I was going to define the word fortitude too, but the non-hurricanes took up all my time.

 Well, dear readers, today's posit: "Does the west coast of the United States get hurricanes? You know: California, the Pacific coast, and Oregon and stuff?"

Wait...is that the correct usage of "posit"?

Checking....please stand by.

Image credit: Nitra

Hrrrmmm. Not really. Posit is more of putting forth a statement for debate or discussion. I just need an answer, not a discussion. FACTS!

Okay, here's the answer. No hurricanes for Cali, because wind and water. There's that sorted.

Here's the longer, more factful answer. According to people who know things about oceans and hurricanes (Chris W. Landsea and Kerry Emmanuel) they need a source of warm water to form and be maintained. The hurricanes, not the people. We all know how people are formed and maintained, right? Right?!

Factful is a word if I say it is. Also, are we just gonna ignore the whole "guy who researches hurricanes is named Landsea" thing? We are? Okay.

Anyway, a hurricane needs warm water, above 80° F (that's 26.5° C). That's thermal energy, baby! When a hurricane is born, they form over the warm water in the tropics and subtropics and then the move in a general westward direction with the tradewinds and also drift towards the pole. The North pole. Because who'd want to drift towards the south pole? Except maybe penquins. And maybe hurricanes formed in the sounthern hemisphere, I don't know; this article wasn't about them. 

The west coast of the United States doesn't have water that warm, you have to go down to the coastline of central Mexico to find the requisite temperature water.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
says no penquins are expected on the central coast of Mexico for the next 48 hours.

So when a hurricane does form, as it moves north and west it tends and by the time it reaches the area off California it's getting cooler water (from 50° - 65° F) and can't maintain it's thermal energy, so no hurricane force winds. It downgrades to a tropical storm, which can still cause a lot of trouble because of the amount of rainfall.

So...there. Cali doesn't get hurricanes, but they do have drought, mudslides when the drought suddenly ends, and earthquakes. So there's that.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Merriam-Webster (defining mostly English words since 1828!)

Why do hurricanes hit the East Coast of the United States but never the West Coast? - Scientific American Online, October 21, 1999

National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

Western Regional Climate Center

Nitra: YouTube and Website

Where do I find the time? Something's gotta go.

My story is on my mind, the one I started for NANO last year. I can feel ideas and nuances for different scenes bubbling to the surface. But no time, no time, no time to write them down, to dig out the story and get back to work on it. I must get on track. I must set up a time budget and stick to it, adjusting where necessary to stay efficient and yet mentally healthy.

I have looked at my time and all the things I have to do in my day, in my week in general, and I have to cut something if I'm going to have the time and energy to work on all the things I want.

Things a usual day and/or week has to include:

1. Writing morning pages, affirmations, reading and homework from The Artist's Way
2. eating well (healthy food takes more time to prepare)
3.  writing a daily blog entry (at least five minutes a day and the blog is a writing habit)
4.  training for my belt tests and my fight (driving to the gym and strength training and doing cardio there)
5. going to work, staying focused and on task at work and learning about oils in my down time or researching craft projects that include those oils
6.  driving to and from home multiple times a day sometimes
7. grocery shopping, cooking meals, meal planning
8. MA classes
9. writing on my book
10. drawing of any sort
11. SCA Herald (Pursuivant!) responsiblities
12. SCA persona research
13. upcycling clothing
14. designing shelves and racks for functional things here.
15. Writers group meetings (two to three times a month)
16. SCA group meetings (usually once a month, occasionally twice if there a A&S meeting)
17. Personal reading
18. Artist dates -- that's for The Artist's Way homework too, but it requires leaving the house and drive time.
19. household chores: laundry, cleaning, kitten care, dishes, etc
20. Visiting Algonquin for time with Dexter
21. SD's counseling appointment once a week
22. Hair appointments for me and SD once every six weeks or so
23. Bill paying and budget planning

That's a lot. Driving really cuts into my time. It's twenty minutes to half an hour to DeKalb/Sycamore area, but that's where nearly everything is: classes, work, groceries, thrift stores. I'm driving there everyday almost. SCA meetings and Writers group meetings are up there too, or at people's houses and nobody lives in my town.Working is three to four days a week, depending on my work schedule. And driving to Algonquin is an hour at least, with the time spent for lunch and shopping and an hour back home. My bank first bank is in Sugar Grove, right now I'm putting my paychecks in that account until I can get all the online bill paying assignments switched over to the bank in DeKalb -- they don't have a branch of the bank I've been using for years -- so if my check needs to be deposited right away and I can't wait until my trip to Algonquin I have to drive the 20 to 30 minutes to Sugar Grove. 

The only thing extra I'm doing, that doesn't directly involve my needs and necessities, is helping to teach the kids' MA classes. We have to be at the dojo at 5:45 pm instead of 6:45, so that means we have to leave the house 5:15 or 5:20. Which means I have to start cooking dinner early so we can eat early if we don't want to have to wolf our food down. And SD's counseling appointment is on Wednesday, same as second MA class of the week. I have to start cooking during my alone time if I want to make a healthy sit down dinner (which and I want and need to), precious minutes of alone time I could be using to finish writing and drawing projects. Yeah, it's only twice a week so that's two hours. Is it really that much extra time? But taking back that two hours affects my mental well being.

I'm going to have to tell Mr. Scott that barring emergency I can't help with the kids classes anymore. I hate to do that. Some of the kids really like me. But unless SD is in Missouri and I don't have to make a sit down dinner and can grab a healthy dinner of my own from my shelf ( I eat different healthy food, faster cooking stuff, when I don't have to cook for them. I can make lentils or split green peas or kasha.) I just don't have the time to include the assistant teaching. Right now, it's the only thing that can easily be cut.

I may have to cut down blog entries to once a week. Assign them a weekly time slot like I'm going to do with my SCA stuff.

I'll have to cut out wasting time on Facebook too. I'm doing better on that but I can't cut out Facebook entirely as it's the only place I can keep contact my writers group and my SCA group. I need those two things for my mental well-being too. Maybe allow checking Facebook twice a week only for very short periods to keep up on my groups. That will be a difficult habit to build but it must be done.

This has been helpful. The entry took me longer than I expected and wanted, but proved very helpful. Now I have to pack up my exercise stuff and take Dexter back to Algonquin, he was watching the kittens over the weekend while we were in Indiana visiting friends. I'm not taking extra time for pictures today, this entry was more for writing practice and figuring things out, not entertainment.

Hell hath no fury -- but I do.

Hell hath no fury -- but I do. I keep it in a jar with pins stuck in it, so it will be extra angry when I take it out. 'Cause that's how I roll.

Let's look another often used quote. It seems to be all I'm good for on Google.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

This line is from a play, The Mourning Bride by William Congreve (1670-1729). It's shortened from the original line, "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

The basic meaning is that rejection pisses women off and they now have all the hate. Mr. Congreve didn't seem to think much of women. Or maybe he did and this was a compliment in his mind, that in an era where women were looked on as weaker creatures. Perhaps for him to say women are strong enough to possess a rage to rival any fury out of hell. And they thought hell was a pretty nasty place back then. So if nothing out of HELL could be greater than a woman scorned she must be pretty strong, hm?

The deeper meaning is that intensity of love, when rejected, transforms to an anger just as great. Because we love deeply we also hate deeply, and when we're thrown away it gets on our nerves and we have to school your ass as to why that was stupid.

Anyway, the true opposing emotional expression isn't love, it's indifference. When you're indifferent you just. don't. care. This rage thing is a mutation of love, indifference is when love just stops. 

Or maybe I'm thinking of this the wrong way. Maybe. 

Another proverb often quoted is from that same play, "Music has charms to soothe the savage beast."

This line has been changed a bit, though I have heard it said the original way too, "Music has charms to soothe the savage breast." 

Breast used to just mean chest, the upper anterior portion of the torso. Usually it's usage is associated with a physical expression of emotion. Like she clutched pearls to her breast and gasped. Or he dropped to his knees, beating a fist upon his breast, sobbing. 

Old-timey usage of course. You'll probably get a funny look from most people nowadays, if you say something like, "I was so scared my heart nearly jumped out of my breast," in conversation. Especially if you're a male. They might sidle away from you too. Just so you know.

I wonder if this play is any good. I wonder if it's still performed.

Anyway, the writer of the Encyclopedia Britannica online article on William Congreve feels that Congreve was a "dramatist who shaped the English comedy of manners through his brilliant comic dialogue, his satirical portrayal of the war of the sexes, and his ironic scrutiny of the affectations of his age."

He must have spent a fortune on hair spray.

William Congreve oil painting
by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1709; in the National Portrait Gallery, Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London

I'd never heard of him until I looked up the origin of the quote. Except for dying in a carriage accident he had a pretty cushy life for a writer. Damn him.

Well, that's it for now.

Hmm...how about a tattoo of phoenix rising on my back?

I wonder if I put a perplexing poetical quote at the top of every blog entry would I get even more traffic? Maybe if I lay out enough bait I'll get a few people who are interested and stick around to read more...on a daily basis.

I'll have to think about that. Which ones can I use? Emily Dickinson must have a few. Maybe do regular quotes too, but always have an explanation. The deeper meaning of the quote. I'd have to keep it short. That's a trial for me, but something I need to learn.

Well, I have bath salts to make now. With these simple tools shall I build my fortune!

Like Da Vinci. Like Tesla.
Excepted I started later than them.
God damn it.

I need sample bottles for oils. I need to write the re-imagined Wizard of Oz, first of all she can't live in a flat wasteland of nothing. But there needs to be a fair amount of flatness. I should visit Kansas again to find out where the flats meet the hills. I need to buy the original series. I bought the paperback today, but I read the original when I was a child and I thought the book was bigger. Longer.

I need to do so many things, so many things.

I need a lab.

I need a workshop.



I need my brain to just stop, just slow down dear god, please. I don't have enough time to do even ONE of my ideas, let alone all of them and I want to do ALL of the them. I need at least two more lifetimes. More, because there's always going to be another interesting thing to do.

I need to be a phoenix.

I need to be a Time Lord.

I need those damn dragon balls.

I need immortality.

I cannot stop for anything. I just have too much to do.

Upon searching, so many of the images just didn't seem to portray the true agony of transformation.
 Also? Why do the flames have to be orange? The don't.
And there's another fucking idea. Phoenix in agony and try different coloured flames. 

So, about that phoenix rising tattoo. Actually I'd rather have it across my chest, but I don't think there's enough room for the full impact of idea. So I'd have to go with my back.

And when am I going to have the time and money to get a tattoo?

Enough for today. I have things to do.

Life imitating art. Poorly, it's a poor imitation. 'Cause I'm not the real Slim Shady.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Janine, any calls? 

Janine Melnitz: No. 

Dr. Peter Venkman: Any messages? 

Janine Melnitz: No. 

Dr. Peter Venkman: Any customers? 

Janine Melnitz: No, Dr. Venkman. 

Dr. Peter Venkman: It's a good job, huh? 

[Janine smiles] 

Dr. Peter Venkman: Type something, will you? We're paying for this stuff. And don't stare at me, you got the bug-eyes! [pause] 

Dr. Peter Venkman: Janine, sorry about the bug-eyes thing. I'll be in my office.

____________________________________________________________________

This is how I feel when I look at my blog stats sometimes. I know I have to keep moving, keep writing, but it's depressing knowing that only my husband and my mother and maybe a few other family and friends are reading my new content. I'm funny, damn it!

But I am the number one Google return for the Dorothy Parker quote "time doth flit meaning". You have to have include 'meaning' to get my blog at the top of the list. I'm above Goodreads and Quotes.net. 

So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

It all comes back to Bill Murray. I feel the need to make a Groundhog Day reference to make it a prime number set of Murray movie references. I like prime numbers. Hmmmm...how about Phil Connors living the same damn day over and over until he gets it right? I'm getting the same damn stat returns day after day. I'm not getting it right somehow, because people aren't sticking around for the REAL entertainment. They check out one page and they're off. Which I can respect. They have priorities! But I don't get many hits for other types of keywords. I don't have any constant readers.

And...we're back to Dorothy Parker -- so I guess it doesn't all come back to Bill Murray. 

"Parker adopted the moniker “Constant Reader” when she wrote book reviews for The New Yorker in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and was known for her humor, wit, and vicious critiques of second- and third-rate novels." -- Our Favorite Lines from Dorothy Parker’s Most Scathing Reviews, Kathleen Massara | August 22, 2011

Ah, I'm supposed to be the Constant Reader. Perhaps my problem is I don't post critiques of second-and third-rate novels. Yeah, that ain't happenin'. Life is too short to read crap fiction on a regular basis. I have things to do.

I have....priorities.

So I will remain Corpus Callosum. My name is -- What? Not Slim Shady. So I can't stand up. Which is okay, because I have Morning Pages to do. 

Above: Not me. Although some days I feel very dichotomous, like Mister Em there.

Castles, Hospitals, Railway stations, and V616 Mon -- One of These Things is NOT like the Others

This has nothing to do with Carrie Fisher.
It's the timeline for my first real novel.
It's almost six feet long.
It will end up being three novels, a series.
 NO. A mother fucking SAGA!

A thought struck me. Just now. While I was playing Zombie Mart.

Today is the first day of 2017! Thank the fucking gods. Get me the hell outta De-troit.

I don't actually live in Detroit. That last witticism sounded funnier in my head. Detroit is a perfectly nice place and I hear it's on the mend as a city. NPR told me that.

So I'm trying to stay off Facebook for at least two weeks, until January 10. Not checking in to Facebook is proving... difficult. I chose this course of action last Tuesday, December 27, 2016. The day that stole Carrie Fisher from us. She died at 60 years old. General Leia Organa is gone and after so many other great talents lost this year (and the election of He-Who-Doesn't-Deserve-Mention-On-MY-Blog as president of the United States), the death of the women who helped create my first personal hero just messed me up.

When I was a shy, intelligent child in the 1970s, a time when there was not many strong female characters, especially in sci fi and fantasy, her pride and bravery in the face of danger was amazing. She was Princess Leia then, of course.

But I don't want to fall maudlin, really I don't. This explanation is why I'm not checking into or posting to Facebook right now. It's because I swore off Facebook for two weeks, no more bad news for me. I wanted to swear off the internet for two weeks, but I can't do a lot of my projects, creative, worthwhile projects, without the internet. I'm trying not to listen to the radio either. I was giving the explanation of why I'm dropping the following idea here in my blog instead of on Facebook. Here, with my precious idea. Where perhaps ONE person will see it, instead of at least ten people on my friends list, and possibly more, and they would tell me how amazing my idea is.

No one said it was easy having principles and goals. Now I need a break from the intensity of explaining my explanation. No one said being a writer was easy. They did say it would be worth it and it is.

Goddamnit, I hate that damn music on Zombie Mart. Don't follow that link. Seriously, don't do it. You'll be sor-ry! That game is a time suck of black hole proportions. <That link you can follow. It's educational!

Sometimes the cleverness is simply irresistible. I mean -- unavoidable. It's irresistible AND unavoidable. Like me! 'Cause it's my cleverness, you see how that works?

Now I want to log in to Facebook and brag about my cleverness and post a link to this blog entry. Braggin' and bloggin', that's how I'm attempting to occupy my 2017 New Year's Day. And here I thought I'd just be organizing my coin collection.

I'm totally serious about that last bit. I have a coin collection, of a very amateur sort. I bought some new organizational preservation-type holders for my rarer coins and for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Because Corpus Callosum knows how to party!

Perhaps my blog persona ought to be named Tangential. Back to the original reason I came to post today.

Directional colour lines in a hospital corridor.

This is a hospital corridor. Perhaps you are familiar with this type of directional assistance, colour lines on the floor to help you find your way. Hospital corridors usually have little to distinguish one from another and if you're directionally challenged like SOME people I could mention (it's me) navigating these halls, especially when taxed with anxiety over a loved one or just over the fact that you have to get a test done -- it's easy to get lost.

Some hospitals have the lines on the floor to make it easier for the staff to give directions and for the person inquiring to follow those directions.

Speaking of finding your way...

 

Dear gods, what the actual blue fuck?
Don't get me wrong. I love purple.
A good eighty percent of my wardrobe
 is purple. But I mean really...

This is Guy's & St. Thomas Hospital in London. I don't know who Guy is, or why he's important enough to have his name in a hospital listed before a saint's name, but there it is. I wonder which St. Thomas it was. Hm, it seems it was St. Thomas Becket.  Do you know him? He had an argument with King Henry II. It didn't end well. But that's what happens when you fuck with the founder of English Common Law and the man strong enough in heart and mind to be married to Eleanor of Aquataine.

What happens is you get hospitals named after you. But I digress.

So I imagine conversations going something like this: 
Staffer -"Take the next left and stop when you see the purple dots."

Inquirer - "How will I know when I've reached the purple dots?"

Staffer - "Oh, you'll know."

It's funnier if you read it in a British accent.

This is what happens when I'm not allowed to post my passing thoughts on Facebook. They turn in to rambling nonsensical blog posts. This blog post could use some directional colour lines to help guide a reader to the fucking point.

This post is an example of why I get along so well with Jeremy and Chris from Cinema Sins. Nah, I don't actually know them. I'm not even sure those are their names. But I feel like I know them, or at least Jeremy, because he sometimes talks like me and I can relate to that. I want this t-shirt. If I had my own YouTube channel, I would be shouting out to them all the damn time.

Victoria Train Station in London, England

I want my own YouTube channel. I don't have a proper camera though and I think I really ought to have a proper camera. I would call it "I Like It Like That" and I would just talk about all the stuff I like. But it would be funny, because I'm hilarious. Many drunk people have told me so.

You might also have seen directional colour lines in train stations, another place I've gotten lost in. It's not really too hard for me to get lost. Cover my eyes and turn me around three times and I have no idea where I am. Constantly getting lost used to cause me great anxiety but now I decide to have interesting times getting myself found again. Also having a smart phone with GPS is a godsend.

ATTENTION! MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE! WE HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED AT THE POINT OF THIS ENTRY! TAKE YOUR SEATS!

Pictured above: Actual European castle.

Some of my castles, the castles in the stories I will write -- they're currently being written, I just haven't gotten around to thorough descriptions of castles -- will have lines of colour in the corridors, to help you find your way. Mosaics on the floor, or different colours of stone on the walls. It will be gorgeous! Different mosaics on certain walls in each section, to help distinguish them. I'll have to find different ways for the different series. Don't want to be repetitive.

Like when I realized I've worked in too many instances of people cutting off their hair to symbolize something big has just happened. I wanted to use it in almost every novel. Oh the scenes would be different, very different. But the idea was becoming cliche before I even had a chance to introduce it.

Damn, I'm clever.

This castle does not appear large enough to get lost in. YET.

I need to start using my Wordpress blog. The cleverness of me cannot be restricted to just one blog. I think I'll use this one for the rambling, profanity laden posts and I'll use the other one to explore the other creative side of myself. I have several. They argue sometimes. So if I have two blogs then if they get on my nerves I can send them each to their own blogs and get them out of my hair. Head. Whatever.

I think it is now too late to take a walk.

How do you know that you really know what you think you know?

Does it know where I left my favorite pen?

 Hm. And what if that inner voice is a bitch? Indeed, I have more than one inner voice and some of them think really stupid stuff is a good idea. Like the voice that wants donuts all the time. What about that voice? How about the voice that wants to tell people the absolute truth all the time? While that's "good" in theory, in real-world practice it can cause you a lot of unneeded difficulties. So which inner voice should I be listening too?

I prefer the term "Inner Knowing" for my intuition. Because voices just make noise. Voices are based on desire. My intuition just knows things. The trick is knowing intuition from voices. Intuition is mostly a quiet, assured voice. It tells me which things I should be doing even when they scare me ("Yes, It's scary. And it's hard. It's really hard. And you might even fail. More than once. Do it anyway.") and which things I shouldn't be doing even though I really want them (several very poor choices spring to mind).

Here's the difficulty that arises. things I though I should be doing because I wanted things to be a certain way and I thought certain actions were 'brave' and the horrible feeling I was getting was fear of taking chances. I didn't understand (yet) that particular horrible feeling was actually the "dear god, you stupid bitch, this is a horrible, horrible, horrible mistake and you're just desperate and lonely and YOU WILL REGRET THIS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE" feeling.

How do I discern "bad vibes" from "fear of failure"?

I have had to learn to differentiate. It was difficult. It took many tries. I now have something of a system worked out, a way to know what is "knowing" and what is "wanting".

Accept truth. Listening isn't so much the problem.

Accepting...that's really important. Accepting the truth of what intuition is telling you. Very, very, important. Because sometimes the inner voice, the inner knowing, the truth...is something you don't want to hear, whether it's telling you something you should do but you don't want to because it's scary or hard or scary hard, or it's telling you something you shouldn't do (or say, or eat, or buy) but you really want that thing because it will make you temporarily happy because it will taste good or feel good at that moment.

I need an adult?

That's the part that took me a long time to figure out, "I want this because its good" from "this is right for me".

The Happiness in Your Life Book Series consists of 12 books,
each on a different subject that either allow or prevent happiness.

Shel Silverstein was interesting. I think he knows what he's talking about.
Or he did when he was alive at least. He's dead now.

But how do you know...how do you KNOW which voice is the true inner voice. How do you trust the inner voice when it's telling you something that seems so completely impossible? How do you know for sure so that you don't end up doing something you'll regret? Because I also really, really, really don't want to regret NOT doing something, NOT having something good, because I didn't listen to that voice that says, "It's right and it will happen in good time if you let the flow move and all will be well."

I'm not fond of Gloria Steinem as a person. Her personality seems very different from mine.
But I recognize what she's done for women.

By the way, I haven't vetted any of these quotes. I don't know if they're actually from the people they're being attributed to on the pictures. And you know what? Right now, I really don't care. I'm still trying to figure out why my inner voice seems to have quietly snapped.

A good effort after so much slacking.

But it changed. Now...stuff still aches but it never stops me, it's the good pain. My body is strong now, the strongest I've ever been and I have two genetic hurdles that cause physical and mental difficulty for me to work around.

Over 700 words this morning on my story. Nuance and depth, I love that stuff. Making my characters real, full people. They are transforming.

I cannot deny it. I've been slacking. I had true writer's block for awhile, from the stress of the holidays, but I broke through it. After that it was just fear of the huge task ahead of me, writing my story. Because every time I sit down, it just gets bigger. While I am doing some reshaping of what I have now, it's more of adding nuance to the plot. I guess that's what I mean. The plot is growing and changing and developing much more depth, the true depth of the down to the bone story I want to write.

But damn, there's so many freaking words. How will I ever finish this in a respectable amount of time and this is just the second book! How am I going to write the first damn book, the one that establishes everything? The second book is...the second! I wanted to do this within a year. It's going to take at least two I think. Two years of writing every single day. This brings in zero salary. Then, after it's done, I have to get an agent.

I can do this. I can. Other people have done it. I'm strong. I started martial arts at forty-three after a lifetime of mostly not liking extreme physical expression and competition and now find myself totally changed in mind and body. I only started martial arts as a means to self-defense. I had no idea I would love it this much. So if I can do that thing I didn't know I loved, shouldn't I be able to completely and totally...go...somewhere...somehow...with lots of success (whoa...that sucked) with something I've wanted to do forever?

Yes. I can do this. I can do this. Even when I think I can't do this. When I first started martial arts my whole body would hurt after class. I only took the Monday/Wednesday class back then. There was a rest period of four days, I'd feel almost human again by Sunday, then Monday went right back to "my god, everything, everything, EV-ER-Y THING hurts.


I can do this, I can make this story and share it with people and they will like it and feel transported by it just like good writing should do. I will make this world and it's people and not give way to fear and I will believe in myself even when I don't believe in myself.

God I'm hungry now.

Cake...instead of other stuff.

Getting really tired of writing about the same two things.

Those two things are insomnia and writer's block. Because it's all I have right now.

It seems they are all I can write about. And I'm really tired of having them and of having them be the only thing I can be productive about. It's not really productivity if it's FUCKING BORING.

How about I tell you that I remember to take back the Redbox DVDs on time! Yay! I won't be charged an extra day for Pixels. Because fuck that. Don't look at me like that! It wasn't my idea. And I did not watch it.

I also remembered to buy the waxing strips I wanted. Go me!

Tomorrow I have to call the prescription insurance company and...well, deal with them. The story for that is boring.

I wish I had some cake.

I wish.

Chocolate.

Maple Pecan.

Red Velvet Cherry.

The type isn't as nearly as important as the quantity. There'd better be lots of it.

Wading in the shallows, swimming in the deeps.

My characters are changing. They are evolving, a little bit at a time, into people. It is strange to me, I invented them; I could feel them standing next to me, living and breathing. But now they are...faceting themselves? I guess? My characters characters and demeanor and outlook and personality are changing.

Let's go a bit deeper, shall we? Into the unspoken.

I believe their evolution bodes well for my novel. It's easier to overlook absurdities in plot when you're characters are real people, with real reactions and not each a paragon. If my protagonist characters live out my personal ideals in full they just aren't believable.

Good on you, characters! Way to be team players!!!!! Momma wants to severely cut back on her day job! If I can at least make what I am making now (which is not a great deal, I only work three days a week) I can afford to leave my main job, then I can concentrate even more of my energies on writing. Use up some of the eleven story ideas I have. Make a decent salary.

An atoll. I'm not sure what this lifeless atoll has to do with abundance.
But the ocean is significant. And pretty.

Lately I have had the feeling that the waves of chaos are carrying me towards certain change. There have been a few times in my life when I have had (what seem to be to me) very strong signals that a certain way is clear.

I've had a bit, lately. Okay, more than a bit.
I've also had that unsettled feeling that something bigger is coming.

Some days...most days, I feel so strongly that this is what I'm meant to do. I am a bet hedger; I rarely think in absolutes. I am a hesitater, a safety first girl. But I know I am meant to do this. Not I could do this. Not I should do this. Not even I can do this. I feel I am meant to do this. It is a certainty, that if I write and keep writing I will get published.

I am meant to be a writer of science fiction and fantasy, spanning several sub-genres. A published author, with an agent and everything.

Then...other days...I wonder if I'm just freaking delusional.

This...is a person standing in the mist. That is an odd silhouette.
Evocative, yes? Of what I'm not sure.
I need it to work on my subconscious a bit.

I need to go put pants on. I'm a secondary LMT at a chiro office, scheduled to work Fridays but if there's no one on my books I can just stay at home on-call. The office is only eight minutes from my house. But to be a conscientious on-call employee I should be wearing my work clothes while I work on my real work.

The chiro job I'm keeping. If I am able to leave my main job I'd still upkeep my CEs for my massage therapy license and my liability insurance. That's my bet hedge, staying nominally employed in my current field so that if I do need to look for another position I won't have a gap in my resume. 

Clackety-clack-clack, how I love the sound of my own fingers machine-gunning away at the keyboard.

Motivation. I don't haz it.
Check the video at the link, I'm not the only one using that metaphor.
I'm mildly surprised, but there is no new thing under the sun.
Old Fort Typewriter Co.

I can't get motivated to write today. Write as an exercise I mean, with a prompt from one of my books.

The television is on in the background and it's grating on my nerves, dear god, how many times can a person watch the same damn Teen Titans episode? But said person was very prompt about her chores this week and helped me a lot on Friday without complaining once.

The laundry is laundering. The dirty dishes are sitting. The cat pan needs cleaning. The cat needs feeding. The unorganized stuff...bills and receipts and sewing things...need organizing. I need to order some massage supplies and there is a book that I feel is important to order today. The dust is gathering the and the floors refuse to sweep and vacuum themselves, lazy bastards.

I have tai chi class today and maybe karate class. On Wednesday night, during advanced MMA class, while sparring with one of my instructors, I got a very solid knee to the left ribcage. Fucker hurt like hell, I wanted to push through, just baby it and keep sparring because in a real fight (meaning if someone attacked me) I wouldn't get the option to stop. But I had to stop, the pain was too sharp. I tried switching to southpaw but it was no good, I had to stop for the night. I hate stopping. And I didn't even get a decent bruise to show for it!

That was Wednesday night and I had to work Thursday at Unnamed Massage Therapy Franchise Clinic but I took off Friday at the chiropractor. I rested a good part of Friday morning and then did errands the rest of the day, with my step-daughter to help me.  But I feel lazy not even going for a walk. I'm itching to get on the mats so I'm hoping I can at least go through the motions at karate class, to keep up my muscle memory.

So...little motivation to do a proper writing exercise. I'll have a bitch of a time getting started but then I'll finally get into it and then I'll have to get ready for tai chi class at 9 am and that's half an hour from now.

But here is my "at least five minutes" exercise. I've been writing in my paper journal on the days I didn't have time to sit down at the computer. Clackety-clack-clack, I love that sound.

Okay. What I DO have motivation for is to get some of the household stuff done (mentioned above) this morning before I have to get ready.

~Ernest Hemingway
Somebody else knows exactly what I'm talking about.
Hemingway knows exactly what I'm talking about.
Except I like my sounds, they're not ugly.
Type-writer.org

Day Three - Purging old energies

All times are approximate. I'm calling this entry an exercise in recall and writing. It isn't a pathetic attempt to ease the withdrawl symptoms of not being able to post statuses on Facebook. It's NOT.

7 am: Start looking for TheMan's paper shredder. It's larger than mine, plus I know it's in the office somewhere. I don't know where mine is off hand. I want to make a start at getting rid of old paperwork, old bills and such that have my name on them. Like five year old credit card statements and such.

When I got married in June and moved into my husband's house my office stuff was crammed into his office with his office stuff and neither of us is terribly organized. We're both pile-makers. I want to get rid of old energy and clean some of this stuff up.

7:15 am: Found the paper shredder. It was sitting right beside my desk underneath a couple of books. TheMan and I are also both bibliophiles. (That sounds better than book hoarders.) Start shredding.

7:20 am: Paper shredder jams. Printed on the top of the shredder, "MAXIMUM 6 SHEETS." I only put in four. Turn off, unplug, start pulling out shredded bits. Oh, good. It's a crosscut shredder. I'd forgotten that. Get pliers to pull out the stubborn bits. Reassemble and it works again. Shred the last few things in that pile. Look for more. Sort through piled file folders. Immediately start to confuse my piles of shred, keep, refile, reuse.

7:40 am: Realize I need to go to the bathroom. Realize my four days of spotting is not going away and yes, I actually did start my period on Saturday, eight days early. Feel annoyed, even though my flow is very light and that's unusual and I don't have cramps and I'm hardly cranky at all. WTF? I've been early before, but I don't remember ever being this early. Is my real age finally catching up with me? I'm 42 but I don't look it. Lot's of people have told me so, it's not just vanity, thank you. Many people can't believe I have two sons aged twenty-one and nineteen. So I like to ignore the fact that my body is definitely not 32 years old. But it's always there at the back of my mind, "You're not getting any younger." Menopause maybe? Shudder. Find phone and make a note in my period tracker app.

7:45 am: Realize I haven't eaten breakfast. Get the banana nut muffin out of the microwave that I had warmed up at 6:45 and forgotten about. More coffee. Remind TheDaughter that it's 7:47 am. She slept through her alarm this morning and was playing on her iPad at that moment. I didn't want to have to drive her to school when she usually rides her bike. Sit down at the dining room table to eat my muffin and drink my coffee and read my current book. Every Which Way But Dead by Kim Harrison. Rachel Mariana Morgan, witch bounty hunter.Witches, vampires, pixies, werewolves and such in a modern mystery novel setting could easily be trite and ridiculous but Harrison's excellent realistic writing style makes it damn entertaining and fresh. TheDaughter leaves for school.

7:55 am: Sit on the back porch and smoke a cigarette and read some more.

8 am: Back into the office and make this blog entry because damnit I need to write something.

8:30 am: Waste half an hour playing nonograms online. I play Brainbashers Nonogrids and GoobixGoobix Nonograms. These time wasters are self limiting because if I make a hopeless mistake on a grid and I've already spent over five minutes on the puzzle I stop for at least a while to reset my brain. I have no idea what I mean by that, it just came out of my fingers into the keyboard.

Day Two - Purging a Facebook addiction

So. This past Saturday I deactivated my Facebook account. Not deleted, just deactivated. Like...taking a sabbatical. From social media. I don't want to delete my account because my friends and family are spread out all over the United States. Many of them I haven't seen physically in years (and some I haven't met yet!) but Facebook lets me know about their lives. So I'm not giving it up. BUT...


I was spending far more time on Facebook than is healthy. And what was I NOT doing? Writing.


I knew it would be difficult to quit, but I hadn't realized how much time I spend on there until after I made deactivation. Sunday I had to work. I was booked solid so after six and a half hours of massage and an hour drive plus a half hour detour to pick up my step-daughter and stop at the grocery I was exhausted. I didn't even go on the computer.


 But today.... Monday is my rest day. Sundays at worked are always busy so I try to keep Mondays totally free if possible, so I don't have to go anywhere. Do have any idea how many times I wanted to share the inanest of thoughts on Facebook? How much I wanted to run to the status window with every frustration? Jeez. I couldn't sit at the computer long without wanting to log in. Blech.


I blocked Facebook in my browser too, along with Slate, because it was another huge time waster for me. And I uninstalled Lord of the Rings Online from my computer. Because I can play that damn thing for an entire day and not even realize it.


I want to get back to writing and forcing myself away from time wasting. If I can get myself writing on a regular basis maybe in six months or so I can attempt to check in again.


This entry was a lot more boring than I'd hoped. See? I can't even write an interesting blog entry anymore. Well, just keep bashing away, genius will return. Return, damn you!

Movie Friday - Alien (Yeah, I know it's Saturday now...shut up.)

Everybody's dead, Dave. Everybody but Ripley and the cat.

Alien

Release Date: May 25, 1979
Studio: Brandywine Productions
Distribution: 20^th Century Fox
Director: Ridley Scott
Writers:  Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett, David Giler (uncredited), Walter Hill (uncredited)
Alien Design: H. R. Giger    

Cast:

Copyright Twentieth Century Fox
Left to Right:
Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Victoria Lambert,
Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Yaphet Kotto

Alien: Boladji Badejo in his sole film credit. Ah, the days before CGI, when monsters were people in suits or complicated puppets...or sometimes both.

Ash:  Ian Holm
Brett:  Harry Dean Stanton
Dallas: Tom Skerritt
Kane: John Hurt
Parker: Yaphet Kotto
Ripley:  Sigourney Weaver

Mother, voice of the computer: Helen Horton
Jonesy: a ginger tomcat 

I don’t remember when I first saw Alien. It wasn’t in 1979, that’s for sure. I was eight years old. It would’ve been five or six years later at least. I read the novelization of the movie by Alan Dean Foster first and I loved it. I think I was about thirteen when I read it, my step-dad was a member of the science fiction book club and it was in his collection. So I probably saw the movie between thirteen and sixteen years of age. In retrospect? This sort of explains a lot about myself to…myself.

When I saw the movie? Damn. I loved it. It was gory and creepy and science-y (I loved the sci fi movies that seemed more realistic…twenty minutes into the future and all that) and a woman was outsmarting a seriously dangerous alien! And…AND…she saved the cat! Yeah, she didn’t manage to save any of the people but really, they were too stupid to listen to her and be careful and the cat really couldn’t save itself, could it? Ripley used her brains.

Ripley used her brains. That’s sort of what it all comes down to.

Okay, NOW everybody else is dead.
Property Twentieth Century Fox.

Alien is in the top ten of greatest sci-fi movies on most of the lists I looked at...and when it wasn’t in the top ten its sequel, Aliens, was.  Other minds more patient and probing than mine have reviewed and dissected it at length on the internet, explaining precisely how and why it is so amazingly, awesomely, badass on every level. I won’t go into that myself, because I agree with most of their interpretations and explanations. I’ll give you the links so you can explore them yourself. I can still see new things in it today, or notice details that showed up in the later movies as homages. It’s classic. Sci fi...you’re doing it right.

I am an early model Star Wars and Star Trek fangirl but Alien is number one on the list of my favorite science fiction movies, with its sequel Aliens right behind it.  Would I have said that twenty years ago? Probably not. But I say it today, because at forty-two I understand a lot more about a lot more than I did at twenty-two. How do I explain it without going into pages of DEEP THOUGHTS? I can’t.

 The movie passes the Bechdel Test, passed by Bechdel herself, thank you.

It’s in my top five movies favorite movies of all genres.

Because Ripley uses her brains to defeat the monster and survive...and Ripley is a woman.  

Bibliography:

General Info:

Alien (film) Wikipedia – I’m trying to limit my reliance on Wikipedia in my research, but damn, this is a pretty exhaustive entry with 119 source notes listed.
Alien (1979)  IMDB – I love IMDBs trivia, goofs, quotes.

Property of H. R. Giger

Art:

H. R. Geiger - Ow. Turn your sound down. Giger designed the alien and built the body.
Carlo Rambaldi -  Designed and built the head of the xenomorph. The jaw of the the head is now in the Smithsonian Institute. Or so says the Alien Wikipedia article, I could not find confirmation on the humongous Smithsonian website or anywhere else on the web.

Interesting Alien tidbits- Backstory on the Nostromo Crew:

Strange Shapes - Alien Series Blog: Nostromo Crew Profiles - allegedly from Ridley Scott’s character notes
Shadowlocked - Space Misfits: Nostromo Crew Backstories revealed – The Aliens Anthology blu ray set has some lovely extras it seems.

Reviews:

FeoMante.com - Alien Movie Review - by Kelly Parks
Cult Brittania – Alien: The Technically British Film Series – Hamish Crawford answers the question I never considered asking. “How British Is It?”
SFDebris: Alien - Chuck gets his snark on. My favorite video reviewer.

Top Sci Fi movie lists:

The Guardian: Film Blog
Popular Mechanics: The 100 Best Sci Fi movies of all time – see that link under the video box? It says View Thumbnails? Just do that,  it’s easier. Otherwise you’ll have to click next until you get to number twelve. I tried to link to the thumbnails directly but I couldn’t. Seriously Popular Mechanics, why ya gotta be like that?
IGN.com: Top 25 Sci Fi Movies of All Time – IGN, your website is also extremely annoying. See to that, would you?
American Film Institute: Top Ten Sci Fi – See! See! THIS is how you do a list!
Science Channel Top 10 Sci Fi Movies – Its number three, that Avatar ad throws me off. Ish.
Rotten Tomatoes: Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy movies – Another easily readable list.
Parallel Universe: Fifty Greatest Science Fiction Movies of All Time