A Twist of Things to Come

Well, I DID!

He read the last two chapters I've revised so far, and had a nightmare in which "someone with metal fingers was pulling [his] guts out."

O_O

At first was horrified and felt really bad about it. Then, a creeping happy stole over me. My hubby is a big guy, fairly tough-minded, and something I wrote pwned his subconscious!

Heh.

***

In other news, my Papa (stepdad) offered to pay our expenses to come visit him, as a birthday gift to me. I've missed him so much, and it's been since last August that we got to see him. I'm going to take him up on it, but I'm not sure when we'll leave.

That really is the best present ever. :)

I have been doing stuff, and not really feeling up to posting.

One of the things I have been doing is transcribing a mondo interview with Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who write as James S. A. Corey. The first book of their new trilogy, LeviathanWakes, is coming out this month from Orbit.

I interviewed them, like, months ago. I had intended to record it via Skype, but they didn't want to be on video. So I recorded the audio and had to transcribe it. I suck at transcription. That is part of why I didn't post for a few days. I was a) transcribing and b)trying to sleep off transcription-induced migraines. :P

So, finishing the transcription of the interview is Thing Eleven. WOOT!

***

Thing Ten was a lovely trip to the Hong Kong Market. It is an Asian grocery and collection of Asian food places that bought out the old Wall-Mart building on the West Bank. If you live in New Orleans, the West Bank is like Siberia -- stray too far and you might end up eating your dogs. But really, my oldest's orthodontist is over there. He had an appointment, so we packed everyone up with the intention of going to the Asian market after the appointment.

( Pictures and such below the cut )

Thing Nine wasn't really anything. I was proud of myself for going to gym and for opening up the file to start the transcription, but I ended up with a headache with nausea (which narniadear informs me is a migraine -- I had thought I'd had migraines before, when I was on the pill. Horrible light sensitivity and sort of ripples in my vision, couldn't do anything but lie there and twitch. Those went away when I gave up hormonal birth control for good, but I guess all migraines are not created equal.)

In any case, just getting to spend a little quiet time with my family was so delicious after all that. I couldn't do my bedtime reading with the boys (we're reading LOTR), but the hubby read. I got to sit in the dark and listen, and it was very good. :)

The weather here is terrible - rain, thunder, some street flooding.

This does not bode well for the 48Hour Film Project this weekend. The light is going to be terrible. Oh well.

***

In GC news, KitchenJedi has posted Review - Gaming Paper with tests and pictures and all. Almost makes me wish I played RPGs. Almost. (No TIME!)

***

Writing continues much as it always has, scraping out snatches of time here and there. At least things are taking shape better than I had expected.

***

Big Boy starts school Monday. This weekend we need to get him some school supplies. Also, we have a social engagement for Saturday and Sunday afternoons. One is mostly with my husband's employees, and teh other is a farewell to a couple of homeschool group moms who are leaving town as The Green Lantern wraps. I may well miss the Saturday one because of the 48Hour Film Project, but it's the employee one, which could be a buffet of awkwardness, since the one employee I got on with has just decided to leave. (New baby, long story.)

It's like the world is trying to cram everything into one weekend.

On top of that, I'd really like to work on my Secret Project for GC, and sneak off to mail a few things without getting blown away.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

Today at GC we have an article by Nightsky, The Chicas' Guide to Comic-Con Part 2: The Sequelling. I wish I could hit a Comic-Con just once, because that looks like fun. Have not had much of a budget for travel here lately, though. Maybe soon.

***

On my plate today is a some critiquing for the writing group. We have a meeting this Friday, but my plans are still so iffy that I can't be sure I can make it. It is a holiday weekend.

Most of my time has been taken up this week with kidstuffs. Boy the Elder had testing for math placement yesterday morning. I dropped him off and too Boy the Younger with me to get our Louisiana inspection tag and a few bits of groceries we missed on our last visit. Then the hubby called to say that Big Boy's dentist had called to say they had an appointment open up if he could come in that afternoon instead of Wednesday. So, we did it, and scheduled his orthodontic lab for Thursday. Whee! That ate up most of Monday, minus some serious cleaning and the next chapter in our read-aloud of The Hobbit.

Today the hubby, thinking we had another gallon of milk in the fridge, put it all in his morning smoothie. He apologized, but I still ended up walking to the store in the rain to get milk. Oh, well.

This afternoon, if the rain goes away, we are scheduled for the Park Day swim at teh Whitney-Young pool. I kind of hope the rain holds out, even though it would be unusual for it to rain all day. It rains almost every day, sometimes twice, but it never rains for long.

Tomorrow, laser tag with the Janowskys. Thursday, an early-morning orthodontist appointment for Big Boy. Friday is another meeting for the writing group. Though I'd rather be on the road to visit friends and family, it doesn't seem to be happening.

Of course, yesterday we were going to go on a bike ride and didn't, but the heat index was well over a hundred, so, yeah. Also, my biking clothes did not fit properly. (I may well have over-indulged in the good food this past week, what with my birthday and all, though I did eat a lot more salad than usual, too.)

So, instead of biking, we finally sat down and made William's flip book from a couple of years ago into a short video. He was very pleased:



It wasn't bad for a barely 8 year old, and of course putting it together as a video was fun.

***

I've been holding at 80,000 words on my novel, even writing like mad. It's because I keep re-writing sections I've deleted. I believe the story will be better for it, but still. It's kind of like being in one of those rodent wheels right now.

***

ETA: OMG! Almost forgot to mention that I finally got to see Hamlet with the hunny bunny last night. (I'd been holding off to watch it with him, and he's been working late a lot in the past several weeks.) It was great! Sort of makes me wonder, though, if there will ever be a performance of Ophelia that *doesn't* make me want to slap her silly. Also, Laertes' teeth gave me nightmares. *Chomp, chomp* They're coming for me!

That said, it really was wonderful. Tennant was awesome, Stewart was amazing, and it probably had my favorite Horatio ever. Just lovely.

***

My no-spoiler impression of the Doctor Who finale? *SQUEEE* It was lovely. I think I may even be getting past Mat Smith's giant, distracting, head. He really did some fine acting, there, and I admit I have a soft spot in my heart for Doctor Owies.

Also, I want to build a Pandorica in my basement. No particular reason. *whistles innocently*

Why are you looking at me like that?

Yesterday was easily one of my best birthdays ever, despite being pretty normal in most respcts.

The hubby made me a special smoothie for breakfast, and the kids were most solicitous. I think this may have been my first birthday ever on Facebook, because WOW. Folks popped up with felicitations all over there.

An old friend from college even posted this for me:



That cracked me up, so much. This guy is one of two of my Beloved's friends from college who was also a full-fledged friend of mine as well. (Oh, the stories I could tell on him!) Anyway, that was a laugh.

Then there was LJ, which also seemed to be over-flowing with birthday wishes (and one super-cool virtual gift from the incomparable lotusice WOOT!)

Add to that phone calls from my buddies Teresa, Ben, hominysnark, my sister and a singing birthday message from my Papa and I just felt swathed in love from head to toe. My sons sang and danced , followed by their famous amoeba hug (it absorbs all in its path)They even refused to let me do anything around the house. They swept and made their own food and snuggled with me to watch some X-Files during the usual afternoon thunderstorms (got to keep up their geek education).

Then I got to wear one of my new sun dresses to Crazy Johnny's Steakhouse, a restaurant I requested for my birthday dinner, even though I hadn't eaten there before. The menu is limited, but they get the same cuts of meat as Brennan's at a much more reasonable price. Plus it was noisy and dress-code-less, so the boys could enjoy their meal without an etiquette refresher. The food was SO GOOD and carried no sticker shock.

So. Much. Fun.

I don't talk about it much, but my kids are amazingly funny and smart. They never fail to make me laugh. I totally lucked up in the family department. My friend department is none too shabby as well.

You guys rock.

I have now crossed the Mississippi River more this week than in my whole life before. *sigh* But hanging out on the West Bank has helped me focus, as it has a dearth of things to distract me. Unlike my New Orleans neighborhood.

Speaking of which, two of our nearest home school friends are moving this month. One is not going that far, but out of easy walking distance. The other will soon be on the far side of the French Quarter, just barely within the non-dodgy confines of Bywater. The latter is my older son's best friend in town, so this kind of sucks.

Still, it's New Orleans, which means *no part of it* is all that far away. *sigh*

I still love my neighborhood, though, and intend to stay put until the path to other lodgings is made clear and unavoidable.

***

Up at GC today, we have our first article by new addition Peta Jinnath Andersen, Geek up your kids with this Superhero A-Z. Let's hear it for the next generation of geekdom!

***

In somewhat less uplifting news, CBS has apparently decided to severely reduce the female characters of their hit show, Criminal Minds. One of the best things about the ensemble cast, for me, has always been the presence of competent women getting the job done. Now, they are planning to cut the character of JJ, a wonderful exemplar of a working mother who is competent, focused and successfully juggling motherhood and her career. Wonder how they'll write her out. (Yes, that's sarcasm.) The other female character looking at a drastically reduced role is Prentiss, which pisses me off even more because she's my hero. She's tough without being played mannish, smart and accomplished. Oy.

agirlnamedluna probably says it best in this post, which also has a list of places to make our ire known.

In addition to those listed by Luna, there is a campaign to send CBS lipstick as a means of protest. Since I have a bunch of old lipstick that I hate with a passion, I'm all over it. The address is listed in the link.

I'm genuinely annoyed that they think only men -- or even mostly men -- watch this show. Or maybe they just don't care, because the advertisers are not as interested in the female viewers. Whatever. F*ck you CBS. In the nostrils. With a baseball bat. Wrapped in rusty barbed wire.

Okay, maybe I'm more than annoyed.

First things first. Last week we had an update from Amalia the Savage on the Thor movie, in Thor Concept Art. Pretty cool. I know jack about Thor, but this is starting to look fun.

Today we have Pearce's take on Splice - Not a Fish Rabbit Human Frog Chicken Horror Movie, which is just as much fun as it sounds like it might be. *chuckle* I'm not huge into the horror genre, but Pearce always makes it sound fun.

***

My overly ambitious weekend went like this. Got up Saturday and gutted the middle third of my novel, slashing and re-writing sections of it. I was in the zone, I think. A slightly altered state of consciousness, anyway. So focused that I had no concept of time passing, except that I occasionally needed to use the bathroom. I didn't eat or drink, and long about 5pm I realized that I was developing a distinct stutter in my typing, especially with verb forms ending in 'ing'. Like, "dividing" became "divididiing". Thank Microsoft for the wee little red squiggly lines to tell me I was messing up, because after the third of fourth time I realized I was very thirsty, my head hurt and my belly was making unusual noises.

Also, I saw a roach and had a full-scale freak out. Most bugs don't bother me, but roaches? *shudder* Besides that, what the heck was it doing in my bedroom? There is no food in here! My Beloved killed it, picked it up on the edge of a paper and chased me out the door with it, saying, "Gonna put it on you."

Of course he didn't, and we all had a good laugh. :) I am so seldom in hysterics that my family found my reaction very amusing, and I can't really blame them.

***

Sunday we hit the zoo, and got caught out in the rain, which was warm and pleasant. Bought groceries. Then I had to prepare for my first New Orleans Writers Circle meeting. There was no reading or critiquing, so I still don't know how tough it's going to be. But the host for the meeting is in UNO's MFA writing program (and got blasted for writing a story they considered 'genre') so I have a feeling I will have a real opportunity to grow here.

There was a filmmaker, a military baker with a few sales under his belt (literary and genre), two awesome school teachers (one was the MFA student), one retired English teacher, one college student, the organizer and me. I wasn't the oldest one there, even -- most of them were in their 30s and 40s.

I'm hopeful, and a little afraid to hope. Then again, so much has come together for me since I've been here, why shouldn't this?

***

After all that with the novel, though, I'm still not caught up with the end of what I already had written. The gap is less than 100 pages, though, so that's pretty good. I have almost 76,000 words, now, but I'll be doing more slash and burn/re-writing, so heaven only knows what I'll end up with.

We had such plans for the weekend! We were going to go to Baton Rouge and hit the sales, but we SO didn't. Basically, we went to my Beloved's office on Saturday. Wee Boy wanted to do some collating (for pay!) and I used the office as a place to write without internet distractions. (They have internet, but I deliberately avoided finding out the password.) Then we went to lunch.

It was so hot that our Zoo plans evaporated.

Then yesterday, we'd planned to go to Baton Rouge, but didn't. I still need to get my Big Boy a rash guard for swimming, but we did go get a book I had ordered for him and magazine I wanted. Oh, and the new Lynn Flewelling book.

On the way home we got some groceries, and arrived at our place just as the drizzle stopped and the sun came out.

Wee Boy found a baby bird, twitching and wobbly on the sidewalk. Big Boy stayed with it while we carried stuff up, and came back with rubber gloves and a step ladder. The nest the bird had fallen from was visible, and I reached it easily and put it back. It was right by the next door neighbor's drive, and he pulled in just as I was stepping up on the ladder, and asked what was going on. He seemed surprised when I explained, but I don't get what the big deal was. I think he thought I was doing something to the shrubs dividing the properties, maybe. Because my kids and I have bizarre shrub fetish. *eyeroll*

***

Spent the rest of the day watching Wire in the Blood to which I believe I have become adequately addicted. My Beloved and the boys played video games.

I did make great strides on my novel this weekend, and I think by the time I finish it, the whole of it will be in a solid second draft state. I'm still working out how I work best, I guess.

***

Now I just need to sort out what I'm going to do for the Big Boy's birthday. I think Laser Tag may be cost prohibitive (it's either a Laser Tag party or a new computer, and he wants that computer), so maybe a pool party? Hm.

***

Oh, and over at GC, Nightsky has made a wonderful discovery in Ultimate Geek Food? The Sushi-O-Matic.

But, I still got my words in. I think they were even very good words, full of lovely things going on and only one really lovely thing I didn't expect. So that's pretty good.



and overall:



***

We had a good visit with the in-laws. We ate out a lot more than I would have liked, and did lots of fun, touristy things. I couldn't get them to Big Boy's school's Crawfish Boil, but we went to Middendorf's. There are shrimp boats that dock right next to the place, so I ordered the peal and eat boiled shrimp, which was incredible. So, I still got to rip the head off something and eat it. ;)

This is shaping up to be a busy week for all of us, but I'm going to do my best to get everything done, for everyone. Oy.