12/13/2013

Gorgeous...

"It’s a strange thing, how you can love somebody, how you can be all eaten up inside with needing them – and they simply don’t need you. That’s all there is to it, and neither of you can do anything about it. And they’ll be the same way with someone else, and someone else will be the same way about you and it goes on and on – this desperate need – and only once in a rare million do the same two people need each other." -Madeleine L’Engle

Minimalist Running Shoes

I bought some, several weeks ago, but I have been really sick with a chest cold, so today is the first time I have them out of the box. I was going to wear them to the gym this morning, but I think maybe a few days of wearing them for a few hours each day, out in the world, may be called for. I can feel that the are taxing different foot muscles than more supportive shoes would, and I don't want to overdo it.

12/05/2013

WTF, brain?!

Nothing like having your brain throw you an exquisitely detailed sex dream about a person you haven't seen in 20 years, and with whom you never had sex. I guess it's slightly better than dreaming about sex with someone you interact with every day.

Slightly. 

12/04/2013

Esquire!


I don't have my bar number yet, but I found out last night that September's MPRE score meets Oregon's requirements. I should hear from the Oregon State Bar soon, and be officially a lawyer! (Though still an unemployed one, at least for now.)

I'm getting ready to buff up that resume and start mailing it out. The journey that started so many years ago may finally be getting its next chapter.

I'm incredibly happy.

11/10/2013

Michael Pollan's Rules for Food (the first 12, anyway)

Michael Pollan’s Food Rules

  1. Eat food.
  2. Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
  3. Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.
  4. Avoid food products that contain high-fructose corn syrup.
  5. Avoid foods that have some form of sugar (or sweetener) listed among the top three ingredients.
  6. Avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients.
  7. Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce.
  8. Avoid food products that make health claims.
  9. Avoid food products with the word “lite” or the terms “low-fat” or “nonfat” in their names.
  10. Avoid foods that are pretending to be something they are not.
  11. Avoid foods that you see advertised on television.
  12. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.

Ooooph.


Fell right off that good trend wagon and got dragged for a bit in the road behind it.

News:

  1. Passed the Oregon bar exam. Time to job hunt!
  2. I don't seem to be able to crank out words sufficient to do NaNoWriMo anymore. I much prefer the pace of the old goals: 250 words a day, or more if I feel like it. It works for me.
  3. I'm back!
Missed doing this regularly, and I can't wait to build a chain of interesting posts.

8/31/2013

Day 21!


I haven't written yet today, but today will be my 21st day of consistent fiction output since I started using Cory Doctorow's tips. I have written 250 words every day, but some days I have written much more.

Observations, so far:


  1. 250 is a low bar, but on nights when I get home from a closing shift and all I want to do is eat then sleep, it can feel really out of reach. 
  2. I do it anyway. 
  3. Knowing I have to do it no matter what makes it easier. 
  4. I want to start doing it in the morning, instead of at night, and I am considering how to make that a more comfortable habit.

ETA: Got today's words. 841 new tiny words of fiction, and all mine. :)  

8/25/2013

Writing Consistently--What I've Been Doing


So my posts here slacked off about the time that I adopted a new personal production policy regarding my fiction writing. After listening to an installment of the "I Should Be Writing" podcast by Mur Lafferty, I went and checked out a writing/tracking tool called The Magic Spreadsheet. It has been, so far, one of the most encouraging tools for the consistent production of words that I have encountered, and I am on a two week streak as of yesterday. I have written my words after long, horrid shifts at work where I would much rather have just showered and gone to bed. I have written big production (1775!) days and in bare minimum (250!) days, but I'm working hard to establish a writing habit that might even supplant my Candy Crush habit.

And that would be for the best for everyone, but especially me.

In the two weeks that I have been writing, I have roughed out (shitty first draft, yay!) a short story about a gender-bending highwayman who ends up back home among the people who knew him when he was a she, and I have returned to what I think will be a short novel about different inheritance structures in a fantasy setting, and how they might shape culture, and the lives of three characters. That sounds dull when I write it out that way, but I aspire to non-dullness, I swear. This one is based on a dream I had months ago, and I have several snippets of scenes that I wrote by hand or for 750words.com when I was trying that tool.  It didn't work for me, but the Magic Spreadsheet seems to be more effective. You might try it, if you have a daily writing goal, or if you want one.

I embraced this tool as a part of trying to follow the writing tips of Cory Doctorow. Here's what he had to say:
  1. Write every day. Anything you do every day gets easier. If you’re insanely busy, make the amount that you write every day small (100 words? 250 words?) but do it every day.
  2. Write even when the mood isn’t right. You can’t tell if what you’re writing is good or bad while you’re writing it.
  3. Write when the book sucks and it isn’t going anywhere. Just keep writing. It doesn’t suck. Your conscience is having a panic attack because it doesn’t believe your subconscious knows what it’s doing.
  4. Stop in the middle of a sentence, leaving a rough edge for you to start from the next day — that way, you can write three or five words without being “creative” and before you know it, you’re writing.
  5. Write even when the world is chaotic. You don’t need a cigarette, silence, music, a comfortable chair, or inner peace to write. You just need ten minutes and a writing implement.
In keeping with these tips, and the notion that social accountability is also helpful to me, I started a closed Facebook group for other people who wanted to commit to a daily writing goal. So far, it's working, and I think for others, not just for me. I can't wait to see what comes from my own committed practice, as well as that of the people who raised their hand for the group.

More here, when I have more to tell!






8/11/2013

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

 Doing occasional reprints of reviews of books I really, really loved. This one is so sad and so very gorgeous. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone: it's sort of adult. At the same time, it's a book that's not like anything else I've read in recent memory, and if you think it might be your cup of tea, you should try it, too. --Kristen

PalimpsestPalimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Long ago, I was at a writers' meet-up during NaNoWriMo where I met an older woman of the Probing Question Asking sort. She wanted to know what everyone was writing, and if each story had "a sense of longing" to it. To her, a story that instilled a deep sense of longing in the reader was a GOOD story. Her earnestness in this opinion made me uncomfortable, and I squirmed as I answered her questions about my post-apocalyptic vampire story with killer pagan nuns. Stories that hollow us out and make us hungry, I thought, are not the only stories worth reading...

And here I find a story that would completely satisfy PQA lady. It hollowed me out. It made me sad for the characters. It filled me with a deep sense of longing that they would prevail in their quest. It had as much or more sex than most books I read (and I read Jacqueline Carey!) but none of it felt prurient. Little of it was hot. It just filled me with a desire for the connection that these characters were reaching for, as well.

I'll try this author again, though first I might do a little time with escapist fiction, until I need to be hollowed out again.

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8/04/2013

Kindness by Naomi Shahib Nye



Kindness



Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where

like a shadow or a friend.

8/03/2013

Word count update


4246 / 10000 words. 42% done!

What kind of life can be lived with no margins for error?

I just left the theater after seeing Fruitvale Station. My heart is heavy with the injustice of it, and my head is heavy with this thought, which was my big takeaway from the movie: some of us, because of race or class, live lives that have little or no margin for errors. Have a baby, go to jail...and welcome to a life where it seems you can never, ever get ahead again. Where you can't work for more than minimum wage ever again, or where you cannot It seems to me like when I was growing up there were more success stories, but I'm coming to doubt even that. A life lived at the margins gives no margin for error. There are no second chances, or second acts, in some American lives.

8/02/2013

One Copper Ryan Story--word count thus far.


3448 / 10000 words. 34% done! The ten thousand word count is just a guess, but I have a decent outline and I know where I am heading.

Goal-setting for the next 30 days


The bar is over, and now that I have eight weeks (at least!) to wait on results, I have been taking action to be certain that my goals to develop new, healthy, productive habits.  I'm a list-maker, and I try to document goals as I set them so that I can look back and see how far I have come. Plus, this way you all can see my aspirations, too. Accountability is good, right?

On that note, here's what I am working on for the next 30 days:

  • 750 words at least, every day. I may write more, but I cannot write less.
  • Gym or yoga, every day. 
  • 10,000 steps.



7/28/2013

Five Ways to Make Your Life More Creative


So I could absolutely do without the AmEx tie-in, but the message was good enough to overlook that. Also, the crazy spelling of "shrug."

7/26/2013

The Unapologetic Fat Girl's Guide to Exercise and Other Incendiary Acts by Hanne Blank

The Unapologetic Fat Girl's Guide to Exercise and Other Incendiary ActsThe Unapologetic Fat Girl's Guide to Exercise and Other Incendiary Acts by Hanne Blank
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Hanne Blank is someone whose writing I have enjoyed for almost a decade now. She appeared with some regularity on the LiveJournal blogs of other authors I read regularly, and her confidence and intellect were readily apparent. I started following her there at the mostly-defunct LJ, and I have made it a point to read her books at they come out.

This book was one in which I was particularly interested, since Blank's blog entry from back-in-the-day about being a fat girl on a bicycle was particularly helpful. Her tone is both informative and protective throughout this novel, encouraging the new fat-lady exerciser to take that same approach to her body-practice. Have the facts, and never apologize for the way you have a body in this moment. You might lose weight. You might not. Your body might change shape in ways you don't like, but the practice itself is still a net-good because it will improve your health.

There's information in here that's helpful for the never-active and for the newly active, as well as for people who have already made meaningful movement a part of their lives. You don't even have to be overweight to find this warm, cheery book a good resource, but overweight people will find it especially informative. The Resource section in the back of the book alone is worth the cover price!

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7/24/2013

Late Review: Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Tell the Wolves I'm HomeTell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“I used to think maybe I wanted to become a falconer, and now I'm sure of it, because I need to figure out the secret. I need to work out how to keep things flying back to me instead of always flying away.” --Tell the Wolves I'm Home

When I finished this novel, I didn't know what to say. I loved it. It crushed me. It elated me. It took the top of my head off in the very best way possible. It shocked me to no end it was a first novel. It reminded me of the death of my mother's closest friend to AIDS in 1992, and how his death shattered me into tiny pieces in ways I didn't understand for years and years.

The narrator feels very real to me, and she takes me back to a time that AIDS was on the nightly news every night. On the cover of Time magazine, complete with a story that speculated that AIDS was mutating so fast that it could become airborne, and then we'd really be screwed. I read that issue at the allergist's office at age 9 or so (I was a weird kid), and eyed everyone in the waiting room suspiciously until they called me to get my bimonthly shot. This book perfectly captures what it's like to be a kid during that time in the late 80s when the adults were all going crazy and no one knew what to think.

I know it's not for everyone. I would have said it wasn't for me either. I love sad songs, but I like my books to have happy endings. This book, by its nature, must end in some measure of tears, but I found myself coming back to it again and again. Finally, I opened it to get an idea of the prose, and I never put it down willingly again.

Try it. Even if it's not your thing. It might just transport you to your own childhood, and a time that you were figuring out who you were and who you loved.

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Magically Good, Grilled Thin-Cut Pork Chops (Gas Grill)


Mine, all mine. No one else gets any!
This is the pork chop recipe that will make you look like some sort of wizard. They're tender, flavorful, and juicy, and hard not to devour while neglecting everything else on your plate.

Ingredients:
4 bone-in pork rib or center-cut chops, 1/2 inch thick, trimmed
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tsp packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon finely chopped chives
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest


How to: 
1. Cut 2 slits, about 2 inches apart, through outer layer of fat and silverskin on each chop. Pat chops dry with paper towels and rub with salt. Freeze until chops are firm, 30 minutes up to one hour.
2. Combine 2 tbsp butter, sugar, and pepper in bowl; set aside. (I always wish I had made more of this once it's time to use it, so consider making extra.)
3. Mix remaining 2 tbsp butter, chives, mustard, and lemon zest in second bowl, and refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes. (This can be saved in the fridge for up to 24 hours.)
Hot.
4. Spread butter-sugar-pepper mixture on both sides of each chop. Grill, covered, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer chops to platter and top with chilled butter-chive mixture. Tent with aluminum foil and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.

As you can see, we did this with homemade bread, asparagus, a grilled sweet potato, and strawberry peach summer soup. SO good.



7/19/2013

On being 17 and afraid of a (creepy-ass) stranger

Fresh-faced! (one of my favorites, despite its flaws.)

When I was in high school--17 years old--I had a stalker. He was old, scary, and he drove a beater that looked like he might live in it at least part of the time. He came into the convenience store where I worked pretty regularly, and sometimes he would sit in the parking lot and stare in the front windows at me for hours.

I didn't do anything to "encourage" his attention. To the contrary: it was obvious he was making me extremely uncomfortable. One night, as I left work, he followed me from the parking lot. I noticed him and his horrible, distinctive car, and I didn't drive straight home. I didn't want him to know where I lived.  After about 10 minutes, he figured out that I wasn't going to give him the information he wanted, and he drove off.  This was before cell phones that I could have used to call for help.

This place I worked offered free refills on soda and coffee to police officers to encourage their regular presence, as it discouraged would-be robbers, and my particular location was right next to the city police station. We had a lot of regular officers who came in and out of the store at all hours, and I told one of them who came in to work the next night. "Sarge" pulled him over and had a talk with my stalker (who had a lengthy DV record against his ex-wife, as well as other charges, Sarge told me later after running his tags). I'm unsure precisely what was said during that traffic stop, but I know it was one of those "unofficial" police interventions that had no legal teeth behind it whatsoever. I will always be grateful for it, since I only saw my stalker once after that, and he left when he saw me, no doubt worried he would get another visit from the police.

I had almost forgotten about all of this, until I started hearing from people that Trayvon Martin only had to "run home" and he would have been safe from the "creepy ass cracker" who was following him that night. In the dark, being followed by a stranger, sometimes the last thing you want to do is lead that trouble back to your home. Sometimes, at that time, it feels like the least safe thing you could do.

I was white, blonde, female, and conditioned to living in at least a small amount of fear from adult men who treated me as an object of attraction. Trayvon Martin's fear was different, to be sure, but I have to think that people who say he should have just gone home aren't really thinking about what would have gone through Martin's mind that night. For some, Zimmerman's mindset is more accessible. The mindset that blames the dead unarmed boy and not the grown man with the gun who was so afraid he had to get out of the car despite police advice.

I was lucky. My place in society afforded me protection from the police and other powers that be. I could approach a police officer with my problem without the fear that minority communities often feel when dealing with the authorities. My stalker knew exactly where the line was on his pursuit, and the attention of the police scared him off. That kind of luck is based on my position, my privilege as a cisgendered white woman, and by the amount of fear society feels it's acceptable for me to feel before there is a response from the powers-that-be.

Who do you identify with more in the death of Trayvon Martin? What do you think it says about the world that the jury felt Zimmerman's actions were reasonable under the circumstances?

Additional reading about fear and how it interacts with privilege at Shakesville.


7/16/2013

First yoga class today


I went to my very first yoga class ever at Darling Yoga this morning, and it was inspiring and more fun that I would have imagined. I'm not sure, outside of a massage, I have EVER felt this relaxed. It felt like a reasonably good amount of exercise as well, though this was a class that was primarily designed for relaxation. As a beginner, it was one of a handful that was appropriate for me, and I can't wait to go back tomorrow for another class!

I joked as I was heading out that I was ready to fully embrace my chai latte-drinking, Prius-driving, progressive stereotype by adding yoga to the list of me-things, but I really did love it. I'm ready to buy more yoga pants, and my own yoga mat.





7/15/2013

Hand-wringing and Ender's Game

This is actually almost exactly how I pictured it.


So there's a stink all over the science fiction reading and watching world about the Ender's Game movie, and if people going to see it are justified in giving money to boyish, Birkenstock-wearing Orson Scott Card, famous author and crazy homophobe.

Card's history of speaking craziness on the subject of same-sex marriage is well-established. He's been outspoken on the matter since 1990, but his work to oppose same-sex marriage has become increasingly public and his words on the matter have become increasingly strident. He now sits on the board of the National Organization for Marriage and has advocated the overthrow of the United States government should same-sex marriage become legal:  
[W]hen government is the enemy of marriage, then the people who are actually creating successful marriages have no choice but to change governments, by whatever means is made possible or necessary… Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down….
 Many pixels have been slain in the attempt to persuade people to see the movie despite Card's financial gain or to not see the movie to send a message to Summit and Card that Card and his views are objectionable. There are good people making good arguments on both sides of this issue. I don't know what the right answer is. I worry that if I go see it some of my dear friends who are gay will think I am not supportive enough of their rights if I can't forgo this movie.  Perpetual liberal hand-wringing is so cliche, but not without good reason. It's a genuine concern.

Today, I read a guest blogger write on the subject at Marshall Ryan Maresca's blog: Orson Scott Card and Tolerating Intolerance. I found the argument there persuasive and thoughtful, and responded to it and to another commenter:

If it's the trickle-down effect of Card's tithing/financial support of groups like NOM that is of concern, one could always donate the cost of a ticket or more to an organization that supports your values on the other side, like the Human Rights Campaign or the It Gets Better Project.

I'm torn about the movie still, and my husband has decided NOT to see it for the reasons SmallDoc mentions above. The book wasn't an important part of my childhood: I read it when I was 20. But it is an extremely influential book to my personal belief system, which is in complete opposition to Mr. Card's on this issue.

Somewhere I read that MLK Jr.'s own views on homosexuality were a sort of kindly "it can be fixed" mentality. I deeply admire him despite this. I think we should, when we can, separate the work from the source. History tends to do it anyway (as is has, for the most part, with King), and when the stories stand entirely free from the objectionable view, it's in the interest of everyone to preserve the good parts.

I still can't find the essay that made the argument that like King's homophobia is largely forgotten now, one day Card would likely only be remembered for the themes of Ender's Game and not the work he's done in opposition to same-sex marriage. I'm not sure it's true: Card's bigotry is much more vocal than King's, and the internet remembers forever. I'm not sure that Card doesn't deserve an asterisk next to his name on these matters for all time, so maybe that's wishful thinking.

What I think I know after thinking about this for months is that Ender's Game is not an anti-gay work. Should Hollywood ever decide that making Card's anti-gay, Hamlet's-dad-was-a-pedophile version of Shakespeare's play into a movie, I will not be attending that at any price. I probably WILL go see Ender's Game in the theaters--even if it's by myself--and I will make a donation to both The Human Rights Campaign and the It Gets Better Project with "Ender's Game offset" written in the memo line. It's an imperfect solution to what has remained a thorny problem for me.

I hope my friends will understand.

7/11/2013

Zimmerman trial--closing arguments

Closing arguments, at last. I think we're about to see an acquittal on these charges. I'm not sure if anyone could have done better, given the rulings on the voice analysis, but I'm more than a little disgusted.

7/09/2013

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

The Princess Bride The Princess Bride by William Goldman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This movie, and the book, occupied a central place in my childhood. It was the selection for my bookclub for June, and my copy is in storage in Oregon, so I requested a copy from the library, which I just finished.

I find, distressingly, that while the story remains charming in broad outlines, there's a disconcerting and constant thread of sexism running through the entire novel that kept smacking the adult me in the face each time I tried to slip into a beloved book from childhood.

Peripheral female characters are silly: Goldman's author-narrator is forced to edit away pages and pages of accounts about their clothing, their hat collections, their packing and unpacking. Buttercup's principal virtues, in an adventure story, are her beauty and her faithfulness. In the book, unlike in the movie, Westley (as the Man in Black) actually strikes Buttercup, instead of just threatening it, as he does in the movie. She is entirely without agency, and in many instances is portrayed as being more than a little stupid. But that doesn't matter! She's the Most Beautiful Woman in the Word, preoccupied with an exercise routine that will render her pudgy wrist thinner, and her bony wrist more plump!

The one time that she takes any initiative, it's to jump in the water to get away from her kidnappers. This, of course, cannot be the correct course of action: she requires rescuing from sharks immediately. There are no other, competent women to take the onus off of Buttercup carrying a banner for all women in story, and that she is the only option makes me sad for the little girl I was, reading this story, and for any little girl who reads it today.

It's still as charming as ever, in places, but this time around the sexism was enough to spoil the read for me. I can't quite bring myself to downgrade it like I would if it were a new read, but it's not the perfect novel I once thought it.

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7/08/2013

Repost: The Death Penalty


There is no easy answer. There's not supposed to be.

I oppose the death penalty almost all of the time, but there have been a few men (it's almost always men) who I might have made an entirely emotion-based exception for, despite firm convictions that it's not a deterrent, that it's an abuse of the power of the state.  Typically, those crimes are crimes of mass murder, like Timothy McVeigh, when one person took the lives of so many others that it's impossible not to think he deserves something terrible to balance out what he did.

But the problem is that there's no balancing a crime of the scope that crosses the threshold for me. Once you've killed enough people that I think you might not deserve to live, your death would never be enough to balance the scales. There's no justice and no reparations.

So watching Rick Perry talk about the death penalty in Texas, and hearing the crowd at the Reagan library cheer his dubious record as the killingest-governor of modern times, I felt cold. Chilled. A little disgusted by my fellow citizens. I don't believe that Christians, as the audience would surely identify themselves (though to be fair I do not claim Christianity), are to rejoice at the death of another person.

I've been thinking a lot about this clip from the West Wing episode "Take this Sabbath Day."  In it, the President meets with his boyhood priest on the evening of the first federal execution to take place while he's been in office. The President, a Catholic, didn't believe in the death penalty, but politically there was no real cover for staying the execution. This scene was the last time Karl Malden would appear on film, and it's so powerful. I learned recently that it's based on the first execution that Ronald Reagan presided over, as governor of California.


The contrast is telling, to me. I imagine Ronald Reagan, kneeling with a minister in the governor's office, seeking guidance or forgiveness. Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the modern Republican party, was ambivalent about the death penalty, but now the people who profess to admire him would likely kick him out of the party for this view and others.

It's not supposed to be easy, though.  Whatever else I believe, I know it's not ever supposed to be easy to end the life of another person.

ETA:  This family leaves me speechless with their grace and their compassion.

First posted to a previous blog, 9/14/2011.

7/07/2013

Roasting Chicken on the Grill

Even though tonight was a night we had agreed on quick and easy takeout dinner, there was going to be a loaf of fresh bread from Flour Water Salt Yeast. That seemed like a tragic oversight, but it's hot here.

The oven was already going to be taken up with bread, and leaving it on for more than an hour would heat the house to unacceptable levels. We had to make something on the grill to go with the fresh bread.

So I did some quick Googling and pretty quickly settled on roasting a chicken on the grill. The recipe seemed simple enough, and though it included a step that chilled me a little, I knew that the payoff would likely be worth it.

So, the spine of the chicken was cut out with kitchen shears:

God, the noises this made as it happened. It's almost enough to make a girl go back to being a vegetarian. But only almost.



It was still raw at this point, but it smelled delicious!

So, not long after I took this picture, we discovered that the tank was out of propane, so we had to finish ALL of dinner in the oven after all.  Not ideal, but better than wasting a free-range chicken and running to Panda Express for an emergency dinner.

All in all, I'm really pleased with how this chicken turned out, and I will definitely try it again as soon as I get the propane tank swapped out.

Also, the bread was amazing. If you've got a chance to pick up that book, you should.

7/05/2013

Sharp Things by Gillian Flynn

Sharp ObjectsSharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Here is a book that left me a little conflicted, if only because the last 40 pages or so felt a little underdeveloped. I cared a lot about that loosely sketched ending because I had enjoyed the book SO MUCH up to that point that even a hint of rushing to the conclusion was frustrating. That said? I still can't bring myself to deduct a full star for that.

Gillian Flynn is a better writer as of her third book, but even her first book is head and shoulders above most of what is being published right now.

This will be the last of the Gillian Flynn for me, until she publishes something new. I have enjoyed every last one of them as dark and twisty as they all can be, in their individual ways. They have the same sort of edge to them that a lot of Stephen King does, but without even a hint of the supernatural element that King cannot resist including, most of the time. These are just small town Midwesterners acting badly, and it feels really true, even when the plot takes a dark or even shocking turn.



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7/04/2013

Ira Glass on Being Creative


Important words for creative people. I love Ira Glass.

Fandom and Misogyny 2013--The Glimmer of Hope Edition


So, it's summer, and the Sci Fi/Fantasy and Comic conventions are in full swing around the country. Every summer, I hold my breath and wait for the inevitable news about a woman being harassed or groped or publicly disrespected at some convention or another. It always happens at least once. The particulars may be different from incident to incident, but you can practically set your watch to some insecure or predatory asshole reminding us all, through a chosen woman, that those spaces, that the assorted geek fandoms, don't belong to us. We're just visitors. Ornamentation. A punchline. An object of both desire and then, of course, ridicule.

Cons have been complicit, for a long time, of letting it happen. Or worse, of covering it up. Of apologizing or making excuses when the harassers have had more power than the women they were denigrating, which is almost always. Whether that cover-up took the form of "Well, that's just how Harlan ACTS" or "I'm sure that he's just social awkward" it's all bullshit.

This summer, safe spaces at cons have a champion, in the form of Sci Fi luminary John Scalzi. Scalzi recently posted the account of his friend Elise Matthesen, about her experience being sexually harassed by a prominent (in the genre, at least) man at WisCon.* She did not include the name of her harasser in her account, fearing that he would retaliate against her legally. The lawyer in me thinks that's wise, even as my inner reader really wants to know who it was so that I can refrain from ever lining his pocket with my own book money again.

And into this cesspool of constant disappointment comes John Scalzi. He announced on his blog that he would no longer accept invitations to attend/be the Guest of Honor at conventions unless those conventions met three conditions:

1. That the convention has a harassment policy, and that the harassment policy is clear on what is unacceptable behavior, as well as to whom those who feel harassed, or see others engaging in harassing behavior, can go for help and action. 
2. That the convention make this policy obvious by at least one and preferably more than one of the following: posting the policy on their Website, placing it in their written and electronic programs, putting up flyers in the common areas, discussing the policy at opening ceremonies or at other well-attended common events. 
3. In cases when I am invited as a Guest of Honor, personal affirmation from the convention chair that a harassment policy exists, that it will be adequately publicized to conventiongoers, and that all harassment complaints will be dealt with promptly and fairly, with no excuses or rationalizations for delaying action when such becomes necessary.

Scalzi has consistently used his fame and his power as SFWA president for the side of Good, and this is just another example that makes me glad he has the power and the voice in the genre that he does.  His weight can only improve con-going for everyone but the creepers, and they've had a free ride at most cons for far too long. He's also added a thread for all parties--congoers, artists, editors, writers, etc--to co-sign his policy and claim it as their own. The chorus of "Amens" might just make a difference at cons with wishy-washy or unenforced sexual harassment policies.

I've been to fancons, but none recently. On the whole, they were not positive, welcoming experiences.  My experiences at Gen Con were often extremely unpleasant as an apparently single woman, and I stopped going to the convention floor to look at merchandise booths by myself because doing so meant subjecting myself to repeated groping. I waited until my partner or his friends were available to come along, and when they were with me, I was safe from creepers. For the record, I wasn't particularly provocatively dressed, nor did I make any indication that I wanted anonymous strangers to grab my ass when my back was turned, whatever would invite said behavior.

In the end, this culture persists at cons because for too long, it was excused or ignored. It's an extension of the privilege and entitlement that is extended to men in our culture as a whole, but at conventions dedicated to creating worlds that mirror our own without precisely replicating it, we would seem to have a unique opportunity to do better.

This might just be a singular first step in that endeavor. You can find lots of really good stuff out there on how to be an ally, if this subject gets your back up like it does mine.


*Naively, I opined on my last blog that WisCon was a convention where one is likely to be "safe" from the kind of harassment that seems to be endemic at other conventions. Guess not.

7/03/2013

A Google Fan Girl Says Goodbye to GReader


I have been using Google Reader from almost Day One, and I can hardly believe that it's gone. For me, it felt like one of the best, most successful of the myriad products that Google offered, and I have used MANY of them.

I've already tried two replacements. I started with Bloglovin, amd though it was reasonably similar to what I had left behind, the organizational tools felt clunkier than I felt was ideal. So I switched to Feedly, and while I am not quite satisfied yet, I'm willing to stick around for a while to see if they hammer out the irksome details.

It's possible that one of these days, one of the new offerings that have popped up to replace GReader will be as good, as familiar, as GReader. I suspect it's more of a learning curve issue, at this point, but I still find myself missing my old buttons, and the old ways of sharing great blogs with other friends who use Google products in the same obsessive way I do.

Anyone else find a replacement they really like? What's good about it?

7/01/2013

Service Industry PSA



Dear parent-types--

When your kids are old enough to start handling money on their own, please be sure you teach them what "keep the change" really means. It is not a way to avoid getting three cents back from the barista: it's how you give a tip. To use it like a de facto penny jar is pretty damn rude.

Love, the next lady in line at the coffee shop.

6/30/2013

Spotted at Target


At first, I had a hard time believing that this book existed. I cannot imagine anything more lazy (and shrewd, to be honest) than piggybacking your chick lit on the coattails of a popular television show, no matter how much or little your book pays homage to that show. I know this isn't precisely a new phenomenon, but it seems to be reaching new lows. I read The Jane Austen Bookclub, but didn't feel like it was as blatantly a co-opting of the works of Austen.

That said? Later today at Half Price Books, I saw a book where Mr. Darcy is a vampire...and one where Austen herself is a vampire. There's a whole sub-genre dedicated to inserting zombies in classic literature, or turning beloved literary or historical figures into vampire-hunters. Once was clever, but now it just reeks of commercialism and cynicism.

I know the generally accepted wisdom it that there is nothing new under the sun, but couldn't people try just a little bit harder to draft original content for the public's consumption? Are people's tastes really so narrow as this? That they cannot resist a book tie-in that isn't even really a tie-in?

And don't even get me started on this:  


This is the back of a "revision" of Pride and Prejudice that adds sex scenes to the original text. In terms of sheer commercialism and cynicism, I cannot imagine anything worse than this. But I am certain the bar is out there, just waiting to be lowered.





6/29/2013

Keeping the Castle

Keeping the CastleKeeping the Castle by Patrice Kindl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Think of this book as Jane Austen-training wheels. It's similar, both thematically and storywise, with slightly less demanding language than the classics.

I heard about this on NPR, and their review captures it better than I ever could:

"Patrice Kindl ... has made her name writing for teens," Pearl says, "but this is the kind of book that has great crossover appeal to adults — especially adults who love Jane Austen. This is a young woman who is ... holding her family together. She has two stepsisters who are kind of wicked, her mother is pretty ineffectual, and they live in a very crumbling castle. ... And the next castle over, a new family comes to live there, and they have two non-married young men of just the right age. And, of course, one is dashing and funny and handsome, and the other is a little bit snarky and not someone you would want to be interested in....

"[Jane Austen] made it look so easy, and it's very hard to get that exact wryness and humor and these little tart observations that she makes in Pride and Prejudice. ... It isn't Jane Austen, but it's one of the closest things to Jane Austen that I've read."

I really, really enjoyed it: by the last fifty pages, I was very reluctant to put it down. I'm wavering between an four and a five for this. It skillfully combines little homages to lots of different books (Austen, I Capture the Castle) into one sweet confection of a story.

ETA: A friend asked me if I really thought that Austen's language is demanding, and so I should clarify that I think Austen is pretty accessible, as classics go, but Keeping the Castle is written in a much more modern vernacular, comparatively.

View all my reviews

6/28/2013

DOMA and Prop 8 Repealed--Democrats Make Hay


I'm surprised at this point I haven't seen Hilary Clinton officiating a same-sex wedding in California today. Every plaintiff in these cases seems to have had an up-and-coming Democrat to perform their ceremony.

Politically moral or morally political?



I have a terrible habit: I am political on social media. Mostly Facebook, where I am likely to encounter folks with whom I went to high school. I grew up in a suburb of Kansas City, in an area with an unfortunate confluence of new money and small-minded Kansas semi-rural folks. When I was in high school, it was a moderate Republican area. In that way that Kansas politics have gotten more and more crazy over the last fifteen years or so, it's a hard line conservative area, now.

So I still have a few acquaintances from high school who are in the area, or in Kansas generally, whose politics have mirrored the shift that's taken place in the area.

When these two facts align just so, they can result in some unpleasant conversations.

Recently, after a long conversation about the FDA's reversal on Plan B, a man I knew in high school weighed in that the decision was to be mourned because it would lead to an increase in murder, an increase in fornication (yeah, he really talks like that: he's a minister in a fundamentalist sect) and would take children away from the moral guidance of their parents.  We talked a bit about some of the underlying false assumptions in some of the above--Plan B is not commonly regarded as inducing abortion--without much progress--and then he said something that I have had stuck in my craw ever since:
I hardly ever write about strictly political issues. that is not to say that i am without opinions, but they are not my prime concern. You assume politics because it is the forum is which your discern truth.
See what he did there? He's got God and religion, and that informs his politics. I've just got politics, like some kind of modern day Lucrezia Borgia, who is political...and amoral, because of the imperfect forum I use to 'discern truth.' He doesn't say it outright here, but he has implied before that my politics are at best "humanist" and at worst...utterly divorced from moral considerations. Nevermind how clearly untrue that is: I'm not HIS kind of religious (and very few people are!) but the assumption that I am therefore immoral/solely political makes me want to hand him a box of genital punches.

I guess I don't have a conclusion about why this bothered me so much, except that it's so emblematic of the cultural script that people of fundamentalist faith impose on people who are different from them. I encounter it so rarely, but this was really subtle, and it's left me cruising for a fight that probably isn't merited by how it was presented, and talking about it would require resurrected an old thread in an off-topic way.

That's why you all get the rant here, I guess.

What would you have said in my shoes?

6/27/2013

Hrm.



If an anti-gay bigot spells it "biggot," is that telling? It just seems perilously close to another double-G word that's likely part of his vocabulary....


6/25/2013

"American Savage" by Dan Savage

American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and PoliticsAmerican Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics by Dan Savage
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Worth the read just for Bigot Christmas, though that's not the only good essay in this collection. Dan Savage is not without his flaws, but being boring certainly isn't one of them.


View all my reviews

 One of the most amazing things about Savage as a writer is that he can be as crude as can be in one essay, then leave you wondering where you left the damn tissues in the next one. Savage brought me to tears several times in the essay about his mother, and as a long-time reader of his column and podcast subscriber, I knew most of these stories already. The love and grief when he writes about her death are real, and I think it's unlikely that most people could keep a dry eye. I've read most of his books, and they are alternately inspiring, educational, filthy, and hilarious. Not bad at all, for your time.

6/24/2013

Constant rebooting


I set up a new domain and imported my blog over here, doing just a little clean up to keep the new setup looking nice. I went ahead and linked this blog to Google+ with the notion that I would maintain a more active presence there, going forward. Facebook, it is wearying and a time suck like none other.

I could use a little more introspection, a lot more personal writing and goal reaching, and a lot less of Zuckerberg's infernal creation.

Lots more to come! I hope to see you around.

4/23/2013

Thanks, Cheryl Strayed. I'm ready to get to work.

"We get the work done on the ground level. And the kindest thing I can do for you is to tell you to get your ass on the floor. I know it’s hard to write, darling. But it’s harder not to. The only way you’ll find out if you 'have it in you' is to get to work and see if you do. The only way to override your 'limitations, insecurities, jealousies, and ineptitude' is to produce. You have limitations. You are in some ways inept. This is true of every writer, and it’s especially true of writers who are 26. You will feel insecure and jealous. How much power you give those feelings is entirely up to you."

--From Dear Sugar #48, which isn't precisely written for me, but close enough.

I saw Cheryl Strayed, who IS Sugar, at the Unity Temple on the Plaza last night. There aren't many authors I would be so simultaneously pleased and flummoxed to meet, but she is on a very short list. She was as warm, as funny, as generous with her time and wisdom as I might have hoped. I am once again reminded that  at the end of the day, no one cares if I write but me, so I have to be the one to make it happen.

Watch this space. I'll be accountable here.

2/02/2013

I got Cliniqued

So a little over a week ago, my mom gives me this flier for some weapons-grade beauty cream that Clinique is giving away. You know, one of those the-first-one-is-free sorts of deals where after you're hooked on the tiny little bottle of complexion magic, they let you know that the full-sized bottle's going to be 80 bucks a month now that you can't live without it. So the you bring the flier in, and they give you a tiny bottle and make an appointment for two weeks in the future where you get another tiny bottle.

What the heck, I think.

I have good genes on my side so my skin's actually still nice for a 36-year old person. But free is free, and I am curious. I haven't used Clinique skincare for a while: these days, I use Philosophy, and I'm quite happy with the results.

But I'll give anything a try if it's free. And I need new blush anyway.

So I go to the Clinique counter and I show the nice lady in the almost-medical white coat the flier, and tell her I was in the market for some blush. I tell her two things I use regularly--Black Honey lip color and Teddy Bear eyeshadow--and that I am looking for a color of blush that is harmonious with those two products. She asks if I have time for her to try a couple things out, and I end up in the chair with her applying foundation and red-neutralizing base cover-up to my makeup-less face. (Hey, don't judge: it was my weekend, and I was tired.)

The end results of this pampering is that I walked out of Macy's with three products and my "free" miracle anti-aging serum. I'd feel worse about it, if the end result hadn't been so unequivocally BETTER than I have ever been able to for myself. I have yet to try to recreate what she did with these products...but the free serum is pretty damn great.

That's how they get you, I suppose...and I was no exception.

1/15/2013

Today's Lesson

Buying a birthday card for someone with a brain tumor is really hard. It took me like...an hour of constant reading before I found one.

"Life isn't minutes, it's moments" takes on a whole new morbidity, in that circumstance.