Okay...minor decisions first--cotton intarsia baby blanket? What cotton intarsia baby blanket? I'm just not stupid enough to start a cotton intarsia baby blanket right now...do I look certifiably insane? Okay, fine, less eye make-up...I'm really not that crazy.
Next, a couple of conversations from recent days that have totally cracked me up:
Cave Troll: MOM!!! NEED TISSUE!!! I HAVE BOOGERS!!! NEED TISSUE NEED TISSUE NEED TISSUE...
Mom: Okay okay okay... (picture mom, running around like a giant headless chicken) hereyago, little man, here's your tissue.
Cave Troll: Thanks, Mom. Here's a booger.
Mom: (Looking at her hand in pained amusement) Thanks, Cave Troll. I don't have any of my own.
Cave Troll: ' Welcome Mom.
This next one happened this morning as we were on our way (among other things, Rae) to drop a package off at UPS, and to drop off books (my books:-) to sell at a nearby book store:
Me: (Facetiously, joking about how excited I was that my first three books had sold out of the book store:-) So--how does it feel to be married to a struggling artist?
Mate: You have a full time job--it's not like I'm pulling you out of heroin cribs and dragging you home to your children.
Me: Fine. How does it feel to be married to a fat English teacher?
Mate: It's great--she writes books!
Me: (sourly) You know this conversation is blog-fodder.
Mate: Bullshit--I'm not that interesting.
Me: (now, as I write and giggle:-) Ha! Take that, beloved Mate!!!
And this last one (roughly paraphrased) that I had with the Lady In Red. I had just sent her an excerpt from BITTERMOON, (which I will post in a moment) asking her if it was 'Young Adult' or 'Too Adult'. To which she replied, "Woman, you write the most pornless porn of anyone I know." This cracked me up, but it did force me into another minor decision.
*sigh* I'm gonna hafta bite the bullet and do it--I'm going to have to write the story I need to write and publish it for mass distribution, and then pull out the "pornless porn" for my children and leave them with the story and not the description. It's going to be hella expensive, but I need to love what I'm writing to write it well, and I can't love it when I'm censoring it, even from myself. Two versions it will be--and as for what constitutes "pornless porn"--I'll let you judge for yourself:
EXCERPT: BITTERMOON
Their classes grew busier, more intense, as everybody prepared for finals after the Samhain break. The night they got back, Trieste greeted Torrant with such a fervent kiss that he found himself closing his eyes in odd moments just to savor her taste.
They continued kissing, learning the joys of bodies pressed close in corners, of the brief touch of lips in greeting and farewell, of cold hands on warm tummies and the squealing and touching and laughter that ensued. He loved the way her eyes closed before he put his lips to hers, and the feel of her breath on his face just before that happened. He enjoyed the dark feeling of her fine hair as it spilled around his fingers, and the terrible sensitivity of his body, hard and full and aching under his clothes, as she pressed on top of him. One touch, he often thought in a delicious ecstasy of agony, one touch of her soft cool hand against his bare skin and his body would explode in a scorch of fireworks behind his eyes and in his pants and possibly even out his toes.
The anticipation was as wonderful as the smug knowledge that someday, someday soon, it would happen, it would happen between them and he would feel her skin on his without interruption or excuse and the thing, the glorious warmth between them would wash over his body like a velvet wave.
Comment at will!!
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Thank You, Mighty Samurai...
Okay, I was just wondering what to blog about today--my choices are limited by my pissy mood (it IS that time of the month, after all...) and my @#$%ing computer at work. My sutdents are so tired/amped by the impending spring break, that (and this is the weirdest thing) they are BEGGING for worksheets...I mean...ICK!!! But that's okay, because if I try to teach, they just mumble incoherencies to each other as though the exact shade of lipstick worn by so-and-so as she got chatted up by her two-thousandth guy were that magic force that causes the planet to revolve around them! Anyway, when I went to The Samurai's blog (after my computer got fixed, because I was too pissed off to grade!!!) she was talking about that book-list meme that's been going around--and she promised to go off on a rant about literature vs. entertainment and suddenly...
I WANTED TO RANT ABOUT THAT TOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope she doesn't mind--anything I can rant about, she can rant about better, but Julie I'm going to riff on your rant... (and if you do mind, sweetheart, let me know in the comments...if I'm violating a hard and fast blog-etiquette rule, I don't want to do that again...)
Okay, so the thing is...
People say Shakespeare is culture--everyone who is well-read has read Shakespeare. But what nobody understands is that SHAKESPEARE WAS THE STEPHEN SPIELBERG OF HIS DAY... back then, everybody thought "Oh yeah, Willy's good for a laugh or a good action show, but, really, if you want CULTURE, you want Ben Johnson--now that guy--he's gonna be around for a few." Now I've read a few of Johnson's plays--they were witty, they were satiric, they were on-point and intellectual...but they didn't MOVE me. Romeo & Juliet? I will weep over those dumb-ass teenagers for the rest of my life and thank the Goddess for it. Hamlet? God love his sweet, angst-filled, gender-confused soul... But Johnson? Quite honestly, don't remember any of his people, and am not getting all hot and horny to open that book on my shelf again either.
And that, right there, is the problem with branding what we read "Entertainment" or "Literature".
Does what you read move you? Does it make you laugh? Does it make you cry? Does it make you think? Does it stick around in your chest and keep time with your breathing for a few days?
If it does, then it is, absolutely, positively, unapologetically, LITERATURE!!!!
I don't care if it's a Silhouette Romance or a comic book or a knitting manual...it's LITERATURE!!!!
Orwell, Huxley, Ayn Rand? They wrote Science Fiction. Science Fiction is still often considered by the 'educated' to be some sort of red-headed bastard son of true literature--and romance is it's deformed twin. (The mix between the two, paranormal romance? Trust me--I work with predominantly male English teachers...as far as they're concerned, it's not even real words.) So Science-Fiction isn't legit, but my Sci-Fi class in college (where everybody I work with assumes I went to get high and study the stars...) was one of the hardest and most influential courses I've ever taken. And anyone whose ever read romance will tell you that women's history is more accurately seen through Harlequin's evolving nature than through any historian's eyes.
What we consider entertainment often resonates deeply in our hearts--anything that vibrates inside us with that intensity must truly reflect some sliver of the human experience accurately and beautifully--and that folks is literature.
(I don't know how I managed to italicize the whole post, but I hope Julie's still talking to me now.)
I WANTED TO RANT ABOUT THAT TOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope she doesn't mind--anything I can rant about, she can rant about better, but Julie I'm going to riff on your rant... (and if you do mind, sweetheart, let me know in the comments...if I'm violating a hard and fast blog-etiquette rule, I don't want to do that again...)
Okay, so the thing is...
People say Shakespeare is culture--everyone who is well-read has read Shakespeare. But what nobody understands is that SHAKESPEARE WAS THE STEPHEN SPIELBERG OF HIS DAY... back then, everybody thought "Oh yeah, Willy's good for a laugh or a good action show, but, really, if you want CULTURE, you want Ben Johnson--now that guy--he's gonna be around for a few." Now I've read a few of Johnson's plays--they were witty, they were satiric, they were on-point and intellectual...but they didn't MOVE me. Romeo & Juliet? I will weep over those dumb-ass teenagers for the rest of my life and thank the Goddess for it. Hamlet? God love his sweet, angst-filled, gender-confused soul... But Johnson? Quite honestly, don't remember any of his people, and am not getting all hot and horny to open that book on my shelf again either.
And that, right there, is the problem with branding what we read "Entertainment" or "Literature".
Does what you read move you? Does it make you laugh? Does it make you cry? Does it make you think? Does it stick around in your chest and keep time with your breathing for a few days?
If it does, then it is, absolutely, positively, unapologetically, LITERATURE!!!!
I don't care if it's a Silhouette Romance or a comic book or a knitting manual...it's LITERATURE!!!!
Orwell, Huxley, Ayn Rand? They wrote Science Fiction. Science Fiction is still often considered by the 'educated' to be some sort of red-headed bastard son of true literature--and romance is it's deformed twin. (The mix between the two, paranormal romance? Trust me--I work with predominantly male English teachers...as far as they're concerned, it's not even real words.) So Science-Fiction isn't legit, but my Sci-Fi class in college (where everybody I work with assumes I went to get high and study the stars...) was one of the hardest and most influential courses I've ever taken. And anyone whose ever read romance will tell you that women's history is more accurately seen through Harlequin's evolving nature than through any historian's eyes.
What we consider entertainment often resonates deeply in our hearts--anything that vibrates inside us with that intensity must truly reflect some sliver of the human experience accurately and beautifully--and that folks is literature.
(I don't know how I managed to italicize the whole post, but I hope Julie's still talking to me now.)
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
The focus on focus...
Okay...looking at Needletart's blog (bless her bless her bless her!!!) the question seems to be, did I mean for that first chapter to be that unfocused?
The answer is...yes and no.
The whole book started from a short story that I wrote--it began with Cory in the gas station and ended with her and Adrian's first kiss.
The end. No Mitch and Renny, no Green, no Faerie Hill.
And then I dropped out of the master's course in creative writing (for which I wrote the story) to spend more time with my children, and decided to continue writing anyway.
And I wrote Green. And I LOVED Green just like I loved Adrian--completely, without any reservation in my soul, for both his flaws and his starts and his myriad perfections.
And they had to meet.
Bringing them all together--that was the hard part. I wanted to keep much of it through Cory's eyes--she was the voice of the lost woman, and the men had both found each other years ago. That Green had to speak was a given--he was much too powerful not to. That Adrian had his own voice and his own chapters was a surprise--one that broke my heart, because, well, his destiny had been planned.
So yes, some of the first chapters (until Green's entrance, mostly) is a little like a REALLY LONG prologue--but I could not cut those chapters to save my life, because that was where Adrian and Cory met and fell in love, and their courtship was too painful to just excise, and Cory's self-awareness too precious and dearly come by to just...change. Sometimes characters do that--what you had planned for them isn't what they do at all, and what they do instead is just too wonderful--it would hurt something vital in me to make it different.
So I didn't.
It moves me more than words that my words have moved you all:-)
The answer is...yes and no.
The whole book started from a short story that I wrote--it began with Cory in the gas station and ended with her and Adrian's first kiss.
The end. No Mitch and Renny, no Green, no Faerie Hill.
And then I dropped out of the master's course in creative writing (for which I wrote the story) to spend more time with my children, and decided to continue writing anyway.
And I wrote Green. And I LOVED Green just like I loved Adrian--completely, without any reservation in my soul, for both his flaws and his starts and his myriad perfections.
And they had to meet.
Bringing them all together--that was the hard part. I wanted to keep much of it through Cory's eyes--she was the voice of the lost woman, and the men had both found each other years ago. That Green had to speak was a given--he was much too powerful not to. That Adrian had his own voice and his own chapters was a surprise--one that broke my heart, because, well, his destiny had been planned.
So yes, some of the first chapters (until Green's entrance, mostly) is a little like a REALLY LONG prologue--but I could not cut those chapters to save my life, because that was where Adrian and Cory met and fell in love, and their courtship was too painful to just excise, and Cory's self-awareness too precious and dearly come by to just...change. Sometimes characters do that--what you had planned for them isn't what they do at all, and what they do instead is just too wonderful--it would hurt something vital in me to make it different.
So I didn't.
It moves me more than words that my words have moved you all:-)
Book Meme
OKay...the deal is, you bold the ones you've read and leave blank the ones you haven't. I'm going to warn you, that I'm going to cheat. If I haven't actually read it, but I HAVE read enough crappy book reports on it to discuss it as though it's the subject of my doctorate, well, I figure I've been punished enough, and thus deserve a little respect even though I haven't read the actual document...
Thanks to Needletart AND Coach Susan--for one thing, this is going to convince me that I've read WAAAAYYYYY too much crap...
Hey--do I get some sort of extra karma point for stuff I've taught? About 1/2 the things I've read here, I've taught to ungrateful adolescents...
Now, if I were going to add to this list...(and I think it should be a rule or something, that we take off the first one and add the last one--that way the meme would change...)
Anyway, if I were to add to this list I would add...(think think think think...)
Okay, I've got it. A book that has quietly changed my life:
The Changeling Sea, by Patricia McKillip. It's a lot more fun than it sounds!!!!!
1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) This one is half-bold because I quit halfway through. Couldn't take another buggery battle scene!
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell) Another half-read book
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
Thanks to Needletart AND Coach Susan--for one thing, this is going to convince me that I've read WAAAAYYYYY too much crap...
Hey--do I get some sort of extra karma point for stuff I've taught? About 1/2 the things I've read here, I've taught to ungrateful adolescents...
Now, if I were going to add to this list...(and I think it should be a rule or something, that we take off the first one and add the last one--that way the meme would change...)
Anyway, if I were to add to this list I would add...(think think think think...)
Okay, I've got it. A book that has quietly changed my life:
The Changeling Sea, by Patricia McKillip. It's a lot more fun than it sounds!!!!!
1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) This one is half-bold because I quit halfway through. Couldn't take another buggery battle scene!
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell) Another half-read book
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
Monday, March 26, 2007
Quick Question...
Okay, seriously--
I've been working on the Cave Troll's socks, and the colors are bright and they're totally kicking me out of the funk (as is the spring rain:-)but I'm having trouble figuring out what to do about the baby blanket.
I usually do not hate intarsia this badly.
But then, I haven't really done a lot of intarsia since before Kewyn was born. I'm starting to believe those two moments are not coincidental. I can't work on this blanket unless everybody is happy, everything around my work space is clean, and everybody is off my lap.
Realistically, how often is that going to happen?
But I LOOOOVVVVEEE these colors...and who else is going to have a baby anytime soon? This is the last one in a while (of course, that being said, everybody and their brother's best friend's sister is going to get knocked up!) What am I going to do with this?
I just hate TOADs... I truly truly hate abandoning projects...I've got less than a handful of them in my entire 9 year fiber history...adding one to my list is sort of depressing...
So what do you think? Is there shame in admitting defeat? Should I pull out the cool self-striping acrylic and the size 8ts, whip up a feather/fan cable and preen, or should I keep up w/the cotton intarsia on the size 6's? I can't promise I'll count votes, but I am curious--at what stage do you abandon a perfectly good project?
I've been working on the Cave Troll's socks, and the colors are bright and they're totally kicking me out of the funk (as is the spring rain:-)but I'm having trouble figuring out what to do about the baby blanket.
I usually do not hate intarsia this badly.
But then, I haven't really done a lot of intarsia since before Kewyn was born. I'm starting to believe those two moments are not coincidental. I can't work on this blanket unless everybody is happy, everything around my work space is clean, and everybody is off my lap.
Realistically, how often is that going to happen?
But I LOOOOVVVVEEE these colors...and who else is going to have a baby anytime soon? This is the last one in a while (of course, that being said, everybody and their brother's best friend's sister is going to get knocked up!) What am I going to do with this?
I just hate TOADs... I truly truly hate abandoning projects...I've got less than a handful of them in my entire 9 year fiber history...adding one to my list is sort of depressing...
So what do you think? Is there shame in admitting defeat? Should I pull out the cool self-striping acrylic and the size 8ts, whip up a feather/fan cable and preen, or should I keep up w/the cotton intarsia on the size 6's? I can't promise I'll count votes, but I am curious--at what stage do you abandon a perfectly good project?
Sunday, March 25, 2007
The Skies Are Gray and Life is Gay...
Happy, I mean... (but happy didn't rhyme with gray...)
Yeah...April is not nearly as cruel and March is not nearly as bitchy with a few rain clouds to soften all of that brightness. (I may be a color slut now, but given all the romantic poetry I made out with in college, I think the Monet palette might have been my first color-love...)
I met w/about 7 AP students yesterday, fed them pizza and testing techniques, then took 2 of them on a tour of a yarn store that WASN'T Michael's and, all in all, had a good off-duty teacher moment, and am now insufferably proud of myself. The girls were unbearably cute--they bought yarn for matching outfits in complimentary colors--I almost couldn't deal with that much adorability--it's a good thing I've had training with my own little ones:-) It was a fun day.
This morning, my Ladybug is sick, making me feel guilty for not being here yesterday--I swear it's almost uncanny the way they do that to you.
I didn't actually cast on anything new yesterday, but I did find a pair of socks I'd cast on for Kewyn in this amazing yarn called Jitterbug by Colette--it makes my eyeballs dance and my mouth quirk up just looking at it, so I think it will do the trick. Sorry, Julie--your yarn will have to wait...probably 'til June, when fingerless mitts will make no sense at all except as a small project that won't make me hot just thinking about it. I seem to have promised stuff to students I don't remember promising and there's always my TA blanket for my part time TA. (Freakin' prickweenies--if I have to reiterate why I ended up with one TA, working two days a week in my class while she does something different in another class, I may end up gnawing on my computer, and that would be bad. I've eaten enough junk food this weekend.)
But (and this is big news, people!) this morning as I was emerging from the mildew-pit, I mean shower, the Cave Troll came running in, naked from the waist down, and then he (ooooohhhhh booooyyyy!!!) PROCEEDED TO USE THE TOILET!!!!!! He pee-peed, wiped the seat (oh, blessed babysitter--I never would have thought of that) and flushed. Then he washed his hands. Be still my heart--I may still be buying pull-ups for a while, but, DAMN! There is an end in sight!
Wendy's on the phone--she's talking horses which has lost me completely--I think what's happening is the same ol-same ol--she's getting screwed by somone without any lube--it's weird how she manages to attract people who spot how badly she needs their services and then proceed to rip her off and try to make her feel happy about it. All I do know is that the world really does revolve around whether or not a stallion gets off. Don't tell the men--it will only confirm all of their deepest held beliefs.
Oh yeah (as though I haven't been doing the happy dance about this all weekend) I've gotten two new reviews on BOUND--they like it, they really really like it!!! I THINK Lady-In-Red likes it too--I'm hoping!!! And Roxie likes it--I'm styling!!! And I'm about 1/2-1/3 done with BITTERMOON--it may not be out 'til next March, but it will be out!!!
And other than that, I'm planning to write, knit, clean the bathroom and fold the clothes. Who wants to place bets on which of these things actually gets done?
Friday, March 23, 2007
If April is the Cruelest Month...
Then does that make March just bitchy?
Hmmm...speaking of bitchy...
I've spent considerable time bitching on this blog, maybe it's time to take some serious stock...
Lessee...
* My house is buried under 2 tons of crap. It's to the point where I can't even fathom where to start.
* My desk at work is buried under two tons of crap. It's to the point where I don't even know where to start.
* The laundry monster has won the right to sleep next to the bed unhindered. It doesn't even mind when I step on it to get over the bathroom. It plays well with the baby--it's actually higher than the bed, so there's no chance that she'll roll off. And if she does, she can't tell.
* The mildew in the bathroom is developing a personality. I like it better than most of my 5th period class.
* We have no money and not much in the fridge. But lots and lots of chili and a diminishing sensitivity of smell.
* To that end,I told 6 kids in my AP class that I'd buy them pizza tomorrow, if they'd voluntarily come study for the test. They seem happier about the idea than the situation warrants.
* I want to live in the land of Eiran with my characters in BITTERMOON. Their lives are very simple. There's magic, hot men, and Bethen (the mother figure) gets to knit all the time. Who wouldn't want to be in Eiran?
* The older kids managed to clean the house...sort of. I mean, really, sort of... I mean really? How well can teenagers clean a house?
* The Cave Troll has a bump on his head, the baby has chocolate on her mouth and both of them are suffering from an insane attachment to their Big Red Car. On the plus side, they're both insufferably cute.
* The baby has started putting the Cave Troll's shark puppet on her hand and waving it about going "ROOOOOWWWWRRRRRR" which is what he does to her. Did I mention they're insufferable cute?
* My best friend is here, looking like hell, because her job is as frustrating, painful, and infuriating as mine. She's a nurse.
* The sockies for the dumbass kid are almost done. She's still clueless, grumpy, and I fear for what her life will be like when she gives birth. But she will have blue booties (because she complained bitterly when I was going to do purple) for the little boy without a daddy.
* The intarsia blanket has developed a big honkin' hole when I didn't do the intarsia twist.
Okay, that's it.
I see the pattern here, and I see what needs to be done.
Screw the house, we're putting take-out on a new credit card and as soon as the booties are on, I'm casting on a pair of fingerless mitts for myself.
Screw you, impending April, I'm taking my joie d'vive back!
Hmmm...speaking of bitchy...
I've spent considerable time bitching on this blog, maybe it's time to take some serious stock...
Lessee...
* My house is buried under 2 tons of crap. It's to the point where I can't even fathom where to start.
* My desk at work is buried under two tons of crap. It's to the point where I don't even know where to start.
* The laundry monster has won the right to sleep next to the bed unhindered. It doesn't even mind when I step on it to get over the bathroom. It plays well with the baby--it's actually higher than the bed, so there's no chance that she'll roll off. And if she does, she can't tell.
* The mildew in the bathroom is developing a personality. I like it better than most of my 5th period class.
* We have no money and not much in the fridge. But lots and lots of chili and a diminishing sensitivity of smell.
* To that end,I told 6 kids in my AP class that I'd buy them pizza tomorrow, if they'd voluntarily come study for the test. They seem happier about the idea than the situation warrants.
* I want to live in the land of Eiran with my characters in BITTERMOON. Their lives are very simple. There's magic, hot men, and Bethen (the mother figure) gets to knit all the time. Who wouldn't want to be in Eiran?
* The older kids managed to clean the house...sort of. I mean, really, sort of... I mean really? How well can teenagers clean a house?
* The Cave Troll has a bump on his head, the baby has chocolate on her mouth and both of them are suffering from an insane attachment to their Big Red Car. On the plus side, they're both insufferably cute.
* The baby has started putting the Cave Troll's shark puppet on her hand and waving it about going "ROOOOOWWWWRRRRRR" which is what he does to her. Did I mention they're insufferable cute?
* My best friend is here, looking like hell, because her job is as frustrating, painful, and infuriating as mine. She's a nurse.
* The sockies for the dumbass kid are almost done. She's still clueless, grumpy, and I fear for what her life will be like when she gives birth. But she will have blue booties (because she complained bitterly when I was going to do purple) for the little boy without a daddy.
* The intarsia blanket has developed a big honkin' hole when I didn't do the intarsia twist.
Okay, that's it.
I see the pattern here, and I see what needs to be done.
Screw the house, we're putting take-out on a new credit card and as soon as the booties are on, I'm casting on a pair of fingerless mitts for myself.
Screw you, impending April, I'm taking my joie d'vive back!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Lines on My Forehead...
So I was showering my day away last night, and I realized that I couldn't seem to unfreeze the stress-clench from around my forehead and neck. I would try, I would think about something pleasant and it would ease up and then suddenly I would think about the mixed messages I've been receiving from the Universe and then my forehead would get all scrunchy again...
Mixed messages you say?
Well, yeah... let's look at the following thing:
Work. I always thought that teaching was a calling, a vocation, a holy benediction from the forces that be, which has made my recent crisis of faith that much more depressing. And the Great Karmic Female Dog has been giving me definitive signs of...I don't have a clue, but they're very very big signs, trust me.
Example? Getting here on time--I've left early every day for a week in order to get here soon enough to have a prep period. Every day for a week traffic has been more snarled than swift-split-skein w/a broken yarn-winder, and I've barely made it in time for my 2nd period class, much less to take advantage of my 1st period prep. @#$%ing traffic rookies--nobody knows how to deal with the Sacto Corridors of death. But anyway, to paraphrase Mathew Broderick from LadyHawke, "I left early, Lord! How am I supposed to know what you want if you keep confusing me like this!!"
Or how about my visitors--I've had an almost continuous stream of some of my absolute favorite kids from previous years wandering in my door. The give me hugs, they tell me thank you for what I did for them when they were students, they bring tears to my eyes because I don't think anyone from this graduating class will ever love me the way that these kids do, and I don't know how else to give my students what I have to give if they don't take it with the love too. But it's a very definitive sign...of? Are they here to help me keep the faith? Are they here to tell me I've been here too long? Are they here because a big cosmic anvil is about to fall on my head and this is THEIR unfinished business and not mine?
And how about the books? I can tell I need to do something to spread 'product awareness' and I'm thinking about the web-site (well, I need two uninterrupted hours--I've mostly already signed up) but you'd think if my sales were falling I could (as I've often done before) just kick back, say "It's an interesting hobby." And let the numbers fall where they will. And just about the time I was ready to completely do that, I got another 5 star review, which included a plea to the universe at large for a publisher to pick me up and help me out. I mean, C'mon, Oh Holy and Fickle Darlin', what are Ya trying to tell me here!!!!
And knitting? Okay--the signs about the knitting are the only glacially pellucid things about the world at large, and I'm going to quote Coach Susan just a little bit here..."I fucking hate fucking intarsia like the fucking wool plague of itchiness and moths!!!!" (Well, most of that was me...but she did contribute the swear words...) So I'm doing stars, right, and I'm getting to be not quite so young with not quite so young eyesight and the little tiny fucking squares are like smaller than the points on your double otts, and so I do a little bit of guesswork as I complete the stars and it's not until I get about midway through the second one that I realize that the goddamned motherfucking stars are NOT symmetrical...there IS no "well, if I go in one here I go in one here..." NOOOOOOOO because that would make too much sense and HEAVEN FORBID I'm reading an intarsia pattern written for a fighter pilot (with the 10/10 vision, right?) and the pattern of little tiny fly-shit squares makes some fucking sense!!!!
So I stop thinking about the fucking blanket in the shower, and suddenly, half my forehead wrinkles disappear. And I may be terminally confused in every other big thing in my life--including childcare which I'll bitch about tomorrow--but on this one fiber-related thing I have absolutely no doubt.
I'll be damned if I'm ripping that fucker back.
Mixed messages you say?
Well, yeah... let's look at the following thing:
Work. I always thought that teaching was a calling, a vocation, a holy benediction from the forces that be, which has made my recent crisis of faith that much more depressing. And the Great Karmic Female Dog has been giving me definitive signs of...I don't have a clue, but they're very very big signs, trust me.
Example? Getting here on time--I've left early every day for a week in order to get here soon enough to have a prep period. Every day for a week traffic has been more snarled than swift-split-skein w/a broken yarn-winder, and I've barely made it in time for my 2nd period class, much less to take advantage of my 1st period prep. @#$%ing traffic rookies--nobody knows how to deal with the Sacto Corridors of death. But anyway, to paraphrase Mathew Broderick from LadyHawke, "I left early, Lord! How am I supposed to know what you want if you keep confusing me like this!!"
Or how about my visitors--I've had an almost continuous stream of some of my absolute favorite kids from previous years wandering in my door. The give me hugs, they tell me thank you for what I did for them when they were students, they bring tears to my eyes because I don't think anyone from this graduating class will ever love me the way that these kids do, and I don't know how else to give my students what I have to give if they don't take it with the love too. But it's a very definitive sign...of? Are they here to help me keep the faith? Are they here to tell me I've been here too long? Are they here because a big cosmic anvil is about to fall on my head and this is THEIR unfinished business and not mine?
And how about the books? I can tell I need to do something to spread 'product awareness' and I'm thinking about the web-site (well, I need two uninterrupted hours--I've mostly already signed up) but you'd think if my sales were falling I could (as I've often done before) just kick back, say "It's an interesting hobby." And let the numbers fall where they will. And just about the time I was ready to completely do that, I got another 5 star review, which included a plea to the universe at large for a publisher to pick me up and help me out. I mean, C'mon, Oh Holy and Fickle Darlin', what are Ya trying to tell me here!!!!
And knitting? Okay--the signs about the knitting are the only glacially pellucid things about the world at large, and I'm going to quote Coach Susan just a little bit here..."I fucking hate fucking intarsia like the fucking wool plague of itchiness and moths!!!!" (Well, most of that was me...but she did contribute the swear words...) So I'm doing stars, right, and I'm getting to be not quite so young with not quite so young eyesight and the little tiny fucking squares are like smaller than the points on your double otts, and so I do a little bit of guesswork as I complete the stars and it's not until I get about midway through the second one that I realize that the goddamned motherfucking stars are NOT symmetrical...there IS no "well, if I go in one here I go in one here..." NOOOOOOOO because that would make too much sense and HEAVEN FORBID I'm reading an intarsia pattern written for a fighter pilot (with the 10/10 vision, right?) and the pattern of little tiny fly-shit squares makes some fucking sense!!!!
So I stop thinking about the fucking blanket in the shower, and suddenly, half my forehead wrinkles disappear. And I may be terminally confused in every other big thing in my life--including childcare which I'll bitch about tomorrow--but on this one fiber-related thing I have absolutely no doubt.
I'll be damned if I'm ripping that fucker back.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Randomonium...
(Thank you, Scooby Doo Two...)
Anyway, thanks everybody for the wonderful suggestions--I'm thinking I'm going to do a website, and thanks to Catie's excellent ideas, I'm going to put some of my older short stories on it. (And thanks for LIR, who, bless her, sent me an cool idea for setting up my own web-site. Let's see how I can *&^%up something that's supposed to be supposedly very simple, yes?)
We took Ladybug and the Cave Troll to see the Wiggles last night at Arco Arena--it was a lot of fun, although the Cave Troll spent a lot of time with his 'potato face' on--he was all eyes, and not a lot of dancing. Didn't matter--he was enchanted through the whole thing, and loved the crap, I mean souvenirs that I bought him...well, my plan was to buy one for him and one for his sister, but he loved the light wand, and much to my surprise, appropriated the Dorothy the Dinosaur. I went (because we ARE made of money when at such events) and bought a Big Red Car for him to have instead of Dorothy the Dinosaur, but he eyed it speculatively, ran it over his leg to see if the (stuffed) wheels actually work, and then gave it to his sister, because he didn't like it as much as Dorothy, and, hello, he can talk and that gives him the advantage.
We left the older kids alone, with the following admonition: "Lock the doors, don't answer the phone unless it's us, Auntie Wendy, or Grandma and Grandpa, and don't open the door for anyone but Auntie Wendy, Grandma or Grandpa, or that ax wielding psychopath I e-mailed about you guys being home alone."
"Mom, there aren't that many ax wielding psychopaths--but there are a lot of gang members three blocks down, and we won't let them in either."
Good. I"m glad they're up on both their sarcasm and on their zeitgeist... they're coming along nicely on the whole.
For that matter, so is the uber-bright baby blanket...fucking intarsia. Seriously...(and did you notice that blogger doesn't think 'intarsia' is a word? Whose entrails do we have to turn into potholders to get a little zeit-fucking-geisty respect around here?) cotton intarsia. Who put the hallucinogens in the chamomile-lavender air-freshener, folks--what in the hell was I thinking?
And, while I'm bitching about my 'sane' hobby (as opposed to writing, which mostly just makes me an exposed nerve bundle, ready to hit the ceiling at the slightest hint of carpet static) I need to add, I'm on my LAST pair of baby socks for a while. They're for a student, and I feel that they are forcing me to violate that whole knitters code of ethics that says we knit love into every stitch. All I can think as I knit is "Dumbass kid, dumbass kid, dumbass kid..." I actually LIKE this kid--I think it's just that A. She is 16, skinny as a rail, and looks, simply, like she swallowed a basketball by mistake--and envy is a dirty little monkey riding my back, B. She's really not very bright, and I worry about them when they're like that with children--life's just harder that way and C.I'm starting to really dig this yarn and I want to work on a project with it for MY family, sometime AFTER the second try at socks for my Aunt's b-day (the one in Sept., where the SOCK got stolen w/my purse) and AFTER I actually use Julie's sock yarn which I'm rapidly falling into a severe case of unrequited ardor with. I just want to work on shit for myself, now is that so very wrong?
But other than that, things are also very right--I've got time to go Target shopping without the children (thanks to a minimum day) and I just enjoyed lunch with grown-ups...I mean, it's almost criminal, how much the Goddess is gifting me with today, and heavens forbid I should waste it. That, and it's looking like rain--Spring is not nearly so cruel when it rains.
Anyway, thanks everybody for the wonderful suggestions--I'm thinking I'm going to do a website, and thanks to Catie's excellent ideas, I'm going to put some of my older short stories on it. (And thanks for LIR, who, bless her, sent me an cool idea for setting up my own web-site. Let's see how I can *&^%up something that's supposed to be supposedly very simple, yes?)
We took Ladybug and the Cave Troll to see the Wiggles last night at Arco Arena--it was a lot of fun, although the Cave Troll spent a lot of time with his 'potato face' on--he was all eyes, and not a lot of dancing. Didn't matter--he was enchanted through the whole thing, and loved the crap, I mean souvenirs that I bought him...well, my plan was to buy one for him and one for his sister, but he loved the light wand, and much to my surprise, appropriated the Dorothy the Dinosaur. I went (because we ARE made of money when at such events) and bought a Big Red Car for him to have instead of Dorothy the Dinosaur, but he eyed it speculatively, ran it over his leg to see if the (stuffed) wheels actually work, and then gave it to his sister, because he didn't like it as much as Dorothy, and, hello, he can talk and that gives him the advantage.
We left the older kids alone, with the following admonition: "Lock the doors, don't answer the phone unless it's us, Auntie Wendy, or Grandma and Grandpa, and don't open the door for anyone but Auntie Wendy, Grandma or Grandpa, or that ax wielding psychopath I e-mailed about you guys being home alone."
"Mom, there aren't that many ax wielding psychopaths--but there are a lot of gang members three blocks down, and we won't let them in either."
Good. I"m glad they're up on both their sarcasm and on their zeitgeist... they're coming along nicely on the whole.
For that matter, so is the uber-bright baby blanket...fucking intarsia. Seriously...(and did you notice that blogger doesn't think 'intarsia' is a word? Whose entrails do we have to turn into potholders to get a little zeit-fucking-geisty respect around here?) cotton intarsia. Who put the hallucinogens in the chamomile-lavender air-freshener, folks--what in the hell was I thinking?
And, while I'm bitching about my 'sane' hobby (as opposed to writing, which mostly just makes me an exposed nerve bundle, ready to hit the ceiling at the slightest hint of carpet static) I need to add, I'm on my LAST pair of baby socks for a while. They're for a student, and I feel that they are forcing me to violate that whole knitters code of ethics that says we knit love into every stitch. All I can think as I knit is "Dumbass kid, dumbass kid, dumbass kid..." I actually LIKE this kid--I think it's just that A. She is 16, skinny as a rail, and looks, simply, like she swallowed a basketball by mistake--and envy is a dirty little monkey riding my back, B. She's really not very bright, and I worry about them when they're like that with children--life's just harder that way and C.I'm starting to really dig this yarn and I want to work on a project with it for MY family, sometime AFTER the second try at socks for my Aunt's b-day (the one in Sept., where the SOCK got stolen w/my purse) and AFTER I actually use Julie's sock yarn which I'm rapidly falling into a severe case of unrequited ardor with. I just want to work on shit for myself, now is that so very wrong?
But other than that, things are also very right--I've got time to go Target shopping without the children (thanks to a minimum day) and I just enjoyed lunch with grown-ups...I mean, it's almost criminal, how much the Goddess is gifting me with today, and heavens forbid I should waste it. That, and it's looking like rain--Spring is not nearly so cruel when it rains.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Italian on the Patio
We went to my grandparents today to celebrate my grandmother's birthday--it was a nice day, although I felt like quite the slacker--my aunts and uncle handled everything from my mother's transportation to Olive Garden take-out on their porch. All I had to do was show up and let the kids be cute--wow, that was a stretch!!!
It's hard in a way, because the Time Bitch has been very busy among my grandparents--I mean, if I'm pushing 40 fast and they didn't marry until right after WWII, well, I have no idea how old they are, but I have such a different picture in my head. Grandma was always this stunning and small Italian woman--very graceful and commanding at once. That's what I see in my head when I look at her, and my eyes are always surprised that she doesn't look like what I remember from when I was thirteen. Grandpa too--you had to see pictures of the both of them in their youth, but grandpa was drop dead gorgeous--a photographer (and we've always suspected, a spy) in WII and Korea he's survived 5 precocious children, four plane crashes, and is on his second brain tumor. The Time Bitch again--she just won't leave a handsome young couple be. (I really wish she'd leave Grandpa's ears alone, too, because mine are going to be just like them when I'm older, and they're going to start flapping one day and take him away from all this, I just know it.) Mate, being perhaps the best Mate in the world, let me socialize and he, holding Adorable Infant, sat himself across from the grandparents and let them look at her. Grandpa had four daughters...he's drawn to a baby girl the way a baby girl is attracted to a kitty cat, and I think it did his heart good to look his fill.
Anyway...must change subject before I get too melancholy--some people do that in the fall, but my melancholy season is spring...don't know why...maybe I'm just perverse that way. But, change the subject I will...
Roxie asked me what I was knitting--it's the stars and moon baby blanket from the Zoe Mellor book--I sort of amped up the colors a little bit, because I just can't do blue on blue on blue. I like it, but I was right about hating intarsia like the fucking rainbow plague of rabid death by the time I was done. Man--I could have had it so easy...I had this lovely, expensive acryllic yarn that (get this) self-stripes...I could have done a feather and fan and been over it by now, but nooooo...I had to ask Mate's opinion, and then privately agree with him, and then not complain about "Crap-all, is it not like I have enough to freakin' do?" I'm a moron--everybody agrees I'm a moron!!
A friend called me up today--she was so adorable, I couldn't hardly stand it--she wanted me to look over her letter of inquiry and one-page synopsis to present her completed mansucript to a book agent. I was so tickled--I mean, it's not like I've had ANY luck at all in that department--and I just sent something out last week, too. They're supposed to have a one week turnaround--who wants to start the betting pool for when I hear back. I get dibbs on "If Ever!"
I was going to post pictures, but blogger is not responding (ShhhhhoccccckkkkkkkEEERRRRR!!!!) Anyway, I've got a question for anybody with an answer...
I'm thinking of new, effortless ways to promo the books...Lady in Red is willing to help me with a web site (since Mate has sort of decided his job as a Troll Druid named Marsha is needed to advance the Horde Interests in the Burning Crusade) but other than that, I need something that will take zero money and less time... I'm starting to feel self-conscious about making amazon.com lists...I mean, I wasn't exactly (I know this is hard to tell by the amount of them) all excited about self-promotion in the first place...but...well...I'm stumped. I mean, self-promotion is something that sort of needs to be done gracefully, and you may or may not have noticed, NOTHING about me, either in print or in life or even in yarn, is particularly graceful. I swear to the twin gods of compassion and honor and the Goddess of joy, taking my books and walking them into the local used book store pretty much used up all of my fronting chutzpah for this span of months. But on the other hand, I have the feeling more people would read my books if they knew about them, and I'm rapidly losing faith in that whole "legitimate world of publishing" chimera that most writers spend their time chasing...
So I don't know. And it's not even that I hate my job so much anymore...(I don't...I'm starting to rev up some enthusiasm for it, in fact...even if they take AP away from me, well, it could have been done better on everybody's part, but, seriously, like I need one more freakin' stress-meatball on my pasta-plate of wackiness, really. Besides. I still know I'm the best person for the job.) It's just that I'm finally getting a little faith in myself...just a little. I'm finally getting some faith that my writing has resonance and reason and rhyme and all that shit that makes reading someone worthwhile. Maybe it's the writer's holy grail to share that wine of philosophical immortality with the world. Don't quote me on that--I don't want to remember that I ever said anything that pompous, ever.
But if you have any ideas, let me know.
It's hard in a way, because the Time Bitch has been very busy among my grandparents--I mean, if I'm pushing 40 fast and they didn't marry until right after WWII, well, I have no idea how old they are, but I have such a different picture in my head. Grandma was always this stunning and small Italian woman--very graceful and commanding at once. That's what I see in my head when I look at her, and my eyes are always surprised that she doesn't look like what I remember from when I was thirteen. Grandpa too--you had to see pictures of the both of them in their youth, but grandpa was drop dead gorgeous--a photographer (and we've always suspected, a spy) in WII and Korea he's survived 5 precocious children, four plane crashes, and is on his second brain tumor. The Time Bitch again--she just won't leave a handsome young couple be. (I really wish she'd leave Grandpa's ears alone, too, because mine are going to be just like them when I'm older, and they're going to start flapping one day and take him away from all this, I just know it.) Mate, being perhaps the best Mate in the world, let me socialize and he, holding Adorable Infant, sat himself across from the grandparents and let them look at her. Grandpa had four daughters...he's drawn to a baby girl the way a baby girl is attracted to a kitty cat, and I think it did his heart good to look his fill.
Anyway...must change subject before I get too melancholy--some people do that in the fall, but my melancholy season is spring...don't know why...maybe I'm just perverse that way. But, change the subject I will...
Roxie asked me what I was knitting--it's the stars and moon baby blanket from the Zoe Mellor book--I sort of amped up the colors a little bit, because I just can't do blue on blue on blue. I like it, but I was right about hating intarsia like the fucking rainbow plague of rabid death by the time I was done. Man--I could have had it so easy...I had this lovely, expensive acryllic yarn that (get this) self-stripes...I could have done a feather and fan and been over it by now, but nooooo...I had to ask Mate's opinion, and then privately agree with him, and then not complain about "Crap-all, is it not like I have enough to freakin' do?" I'm a moron--everybody agrees I'm a moron!!
A friend called me up today--she was so adorable, I couldn't hardly stand it--she wanted me to look over her letter of inquiry and one-page synopsis to present her completed mansucript to a book agent. I was so tickled--I mean, it's not like I've had ANY luck at all in that department--and I just sent something out last week, too. They're supposed to have a one week turnaround--who wants to start the betting pool for when I hear back. I get dibbs on "If Ever!"
I was going to post pictures, but blogger is not responding (ShhhhhoccccckkkkkkkEEERRRRR!!!!) Anyway, I've got a question for anybody with an answer...
I'm thinking of new, effortless ways to promo the books...Lady in Red is willing to help me with a web site (since Mate has sort of decided his job as a Troll Druid named Marsha is needed to advance the Horde Interests in the Burning Crusade) but other than that, I need something that will take zero money and less time... I'm starting to feel self-conscious about making amazon.com lists...I mean, I wasn't exactly (I know this is hard to tell by the amount of them) all excited about self-promotion in the first place...but...well...I'm stumped. I mean, self-promotion is something that sort of needs to be done gracefully, and you may or may not have noticed, NOTHING about me, either in print or in life or even in yarn, is particularly graceful. I swear to the twin gods of compassion and honor and the Goddess of joy, taking my books and walking them into the local used book store pretty much used up all of my fronting chutzpah for this span of months. But on the other hand, I have the feeling more people would read my books if they knew about them, and I'm rapidly losing faith in that whole "legitimate world of publishing" chimera that most writers spend their time chasing...
So I don't know. And it's not even that I hate my job so much anymore...(I don't...I'm starting to rev up some enthusiasm for it, in fact...even if they take AP away from me, well, it could have been done better on everybody's part, but, seriously, like I need one more freakin' stress-meatball on my pasta-plate of wackiness, really. Besides. I still know I'm the best person for the job.) It's just that I'm finally getting a little faith in myself...just a little. I'm finally getting some faith that my writing has resonance and reason and rhyme and all that shit that makes reading someone worthwhile. Maybe it's the writer's holy grail to share that wine of philosophical immortality with the world. Don't quote me on that--I don't want to remember that I ever said anything that pompous, ever.
But if you have any ideas, let me know.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Dennis Quaid You Asshole...
Julie I need to keep my cat away from the computer--the fuckers are conspiring against us.
Roxie managed to write perfectly torrid poetry about flowers...I'll never look at my daffodils again, and a garden is going to make me down-right het up.
And although Rae's DD probably won for best 'ism' (especially because hers got her in the doc's office) Kewyn had another one on the way home today. We were on the way home and I gave the Cave Troll a chocolate chip cookie...he got chocolate on his arm and started to demand I clean it off from the backseat. "My arm, mom! Fix my arm! It's BROKEN!!!"
Crunchy, chewy, or extra crispy?
How would you like your air quality today?
A railroad trestle in our area went up in a spectacular conflagration yesterday--the news footage was truly arresting--it was like a little slice of hell had opened up in an inter-dimensional rift and we could see into the heart of chaos. The result this morning was that as I was driving into work I could see a big black cloud of creosote-smoke spreading over the value like the cloak of Satan himself.
Fucker. I hope the devil enjoys himself today, because if I see him in person I'm going to sneeze all over him and cover him in snot-covered kleenex.
In other news tonight... Mate (we finally had a moment of zen...if that's what they're calling it these days...) has fixed me up with a phone...it's very cool. In fact, it's way too cool for me. I will have to have one of my students fix it up so that it is less boring and old, because right now, I look at it like you'd look at the control panel of an alien space ship--I'm supposed to press what? Really? It'll do that? Get OUT! No, seriously, get out of the freaking space ship because if I have to run this thing it'll crash like my fucking work computer--I know these things don't like me and that's a fact.
Did I give Haylo a shout out last time? No? I should have--I went to her profile page, and although she hasn't blogged yet--she needs to. For one thing there is a perfectly adorable picture of a little one that I assume is hers on the profile page and since I'm blogging from work w/o pictures, we need more cute kid pictures to sate our jones... let's see the adorable little ones--I personally live for that!!!
And I may go home tonight and post a picture that shows that Sekhmet and Dennis Quaid my cat are in cahoots to take over the world. It's only a matter of time and the right kibble...
Oh...one more Kewynism--
I was driving home yesterday, and as, per ritual, we stopped at McDonalds (they know my order now--one milk, for mom, one chocolate milk--with a straw--for Cave Troll, one diet coke, for mom, and a happy meal toy--for Cave Troll AND Ladybug. Occasionally there's some cookies or a snack wrap.) When Cave Troll hasn't eaten yet (he's usually had dinner by 4:30) I'll get him some fries to tide him over for dinner--but that doesn't happen very often.
Apparently it should have happened yesterday.
"Mama...where's my fries?"
"I didn't get you any fries, sweetie--we're going home to dinner."
"Whhhhyyyyyy mama...why....whhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyy mama...no fries...no frrrrrrriiiiiiiiieeeesssss....."
Needless to say, I practically cut across four lanes of traffic to get off the freeway and get to the next McD's to get the poor little waif his fries... wait, wait...actually, I just stopped at the next one I saw at the way home, but either way, it was the heartrending "Whhhhhhhyyyyyyyy no FRRRRIIIIIIIIEEEEESSSSSS" that 'bout killed me. What kind of parent am I, anyway? (According to the zeitgeist of public service announcements, apparently I'm a sucky one who stops at McDonalds every day. Sorry. I apologize for spreading my fat to my offspring. So sorry. Forgive me.)
Anyway--"Why no fries"--add it to your Cave Troll posters, people...it was priceless.
A railroad trestle in our area went up in a spectacular conflagration yesterday--the news footage was truly arresting--it was like a little slice of hell had opened up in an inter-dimensional rift and we could see into the heart of chaos. The result this morning was that as I was driving into work I could see a big black cloud of creosote-smoke spreading over the value like the cloak of Satan himself.
Fucker. I hope the devil enjoys himself today, because if I see him in person I'm going to sneeze all over him and cover him in snot-covered kleenex.
In other news tonight... Mate (we finally had a moment of zen...if that's what they're calling it these days...) has fixed me up with a phone...it's very cool. In fact, it's way too cool for me. I will have to have one of my students fix it up so that it is less boring and old, because right now, I look at it like you'd look at the control panel of an alien space ship--I'm supposed to press what? Really? It'll do that? Get OUT! No, seriously, get out of the freaking space ship because if I have to run this thing it'll crash like my fucking work computer--I know these things don't like me and that's a fact.
Did I give Haylo a shout out last time? No? I should have--I went to her profile page, and although she hasn't blogged yet--she needs to. For one thing there is a perfectly adorable picture of a little one that I assume is hers on the profile page and since I'm blogging from work w/o pictures, we need more cute kid pictures to sate our jones... let's see the adorable little ones--I personally live for that!!!
And I may go home tonight and post a picture that shows that Sekhmet and Dennis Quaid my cat are in cahoots to take over the world. It's only a matter of time and the right kibble...
Oh...one more Kewynism--
I was driving home yesterday, and as, per ritual, we stopped at McDonalds (they know my order now--one milk, for mom, one chocolate milk--with a straw--for Cave Troll, one diet coke, for mom, and a happy meal toy--for Cave Troll AND Ladybug. Occasionally there's some cookies or a snack wrap.) When Cave Troll hasn't eaten yet (he's usually had dinner by 4:30) I'll get him some fries to tide him over for dinner--but that doesn't happen very often.
Apparently it should have happened yesterday.
"Mama...where's my fries?"
"I didn't get you any fries, sweetie--we're going home to dinner."
"Whhhhyyyyyy mama...why....whhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyy mama...no fries...no frrrrrrriiiiiiiiieeeesssss....."
Needless to say, I practically cut across four lanes of traffic to get off the freeway and get to the next McD's to get the poor little waif his fries... wait, wait...actually, I just stopped at the next one I saw at the way home, but either way, it was the heartrending "Whhhhhhhyyyyyyyy no FRRRRIIIIIIIIEEEEESSSSSS" that 'bout killed me. What kind of parent am I, anyway? (According to the zeitgeist of public service announcements, apparently I'm a sucky one who stops at McDonalds every day. Sorry. I apologize for spreading my fat to my offspring. So sorry. Forgive me.)
Anyway--"Why no fries"--add it to your Cave Troll posters, people...it was priceless.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
*sigh* No Mate For Me...
The picture is for the hell of it. She really is adorable, and I had to share.
Mate is working late tonight after a softball game last night and crap-all I don't remember during the weekend and...
And I miss my Mate. For those of you reading BOUND, I am much like Cory when Green is gone... a part of me is missing if I don't have Mate to help bear me up. He reports the same feeling, but sometimes I doubt it--Mate never seems to be a neurotic mess when we don't have contact time.
Anyway...
Some good news from Catie who told me that my book is actually being e-marketed by amazon when you order a similar book. That was awesome--I honestly didn't think they did that for the little guy:-)
We're having a series of meetings in our school for the "Achievement Gap"--this is extremely irritating--I have a long list of peeves both terrible and petty about what's wrong with our education system here in California, and assigning teachers the brunt of the 'Achievement Gap' blame is only part of it. I do get to knit during meetings, though, and I have apparently been converting people to the dark side, because one of the people from our once a week Yarn Thing (which is a part of my self-actualized plan to stop dwelling in the mildly misogynistic staff room nearest my classroom because it makes me go to another part of the campus where women live) was crocheting during the meeting. Huzzah for Yarn Thing--we WILL take over the world.
And...oh, wait...this was cool--I finished that pair of mittens. Do I have pictures? No. My learning curve is decidely un-curvy. But the student LOVED THEM, and I felt pretty damned good about myself. Have I mentioned I'm easy?
Oh, yeah--the Cave Troll has a list of instructions for us, one and all. You know one of them ("Don't squish my nuts, mom!") but I thought I'd add to the list.
"Don't pee on the bed."
"Look at the horse. Look at the horse now!!!"
"Say 'you're welcome'. NOW mom, say 'you're welcome'!"
"Don't suck on my straw." (When I'm trying to drain his chocolate milk after he's finished it off so it doesn't get all over the car.)
and this next one, which is second only to "Don't squish my nuts" on the cute factor. We figured he got it when we were trying to catch Arwyn before she got to the cat box and started trolling for kitty-roca:
"Don't eat the poop!"
Monday, March 12, 2007
Must...stay...awake...
So the Cave Troll went down for a nap yesterday--on accident, on me, while watching television at 4:00pm in the afternoon. He woke up (after sleeping in the chaos that is our living room with 3 other children bopping around and the dog and the cat and a guest and mom bitching at people to clean the damned living room) at 7:00.
He didn't get back to sleep until 12:30 a.m..
It would be an understatement to say I am trashed, destroyed, annihilated, void of any personality whatsoever... the students know it too...they circle around, scent blood and go in for the kill...it's days like these when I wish I taught kindergarten and could go down w/the kiddies for a nap!!
Bleahhhhccchchhh!
But, on other news...
A shout out to Karen, who gave me a very nice review for VULNERABLE... and at a very propitious time, as well! I drove to a local used book store... (Well, it was one suburb over--does that make it local or does that make me desperate? Don't answer.) and asked them if they would want to carry my books. The first thing the owner did was hop on the computer, check amazon.com and say "You have 4 1/2 stars on the first one--we'll put that over your display!" I was sort of dumbfounded. I had no idea they would do that--it was both cool and frightening in the same breath. I MUST give my manuscript to LIR next year before publishing--she's already spotted some typos in BOUND, and if she can spot them, while she's reading in the middle of a midget militia training session for Camp Chaos (Read: a three year old and a newborn!) then I think she's a keeper!!
And, just for fun...
On the way back from the book store, the Cave Troll and our Ladybug were cracking each other up--I couldn't see what they were doing but the Family Crapmobile was just to the rafters with chortles of pre-verbal glee. "What are they doing?" I asked Chicken, who turned around, checked out the goings on and replied, "He's making her hit herself, mom."
I immediately smacked her on the back of the head. "This is your fault!" I hollered, "You and your brother have been playing this same damned game since you were five!!!
She tagged me back. "Mooooooooommmmmm, Dad's the one who taught it to us!!!!"
I love my family.
He didn't get back to sleep until 12:30 a.m..
It would be an understatement to say I am trashed, destroyed, annihilated, void of any personality whatsoever... the students know it too...they circle around, scent blood and go in for the kill...it's days like these when I wish I taught kindergarten and could go down w/the kiddies for a nap!!
Bleahhhhccchchhh!
But, on other news...
A shout out to Karen, who gave me a very nice review for VULNERABLE... and at a very propitious time, as well! I drove to a local used book store... (Well, it was one suburb over--does that make it local or does that make me desperate? Don't answer.) and asked them if they would want to carry my books. The first thing the owner did was hop on the computer, check amazon.com and say "You have 4 1/2 stars on the first one--we'll put that over your display!" I was sort of dumbfounded. I had no idea they would do that--it was both cool and frightening in the same breath. I MUST give my manuscript to LIR next year before publishing--she's already spotted some typos in BOUND, and if she can spot them, while she's reading in the middle of a midget militia training session for Camp Chaos (Read: a three year old and a newborn!) then I think she's a keeper!!
And, just for fun...
On the way back from the book store, the Cave Troll and our Ladybug were cracking each other up--I couldn't see what they were doing but the Family Crapmobile was just to the rafters with chortles of pre-verbal glee. "What are they doing?" I asked Chicken, who turned around, checked out the goings on and replied, "He's making her hit herself, mom."
I immediately smacked her on the back of the head. "This is your fault!" I hollered, "You and your brother have been playing this same damned game since you were five!!!
She tagged me back. "Mooooooooommmmmm, Dad's the one who taught it to us!!!!"
I love my family.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
What's another word for random?
Okay, first of all, I just downloaded a bunch of pictures from my camera, including a bunch that I'm not going to post because they're my students, and it's one thing to humiliate your own offspring on the net, but these guys aren't obligated by blood. I had the camera in my bag from T's show (another story...I'll get there) and when I realized it, I pulled it out and started taking pictures of my 5th and 6th period. Yes THAT 5th and 6th period.
"What are ya doin', Ms. Lane?" They asked.
"I'm taking pictures."
"So you have a reason to quit, right?"
"No--cause I sort of like you guys right now, and next summer when I don't want to leave my little ones, I can look at these pictures when I like you guys and remind myself why I'm here."
"That is the biggest pile of shit we've ever heard."
"Nevertheless, it's true."
Well, it made me feel better anyway.
Now, on with the rest of my week...
So, after the Course Faire thing (and going out w/LIR afterwards--which was awesome btw...me, another adult, conversation, and no children...damn and damn, it was like winning the lottery) I was pretty wiped on Thursday...I mean, eyes fluttering at stoplights tired, and I got home and sat down and after about 15 minutes of waking coma thought, "Wow. Matt's got Bryar at her special dance lessons (special ed for dancers--yup folks, thems my genes all right...) and all I have to do tonight is wash dishes, wrangle up some dinner, and stress because CSI's in reruns...awesome!" And that was when it happened. Big T comes up and says "Hey mom--don't forget I have to be at the school at 6:15 to get in costume..." (I must have looked blank for a moment) "You know--my Seventies Revival Play?"
*SIGH* "Yeah, baby, I remember...let me pack some snacks for the babies and we'll be ready to roll."
Friday made Thursday look like a walk in the park in the sunshine.
And on top of other wierdness...
I've been almost late three times this week for (drum roll please...) TURKEYS!!!
Yes... there's a flock (a gaggle, a pack, or a herd?) of turkeys in our neighborhood, and they've been at the intersection right by my house, doing turkey things, and they've been blocking traffic. I mean...for ten or so minutes. There's (fortunately) not a lot of cars at this intersection, but I sat and knit for five minutes until the cocks stopped trying to prove their manliness by charging my car and then after I'd edged my way between the northbound turkeys and the southbound turkeys I looked behind me at the impatient person in the silver Somenewbrandofcar and realized that she thought she'd get REALLY cute and WEAVE around the turkeys. The result in my rearview mirror was that she was stuck, kitty corner across both lanes of traffic, and the boy turkeys were charging her car. Yeah, you can't make this shit up.
And in other random news? The adorable infant has reached the age where she's like a highly powered supermagnet-- when you walk by something she wants, your arms raise, your body changes course and her hands latch on and CATCH on whatever she's interested in. It's an interesting age...babies don't know about leverage, and how many times they're standing on your head while you sit on the couch that they almost eat it because they've grabbed the back of the couch and LEVERAGED their way up and into peril. Damn, she's quick, she's smart, and she makes one hell of a high powered supermagnet...I love this age!!!
And other than that? A shout out to SilverPixie (whom I've not met, but she likes my book, so I'm a fan!!) and my 3rd review... I'm feeling okay on the book front...BOUND seems to be really un-sucky, and I sent out a book packet today (which will, of course, be ignored, but it's the optimism that counts-:-) And BITTERMOON is breaking my heart...I'm looking forward to it!
Well...I was trying for pictures of ubercuteness w/the adorable infant, but we're not loading as we should, so we'll try again tomorrow...
And isn't that the lesson for the day?
"What are ya doin', Ms. Lane?" They asked.
"I'm taking pictures."
"So you have a reason to quit, right?"
"No--cause I sort of like you guys right now, and next summer when I don't want to leave my little ones, I can look at these pictures when I like you guys and remind myself why I'm here."
"That is the biggest pile of shit we've ever heard."
"Nevertheless, it's true."
Well, it made me feel better anyway.
Now, on with the rest of my week...
So, after the Course Faire thing (and going out w/LIR afterwards--which was awesome btw...me, another adult, conversation, and no children...damn and damn, it was like winning the lottery) I was pretty wiped on Thursday...I mean, eyes fluttering at stoplights tired, and I got home and sat down and after about 15 minutes of waking coma thought, "Wow. Matt's got Bryar at her special dance lessons (special ed for dancers--yup folks, thems my genes all right...) and all I have to do tonight is wash dishes, wrangle up some dinner, and stress because CSI's in reruns...awesome!" And that was when it happened. Big T comes up and says "Hey mom--don't forget I have to be at the school at 6:15 to get in costume..." (I must have looked blank for a moment) "You know--my Seventies Revival Play?"
*SIGH* "Yeah, baby, I remember...let me pack some snacks for the babies and we'll be ready to roll."
Friday made Thursday look like a walk in the park in the sunshine.
And on top of other wierdness...
I've been almost late three times this week for (drum roll please...) TURKEYS!!!
Yes... there's a flock (a gaggle, a pack, or a herd?) of turkeys in our neighborhood, and they've been at the intersection right by my house, doing turkey things, and they've been blocking traffic. I mean...for ten or so minutes. There's (fortunately) not a lot of cars at this intersection, but I sat and knit for five minutes until the cocks stopped trying to prove their manliness by charging my car and then after I'd edged my way between the northbound turkeys and the southbound turkeys I looked behind me at the impatient person in the silver Somenewbrandofcar and realized that she thought she'd get REALLY cute and WEAVE around the turkeys. The result in my rearview mirror was that she was stuck, kitty corner across both lanes of traffic, and the boy turkeys were charging her car. Yeah, you can't make this shit up.
And in other random news? The adorable infant has reached the age where she's like a highly powered supermagnet-- when you walk by something she wants, your arms raise, your body changes course and her hands latch on and CATCH on whatever she's interested in. It's an interesting age...babies don't know about leverage, and how many times they're standing on your head while you sit on the couch that they almost eat it because they've grabbed the back of the couch and LEVERAGED their way up and into peril. Damn, she's quick, she's smart, and she makes one hell of a high powered supermagnet...I love this age!!!
And other than that? A shout out to SilverPixie (whom I've not met, but she likes my book, so I'm a fan!!) and my 3rd review... I'm feeling okay on the book front...BOUND seems to be really un-sucky, and I sent out a book packet today (which will, of course, be ignored, but it's the optimism that counts-:-) And BITTERMOON is breaking my heart...I'm looking forward to it!
Well...I was trying for pictures of ubercuteness w/the adorable infant, but we're not loading as we should, so we'll try again tomorrow...
And isn't that the lesson for the day?
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Talk about a Fibergasm...
I have an aid in my 2nd period class who often brings her crocheting with her if we're doing seat work. I showed her how to do edgings at the beginning of the year, and she's really been taking off with it--I told her that today, and she laughed... "Yeah...it was like learning a different position!" I laughed long and hard...
On the work front, we had this "Course Fair" last night where the kids and parents and teachers sort of schmooze and the kids turn in their schedules--most of the time I dread these things like the plague, but, as it turned out, it wasn't bad--I got to meet some of my favorite kids and talk to some teachers I don't usually talk to--all in all, a success!
To that end, I'm finally pulling myself (a little) out of my "I hate my job" funk...it's taken some blow-ups w/colleagues and the following (welcome) reconciliations, most of which are my fault (both the blow-ups and the reconciliations) because, you may have noticed, I've been sort of a walking exposed nerve this school year, and I vent about everything frequently. Of course the problem with venting (and wallowing--everybody fess up, I do wallow on occasion) is that sometimes it lets us (read me) forget that we (read 'me') actually, mostly, like the people we (read 'I') work with. Anyway--one of the best parts of my evening was meeting w/our District Librarian--she's one of those wonderful, outgoing, positive forces in the Universe and she asked me how I was doing. "M...eh." Was my reply--being a nice person, she wanted to know what was wrong. "Oh...the usual...I vented negative things into the universe, and they came back and bit me on the ass..."
"Tell me about it." She interrupted. "I'm almost 57 and I can't seem to learn not to shoot my mouth off because I always regret it later."
God love her. I was beating myself over the head because I've been making that same mistake since I was 12--I have, on occasion, been accused of intelligence, and since, frankly, my learning curve in this matter has seemed abysmally un-curvy, I was at a loss as to how that perception had occurred. Seeing this wonderful woman whom I love and respect confess to the same failing...well, let's just say I felt a lot more human.
On the fiber front? I'm still stuck on this pair of mittens for a student that, quite frankly, I thought I'd be done with now...maybe it's the yarn...Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK...I think I just don't want to stop fondling it, and that's why I'm spending so long on such a little project...(mmmm...cashmerino...) I also got some of the Samurai's sock yarn...now I'm just stuck trying to figure out a project for it for me that doesn't involve socks...I love MAKING socks, and I love GIVING socks...but I have humongulous baby-be-spread feet with the ankles of a very large woman...quite frankly, the only person whom I love enough to make socks for that has feet as large as mine is my oldest son, and I owe him a pair. So I love this sock yarn, but I think it's actually screaming to me that it is really 'fingerless mitt' yarn, and I'm fine with that. As long as I get to knit me some fingerless mitts before June, if y'all are hearin' me!!!
I know I promised pictures of the adorable infant--there will be some next post, I swear... (because I'll probably be posting on a Saturday...) and she's so damned cute she makes me want to cry. (Yeah...it really needs pictures, doesn't it?) And I'm feeling some Top Sheep coming on...
And on the writing front? BITTER MOON has finally gotten it's legs... in fact, if I'm going longer between posts, it's because I'm off and running with Torrant et al, and we're having a fine old time. Eventually, we'll even get laid...but I'm editing that part out for the children:-)
On the work front, we had this "Course Fair" last night where the kids and parents and teachers sort of schmooze and the kids turn in their schedules--most of the time I dread these things like the plague, but, as it turned out, it wasn't bad--I got to meet some of my favorite kids and talk to some teachers I don't usually talk to--all in all, a success!
To that end, I'm finally pulling myself (a little) out of my "I hate my job" funk...it's taken some blow-ups w/colleagues and the following (welcome) reconciliations, most of which are my fault (both the blow-ups and the reconciliations) because, you may have noticed, I've been sort of a walking exposed nerve this school year, and I vent about everything frequently. Of course the problem with venting (and wallowing--everybody fess up, I do wallow on occasion) is that sometimes it lets us (read me) forget that we (read 'me') actually, mostly, like the people we (read 'I') work with. Anyway--one of the best parts of my evening was meeting w/our District Librarian--she's one of those wonderful, outgoing, positive forces in the Universe and she asked me how I was doing. "M...eh." Was my reply--being a nice person, she wanted to know what was wrong. "Oh...the usual...I vented negative things into the universe, and they came back and bit me on the ass..."
"Tell me about it." She interrupted. "I'm almost 57 and I can't seem to learn not to shoot my mouth off because I always regret it later."
God love her. I was beating myself over the head because I've been making that same mistake since I was 12--I have, on occasion, been accused of intelligence, and since, frankly, my learning curve in this matter has seemed abysmally un-curvy, I was at a loss as to how that perception had occurred. Seeing this wonderful woman whom I love and respect confess to the same failing...well, let's just say I felt a lot more human.
On the fiber front? I'm still stuck on this pair of mittens for a student that, quite frankly, I thought I'd be done with now...maybe it's the yarn...Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK...I think I just don't want to stop fondling it, and that's why I'm spending so long on such a little project...(mmmm...cashmerino...) I also got some of the Samurai's sock yarn...now I'm just stuck trying to figure out a project for it for me that doesn't involve socks...I love MAKING socks, and I love GIVING socks...but I have humongulous baby-be-spread feet with the ankles of a very large woman...quite frankly, the only person whom I love enough to make socks for that has feet as large as mine is my oldest son, and I owe him a pair. So I love this sock yarn, but I think it's actually screaming to me that it is really 'fingerless mitt' yarn, and I'm fine with that. As long as I get to knit me some fingerless mitts before June, if y'all are hearin' me!!!
I know I promised pictures of the adorable infant--there will be some next post, I swear... (because I'll probably be posting on a Saturday...) and she's so damned cute she makes me want to cry. (Yeah...it really needs pictures, doesn't it?) And I'm feeling some Top Sheep coming on...
And on the writing front? BITTER MOON has finally gotten it's legs... in fact, if I'm going longer between posts, it's because I'm off and running with Torrant et al, and we're having a fine old time. Eventually, we'll even get laid...but I'm editing that part out for the children:-)
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Allergy Day...
Happy allergy day--some people may know it as spring, but here in Nor Cal, people who have never had an allergy before in their lives have been known to get off a plane from Bus-Stop Metropolis and blow up like a poisoned toad with countless allergies that swell the eyes and stuff the head and make the ears and nose itch.
I swear to the twin gods of compassion and honor, that for 25 years of my life, I thought I got a spring cold every year.
Have we mentioned I'm a moron?
Anyway, speaking of moron...I think my computer graduated from a correspondence school with the short school bus as a logo. (Big T has actually ridden the short bus all his life and his sister--who is in the advanced classes--has been riding it with him for two years...it's funny how I never actually put those things together when I'm using 'short bus' as a euphemism from 'mentally retarded by sheer act of will to be totally stupid in order to piss off as many people as possible')
I have been visiting your blogs--I have. (Except for Rae's, which I visited yesterday and didn't show any posts and then I visited today and it showed three and I went ACCKKKK...poor Rae will think I don't love her any more and her week/month/2007 has been shit enough as it is!!!) But, see, here I am posting at lunch, right? Which is when I surf your blogs...and my work computer won't show me your random letters for verification (which are seeming less and less random and more and more of some sort of vicious curse in the language of the cosmos, but that's probably my own hallucinogenic paranoia brought on by fiber fumes...) so it will try to make me ENTER them, but it will not show me WHAT THEY ARE. Speaking of Cosmic Jokes? I think that right there speaks to something direly existential, that's for certain... anyway, I've loved reading the movie memes...they're a lot of fun...and I feel like an idiot (after looking at Julie's) for completely forgetting LOR (hullo, I have a daughter named Arwyn Star...really...forget Lord of the Rings?)--I guess it's because I think of them as a genre unto themselves--I could do an entire meme w/those films alone! I also think Rae is almost too hip to speak to me--she has such a wonderful, eclectic/artistic/non-mainstream taste in things! I'm not worthy, I'm really really not!
Anyway, I've been trying to go in and talk to you all at night...be advised that I frequently have tried to post like a freakin' novel and then been denied during the day, so the night comments are a little short...all in all it boils down to "Fucking Blogger..." and we'll leave it at that...
Work has been relatively friendly...considering that traffic made me late for my 1st class and then there was a whole issue about where the sophomores were supposed to be during that hour...anyway, I looked like a fool and I had no time to put my make-up on--the kids are really good at noticing when you look like shit.("Gees, Ms. Mac, you look like crap, put some make-up on." NO. I'm not kidding. That's what they say.)
And, (I'm actually more excited about this than I sound...)
*I GOT MY AUTHOR COPIES!!!*
Yes, I did the cocker spaniel peepee dance in my kitchen last night...and then my usual paranoia set in...How many typos did I actually make?
I've been thinking of spending part of my next royalty check fixing the much-publicized typos in the first edition... any thoughts on this?
And for those of you who HAVE read my books--here's a question: Have my typos gotten better in the second two books? I know they sucked large in the first--are they better now?
*phew* Well--I'm off to actually do my job...tomorrow I'll post from home because I've got some cute pictures of the adorable infant...who will be 1 year old on April 3rd... *sniff*--time does fly!
I swear to the twin gods of compassion and honor, that for 25 years of my life, I thought I got a spring cold every year.
Have we mentioned I'm a moron?
Anyway, speaking of moron...I think my computer graduated from a correspondence school with the short school bus as a logo. (Big T has actually ridden the short bus all his life and his sister--who is in the advanced classes--has been riding it with him for two years...it's funny how I never actually put those things together when I'm using 'short bus' as a euphemism from 'mentally retarded by sheer act of will to be totally stupid in order to piss off as many people as possible')
I have been visiting your blogs--I have. (Except for Rae's, which I visited yesterday and didn't show any posts and then I visited today and it showed three and I went ACCKKKK...poor Rae will think I don't love her any more and her week/month/2007 has been shit enough as it is!!!) But, see, here I am posting at lunch, right? Which is when I surf your blogs...and my work computer won't show me your random letters for verification (which are seeming less and less random and more and more of some sort of vicious curse in the language of the cosmos, but that's probably my own hallucinogenic paranoia brought on by fiber fumes...) so it will try to make me ENTER them, but it will not show me WHAT THEY ARE. Speaking of Cosmic Jokes? I think that right there speaks to something direly existential, that's for certain... anyway, I've loved reading the movie memes...they're a lot of fun...and I feel like an idiot (after looking at Julie's) for completely forgetting LOR (hullo, I have a daughter named Arwyn Star...really...forget Lord of the Rings?)--I guess it's because I think of them as a genre unto themselves--I could do an entire meme w/those films alone! I also think Rae is almost too hip to speak to me--she has such a wonderful, eclectic/artistic/non-mainstream taste in things! I'm not worthy, I'm really really not!
Anyway, I've been trying to go in and talk to you all at night...be advised that I frequently have tried to post like a freakin' novel and then been denied during the day, so the night comments are a little short...all in all it boils down to "Fucking Blogger..." and we'll leave it at that...
Work has been relatively friendly...considering that traffic made me late for my 1st class and then there was a whole issue about where the sophomores were supposed to be during that hour...anyway, I looked like a fool and I had no time to put my make-up on--the kids are really good at noticing when you look like shit.("Gees, Ms. Mac, you look like crap, put some make-up on." NO. I'm not kidding. That's what they say.)
And, (I'm actually more excited about this than I sound...)
*I GOT MY AUTHOR COPIES!!!*
Yes, I did the cocker spaniel peepee dance in my kitchen last night...and then my usual paranoia set in...How many typos did I actually make?
I've been thinking of spending part of my next royalty check fixing the much-publicized typos in the first edition... any thoughts on this?
And for those of you who HAVE read my books--here's a question: Have my typos gotten better in the second two books? I know they sucked large in the first--are they better now?
*phew* Well--I'm off to actually do my job...tomorrow I'll post from home because I've got some cute pictures of the adorable infant...who will be 1 year old on April 3rd... *sniff*--time does fly!
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Domestic moment
As I sat here, typing away, Big T lumbered in wearing his Spiderman pajama bottoms and a stained polo shirt.
"What's Cave Troll doing?" I ask distractedly.
Plod plod plod to the bedroom, plod plod plod back.
"Watching tv in your room."
"How is he?"
Plod plod plod to the bedroom, plod plod plod back.
"Naked."
"How naked?"
Plod plod plod to the bedroom, plod plod plod back.
"Half naked."
Uh oh. "Which half?"
Plod plod plod to the bedroom, plod plod plod back.
"The top half."
Oh, good. "Carry on."
"What's Cave Troll doing?" I ask distractedly.
Plod plod plod to the bedroom, plod plod plod back.
"Watching tv in your room."
"How is he?"
Plod plod plod to the bedroom, plod plod plod back.
"Naked."
"How naked?"
Plod plod plod to the bedroom, plod plod plod back.
"Half naked."
Uh oh. "Which half?"
Plod plod plod to the bedroom, plod plod plod back.
"The top half."
Oh, good. "Carry on."
Movie Me Me...
Okay...we watched movies last night. Movie night is sort of a weird night for me--my (single) (crazy) friend Wendy comes over, and whilst I knit, she leans against Mate and pretends he's her Mate even though, on non-movie nights, he's not her type in the least. Chicken lays against Wendy, Cave Troll falls asleep on Chicken...it's like looking outside myself at my family while I get a couple of hours of hands-free knitting/writing time.
Anyway, we saw The Departed (which I liked not so much), Man of the Year (which was fairly uneven) and Stranger Than Fiction (which I adored to the bottom of my toes to the very core of my being.)
And it got me to thinking about movies. My favorite movies are not always Oscar Winners, or Highly Acclaimed. It reminds me of that episode of friends--"What's Rachel's favorite movie? The English Patient!" "What's her real favorite movie? Weekend At Bernies" So I thought I'd tag you all with a meme--sort of late for Oscar night, but then, I'm not Oscar People:-)
1. What are your top 3 Good Movies:
The English Patient
The Piano
Brokeback Mountain
2. What are your top 3 'Bad Movies':
Last of the Mohicans
Knight's Tale
While You Were Sleeping
3. #1 Quoted Movie
(What else?) Princess Bride
4. Favorite Action Movie
Independence Day
5. Favorite Romance
You've got E-Mail
6. Favorite Weeper
Dead Poet's Society (How appropos!) or Forrest Gump
7. Favorite director
M. Night Shyamalan
8. Top "Good Movie" moment:
--Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, finding the bloodied shirt. *sniff*
9. Top 3 "Bad Movie" moments:
**Seduction of Baby--Dirty Dancing
**Alice Jumps off the Cliff--Last of the Mohicans
**Last fight--13th Warrior
10. Top 3 Movie Quotes:
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means!"
"This sword is too big for me!" "Grow taller!"
"We have debris!" (falling tractors) "DEBRIS!!!"
11. Top favorite movie in the last 2 years:
Vee for Vendetta. Hands down, most excellent movie in last 2 years.
And that's all about meme and movies! So...uhm...let's hear from you-you and youvies? Yeah, nevermind... but I would like to read your memes!
(It's a writing weekend for me...I sort of blew off links in favor of Torrant's first romance...sorry!!!)
Anyway, we saw The Departed (which I liked not so much), Man of the Year (which was fairly uneven) and Stranger Than Fiction (which I adored to the bottom of my toes to the very core of my being.)
And it got me to thinking about movies. My favorite movies are not always Oscar Winners, or Highly Acclaimed. It reminds me of that episode of friends--"What's Rachel's favorite movie? The English Patient!" "What's her real favorite movie? Weekend At Bernies" So I thought I'd tag you all with a meme--sort of late for Oscar night, but then, I'm not Oscar People:-)
1. What are your top 3 Good Movies:
The English Patient
The Piano
Brokeback Mountain
2. What are your top 3 'Bad Movies':
Last of the Mohicans
Knight's Tale
While You Were Sleeping
3. #1 Quoted Movie
(What else?) Princess Bride
4. Favorite Action Movie
Independence Day
5. Favorite Romance
You've got E-Mail
6. Favorite Weeper
Dead Poet's Society (How appropos!) or Forrest Gump
7. Favorite director
M. Night Shyamalan
8. Top "Good Movie" moment:
--Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, finding the bloodied shirt. *sniff*
9. Top 3 "Bad Movie" moments:
**Seduction of Baby--Dirty Dancing
**Alice Jumps off the Cliff--Last of the Mohicans
**Last fight--13th Warrior
10. Top 3 Movie Quotes:
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means!"
"This sword is too big for me!" "Grow taller!"
"We have debris!" (falling tractors) "DEBRIS!!!"
11. Top favorite movie in the last 2 years:
Vee for Vendetta. Hands down, most excellent movie in last 2 years.
And that's all about meme and movies! So...uhm...let's hear from you-you and youvies? Yeah, nevermind... but I would like to read your memes!
(It's a writing weekend for me...I sort of blew off links in favor of Torrant's first romance...sorry!!!)
Friday, March 2, 2007
The Train Has Arrived...
The ego trip is over...thank you all for boarding with me, I'm back to my regular scheduled neuroses...
Seriously--Haylo, Sora--thanks so much for the book appreciation...I was worried (I know the emphasis was on character development as opposed to blowing up bad guys--that doesn't always go over well...) spiral, penguinpants--so nice to have you here! Everyone else, you knows I luvs ya (and I will still be doing some nail biting...now that I know that you guys are getting the book, I'll be hoping you did not buy in vain:-) But, on to some ranting about work and some fiber content...
About the work ranting--
I knew last year that they might be taking the AP class away from me...my administrator doesn't particularly like me (he seems to feel it's rude for me to knit during staff meetings...I seem to feel it's rude for him to make unrealistic demands on us to change our curriculum and give us no prep time to do it...you know, that sort of thing...) but apparently the teacher who is going to be teaching the class next year has been telling kids that he's going to be the teacher, and no one has informed me.
Of course the weirdness with the nightmare in a size six didn't help...but, still...I mean--I started this program. I took a bunch of seniors in a school with such horrible test scores that they're threatening to send in the state to fix us, and I get between a 58-70% passing rate on a test that stands for college credit. And the only real requirements I have EVER asked for are, A. A basic ability to write a paragraph, B. A fluid grasp of the language (language learners welcome,though) and C. a willingness to participate. I built this program in my department--I took it from a teacher who got the class because he was the (then) principals crony from his old digs and who almost killed it (five took it, 1 passed) and I made it into a school staple. Don't you think, if they are going to give it to another teacher, they owe me the fucking courtesy of a warning?
I need to get out of here--that's all there is too it. And it hurts to admit that because it's been a good teaching week. My classes and I have finally come to a friendly detente, I'm finally happy to be here, and for the first time all year I feel the things I loved about teaching in the first place--useful, competent, and important to the people (students) I worked with.
I am fat and loud and blunt and cranky, and I have also had a motherfuckingshitkickerbendoverandtakeit kind of year... I am not an attractive presentation in a suit and an organized desk. Not at all. Still--it pains me (in my heart and other secret places) to have the guy who had this class before me--and who did not, in their words, try to stop the party that my little nightmare clique had become--tell his Juniors that he'd be teaching this class next year before anybody told me.
C'est La Vie. I promised my husband I'd print out a couple of packets for agents this weekend and send them on Monday. In a way, I don't want to do this--it's just one more admission that I'm dissatisfied with a job I used to be really proud of. It's also, in a way, a kind of self-destructive escapism for me, since the odds of my books getting picked up by an agent and a publisher are about the odds of Jensen Ackles picking me up in a gas station on the way to work...(except, of course, the fact that I'd be obligated my love of Mate to turn darling Jensen down.)
But that's depressing--Let's move on to the fiber content, which (although pictureless) is kind of fun...
February was going to be the month of turning FO's into WIP's--it only worked like that for the Arwyn cardigan, of course--I might have had better luck if the identity thieving crackhead hadn't made off with my damned sock, because that meant I had to start a whole other sock, and given my time frame, that hurt. However, now that the month is over, I've been obliged by impending babies (we're down to 3--hip hip huzzah...) to start one set of socks (for a student) one set of sockies and a hat (for a teacher) and one baby blanket from this book . The baby blanket I'm especially looking forward to--it's got intarsia stars and moon on it, and I'm doing it in yellow, orange and blue cotton classic...I've never worked w/this yarn before, and I'll probably regard it with all the warmth that I'd regard a cottonmouth snake when this is over, but right now it's bright and shiny and rich, so I'm kind of turned on. The sockies and hat (all) are going to be out of Lorna's Laces--and that yarn really does it for me, so it's going to be sort of like that Seinfeld thing--I may be obligated to sleep with this yarn, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it.
But thanks again, everybody, for the warm wishes and the praise (let me turn my face into that praise-shine again...I got chilly for a moment:-) The weekend in cali promises to be SPE-FUCKING-TACULAR--I wish us all days in the park with little people, happy hugs, and no 8"by2" personal car-movies of the 3 year old dumping cheez-it crumbs on his little sister to gales of delighted laughter... because I got one of those this morning, and it was very funny, but highly embarrassing when I dropped them off at the baby-sitters, and we were all orange.
CIOU!
Seriously--Haylo, Sora--thanks so much for the book appreciation...I was worried (I know the emphasis was on character development as opposed to blowing up bad guys--that doesn't always go over well...) spiral, penguinpants--so nice to have you here! Everyone else, you knows I luvs ya (and I will still be doing some nail biting...now that I know that you guys are getting the book, I'll be hoping you did not buy in vain:-) But, on to some ranting about work and some fiber content...
About the work ranting--
I knew last year that they might be taking the AP class away from me...my administrator doesn't particularly like me (he seems to feel it's rude for me to knit during staff meetings...I seem to feel it's rude for him to make unrealistic demands on us to change our curriculum and give us no prep time to do it...you know, that sort of thing...) but apparently the teacher who is going to be teaching the class next year has been telling kids that he's going to be the teacher, and no one has informed me.
Of course the weirdness with the nightmare in a size six didn't help...but, still...I mean--I started this program. I took a bunch of seniors in a school with such horrible test scores that they're threatening to send in the state to fix us, and I get between a 58-70% passing rate on a test that stands for college credit. And the only real requirements I have EVER asked for are, A. A basic ability to write a paragraph, B. A fluid grasp of the language (language learners welcome,though) and C. a willingness to participate. I built this program in my department--I took it from a teacher who got the class because he was the (then) principals crony from his old digs and who almost killed it (five took it, 1 passed) and I made it into a school staple. Don't you think, if they are going to give it to another teacher, they owe me the fucking courtesy of a warning?
I need to get out of here--that's all there is too it. And it hurts to admit that because it's been a good teaching week. My classes and I have finally come to a friendly detente, I'm finally happy to be here, and for the first time all year I feel the things I loved about teaching in the first place--useful, competent, and important to the people (students) I worked with.
I am fat and loud and blunt and cranky, and I have also had a motherfuckingshitkickerbendoverandtakeit kind of year... I am not an attractive presentation in a suit and an organized desk. Not at all. Still--it pains me (in my heart and other secret places) to have the guy who had this class before me--and who did not, in their words, try to stop the party that my little nightmare clique had become--tell his Juniors that he'd be teaching this class next year before anybody told me.
C'est La Vie. I promised my husband I'd print out a couple of packets for agents this weekend and send them on Monday. In a way, I don't want to do this--it's just one more admission that I'm dissatisfied with a job I used to be really proud of. It's also, in a way, a kind of self-destructive escapism for me, since the odds of my books getting picked up by an agent and a publisher are about the odds of Jensen Ackles picking me up in a gas station on the way to work...(except, of course, the fact that I'd be obligated my love of Mate to turn darling Jensen down.)
But that's depressing--Let's move on to the fiber content, which (although pictureless) is kind of fun...
February was going to be the month of turning FO's into WIP's--it only worked like that for the Arwyn cardigan, of course--I might have had better luck if the identity thieving crackhead hadn't made off with my damned sock, because that meant I had to start a whole other sock, and given my time frame, that hurt. However, now that the month is over, I've been obliged by impending babies (we're down to 3--hip hip huzzah...) to start one set of socks (for a student) one set of sockies and a hat (for a teacher) and one baby blanket from this book . The baby blanket I'm especially looking forward to--it's got intarsia stars and moon on it, and I'm doing it in yellow, orange and blue cotton classic...I've never worked w/this yarn before, and I'll probably regard it with all the warmth that I'd regard a cottonmouth snake when this is over, but right now it's bright and shiny and rich, so I'm kind of turned on. The sockies and hat (all) are going to be out of Lorna's Laces--and that yarn really does it for me, so it's going to be sort of like that Seinfeld thing--I may be obligated to sleep with this yarn, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it.
But thanks again, everybody, for the warm wishes and the praise (let me turn my face into that praise-shine again...I got chilly for a moment:-) The weekend in cali promises to be SPE-FUCKING-TACULAR--I wish us all days in the park with little people, happy hugs, and no 8"by2" personal car-movies of the 3 year old dumping cheez-it crumbs on his little sister to gales of delighted laughter... because I got one of those this morning, and it was very funny, but highly embarrassing when I dropped them off at the baby-sitters, and we were all orange.
CIOU!