Festus

Ah, the beginnings of a two-cat household. Festus has joined us at last, and sprawls at my feet as I type this, licking my toes and rubbing his head against the soles of my feet. He's a very sweet cat. He's also about half Charlotte's size, and most of that is his much longer hair.

There will be a picture whenever I get around to it, and one of Charlotte for good measure. But for now, I'm just content that he's here, set up well in the office, and hasn't retreated back into the carrier. For a while there, it was looking like his new chair. I'll leave it out and open in the office for a few days, of course, but when its purpose as safety net is complete, it's going into storage again.

He's already shed on the entirety of my shirt, and great balls of fur are completing the decor of my study. This was expected, but it isn't like I'm going home in an hour and can swab myself with packing tape before heading out. It's a part of my living environment now. It'll take some getting used to.

For the next couple of days, I'll be sleeping in the study with Festus, because it seems the best thing to do. It'll certainly get him used to me, and it'll get his smell all over me for Charlotte to get used to. And I'll be spending afternoons solely with Charlotte in the living room, so her smell will be on me when I see Festus. And the whole sniff rag under the food bowl routine as well.

Oh well. There's the update, and all. It'll be a long night on the floor with the new cat, so I'd better bunk down now. It isn't like I'll get too much sleep on the floor with a handsome kitty for company.

Love and Peace (and all the fur!)

Overprotective, Much?

Tonight, I had stir-fry for dinner. Some nice chicken, some stir-fry-ish veggies. Some little flavor packet from Kikkoman (spelling?). I turned the fan on over the oven, because my little spastic smoke detector went crazy one night over a baking pie. After only 5 minutes in the oven.

In fact, every single time I use either range or oven, I turn that fan on. And I've only had one incident where there was much towel-waving and window-opening. That was the first night I cooked anything in this apt, the pie mentioned above (which really hadn't yet had a chance to so much as get warm in there).

This time, the fan wasn't enough. So between stirring things around on a hot skillet so they wouldn't burn, I had to stand under the smoke detector and wave a dish towel. Which in turn, meant I wasn't stirring the skillet to prevent burning.

My veggies didn't burn, because after the first alarm, I turned the heat down to medium and sort of alternated between waving and cooking. Not stir frying, which involves high heat to keep veggies crisp but cooked. I mean cooking, where some veggies are limp and others are crisp. It was disappointing.

I'm beginning to think that I'll need to resort to tag-team cooking whenever I want to make something fun. Something along the lines of 'Hey, I'm making [dish here], would you like to come over and wave a towel? There'll be leftovers!'

All in all, though... I'd really rather the dang thing be wound extra tight than lax in its protection. I won't be the girl woken by alarm at midnight to smoke hugging the ceiling. I'll be the girl woken at midnight because a match dared to cross the threshhold and make googily eyes at the candles.

Love and Peace (and waving of towels)

"On Charity"

"On Charity"

Let me start out by clarifying that on the whole, I rather like charities, and that most of the time, when asked to donate time/money/whatever, I cheerfully do so. That, in fact, it is only a small number of bully-minded charities that piss the crap out of me.

There's a funny thing about fundraisers of all kinds. Sometimes, it's a little kid out hawking chocolate bars for little league. Sometimes it's the state police asking for money to buy teddy bears. Kid you not. But almost always, I'm struck not by the plea for funds or by the cause to which the funds will go. Instead, I'm stuck by the unethical badgering of these so-called mercy-missionaries. Now I understand that not all, or even most, of those folks asking for funds are like this. Most people call and say 'hey, can you spare us 20 bucks?' and they take 'gosh, I'm kind of broke' for an answer.

Most of the girl scout/little leaguer/etc. folks are like this. Those ladies at work who display tubs of cookie dough from their daughters' little clubs, they're like this. In fact, almost every non-state funded fundraiser group is like this. There's maybe a little guilt involved in saying 'gosh I'm broke, see me next week', but it's wrapped up in the grubby little face offering you candy.

What I cannot abide, however, are the untraceable calls from state-sponsored groups. They start off asking you whether you feel X is a dangerous profession. They go from there with a little script of guilt-mongering harassment. 'I'm an impoverished student' doesn't work. They only offer to take you for 20 bucks instead of 50. 'No, I mean I actually don't get paid for another three months' doesn't work, either. They offer you 12 bucks. I'm not sure what part they don't understand of 'Look, my rent is due, my electricity due, my water is due, I've very little money now and no appreciable income for another few months, and gosh darn it, that 12 bucks will buy me an ocean of bread to eat, pay for most of my utilities for the month of August, buy food and litter for my cat until September, or even, dare I say it, even purchase enough gas to get me to my part-time job. I can't give you any money.' That, to most people is a sign of 'we'll call back next year,' not 'well how about I put you down for 5 dollars.' Hello? How about you stop calling me?

I'm also not sure what gives the state the right to sell my phone number to these people. Or why they insist on calling at inconvenient times like 8:34am and 10:11pm. Do they hope to catch people late to work without the time to say more than 'yes, officer, now if you'll excuse me...'? Or falling into bed and too groggy to realize they've been telephonically pick-pocketed by the fire department? You know, when talking on the phone to authority figures, probably there's a scare/guilt tactic involved that most folks don't even notice. 'If I'm rude to this telephone cop, will they come get me?' 'I sure admire firemen, so maybe I had better do as he says?'

I realize I sound bad here. But you know what? The last two times (only once in a year) I've been called by the police department, I actually had money in my account to spare. I was sitting pretty and had no fear of bouncing things. And I forked over about 20 bucks each time, just as asked. I take serious offense to attempts to fast-talk me into anything. I take serious offense to attempts to guilt me into anything. Talk to me reasonably, at an understandable tone and tempo. Use yourself some logic, and for goodness sake let it drop when I tell you I can't afford it. Call me passive aggressive, but if you badger me when I can't comply, I'm sure as hell not going to comply when I can.

In an age when so very many people live by cell phone and not land line, I'm often sorely tempted to cancel my land line. I only ever get calls from solicitors, state solicitors, wrong numbers, and collection agencies after the wrong people. No one I'd actually care to talk to ever calls me on that phone unless I've asked them to call me back on it. Every answering machine I've hooked up to it has died within a month. I won't pay for voice mail on it. I give out my cell number whenever someone needs my telephone number, because it's about the only reliable way they can reach me, even if only by message. I only use the land line to call inside Dirt Town. And there aren't very many places I even call here anyway. That's an extra 50 or so bucks a month. And aside from that, why is it that everyone needs a land line/phone in their house? I've never quite cottoned on to that one.

Well there you have the story of the day, turned into a rant on account of what I see to be improper intimidation tactics by the state government. And the phone company, who would love to sell me all sorts of wonderful long distance that I don't use, for only under 100 dollars a month!*

End

*for the first six months only, after which full prices will apply, sucker!

The First Hour

The smell is ... not so bad. Cloying, quite musty, and just a hint sweet, like week-old jack-o-lantern. At first, it hung around the kitchen, focused on the pot of boiling months-dead turtles. Then it began to creep out into the living room. Now it is in the study. Gradually, it becomes stronger by breaths, creeping so slowly as to be unnoticeably ever-more-present.

Perhaps this needs explaining.

I have three turtle shells in my apartment now, from my parent's ranch. These turtles have been dead for an unknown-to-me-but-incredibly-long time, and they are dried up, thoroughly dessicated. I want the shells, clean of nasty, leathery turtle corpse. I'd like to use them as odd props around the place.

So in an effort to clean the dang things, I've put them to a rolling bubble on the stove top. And they reek. Sometimes, you wish your mother had been utterly wrong about things, you know? Like now, about what it would smell like trying this. She was right. None of the neighbors have complained or anything, and I doubt they will. I plan to take them off and scrub by hand in about two hours. From my experience making stock from chicken bones, that's the kind of time it'll take to really strip these shells down.

No. I do not plan to consume any of this "stock". That would probably kill me, aside from the taste.

All told, I'd rather be boiling cabbage, or burning garlic.

Dear, dear Festus (the cat i'm taking from ann marie next week) is going to the vet Wednesday. Ann Marie will starve him the night before, and then she and I will lock him up too early in the morning to take him far out of his comfort zone, where they'll poke him with needles, cram a thermometer up his ass, stick an IV in him, chop off some his favorite bits, and imprison him for the night. We figured all at once was the way to do so many unpleasant but entirely necessary things. Then next Sunday or so he'll come to live with me. I'm probably going to try for Monday next, instead of the Sunday, just so the paperwork can be done then instead of the day or days before.

I've decided. If Charlotte begins to complain about the kitchen, I'll take them off early. So far, she hasn't done this, though she's certainly been wrinkling her nose. Poor dear.

Well ta all.

Love and Peace (and whoa bear, what's the stench?)

Broken Ice Cream Truck

When I moved down here, I was under the impression that I'd be forever escaping the scourge of the Ice Cream Truck that circled the neighborhood. Never again would that irritating Entertainer jingle haunt my lazy afternoons. I'd be free.

In a way, I was right.

This neighborhood has a different Ice Cream Truck with a different jingle. Not Entertainer, but that ridiculous Do Your Ears Hang Low song. And since this apartment complex features lots of kiddies and wide parking lots in a centralized maze of driveways, the Truck will stop for many minutes while children run down the stairs and swarm about.

Today, the jingle is broken. Now it only plays "...like a continental soldier/do your ears ... hang ... low?" on continuous repeat. And it's quite irritating.

Love and Peace, and ice cream

Bride of Frankenthesis

Since everything is still far too fresh in my mind re the actual Frankenthesis, which was corrected for what I hope is the last time and submitted in an even more correct format to the graduate school finally, I've decided to just go ahead and start the next installment, Bride of Frankenthesis.

This would be the reason for my obsession with dragons, feathers, scales, bone structure and et alia. It's also a good reason to get lost in thought. See, this trilogy thingy was supposed to feature this dude's gradual descent into madness. It started out that way, and it was looking like the first installment would go according to plan, but Frank would have none of it. The story got about 1/3 of the way in, with only minor adjustments, and then it reared back its head and forged onward into new territory that I'd planned on using for far future. Ironically, the setting is actually now the distant past of the story I'd meant to tell.

This leaves me with a quandary. Since part one no longer vaguely reflects its pre-thesis, pre-graduate school counterpart, parts two and three have even fewer resemblences. They are, in effect, stories to themselves, left to be told or not, as the muse takes me. I'm left with a beautiful setup for a whole new story now. Bride of Frank will be very fun, I think, in the slightly vexing kind of way. She's already introduced a character I'd hoped to retain for a good era or two, and there's this love affair that wasn't supposed to happen. But it did. So now I've got to write one hell of a twisted romance into it as well.

Right now, I've restrained myself, and am only drafting plot outlines. I've got a few very important things that *have* to happen. Then there are some things that *ought* to happen. As for the rest, they're perks. If they *get* to happen, I'll be happy. Since I've got several instances of flashing back in Frank, Mrs. Frank can use the same technique once or twice, preferably at the beginning. These can be used to skip around between characters.

One of the biggest problems I've got to tackle is point of view. The entirety of Frank is told from Kirlaun's POV, with the exception of a whole 8 pages of prologue. I can use any old POV for the next prologue, but the rest of it really ought to be from Kirlaun's POV again. But he can't be everywhere, and now there's a whole lot more going on that the reader has to know about. I've got to also fill the reader in on the behind-the-scenes, Kirlaun-didn't-know-about-it stuff that's important, too.

I'm tempted to fragment the story between characters, and treat Frank as Kirlaun's becoming (to borrow a twisted term from Harris's Red Dragon), while Mrs. Frank would be someone else's becoming. Problem is, it's still Kirlaun's story. That hasn't changed. In the end, there's no telling what I'll do, as I found out after writing most of Frank in a style that got dramatically altered at the very end of things. For now, I'm thinking I'll go ahead and fragment it, but keep the pieces more or less in Kirlaun's line of sight. He may get lost staring into the basin of the barrens, for all I know. He'd become the narrator of sorts, though a third person one for most of it, with only occasional drifts into first. Or something.

It'll be fun figuring out all the logistics here.

What'll be more fun is including the actual Rehkmira (not me, but the character whose name I've stolen for this blog) and some of his culture. And levia. I absolutely love the levia, even before I had them as ironed out as I do now.

But that's enough rambling. On to other stuff.

I went to see Pirates Wednesday. It was a good movie, like the first one. I won't give anything away here, since I hate it when that happens to me. But I do have to say that I felt the end was cheapened a bit by one thing, but that overall, it was quite up to par, which is a shock for a sequel. I think, knowing Jack, he'd have done what he did *on his own*, and that he was *made to do it* was the cheapening feature. If you pay attention to his actions there at the end, you can kind of tell that he's ... curious, to use a phrase from the movie. Any more of that train of thought, though, and I'd be ruining it for you guys.

I actually plan to go see it again. I know, I know. But I have to be sure. Also, the theater, as it turns out, is practically in my back yard now. A perk I wasn't aware of when I signed the lease here. And matinee showings are only 5.25. So it really isn't that bad. To top it off, there's next to no one in the theater during matinees, so it's kind of like watching it in your living room on a screen the size of your house. For good movies, that would be worth the extra money. It's practically like renting a movie from a store, only upgraded. And so, so close. Literally within walking distance. 8 streets down and just beyond the Loop. You'd have to start early, but the exercise would be rewarded by a nice long rest, and the coldness of the theater would be rewarded by a nice long walk. I'm thinking next Friday maybe. Not the tomorrow version, but the next week version.

That same day I went to see Pirates, I got my hair cut. I've got a bone to pick with salon folk. I know they're well-trained. That they attend hair conferences and know the latest and greatest. But call me cheap, I just can't afford a 60 dollar trip to get my hair cut. With short hair, you've got to go regularly (or rather, often in 'Mira lingo) and get it trimmed back. Or it looks terrible growing out. I think the typical recommendation is every 6 weeks. Come on. Six weeks from the salon, I've just managed to recover from the bill, and am not in the mood to do it again.

And the goop. What is that? I go to a salon (and here I may be different from every other specimen of my gender) to get my hair cut. I want to come out of the salon looking like myself, with shorter/shaped/trimmed/whatever hair. I do not want to look like I stepped off the pages of a magazine with hair that is *done*. I just want it cut, thank you. If half the time is spent rubbing goop through my hair, blowing it dry, wetting it down, adding more goop, and repeat... then I'm not happy. Plus, you pay for that goop in the end total. I shower in the mornings, rub my hair dry with the towel, brush my hair into shape with my fingers (when I remember), and get dressed. I want it to look/feel/act/BE natural. No goop. I want to leave the salon with the same hair I'll have the next morning. [and ouch! all that styling hurts when they're twisting your hair around on your head!]

Another thing. When I say I want it short in the back and sides, I *mean* I want it short on the sides. Where my hairline ends in the back, that's where the hair should stop. Really. That's what I want. No, I'm afraid that doesn't look as good. And yes, with hair that short on the back and sides, I'm afraid there isn't as much you can do with it, if anything. Tough noodles. I want it no longer than my thumbnail back there. Use the electric razor if you have to.

So. Griping aside, I went to get my hair cut Wednesday. At Supercuts. Yeah. I figured they would do what I wanted, regardless of what it looked like. And if the salon folks are right and it turned out absolutely terrible, I have until mid-August to look decent again, and my hair grows fast when it's short. So I described to the woman what I wanted. No longer than my thumbnail on the sides and back. Longer on top. Bangs no farther down my forehead than here. [point] I'm not concerned that I'll look like a boy. But I do *not* want to look cute. I've got a round face so try to avoid moon-face syndrome. Go for it.

To my surprise and delight, she did just that. When she had finished, she held up the mirror for me to inspect the back. It was currently all that thumbnail length, but did I want her to taper it in the back like she had on the sides. Yes please. Snip, snip, snip. Buzz. Bzzt. Buzz. Snip. How about now. Yes, thank you, I like it very much.

In. Out. 20 dollars. 5 of it was tip. 4 of it was a shampoo. Now, it's a bit shorter on the top than I'd have liked. But with the tiniest bit of goop (pre-owned), it lays like I want. When it's a bit longer, it'll do it on its own. I know, because Pete gave me this kind of hair back home, and I was happy.

And that shampoo was well worth it. I'd have paid 20 dollars for that alone. It was heavenly. She spent about three times as long at it as any salon stylist or barber I've been to. She massaged my entire scalp. I very nearly fell asleep by the time she was done. Also, I got an choice: before the cut or after. So if I'm getting it cut in the morning and don't want to run home for a shower or go through the day with hair on my face, I can get that.

At a rate of 20 dollars a pop, I can afford to get my hair cut three times as often as with the salon. So there won't be as drastic a difference between pre- and post-cut. My students won't flip out because I look incredibly different. It'll just be 'oh, Ms. Mira got a trim.' That's better than 'what the hell happened over the weekend, Ms Mira!?'

Oh well. That's about all that's going on here at the moment. I'll head off to bed then. Got to take a brief shower to wash goop out of the hair. I don't want to goop up my satin pillowcase, now do I?

Take care, all, and g'nite.

Love and Peace

Still Alive

Okay, folks. There's been a loooong absence on my part, and I apologize for that. I'm more or less back now, and have updates, glorious updates for all.

I have finally moved completely from cat-poisoning apt to cat-friendly apt. My new apartment features easy-to-clean linoleum floors, a study, a house-sized master bedroom, and lots of hot water. I mean lots. It's nice.

My new neighbors include the mariache-playing folks to the south-right, a couple of big, friendly dogs to the immediate south, and the apartment office to the south-left. Around the other side, there's an outdoor swimming pool that's far enough away to be silent to me (a plus). Across the way, there's "Bob" who wakes at 11 and spends a shirtless half hour smoking on the stairs across from my living room window, hair mussed and grimy. He's a winner. Bob's friends, Travis, Mandie, and Stella, go dancing at night, play their music so loudly in the car that the windows rattle, and make out in the parking lot under the pouring rain. They're a riot. There's a trio of kids on bikes who cirlce the lot laughing and running around, and a group of street hockey kids who lurk about in the tennis courts at night. Last night, one took a bad dive and they went home early. All in all, I really like it here. It's lived in, residential, and homey. You know, it takes all kinds. Here, we have all kinds.

Aside from apt stuff, my thesis was well accepted, and the defense went well. My director seems very interested in the prospect of Part II - the Dissertation. Strangely, it seems to be more "I need to know what happens next" than "This would be a good move for you." Of course, when the director wants to know what happens next, you've done something good, and it will probably be a good move to continue it. So yeah. Now there's paperwork to be faxed and overnighted, and PDF files to create, and binding to choose. I've decided to get three copies. One for the folks, who actually did not object to the religious ceremony I read; one for Director, who has to get one by law or something; and one for myself, because really, it would be depressing to do all this and not have a paperweight to flip through whenever.

If you're one of those folks who had some part to play in it, email me to get an attachment the size of Montana. I'm not trying to be stingy, but these bound copies carry a price.

I've decided that my Levia aren't quite all I've desired them to be. I need to get a good picture of them the way I want them before I go writing any more with them. Unfortunately, there aren't any good pics out there of something that resides solely in my head. So the research begins. I've got a good skeleton, with a little improvision. I've got the apendages down, and there's a skull I like except for the shape of the mouth. By the weekend, I'll have the thing properly sketched out except for scales, which are giving me more problems than I anticipated. Fish? Shark? Snake? Lizard? Bird feet? So many choices, and so many of them wrong. I've decided I'll have to design my own from scratch, so the research on scale structure and formation has begun.

While I'm at it, I've got to get my pygmies right as well. There's that stupid cube law to deal with, where you can't just shrink/expand stuff and have it work out. Almost makes me want to give up and say "dude, you know what a dragon looks like--use your own imagination!" But no. I need the sketches for me. I need to get harnesses right, skin tension correct, I've got to plan out their eyes and make sure their necks are bendy enough to see everything they'll need to see.

And you know, dinosaurs are about the best references for non-eastern dragonesque stuff around, in my opinion. Now the trend is to put feathers on the things. Excuse me? Take a killer lizard with claws the size of your foot and teeth to match. Way frightening, yes? Put fuzzy feathers all along it and a couple of bird-tufts on the wrists and what do you have? A much less frightening creature. Yeah, the thing probably kills just as effectively. More so, perhaps. But it has feathers. Come on. It's now more "cute" than "killer." [for the record, i've always found the dinos to be cute even without feathers. but then, i think lizards, geckos, salamanders, and other creepy-crawlies cute as well. and spiders. snakes. you name it.] I have a great deal of respect for the oviraptor, even if it's a tiny little thing that scavenges eggs. Add feathers, and I want to snuggle it. It's suddenly not respectible, but just one of those "aw, how sweet" things. That will not do for a monstrous reptilian killing machine. I can see it now:

A band of adventurers seeking the amazing lance of wizard-poking stumble across a ginormous pile of sleeping, fire-breathing death. The main fighter draws up a plan to get around this beast and retrieve the magical poking implement. "Okay. Tracy [the elfin ranger], you fling light in its eyes, distract it. I'll go in and cleave it in its brimstony nostrils while Clarence [ill-favored sneak theif and back-stabber extraordinaire] sneaks around to grab the lance. Tuck, you're our cleric, pray like you're going to die before tomorrow." Tracy raises a sylph-like hand. "But it's so cute," she whines. "Look at those downy soft feathers, Bruno. How could you kill such a sweetie?"

You see? No feathers. Absolutely none. It's unacceptable. Save it for the Roc. The Gryphon. The Pegasus. The trice-blasted, utterly overkill Unipegasus. But not Dragons. Save the Dragons. Just say no to feathers.

In other news, Charlotte is settling in very well. She loves her new window perch, and is hillarious on the linoleum. She's yet to figure out that she has no traction on that.

Change-of-address emails will go out when I become less lazy. And that's about it. AMS and I were going to go see a movie today, but the ones currently out look like wastes of money. I'll go next week to see Pirates. In the meantime, she has requested that I bring "that Tom Cruise and Brad Pit movie with the homoeroticism". This is about all the explanation about Interview with the Vampire that got through. I get the feeling she'll both like it and be disturbed by it. I haven't yet mentioned that little scene with the ... well. I'll be bringing it by. We'll see it and maybe cook something. Yea fun. It's been a while since I saw that movie. I'm due.

And there's your update. I live, breathe, and write.

Love and Peace (and hopefully some knitting soon)