Bleary Eyed Linkee-poo

Here are some reasons I listen to NPR (and why some wish to kill it off). I don't always agree with the reports, but you know, it's not about what we "believe" but about the facts.

Racism, it isn't just for whites against everybody else. Vigilantes Patrol for Jewish Women Dating Arab Men. Change "Jewish" to white and "Arab" to black and you pretty much got some of the discrimination flavor up until quite recently. And it all uses the same language. (Hopefully they'll have the transcript up soon) The main guy they interview is just one step away from the "mud people" concept. So, here's racism at it's finest. It's often easier to point and criticize others.

And speaking of "same words, same story, different players" we have the No War Crime Trials for Israelis story.

Yes, Virginia, those were Xmas Decorations for sale at the mall. Or, what we need is a little Christmas, right this very minute. Of course, in my head I'm singing, "Father Christmas, give us your money, we've got no time for your silly toys." I also expect a whole wave of "oh noes" stories this holiday season and that we'll hear the "Shoes" song over, and over, and over, and over, and over (bang!).

And because Healthcare is still my bugaboo, a story about who is to blame for some of the healthcare cost increases. As Pogo says, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Smart Pogo.

It's good to warm my bones beside the fire

Home again. Alive.

But only barely and for certain values of "alive."

House is still standing, cats are still here, nothing major changed (except the weather, who ordered the Winter Plate at this table?). Will need to crank on getting Halloween decorations out today, prepare for Village Council on Tuesday, get clothes washed, get working on the Wii (I've gained almost 10 pounds because of all the high fructose corn syrup -pop- consumption last week). Then get backs to the writing and critiquing (40,000+ words by Sunday). Oh, and maybe take a shower.

So, anything I missed, and how was your week?

Away

Okay, just checking in this morning before heading out to the ferry. Looks like the world hasn't exploded while we were here. I take that as a good sign.

Had a fabulous time. Will attempt to sum up later when I get home. I recommend the VP experience to anybody wanting to write genre. Time to finish packing, check out, and get on the road.

Last night we went to the beach after dark to return shells we weren't taking. On the shore line some of the glowing jellyfish had washed up. So while the stars overhead were blocked by clouds, there were plenty of stars on the shore. Pretty interesting. The sands would glow as we walked.

Almost there

Okay, tomorrow is the last day and I'm about to fall over. Well, tonight should be an early night, for certain values of early (not 3am, which is good).

Lots of things. I use those Composition Books you can get to take notes at during conventions, etc. Normally I'll go through a page or four for a full convention. For the last World Fantasy I think I filled eight pages. I'll keep track of ideas, take notes of things I want to remember, people I want to remember, things I promised I do, expenses, stuff like that. I decided to bring a new book to VP, which is good. We still have three lectures or collegiums to do tomorrow and I'm already at 50 pages (and that doesn't include the writing assignments).

For our one writing assignment we had to help fill a whole in the "Steam Velocipede" magazine. Our groups assignment included "if we use zeppelins they better be damn good ones because they're are already 15 stories with zeppelins in them." Implied that we shouldn't use them. I took it as a "just what can you come up with as zeppelins that'll rock our socks off."

How's this? Using whale carcasses as zeppelins? Shave down the ribcage and other bones for lightness and sew the tanned whale-skin over the frame and inflate with gas. Add steering mechanisms to the pectoral flippers and tale as an aileron you've got a pretty interesting zeppelin, I think.

I had shaved down the whales ribs myself to make the Bag-of-Bones lighter. I didn't have the expertise to scrape and then sew the dried skin back together and make it gastight and light enough to achieve positive buoyancy. The skinners had made excellent work of it though, as they had all the others. When they had finished reassembling the pieces it looked like the humpback whale we had killed a week ago, only with a smaller tail. One more ranking higher and I would have rated the blue-whale Bag-o-Bones. After this excursion to the Spanish Philippines , I should rate moving up to either the sperm-whale or even the dirigibles.
Patrick, or gearsman had begun to install the lifting and steerage mechanism on the bags-of-bones. Once outfitted it would carry myself and Hoyle into battle. Patrick had crawled out of the stomach of the beast, a modern Jonah. He grabbed another brass gear set and went back in.

How's that for pumping me full of carbonated sugar water (I've gained width this week, can't wait to use the wii again) and making me stay up late?

So, if you see this appear in other stories coming up, you know where it got started. Frickin' whale zeppelins. Whale zeppelins with lasers! (not really). So, hopefully I'll start normal blogging on Monday (or something like that). Hope you're all having fun. I have no idea what's happening in the real world, so it'll be interesting catching up.

This morning's epiphany

Thanks to Laura Mixon, if you reward yourself before the action, you are actually rewarding the procrastination.

ie. If you say, because I'm about to write, I'll just check my emails or read this blog, you're not rewarding the writing, you're rewarding the procrastination. There are actual brain and behavioral studies to prove this.

As a writer who writes in a highly distracted state, I think I'll need to adjust that behavior.

Ding ding ding. Thanks Laura.

The things you find

Found John Belushi's grave. I didn't even know it was there.

Vacation Day

Woohoo. I've got until 4:30-5:00 to see the island and have my vacation before the work part of it begins (tomorrow starts the critiques, and I don't have my reading yet). So, I think we'll go to the cliffs, and then see what we see on the way back. Anybody been to the Vineyard before and you have suggestions for what to visit, just let me know.

Vacation, it's almost like a foreign language to me.

Slightly longer post

Okay, so we're on Martha's Vineyard and at the Island Inn after much adventuring. Went up to the staff room and met lots of people, some I know, some I knew from the internets, some were new to me. Lots of cool people. There's at least two guitars in the group (not present, but talked about). Messed up Elizabeth Bear's name (confusing her with Elizabeth Moon).

The flight out from Akron was very good. I like Air Tran, they're real people. Talked with the checkin guy, who is a bit world weary for being so young, but then in the past four years he's been to 6 other countries and 35 of the states. So travel isn't a big thing for him and isn't doing it for him anymore. The only downturn was the wifi at the airport blocks my blog. Ha! I'm censored. Look at me. Anyway, the plane was nice. We upgraded to first class which turned out to be a good thing as the plane was fully booked (how 3 people could upgrade an hour before the flight, and the plane was completely booked is beyond me, but hey, some people are last minute kinds of people. The flight was so easy we arrived half an hour early.

Met Todd Wheeler who was eminently a nice guy. I probably bored him to tears with all my off topic talk (politics, etc). But he stoically keep a good face, even trudging through 2" of water in several parking lots. We had lunch in a little coffee shop/sandwich place while we waited for the ferry. If was very cool meeting Todd in person and getting to know each other as real people. Thanks again, Todd. See you next Saturday.

The ferry ride over was also smooth. It had stopped raining (mostly) by the time we made it to the island. You know, right after we were soaked to the bone. I had forgotten how much I love moving on the water. I can't say we really went out to the ocean, as the water ways are pretty well sheltered, but I loved feeling the ship move under me and watching the slight chop move by. I started feeling very happy at that point. There's something about it, something about the air and the wind that puts me in a good mood. Even when the rain is pelting in my face. The clouds look different over water. Thinner, longing to rejoin the water below.

As I told Todd, the past days has been full of synchronicity. This is why I'm worried about hitting the deer (which it turned out there was some damage, he crumpled the top of my hood a little, nothing on the bumper). On the way home from work, at about the very point where I hit a deer, I was scanning radio stations to find something good to listed to (the NPR stations were on Classical Music or World Your Say). And that's when I landed at the very beginning of Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy." I don't think I've heard that song in a decade. On the flight I opened up the book I'm reading, In the Land of Time by Lord Dunsany, I'm in the first part about his stories of Pegana. And I left off at the beginning of the chapter entitled, "Of Roon, the God of Going" ("Roon, which sayeth, 'Go! Go! Go!'" - actual quote). And there's a hundred little things.

Just spent the last two hours hanging out in the staff room talking with people. I'd say more, but I haven't asked what the policy is yet, so until I know, mums the word on actual doings.

So, we're here. We made it alive. Hopefully we'll end the week in the same condition.

Here!

More when I find the dryers, the conference room, a cell signal, and some brain cells to devote to the effort.

OMG OMG OMG OMG!

Oh, and Todd Wheeler is the greatest. No only did he pick us up, and drive us to Woods Hole, he also did it in the pouring rain and put up with our silliness for several hours. Thanks, Todd. You rock!

Hopefully it's not an omen

So, nice and rainy morning for the commute in. Cars in front of me going slow, so I pass. About another mile down the road, deer decided to cross the road right in front of me.

I saw the first three go across and I slowed down tapping the brakes to warn the drivers behind me. I could see at least one more deer looking to make the trip. So I tried the ancient Jedi mind trick of looking at the deer and thinking very hard, "Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it." Normally that works. Who knew I'd get a Sith deer this morning.

So the deer came out onto the road, I started braking harder and moved into the center (there was no oncoming traffic, and hopefully the cars behind me will spot the deer and realize why I'm slowing down). It looks like I'm going to be okay, the deer is hesitating again in the right lane. I continue to break.

And then the deer makes a run for it.

Squealing tires and car moves farther into left lane starting to go out of control, deer continues to bolt... and Slam! Deer comes up and is thrown into the ditch. I'm at a stop. I have no idea where the cars behind me are.

The deer struggles to it's feet, which it seems a little unsteady on. The cars that were trailing me don't even seem to have slowed down as they pass on the right (I'm fully in the left lane now, that they were so far behind me is a reason why I passed, they were doing 40 in a 55, although they did speed up when I passed, nice people that they are). When I look back for the deer, it's gone. The brush is pretty thick along this stretch. There's nothing crumpled on the car that I can see, no marks, although it's still pretty dark there is one street light ahead of me. I check for the deer again and they are long gone. It's still raining. I don't think getting out and tracking it is going to help, and I don't have anything to put the deer down with even if I could find it and it was in need (and wrestling with a adult deer that can stand and move to try and help isn't in the cards this morning).

Accelerating I don't hear anything dragging and I drive to the closest parking lot I can pull into and has some light. I can't see any damage, no scrapes, nothing. Considering it's a 5mph bumper, I take that as a good sign. When it gets light enough I'll check closer (hopefully it won't be raining). I'm some what confident that I hit it at less than 5mph. Still not good for a deer (the car being the larger mass), especially being thrown like that. But I'm hopeful it only has some bruising and that we'll both go away from this shook up, wiser, and with the attitude of "not going to do that again."

And that made me late to get stuck for the flu shot this morning. Yeah, so I got to finally get to work, only to have a needle stuck in my arm. Turns out the nurse lives along the road I travel to come into work. We talked for a little about some major changes they're going to do to the road. I'm hopeful that's the only synchronicity that's going to be in play this morning.

Breathe in, breathe out

So I get home today and there's a strange envelope in our mailbox. I open it up to find a brown-paper bag with instructions and well wishes from frequent commentator Cassie! (making good on her comment) Thanks, Cassie. I'll take it with me just in case.

And let me say, Cassie, you rock!

(photos to come after the trip - the camera is already packed)

Raced to get the lawn mowed. Mowing also served as raking, which the yard needed it badly. Since we've finally got a little water the trees are taking advantage of it to drop leaves (most of them are either brown or green, not a lot of color). Normally I don't have to rake until late October. Not this year. The trees were highly stressed this year and they're going dormant just as fast as they can.

The neighbors who will be watching our place came over to do the run through for the cats. Right now the cats are sleeping, taking up the other half of the couch. Little fur paperweights.

Packing up tonight. My new suitcase isn't nearly large enough. Of course I'm taking a lot more than I normally do, including a heavy cotton pullover and a sweatshirt, chargers, and laundry soap (in a plastic tub, no, I'm not taking the whole box). Have to remember all the other little stuff. Hope I don't forget anything big.

Hmm, might have to use that bag early.

Writerly Linkee-poo

The Staffordshire Hoard Flickr set. I love stuff like this. It gets my hack and slash geekery on. Of course, this year's gift of choice for the little curtain pee-ers? Metal detectors! I expect to see a few hundred of those things in garage sales next year. (link grokked from Making Light).

Justine Larbalestier pontificates on excuses white writers use for not writing non-white characters. As someone whose stories are filled with hispanic surnames and latest novel has Chinese dropping from the skies (not in a "real" sense but in a "that's easy, they're all around us" kind of thing), and I'm not either, that I also struggle with. The best I can do is make them real people. Sure, many are fodder for the sword, but the other people do all the interesting things people do (one Chinese side character speaks perfect English, but when confronted by obnoxious police conveniently forgets they know how, many are shop owners). But it does require knowing "something" about the people you're writing about (name conventions are especially important, not just picking appropriate names but knowing how to put them together, such as the daughter is Kasandra Bonita, not just Kansandra or Kassie).

New stalker meat writer I'm following on blogs (Harry Connolly) writes something I've also dealt with. Hope is the mind-killer. I had a whole different commentary for this, but then I had some work to do, and my brain engaged. For me, this reaction is a defense (and therefore a part) of the big D. When you're raised to judge yourself harshly, say by someone who is a perfectionist or abusive, you try to eliminate all possible avenues of criticism (differing from writing critiques, this is self-destructive criticism I'm talking about). If I'm hopeful, if I succumb to the siren song only to have that hope swallowed by the Charybdis, the gremlin voices grow louder. It's better to skirt the rocks of the Scylla accepting there will be losses. It part of what I struggle with to live a somewhat happier life.

McSweeney's with their comments written by actual students extracted from workshopped manuscripts at a major university. "Apes, aliens, then dead vampire family = too much Sci-Fi." ha ha ha ha (grokked from Jay Lake, I think)