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)