A Twist of Things to Come

Last night I had a chat with my BFF, and she was much more excited about this whole "finished a draft" thing than I am. I think it's probably because I understand how much work it still needs, and am mentally in a space of dealing with the specific issues, while she is far enough back to see the big picture. (Finishing something like this is huge for me -- I know this intellectually-- but it doesn't feel important right now.) I mean, I can foresee a time when I will relax and be pleased with myself, but I'm not sure when I will spontaneously feel like celebrating, is all. I mostly wrestled with worries over word count and the like. (It's too long, isn't it? Will my revisions cut it down, or will I end up cutting it in two? Yadda Yadda)

She kept saying something like, "It's an exciting time to be you!" *grin* I can see where she's coming from with that, but I am not particularly excited to be me at the moment. *shrug*

I dreamed that I was at a party and somehow David Bowie was seated at my table, just across from me. It was awkward. Someone kept telling him that it was an exciting time to be me, and he seemed about to compose a song, sort of like that awful scene in Extras:



But it turned out okay. He was actually very kind, and I thanked him for all his awesome music and got all weepy, but in a good way. Sort of. I'd say it was more like Troy and Levar Burton:



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I talked with my wise reader Saturday night (after attending the Caesar parade and coming home staggering under the weight of the beads I caught - I don't flash, and I have never seen anyone flash at any of the dozens of Mardi Gras parades I've been to). In any case, she liked the ending. I was afraid it was too optimistic -- I had been inclined toward a darker ending at one point -- but she thought it showed the character arc better this way. I hope the story shows Lethe getting stronger, or finding her strength (and choosing to express that strength in non-violent ways, even though, for her, violence is an option). She also expressed tremendous affection for the sisterly relations between Lethe and Selah, which pleased me a lot, and Selah as a vivid 13 year old girl, which made me very happy. I know I've got somethings wrong, but I was glad that the female relationships were solid.

I have little bits of secondary character POVs scattered through the thing, though, and I'm not entirely certain how to deal with them. I'm going to merge two of them into one character, and nix the POV of a third entirely. There is a fourth that I might be able to cut, though it sets up the subplot very nicely. (See, I'm into the nuts and bolts of it, and I like being here. It feels natural -- more natural than the writing did in the first place, half the time. So, I'm hopeful.)

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Another good friend has started writing for GC, and I'm excited about it. She blogs elsewhere as The Insect Advocate, and has written several nonfiction articles as a freelance writer. Also, I enjoy her poetry, which has had some success. I'm rather a fan, actually, and feel a bit unworthy of her stated intention to write something for GC every week as an exercise to keep her hand in. I really have so many wonderful people in my life, who are apparently quite irrationally fond of me. I do not feel deserving of their regard. To be honest, I'm rather in awe of it.

In any case, check out her little snippet, Hexapod Haiku Poetry Contest.

Here are a couple of Korean cable channel trailers for Sherlock (the first is my favorite, the second is just too cheesy). However, this is a cable channel, I think this a bromance gimmick and not an indicator that Koreans are slash-obsessed.





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In honor of my eldest son's surrealist short story "The Floor is Lava" being up fro publication in his school's literary mag, I give you this:

http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_162_if-everything-was-designed-by-5-year-olds_p2

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I watched Jekyll this week, and thoroughly enjoyed it. (Well, until the something-jumps-out-at-you coda, and the painfully snigger-worthy American accents, but it's still better than 90% of American television.)



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I also posted some Some Awesome Videos by Geek Femmes over at GC.

I missed pimping it by a few days, but there is also Nightsky's 25 years after Challenger which is more than worth a look.

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Still trying to work myself up to making something myself. I want a personality transplant.

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Also, if you haven't friended angrybeige, I sincerely suggest that you do. Her Sherlock comics are totally cracked.

Srsly, the SHERLOCK fandom is booming. There are more fanvids every day. Here's a short but fun one to Adam Lambert's STRUT:



I could eat Cuthbert Bandersnatch* with a spoon.

Oh, here's a funny one:




*I know his real name, but I like messing it up. Low-hanging fruit, you know, because I'm shameless.

Okay, this is a fun bit from the new BBC Sherlock. I liked it because it starts off with them being mistaken for a couple, and the awkwardness that seems perfectly reasonable in the modern world when dealing with a possible roommate. Also, the running is awesome, and the bit with the police. Plus, none of it gives away the plot.

A friend asked whether they were playing Sherlock gay, and I admit I hadn't even considered the possibility. I thought they were playing him a tad on teh asexual side, which to me seems appropriate for the character. Not to say that I don't love me some subtext, 'cause, yanno.

Anyway, here it is:



Some kind soul put the whole thing up, evidently.

First off, I absolutely LOVE this song. I've just bought up a bunch of Metisse, largely because of this song, and most of it is phenomenal.



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My whinge is over, passing as all such things do. Thanks, you guys. I pulled out of it partly because of you and my at-home fan club, and partly because I set out to do stuff for other people. Because I can always do that, eh? I'm good at the whole 'people' thing, oddly enough. I'm best at getting my hands dirty and doing stuff, really. Especially stuff that doesn't require small talk.

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Oh! And GC has a new contributor, Peta Anderson of Insert Literary Blog Name Here. I'm so excited to have her, even though she'll only be able to contribute occasionally. I totally grok that her paying gigs need to come first, and I'm really just pleased to have her on board.

I feel so blessed by GeekaChicas, even right now when we're in the end-of-school, beginning-of-summer doldrums. All the women who contribute and support GC are amazing, talented and awesome, and more keep coming!

It's inspiring, mostly because I want to show the world how awesome these people are. I think that makes me a better webmistress, this feeling of awe I get when I think of the ladies willing to post work to GC.

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An old business contact of Ron's called him up and offered me a possible job, in a roundabout sort of way. They've been operating a virtual school in Georgia (and Alabama?), and they want to expand into the Louisiana market. They knew I'd been home schooling and that I had an appropriate degree to be a school administrator (news to me).

So there's just the tiniest chance that I may be able to do paperwork for a virtual school, get paid for it and get William's education set up for next year in one swell foop. I'm not holding my breath, but it was nice to have someone just talking about employing me at a time when I was feeling pretty useless. So.

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Oh, and one of the folks doing the New Orleans Writing Circle sent me a message through Meetup (asking about the GC site, which I mention in Meetup profile) and we started chatting. So, now I don't feel so intimidated by the idea of showing up at some stranger's house on Sunday. It helps knowing there will be at least one other geek there, ya know?

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Life is full of uncertainty, but it's still good.

We hit a NOLA Christmas Parade (well, actually there were two) on Saturday. The boys snagged a bunch of beads and I caught a little gold box with a New Orleans/ French Market commemorative ornament in it.

Which is awesome. The French market is the oldest town market still in existence in the U.S. Right around 300 years. Hey! No yawning you Europeans! That's a big deal for us in the colonies.

Last night we went out to see Christmas lights, which was fun. I'm still not 100% but I have hopes. :) I need to contact Big Boy's favorite teacher to see if she can send me some letters of recommendation for him - One for the arts magnet school, and one for his volunteer applications at the zoo and the aquarium (the latter were HIS idea).

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In GeekaChicas news, I couldn't help myself. On Friday I posted the Neutra Face video I snagged from inyadreams, now also posted below because ROFLMAO:



Bearded, nerdly men dancing for my pleasure. Heh!

And today we have Pearce's wonderful I'm Gonna Sing the Doom Song Now, a humorous debunking of the OMG! We're all gonna die! The Mayans said so! thing. That was totally not what the Mayans meant, and she tells you all about it.

I love that girl!

Oh, and this is totally something my eldest would do:

http://www.foxtrot.com/2009/12/12062009/

Couple things:

If anyone who reads this space speaks/reads Chinese, please let me know. We're trying to design a business card for a Tulane official, and it needs to be a bilingual card. We want to make sure it doesn't have any gaffes like Racist Park.

This video made me blubber like a loon:




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Now, onto my self-discovery and personal growth. *sigh*

I've been through some big changes recently, and it has caused me to re-examine some priorities, and take responsibility for my circumstances and challenges instead of letting myself be limited by them. It seems that in the process I let one of my values slip a bit. Let me explain the origin of it, and how my recent mistakes have helped me evolve, or at least be more self-aware.

A couple summers ago, my niece came to stay with us, and brought a friend. I was actually excited to have a couple of tween girls in the house. I made pink lemonade and braided their hair, took them to the pool. I even let them go to the deep end without me hovering on the condition that if any boys, they were to introduce themselves by name and age (my 13 year old niece was already a D cup). I even drew pictures, for them to keep, of their heartthrobs at the time, Orlando Bloom and Avril Levigne.

One night we had chili for dinner, and when my niece's friend was getting seconds, the lid to the crock pot slipped to the floor and smashed. We went into crisis mode and cleaned up the glass asap. The girl (a friend had nicknamed her Agatha) was horrified and soon began to sob uncontrollably. I realized I had another glass lid that fit the crock pot (one I had saved from when a glass pot of that size had been broken). I put it on the crock pot and said, "See, no harm done." She couldn't stop crying, so I held her for a minute, and said, "[Agatha] honey, it's just a thing. People are more important than things. Always." Then I picked up the lid that fit the crock and offered to smash it, just to prove the point.

And when she saw that I really meant it, that I didn't care about the lid, just about her being so unhappy, well, then she stopped crying.

People are more important than things. It's something I remind myself of a lot, with two energetic and accident-prone boys in the house. So, Value mastered, eh?

Not exactly. This week I was reminded that it should apply to people I don't know, too. Maybe even to people I don't like, though I'm not there yet. So that girl who teased me unmercifully all through middle school? I still snigger a little inside when I remember running into her when I was 20 and she was 19 and pregnant with her second or third child, married to an unemployed man twice her age, and , upon seeing me shouted with unflattering surprise, "You're beautiful!" A lot of time has passed, and I'd like to think I'd be happy to learn that she was now happy and successful, but the vindication of that moment lingers with me still. Also, I didn't even mention my great job or anything. No, really. I wasn't that spiteful, even then.

But this week, I chose a nice juicy joke over the feelings of a person, because of injured pride. It was ugly, and not part of the person I want to be. Internet people are easy to dismiss as less than real, and the temptation to crack wise is immense, because the consequences, even for things much worse than what I did, are essentially nil. Still, that's not who I want to be, and I will attempt to be more mindful as I go along.

If I could go back in time and superimpose the teen mother on the dole over the queen bitch of 7th grade, maybe the slings and arrows would have been easier to bear. I don't know. But I will try to be kinder in the future, even if I have to imagine that the anonymous pedant making snide comments at GeekaChicas is actually a 50 year old engineer living in his dead parents house, who will one day die and be eaten by his cats before anyone misses him.

I'm hoping that eventually I won't have to write elaborate back stories for every troll we encounter just so I don't go all rage machine on them. For now, I shall settle for finding the least annoying way to modify my behavior.

One day, I shall evolve.

So, I've been in a mood since last week about this time, and here's part of the reason why (the other part is that this hit me on a particularly vulnerable day).

I'd been looking forward to finding out how the Criminal Minds season four cliffhanger turned out. See, in season four, the BAU met a guy named Foyet, the only survivor of a serial killer known as the Boston Reaper (called an 'omnivore' because he killed both men and women). Foyet was with the first victim and was stabbed 9 times, but lived. Of course, Foyet turned out to be the Reaper himself, and promptly escaped from custody. He's clever and shrewd and scary, played by C. Tomas Howell.

That was interesting enough, but at the end of the season, we see a masked man with a gun show up in Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner's apartment.

Si this is what happened to Hotch, and if you watch you'll understand why the Criminal Minds groups have been buzzing. It was so horrible and intimate at the same time, it made my skin crawl. I didn't sleep well. It really messed me up.

So, I decided to share it with all of you! *g*

By way of deadcat_vagrant :




I'm falling over with unsurprise. Don't get me wrong -- I'm no conservative-basher, myself. I'm a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, but holy cow, torture is torture. While I admit to being a fan of Jack "I'm gonna need a hacksaw" Bauer in real life, there have to be principles.Besides, torture doesn't really work - people will say anything if you hurt them enough, but it doesn't mean what they say is true.

There just... there has to be a line we don't cross.

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In other news, I'm really proud of myself for fixing some issues with the website all on my own, today. I'm not ready to lose the training wheels yet, but I'm learning.

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Last night I watched Deception and it really was as bad as everyone said. It's like a suspense/thriller for people who were dropped on their heads as babies -- Hitchcock for the short bus crowd. The actors were all great, and I'm not even sure the scrip was the problem. It was either the director or the studio did focus groups populated by people so stoned they had to have badges in order to remember their names.