Delightful Inconsistent

Grunge

2009-11-08T05:06:03Z

I watch news all day long, but I missed the announcement of the healthcare vote during the 13 minutes I was driving home. Crazy.

Today, I once again dressed in a way I would characterize as early-to-mid 1990s, but I figured out that this is mostly because that is the last time layered cool-weather clothing was in. My office is overly air-conditioned, hence . . . thank-you, Seattle.

Look out - it's the Pinks

2009-11-07T23:59:58Z

Oh my gosh, you guys. Since the bathroom on my floor at work is still broken, I took the elevator up, and do you know who works directly above my company? Pinkerton Government Services. The Pinkertons. The honest-to-god for-real Pinkertons. The same guys who saved President Lincoln from getting assassinated several times before he got assassinated. The same guys who notoriously opposed the burgeoning labor movement with various skulduggery. The men who are specifically forbidden, by US Law, from holding any kind of government position while they are also Pinkertons. They are banished from the District of Columbia, y'all - since 1893. They are a private organization of spies and security men. One of them turned into Dashiell Hammett. They are exactly the sort of people I am always interested in turning Dark Side to join and then betray.

I have to say, either spies are everywhere and nobody notices, or I run into them a lot more often than most people. Their bathroom is fancy and has now been infiltrated.

Closed Captions in the House

2009-11-05T21:37:02Z

Today I am looking very Mirkwood Elf from 1994. I have not written much because I have been overwhelmingly busy. It's mostly stuff that is good and non-stressful; it just takes up time. I like my new job for a number of reasons. It is reasonable to assume that I will get tired of it eventually, but I don't see how. I am helping deaf people watch the news. How badass is that? It cuts straight to my idealism.

Also, there is a hot chocolate machine, as there should be at any properly adult place of business.

Possibly my favorite thing is that all of the clocks in the office are on eastern time, so that we can synch up with the coast. This means that when I get to work, it is already as though I have worked for an hour, and when I leave, it is an hour earlier than when I left. I am a frickin' time traveler. I am a time-traveling cyborg zomie pirate newsman.

Last Halloween at Clinton House

2009-11-01T18:08:36Z

For Halloween, I was Miss Viola Swamp. Once I had run out of candy to give to very tiny people dressed as insects, I walked around the neighborhood. At one point, a little girl ran up to me and handed me a hand-made "happy halloween" card with a picture of Zac Efron taped to it, which made me feel pretty special.

I also made tarantulas, aka sticks in the mud, aka chow mein noodles covered with semisweet chocolate. Good times.

Short and Tasty

2009-10-19T18:48:05Z

Today is a day for brown bread with brown spread - nutella for breakfast, marmite for lunch.

poor little island

2009-10-15T04:52:04Z

In my attempt to come up with a title for the now-finished novel, I have accidentally written a poem simply because of how I grouped a few of the options:

Lonely Island
Gathered Here Today
Above an Empty Ocean

*
*

Poor little island.

(Incidentally, I don't think any of these are great titles for the book, and in fact the current front-runner, also not great, is A Long Summer Waiting for Fall.)

ETA: I think I'm going with The Sifting Floor for now.

Feedback

2009-10-15T02:25:05Z

Thanks to a birthday gift certificate from Val, Ciro is once again wearing cologne and I have a green Fiestaware spoon rest so that when I am cooking I no longer spatter the entire surface of the range. We are feeling awfully fancy.

Yesterday, I had a long phone call with REL, who is preparing for a Halloween excursion to Alcatraz. She spent about an hour telling me how brilliant an artist she thinks I am, apropos of nothing, and how devastated she will be if I ever break up with Ciro, who is also brilliant and beloved. It's very nice to hear, and I'm pretty deeply touched. I'm not entirely sure how to respond to the compliment, because I think she is being truthful and kind, but I also think it indicates that she is worried that (1) I am going to develop schizophrenia like my grandfather as a consequence of my brilliance and not enough people respecting it, and (2) Ciro and I are about to split up.

I can't exactly say that these are irrational worries, because I can see where she's drawing her conclusions. If I say, "seriously, don't worry about it," it sounds like I maybe haven't seen what she's seen, when the truth is that I saw those things too - and also other things that make them less significant. Not because I am smarter or because she is being silly, but because I look for these signs every day and every second. In any case, it was sweet, and I guess I should just let her worry about things because that is perhaps her way of loving people. It only happens to be difficult because it interacts poorly with my own great love of rants as comedy and/or stress relief.

REL also observes that her favorite feature of horror stories by me is the way that fairly horrifying things happen and the narrator or narrator character just rolls with it and tells the audience that everything is going to be fine. And then something seemingly ordinary happens, and the narrator freaks out, and you know that the world is a very scary place.

It's been damp out for weeks. I don't feel cooped up so much as relentlessly climate controlled. I'm beginning to understand why people like fireplaces.

Someday, there will be a title

2009-10-13T06:22:38Z

47278 / 50000 words. 95% done!

I should be finished on Wednesday. Why do I assume 50,000 words? Because I conceived and then paced the book to be 50,000 words. I'm used to writing scripts, college essays, and flash fiction. I'm a fiend at writing to specific lengths. By proper manuscript count, of course, it's much longer - it'll be something like 63,000. I write short chapters and lots of dialog. In any case, if it goes longer, it will be because I picked up steam and decided to kick out an extra 4000 words for the fun of it, to really stretch out the tragedy - in which case I still plan to power through on Wednesday. Which will give me Thursday to do any last revisions, and maybe come up with a title.

It's not a masterwork, but it's fairly entertaining and relatively thoughtful. I'll be surprised if it doesn't sell quickly. I will also be surprised it sells for a lot of money or is a runaway hit. Then again, I'm appallingly bad at guessing what people like to read or watch. I will, however place an outside bet on the idea that if it does become a runaway success, this will correlate with the book being marketed as somehow connected to The Lovely Bones, despite a glaring lack of similarities. That seems to be how these things work.

The idea of waiting for three months to hear back from anyone drives me crazy. I'm used to it with short stories, but I really just want to hand this to an editor at a large publishing house with whom I have an established relationship. Sadly, there is not such a person yet.

My mouth continues to attack me in crazy ways, and I have a headache, and I have menstrual cramps. On the good side of things, I picked up an antique chest of drawers from Uncle Rex, played Jotto with Chad, and ate bagels with Merlin. My obsession with the game Harvest Moon continues. I think it is very important that I raise sheep and marry an archaeologist.

What is Essential is Invisible to the Eye

2009-10-05T19:06:25Z

Today, I was cut off by someone with a U.S. Army bumper sticker, so now I'm mad at the army. This is the problem with bumper stickers as marketing. Most people are bad drivers. They do things that make me mad. And I'm mad while I'm looking at a logo, and I start thinking, "these people are stupid and the things they like must also be stupid." I kind of think I should get a bumper sticker for something I don't support, so that when I cut someone off, they get mad at Glenn Beck or something.

Today I look like le Petit Prince, for some reason.

As of tonight:

33667 / 50000 words. 67% done!

Swift Seizer

2009-09-29T17:20:54Z

I love Jurassic Park. I read the paperback at least 13 times, most of them in the same summer, and although I thought both Sam Neil and Jeff Goldblum were entirely miscast in the movie, I also think that, generally, casting either of them in a science fiction movie is a win, and here are both.

HOWEVER!

I was always annoyed that Crichton used Velociraptor. I know he's going for a Montana thing. Sure. But he wrote Velociraptor like it was Deinonychus, aka "Terrible Claw," aka my favorite dinosaur, and why didn't he use Deinonychus? Which has also been found in Montana and Oklahoma.

In another blow to Crichton's Velociraptor, paleontologists at the University of Manchester now think Velociraptor couldn't actually use its claws to tear flesh, and didn't really have that kind of leg strength. Probably they perched in trees and jumped on things. Which is still Barbarella biting dolls creepy, and anyway Crichton lost his science cred when he smeared around a lot of global warming pseudoscience. But I guess what I'm trying to say is:

1. Velociraptors are pretty cool, but
2. They are not Deinonychus.

Thank you.

The Chemismonger's Shop

2009-09-24T06:45:11Z

I don't intend to talk about this very often, because this is my journal and not a sales floor, but I am proud to introduce The Chemismonger's Shop, a store I have opened on Etsy. I mean to update it regularly with men's and women's one-of-a-kind steampunk clothing - and despite the name "steampunk," I am careful to create versatile/sturdy pieces that can be worn as quirky regular outerwear, and not just for cons and Halloween parties. I also try to flatter the body, and not just get mired in high concept.

Basically, it's the kind of stuff a geek like me was annoyed not to be able to find. Since both my mom and my grandmother were costumers, I started altering. Given that a lot of you are design freak science fiction geeks like me, I think a lot of you may have been looking for the same thing. Possibly it is out of your price range, or not in your size, but you might have fun looking at it. The story-heavy item descriptions are probably worth the price of entry (particularly given that you can enter for free).

In any case, I'd be pleased if you'd take a look around, and pass the info on to anyone you know who would look perfect in one of these pieces. And if you don't like any of my stuff as much as you like the idea of it, I suggest you look at my favorites - the things I've tagged that other people have made. I don't get a kickback on any of them - I just think they're cool. Wrist-cuff watches with art nouveau wings, feathered headpieces, Rocketeer-style case mods, and so forth.

Birthday Song

2009-09-15T04:35:05Z

I wrote a song for Val's birthday this year, because I am tired of the tyranny of "Happy Birthday." It's a shitty song. The melody is bad, and the lyrics express nothing. Plus you're supposed to pay the Boy Scouts of America when you sing it. NO THANK YOU.

So here is a better one which is free. If you want to play it yourself, the chords are a pretty obvious mixture of C, F, and G. It's even easier than "Wish You Were Here."

You can download it or embed a flash player at the Internet Archive, here

or play or download it at supload, here (where I have also written out the lyrics for you). [note: this one auto-plays when you click the link, and loops unless you stop it. It's kind of geared toward ring tones.]

The details of the creative commons license are at the Internet Archive.

Many thanks to Ciro for sound teching. It is not easy to pull something with audio depth out of a dangling USB microphone.

Pain Before and After Pop

2009-09-14T06:29:15Z

At a particular spot, the skin on the outside of my nose continues on the surface just inside my nose. Sometimes, this skin acts up in the way my other outside face skin does, and I get a whitehead. Inside my nose. Mothafucker. Lotta nerves in a nose.

Gap

2009-09-11T16:21:22Z

I was born in 1980, which puts me right on the border between GenX and the Millennials. Pundits use a lot of different dates for deciding who is where, but I can tell you with absolute conviction that the line is the graduating class of 1998. Everyone I know who is older than that - even by a year - is unquestionably GenX, with GenX approaches to work, politics, relationships, and parenting. Everyone younger is firmly Millennial. The split is particularly clear when it comes to sexual politics, and is the main reason I decided to ally with the Millennials. If I walk into a game store, a male Millennial is going to take me seriously as a competitor. A GenXer will not.

As a result of this allegiance, which gradually worked its way into various ideologies and approaches, I tend to view people younger than me as about my age, with similar drives. For instance, I have an easy time talking with high school students, particularly smart ones. But it is equally true that people two to five years younger than me seem much older than that, and I tend to mis-guess their ages by about five years. The converse is also true; people a year older than I am regularly round me down by anywhere from three years to a decade. The same mistake is not made by non-Americans, or by people at least ten years older than I am.

Hey, who knew.

2009-09-10T20:51:57Z

Apparently my poem at Strange Horizons is now up:

"Summer and Austin Have Left Their Apartment For a House"

and my dissertation Haiku was quoted in the Huffington Post.

I should probably set up some kind of google alert so as to be more in the loop concerning myself.

Attention Everyone: I Deserve a Medal

2009-09-08T22:12:41Z

Identity Politics

2009-09-03T18:34:49Z

jonquil wrote an entry about pseudonyms that made me think about how I use my many different names. I think I'm different from most people who use false names, in that I'm not trying to hide who I am - I'm trying to clarify the context in which I'm speaking. For instance, my opinion as a private citizen is different from my official position as editor of Reflection's Edge, and neither of these is remotely linked to my identity as a filmmaker. Very often, I behave in opposite ways depending on how you approach me. As a teacher, I do everything I can to encourage people to experiment and not worry about failing; I tell them to keep pursuing art as long as they're interested, and that I believe they can succeed. (Which is not a lie.) As a producer, I will dismiss anyone whose skills have not already reached a level I can work with. I'll be nice about it, and consider them again next time, but I don't have any interest in being hobbled when I need to move quickly. And if they act entitled, or waste my time or talent, I'll stop being nice about it. These are opposite modes of operation - one is about helping every straggler, and the other is about weeding out the weak. It's extremely important that people are clear about which Romie they need - otherwise, somebody's feelings get hurt. (Sometimes theirs; sometimes mine.)

I also figured out a long time ago that when people know me well in one context, they forget that I can do other things they already know I can do. If I do camera work for too long, people forget that I can costume. People who taught me in science classes are amazed that I'm a writer. People who know me as a reader don't know that I compose music, or that I ever programmed. On the grounds that I lived in London, it is assumed that I read a lot of Jane Austen, rather than sci fi and westerns. (Nothing against Jane Austen, who I do like; it's just that out of the thousands of books in my house, none is by her.) It's easier for everyone - and especially me - if I behave as though there are several different Romies, all of whom are the same person, but each of whom runs a different department. Fewer fights that way.

Breakfastfail

2009-09-03T01:39:16Z

First thing this morning, I spilled milky coffee all over my skirt. Fortunately, my skirt is already the color of milky coffee, and looks exactly the same as before.

I also switched to a new composition book, for the same reason as usual (reaching the last page of the old one. P.S. good quality pre-consumer-recycled composition books are 75 cents at Staples right now.) This is always a period of agitation, not because I'm attached to a given notebook as an object, but because my notebook is a living and in progress document that contains To Do lists and scraps of current projects; it takes at least a month for me to transfer or complete everything that needs it, which means I have to carry and flip through two notebooks and sometimes I don't finish a story or remember I've written a poem because it has fallen into a cross-notebook gap. This only happens every nine months or so, fortunately, and the idea of a different system - separate notebooks for lists, stories, songs, etc - is repellent, a poor analogy for my creative process, much less portable, and full of excuses for not writing things down until I know where they're going. (This is, arguably, why I can only write short stories in a word processor and have to do everything else longhand first.)

Soup Dish

2009-09-02T05:32:42Z

Why is it that I have consumed an incalculable number of excellent marinaras, but almost every tomato soup has been horrible - thin or weak or sickly sweet? I am a great lover of soups. There is no reason good tomato soup should be so rare, or so often dependent on heavy cream. Get your act together, tomato soup makers. Perhaps you do not own spices; perhaps you are not sure about cooking temperatures for high-acid fruits. Surely you can find an Italian peasant who will explain it to you in exchange for coffee.

Losin' it for everybody

2009-09-01T05:49:59Z

I am having a Lady MacBeth type issue where it always feels to me that there is something stuck between my upper right canine and its accompanying bicuspid. I have flossed about five times a day for the past few days, and can confirm with mirrors that there's nothing there. Only I can feel it and it's there. And sometimes I do manage to seem to suck something out - only, two seconds later, it's back to feeling like there's something in there...

Museum Boom - I am a fan

2009-08-30T23:53:05Z

I just taught a documentary workshop at the Dallas Museum of Art, and one of the participants made an extremely funny doc about the number of naked boobs one can see at an art museum. It's on youtube, and worth watching, if you have five minutes. (It's even work safe, since all the boobs are unquestionably fine art.)

"Museum Boom," by Leslie Richardson

Attention!

2009-08-28T21:00:20Z

I would like a guinea hog eventually.

That is all.

Thesis Haiku

2009-08-27T16:48:17Z

The Boston Globe Ideas blog, Brainiac, turned me on to Dissertation Haiku, where people, well, rewrite their dissertations as haiku. (My favorites are the science ones, of course.) It's lovely. So I have done one for my Master's Thesis.

A girl runs quickly.
Light is a vampire, or friend,
or she is crazy.

Comparative Advantage is a Harsh Mistress

2009-08-24T16:47:16Z

I'm extremely hard up for money right now, in the way that I sometimes am depending on how much work I've gotten in the months previous. (When I get paid, I get a lot per hour. But these times are sometimes far apart.) It's particularly annoying this time because I was hit by some costs I hadn't budgeted for, which put me closer to the edge than I like to be. It's not panic worthy because Ciro has just received a financial aid disbursement, but taken together, it means that we have about three months before empty bank accounts, which is enough time that it's plausible I'll get offered loads of gigs and sell tons of stuff, particularly since these are things people and organizations with money are already talking about, and those sorts of things are already in the works. (Let it be noted how much better it is to be an artist with patrons than an artist without patrons.)

However, when you are someone like me, who is neither salaried nor paycheck to paycheck (as I do not receive regular paychecks), three months worth of savings is not nearly enough to feel comfortable. I don't begin to feel safe until I know that I can get by for five months without doing any paid work at all. (That's about enough to account for medical emergencies, catastrophic damage to my car, computer loss, and still being able to eat.) Because honestly, I don't know how to sell out. I don't know how to say "okay, we're out of money, and I have to get a real job." I don't know how to get a real job. Every job I've ever had has been specially created for me by someone who is impressed by the kinds of things I can do. All of my training and all of my value is in a set of specialized fields, and/or as a teacher in those fields.

So I wind up thinking along the lines that most writers think, which is: I bet I could dash off a romance novel for some quick cash. This is in many ways a silly thing to think. Romance has its rules just like any genre, and they are not always easy for an outsider to glean. And even though the publishing houses accept un-agented manuscripts, they still only accept around 4% of what they get, and it has to be edited and printed before any money comes out of it.

However, it's also not a stupid thing to think, because 4% acceptance is unusually high for a pro market, and because as someone who has worked as a slush reader, I have a pretty good sense of what I'd be up against, and beating 96% of the erotica submissions I've read sets the bar pretty low - commas in the right places, characters that aren't blatantly offensive, dialog that lasts longer than the detailed dimensional description of the woman's breasts, and I'm set.

Anyway, I have this time when I'm not making money anyway, while I wait for things that may make me money. So Chad and I have been batting around concepts throughout the day, and most of the winners seem to be sci-fi set. I try to think of historical stuff, but I run into the problem that I write a really interesting female character, but then run up against History. And either the guy who loves her is either really insane or unusual or a time traveler, and probably not financially successful. And would have to pursue her because her pursuing him would not work at all socially, unless I want to write about George Sand and Chopin, and why would she say no unless he is crazy and unusual which has mostly been proven by him loving her, and that seems self hating. What I am saying is that Darcy would never go after Elizabeth, and it doesn't work at all, only Jane Austen is very clever at fooling us.

It's really much easier if I can make the characters lesbians and then let them enjoy their love in secret and/or can end the story before they are discovered and abused.

Very Important People

2009-08-15T15:31:04Z

It is Julia Child's birthday. We saw her kitchen yesterday at the Smithsonian. Without our witness, who knows whether today would be her birthday? We have made small steps to save the world yet again.