.

Happy Canada Day, to all my Canadian friends.

Happy NHL Free Agency Day to the rest of the hockey fans.

The rest of you wankers just get Tuesday. ;)

*glues herself to tsn.ca/nhl and tries to work*