Angel's Haven

2002-09-24T20:49:00.000-07:00

This blog will no longer be updated.

Check out my livejournal for future blogging, updates on my progress towards becoming king (not there yet), and all kinds of fic madness.

That is all.

2002-09-23T11:06:00.000-07:00

Decorating a Cube

My former cubemate had a warm, fuzzy post-9/11 poem about how we are All One. (snerk) Now that she's gone, so is the fuzzypoem. In its place, courtesy of Christi, I have this.

I also have pictures of Dave, Nick, and A---,a white board that says, "I want to move to Theory. Everything works there," four beanie babies (the iguana, dalmation, and squirrel from the McDonald's promo and a red bull [sans wings] that came with flowers one Flower-Giving Holiday [V-day, I think]), and two teeny witches. (My boss gave me the witches. My boss is kewl.) Other charming decorator touches include the Harry Potter mug, many pens in interesting colors, and a half-empty box of Gobstoppers. (Okay, that's not so much a decorator touch as a lifestyle choice.)

Not king. Kings have offices.

current mood: chipper
current music: Dave Matthews Band - "Everyday"

2002-09-21T16:39:00.000-07:00

One of the niftiest things about Livejournal (I say on my blogspot blog...) is the community - that's the whole point of the thing, I suppose, but actually being in the midst of it is just incredible. I can't believe how many people I know on LJ. I also like the little tool I have that tells me when one of my friends has updated their ljs (and then it neatly shows up all in one place). No wandering aimlessly from site to site, wondering if anybody's said anything.

Still thinking about moving my actual blog over there. Opinions? If I move over to Livejournal, will you, faithful reader, follow?

Not that I've been doing a lot of updating over here, anyway....

SNK.

2002-09-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

I have bronchitis, which in this particular incarnation feels like something heavy is sitting on my chest. There is very little that sucks more than struggling to breathe - it's not something you can take a break from.

Ugh.

Definitely not king.

2002-09-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

I finally have a livejournal. :) Current plan is to make it a ficblog, where I post fics-in-progress and little snippets that don't appear to be going anywhere. It's here, if you want to follow it.

Although the more I use LJ, the more I'm thinking about moving at least this blog over there... I like the tools.

We'll see.

Still not king, though.

2002-09-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

The Coltons have been shut down in the mid-voting stage. The explanation is up on the site, and - despite the "congrats, nominees" speech, the nominees list has been taken down. Forgive me if I'm not shocked that this particular group is having... personality issues... in this particular project.

As you may know, the Pit of Voles has decided to take down all NC-17 stories. So, until I get off my arse and publish my own web site, this may be your last chance to read two of my Colton-nominated stories, "Green Grapes of Proserpine" and "Halls of High Disgraces." Follow the "My Fanfiction" link in the left-hand column to get there. Also going away (until I find a new place to put them): "Ingredients, Warning Labels, and Carpet Fibers" and the "There All Along" series. Read 'em now. Yeah, and if anybody wants to design a home page for me, let me know. I have a place to put it, even, just not the Mad Skillz to html. A l33t hax0r I am not.

Nor am I king.

2002-09-11T14:18:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday, A---

I wasn't going to say anything about the fact that it's The Anniversary (just like that, all in caps). I was just going to wish A---- a happy birthday and be done with it. Then I read Felicity's rather snotty entry for today, and it was sufficient to piss me off enough to make me write more.

I'm celebrating 9/11 by doing the same things I do every Wednesday - doing homework, going to class, etc. I'm hoping to get out of class early so I can go help A--- enjoy her birthday at Bandersnatch. Yes, and 'celebrating' is the right word - I'm not mourning or commemorating or anything like that. I'm bloody well celebrating.

I remember. I still get the same sick, sinking feeling when I see the Towers footage. I remember fear, and horror, and terror. I stayed home that day, because I was worried about my mom, who works in Washington, DC. I watched the news obsessively. I saw people jump out of the building - and that's something that stays with you. But the next day I went to work, and the day after that I went to class. And while I spent plenty of time glued to the TV after that - when the new question was "Did they find anyone else?" and when you walked into a room with a TV, you got an update - life went on. And so I'm celebrating 9/11 - because they tried to break us, and it didn't work. Those who consider themselves our enemy hate without understanding. They don't get what makes America so special.

Felicity, It WAS a tragedy - people died. Lots of them. Nobody I knew, thank God, but friends of friends. All over the Internet, the question went up - who's in New York? who's in DC? Is everybody all right? There was a bit of panic over on the THEM list because Traykor was at Columbia, in Manahattan. She watched the events unfold literally outside her window. Fortunately, she was all right - but she lost people. If it didn't affect you personally and directly, you should be thanking God that it was so, NOT belittling the pain of others. I'm leaving the TV off today, because I DON'T want to watch it again. I have grieved, and I have let go ... and now I'm going to live.

Yeah, and one day I'm gonna be king.

2002-09-04T23:40:00.000-07:00

Getting in on the ground floor isn't all it's cracked up to be...

And it's all Carlos & Christi's fault.

Yeah, I'm griping about my new obsession again. Hellsing is a relatively new anime even in Japan... which means there aren't that many English-language fans out there yet. Which means there are very few English-language resources for the series... and an almost disgustingly small amount of fanfic. In desperation, I'm reading Alucard X Ceres lemon, because, damn it, at least Integra's in it most of the time. The only fic I've found has been on the Pit of Voles... there isn't a SINGLE Yahoo group devoted to Hellsing fanfic. Correction: now there's one. Because I started it.

Click to subscribe to hellsing-fic

I've been spoiled by Buffy.

I'm writing myself, of course. That songfic I mentioned the other day - although it's turned into a major, serious piece. And it doesn't seem to be possible to write (good) Hellsing fluff.

I suppose you could write it about Alucard.

(And that's where I fall on the name debate... "Alucard" is, of course, "Dracula" backwards. Arucard my ass.)

I need to get me a livejournal to put up fic snippets.

Still not king... not even a No Life King.

2002-09-03T21:40:00.000-07:00

I went to Worldcon and had a fabulous time. Saw lots of friends, went to good panels, bought cool buttons in the dealers' room, enjoyed San Jose and the day we spent in San Francisco. There will be more, but I have to do four fifteen-minute writes for my creative writing class. Blogging, unfortunately, doesn't count.

I need to get a button that says, "Still not king."

2002-08-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

Hey, look, people are able to have opinions again. Bloody enetation. Oh, well, it's better than ff.net.

I'm thinking about writing a Hellsing songfic. (To Rufus Wainwright's "Hallelujah," from the Shrek soundtrack. Integra / Alucard.) Do you think they'll come up with a special ring of Hell just for me?

My first day of school was today, and it was really good. My professors are cool (first impression-wise, anyway) and my classes look to be interesting. I'm going to proceed to describe them - if you're not into that kind of thing, just take away the fact that I'm still not king.

(Okay... the skunk... er, ska punk... version of "The Glory of Love." Brain leaking out ears.)

My first class of the day is an anthro class, Social Issues in Human Genetics. This is an upper division non-lab science for nonmajors - aimed at the layman, in other words. We're going to be covering genetic disorders (like Down Sydrome, Sickle Cell Anemia, and Cystic Fibrosis) and biotechnology (IVF, paternity testing, forensics) AND the social implications of all of this. Just because we can... should we? We'll be doing weekly essays on the stuff we're talking about... and we're supposed to have opinions. Some of this may show up here, later on. We'll see. I'm excited about the class, though, because not only is the topic fascinating, but the professor is interesting - AND a good lecturer. (Always important!) He also says that he won't share his opinions, even if asked, because they're not relevant to the class.

My anthro class is in Cowden (which is between Anthropology and Nursing, for those of you familiar with ASU who don't know - I didn't). From there, I get to hike over to Business (Nick pointed out it could be worse; I could be going from Psychology to Music or something), which, if I want to maximize my inside-time involves walking through the MU at 12:00. Yeah. To call the main hall there overcrowded is like saying New York is kind of big. I've seen stop-and-go traffic that wasn't as bad on LA freeways. I think Thursday I'll try going downstairs - it might be faster, even with the stairs. Anyway, I have to haul ass across campus for - my Shakespeare class. Go fig. My professor says that he's never taught in that building before... I guess they want it to be well-used, since they just spent all that money revamping it. Let's just say it's much, much nicer than the gracelessly aging Language and Lit building. Fancy computer setup, including screen, VCR, DVD player, microphone on the podium, etc... mic on the podium why? The room holds 40 people... Anyway, lovely basement classroom aside, we're reading 12 plays - three comedies (As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night), two romances (Winter's Tale and The Tempest), two histories (Richard III and Richard II), and FIVE tragedies (Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and Antony and Cleopatra). Other than the fact I'm going to be contemplating suicide by Christmas, it's a good selection.

Class three is in the Business C wing, up on the second floor (I have all of one class on the ground floor...). Business C also got some of that facelift, but not nearly as well - at least, not the room we're in. My third class is a women's studies class - and the Women's Studies department seems to be unique at ASU in that it doesn't have its offices in a logical place. Logic would probably stick it in the Social Sciences building, along with history and such. Unfortunately, Social Sciences was jam-packed BEFORE the fourth floor was condemned last fall. In the meantime, the denizens of that building are crammed cheek by jowl wherever they can find space for them whilst they construct the NEW Social Sciences building. Anyway, the Women's Studies department is confusingly located in the Engineering complex (right upstairs from a room with danger stickers all over the door...). As such, they don't really have classrooms of their own; WST classes are held all over campus. This particular class, History of Feminist Thought in the US, is stuck in an oddly-shaped jumped-up closet on the second floor, with fancy video equipment and tables bolted to the floor just far enough apart that you can sit at them. Dr. Rothschild, my professor, was furious about the setup - she likes to have small-group discussions and have people move around the room, which is virtually impossible in this space. And it's DARK. That lovely basement room was much better lit than the room with hypothetical windows (they'd been covered over, making a bad situation worse). Anyway, I'm sure I'll talk more about the class once I get used to the damned room.

From there, it's back down the stairs and across campus, finally safe "at home" in Language & Lit. Creative Writing of Science Fiction, taught by Real Live Writer Paul Cook. More about that when it's not so late...

And tomorrow I have WAY too much to do... then Thursday we leave for Worldcon!

Pleased with life, but still not king.

2002-08-23T00:25:00.000-07:00

Two episodes in, and I am falling madly in love with Hellsing. And praying, like a crazed fangirl, for more Integra/Alucard action. People who are just paintings should NOT be able to communicate that well and that clearly in silence. But they do.

DAMN.

If I were king, there'd be more stuff like this.

2002-08-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

What Type of Villain are You?

mutedfaith.com /
<º>

In case there was any question.

Still not king, though.

2002-08-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

Which Hellsing character are you?

At least, according to Carlos, Christi, and this quiz, I am. :)

But I'm still not king.

2002-08-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

I just found out that "Green Grapes of Proserpine" was nominated for Best Short Story in The Colton Awards. Of course, I had to find this out by going to the page myself... but, hey, I'm proud of the story, so the nomination is a good.

Haven't gotten nominated for king yet, though.

2002-08-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

I didn't go to San Diego Comic Con, and I had a wonderful time...

I went last year and had a pretty rotten time, actually, so this year I cheerfully stayed away. The only drawback is that I didn't get to spend several days in San Diego, where they actually have weather.

Friday night, I went ice skating at Polar Ice in Chandler. I had a good time, and only fell once (onto my bad leg, where I now sport a pair of palm-sized bruises).

I'm probably going to be participating in programming at CopperCon 22. I say probably because I only got the panel list today, and the link doesn't work. Somehow, this doesn't give me a great amount of confidence in the organization of the con.

Not feeling particularly talkative today, and still not king.

2002-08-07T14:08:00.000-07:00

You are 47% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator.

Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend.

You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines!

Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals!

You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Or, as I like to say, I'm a lay geek.

But I'm still not king.

2002-08-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

Boredom strikes again....

Commander and leader of the Power Puff Girls.

Take the Cartoon Hero Quiz?.

Though usually I'm not that shrill....

*clever*

What fuzzy creature are you?

I haven't updated because not much has been going on.

Still not king, of course.

2002-07-30T23:37:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or do all national anthems sound vaguely alike?

And the Australians - at least the rugby players singing along tonight - can't seem to decide how fast their anthem should be sung. Everyone's singing at a slightly different rate. Perhaps it's like Hogwarts' that way. "Everybody pick your favorite tempo, and away we go!"

Weekend Update: regardless of anything else, Jane will be wearing shoes at her wedding. Now, if her dress would just arrive....

I've been on a reading kick lately. I'm always reading something, but lately I've been reading a lot. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's due to the political mess of last week; it's hard to concentrate on writing when the act of doing so gets me grinding my teeth in aggravation. And the clueless commentary on my blog hasn't helped... it's not enough that I've left the fucking group, they have to follow me to my haven and harrass me here. Of course I didn't tell the whole story. Quoting the correspondence of a private list is WRONG. (And I'm sure if I had ignored that particular point of netiquette, I would be getting blasted for THAT. We have achieved whole new levels of "Catch-22.") The only messages I can use here are my own. Thus, only my side of the story shows up. I thought I was being very fair about relaying the particulars of the question that inspired my post. But then, I thought I was being fair about the whole damned situation, from the beginning. Harsh, perhaps, but fair. Obviously people disagree with me - but the people whose opinions I trust and respect do not. I trust their opinions in part because they've demonstrated to me, time and again, that they have a solid understanding of standard written English. They have assured me that, using the relevant rules of the language, I said exactly what I claimed to be saying. That I am neither crazy nor hallucinating, and the reactions of my attackers are downright peculiar.

I am reassured.

With any luck, this will be the LAST I will have to say about the whole situation.

Still my opinion, I could still be wrong, and I'm still. not. king.

2002-07-25T23:36:00.000-07:00

Fan Politics and the Repercussions of Being Opinionated

Well, the whole mess with the list moderator is over, because I've left the list.

Remember how I said that I knew people would take my rant the wrong way and be insulted? Yep. It happened. One charming example is the response to yesterday's rant in the "opinion" section. The other was an official message from the list mods saying that, due to the rant on my blog and the "threat" I made to go Chaotic Evil, my posts were now being hand-moderated. I'm apparently not allowed to complain on another forum where, far from naming names, I don't even name the fandom, without being branded a threat and a troublemaker. So I've just given up and left the list. I have had one member of the mod team contact me and tell me she wasn't involved and her opinion wasn't particularly asked. This is the same moderator who read my initial post on the list and correctly interpreted it as NOT being an attack or insult. I was VERY relieved to hear from her - if nothing else, it reassured me that it wasn't just me, and that a reasonable person could determine what I was actually saying by reading what I wrote (and that I hadn't suddenly been dumped in an alternate universe where the English I was using wasn't the same as the English they were using). She allowed my farewell message through intact, so I'm not going to post it here. The people who needed to see it, have. Perhaps it will make a few people on the list think.

I'm posting an appropriately edited version of my original post - the one that was interpreted as, simultaneously, an attack of the author and his/her work, and a stroking of my own ego, presumably because of my "own lack of imagination or a sence (sic) of self loathing that [I] must heap onto others." I'm still not naming names, and I've edited out all the fandom-specific cues. If you don't want to read any more about the situation, be assured that I'm still not king, and move on to the next part of your day. BTW - I'm going to refer to the author as 'him' in the generic sense. I'm not sure of the author's gender, so rather than wading through the impossible 'him/her' or the questionable 'they' (the acceptability of the singular form of 'they' is a discussion for another day), I'm just picking one. I am also only posting my own words, and paraphrasing what he said.

BEGIN POST:

Warning: This is not a friendly, fuzzy response. I'm not into stroking someone's ego just because they're unhappy. I've never read "[Unfinished Story #1]" and "[Unfinished Story #2.]" This is not an attack on [the author] - or anybody, for that matter. This is my opinion, blunt and full-forced, and if you can't handle someone being brutally honest, best hit the delete key now, kiddies. That said...

Growl. This is why I don't read in-progress fics. I've been through far too many situations where I've been deeply involved in a story and the author suddenly went, "Oh, I don't feel like doing this any more" or "I have no idea where I'm going" or "I'm completely blocked and can't figure out how to solve the problem I've gotten my characters into." I decided I didn't want to do this to my readers, so I promised myself to never, never publish a work in progress.

[The author is responding to someone's question as to when the next chapters of the unfinished stories will be up, and says it might never happen. He explains how writer's block and a deep depression has prevented him from writing further, and, indeed, led to his removal of these stories from a site where they were archived. He denies being motivated by ego, but has noticed that neither of his stories have been nominated for awards.]

Let me get this straight. You have two stories, works in progress, that you're not going to finish because nobody nominated them for an award? For one thing - I, personally, wouldn't nominate a WIP for an award. It's not done, so I have no way of knowing whether it will continue with the same quality that has been established. Plenty of books (and movies) that had great beginnings have taken a Turn for the Lame before the end. Second - getting nominated for an award is an honor. It means that someone thinks your story is the *best* one they've read. Not just 'good,' but THE BEST. Deciding that because nobody thinks it's the best thing they've ever read, nobody actually likes it, is a logical fallacy of quite impressive proportions. I've never been nominated for an award in [another fandom I write in], despite the fact that there are *lots* of awards. Does this mean I'm a bad writer and should stop writing in [that universe]? Uh - no. It means I haven't produced something that somebody liked better than any other similar story. It gives me a goal to work towards. I've had [a small number of] fics nominated in [a smaller number of] categories in the [the awards he's complaining about not being nominated for] (you like me! you really, really like me!) out of the [total number of fics in this fandom] I've published. I am proud, I am honored, I am delighted. I am not depressed that none of the others made the cut (well, maybe one, but it's because I'm REALLY proud of it).

[He asks his readers whether he should continue or stop.]

That's up to you, son (the genderless 'son,' think [an older male character in a mentor role] saying it). If you're not writing for yourself - because it makes YOU happy, because YOU enjoy it, because the characters and situations are as YOU want to make them - then stop. Writing is work, hard work - but if you're not getting paid for it, there's no reason in the world to work on something that doesn't please you. I write, plain and simple, because I CAN'T STOP. If you can, if you can walk away from your characters, then do so. Don't throw yourself into this business of writing if you can possibly avoid
it. Artists are sadists and masochists, self-destructive and unstable, more than just a little disassociative and obsessive, and if you can avoid joining the club, DO SO. One of my favorite quotes about writing comes from Stephen King. Someone asked him, as people are wont to do, why he writes horror. Why he chooses to tell frightening, bloody, scary stories. And he turned to the questioner and asked, "What makes you think I have a choice?" If you have a choice, then, for your own health and sanity, choose to stop. Nobody should do this. Unless they can't not.

I can't not.

[The author asks for "honest and frank" opinions (and I AM quoting, because I don't want to be accused of putting words in his mouth) on the stories, whether they're any good, and whether the characterization is authentic. He promises not to be offended, because he sees others' opinions as "the truth," and the truth is what he's looking for.]

Like I said, I don't read works in progress (unless I'm a beta reader). Speaking of beta readers, these are questions you should have asked your beta before you published. And nobody's opinion is "the
truth." They're just opinions. [One list member likes a specific kind of story]. That doesn't mean everyone should include them in their story (sorry, [listmember] ;) ). I like deeply personal, involving stories with plenty of angst. That doesn't mean that all stories should be angsty. (Dear God, no!) I have strong opinions about what makes a work worth reading, but my opinion is hardly the be-all and end-all of fanfic truth. If it were, there'd be a lot less bad fic out there, and certain categories would cease to exist... but obviously there are people out there who like what I would consider badly written, and there are people who like the things that squick me. Hell, sometimes *I* like the things that squick me. I'm working on a piece right now that squicks the snot out of me, but I can't not write it.

[The author asks again whether he should continue with what he considers an exercise in futility.]

If that's how you feel about it? No.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

END POST.

Now, if I'm not mistaken, the worst thing I accused him of is committing a logical fallacy (namely, assuming that because he hasn't been nominated for an award, his work is bad). The only thing I said about his work is that I haven't read it. The only thing I said about him is if he's not happy, he should stop. I call myself, on the other hand, sadistic, masochistic, self-destructive, unstable, disassociative, and obsessive, and admit to writing a piece that makes me uncomfortable and kind of grosses me out. Who exactly is being insulted, here?

Maybe the girl who's still not king?

2002-07-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

Fanfic, Sex, and Other Forms of Expression

Moliere said, "Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, then for a few close friends, and then for money." He actually skipped one step - early exploration and masturbation - and it's an important one. One almost entirely eliminated by the ease of the Internet, unfortunately.

In the days before the Net, an aspiring writer would lock herself in a closet with a notebook and pen and write for hours on end. Most of what she produced would be crap, but it was okay, because nobody would see it. Compare this to a curious adolescent in the selfsame closet with a flashlight and a hand mirror. Once she gets past the initial identification section ("Here's my clitoris - wow, that was much easier to find than comedians would have me believe.") there is the process of experimentation. Initially, a lot of it will be bad. Masturbation goes faster than writing, though; if nothing else, the feedback cycle is much faster. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

So once the closeted adolescent figures out the basics of Good Touching, she is inspired to share her findings with someone else - generally her boyfriend, whom she loves dearly. (Yeah, yeah, this is the Idealized Days of Yore. Bear with me.) Our writer shows her story to her best friend, who gushes. Naturally, it's the best thing she's ever read. Never stop, best friend. Blah blah blah. The best friend (and the boyfriend) enjoy the awkward virgin fumblings, because they love her. Hey, they're not much more experienced - what do they know about writing or sex?

Our intrepid experimenter continues on, sharing her creative juices (all puns intended) with others - peers, maybe teachers if she lives in Japan, whoever. People laugh in her face; others rave. She works more, and improves. Eventually she shows her shining work to the wider world. Lots more face-laughing, door-slamming, rejection letters. More improvement. Finally, O Banner Day!, her story sells. Someone pays her what she loves to do. Eventually, perhaps, she makes the New York Times Bestseller List or wins a Pulitzer Prize or something. Good things.

Nowadays, the closeted adolescent takes her hours of initial hard work and dumps it on the internet for all and sundry to see. People cheer - because near-virgins always cheer. Along comes an actual, experienced adult, and criticizes. Wow! Instant bad guy.

Or am I?

I've never gotten involved in a fandom from the ground up before. Since I've been online, I've never managed to catch on to a wonderful show at the very beginning - someone always has to turn me on to it. Because of this, by the time I've gotten involved in a fandom, it's already undergone the adolescent growing pains and become a full-fledged, multifaceted fandom. Favorite pairings, favorite episodes, favorite characters - and places for those who love them - are already established. Everyone understands basic netiquette, the role of moderators, spoiler space, and Mary Sues.

What a shock it's been to find myself in the middle of a baby fic fandom. Nobody seems to know any of the things I take for granted; everything is praised, no matter how bad (or good); everybody's encouraged to write, no matter the reason - or even whether they should be. (I'll say for the record that this and the following isn't intended as an insult, veiled or otherwise, aimed at anybody. I'm getting really sick of people reading into what I say, damn it. I say exactly what I mean, and if I was going to insult someone, don't worry, I WOULD. Of course, the people who would construe it as an insult are going to miss the whole point, anyway, AND be insulted. But that's a rant for another day.)

Today, on my baby fandom list, someone asked for help naming their Shiny New [Character Type]. In a breathless email, said character was described. The words "similar to" and "related to" were both used. "Marty Sue," suggested I, to myself. Lo and behold, Meterological Event is based, in part - brace yourselves, boys and girls - on the author. Dear Lord, I was right. The Mary Sue has landed in my fandom.

That's what I get for making assumptions again - I had assumed that EVERYONE knew about Mary Sues and how horrifying they were. Mary Sues are the STDs of fanfic.

Apparently not. And I can't jump up on-list and explain this without becoming Instant Bad Guy yet again - a role I'm getting entirely tired of denying. They keep this up, maybe I will go Chaotic Evil.

And I'm having a fight with a moderator because I'm a snarky bitch who dares to suggest the world isn't a perfect, happy, ultrasupportive place. I'm Spike as a member of Harmony's "gang." I'm Daria to the mod team's Mr. DeMartino.

And I'm STILL not king!

2002-07-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

Buffy Dissed Again...

Or, "How a Show Called Buffy the Vampire Slayer Clearly Isn't Serious Enough Even To Get A Comedy Nomination." Or, "It's a science fiction show - that means it gets nominated for Hairstyling and Makeup. Oh, and we'll give them Music Direction; they should be grateful for that." Despite heavy lobbying, "Once More, With Feeling" (which was LEFT OFF THE BALLOT) was ignored - but, after "The Body" was overlooked, what can you expect? Sarah Michelle Gellar naturally didn't get any applause for recently-back-from-the-dead Buffy; James Marsters' exquisite performance as the loyal vampire who loves her (but wishes he didn't) was similarly passed on.

Maybe Joss should've called it Everybody Loves Buffy... it seems to have worked for Raymond.

Bitter much?

And still not king.

2002-07-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

What if you wrote a fic, and nobody read it?

That's what it's felt like lately... it may be that because of the long-term downtime of the Pit o' Voles (TM), people just got out of the habit of visiting it. But I have two fics and a poem up without ANY reviews. :( There are also a depressing number of ones with one or two reviews. How come I, who spend a lot of time and energy writing quality fics, get a bare handful (my most-reviewed fic? *Nine.* Whee.) while people who perhaps hire monkeys to do their typing get dozens? Not fair. (Yes, I am whining.)

If you read my blog, maybe you could go read (and review? please?) some of my fic. I wrote it, you know. Follow that handy-dandy link on the left side (the one that says "My fanfiction"). It'll take you to my own vole-burrow. The only actual slash is the "There All Along" series; there's some homoerotic imagery in "Ingredients, Warning Labels, and Carpet Fibers." Everything else is perfectly ordinary m/f. (Hmm... must write more slash.) (Actually am writing more slash - I'm working on a S/X fic at the moment. Okay, not *this* moment, since at this moment I'm blogging, but you get the idea. It's open on my desktop.)

Wow, I've written or co-written fifteen stories in the past seven months. And that's only counting the stuff I've *finished.* Go me.

Hey - while I still have your attention, send Jane and her family your happy thoughts/prayers/rituals. Her dad and fiance are both unemployed, her stepdaughter-to-be's pet snake died, and her future father-in-law just got diagnosed with cancer. Jane, we love you and it will get better. Promise.

And that's the promise of someone who's... still not king.

2002-07-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

We had a gorgeous storm last night - tons of wind, precipitation ranging from downpour to hail, lightning and thunder. Nick tells me that they had to close Sky Harbor (the airport) last night, because the wind was strong enough that it blew a 757 away from the jetway. Spider had a much more involving experience with it than we did. Here in the East Valley, there was lots of wind and a serious dust storm for a while. The clouds were low enough that the city lights reflected off them, turning the sky an eerie glowing brown, laced with sheets of lightning. We headed out to dinner around 9:30, just as it started to rain. We went to Friday's, which is about 3 miles from our house. During the drive, it started pouring... letting up a little as we got to the restaurant. It rained the whole time we were eating. Half the time it was pouring - raining like Someone had kicked over a bucket. Our drive home was much less harrowing than Spider's, but the intersection of Southern and Price was flooded up over the sidewalk and someone had gotten stuck turning onto (a road near the house) and was being pushed out of the way by a cop. The Arizona Republic has this story about the damage done by the storm.

It doesn't storm here very often - but when it does, we don't fuck around. :)

Still not king, though.

2002-07-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

For the record, Carlos has moved his blog to Livejournal. In it, he details the Felicity fiasco from his point of view. She apparently didn't destroy the contents of his blog, fortunately - she emailed it to him - which makes her a little less despicable. But I'm still pissed.

Oh - the Pit of Voles is back up and able to be updated, so you can check out my new fics, "Halls of High Disgraces" and "Hopelessly," and "Requiem," a Buffy poem.

I've been getting a lot of work done lately - I'm still fiddling with my web page, thinking about getting a livejournal (since everyone else seems to have one for fragments that don't go anywhere else), and working on a couple of fics - I reworked "Hopelessly," though I'm still not happy with it; I'm doing a parallel piece to "The Only Woman" from Scarlett's point of view; and I'm back at work on "Angels of the Silences," a S/Dru/Aus songfic to the Counting Crows song.

"In Phoenix, in the summer, you don't actually need a sauna - you just need one of those rubber inflatable pools, fill it up with water, and put it in your garage." - Nick.

Yeah, it's hot.

And I'm still not king.

2002-07-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

Nobody's responded to my July 4th gripe about Carlos's (now-nonexistent) blog and Felicity's mysterious Change of Format. Carlos's blog is still gone. Which means that apparently Felicity needs more than a swift metaphorical kick to force her to rejoin us in Adult Reality.

In good news, I've had three stories nominated for The Colton Awards - "The Only Woman" for Best Short Story, and "Green Grapes of Proserpine" and "Halls of High Disgraces" (which is new, and currently only available on the groups it was posted on because of ff.net's continued update problems) for Best Cold Shower. I'm proud. :)

But I'm still not king.

2002-07-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

We went and saw Men in Black II last night. It was fun. Not spectacular, not original, but fun.

The best part of the movie? Um, I'll vote for the trailer of The Two Towers they showed beforehand. :)

Still not king.

2002-07-04T01:21:00.000-07:00

Something I'm not going to get into...

...much as I might like to. My knowledge of the facts as they stand is extremely limited, so I will withhold most judgement until after I have all (or at least most) of them.

Felicity, who had volunteered to be the THEM Anime webmaster, and design the page for the relaunch scheduled for July 1st. She bowed out June 30 - without warning. Carlos reported it on his blog, without even mentioning who the departing webmaster was.

And now, Carlos's blog is gone. Completely. Archives and all.

Felicity had been courteous enough to host it.

Her blog is gone too - reformatted into a "book blog," with the comments section mysteriously gone.

Now, I'm not accusing Felicity of destroying Carlos's blog in a fit of pique. I don't know. I wasn't there, I didn't see the emails that may have passed between them.

I'll just say this...

I have a profound appreciation for the written word (English major, writer, blogger - who woulda guessed, right?). I also have a fundamental belief in the importance of fulfiling your positions of trust - especially safeguarding precious things given you by friends. And, while Felicity has problems with the idea - staying true to your friends, even when you're mad at them, is important. "Don't blow up the bridge you're standing on," as Lois McMaster Bujold put it. So... someone who, in a fit of pique, destroys a friend's web site, containing months of creative expression... three mortal sins, all in one rm-r *.*! Gotta be some kind of new record.

And mortal sins? Not like venial sins. Venial sins, you can just say a couple of 'Hail Marys' and be on your merry way - or, rather, grovel to your friends for a few minutes and be fine. Mortal sins... well... it takes a lot to forgive one. Three? Don't know if it's possible.

Carlos, I feel for you.

Still not king.

2002-06-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I was going to analyze the personality test question by question and describe my problems with it, but blogger made it disappear round about question #9. Rather than do it over, I'm just going to say this: the personality disorder test is not a diagnostic tool. The results produced by the test are laughable at best, and not meant to be taken seriously. The test is not long enough or involved enough, and the questions should have been phrased on a varying scale, rather than as simple yes/no, if the test wasn't going to be made longer. A hint to the seriousness of a diagnostic test will be that the same question is asked several times, in more than one way - looking for consistency of thought as well as acting as a "bullshit detector" for people pretending to be disturbed.

Instead, what I did was a little research into the disorders I scored "high" on.

Narcissistic: This page has an excellent description of Narcissism, translated from the DSM-IV criteria to regular layman's English. She also has a list of traits common to narcissists... and maybe I'm just being narcissistic ;) but this doesn't sound much like me. To me, anyway.

Histrionic: This page has a fairly good description of the Histrionic Personality disorder... and you know, I just don't buy it as a description of my own personality.

So don't necessarily believe the results of the "test" - they're inaccurate, at best.

Still not king.

2002-06-29T18:24:00.000-07:00

The Action Channel really ought to change its name to The Bad Asian Film Channel.

It'd be more honest.

I want to be a flying swordsman.

Or at least king.

2002-06-27T16:47:00.000-07:00

People have been telling me I'm crazy for years...

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Moderate
Schizotypal:	Moderate
Antisocial:	Moderate
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	High
Narcissistic:	High
Avoidant:	Low
Dependent:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Low
-- Click Here To Take The Test --

I add to their comment that it isn't a diagnostic tool the caveat that it also isn't designed for sci-fi fans. Do I occasionally dress or act oddly? Well.. duh.

Everybody pay attention to the fact that I'm still not king!

2002-06-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is a strange feeling... today I have been annoyed by politicians (okay, that's not unusual), a sports writer, and somebody's business practices. Very unusual sources of irritation, for me.

The politicians: The Supreme Court apparently currently consists of nine ancient idiots. Okay, Clarence Thomas isn't ancient (born in 1949) but he's the youngest by nine years. He's not exactly the most open-mineded and flexible of fellows, either. The eldest, John Paul Stevens, was born in 1920, and was appointed by President Ford (remember him? Between Nixon and Carter?) four months before I was born. Rehnquist, who was actually appointed three years earlier in 1972, is four years his junior.

Did anybody else get taught in school that Republicans were against government meddling in people's lives? Yeah, well, maybe somebody needs to remind them of that. Today the Supreme Court decided that random drug tests were okay for students participating in extracurricular activities. It isn't bad enough that if you get convicted on a drug charge, you can't get financial aid (but if you MURDER somebody, it's okay), but now they're hunting for stoners amongst the band geeks and drama kids? (No, we don't take drugs in theatre; we're always like this.) “BECAUSE THIS (random search) policy reasonably serves the school district’s important interest in detecting and preventing drug use among its students, we hold that it is constitutional,” Clarence Thomas wrote. And... where in the Constitution does it say that detecting and preventing drug use among students is valuable? Important? Okay? Considering that most of the founding fathers grew tobacco and hemp, I imagine they'd be horrified at the idea.

I can understand drug testing for kids who participate in sports, but last time I checked there weren't any kind of steroids designed to help, say, your singing voice or your line delivery. Drugs won't make you a better photographer for the yearbook or give you an unfair advantage on the debate team.

And then we have Pledge of Allegiance v. Parochial Schools. Okay, these are actually two separate cases, and the first one hasn't gotten to the Supreme Court as yet, but they're really two sides of the same basic idea - how far does the First Amendment go, really?

This is the first part of the First Amendment that's being challenged - the whole "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therof" part. It seems to me that the government is passionate about protecting the rights and flexibility of Judeo-Christian types, but the rest of us can just go hang. The school voucher / pledge controversies are perfect examples of this.

The Supremes (and the mental image of Rehnquist as Diana Ross is not appealing) declared that school vouchers are okay, even though most of the parents who are taking advantage of the system are sending their kids to parochial schools. The idea being, of course, that parents have a wide choice of where to send their kids, including secular private schools. This is fine, as far as I'm concerned - the government is allowing people to make a choice, not endorsing parochial schools. “There is, in any case, no way to interpret the 96.6 percent of current voucher money going to religious schools as reflecting a free and genuine choice by the families that apply for vouchers,” Justice David Souter wrote in the dissenting opinion. Maybe not - but it's hardly the government's fault that most of the schools in Cleveland that have decided to accept vouchers are church-run, unless the requirements for accepting them are stricter for secular schools. The Court's responsibility is to ensure equal opportunity, not enforce equal availablility. (The difference is in execution - opportunity is accepting applications from everybody, availability is forcing under-represented groups to submit applications - something many people fail to grasp.)

The other half of this argument hasn't made it to the SC yet - it's down in the Ninth District Court at the moment. This is the "one nation, under God" argument - some atheist has a problem with his innocent babe being exposed to the idea that there is no God. Understand, kids, that the Pledge has undergone two alterations since its original publication in 1892. It was allegedly written by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, and went "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." In 1923-4, against the author's wishes, it was changed by a flag conference (man, they'll have conferences on anything) to "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Note the continuing absence of God. In 1954, (and I'm beginning to believe that the 50's was a decade of postwar brainwashing, because the entire population got REALLY weird) the Knights of Columbus (a Catholic organization consisting of philanthropist old men who like swords) pressured Congress into adding "under God" to it, resulting in the form we all learned in grade school (or learned to APPROXIMATE in grade school - I don't know of too many five-year-olds who can successfully pronounce "indivisible" on cue). Personally, I have no problem in reverting the pledge to its original form - or even its 1920's form. Why does God have to be involved at all? I didn't vote for him.

(long pause)

(okay, didn't get smote - smitten? {okay, according to Merriam-Webster, either is correct} - moving on)

Anyway, to object to all of this, the Senate- get this - prayed. Presumably to the Judeo-Christian fellow named in the Pledge. The House, less radically, recited the Pledge - something that's done every morning, but usually only a few die-hards show up - and then did what the House always seems to do in times of crisis lately. Yep, they started singing "God Bless America." If nothing else, the months following the terrorists' Improvised Munitions Exercise have resulted in my learning the words. “What’s next?” asked Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. “Will our courts, in their zeal to abolish all religious faith from public arenas, outlaw ‘God Bless America,’ too?” (And if so, what are we going to sing when we're seized by fits of solidarity?) Somebody made the snarky comment that any judge who rules the Pledge is unConstitutional should have to return all the money they've been paid that says "In God We Trust" on it. I observe, snarky person, that I get paid by check, and if some judge is being paid in cash, somebody really needs to investigate that.

And the Constitutionality of mentioning God on the currency is questionable - but changing the currency would be a logistical nightmare - just ask Europe. So let's leave that particular can of worms alone, shall we?

My objection to all the furor (besides the fact it's ridiculous) is that the protection doesn't seem to run both ways. If I want to send my kid to Catholic school, that's fine. But if I don't want my (hypothetical) child, whom I have raised pagan, being forced to claim that we're one nation, under God, (which one? and what happened to the Goddesses, Mommy?) well, I can just put up or shut up. And my duly elected Senator will pray for my soul. "But she doesn't have to say it" is not an answer to anyone who actually remembers elementary school. Kids are cruel, and vicious ostracization is common - how many kids are going to voluntarily identify themselves as different from their peers? If you're willing to let your religious beliefs get in the way of your kid's ability to make friends - then don't have any. You're not the one who's not going to get played with at recess. The answer? Return the pledge to the way it was. One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Hey - it even scans.

And, continuing to demonstrate their failure to think things through, the House passed a bill designed to ban computer-generated sexual depictions of "minors." Bans on child porn exist, in theory, to protect children. I'm all for that. It does become ridiculous at a certain level - there is no significant difference between taking pictures of a naked girl who is 17 years, 364 days old and a naked girl who is 18 - but "minor" is a reasonable place to draw the line. However, what does banning computer-generated apparently-minors protect? (And if it's a teenager, how do you tell it's a minor? "This looks like a minor to me." "Oh, no, that picture is of an imaginary eighteen-year-old, officer.") Being computer-generated, her age is probably more easily measured in days or weeks.

The whole child-porn paranoia borders on witchhunt, at times. Don't get me wrong - the idea of children (ACTUAL children - less than fifteen years old, let's say) is horrible. At that age, they shouldn't be doing such a thing; they're not emotionally equipped to deal with the repercussions. Adults definitely shouldn't be taking pictures of them. If you like that kind of thing, you need some serious therapy. But at the same time, if no actual children are involved, I fail to see the problem. If nothing else, there is theraputic value in having such material available - aversion/shame therapy is an effective way to cure certain kinds of paraphilias; I believe abuse of porn is one of them.

Sports writer: I realize that expecting someone to understand the inner workings of every team in the NBA is a bit much - but if you're going to have the nerve to grade the draft, maybe you'd better know more about it than I do. The Suns got exactly the players they wanted. Amare Stoudemire is young, yes - but we're good at training the young. He had a great workout with us - and he told his agent that he learned more in the workouts in Phoenix than he did in five years of high school. He's a good kid, and perfect for the rebuilding phase we're currently in. Casey Jacobson, our #22 pick, is a sharpshooter - master of the 30-foot jump shot, heh heh heh. As for our back court, it won't be nearly so crowded once we get rid of Penny Hardaway. He's a great player when he wants to be, but the Suns don't have any room - or patience - in their organization for a slacker.

And, finally, business practices. Apparently Worldcom has been doing bad things to its EBITDA, and they've been caught at it. (And the fact that I know what an EBITDA is, what it stands for, and why they use it is some kind of strange sign.) Arthur Andersen (surprise, surprise) didn't figure it out. Global Crossing and Qwest (who have demonstrated to me how it IS possible to be worse than US West) have apparently been pulling the same kind of scam. Qwest's bonds recently got downgraded to junk (yeah, I could've told you the company was junk ages ago), which is a neat trick for a utilities company operating in an almost total monopoly. (For residential telephone customers, if you don't live in an area Cox has upgraded yet -oh, like the ENTIRE CITY OF TEMPE - they're the only game in town. I am bitter.) Another example of Qwest at work - we can't get DSL here (or a cable modem, see above note about the ENTIRE CITY OF TEMPE). We have a terrestrial microwave, thanks to an innovative local company (and Sprint, who later bought them). (I'm sure Dave would have all kinds of nifty links explaining the terrestrial microwave thing, etc, but I don't. Deal.) We can't get DSL here, because the line length is something between 22-26,000 feet, approximately twice the physical distance (by the street, mind you) from here to the switch.

Of course, I've been convinced for some time that the stock market is a mass delusion. Earthlink, a company we happen to own stock in, is vastly underpriced, stock-wise, and has been for a good long time. At the moment, their stock price is UP 30 cents to $6.20 a share. Understand that, if such a thing was possible, they could buy themselves in CASH. Yeah. Somebody want to explain THAT to me? Assuming for the moment that their customer base - the customer base of the second- or third-largest ISP in the country (depending on how you let MSN count their customers - like, if they're allowed to count their free hotmail account owners), so we're talking a serious amont of space to hold a party for them - is worth absolutely nothing, and you ignore all the computers (dude, they've got Dells), staff, and stuff, buildings in Atlanta, Pasadena, Phoenix, Dallas, Seattle, San Jose, Sacramento, Roseville (CA), and Harrisburg, they have more money in the bank than their putative value. Mass delusion. Nothing else makes sense.

If I were king, I could do away with Congress.

2002-06-25T19:44:00.000-07:00

In case you hadn't heard, Arizona is doing its best to burn to the ground.... Here's a chronology of the fire, if you've been out of the loop and are now looking for details. (The folks in New Mexico, I'm assured, know all about it, because they're getting all the smoke.)

President Bush paid the fire a visit today - what he was trying to accomplish, I don't know; one of my classmates suggested that he was going to bake cookies for the folks in the shelters in Eager - but he did come, and I guess you have to give him credit or something.

Why is Arizona aflame? Reasons vary, but it mostly boiled down to the fact that the area, which mostly consists of National Forestland, hasn't been properly maintained - prescribed burns (smaller, set, controlled fires) haven't been permitted, mostly due to East Coast environmentalists who don't know what they're talking about. The Chediski fire was set by a lost hiker, but it actually was turned into a wildfire by the news helicopter that found her and landed next to her, throwing sparks everywhere. (Way to go, guys.)

At this point, about 32,000 people have been evacuated, and we've lost 580 square miles (larger than the whole of Los Angeles). This is half the size of Rhode Island. Arizona is big, you children of the East Coast.

Today, thunderstorms with 40 mph winds have made visibility practically nil, and chances are good that dry thunderstorms will continue. (For those of you who've never lived in a desert, "dry thunderstorms" are the other kind of weather we get during the summer - the first kind being "hotter than you could possibly imagine. "Dry thunderstorms" act like regular thunderstorms - wind, lightning, clouds - but no rain. We don't get rain during the early summer.) Lately, we don't get rain at all.

It was 109 today. Degrees. Farenheit.

Yesterday was the official first day of summer. Someone observed that it had been over 100 degrees for a month, and the cool places Arizonans normally go to in order to escape the heat are on fire.

We live in Hell.

Not the king.

2002-06-24T16:10:00.000-07:00

Varied Moliere

Who would've thought that there were so many flavors of Moliere out there? Not the ASU bookstore, despite all warnings, apparently. Apparently, there are two Penguin Classics editions, at first glance virtually identical, for all intents and purposes - except that the contents differ. They were warned about this; the correct version was identified so that they could be sure not to stock the incorrect version. Surprise, surprise, they did anyway. Surprise, surprise - I got the wrong one. You know, I would expect that the *ASU* bookstore would be able to stock the right book. I also wish the professor had warned us about the different-looking version; I would've checked the contents if I'd known there was a potential problem.

Very not king.

2002-06-22T18:18:00.000-07:00

You can now leave comments. Whee!

Nick's playing Neverwinter Nights.

Last night we had a THEM gathering for the first time since school got out - we went to Wong's, then we came back here and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Princess Bride. One of our party had never seen it (amazingly enough), and not only was it delightful sharing it with him, it was fun watching him "get" all the references. (He kept saying, "Oh! They used that on Mystery Science Theatre...") I am reminded of why it's my favorite movie. We have the special edition DVD, which has a brand-new making-of documentary, with interviews of the (surviving) members of the cast, and all kinds of nifty stuff. It also has audio commentary tracks from both director Rob Reiner and author / scriptwriter William Goldman.

One more week of summer school left.

No sign of being king yet.

2002-06-21T00:06:00.000-07:00

REM's Next Big Hit: Loosing My Religion

Spelling lesson. Pay attention, there will be a test later.

According to the literary tag team of Merriam and Webster:

LOOSE can be an adjective, in various contexts meaning "not rigidly fastened or securely attached, having worked partly free from attachments, having relative freedom of movement, not tight-fitting, free from a state of confinement, restraint, or obligation, not brought together in a bundle, container, or binding, DISCONNECTED, DETACHED, lacking in restraint or power of restraint,lacking in precision, exactness, or care." As a verb, LOOSE means to release, to free from restraint, to untie, detach, discharge, relax, or fire.

LOSE, on the other hand, is a verb. In passive construction, it means to bring to destruction or damn. More actively, it means to to miss from one's possession or from a customary or supposed place, to suffer deprivation of or part with, especially in an unforeseen or accidental manner, to fail to use, let slip by, waste, to fail to win, gain, or obtain. Competition-wise, it means to undergo defeat or to fail to catch. Losing something is to fail to keep, sustain, or maintain it. You can lose yourself, in a literal sense, by missing your way or bearings, or more figuratively, by wandering , or going astray from something or somewhere. You can lose someone else by outstripping them, or by falling behind and failing to keep them in sight or mind.

I can lose something by loosing it. If I manage to lose my pursuers, I'll consider myself loose. Loosing your hair means pulling out the rubber band; losing your hair means getting a prescription for Rogaine. If you lose your morals, you can become loose - but please be mindful of the difference between a fallen woman and one who has merely tripped.

Lost yet?

Michael Stipe can't find his religion, but he didn't let it go first.

All right? (Yes, children, that's supposed to be TWO words. "Alright" would NOT be pronounced the same way, and it really shouldn't have the same meaning; depending on the language, al- means before or near, like "alliterative;" or out of or from, like "alchemist.")

Homework: share your lesson with others. I admit it would be nice if Americans traditionally became fluent in a second language, but it'd be nice if they gained full fluency in their native language first. Granted, English is a difficult language to learn - but you're supposed to learn it before you find that out.

Going to bed now.

Still not king.

2002-06-19T22:52:00.000-07:00

Avoiding homework, again.

The Vague But Nice Quiz by blusteryvirgin

Hey, I'm like Felicity.

And speaking of Felicity, on her blog, she visited the MaggieFic Mary Sue Generator recently. The Mary Sue name she got was Angelique Ravenwing (for those of you not in the know, my legal first name is Angelique - though I became 'Angel' within hours of my birth, avoiding the whole traditional-baby phase of being called by your whole name). Somewhat irritated, (That's NOT FUCKING FUNNY) I visited the site too.

My Mary Sue name?

Remember, this is TOTALLY random, and it WAS the name I got the first time I pushed the button...

Felicitie Havenworth.

Now, that IS funny.

Other facts about "Felicitie:"

Eye Color: Passionate Violet (passionate is a color?)
Hair Color: Abundant Titian (abundant is now also a color?)
Signature Scent: Ivory Lilies (those white lilies are SO five minutes ago)
Paranormal Powers: Speaks to Animals (mostly, "Gari, get back in the house.")
Specialized Skill: Linguistics Expert (actual quote from me earlier tonight: "If you're going to massacre the Spanish language, at least do it correctly!)
Distinguishing Mark: Intriguing Scar ("Golly, Felicitie, how'd you get that scar?" "I asked too many annoying personal questions. Now you get one too.")
Newly Revealed Relationship to a Major Character: Anya's Shady ex-lover (But I dumped her, because the bitch never shut up.)

(On the couch, actually, but...)

Still not king. Maybe tomorrow.

2002-06-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

U.S. whipped Mexico! Woo!

The value of a promise

I'm about ready to drive up to {another state north of here} and murder Jane's parents - after making sure they have sufficient life insurance, of course. They've promised, repeatedly, to fund her upcoming wedding. They even allegedly took out a small loan, for the purpose of paying for it. At this point, they only actual cash they've coughed up is for her dress, which is (thankfully) safely ordered. Other than that - nothing but repeatedly broken promises. She's missed confirmation deadline after deadline - and it's only the fact that she's getting married on a weekday that's allowed her to hang on to most of her vendors. She's fed up, I'm fed up... and at this point, she just wishes they would either fork over the cash or admit that they're not going to, so she can gather funding in other ways.

What infuriates me is the pattern of lies and broken promises. Lying is bad. Lying about money is REALLY bad, particularly when the person you're lying to is counting on that money to meet an obligation. Lying to your children is just disgusting (for the record, perpetuating the myths of childhood doesn't count as lying). Lying to your adult child, who can catch you at it, is just plain stupid. So, the great question - are they being malicious? Or just stupid? And if they treat her this way, what does this say for the rest of their financial situation? (And the $64,000 question - did they actually get the loan, or was that a lie too? If they did, what did they do with it? Why do they keep putting off sending the check?)

The whole king idea? Still waiting on it.

2002-06-16T17:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day to My Dad.

I rejoined the list I was having problems with. All seems to be forgiven (please come home) because I've been asked to be on the Awards Committee for the First Annual Colton Awards, the Joe fanfic/art awards currently being created and designed on-list. It's primarily because I'm in the awards-heavy Buffy fandom, so I have lots of places to check for the way Other People Have Done It - but I'm still pleased and flattered to be included.

I was going to talk about something else, but I can't remember what... oh, well. Still not king, anyway.

2002-06-14T21:24:00.000-07:00

Update on my attacker - I talked to the gal who actually manages his website. She happens to be Isabella, the one I was allegedly insulting. We had a good conversation - I apologized for hurting her; it absolutely wasn't my intent. I explained how what I said was protesting a trend and used the story she wrote with Jane as an example. She related to me her take on the situation - like the fact that Jane was supposed to get it betaed first, before posting it, and didn't - and I again apologized for involving her in it.

For the record, boys and girls, Isabella wasn't responsible for her story being part of the trend I talked about here. She understands the importance of beta - and has, between then and now, unfortunately learned a lesson about choosing your writing partners. I'm not going to go back and rewrite the entry; it was a long time ago, and I don't believe in revisionist history. But I will admit when I'm wrong, and I was wrong. Isabella, I'm glad to still count you as a friend and fellow-writer. Keep up the good work.

And... still not king.

2002-06-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

Every so often, I am reminded of how horrifying this lawsuit-happy culture has become. Now, I'm all for freedom of expression, rah-rah-First Amendment, et cetera. But I think there was a line out there, that has been not only crossed, but drawn and redrawn, crossed and recrossed. The newest line-crossing has been with schools. Failure is being rendered not only socially unacceptable, but socially infeasible. Failing a class is now "scarring." Plagiarism is - while not yet acceptable - at least forgivable. After all, if Stephen Ambrose can do it, what's stopping high school kids?

I'm sure everyone has heard the stories of the plagiarists the teacher was forced to pass. Now, a teacher in the Peoria School District was forced to permit a student to retake a test, allowing her to pass Senior English - because her parents threatened a lawsuit. If you haven't yet, go read the associated stories. I'll wait. Particularly check out the letter from the lawyer, the teacher's response, and Benson having a field day with the whole situation.

If the trend continues, teachers will no longer be permitted to flunk kids. Period. And failure is a lesson that every kid should learn once - if nothing else, to demonstrate to her that failure doesn't mean the end of the world. This girl has learned that failure is to be avoided, no matter what. Twisting the facts are acceptable. Intimidation tactics are acceptable. Hiring a bully-boy (excuse me, a lawyer) is acceptable. It doesn't matter if you put the work into it; it doesn't matter if you deserve to fail. Avoid it at all costs. So, when she's actually forced to deal with the consequences of her failure - and since she's gotten away with it once, why shouldn't she try it again? - she won't know how. Her parents have taught her the wrong lesson.

Shame on the lawyer - The Vulture, indeed - for taking such a ludicrous case. Shame on the student for not suffering the consequences like an adult. Shame on the parents, for concocting such a crackpot scheme - and not letting their daughter learn this lesson NOW, when it can do the least damage. Threat of litigation won't help her pass college English, and it won't help her once she gets out into the workforce and fails to do her job. Triple shame on the Peoria School District for backing down under such ridiculous threats. Kudos to the kids who DID fail and will be going to summer school like they're supposed to - and their parents, for not resorting to scare tactics. Of course, now that the PSD has relented on a single case, they should, by rights, allow every other student who could pass by retaking a test to do so - in every grade, in every subject, in every school - especially the kids who weren't allowed to graduate.

We hit ludicrous speed a long time ago.

Obviously, still not king.

2002-06-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

I wrote a poem that began, in child-voice, "I am angry, angry, angry." My classmates suggested that I might want to get rid of an 'angry' or two... but, you know, I think they're wrong. Because I am, angry, angry, angry, and two angry's just isn't enough. Why? This guy. Who's talking about me, by the way. At least, some of it. He's also talking about Jane, and mixing up some of what she's done to Isabella with what I did - namely, express my opinion about crappy fanfic back at the beginning of my blog. Evil, evil me.

And I really need to take my creative energies and go write my Dickens paper.

Not king. 'Cause saying stuff like that about the king would be TREASON, damn it.

2002-06-10T23:50:00.000-07:00

Got a weird review, and read a rant that's probably aimed at me, and suddenly I'm feeling very self-conscious about my writing. Damn it, I'm a good writer. Everyone says so. Why am I letting one person's flawed understanding of what's going on affect me so? I have to good opinion of people whose work I respect and admire. I also have the good opinion of my professors, who are paid to know what they're talking about. I'm also itching to work on something, but don't have anything in progress that I want to work on. I'm frustrated, stalled, and irritated by having all my creative energies taken up by academic work. Three more weeks of this... I can do it, I can do it... but I need someone to tell me again that I am a good writer in more than just my essays and scholarly papers.

Speaking of essays, ASU's creative writing program (yeah, back to grad school again - I'm sure, like Mrs. Gradgrind, you're feeling like you'll never hear the end of this) offers something called "creative non-fiction," which the University of Idaho defines as "literary non-fiction." Well-written essays, articles, and the like. There's even a journal devoted to it. Of course, nowadays, if there are scholars involved, there's at least an online journal devoted to it. This one's printed, however, lending it at least an air of legitimacy. At this point, I'm considering applying for the program with the forty pages required for mixed genres - poetry, prose, and creative nonfiction. I hate the idea of limiting my voice (and I'm aware of how bloody pretentious that sounds) - but it's true. Some ideas are, to me, more easily expressed in one form than another. Then again, my prose may not be "litarary" enough for a lit program... and I haven't worked on original fic in so long, I'm not entirely sure that I can... a theory that will be tested in the fall, at any rate.

I really need a vacation.

If I were king, I wouldn't let this bother me.

2002-06-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

I need to go take a nap. Instead I'm taking weird tests...

SimilarMinds.com Compatibility Test

Your match with Eric S. Raymond
you are 76% similar
you are 75% complementary

How Compatible are You with me?

:: how jedi are you? ::

Still not king, though.

2002-06-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

Today has been a Very Good Day.

I got back my aggravating paper on Wessex Tales, and lo and behold, not only did I get an A, but the professor noted that this was the best paper on the topic for the class she'd read... ever. And she is not a young teacher. :)

Then I declared myself a Women's Studies Minor, and discovered that I only need six more credits in order to get it. Yay! At this point, I need two women's studies classes, three English classes, and a non-lab science. Then I'm just short some generic credits, that I can take anything to fill. (happy dance)

Nick just figured out that, if I put my back into it, I can graduate magna cum laude. Me. Considering what a complete slacker I was my first year or so at ASU (where I left on academic probation)... this is absolutely mind-boggling.

At this point, grad school is looking more and more real and attainable.

Today, I am not king.

2002-06-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

Legolas is my fancy!
What's your fancy? Click here and tell the world!

Not king yet.

2002-06-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

Plagiarism, Theft, and Other Violations: The Ethics of Fanfiction

Wow – looks like this should have been a panel at LepreCon, because suddenly everybody’s talking about it. Several lists, all at once, and then Felicity on her blog, brought up the idea of “plagiarism” associated with fanfiction.

Felicity, in particular, questioned the “honor among thieves” mentality of fanfic writers, who “steal” other people’s characters and then get upset when someone takes their own.

Let’s take a step back and look at what’s actually going on.

Theft, according to Merriam Webster’s web site, is defined as: 1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property. Stealing has a longer definition, but here’s some relevant bits of it: 1 : to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as an habitual or regular practice […] 1 a : to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully (stole a car) b : to take away by force or unjust means (they've stolen our liberty) c : to take surreptitiously or without permission (steal a kiss)[…] SYNONYMS STEAL, PILFER, FILCH, PURLOIN mean to take from another without right or without detection. STEAL may apply to any surreptitious taking of something and differs from the other terms by commonly applying to intangibles as well as material things (steal jewels) (stole a look at the gifts) […] PURLOIN stresses removing or carrying off for one's own use or purposes
Is fanfic stealing? I would say not. Let’s take a fanfic I wrote in the Buffy universe, “Ingredients, Carpet Fibers, and Warning Labels.” It uses the characters of Spike, Anya, and Xander, and the settings of Xander’s apartment and the Bronze. It references, in particular, the events of the episode “Gone.”

Okay… let’s see… I didn’t take and remove anybody’s personal property, and I certainly didn’t deprive the rightful owners of it – Joss and Co. kept writing episodes while I was writing the story. Can you say I’ve taken something if they still have use of it? The closest thing to what I’ve done is definition c, to take surreptitiously or without permission… but, again, if they still have possession of it, have I done any harm?

But, you could argue, it’s the theft of an idea, not physical property… I haven’t made off with the only copies of Spike, Xander, and Anya in existence (that would be kidnapping). So that would make it plagiarism… wouldn’t it?

Well, maybe not. In one of those brilliant dictionary moves, “plagiarism” is defined simply as “an act or instance of plagiarizing.” “Plagiarizing” apparently originated in 1716, and is defined as “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source […] to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.”

So what I do isn’t plagiarism, either. At the top of every piece of fic I write, there's a disclaimer, explaining how the characters aren't mine, and crediting my source. At no time do I ever pretend that I created the characters I'm using. You do the same thing when you're borrowing original characters or situations from another fic writer – and common courtesy would have you ask the original creator for permission. I do NOT, as Felicity suggests, use someone else’s universe as if it were my own, either... writing good fanfic offers the particular challenge of using a character as the creator would have, had he put them in my situation.

Fanfic isn’t theft or even plagiarism – what it is, is copyright violation. The laws of copyright are confusing, complicated, and in many places, objectionable. If I wrote the laws, I’d go back in and specify that as long as someone isn’t profiting from the use of your ideas, and isn’t actively plagiarism, is fine. If nothing else, think of all the money it would save in lawyer’s fees….

Because the copyright laws are so screwed up, original characters in fic provide their own problems. I have an original character, in the Joeverse, that I would be very upset if someone took. He’s Lady Jaye’s brother – but if I changed that single detail, I could use him in an original fic. If someone else took him without crediting me, that could cause a huge legal mess. But that notwithstanding, if someone takes my character and doesn’t credit me for it, that is plagiarism – see the dictionary definition above. Taking my character is no different than taking chunks of my prose, copying my paper, or cribbing from my test.

The original writer profits from his or her work. The fanfic writer profits only by the satisfaction of writing and the applause of others. Lois McMaster Bujold enjoys and approves of fanfic – she has said that it’s a sign of a good work that the characters don’t go away when you close the book/turn off the TV/etc. Henry Jenkins, the director of media studies at MIT said, “Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations, instead of owned by the folk.” Megacorps and their lawyers own the products I write about, generally. They’re not damaged by my little homages.

If I were king, I would make fanworks legal. But I’m still not.

2002-06-03T16:24:00.000-07:00

For those of you who wondered about my comment about "hypothetically destroying the country," it's something that happens on a semi-regular basis here. When you take two guys who are intelligent and have a fairly good grounding in applied and theoretical political science, and add an often irritatingly stupid country... well, hypothetically destroying the government becomes a hobby, I guess. Last night they discussed what would happen if all nine justices of the Supreme Court were to drop dead at once - presumably through foul play, but it could be exposure to a bad piece of blowfish just as easily, I guess. The chaos would, in part, be because one president would have to appoint them all... unless they figured out another way to do it. Dave suggested just "promoting" all the chief justices of the nine district courts.

I wasn't really paying attention, though, so I could be wrong.

Not king, after all.

2002-06-03T01:01:00.000-07:00

Dave and Nick are hypothetically destroying the country again.

At this rate, I'll be king any day now.

2002-05-31T19:43:00.000-07:00

Dave, for reasons beyond me, perused the Miss Universe site and discovered an amazing array of so-called "national costumes"... including the not-to-be missed German wax fruit bikini. After looking over the costumes, all I can say is... it is possible to take the most beautiful women in the world and make them look ugly.

Too tired to talk about the other stuff I wanted to talk about... and still not king.

2002-05-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

I'm in the thick of summer school - six credits, five weeks. I'm finally getting English 200 ("Reading and Writing about Literature") out of the way, something I've been trying to do since I was at MCC. For the first time at ASU, I have a professor for a class in my major who's simply awful. I didn't think it was possible to turn a lit class into a lecture class, but that's exactly what she's managed to do.

The class is going to be broken down into four sections - the short story, poetry, the novel, and drama (comedy and tragedy). For the short story and poetry, we're reading Thomas Hardy. Now, I don't have anything in particular against Hardy, but a little variety would be nice! If she'd perhaps wanted us to compare one author's work, we could've read Hardy for short fiction and then someone else for poetry. Her specialty is 19th-century British... someone want to explain to me why she's picking Hardy over, say... Wordsworth? Keats? Shelley? Browning? (Either of them?)

But it isn't her choice of works that bothers me so much as her lecture style. She pulls out her notes and reads them to us. First she describes point of view and setting, then characters, then plot. She quotes without bothering to tell us where in the piece she's quoting from. She never opens her book. She doesn't involve us in the conversation at all. Today, we got the assignment for the first paper. It's actually a decent topic (Hardy's treatment of the pastoral)... but then she proceeds to inform us what her opinion is, and give us several examples. She also handed out an example of the kinds of things she wants in the paper... I haven't been given this much structure since five-paragraph esays in high school. (And, for the record, half of freshman comp is designed to STOP you from writing like that.)

Some interesting things... she's established that most of us are English majors in one form or another. She then proceeded to lecture on how many people skip this class (gee, wonder why) and pick it up later, after having taken actual lit classes. (Yeah, like me.) She didn't bother to find out how many of us have done this; she didn't bother to find out if those of us who had actually did well in the classes (Straight A's in my major classes, thank you very much). She just proceeded to lecture at us like we're a bunch of eighteen-year-olds who've never read anything worthwhile. I'm insulted. I'm sure the fellow with the master's degree who's just in for his teaching certificate is insulted. I'm also BORED OUT OF MY SKULL.

Fortunately, I'm also taking English 353, African American Literature Before the Harlem Renaissance. This guy knows how to teach, and, more importantly, how to lead a discussion. I'm somewhat irritated at the PC levels of my classmates, but it's early yet. Maybe if I demonstrate that it's safe to be critical of someone's writing, regardless of color or topic, they'll join in. In the meantime, I seem to be the only one who grasps the idea that something can be anti-slavery AND full of logical fallacies and holes in the reasoning large enough to drive a truck through. We read an excerpt from David Walker's Appeal, which is a radical anti-slavery treatise calling for slaves to revolt against their masters. Unsurprisingly, white slaveholders put a bounty of $10,000 on the man's head - and I was the only one in class willing to come out with the idea that they considered his ideas dangerous not because it was truth and therefore scary, but because - duh - he was advocating rebellion and saying that whites were the "natural enemies" of African Americans. The guy also suggested that the fall of Rome was a punishment by God for using slaves, and that slaves are the new chosen people because they're suffering. If he'd been born 150 years later, this guy would be a serious politician - I haven't seen someone who can use selective quotes and twist history this effectively in a long time.

Hey, my classmates bought into it.

Yeah, and if that isn't proof that I deserve to be king...

Still not, though.

2002-05-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

It's been a week since I updated, and this one's going to be very short because I'm tired.

Spent happy chunks of the weekend at Jane's, working on fic. We're going to be writing a weirdly dark Joe fic as a follower to a fluffy slash piece... it will make sense eventually, I promise.

Wasps are evil and should all die - things should not attack you if you don't threaten them.

And... I'm still not king.

2002-05-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

I should talk about the con.

But I'm not.

'Cause I'm still not king.

2002-05-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

Back from the con. Survived intact. Film at eleven.

Still not king.

2002-05-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

LepreCon. This weekend. Be there.

Okay, I posted another fic. This makes three in four days, which has got to be some kind of record for me, and I've noticed a really bizarre feedback pattern. I wrote "A Thing of Beauty" with Jane and posted it on the 12th. ToB is a Joe fic, toonverse, F/J, with something vaguely resembling a plot. Got a little feedback on the group I posted it to, but absolutely none from the Pit of Voles. The 14th (technically the 15th, but it was very late) I posted "The Only Woman," which is a comicverse fic (and revealing the pairing would be telling). Got group feedback, and six reviews. Weird... Then last night I posted the Buffy fic "Ingredients, Warning Labels, and Carpet Fibers" which is X/S/Anya. Lots of group feedback, and seven reviews. Somebody wants to archive it. If you can handle slashy overtones, go read it - it's NC-17 because of a masturbation scene - I had an absolute ball writing it...and I think I'm going to have to write a sequel.

I really need to go finish packing for the con.

(Zathras)Not the king.(/Zathras)

2002-05-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

In good news, my pal with the emotional problems I talked about on Sunday went to see his psychiatrist and got his dosage bumped. This should help him a lot.

Prejudice, and Getting Lumped Together

It's really distressing to discover that someone you thought was intelligent (and therefore open-minded) is considerably less open-minded than you would have thought. She's plenty smart - hell, she just graduated from high school at the tender age of sixteen - but apparently doesn't have much more sense than most kids her age.

According to her blog, she went to buy a swimsuit and discovered (surprise, surprise) that prices in the city are higher than those in Rural Tennessee. Welcome to the Big, Wide World, dear. Things are more expensive here than at home. Drawback to living in a city; the flip side of that is that you can buy all kinds of things you'd never find away from urban centers.

Now what really pissed me off is her rant about how ALL "westcoasters" are rude. Yep, every single one of us, all umpty-bump million of us. Including, apparently, all of us who live out here that she counts friends, since she didn't bother to except us. Perhaps if I were living in the rural South still, I'd politely tell her what I thought of her opinion, but since I'm living on the rude side of the country, I'm just going to rant.

I don't know where on the West Coast she was buying a swimsuit. In my experience, people in LA are rude and in a hurry, which matches her description of events. (To be fair, I'm sure there are plenty of people in LA who are neither rude nor in a hurry, but that's the city's atmosphere - I'm far more important than you, AND I'm late). People in San Diego and Seattle are friendly and very laid-back. Coming away from the actual coast into the Southwest (our motto: When California falls off into the ocaean, we'll all have beachfront property in Yuma), I've never had more pleasant customer service experiences than in Vegas, Tucsonans still bring you baked goods when you move in, and people in the Phoenix Metro Area are bastards on the road but generally friendly everywhere else. (Even my neighbor, Mr. Power Tool, is polite about when he breaks out his electric rock shredder or whatever).

Are there rude people on the West Coast? Sure, you bet. But there are also rude people in rural Georgia (which is where I'm from) and New York and northern Illinois and central Kansas. Rude's ubiquitous. There are also polite, friendly people everywhere - like the guy we buy comics from who knows us by name and sets aside things he thinks we'll like; the manager at Fuddrucker's who personally made sure our burgers were cooked right when Dave made an offhand comment as we ordered; the DPS officer who stopped to make sure we were okay and stayed to make sure we didn't need help when Dave got a flat tire coming home from work one day; and the guy who came to fix the stove who got upset that someone else hadn't fixed it right. Not to mention all the people I count friends and nodding acquaintances all over the place. I've gotten in conversations on street corners, in line at the grocery store, and on the city bus, and there are checkers at the Fry's down the street who know us on sight and always say hi. I've been busy and flurried and stressed and been rude to people as a result, and other people have done the same to me - but in my experience, if you're nice to somebody, they're nice back. I'm proud of my city, my way of life, and the casual attitude that is endemic to the Southwest and the West Coast. (Except LA, which tends to think like it belongs on the other side of the country.) A certain amound of hurry is to be found in *cities,* not just those on this side of the country. Guess what? People in Atlanta can also be rude and in a hurry. They can also be friendly and polite. (They all drive ten miles over the speed limit, but at least they use their turn signals.)

So, as someone who's lived in the Southwest (Arizona is not the West Coast; note, for example, the distinct LACK OF COAST) most of her life, I resent this visitor's suggestion that everyone out here is rude. So... bugger off.

Nick's laptop boots now, but my house smells funny due to the flooding and I'm still not king.

2002-05-14T16:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday sucked.

Nick went into his room yesterday morning and discovered that his carpet was soaking wet. And I do mean soaking - as in, when you stepped in it, it went *squish* and water came up over your toes. And there was water under the washing machine. I thought it was the hot water heater leaking, which upset me because it was brand new. Nick thought it was the washing machine - which didn't make any sense to me as we hadn't used the thing since Saturday. Maybe it was one of the hoses connecting the machine to the wall, sez I. It was none of these things, although Nick turning off the water from the water heater was the Right Thing to Do. Turns out we have a leak in the hot-water pipe, the one carrying hot water into the house from the heater. Nick cleared his room out while I called the home service people our landlord pays to fix problems like this. After I convinced the woman that yes, the leak was INSIDE the house and therefore their responsibility, she told me that All-State Rooter would be calling in four business hours. I ask if we can do a little better than that, and she gives me their number and tells me to call them in 40 minutes, because they will have gotten the fax by then.

They call in less than 40 minutes, and a plumber's there in about two hours. Takes the guy (the same guy who replaced our water heater a few months ago) about ten minutes to determine that the leak's coming from under the slab. So the leak finder (which I'm sure is a fancy technological device but gives me mental images of a guy with a dowsing rod) is coming in at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday morning and the plumber will be in to fix it an hour later.

Then I got to go into work and spend four hours doing something I was supposed to have seven to do - putting together a mass mailing inviting people to the AMEPAC press conference on Thursday. Approximately one thousand pieces of paper to get folded, five hundred envelopes to get labels stuck on, postage affixed, stuffed, and sealed. My hands hurt, and I have paper cuts.

I told my boss that we should put a folding machine on the wish list.

She agreed.

Then we had dinner with Christi and Carlos and JB, who's recently gotten out of the Army and regaled us with stories (including a story about sitting in a hole in Oklahoma shouting "Bang!" at a guy with a flashlight...). There were margaritas. My day definitely improved.

And today, Nick's hand-me-down work laptop wouldn't boot. After having some of his stuff destroyed in the flood yesterday, this does NOT make him happy.

And his birthday's on Friday.

On top of all this - I'm still not king.

2002-05-12T14:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day to My Mom, from one of her weird children.

She actually said that to me, awhile back, "None of my children are normal." It was all I could do not to laugh at her.... that's what happens when you have bright kids and teach them to think for themselves. I, for one, am very glad I'm not conventional-normal. Normal people strike me as so dull. I really don't understand how a person could be like that.

But just so you know, it's all my mom's fault.

Born in Griffin, in the year of the dragon, I was meant to be a sci fi fan... but apparently not king.

2002-05-12T01:20:00.000-07:00

The Gray Area Between, "You're so vague/ I bet you think this blog is about you" and "TMI!"

I don't want to get off on a rant here, but I do want to talk a little bit about the responsibilities of keeping a public journal. You'll notice in the last entry, I talked about a friend of mine, but never named names. The people who are involved know who I'm talking about, and to be frank, I don't think it's anybody else's business. I have several friends I talk about using false names - Jane, for example. Other friends are mentioned by their real names, like Dave.

There is method to my madness... A blog, by its very nature, can be an intensely private thing, but it's also a very public venue. I'm talking about my life, my problems, and my friends, and being honest about them all, and I intend to continue doing so. If I can't be honest in my journal, where can I be? This blog also gives me venues to express my opinions about things that may be rather delicate to bring up face-to-face with someone. If I don't know how to tell you something, I may bring it up in my blog, so you can hear it directly from me. Here's me, in my semi-public life.

However, most of my friends haven't agreed to make their lives public. I don't want them to worry about seeing their lives dissected on the Internet just because they discussed a problem with me. So, fake names. Details may be changed or obscured. At the same time, I refuse to pull a Tannon - to be so vague as to be meaningless to people who aren't involved, and to sound utterly pretentious to people who DO know what I'm talking about. I will use the real (first) names of people who also keep blogs, who've, by that action, "agreed" to make their lives at least a little bit public.

I think this is my responsibility, as a writer. I felt the need to write this down, because I read a blog entry (yeah, I've started reading other people's blogs, because they're often at least amusing) where the writer yelled at someone for their behavior by name. I was completely appalled by it - but I don't have a problem with, say, Carlos's usual rantings about Tannon. I wondered if it had to do with the fact I don't like Tannon - but I decided it wasn't that at all. I'm not particularly close to the person who was getting yelled at, either, so it really couldn't have been that. It was the callous violation of privacy that bothered me. Josh (we'll call him) doesn't keep a blog, as far as I know. But now everyone who reads that blog (and there are quite a few of them) will know that the blogger has a problem with this guy, and what the problem is. (And I'm not calling this person by name, despite the implied permission, because he did violate Josh's privacy, and if I said which blog it was, I'd be committing the same sin.) I'm sure he knows who he is.

As for reading other people's blogs - I still refuse to social-blog. (Reply to other people's blog comments in my own blog, if you didn't know.) Why? It strikes me as a little too self-referential; too wink-wink-nudge-nudge, if you know what I mean. Too cliquish, and I had WAY too much of that in high school. I only read the blogs of people I know, and if I want to make a comment, I'll send them an email. If I want to make a public response, maybe I'll write my own little rant about whatever it is. (Which is actually where the above rant came from.) But I remain committed to the idea of people reading my blog only needing to read MY blog to make sense of it. (Once you get past the fanspeak, anyway....)

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

I'm not king, after all.

2002-05-12T00:45:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty good meeting tonight, putting together the schedule for LepreCon. We have a good group, both of panels and participants, and I'm fairly optimistic about the whole thing. My only concern, now, is whether people will show up....

That, and one of my would-be panelists. How do you politely tell someone that they seriously need to go back on their meds? When he first joined the group, he was mostly okay - a little loud, rough around the edges, but he was a freshman in college, and I figured he just needed time.

I was wrong.

I've known him for about two years, and recently he's gotten much worse than he was at first. I'm told he's been off his meds for months, and his parents can't make him take them; that his family's started avoding him because he gets violent. Good friends have talked to him, with no results. We have a weekly open house after T.H.E.M. dinners, and while he comes over for them, he isolates himself from the group, sitting in our library and reading - but he's only borrowed stuff once, despite repeated offers to loan him whatever he wants to read. He's become incapable of having a conversation; he breaks into existing ones with complete non sequiters. He flees the room or literally covers his ears if the group conversation turns to more adult topics - topics, in our female-heavy social circle, like buying tampons or our peculiar bra sizes. And he's twenty.

He isn't properly socialized and doesn't seem interested in becoming so - and yet he wants to be a panelist? The person who can't listen to a conversation about lingerie volunteered to be on the "Sexuality and Anime" panel, and questioned why I didn't put him on it. Maybe because I don't trust his emotional maturity to handle a delicate topic - or any topic at all, really?

Dave's planning on talking to him - but I'm rather at a loss for what to do if he tries to intrude on the panels in progress.

I don't know if he reads my blog - but if he does... We are worried about you, all of us. After the meeting, several of us - including people who consider themselves your closest friends - expressed concern over your behavior and your mental state. We want to help you. Please let us. Please do what you need to, to help yourself. Or you're going to lose us.

Not king - a king could get this kid the help he needs.

2002-05-09T22:36:00.000-07:00

Back from dinner with good news - the Fuddrucker's by Fiesta Mall has once again learned the art of the medium rare burger. Yum.

Back to comics.

User Friendly, Illiad. Mostly joke-driven comic about a small ISP. Acceptably drawn and written, with occasional flashes of brilliance that are becoming fewer and further between with time. Updated daily, color Sundays. Archives recommended, because they're still funny there. They're also searchable and well-organized. Updated daily, first comic 17 November 1997. Standalone Sundays.

Everybody's seen it, everybody's read it. It's getting old, but I haven't stopped reading it yet. Habit. Actually, I mostly hit UF every day because of the sage advice of Iambe.

Get Fuzzy, Darby Conley. Garfield for the modern world, it features talking pets and a long-suffering "parent" with a sense of humor. Professionally drawn, written, and updated. Color Sundays. Archives for 30 days only.

Bucky kicks ass. It's a newspaper comic, and there are two collections. Pay particular attention to the human characters' T-shirts. Personal favorites include Lowe Tech and A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.

And now we're down to the plethora of Keenspot comics that grab my attention. Keenspot, for those out of the know, is a collection of quality amateur webcomics. It's strictly invitation-only. They also host Keenspace, which is kind of a Pit of Voles for webcartoonists.

Real Life, Greg Dean. A joke-driven comic about... his life. Well drawn, written, and consistently updated. Color daily. Archives enjoyable. Updated weekdays, first comic 15 November 1999.

Greg clearly has a blast doing the comic, and it's a fun read. I had the pleasure of meeting him at ComicCon, and I recognized him on the spot... because he looks just like his avatar. Or at least he did; now he's grown a goatee and the avatar has not.

Sinfest, Tatsuya Ishida. A joke driven comic that's rather hard to explain. Well drawn and consistently updated. Archives recommended. Updated daily, first comic 17 January 2000.

Sinfest, as I mentioned above, is rather hard to explain. I think the best way is to borrow from Vilification Tennis: If you are easily offended, you will be. If you are NOT easily offended, you will be. If you like to be offended, stick around, loser. The problem with the comic is that it's rather... uneven. It has three major "casts" that occasionally interact, and the level of humor depends seriously on which theme he's running with (he has three). Cast one, theme one: boys vs. girls. Men are pigs, women are teases. Features a deliberately Calvin and Hobbes lookalike called Slick, a hot mama called Monique, and a pig. Very, very occasionally funny. Cast two, theme two (and my favorite): a cat and dog. Like Mutts, only actually funny. And I've been told that if I were a cat, I'd be Percy. Cast three, theme three: God vs. Devil. Featuring God, the Devil, a couple of cheery angels, and a God Fan. God communicates via hand puppets, and the Devil hunts those angels with a shotgun. The devil also has a Peanutsesque booth - "Anything You Want; Cost: Your Soul. The Devil is In." Slick's been trying to sell his soul since the first comic. This one's usually funny.

Suburban Jungle, John "the Gneech" Robey. A character-driven furry comic about a tiger who's a model/actress. Very well drawn, fairly well written, varying degrees of update. Archives necessary. Color daily. Updated MWF, first comic 1 February 1999.

SJ is the most "furry" furry comic I read - the Gneech is involved in furry fandom. It doesn't affect the comic, though; it's a good read and quite a bit of fun.

?, Aric McKeown. Single-panel, joke-a-day about a... um... a guy in one pose. Poorly drawn, but that's kind of the point, consistently updated. Archives enjoyable. Flash Fridays, three-joke Mondays. Updated weekdays, first comic 25 January 1999.

Aric is a college student, who started out with access to a scanner only at his parent's house. So what he did was drew a character (Professor Ashfield) in a single pose, scan it in, and he's been using him ever since, modifying the backgrounds to create the punch lines. It's quirky, and you have to read it to understand it. He also has "Multiple Mondays," in which he has three available punch lines for the comic (with varying success) and Flash Fridays, where he uses Flash animation. It's... well, it's odd. And fun.

Bored now.

And not king.

2002-05-09T19:24:00.000-07:00

Dave got his nose thing out today. Wham, instant improvement in mood, energy level, ambition, etc. Definitely of the good.

Yesterday Marie and I got our nails done and a pedicure. I feel very spoiled.

Also today we had the post-con wrap-up meeting for the Best Practices in Education Conference. We had a guest consultant, who came in and talked about things we can do to make next year's conference bigger and better. His comments were also valuable for our cons, so I took notes.

LepreCon's next weekend. Everybody come. Yeah, all three of you. Bring your friends.

Apparently I'm not the only one who finds those Verizon "Can You Hear Me Now?" commercials No Longer Funny. However, Lee Adam Herold's much better at expressing his irritation than I am.

Oh, there's a thought. Something I can write about... a rundown of all the comics I read and what I like about them, in the order I read them. (Nope, there's no particular method to the order, at least that I can figure... except that I end with my favorite. Anybody who figures out an overarching pattern... is trying too hard.)

GPF, aka General Protection Fault. Jeff Darlington. A character-driven comic about computer geeks. Well-written, well-drawn, consistently updated. Color Sundays. Jeff's in the middle of a major storyline, so it'd take a while to catch up. Updated daily, first comic 2 November 1998.

Jeff's made me care about these characters, and, to me, that's the most important part. I want to know what happens next.

Kevin and Kell, Bill Holbrook. A character-driven furry comic about a wolf married to a rabbit and their family. Professionally written, drawn, and updated. Color. Archives recommended. Updated daily, first comic 3 September 1995.

Usually funny, Bill's made me involved in the characters' lives. Underlying message about the value of diversity, but he's not heavy-handed about it. Sundays are large-format standalones.

Narbonic, Shaenon Garrity. A character-driven (sensing a theme) comic about a mad scientist and her assistants. Well-written, drawn, and consistently updated. Color Sundays. Updated daily. Sundays are "special," often not comics.

Shaenon's made Narbonic a hard sell, because she's moved her archives to Modern Tales. It's a damned shame, because Narbonic is intelligently written, funny, and is oddly relevant to my life. I want Helen's shirt, but nobody's bought it for me yet. Subscribe to MT for one month, catch up on the archives, and read every day. Note: she updates at midnight *Eastern* time, so if you read your comics late at night, you may want to stay a day ahead.

Going to dinner now.

That whole king thing? Ain't happened yet.

2002-05-06T01:34:00.000-07:00

I've never been to the emergency room twice in one day before... Dave's nose started bleeding again, after they packed it, so back we went. This time the doctor fitted him out with a balloon filled with saline (after breaking out the cocaine again to deaden the pain, so now Dave can say he's had cocaine stuck up his nose twice in one day). The bleeder's too far back in the sinus cavity to stop it any other way, apparently, and this isn't something they can cauterize via scope. He's doped up on Percoset right now, and scheduled to see his specialist tomorrow afternoon.

By the way, I highly recommend Desert Samaritan's Emergency Room. Everybody there was not only very professional, but also very friendly and easy to talk to. He had the same doctor both times we were there, and he was very attentive and concerned. (Dr. Shields is his name.)

But it's late, and I've had a long, stressful day. I'm going to bed, so I can be fresh tomorrow.

In case I get to be king, you know.

2002-05-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

My husband was given cocaine. For a nosebleed. By a doctor. How many people can say that?

I, however, am still not king.

2002-05-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

I just realized it's been a good week since I wrote a blog entry of any length. Not without cause, granted, but I feel kind of bad about it...

And now that I have time to sit and write something, I can't think of anything to say. Natch.

Still not king.

2002-05-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

I finished the paper, yay. One more final to go, and I'm done for the semester. Thank goodness.

Then maybe I can concentrate on getting to be king.

2002-05-01T17:50:00.000-07:00

You know, the headache that won't let me concentrate is NOT helping with the completion of this paper.

Neither is not being king.

2002-04-30T18:53:00.000-07:00

For the record, apparently a nervous breakdown *is* enough grounds for an extension, because I got one. And I didn't actually mention the breakdown... I guess I just had that air of misery about me that inspires mercy. It's now due Thursday morning. Guess I'm not going to work tomorrow.

I got about four hours of sleep last night, but I got my phonology paper, the reflective essay, and the portfolio finished and turned in on time. Go me.

But I'm still not king.

2002-04-29T22:52:00.000-07:00

Do you suppose a nervous breakdown is enough grounds to get an extension on a paper?

For the record, stress can affect you physically. So much so that I was quite convinced that I was going to pass out in the library, and was wondering how long it would take someone to discover me in the PR 3000s. Somehow I didn't. And I managed to survive the panic attack in class. And I didn't have hysterics until *after* I got home.

Not king. Just...not king.

2002-04-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

I wrote something vaguely resembling a thoughtful rant, and it still hasn't showed up. Makes no sense.

I've gotten involved in a GI Joe round robin, because Jane finally told me it existed. I'm having fun with it. People other than me can drive the plot, which is definitely of the good... plot is not one of my strong points. But with this, I can push forward a vague idea and make somebody else write it. Heh heh heh.

And I'm still working on my papers, so I'm clearly still not king.

2002-04-26T17:44:00.000-07:00

We Hate You, Because You're Not Us: Prejudice in the Modern World

I just read an article on Slate about the new "Ugly European," talking about how anti-foreigner (particularly anti-Muslim) sentiment is high, especially after the attacks of September 11th. A week or so ago I read an article in the State Press about how Austria was attempting to pass a law requiring new immigrants to learn German within a year of immigrating, and if they couldn't pass a basic competency test, they'd have to pay for German classes. This follows the Wednesday Slate article regarding the Catholic church deciding to blame the widespread child molestation on... get this... gays. Not pedophiles. Right. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the Palestinians and the Israelis keep killing each other over a piece of land with little actual value.

There've been a lot of demonstrations on campus lately about the whole Israeli/Palestinian thing, which is an argument I really fail to understand. I can't grasp feeling so territorial about anything that I'd be willing to blow mostly uninvolved people up to try and get it back. Of course, now that suicide bombers (or homicide bombers, or tactical whatever the Palestinians are calling them now) can be young girls, perhaps they'll kill themselves off and we won't have to worry about them any more. (Kill 'em all, and let God laugh at them for being so short-sighted.)

The Palestinians piss me off, though, not just because they're willing to resort to terror tactics to try and... what? convince the Israelis to move? convince them to let the Palestinians live next door? (Oh, yeah, a good way to convince people that they want you as their neighbors is to BLOW THEM UP.) Anyway, resort to terror tactics to do whatever it is they're trying to do, but then they turn around and rationalize it. I read an article in the State Press yesterday in which a Palestinian supporter observed that they had to use terror tactics because they didn't have an army, navy, air force, etc. I don't know about the rest of you, but my reaction to "I don't have an Army and I want to take over another country" would be to go recruit an army, or hire one, or whatever. Clearly they don't have a shortage of people who want to get involved... or if they do now, it's because they've blown so many of them up. And not only do they have this list of demands, they're not willing to give any of them up, no matter how ridiculous they are.

They don't want to talk. They want to blow up Israelis. That's fine! (Well, it's not, because it's not polite to blow people up, but for the sake of my point it's fine. Bear with me.) If you don't want to negotiate with the enemy, if the only satisfactory state of being for the enemy as far as you're concerned is dead, and it doesn't matter how many of your own people die so long as They are dead, just say so. Don't pretend like you're willing to compromise. Don't sign another meaningless cease-fire that you're just going to violate five minutes from now. Don't rationalize blowing up people on buses or near cars by saying you don't have an army to fight in traditional fashion. You don't want to fight in traditional fashion, or you'd be blowing up military targets rather than schoolchildren. If you just want to kill them all, SAY SO. Be proud of your suicide bombers, don't go all mealy-mouthed and call them tactical whatevers. Trying to sound rational when you're not is an exercise in futility, so just give it up. At least Al-Quaida et al admits that they hate us all and wish we'd all drop dead.

I fail to understand hating people because of their religion, or skin color, or country of origin... particularly because most people, if you give them a chance, will give you a GOOD reason to hate them. Of course, that's because People Are Dumb... which perhaps explains why they're being stupid about hating other people for things they can't help. "I hate you because you're not me?" You know, I'm GLAD you're not me, because then I'd have to hate you because you stole my whole 'unique' gig. I'm not interested in your race, religion, sexual orientation, or whether you like Pepsi or Coke. The fact that you like *NSYNC and Britney Spears... well, it confirms my belief that you're stupid and have no taste. But it doesn't make me hate you. Pity, perhaps. Hate takes too much damned energy.

Plus it leads to the Dark Side.

The fact that YOU hate ME, even though you've never met me and wouldn't know it if you did... that worries me. How can you hate someone you don't know? Who really gives a shit what my great-grandfather did to your great-grandfather? It wasn't me, and it wasn't you. Get over it. Don't forget it - that's a bad idea - but don't take it personally. I'm not the oppressor. (Except of Dave and Nick. And they're white males.)

How do you take personally something that didn't happen to you, anyway? It's like the whole slave-reparations thing. Perhaps my ancestors owned somebody else's ancestors. It's possible; I'm a white woman born in the South. I've never owned anybody. You've never been owned. Why, exactly, should you get money because your ancestor got dragged here from Africa while mine fled from Ireland? If you're upset about not being in Africa, go back there. Nobody's stopping you. The Jews demanded that the Pharoh let them go, not that he pay them for their labor. People have been enslaving each other as long as there have been bigger, stronger people. Yeah, it sucks. It doesn't make you special. Hating me for something my ancestor did to your ancestor is back to the whole religion issue - my parents raised me Catholic, because my dad's parents raised HIM Catholic. So far as I know, nobody sat me down before I got born and asked me where I wanted to be born, who I wanted my parents to be, and if being a girl would suit me okay. (It does.) Nobody asked, "Would you like to be an infidel?" (Yeah, sure, where do I sign up?) And unless you've got some strange mojo going on that I don't know about, nobody asked you either. So get over yourself. Or next time, check that "infidel" box.

Enough rambling. Work to do.

Hey, where was the "king" box?

2002-04-25T03:25:00.000-07:00

And now that bastard piece of shit commonly known as MS Word has crashed, taking out half the stuff I've been musing on for the past few days. Fortunately, the one document it DID successfully recover was the five pages of quotes I've spent the past two days culling from this book. Otherwise...well, I wouldn't be responsible for the damage.

I've given up on being king for tonight. I'm going to bed.

2002-04-25T03:17:00.000-07:00

My printer's childhood trauma is fucking up my life. Film at eleven.

(Or maybe that should be "on the next Springer?")

So far from king it's not EVEN funny.

2002-04-23T22:55:00.000-07:00

Why is it, the closer you get to the end of the semester, the more teachers become convinced that theirs is the only class you're taking? What? Due WHEN? HOW long? How many hours do you think I have in my day, anyway?

And, damn it, finals should be held on the scheduled day. That's why they're SCHEDULED. Let's see... tomorrow I'm working. Then Thursday, I have a short paper, a final, and a presentation. Monday, I have a long paper due. Tuesday, I have two major research papers, another short paper, and a portfolio (of all the stuff I've done during the semester) due. (And half the stuff that's supposed to go in the portfolio, I haven't even gotten BACK yet... her lack of preparation is becoming MY emergency.)

Help...

Not king. Kings have other people to do stuff FOR them.

2002-04-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, so every other day seems to be about average for updating. Not too bad.

Let me take a minute to rave about the new Michelle Branch CD, The Spirit Room. The first time I heard her was earlier this season on Buffy, when she played "Goodbye to You." Shortly after that, her song "Everywhere" was... well... everywhere. (Yeah, I know.) If you like the stuff that's gotten airplay, though, go out and get it. The whole album's that damned good. It's not terribly deep, but it's catchy and danceable - reminiscent of the best kinds of Sheryl Crow. ("Soak up the Sun," "My Favorite Mistake," that kind of thing.)

Speaking of CDs, I want to know how we've managed to have a dozen or so CDs without cases. Cases without CDs, I grasp - they're in a zipper case, or in the car, or just plain lost - but where did the cases go? And they're not all old, either. We've had Hayseed Dixie maybe all of a month or so. Where'd its case disappear to? I remember it being on top of the stereo speaker, and now it's just - gone. Gremlins are stealing our CD cases!

Two weeks left in the semester (whimper). God, where does the time go? I have so much to do in the next two weeks, I have no idea how I'm going to get it all done. (Yeah, and rather than doing it, I'm writing in my blog.) I'm really fed up with the ASU library system. There are a bunch of journals ASU subscribes to, and most of them have web sites, so you can download the articles and print them out, and they don't have to keep a bunch of microfiche copies lying around. I found a bunch of abstracts from home, looked them up, and determined that ASU did, in fact, have online access to them. Guess where I have to be to actually read them? If you guessed in the library, you get a cookie. Yep, in the library, where they not only charge you to print, but it takes FOREVER to actually print something. Of course, I could mail it to myself. So, let's get this straight... from home, I find the articles, print out the list, go to ASU, find the text of the articles, mail them to myself, then go BACK home to read them. Anybody else frustrated by the mind-numbing waste of time? Yeah, me too.

This is why I'm writing in my blog rather than doing research. Because the ONE article I could get to and read from home (out of approximately 25 I want to look at)... is useless. Argh!

So still not king.

2002-04-20T17:08:00.000-07:00

It's my birthday.

Dave and Nick gave me three books (Everything's Eventual, The Gates of Sleep, and Sword Sworn), two CDs (Michelle Branch and the new Jimmy Buffett), and a DVD (Train, live). I like them all, even if they are rather... uninspired. Unsurprisingly, the gifts from my parents are late. My birthday happens on the same day, every year, without fail. Then again, so does Christmas, and they can't seem to manage that one either.

Big plans for tonight - dinner at the Macaroni Grill, then we're going to the Improv to see Jeff Dunham. I saw him on TV a few times, but I've never seen him live, so I'm looking forward to it. All in all, it's been a nice birthday. 26 isn't a milestone age, so I didn't have any soul-searching moments. Maybe because I've done enough of that lately with grad school. I'm just not that big of a soul-searcher; when I search souls, they generally belong to fictional characters.

Like Dash. I've been doing a lot with Dash lately. He's got a lot of the intense-dark I like to play with.

Hey, it's my birthday. Shouldn't I be king?

2002-04-18T23:40:00.000-07:00

You know how people say you can find anything on the Internet? Well, I've found something you can't. Young Wizards fansites, or fic somewhere besides The Pit of Voles. For those not in the know, the Young Wizards books are a five-plus-two book series by Diane Duane. (Yeah, five-plus-two, not seven. See, there are five YW books, which are aimed at young adults, and two in the same universe aimed more at adults. The 'adult' books are about cats. Go fig.) YW is basically urban fantasy, about two suburban kids who become wizards and go about saving the universe, one day at a time. In the meantime, they also have to deal with bullies, schoolwork, brat kid sisters, worried parents, and the horrors of puberty. Sounds cliched, but like most good stuff, it's the characters that save it. If you haven't read them, go do so. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. The first book is called So You Want to be a Wizard.

What, you're still here?

Okay, I'm going to assume that you have a working knowledge of the books. There may be spoilers.

I'm startled that there aren't any YW sites out there, because I feel like I can't be the only adult fan out there... if nothing else, there have to be people who discovered them earlier in life, like I did, and still love them. The fifth book just came out, after all (and it's about damn time!). I've got fic ideas for Kit and Nita, but they're all at least sort-of adult. I also actually have a Tom/Carl fic in progress (I have no doubt they're a couple, and I'm told Duane's Door into Fire series has a gay couple in it, so the author's probably doing it on purpose). Yeah, I want to see Kit & Nita's faces when they find out that "friends" isn't the ONLY relationship between those two.... But I wish I knew people would read it, if I finished it.

Kings can pay people to design web sites for them, so, clearly...

2002-04-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

I've had something I've wanted to mention here for the past two days, but when I'm actually sitting in front of my computer, I can never remember what it is. Grr.

Oh, yeah.

At ASU, doctoral candidates can essentially teach whatever they're writing their thesis about. I'm taking such a class this semester, Dangerous Figures on the Rennaissance Stage. One of the things we have to produce for the class, is a ten-page paper with actual new, original material. I find this somewhat intimidating, and the class, while enjoyable, is difficult. To be honest, this class is what made me question getting a master's in English lit, because if I'm having this much trouble in an undergraduate class, will I be able to handle graduate-level work?

Then Tuesday my professor told us that this class was harder than most graduate-level classes. So I'm not worried any more.

No, I haven't decided about grad school, but it does bring lit back into the realm of the possible.

But I'm still not king.

2002-04-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

I'm having issues with publicity. As in, how to do it. Why do business majors and sci-fi fans seem to be so mutually exclusive? We could really use a few people who understand publicity and how to get some.

Some back story on my problem:

As you may or may not know, science fiction convention attendance has been deteriorating a lot in recent years. For those of us who volunteer for the cons, we've been bending our brains to try and figure out why. My personal guess has to do with the advent of the Internet. With a place you can go (albeit virtually) and discuss whatever it is you like with a bunch of other people who like the same thing, actually going to a physical convention loses a certain amount of relevance. Additionally, with cons bringing in media people, like actors and writers, traditional author-driven cons are falling by the wayside.

Phoenix is home to, among other things, LepreCon, a local con with an art emphasis. (It features arguably the best sf-themed art show in the Southwest.) Phoenix also appears to be host to a plethora of anime fans. Despite being the sixth-largest city in the country, there are plenty of folks who still believe we live in Hicksville, and that's perhaps the reason why we don't have an anime con.

Okay, so there are lots of anime fans out there, and lots of fans who produce works (fan fiction, art, vids, etc.) on the Internet. It seems obvious to me that perhaps these people would like a place to get together in real life to talk about the stuff they like, and advocate it to the unbeliever (or at least the unexposed).

It'd be a bit much to demand that LepreCon give up some of its coveted function space for a theory, though. Fortunately, my social group primarily consists of a group of young, enthusiastic fen, who want to preserve the culture we love so much. We decided that ASU's sf club, THEM, could perhaps sponsor a room where panels on fanworks and anime could be held. (Since THEM's also the driving force behind the well-known THEM Anime review site, it seemed like a good match.)

So somehow (read: it was my idea) I ended up head of this little group. We have fan workers and anime experts in our group, but naturally not nearly enough to run all the panels I want. I need other creative types and anime people to help - to come to the con, be on the panels, talk it up to their friends. And, being a quiet introverted type, publicity is not my strong suit.

Maybe if I put it on my blog, the three people who read it can tell their friends.

What we're looking for:

People willing to come to LepreCon 28, May 17-19, 2002, in Phoenix, Arizona and participate in panels, essentially roundtable discussions about fan works and/or anime. (Some potential panel titles include: Lost in Translation: Hacking up Anime for American Audiences; Battle of the Sexes: Talking About Shoujo/Shounen Anime; Three-Hanky Animes: Beyond Sex and Slapstick; Making Our Own Myths: Fanfiction and Society; Feedback is Your Friend: Praising Fanworks; and Beyond Cheesy Photoshop Filters: Originality in Fan Art). If this is you, PLEASE send me an email. Soon.

People willing to come to the con and *go* to these panels.

LepreCon 28's official site is here.

Not king, because then I could just MAKE people come.

2002-04-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

You know you're an English major when...

(1) You write a paper explaining how the use of feng shui at the Disney parks has assisted Disney in making millions (I didn't do this, but one of my fellow students did).

(2) In a discussion about the cartoon Birdman, you compare his actions to those of Hamlet - and then you wonder what his "vicious mole of nature" is.

(3) You can quote literature off the cuff (see above).

(4) You come up with a new catchphrase to describe what you're talking about ("systems of rebellion," in case anyone cares). People understand you.

(5) People recommend your blog to one another.

(6) You're still not king.

2002-04-14T21:02:00.000-07:00

Item the first: The conference went really well. No major crises, everybody seemed to enjoy it. Somehow everyone decided that if Toni wasn't immediately evident, I was the one who should get asked. So I got to be the con Stephanie. But after handling local cons, a conference with an attendance of less than 200 was a walk in the park. However, it was really nice to be involved in running a con where everything was so professional. Jaime Molera, the Superintendent of Public Instruction and our keynote speaker, showed up early enough to have lunch with us, and stayed through the awards ceremony. (He actually stayed because Tara Hitchcock, who was supposed to accept the special award he was supposed to be presenting, was 40 minutes late, but the teachers didn't know that.) Frank Camacho of Newschannel 3 was our M.C., and he did a great job.

Jaime Molera has a personal assistant. What a lousy job that must be. (Personal assistant, not necessarily Jaime Molera's.) Following someone around, keeping track of everything for them, and basically living their life without the perqs or the salary that goes with it. I loaned her a highlighter. (She asked for one. I had one. Crisis averted.)

Item the second: If you haven't yet, go see Ice Age. It's absolutely hysterical, and I loved it.

I first heard about Ice Age at ComicCon in July last year, where they showed the trailer with the squirrel trying to bury his nut in the ice. I hated it. I thought it looked stupid. Understand that I have an extremely low tolerance for slapstick. A couple of weeks ago, I saw the HBO "First Look," where they interviewed the three main voice actors, and decided it had potential. (Denis Leary's in it; it can't be all bad.) Last night, Jane and her family went to see it, and since I was there, I came along. ROTFLMAO. The writing is intelligent and actually funny, and the delivery is unsurprisingly dead-on. The slapstick's funny as well, in part because it isn't the same thing over and over. It's a theme, but there are strong variation, and... well, that little squirrel steals the show, paws down. The last five minutes of the movie are absolutely the funniest. I loved the gay rhino couple, characters who (shock!) didn't make it into the trailers. Plotwise, it was completely predictable, but it was so well-done you didn't mind. Go see.

Let's see... I gave Jane a sugar scrub of her own, and a tub of massage lotion, both in soothing lavendar vanilla. With a wedding coming up, she needs all the relaxation she can manage. I also gave her a GI Joe t-shirt, which she did love, and wore today.

Today we changed the color of the bridesmaid dresses from celadon to hunter (and I ordered mine), got a lot of writing done and quite a few new ideas for character torment in the novel-length main universe, wandered the mall, and had sushi. We were quite productive. It's nice to be home, though.

Not king. But if I were, I'd probably have to have a personal assistant.

2002-04-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

The conference is tomorrow, and we're basically ready. I have a few signs to make tonight, but that's about it. Very exciting.

I'm going to spend tomorrow night with Jane, celebrating our "halfway birthday." Her birthday's the 11th and mine's the 20th, so we traditionally celebrate on the 15th. However, since the 15th is a weekday, we're moving it back this year. I have good gifts for her; I'm sure she's going to love one of them. Details to follow after she's actually gotten it. I went shopping yesterday afternoon on Mill Avenue for her gifts, and ended up buying some stuff for myself. Bath & Body Works has a new aromatherapy line, and I got some "invigorating" lotion & a sugar scrub. (Sugar scrubs, for the uninitiated, are a combo of brown sugar and oil, rubbed on skin to moisturize and exfoliate. It feels really, really good. I highly recommend.) Anyway, the invigorating thing? Works. I staggered into the shower this morning, (ugh. morning. i am awake. this is bad.) open up the sugar scrub, and use it. Bam. I am awake, energized, happy to be moving. Definitely of the good.

"Somewhere, every day, every hour, there are horses in the air." And there's a sentence I've never heard before. Discovery's doing "stuff on planes" day; we just finished watching "The Secret Life of Baggage," and now they have, "The Secret Life of Air Freight." Stuff going places I've never been. Places far more interesting than here.

Okay, Memphis isn't much more interesting than here. But it isn't here, and I suppose that's what matters. I feel like everyone's gone somewhere cool except me. Us. I really want to go overseas. Now. But I'd settle for going somewhere I've never been before.

Not king. Kings get to travel.

2002-04-10T19:10:00.000-07:00

Crazy day today. The Best Practices in Education Conference, on which I've been working for months, is this Saturday. (Woo!) We're up to 140 registered attendees, out of a projected 250. We're taking out an ad in the Republic tomorrow, in the Valley & State section. My boss called them to place the ad, and explained what we're doing (the conference is aimed at educators from the K-16 level, with workshops on best practices, and the Gold Star Road to Excellence Awards, which are given to actual successful practices). They got very excited, and are going to do a pre-conference article! Yay! Hopefully it'll pull in more people. Hey, if any of the millions of people who read my blog are teachers, or are studying to be teachers, or know teachers, or know teachers-in-training, there's more info at the Commission web site. Free food is involved. It's also eligible for re-certification and Prop 300 credit. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell strangers on the street. It will be lots of fun. And you get to see me, live and in person, which is a thrill not to be missed. Really.

Tomorrow I go see my advisor, so she can tell me whether I'm really within one semester of graduating. Thoughts about grad school no longer fill my days and nights, but I'm still contemplating. It's not every day you get to make life-changing decisions. At least I don't. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Or maybe you are.

I'm reading Volpone for my Ren. Drama class. Unsurprisingly, every third line is some kind of sexual pun. After reading this, I will never again think Shakespeare is bawdy. No wonder my professor likes it.

Nick is tipping virtual cows. I am not making this up. If you've ever wondered about the joys of cow tipping, but worried about the possible environmental impact, go buy Might and Magic 9. It will not disappoint. Strangely, we've been having a cow-tipping discussion on one of my mailing lists. Several members have done so.

Still not king. But at least I'm not desperate enough for entertainment to tip cows.

2002-04-09T03:27:00.000-07:00

I changed my blog's template (because Carlos complained about the blinking) and now my description is screwed up. Anybody know how to make it so it's not justified? (Never thought I'd try to get rid of the justification for my blog...) I'm not willing to spend more time fiddling with it, because I really need to finish that paper.

If I were king, deadlines would not be an issue.

2002-04-09T03:00:00.000-07:00

Taking a break from writing a paper to - what else - write something else. I'm now convinced that Fox Sports World has taken over from ESPN 2 in the "weird sports" niche market. What's on FSW at 1:30 in the morning? Darts. Specifically, the quarter finals of the World Darts Championship. I didn't know there was a World Darts Championship, but I suppose every competition must have a World Championship. Darts, much to my surprise, is kind of exciting. There's actually strategy, but you can tell that the rules were conceived of by drunk men in pubs, because that's the only context in which they make sense. Darts is also much more interesting than ping-pong with bored Asian commentators. Dave assures me that ping-pong is much more interesting when the commentators don't sound like they belong on a golf show. Really. You'd also think that if any odd sport would be commentated like golf, it'd be darts. You know: "He's coming up to the mark now. He needs fifty points to win this," etc, all in hushed voices.

Darts strategy doesn't usually involve hitting the bulls-eye, which I thought was the point of darts, silly me. Apparently you get 551 points, and the goal is to count down to zero. EXACTLY zero; if you go over (under?), you don't get scored for those darts. There are places on the board that are double- and triple-score, so scoring darts sounds rather like scoring Scrabble, only without the Q.

We moved from Richard III to Hamlet in Shakespeare tonight. We talked about Protestants and Catholics, which just goes to show how much there is going on in a Shakespearean play. And perhaps why you shouldn't feel like you've studied Shakespeare if you've only done it in high school. We covered Hamlet in my AP English class, so I've studied it, right? Then how come I didn't know why Fortinbras showed up at the end or the sectarian elements of the play? Hamlet and Horatio studied in Wittenburg, the cradle of Protestantism; Laertes studied in Catholic France. Hamlet's father's clearly experiencing Purgatory (roaming at night, penned up being tortured during the day, lather rinse repeat until the soul comes clean). Protestants don't believe in Purgatory; what is the elder Hamlet doing there? Is he Catholic? If so, why's Hamlet going to school in the Land of the Lutherans? And why isn't young Hamlet king, anyway? He's probably in his late 20s at least, since he clearly remembers Yorick, who died 23 years before; well past his majority even in Denmark. Rationally, Hamlet (and I keep typing it Hamelt, like he's a type of sandwich rather than a type of omlet) should've been king, rather than his uncle. The whole uncle-as-king thing doesn't make any sense. Some critic suggests that Claudius is king by right of conquest, but - wouldn't he have to have conquered first? It's not like it's common knowledge that he knocked off his brother in order to marry his sister-in-law.

Still not king. And neither is Hamlet.

2002-04-07T23:44:00.000-07:00

What is it about WIllowFic that attracts bad writers? Actually, I don't even have to ask, because I know the answer already; I'd just forgotten. Before I started reading Willow fic, I read an essay on the phenomenon of Willow Sue. Now I understand it. Sigh.

I love the Internet; I really do. If nothing else, having this venue to put my work up is a Good Thing (TM). Unfortunately, it also means all the high school kids who like to write also have a venue to put up stuff that should never see the light of day. I wrote when I was in high school. I'm really, really glad the Net as such didn't really exist then, because I only inflicted my tortured prose and Mary Sues on my friends (who were duly impressed). As a general rule - and I'm sure there are exceptions - teenagers should be forced to wait at least until they reach college before they publish anything beyond the realm of their experience, at least age-wise. High school girls writing romance between adults is an excercise in the absurd, at best. We won't get into virgins writing sex scenes.... I ranted about vampires and sex with Christi and Maureen the other night, noting how a Spike/Angel pairing should always include violence, blood, and power plays. Hell, just watch Spike and Buffy in canon, and extrapolate from that how Spike and Angel would interact. Similarly, a Giles and Willow pairing should always include guilt and self-doubt on his part. I can definitely see Giles and Willow together; at the moment, I'm writing two different fics with that pairing. However, he's some 20 years older than Willow. (I don't know how old Giles is, but Tony Head is 48. Of course, Alison Hannigan is 28 and Willow is 21.) He's going to be worried about that. He's going to feel guilty that somehow he's "taking advantage" of her. He's going to be worried that she'll "come to her senses" and leave him, or fall in love with someone closer to his own age. He's not going to let himself take her for granted. Like most Buffy relationships, it's going to be just a little bit dark. And that's before we get into the "Ripper" elements....

Not king. Not dealing well.

2002-04-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

We're watching this thing on con men and scams on the Travel Channel, and now I'm convinced that the human race is primarily made up of idiots and the assholes who take advantage of them. Not exactly a new thought for me, but it's simply amazing how despicable people can get when money's involved. The general assumption of people, I think, is that most people are as honest as they themselves are. Liars generally assume that people are out to take advantage of them; honest people assume that they're not - and to keep that assumption, people will ignore the weirdest things. But then people in general like stay in a rut, and you have to get forceful to change their minds about anything.

We watched Changing Rooms earlier, which is the BBC version of TLC's Trading Spaces. Watching that show always gives me the itch to change my surroundings, particularly the use of color. Decoration in general impresses me, since my house is just the result of our pack-rat life.

I'm itching to do something (I don't know what) but probably can't because Dave's still recovering from surgery. My life is dull beyond words at time.

You know, one thing that drives me nuts is when someone has a really spectacular idea for a fic but doesn't have the talent to do it justice. It makes me want to rewrite it myself. Plot's always been a weak point for me - TheBard gave me a magnificent plot to use in my solo Flint fic, and this pleases me - and it's so depressing to see people who have good plots but lousy prose. I read a fic where Buffy came back from the dead (she hasn't explained why yet) and initially thought she was in an alternate universe. She turns out not to be, but I think it's a great idea. She leapt through a portal, after all; what if she went somewhere? So now (with plot in hand!) I have to figure out how the world is different. If nothing else, it gives me a chance to play with UC (unconventional) ships. I'm thinking Willow/Giles to start... not sure what else. Hey, I could bring back Angel. Ah, the possibilities in an AU {evil grin}.

I'm going to go find a pencil now, and sketch this out.

If I were king, people would bring me plots.

2002-04-05T18:16:00.000-08:00

My husband can do html tech support on Percoset. He rocks.

I, however, am still not king.

2002-04-05T17:44:00.000-08:00

Last night I sat around with Maureen and Christi for hours and talked about fanfic. We submitted a group review for this "In a Heartbeat" fic that was just godawful... OOC doesn't begin to cover it. Anyway, today I got a nasty email from the friend who challenged her to write it saying that it didn't have to be realistic, because it was fiction. {le sigh} Where do people get this idea? I responded to her, explaining about the author - reader agreement (we suspend our disbelief, you make sure that we don't have to hang it by the neck until dead) and how, since in the context of the show and the story, the characters are real people, forcing them to behave otherwise is a betrayal of the characters, the show, and the creators. We as fanfic authors have the responsibility to treat the characters we borrow with the utmost respect, and that involves making sure that they don't do anything they wouldn't otherwise do.

I suppose that's my philosophy of writing. Not even fanfic so much, because you have the responsibility with original characters to make sure they behave within the parameters of the character you created. If you give them a new facet, you have to take into account how it would affect their character otherwise. Christi's taking a stand for heterosexuality in fanfic (because it's so rare). I can see where she's coming from, but I must take a simpler and perhaps more profound stance - a stand for honest characterization. In fanfic, out of character is a cardinal sin, and should be treated as such.

There's another place where I seem to differ from most fic authors that I talk to. "It's just a story" doesn't seem to be in my vocabulary. The friend of the writer told me (after I also explained the concept that review != rave) that "It's just for fun, ya know? It's just a story." Jane told me that the other night about the unbetaed piece she posted with Isabella. "I was just having fun. It's just a story." Why is that become a rallying cry for poor quality? It's your hobby, sure, it's for fun. That's why you do it. And this excuses you from getting a beta reader how? It forgives making characters act totally *other* why? What happened to, "If you're going to do it, do it well?"

Between corresponding with Excitable Teenager and Dave's surgery, I haven't thought about grad school at all today! (Until this moment.)

Still not king, as evidenced by the amount of bad fic still extant.

2002-04-04T15:24:00.000-08:00

One of my theoretical goals for this year is to put up a web page with my fic on it. This requires that I learn HTML. I'm not entirely sure how to go about this... should I buy a book? Take a class? Maybe I should wait for summer, when I have more time. Anyway, I think having a central location for my work would be a good thing, for the millions of people who want to read the B5 fic I wrote under my maiden name. I know they're out there somewhere...somewhere...somewhere... {abruptly stops singing} All two of them.

In good news, I'm up over a page with the 'dark Flint' fic that TheBard requested, and I actually know where I'm going. This is my half of the parallel story I'm writing with Jane - although 'parallel' doesn't really describe it. Tangential? Perpendicular? They start at the same place, and end at the same place, but go entirely different places while they're at it. I have to explain why he's mad at Duke in issue #4 of the new comic. It involves a plot. This is dangerous. (You know, with all the plot-heavy stories I've been working on lately, I'm going to start thinking I can actually write. I've been looking at the MFA in Creative Writing program. Someone should stop me.)

Yeah, half my thoughts in the last few days have involved grad school. Where should I go? Probably here, I'm thinking. Should I actually major in literature, or something else? The reason this is an issue is my irritation with the B.S. found in the field. I read an article by Valerie Traub, and I swear you'd need a chainsaw to cut through her prose and get to the POINT. A ton of the material produced in the field is like this - intimidatingly jargonistic, obtuse, dense - and I have to talk like that to get my point across. Is research in this field something I really want to do? I mean, I love to read, to write, to discourse. I want to teach. I want to be like Jewell Rhodes and Tom Campbell - but I think I'm leaning more towards Jewell than Tom. I'm really enjoying Tom's class, and I can't wait until I'm a docotoral student and can teach classes like that, but... well, I'd be a better poetry teacher than the gal I had last semester (whose name escapes me at the moment). I don't consider myself a poet, though, and the bulk of my work at this point has been in other peoples' playgrounds. Then again, I'd hardly be the first person to produce a fanfic-related thesis. Maybe I should look into media studies as a minor - I want to write that paper on Buffy and the journey of the Heroine (as distinct from the Hero).

If I were king, I wouldn't have to think about grad school.

2002-04-03T18:01:00.000-08:00

Between one thing and another, I'm getting increasingly fed up with SAs (system administrators). The ones I've been exposed to are uncommunicative and arrogant, at best, and grossly incompetent at worst. The SA I'm stuck dealing with at work is also condescending and LIED to my boss. I've been facilitating the move from ASU's email servers to Aletia's, and our SA George has been nothing if not... well, completely unhelpful. Plus irritating as hell. Considering that the whole switching services thing was their idea (part of ABOR's continuing attempts to get rid of us, their redheaded stepchild), I'm disgusted as to what a pain in the ass it's been...

And now the SA's NIck has to deal with are being generally incompetent. On top of that, they're committing Mortal Sin #1 in the Book of Nick (go to hell, go directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200): Not Listening to Him. Given that a failure to listen was the reason he left the CASFS board, I might feel pity for them. If they weren't SAs and on my Shit List as a result of that, anyway. Of course, the moron squad doesn't have to listen to him screaming. We do. Yeah, Mike?

In mostly-good news, the yard people have mostly finished the yard. It looks really stark, but at least there are no more weeds. And, (this is very good news) the mature pecan in front of Nick's window isn't dead after all. There are leaf buds on it. Very much of the good.

I'm thinking about running for Faithful Lackey next year. Leadership roles are a good thing, and I kinda have to start thinking about stuff like that, since grad schools do to. Besides, I've been involved with THEM for nearly eight years. (Wow.)

Gods, I need more hours in my day.

Yeah, and if I were king, I'd fillet some SA arse.

2002-04-02T20:45:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had a Distant Goal and then discovered between one minute and the next that it's not nearly as distant as you thought it was? It's a giddy, heady feeling, let me tell you.

I'm trying to figure out what I need to take next semester, so I sat down with my checksheet and my DARS (for the uninitiated, that's a comparison of the degree requirements against my transcript) and figured out that I'm six classes short of my degree. Six. Which means that if I take the two classes I plan to this summer, I could easily graduate in *December.* Of THIS YEAR. With my BACHELOR'S DEGREE. Go me! I'm excited. I figured I had a good year and a half to go, and suddenly I could be eight months away? Wow. When did that happen?

What I think I'm going to actually do, however, is declare a minor - I'm thinking Women's Studies - and take a year. If nothing else, it gives me more time to think about grad school, something to which I had given exactly NO thought beyond "want to." Another year also gives us more time to get in a better financial situation, and hopefully the economy time to improve further, so I can consider grad school somewhere besides ASU. Not that I have anything against ASU, but I'd just like to move... elsewhere. Somewhere where it's not so damned hot.

Besides, it also means Patrick and I both graduate in '03, which is kind of nifty in and of itself.

Still not king, but it seems not to matter so much at the moment.

2002-04-02T19:20:00.000-08:00

I actually went and looked at my blog, live and in pixel, and discovered that, under the title, it has "my funny motto." I imagine you're supposed to edit this so it actually HAS something there. Being me, twisted mind and all, find "my funny motto" inherently amusing. It reminds me of that song, "My Funny Valentine." So until it stops amusing me, I'm leaving it there.

Why is it that so many fic writers, however bad, are encouraged? My friend Jane collaborated with Isabella (names have been changed to protect the guilty) and posted a fic unbetaed to the relevant list. (For the record, I'm on probably a dozen fic lists. Whee!) Yeah, I post unbetaed work. Because I *can*. Most of my stuff is short, and my paranoid nature and general handle on the English language makes it so there are a minimum of mistakes when I do so. Most people, however, can't. And I'm having a problem walking the line with Jane between "yes, you can write" and "no, you can't post unbetaed work. Damn it, you don't recognize it when you write sentence fragments!" Having betaed her work, I'm also becoming frustrated with fixing the same mistakes over and over again. She CAN write. When she tries, she can even write well. But lately she's been slipping. SHE doesn't think so, because everybody on the list posts cheerleader feedback! I can't tell her it sucks, because it makes me look like the bad guy. So I say nothing. Except, when she gives me something to beta, "do it again." Fragile egos, sigh. I need to find someone to beta for who actually understands that I only point out the stuff that sucks and the stuff that's really good. If I don't say anything about it, it's okay. (I personally don't accept "okay." But - and I realize how arrogant it sounds as I say it - not everyone has my talent. Anyway, my friend Jane - when she writes with me, her writing improves. I'm good, and I don't tolerate crap. (Harlan Ellison: You're writing crap. STOP WRITING CRAP!) Isabella, however, needs more work (on the basic-English-sentence level) than Jane. So, what with one thing and another, we haven't been working together much lately. To say her writing has suffered... well. Damn, I need an idea that I can collaborate with her on, otherwise the parallel piece we're writing is going to... um... not work.

Dinner time.

Still not king, however.

2002-04-02T17:25:00.000-08:00

All right, so I'm trying the blog thing. I've ranted before about how blogs bug me, but I think all in all, it'll be nice to have a place to occasionally vent or at least make the comments that ramble through my head at all hours of the day or night. What I WILL avoid, however, is the thing that really bugs me about blogs - the referential/responsive nature of many of them. I don't read blogs. I'm not that interested in the inner workings of other people, for the most part. So I promise the blog won't be full of references to other people's blogs. I'm of the opinion that if you want to reply to somebody's blog, send them an email. But that's me.

Why are children going door-to-door assuming that I'm the slightest bit interested in seeing that they go to college? We just had a kid come to the door selling the paper, and he said that one could buy a subscription for a school, church, or charity because he's trying to earn a thousand-dollar college fund. And I care because...? And what's up with the sell-for-college-fund thing anyway? When I was a kid, I went door-to-door selling stuff for charitable organizations (Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, school groups, church). It sure as hell wasn't about any kind of personal profit. Now you get kids selling newspapers for college but you have to go to grocery stores to buy Girl Scout cookies. Something fundamentally wrong about that, I think...

In good news, I've been getting a lot of positive feedback about "Valediction," my little Willow/Xander ficlet, including requests to archive it at the Willow writing zone web page Near Her Always and Xander-Shaped Friend, an invitation-only archive site. Go me. It feels good to get all this positive response, but odd, considering that I wrote the piece in about an hour. It popped into my head one night just before I went to bed (yes, that's why Willow's brushing her hair), I banged it out the next night and posted it unbeta'd, and wham, raves.

Lately I've been ambushed by unusual (and unconventional, natch) ideas. "Valediction" is actually a good example of the way my mind's been working lately. Two nights ago an idea for a Willow/Giles (of all people) idea came to me... and I've NEVER had Giles in my head before. It's weird, but in a good way. And then this morning, I got the idea for an Angel/Spike/Buffy piece, which is actually being rather technique-driven. They're all having the same dream, so it's being very parallel - the same thing being told from three different perspectives, in fits and starts. I'm not sure where I'm going with it, but it promises to be fun to try.

I've been working with technique a lot lately - for some reason, the Buffyverse lends itself to techniquing. "There All Along" is first-person, present tense, switching perspectives. "Angels of the Silences" is jumping in a fairly organized fashion. The still untitled Spike/Dawn friendship piece actually has a PLOT. (Everyone gasp in shock, I know.)

The stuff I WANT to write, though, doesn't seem to want to come. I had a request from The Bard, whose writing I admire, to write a dark Flint piece, and it's just not coming. Problem is, I don't know where I'm going. So I'm thinking about taking Intro to Creative Writing - fiction next semester. The poetry version of that class did really good things to my poetry, but I don't *feel* like a poet. I'm more like Guy Gavriel Kay (with less talent), weaving in prose. I'm just not bohemian enough to be a poet, maybe. The "Angel saves Spike" piece is stalling too. I *do* know where I want to go, I just haven't been able to get there yet. (The fifth sentence in this paragraph almost contributed to the verbification of the language - it originally read "I don't feel like I poet." To poet... that's almost a neat idea. I almost left it that way. Almost.)

All right, I think this is enough for a start. Besides, I want to take a nap.