And You're Tearing Up Your Photos 'Cause You Wanna Forget It's Over

It's 12:30 on 12/31/06, and she turns around and says over her shoulder, "I don't want to get married."

I say, "Me either."

"Let's just be freshmen," she says.

"Let's be freshmen forever," I say. "That is exactly what we need to do."

I was eighteen when I met her. We lived on the third floor of Whitman Hall in Canton, NY, and it was September, 1999. What happens to everything? That's what I want to know. I am telling you I could close my eyes and be there. I would go back in a second, in a snap of my fingers, no question. Back to the beginning. Back to stand there and wonder and worry and drink Blue and have angst and watch the snowflakes drift silently through the naked fingers of the trees. I wasn't cold then. I wasn't cold at all. Because the stars were stark and distant and reassuring, and the streetlights shone orange, and it sort of spun dizzily around you, and it was too beautiful to be cold.

But she is getting married tomorrow night. And this was seven years ago.

So we're telling this story tonight, a freshman year story, about how this one time I was partying in the track suite until 6-ish, and I make my way back to Whitman as the sun is hovering beneath the horizon and pondering coming up. I believe this is exam week as well. I knock on her door. She answers, and goes, "Where's my roommate?"

I say, "I left her there. She was hooking up with Ike in the laundry room!" [Brief detour while we crack up over how several people at the bachelorette evening also hooked up with Ike. In fact, I am not going to lie, a large portion of the night's conversation consisted of rehashing who hooked up with whom and falling into laughter over it.]

So we're standing there talking when Katie strolls in. It has to be at least seven by this time. She walks into the room, and nonchalantly goes, "So. I just left a guy naked. Tell you about it tomorrow. Good night."

But we didn't go to bed. We said, "Fuck it," and went to Dana and got breakfast. Never mind that we hadn't slept yet. It was just because. Because you're still drunk and it's 7:30 AM on a Friday morning, and goddamn is it fun to watch the good kids trek downstairs to breakfast before a rough day of studying. It was the end of my first semester, and I am still not convinced I ever managed to be more obnoxious in Dana in the next three years. But we went to Dana breakfast that morning. It was totally the thing to do. If you had been there, you would have done it, too.

Seven. No way is it seven. Two years, maybe. Three? Okay. But seven. I just counted it up on my fingers.

I am bad at these things. I let things drift. I mean to see people, and I mean to write about the moments I've never been able to get out of my mind, and I mean to really figure out what it all meant, really get it straight in my head, and I mean to call. I mean and I mean and I mean.

And then seven years.

Maybe it's the writer in me, but I feel this driving need to put my past in these little boxes, to get it down on paper, to fasten it in one place so it won't drift. I am telling you, the drifting scares me. Because I want it to be there if I need it. I want it to be there so someday I can look at it and think suddenly, "Oh! That's what this meant." I want everyone to be there. This is what he said to me. This is what she wore. This is what we did on this exact night. This is how it was.

Seven years! No fucking way. Sometimes I feel like I don't know who I am anymore.

"I'm gonna stay eighteen forever
So we can stay like this forever
And we'll never miss a party
'Cause we keep them going constantly
And we'll never have to listen
To anyone about anything
'Cause it's all been done and it's all been said
We're the coolest kids and we take what we can get
You're just jealous 'cause we're young and in love
Your stomach's filled up but you're starved for conversation
And you're spending all your nights growing old in your bed
And you're tearing up your photos
'Cause you want to forget it's over"

New Toys

Yesterday I spent my Christmas money on a digital camera. Yes, I know, with the amount of photos I take and post, and with the amount of Gimp graphics work I do, it might come as a surprise that I do not have a digital camera. I actually don't even have a film camera, since my cheap ass Kodak from college got wet during Katrina and stopped working. Mostly I use Mike's, but his isn't really small enough to take with me in a purse (well, it is, but to the exclusion of all other items such as lip gloss and sunglasses, which are essential items). I got a Nikon Coolpix L3, which is a lower end model that is quite tiny. The resolution and features are good enough to do anything I'll ever want to do. I've been tinkering around with it a little bit. Unfortunately, the esteemed Jolee Bindo is not here to act as an unwilling test shot subject. However, the Grouch, our fifteen-year-old holy terror in retirement, was more than happy to pose. (Yes, that is indeed the kitchen table.)

Geeking Out In Upstate NY

My brother got me Lego Star Wars II for Christmas, and I spent a couple of hours putzing around in it. (It's a children's game, yet I keep falling off cliffs.) I can't install it on my computer, to my disappointment. My laptop only has an ATI Radeon 7500, which is several years old and doesn't support pixel shading or some such nonsense. I will have to either put the game on Mike's PC with the dead LCD screen, or get us a gaming tower that we can set up with the nice monitor (not a bad idea, actually). For now we put it on Bryan's new laptop.

We also installed a wireless router here and had a supremely geeky moment where we were all on our separate laptops in a family chat. Which would have been cute had we not been sitting roughly four feet apart at the time. Now all we need to do is plug in and boot up Neverwinter Nights on our respective computers and go raid dungeons together!

Ha. Or not.

Merry Christmas!

Festive Christmas Rejection

No, seriously, I just got my best rejection ever-- on DCDS: The Short Story. Strange Horizons actually took time to send me a personal e-mail with some good feedback suggestions. I think they had the story about 40 days. It was my first time submitting there. They said try the print prozines just in case, because someone might bite on it (though I think I've already got most of them). I like that it was more than a form rejection, and was surprised that the editor had also perused my website. It really gives me a good opinion of them as a market.

They're right, really. The story is not very tight structurally (composed of alternating past and present scenes, at least one of which I know could go, but then it would screw up the alternating, so I left it in) and it's too long. It's the length that makes it a problem, as most places prefer stories of 3-6K words. I've tried paring it down, but I can't seem to do it without losing bits I like. I will definitely ponder it more, but I'd rather send it a couple more times and spend my time finishing up a few others I've been working on. I'm not wedded to every single one of those scenes... half of them are in the novel anyway.

I have one or two more stories that are very close to being ready. Mike is always bugging me to submit more, and I know I need to, but my definition of "ready" is very picky. Anyhow, I am going to plug Strange Horizons. I really enjoy the stuff on their site, and will submit to them again.

Haha

Mike just rolled over in bed and clearly said, "The point is, it's not him." Then he pulled up the covers and continued to sleep.

Well? Who is it then? ;-)

Major Shopping Coup! A Story in Thirteen Acts

1. I went to Lakeside Mall, Esplanade Mall, and Magazine Street this week in what was beginning to seem like a futile search for a holiday dress. My college friend Ryan is getting married New Year's Eve, and I suddenly came to the realization that all women dread... I hated all my clothes and had... seriously... nothing... to wear.

2. My criteria: something shiny, under $100 but willing to stretch it as high as $120 (I have paid more for dresses I really, really liked, but this is a tricky financial month for me with tuition due early in January), a size 0-4, something red!, or gold!, preferably something to match my amazingly gorgeous gold velvet BCBG shoes which we all know I love. Honestly. It is the holiday season. These criteria should not be hard to fulfill. Right?

3. Wrong. There was nothing that called to me, "Wear me!" Even if it had been in my size, which most things weren't. I am just going to point out that it is actually really, really hard to shop when you are skinny. Especially if you are tall and skinny. It's like that whole thing with boob size-- women who want bigger ones don't realize that the women WITH bigger ones hate them and want smaller ones. I am so over being told, "Did you check in Juniors? They have your size there."

4. So today I went to Canal Place, which was my Last and Only Hope of finding a dress in New Orleans.

5. I went in BCBG and would not even allow myself to try on. It was an act of rigid willpower, since there were several cute, cute dresses. But I was committed to staying strictly on budget, since I have zero dollars to my name right now. No $300 dresses for Sarah.

6. I went to White House Black Market, even though I didn't want another black dress. (True to the name, they only sell dresses that are black... or white. Or sometimes beige or silver.) Unless it had some sort of trim or detailing that matched my gold shoes. And I sort of wanted red, too. I wanted color. Christmas-y color. So I sort of walked through the store quickly, then continued on my way.

7. In Ann Taylor I tried on a black strapless dress, with a rose pattern and a poofy skirt. It was on sale for $78. I had tried on the same dress at the other mall. It looked good, but... I told them to hold the size 0 while I did ONE last check to make sure there was absolutely nothing else.

8. Back at White House Black Market, scanning the sale rack with greater attention. Nothing really called to me, again, but then, I figured it couldn't hurt to see what a couple of them looked like on. I picked two dresses and went in the dressing room. The girl brought me black heels to test out the dress with. I zipped up the first dress, which was shiny and black, with off-white ribbon designs on the bodice, put on the shoes, and stepped out.
9. Both girls in the store were like, "Wow." I kind of agreed. I asked, "Why is this dress on the sale rack? It's gorgeous." They said you would be surprised... it didn't fit a lot of people quite right, and bunched up on the sides. It looked perfect on me, though. Must be my tiny Scarlett O'Hara-esque waist. The dress had nice retro lines to it. I am sucker for that look. It was growing on me by leaps.

10. The girl said, "Can I ask you why you wouldn't get it?"
I said I wasn't actually looking for black, because I had these other shoes.
"A lot of people have that problem," she said.
I said, "But I have equally nice and expensive black shoes that I am not opposed to wearing, either. And this dress is kind of perfect. I am starting to feel like it's meant to be."
She said, "I think that's the best I've seen that dress fit."
I said, "I'm not even trying the other one on. I know better than to question the shopping karma."

11. The dress was $168, which had been marked down to $130. It was on the additional 40% off rack. It rang up as $77. Seventy-seven dollars! Including tax! Whee! So by far the best dress I tried on ended up being the cheapest. I win... at life.

12. When I got home, I put on my dress and gloated for about half an hour. I even took pictures of myself in the mirror. I apologize for the crappy quality of the photos (I had to turn the flash off). I hope you get the general effect, though you can't see the lovely shininess, which is a pity. Sometimes you just need to pose and gloat.

13. Now I am watching White Christmas, thoroughly satisfied with myself. And that is one holiday shopping coup in the books!

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My Mortal Enemy

To the scary lemon spider at work:

THIS IS WAR. When you tried to chop my finger off this summer, I took it for an accident. It went almost down to the bone and hurt like hell and bled all over, leaving a lovely scar on the middle finger of my right hand. I mean, all I was trying to do was cut lemons into wedges so the losers at my tables can have lemons with their iced teas. An iced tea. With a wedge of lemon. It is not that hard a concept to grasp, yet it seems to make people inordinately happy. Some of them even request several lemons! So you see, clearly I have been trying to work with you on this lemon cutting thing.

I want you to know I also hold you indirectly responsible for the chunk of scar tissue that NEVER GOES AWAY EVEN THOUGH IT HAPPENED IN LIKE SEPTEMBER, next to the fingernail on the middle finger of my OTHER hand. Because I would never have been using a steak knife to cut those lemons if it weren't for the fact that you terrify me.

Yes, you, lemon spider. You, of the four sharp blades and the sleek guillotine-esque lines. You, who sit creepily watching me from your perch on the cutting board next to the Coke dispenser. You are a machine of death, lemon spider, but I thought we had learned to keep a wary distance from each other... until today.

I don't know how you do it. How is it you manage to come up with so many different ways of injuring me? You are, after all, just a metal guillotine for lemons. But today I was wedging lemons, and when I slammed the blade down, you managed to somehow catch my hand between the edges of your heavy metal clamp. "Holy fucking SHIT!" I yelled, grabbing my hand. But there was no blood this time. There is, however, a massive bright red blood blister in the middle of a bruise on the palm of my hand. And it really really hurts.

Anyhow, lemon spider, I want you to know that I hereby declare war on you.

You are trying to kill me. But now I'm onto you. So watch out.

Sincerely,

Sarah

Tags: work, lemon spider

Go Saints!

Mike: We're going to Cooter's to watch the game. Do you want to come?
Me: Well... maybe... well...
Mike: What you're trying to say is, you care about the Saints game. You plan to watch the Saints game, but you want to watch it while on your computer doing something else. You don't want to go somewhere where you will have to solely watch the Saints game.
Me: That's it!!!
Mike: I'll just leave the TV on then. Bye.

Tags: saints

Forest Mage... Thoughts

Last night I pretty much knocked out Robin Hobb's Forest Mage between the hours of 1:30 and 4:30 AM. (If this sounds like an odd time to begin a book, remember that I don't actually get home from work on Thursdays until midnight.) I was just going to read for a few minutes, but then I got into it... and then the creepiness started occurring. A huge chunk of the plot revolves around a mysterious plague, during which our narrator ends up working as a gravedigger. I was OK with this, until the bodies of plague victims started reanimating themselves and walking around. I was like, "OK, that is it. No more." I don't know if I've mentioned it here (probably, at some point), but I have this irrational fear of dead people. I tend to blame it on my dad making me look at the mummies at the Museum of History and Art when I was about 7. Yeah. So here I am at 3:30ish, thinking it is way too late and I should set the book down and go to sleep. Except now I was too creeped out to sleep, because I kept thinking about dead plague victims walking around. So I just kept reading.

This was the second book of a trilogy. It continues the Robin Hobb trend of abusing her protagonists. Poor Nevare and Fitz. Come to think of it, she refrained from abusing anyone in the Liveship books. No, wait. Wintrow's own father tattooed his face with a slave tattoo and then shortly afterward his hand got cut off. But that was the first book, and things really did go up from there... really.

Tags: robin hobb, forest mage

Four. Point. O.

Continuing my streak, my grades for this semester appear to have been posted online and are an average of... 4.0. (4.0 plus 4.0 divided by two is... by George, 4.0.) This has been sort of a crappy semester for me, since only two classes I needed were offered. Originally I had thought I would get certified after one year and maybe a summer, but it will end up being two years. Katrina interfered with a lot of my plans, and I will be glad to get my teaching certification finally. Of course, then I'll probably spend another two years finishing the Master's. I'll work on that while I'm teaching. Technically, I could be teaching right now, but I wanted to see how the school situation in New Orleans shook down before getting into the job hunt.

So far at UNO, I have a cumulative GPA of 3.73. That's a pretty nice GPA! Of course, education classes are not exactly rocket science. I will be taking three classes next semester: my English methods course, one on information literacy, and my last internship.

Tags: grad school

Thirteen Things I Want to Do In My Life

1. Publish a book.

2. Purchase my own boat. Preferably of the 20-30 ft variety. Of course, one that sails. Any other kind hardly counts as a boat. (Sailors are snobs.)

3. Travel to Europe.

4. Travel to Africa.

5. Live in an old Victorian house. (With a tower? Dare I hope?)

6. Learn some kind of martial art.

7. Play Star Wars: KOTOR 3. If they ever get around to making it. Sigh.

8. OK, so now we're getting a little off topic because I technically don't have any control over these things, but can I watch another Firefly/Serenity movie? I would certainly want to do that in my life. If someone, ahem, made one.

9. Learn to cook good desserts. I don't know how to make any desserts, except cake out of the box.

10. Have one wall that is entirely built-in bookshelves.

11. Go into space! Do you think, maybe, in like 50 years, this will be something we can just up and do? Maybe? I wonder if the vastness would freak me out completely. But then, I majored in philosophy. I think I could handle it.

12. Wake up in the morning and be able to actually SEE. That is, before I stumble into the bathroom to put in contacts with strength -5.75 into each eye. I am totally sketched out by Lasik, because I don't trust people with lasers around my eyeballs, but I really might get it someday.

13. Own a house in the Adirondacks. I could "summer" there. I could watch the fog hover above the lake in the mornings, and listen to loons, and go canoeing. Just a little crappy camp, that's all. It doesn't even need a road, as long as it has a dock.

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Tags: thursday thirteen

Oh, fine! But ONLY Because I am Busy And Don't Feel Like Making a Real Post

"Your underwear is MINE, human! ALL MINE! Muahahaha."

Tags: jolee, cat

P.S.

You may have noticed I am currently a Jedi. This is because I got sick of the picture I had. It was taken in May, and my hair doesn't look like that anymore. I am in the process of sifting through my files to see if I can find a new one that I like. For the present, however, I am a Jedi with a double-bladed purple lightsaber. If this angers you because you feel it compromises the whole point of a user picture, never fear. You can rest assured that this Jedi does bear an approximate resemblance to me. I even have a cute little ponytail.

Thanks. Carry on.

Tags: blogging, user photo

So Pretty is My Kitty

Deep in the heart of the universe there must be an answer to the question of why the words "pretty" and "kitty" rhyme with each other. There has to be a reason for this.

Clearly it is so I can make up absurd poetry while talking to my cat. Who happens to be both pretty and a kitty, although, as a rather large male cat, I believe he might find such references to be slightly emasculating.

[This entry will not include a picture of my cat, because we have had too many lately, and I don't want people to think that all I do is take pictures of my cat. Who is doing something very cute at this very moment that, unfortunately, the internet will not be privy to. You will just have to imagine it.]

Tags: jolee, cat

The Lies of Locke Lamora

I am all over this book like my cat on clean laundry. Read: rolling and stretching and generally basking with a smirk. The reviews I'd read of it said it was... well, not light, per se, but a fun page-turner. Not amazingly deep, but a good ride. I am loving it so far, but I find myself reading quite slowly, taking long breaks. Like tonight I haven't read any of it yet. (I currently sit about 3/5 of the way through.) It seems this is going to be one I will NEED the sequel to immediately, yet the sequel won't be out till next summer. Rats. I don't suppose I can hold off on finishing it for more than one more day. And then it'll be on to Robin Hobb's Forest Mage, I expect.

But. Lies of Locke Lamora. It is about thieves. Gangs of thieves. Think The Sting in pseudo-renaissance Venice, with cons and scams and a well-thought out underworld with its own rituals and slang. I say pseudo because there is some magic involved, making it plain that we are not in alternate history: we are "somewhere else." (Also, I believe I caught a throwaway reference to there being three moons.) There's a lot of really bad language, and really fun characters. Though the love interest that we never actually see onscreen is a bit annoying... I do love a good love interest. Anyway, these thieves are in the middle of pulling a scam on an unsuspecting noble, involving many disguises, when a new enemy appears in their little underworld and makes a play for power that puts them all in extreme danger. There is a blurb from GRRM on the cover, which means I was not surprised that Scott Lunch doesn't seem to have any qualms about killing off characters. At the moment, Locke and his friends seem like they're pretty much fucked, and I am not sure how they'll get out of this mess. But I'm sure they do, because it is the first of a projected seven adventure novels. And the next one has pirates! (Dies of joy... I probably do not need to profess for the seven millionth time my desire for nautical fantasy to become a valid and popular sub-genre.)

Tags: books, fantasy, scott lynch, lies of locke lamora

A Streetcar Named St. Charles

Yesterday I was driving through Chalmette and making mental note of the progress in the last several months. The drive came shortly after reading this editorial in yesterday's Times Picayune, on the subject of how to deal with other well-meaning Americans who just don't get it. I think it is easy for people to forget what happened here. It's become easier for me to forget. I live Uptown, which was largely spared. However, I also live just south of Broadmoor, and my daily drives take me through Gentilly and Central City. So I'm not that insulated. I've come to the realization that you can't dwell on it every day, or it takes a toll on you.

But it's strange, the things that become "normal." The other day I drove past a work crew erecting shiny new traffic lights at our intersection, and I was so excited I got on the phone to call Mike about it. Every couple days, a building you've driven by every day is just gone, demolished, either a flat pile of sticks or an eerie slab wiped clean. The day after Thanksgiving, we enjoyed a decadent lunch at Commander's Palace, the first time I've been since it reopened, and commemorated the occasion with a tourist-like photo under the sign (taken by the valet parking boy). We wandered upstairs, and through all of the dining rooms, just to get a look at the place: what had changed, and what was the same. And now you can actually get gas on Claiborne. This seems like a given, seeing as it's right by the I-10 exit, but really the gas stations there were closed for a year. Gas on Claiborne is a recent thing, in the last couple of months.

Taco Bell. This one is poignant for me. I admit to strange and unhealthy cravings for Taco Bell. I would live on chalupas if I thought the grease and cheese and mystery chicken wouldn't make me gravely ill. What used to be the Taco Bell on Claiborne-- and, in fact, the only Taco Bell in the Metro area not counting the one on Chartres street that closed-- has reopened, but it's not Taco Bell anymore. It's some dubious fast food restaurant that, from the neon signs in the window, somehow serves Chinese food and po-boys. Heartbreakingly, it still looks exactly like a Taco Bell. Oh, Taco Bell, where art thou? The one just over the border into Jefferson Parish is also gone. I drove by the dead one in Chalmette yesterday. The Taco Bell people seem to have up and pulled out of New Orleans. I have been to the one in Algiers, and the one in Belle Chasse. But if anyone knows of a Taco Bell on the east bank, you need to let me know ASAP.

Even with the flurry of demolishings and reopenings, it still seems like there's something missing. It occurs to me that I think it's the streetcars. My first apartment in New Orleans was two blocks off St. Charles, and my second apartment (fated to live in infamy for having the roof come off and the ceiling cave in twice in one summer) was four blocks away. You could sit on the porch and hear this strange muted roar, this clicking and clattering punctuated by the occasional ringing of a bell. The St. Charles streetcars are old green monsters from another era, and they are loud. Or, they were. They are gone now.

But I remember when I used to take the streetcar to work in the CBD. I used to wait under the yellow sign, sweltering in the heat, with my dollar and a quarter. I used to sit on the wooden seat and lean out the open windows, watching the mammoth columned houses slide by. Everything sort of slides by on the streetcar. You don't ride the streetcar to get places fast. You don't ride if you want climate control, either. There is no AC on the streetcar, and the windows are almost always open. The one time I've gone running on the neutral ground on St. Charles, I still kept looking over my shoulder, out of habit, waiting for the streetcar to roar up and scare the shit out of me. I expected it, but it wasn't there. Just an empty dirt-filled median, with wires dangling down here and there. If there were streetcars on St. Charles right now, they would be rumbling along with greens garlands and red bows affixed to their fronts. The streetcars were always decorated for Christmas. I miss them.

RTA's goal is to have the streetcars in operation by late 2007. I hope this happens. I hear they are supposed to be running them from Canal to Lee Circle starting this month. The restaurant where I work is close to Lee Circle. I think they've been testing the line, because sometimes a streetcar will go by, one of the green ones, pushed or pulled by an RTA truck. We all stop what we're doing and point out the window. "Streetcar!" I think they ought to publish it in the paper, next fall, when the first post-Katrina streetcar will make its run down St. Charles. I would get up for it. Even if it was at 5 AM. I would get up and walk the seven blocks down Octavia Street to St. Charles Avenue and wait for it. I would wait for it under the oak trees.

You ask me, when will New Orleans be back?

When the green streetcars roll down St. Charles Avenue, and not before.

Tags: new orleans, uptown, streetcars, katrina, recovery

Testing

OK, I just migrated to Blogger Beta, which seems to have gone well except for the fact that it's anonymous-ized several of my previous comments. I don't know whether that depends on what kind of Blogger account you guys have. I see I can now use labels for my posts. I might incorporate that into my sidebar... but then, I already use Technorati tags, so would that look stupid with both? I don't know, I was going to move my whole blog off "the Spot," but I have free hosting for my site, and I won't be able to if my blog is there. It would take up too much space and bandwidth. Blogger has never eaten any of my posts or given me any disasters like it appears to have given others. So I'm going to stay here for now, and continue to upgrade my other site, until I have enough extra cash kicking around to buy a nice hosting package.

ETA: Yes, I do believe that does look stupid.

Tags: blogger beta, blogging

Imagine My Surprise

You are a Social Liberal (71% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (11% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Tags: politics

In Which We Use Our Mad L337 Haxor Skilz

I am peeing myself laughing. Seriously.

It didn't get to be popular until after I graduated from college, so I missed out on most of the fun, but I do have an account on Facebook. So does my brother, and a number of people I know from college, though most of us now have accounts associated with our graduate schools. Recently, Facebook stopped requiring a college e-mail and just let anyone sign up to join. This week my dad, who is a professor, found out that some of his students had created a fake profile for him on Facebook. It was obviously fake because our last name was spelled incorrectly. My dad asked, "What does it say? Can you see it?" I said I couldn't. You had to ask my fake dad to add you as a friend in order to see the page. I doubted they would add me, since it was blatantly obvious that I was related to him. Nevertheless, I said I would attempt to infiltrate the page. Apparently, the kids who made it were not the brightest bulbs in the box. They added me as a friend, giving me access to the page. There wasn't a lot to it, but some things were mildly offensive. I mentioned it to my brother tonight before dinner. He said, "I'm going to add them." I told him not to, because two of us might tip them off that we were onto them. And besides, maybe they just added me because I'm a cute girl. (Which was their FIRST mistake. Heh.) I gave my brother my account info so he could sign in as me and see for himself. Then I went to cook stir fry.

I get done eating dinner, and the phone rings. It is my brother. Seems our darling community college students put the dumbest password ever on the Facebook account, and Bryan guessed it on the second try. It gets better. They made the mistake of using the same password for the Yahoo e-mail address they used to set up the fake profile of my dad. My brother wastes no time in changing both passwords to something only we would know. So basically, we own them. They are locked out of both accounts. We own their entire identity. I feel no moral qualms whatsoever over this because it was a fake identity to begin with. And they messed with the clan.

The question became what to do with our dad's fake profile. Clearly, we now owned their account. We had to fuck with them. Immediately we went in and deleted all the stuff we found borderline offensive. Like the pictures of the Rockstar energy drink and the Hooters Girls. We left the rest of the pictures, except we changed the captions to make fun of the students who made the site. It was clear who had made the site because they added themselves as friends. They were, in fact, my fake dad's only friends. They had put a picture of N Sync in their album. Bryan went and tagged the picture with the kids' names. (When you tag people in a photo album, it sends them a nice little email, which makes this even more amusing.) I said, "We should make an album of really, really lame pictures and tag them in it. Except I'm trying to think of something gayer than N Sync... but it's just not coming." Hey, we're not the ones who put the N Sync picture on there. Fitting, indeed. We changed our fake dad's "Current Status" to "laughing an evil laugh." We added a couple of activities (Hacking. Kicking Ass. Taking Names. Failing Moronic Students.) I threw in some stupid hacker speak. Then we added ourselves as friends and wrote notes on our fake dad's wall, agreeing with the previous notes that, yes, it was a fine site indeed.

We also made a group, titled it "I Tried to Make a Fake Profile for my Prof But Got Shut Down by Hackers," complete with a picture (see left), a group description that says "You all got owned," and we set ourselves up as the administrator, and gave ourselves the title "L337 HAXOR #1." Then we personally sent them all invitations to join our group.

Mike pointed out that if they had secret password questions, they could get back their accounts. We changed the password prompt on the Facebook account to something only we would know. But the Yahoo account proved more difficult. They used "What is your birthday?" Well, their fake profile for our dad listed a birthday of 1/2/55. We went for that. Score. Except there was a second question. "What make was your first car/bike?"

"Fuck," types my brother on IM. And then, a few seconds later, "These guys have sunk to a new low of retardation."

They used our dad's car.

We finally had to stop. But I can't help dropping in every 20 minutes to admire our work and giggle helplessly over it. It is just that beautiful. Of course, we'll probably just delete the account once we've had our fun. But I hope it confuses the hell out of them. (We suspect it's a couple of them getting a laugh out of pretending to be our dad, which would explain why the password was so easy.) I hope they're like, "Dude! Who changed the page? Dude! It wasn't me! What the--??" It is pretty obvious from our snarky comments that it was us. But I likened it to my favorite scene in the movie The Sting, which I happened to watch a couple of weeks ago. The gangster's guy fumes, "I KNOW I gave him four threes! He had to have made a switch!" And Lonnigan snaps back, "What was I supposed to do? Call him for cheating better than me in front of the others?" There's no way these kids can report us for stealing their identity. Because they stole our dad's first.

Our dad has not seen "his" fake site. He doesn't really need to, now. He was going to try and have it deleted by the Facebook administrators. It's not necessary.

...We'll just tell him we took care of it. ;-)

Providing Useful Answers To Life's Questions Since July 2005

Here are some questions/phrases that directed Googling folks to the blog this week. I will try to answer them to the best of my ability. Because it's nice to provide at least some public services. I like to think of it as giving back to the internet community. Thus, I will now commence to dispense advice.

hot soup on feral cat food
I don't know where to go on this one. Is it asking whether to PUT hot soup on food that you leave out for feral cats? Or did someone FIND some hot soup on food that was left out for feral cats, and wonder whether this was some sweeping nationwide trend or some strange cat-attracting trick he or she hadn't heard of? I have some expertise in this, since I put out food for feral cats. So my answer is going to be, No. Shit, no, man. That's just weird. Feral cats do not want your soup.

lsat ruined my life
Well, I was going to sort of commiserate here, but actually it was law school that ruined my life. I didn't really study for the LSAT. I still did OK, though. I got a 162. Despite having to get up at the asscrack of dawn and despite the fact that someone had forgotten to turn the heat on in Hepburn Hall, so I took the entire test in a pea coat, a hat, gloves, and a scarf... Come to think of it, that did sort of ruin my life. Or at least 6 valuable drinking hours of my weekend.

what are craisens
They are like raisins. With cranberries. Dried out cranberries. Cr-raisins. Get it?

This has been a public service.

Really F&%@*ing Cold... And No Books

OK, so SFBC needs to get off their butts and send me my books, over which I have been drooling with anticipation for two weeks. I realize there was a holiday. I realize the books were free, so there is no reason to nitpick how long they take. I realize I live in a post-apocalyptic mail zone. I know all these things. But I still want my box of books. The idea of that box of books got me through work today. Now I am quite vexed.

Oh, the sad sight of my cold empty porch with no giant box of books on it.

In other news, as the title of this post says, it is really f&%@*ing cold. People who live in Caribbean climates should not have to tolerate this. I feel there must be a rule somewhere that says this. It has been between 30 and 40 all day. And there is no heat in our office. Jolee Bindo has his nose buried under his feet. Since I have no fresh happy selection of books to read tonight, I will be forced to play KOTOR 2 again. I expect this will irritate me, because I saved myself into a sticky spot last night and I can't seem to get out of it. I am being attacked by 6 guys at once, and I don't have time to queue up any actions or take any stimulants before they chop us up. Major oops. My character's name is Anaxa Fortuna (Jedi Guardian Level 13). I am playing this time through using this super well-done Twi'lek skin, which you can download here.

Tags: kotor 2

Girl and Cat Regard Each Other Across A Swath of Silver Trees

Tags: jolee, cat

An Actual Conversation @ Cooter Brown's Last Week

Bryan: So you're saying you don't like The Princess Bride?
Mike: I hate that movie.
Me: He's so weird. Everyone likes that movie.
Bryan: But... you like other stuff like it, don't you? You like Star Wars. Do you like Willow?
Mike: I love Willow.
Bryan: Well!
Me: I know!
Mike: Willow has Madmartigan. The Princess Bride only has that guy who keeps going on about "you kill my father, prepare to die." It's repetitive.
Me: Willow does have Madmartigan.
Bryan: I can't believe you don't like The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride is great.
Mike: So do you share your sister's opinions about the Star Wars prequels?
Me: Of course he does.

Straight from the mouths of actual real-life geeks who grew up in the 80's. (But I really am watching Willow right now.)

Tags: movies, geekdom

Gross

Courtesy of my brother comes this attractive shot, taken in my kitchen Thanksgiving morning. It depicts me doing battle with the turkey. What? The turkey was gross! I had to pull the giblets out of its butt! It was slimy and it weighed 15 lbs. And did Mike or Bryan help? No. I made them stand in the kitchen for moral support. They laughed at me and took pictures.

The turkey is gone now. We put it and the leftover shrimp into a pot of Zatarain's Chicken Creole two nights ago. The green jello is gone because I ate it today for breakfast. It occurs to me that in the last picture I posted of myself, I am wearing exactly the same thing. Really, I do own more than one sweater. I promise.

Tags: thanksgiving, cooking

Thirteen Mysteries About My Cat

I could watch my Jolee all day. Because he is just such a cute fluffball. He knows it. He is terribly vain. Pondering him this evening, here are some mysteries that float to mind. (Does anyone else ponder their cat? He looks like he likes to be pondered. He is clearly posing. Clearly.)

1. Where he came from before he was here. (He was trapped! On the streets, last January!)

2. Why he loves me so much.

3. Yet is terrified of everyone else.

4. How old he is. (The vet guesses three or four.)

5. Why he is so fascinated by watching the bathwater drain. (Isn't this sort of like the old cliche of watching paint dry?)

6. Why he can't allow me to go to the bathroom without him. He could be on the other side of the house, asleep, and when I start to pee, he comes running. Seriously, running.

7. Whether his fur will get any longer (dear lord, I hope not).

8. Why he has giant mutant feet.

9. Whether he was indoors or outdoors during Katrina. Poor cat!

10. Why he has a scary post-dinner meow. It is about four times louder than his usual meow and sounds like he's being strangled.

11. Who his other people were, and whether they miss him.

12. Why he sometimes gets himself stuck in his Palace of Poo. (This is what I call his litter box with a lid.) He uses it several times a day. He KNOWS how the door works. Yet sometimes he gets stuck in it, usually late at night, and feels the need to paw the door loudly for ten minutes until we yell at him. Then he gets up the balls to push through the swinging door and just hops out. I think he does it to be annoying.

13. Why he likes the smell of feet.

And now I have to go because he is head-butting my chair. Did I mention that last night he knocked my LAPTOP off the table onto the floor? He has jealousy issues with my laptop.

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Tags: thursday thirteen, cats, jolee

Short Stories

Since I decided I couldn't deal with finishing NaNoWriMo this month (yeah, yeah, yeah, dismal failure, I know), I am in the middle of two short stories. I'm writing them both at the same time, which is actually convenient in this instance because they feature the same characters. It's a world I've been writing in, if you can believe it, since the fifth grade. Of course, there have been plenty of developments, changes, new names, longer outline, etc. But I figure I've been writing stories all my life about a witch named Emma, and I find she's still got a lot to say. The one is from the point of view of another character in her life, and I am close to 2,900 words and trying to pare back. I think a large problem with the stories I've sent out is length. For example, I've gotten several (albeit nice) rejections on Dangerous City, Dark Skyway, which runs about 8,500 words. A lot of magazines won't go over the 4,000-6,000 range, so basically the shorter the story, the more options you leave open for yourself. In case you could not have predicted this about me from my blog, I have this problem with wordiness.

Yeah.

But I am REALLY AIMING for 5,000 words on this story. Seriously. And the second one, geez, I would like to go for 2,500-3,000 and keep it very, very short. A snippet of life, if you will. I can't believe all the sites out there dedicated to those itty bitty 100-word drabble things. It is impossible for me to tell a story in that amount of words. Impossible. And yet people do it! Amazing.

Tags: writing

Oh, Spammers

The subject heading of my favorite piece of spam e-mail to land in my inbox (or rather, to get deleted from my inbox) today? "Take it to your potfolio."

Hot damn. I do not have a potfolio. But I almost wish I had a potfolio. It sounds entertaining, albeit not entirely legal. Like having a pot plant out behind the shed. Perhaps several pot plants out behind the shed. It's a potfolio, after all. One marijuana plant does not a folio make.

Tags: spam, funny

Slacker

Well, the weekend was great, and we have a fridge full of leftovers. My dad managed to bust through at least two (2.5?) large fantasy tomes in as many days, which was impressive. My mom took walks and basked in the warmth (we were sunny and in the 60's-70's the whole weekend). My brother sampled a pint of each variety of Abita beer, and played foosball and poker. The cat even (grudgingly) allowed himself to be touched.

They left about two hours ago, and I am glad to report I have dropped quite easily back into my old slacker ways-- currently having instant pad thai for breakfast while sitting at my computer in sweats. The cat appears to be in a state of euphoria, racing throughout the apartment with his little nose turned up to the sun and what I could swear is a smile on his face.

More later.

Tags: thanksgiving

Figuring Out My Turkey

I love cooking in the internet age. I think my turkey was still a bit frozen this morning, even though it has been thawing in the fridge for 2 days. I am doing a little bit of cold water speed thawing. In older days, I might panic at the thought of cooking a turkey (this is my second turkey). But in this fine internet age, it's all right there! Yes, I admit it. I shamelessly Google for cooking instructions. "What do I do if my turkey is still a little bit too frozen?" Got it. "How long do I cook a 14 lb turkey?" Check. "I don't really have a roasting pan, can I just throw it in this Pyrex thing?" Yup.

Heh.

I have made green jello and cranberry relish. I still have turkey, stuffing, and jambalaya to go. I am going to chop up the veggies for the stuffing now.

Tags: thanksgiving

Allow Me To Explain About the Restaurant Business

"Allow me to explain about the theater business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster."
"So what do we do?"
"Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well."
"How?"
"I don't know. It's a mystery."
.... Shakespeare in Love

I think of that quote every night when I'm working. So many times it really does look like disaster up till the last hour. The whole back of a large restaurant exists in a condition of barely controlled disaster, at pretty much all times. And everything is moving very fast. The diners do not notice, but I am telling you it is true. Everyone's job is to not let the diners notice. It is what we get paid for.

Tonight I had this table. They were super nice, polite, loved everything, and the bill was $138. I took the cash and counted it up, and there were 3 fifties. It added up to a tip of less than $12. It was baffling to me. I thought maybe they didn't count properly, and I was sort of disappointed, but there was no way I was going to say anything. It wasn't going to ruin my night, but it made me feel "meh." About fifteen minutes later, the guy who paid comes BACK through the front door, asks the manager, "Where is my waitress? Oh, there she is!" He walks up to me as I am standing by the food counter and hands me a twenty. Turns out he didn't have enough cash, so he CAME BACK. I kind of stuttered, "Oh you didn't have to-- thanks so much-- have a great night-- thanks." Oh my God. No one comes back! They just don't. We were all standing there like, "Did that just happen?"

I made $245 on the dreaded Thanksgiving double. I told you it all turns out well.

Tags: waitressing, thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Double

I am working a double shift today, to make up for the fact that I'm missing Saturday night. Here I sit, smack in the middle of the dreaded Thanksgiving Double, panicking because the house is a mess and I have nothing done. Nothing. I have to be back at work at 6:00, so I'm thinking I can manage 2 loads of laundry and vaccuuming the cat up off the floor (I don't mean the actual cat. I mean there is enough fur on the floor to MAKE an actual cat, if one was so inclined.) I think then I will have to run to the store for last minute supplies tomorrow afternoon. And change the sheets on the futon. Because lord knows, I don't want to do that too early, lest they get furred up in the time between now and then.

I have made $80 so far on the rare and dreaded double. $200 on the day would be nice, but I would settle for $170 or $180. I am going to be there ALL FREAKIN' DAY, after all. I need some compensation.

I have so much to do. Why am I blogging? Why haven't I started the laundry?

Where am I?

Tags: thanksgiving

I Have No Shame

Earlier this year I joined the Science Fiction Book Club. I bought a bunch of books from them, fulfilled my membership obligations, and quit. Mike said, "Just wait." Lo and behold, the e-mail arrives in my inbox this week: "We've missed you! Rejoin and get 5 books for $1 each, plus a sixth book FREE!" For two days I didn't do anything, while it burned a hole in my inbox.

...Twiddled fingers... Looked back and forth... Clicked just to see what they have. Oh, come on. How is a person supposed to resist that kind of offer? I am getting 6 books for $18.70! What an unbelievable deal! Again! Several of these are books I was meaning to buy anyway. Here is what I'm getting this time around:

Forest Mage, Robin Hobb
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch
Old Man's War, John Scalzi
Memories of Ice, Steven Erikson
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Patricia C. Wrede (omnibus edition of a series I was OBSESSED with as a child)
Outward Bound, Robert Heinlein (omibus of 3 novels in one)

Tags: books

To the Maaaaaaaall

A conversation between me and my friend Darwin last week:

Me: Friday was my day off, and I didn't get to do ANYTHING. All I wanted out of life was to buy a new bag for winter. I realized I hate all my bags.
Darwin: Then clearly you need to go shopping.
Me: The problem is, I like all my summer bags but I hate all my winter ones.
Darwin: So? Why didn't you buy one?
Me: I couldn't!
Darwin: Why not?
Me: We had no water! I had not showered since Tuesday night, and I couldn't even brush my teeth. I couldn't do anything. It was like I was paralyzed. I could not do anything besides sit on the couch and watch Star Trek reruns on Spike TV, because I was just TOO DIRTY.
Darwin: Oh, sweetie. You should have just gone anyway. Screw them.
Me: I thought of that. But I wanted to go to the Coach store. And I just knew they would look at me like, "There is no way a person that greasy can afford to pay $100 for a bag." And it would be just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. And so I couldn't go.
Darwin: [laughter]
Me: I can handle a lot of things, but I cannot handle being thrown out of the Coach store because they think I am homeless.
Darwin: [more laughter]

And so another week passes, and I happen to have just taken a shower. So I am going FINALLY to buy a new bag. Preferably a nice neutral-colored leather one that works well with both black and brown, such as dark red, gray, or tan. And one large enough to hold all my junk, but not so large that I feel like I am schlepping around with this giant thing hanging off my shoulder. And something that is not trendy, because my current bag (which has a semi-broken strap) is one I received for Christmas at least four years ago. I am a shopaholic about some things, but clearly bags are not one of those things.

Plus while I am at the mall I'm going to the GNC to pick up some all-natural drugs for my Joleeest... Joleest... Joliest... Jolee-est... oh, fine, Kittiest (some nicknames do not translate well into type). I am going to try Rescue Remedy so he doesn't turn into a reclusive shedding furball of panic when my family arrives. Which is starting Tuesday! YAY!

Tags: shopping, jolee, thanksgiving

Thirteen Really Random Things and Then Back to Writing

1. I am supposed to be writing. So this is going to be a quick, random, and scattered Thirteen.

2. The Cox cable guy just left. He had been here since I woke up. In fact, he woke me up by ringing the doorbell. Our digital channels appear to actually work now. Though at one point he drove off somewhere in his truck, leaving his coat on the back of one of our dining room chairs and leaving me slightly confused. Luckily, he came back.

3. I always feel slightly awkward when people are in my house to fix things. Do I offer them coffee? Do I have to talk to them, or should I go about my business? Because really, I wanted to be writing.

4. Which reminds me of one of my co-workers' Cox cable guy story. This summer the Cox cable guy exposed himself to her! She ended up having to move and everything! And her dad is an attorney in Metairie and is sueing them. It really isn't funny at all. But the way she told the story... I admit it makes me crack up a bit to think about it. So here I am drinking coffee with a sweater pulled on over my PJ's, hoping I am unattractive enough in the morning not to entice the Cox cable guy to expose himself.


5. Speaking of which, this is me! Doing what I do all day when I am not at the restaurant! That is, being on my laptop either writing or internetting, unshowered and wearing my favorite very old J. Crew sweater and glasses. With coffee, naturally.

6. This is my "Russian peasant girl" look. I always say this, and people laugh. But I swear it is true. When I wake up in the morning, before my eyes are open all the way and without makeup, I resemble a Slavic peasant girl. I do not know where this came from. Well, yes I do. My dad's entire side of the family is Eastern European of some variety or another, but mainly Hungarian by way of what is now geographically Croatia. But the point is, I seem to have gotten all those genes, which results in me looking vaguely ethnic, more so than most of my immediate family. For instance, I have very light blue eyes and brown hair, my features are somewhat round, and I have darker coloring around my eyes such that I rarely put on eyeshadow. I have actually been asked in bars where I am from.

7. Which is a bit ridiculous because I am pretty obviously American.

8. I also get asked, at least 3 times a week, whether my eyes are real. Which they are. I wear contacts, but not colored ones. I have had very blue eyes all my life, so I ought to be used to it by now. Besides, it is usually people I am waiting on, so it is best not to roll one's eyes and just say thank you.

9. Today I need to get kitty litter for Da Kittiest. Can't forget that.

10. And I work the night shift.

11. I want to be at 20,000 words in NaNoWriMo before I leave for work. I will still be egregiously behind, but I don't really care. I "won" last year, so this year it is more about the motivation. I was in the middle of a couple other projects, so this novel was sort of a last minute idea. By that I mean I had been thinking about the characters for a while, because they featured in a short story I was writing, but I hadn't given great thought to a larger plot. I don't think I'll hit 50K in a month. I'm too far behind, and I have a lot more going on. But even if I don't win, I want to have kicked myself in the butt and made myself write. That is what it is about for me. If I got 35K done, I'd be happy. Then I can finish next month.

12. I am enjoying writing in a humorous voice, though. I think it's the voice that comes most naturally to me, and I've only used it in a very few stories.

13. I want to keep going with this project, though, because I think it has a bit more marketability than my other novel. In terms of first novels, anyway. I also think it will stand alone in a stronger way.

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged!

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Tags: thursday thirteen, writing

Geek Musings...

I just took the Geek Test again for fun, and I suspect I've moved up. I think before I was a Major Geek, and this time I just crossed the edge into Total Geek. I am 25.64% Geek. This means I am one or two percentage points geekier than I was before. I wonder where I made the gains. Certainly I have spent inordinate amounts of time playing That Star Wars Game. Oh, and I watched a Star Trek movie the other day. The Geek Test is a couple of years old, though, and it feels outdated to me. I don't get any points for my slight obsession with all things Firefly. Plus I think even in the last couple of years, the web has become more mainstream. You need to be a hard core web geek in order for it to count toward geekdom. And there are so many more ways to be hardcore. There is so much geekiness there to be explored and exploited. (How about, for instance, a how many hours do you spend on LibraryThing question? Or how many times a week do you Technorati yourself? Or really, I just demand credit for being online approximately 65-70% of my waking hours.) They need to do a Version 3.2. The reason I don't score higher on the Geek Test, I figure, is twofold: I haven't played roleplaying games, and I don't care for science.

The next thing you'll be saying is, "But Sarah, aren't you writing a science fiction novel?" But hey, whatever. That's why it's the trend to call it "speculative fiction," rather than hard science fiction. Like, I speculate what it would be like if my heroine lived on another planet, colonized by Earth several generations ago, and stole ships for a living. I can speculate on that without having any clue how a spaceship would work. I don't know how my car works. OK, I lied. That's why it's called space opera, not science fiction. But the whole point is the idea of it. If you're the kind of person who looks at the stars and sees imaginary people out there and wonders how they live, it appeals to you. It's about "otherness." It's about imagination. Really, I just want to tell an adventure story. But the fun part is putting it in space and seeing how that affects things.

Oh, and I want geek points for naming my cat after an obscure Jedi master. Oh. Crap, I think I found where I gained my points-- wasn't that on there? Haha! "I have named a pet after a gaming, literary, or B-movie character."

Yeah.

Tags: geekdom

Hmph

Totally blowing everything I typed this morning to hell, I made $80 at lunch. And the sun came out.

Miserable Day

It is so dark outside, I almost forgot to get up. Technically, I still have not gotten up, since I am on my laptop in bed. It is torrentially downpouring outside, which makes me not want to go to work. Not just because I know I will get wet on the way (ew), but because it is supposed to do this all day. Actually, checking the weather shows that we have a strong wind advisory and a tornado watch. And my power has flickered twice in the last five minutes. But seriously, the reason I do not want to go to work is because I will make no money. I bet I make less than $30. Which is not really worth leaving the house for. Think about it... when it's raining, do you go out for lunch? Or do you look out your office window and say, "Who wants to order in?" For me, this would totally have been a day when I looked out the window and thought, "Not going to happen," and then went downstairs in the elevator to buy a Cup of Soup from the nice Asian lady who ran the newsstand in the lobby.

Oh, and I am over my whole sucking at life thing. Thanks to everyone who responded to perk me up a bit! It was just one of those moments.

Tags: weather, rain, new orleans

25 and Sucking at Life Rant

Am I the only one who has these moments?

( self-pity rant )
I am twenty-five years old and do not have a career. I graduated from college, went to law school for a year, hated it, quit, went and taught sailing, got a job in a law office because they were the only people who would hire me, got kicked out of it because of Katrina, am going to graduate school part-time, and not even a prestigious graduate school, and in twenty minutes I will leave the house to go serve people food for three hours and make $50-60, because the lunch shift sucks and yet it is my job. I AM SMARTER THAN ALL THE PEOPLE I KNOW WHO HAVE REAL JOBS AND CAREERS. I am not a loser. I got a 1350 on the SAT. I got a 162 on the LSAT. I own more books than most people have read ever. I do not suck at being smart. Why do I not have a career?

I will never get anywhere in writing, because I suck. I am just not good enough, and I don't have the inner capacity to push myself hard enough. I'm 9,000 words behind in NaNo, and I am STILL working on that other novel. I am going to write a lot today, to push myself, and it will probably be crap. Because I am sort of burned out. Not incredibly burned out, but at that slightly frustrated point where I realize that my novel would be going a lot better if I outlined. And I hate writing uninspired crap. I used to be able to write and write and write. I still sometimes can. HOW IS ONE SUPPOSED TO WRITE PROFESSIONALLY WHEN YOU CAN'T CHANNEL THAT FOR 75,000 WORDS AT A TIME?

I suck. At life.

( /self pity rant )

Brought on by the Googling of random St. Lawrence classmates, because I had a dream in which I was talking to some random guy I used to go to school with, so I Googled. Only to find that people who were dumber than me appear to have cool jobs. Legitimate jobs, more importantly. Where they make actual money. Lesson: do not Google before work. I should have remembered the last time. The last time I Googled, someone died (well, not exactly, but still).

Tags: rant, self-pity, careers, writing

Creativity and the Ongoing Cat Fur Quest

In an attempt to reduce my cat's recent ridiculous fur output, I am attacking him with the brush once or twice a day instead of sporadically. He hates it, but I hope it gets him used to the process. I think his coat is finally at full length, for the first time since I got him. For instance, he just hopped up next to me and his tail brushed the keyboard... leaving behind a dusting of at least eight giant long hairs. My mom very unsympathetically said, "If you don't like having a long-haired cat, give him away to someone who does."

!!! I could never give him away! I love him! I just do not love his fur attacking me. Speaking of Jolee (let's get real, though, when are we not speaking of Jolee on this blog?), he did the cutest thing Saturday night. I got home from work at 1:15, tired but with a satisfying $180 cash in pocket. I looked up into the lit living room window as I pulled my car up to the curb. No cat on the chair. But wait! As soon as the car stopped, a little head popped up in the window! I got out of the car and waved to him. Then the head disappeared. By the time I got to the door, he was there waiting for me. Yow! Yow! He must know what my car sounds like. Or else he hops into the window to look every time he hears a car park on our street. Which is just so cute. Poor guy!

Last night we went to Carrollton Station to see our friend Amanda. Amanda was one of our classmates at Tulane Law. Unlike me, she finished all three years. Like me, she doesn't want to practice law-- and is now pursuing creative options. She is currently recording her first album. It was good to see her because it reminded me that there are other people who feel the way I do about the "traditional" 9-5 version of America, and want to opt out. In that vein, I sent two submissions out this week. Probably to be rejected, because I am still working through the "longshot professional markets" part of my list, but you know what? At least they're out there!

What? Like It's Hard?

Your Vocabulary Score: A

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

Tags: memes

Nothing

I promise I will never complain about the hot water being broken ever, ever again. We have NO WATER at our house. Yesterday we had NO WATER at our house. There is not even enough pressure to flush the toilet... yeah, you can imagine that. I have not showered since Tuesday. In case you hadn't looked at the calendar yet, today is Saturday (This may seem overly gross, but I showered late Tuesday night, so I didn't shower Wednesday. Then on Thursday I was at the restaurant and I didn't shower before I left, because I figured I'd just take one when I came home all covered in dirt. Only I just went to bed, figuring I had an entire day off in which to shower, which, as it turns out, was a vicious lie). My whole day off yesterday was ruined because I couldn't even brush my teeth and I was too gross to leave the house. We didn't call anyone yesterday, because the city ran a story in the paper about the water pressure being low because they were fixing a pump. It should be over now, and it is not. This is the last straw.

The Sewerage and Water Board is supposed to be on the way. I'll believe it when I see it.

Tags: new orleans, hurricane katrina, post-katrina, sewerage and water board

Does Your Cat Have a Pimp Hand?

Mine does. Fear the pimp hand.

Tags: jolee, pimp hand

Thirteen Things About Me & NaNoWriMo

1. I suck at it. Or at least I do this year. I feel like I have been massively busy with class and other things. Therefore I am 6,000 words behind today.

2. But I have a massive catch-up strategy I am employing today.

3. Last year I won. My novel was called Dangerous City, Dark Skyway. It is currently stuck in the re-write process, and I must admit, a little stalled.

4. This year's effort does not have a title yet.

5. My main character is named Claudia Nuevos. She is a con artist who basically seduces men and steals their ships. She decides to go after the richest man on the planet, and gets rather more than she bargained for.

6. It takes place on a moon called Calliope.

7. I'm writing in first person, present tense, which is odd for me, because I usually only use it for short stories. I'm trying for sort of a chick-lit tone. Except in scifi.

8. My name on the forum is Jedisluzer. I haven't been posting much, though. When I get caught up, I probably will.

9. I shamelessly took two days off for the election. That was what screwed me. Before that I was caught up.

10. I think there are a lot of people who do NaNoWriMo and don't take it seriously. For example, there are forums where people play stupid games to pad their word count. I don't get involved in any of that. For me, it's more about forcing myself to write a LOT. All at once. Every day. Because my goal is to become a professional, and NaNoWriMo helps me to enforce a writing schedule on myself.

11. The widget on the left under my picture and profile link very handily tells you how much I've written -- and how far behind I am.

12. For example. This entry so far has been 330 words long. And it took me just a couple of minutes to write. If I get on a roll, I ought to be able to get a lot done today.

13. The Democrats are in the House! Whooooo! And the Senate! (OK, sorry, and apologizes to anyone reading this who does not feel the same way, that just slipped out...)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged!

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Tags: nanowrimo, thursday thirteen, writing

Tomorrow, Space!

While recovering from dinner at Nacho Mama's (to celebrate the taking back of Congress, of course-- we ordered BLUE margaritas), watching the opening credits of one of many, many discs of Star Trek: Enterprise Season One on DVD...

Me: Sweetie? Do you think the Democrats will take us into space?

Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History

Holy Shit

Half an hour ago, it looked like there were 3 states left, all of which were going to the Republicans. I had conceded that the Democrats were going to gain significant seats but not take the Senate. Which was OK. I was more than happy enough about the House. Since a little before midnight CST, Virginia and Missouri have flip-flopped. This is crazy.

They still might do it. Unbelievable.

Democrats Win the House!!!

Eeeeee! CNN just projected that the Democrats will take back the House. Have been waiting all night for this. Will stay up till it's official. And the first female Speaker of the House, which is a huge, huge, huge thing in my book. I love it. I loooooove it. I am so excited right now.

Voting Day... Again

I hate living in Louisiana because they make you vote all the freaking time. Now, I came close to majoring in government and am quite outspoken about my political opinions, so don't get me wrong. I am interested in politics. I'm all for voting. But. Since coming back from Katrina in January, this is the fourth time I have gone to my local place of polling! And of course there will be a runoff, so in another month, I'll go again! Oy. But meanwhile, another day, another election.

People keep going on about the low voter turnout, but there was a fair little crowd at my polling place (13th Ward, 10th Precinct, Newman school). I voted for consolidating the assessors. I got to vote in the 2nd District Congressional race. Mike was of the opinion that we should vote for Jefferson because otherwise the vote would be split and the Republican candidate might sneak in. And "innocent till proven guilty." Personally, my feelings on this are the same as they were about the spring election. There is no way I am voting for a dude who had money in his freezer, just like there was no way I was voting for Nagin (who I handed a Coke at lunch today, coincidentally), because I don't want people in other parts of the country looking at us and going, "They keep re-electing these same idiots. They deserve what they get. We're not sending them any money." I voted for Troy Carter. There's going to be a runoff anyway.

And now to write more novel and check up on the results of other states' more interesting elections.

Tags: new orleans, politics, election

New Orleans Sports Day

First we watched the Saints win on TV yesterday, then we went to the Hornets season opener. Both games were victories for New Orleans.

The Hornets game was fun. We got a free T-shirt with our ticket, and there were bands and beer outside on the walkway. It was the "home opener," which is kind of inaccurate because they are playing all their homes games in Oklahoma City except six. We have season tickets (ahem-- a frivolous expenditure for people with $150K in student loans, but I'm over it), so this was our first chance to check out our seats. Having only watched basketball from the upper deck (and I can't really watch it; heights make me dizzy), our seats made a big difference. We are 18 rows up from the court, in the corner. There are only six games in New Orleans, so "season tickets" is kind of a misnomer, but it will be cool to have such nice seats when we go next in December.

The Hornets played the Rockets. We are not sure if Yao Ming can possibly be a real person. He was just that huge. In fact, he is exactly two feet taller than I am. How crazy that there was a person walking around on the court down there who was TWO ENTIRE FEET taller than me. In China they must think he is some sort of mutant alien or perhaps a god.

In other news, my cat has become a shedding machine and I am at the end of my rope. I brushed a huge ball of fur out of him yesterday. You should see the carpet. It is exactly like you are gazing out at a desert, where little tumbleweeds of cat blow in the wind. That is the best way I can describe them: tumbleweeds of white cat. He sheds in clumps. I do not understand his shedding procedure. I know he's an indoor cat, so he can't be expected to be consistent with the seasons, but... it is getting colder! Why have we experienced a 50% increase in shedding? Yesterday I discovered he has a mat under his right elbow... probably because he flips out when I try to brush his stomach, which is the most out of control. It is the first mat I've found on him since I had to cut out his dirty Katrina mats with a pair of scissors... a lengthy process which involved two people holding the cat down and which I do not want to repeat. Hopefully it is not that far advanced that it is necessary to bring the scissors into play... yet.

Wahh. I did not want a long haired cat.

3,620

Only about 1,500 words behind, and off to work. Hmph. I like my characters though!

Hats

And now, just for fun, a picture of me in a hat. I believe I should go entirely retro and cultivate red lipstick and a hat more often. I look good in that hat.

Off and Running And Doing Crappily

Well, I have written 1,750 words so far, which means I need to do two days worth of writing today because I am behind in NaNoWriMo. I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been beaten. I went to work last night, my first night shift in almost two weeks, and I felt my body crash at about 10:00 and was a zombie by the time I left just before midnight. On a good note, looks like $170 Thursdays are back (at last, we can retire and give up this life of crime!). I am working Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, to make up for the shifts I missed last weekend. Hopefully, by the end of it, I will be able to do that thing where I throw all my hundreds and twenties on the floor and roll in them. I slept amazingly well all night, probably because the temperature dropped about 20 degrees and I was curled up under a pile of blankets. It seems to have taken care of the rest of my cold.

I must write today. I must write a lot. And I must outline, because I need to have some document in which I pull my ideas for this book together in one place. I had some good ideas yesterday. I am going to try and write in more chronological order than I wrote my first book... which is now, go figure, suffering from timeline issues in the editing process.

Jolee is running races around me. He runs out into the living room, then he turns around and runs back through the hallway and into the office, pops up onto the back of the futon, then kicks off and runs back out of the room and down the hall, continuing on the same crazed trajectory. Wash, rinse, repeat. Haha.

Overwhelmed

Trying desperately to not have a cold, finish 3 papers, and decide whether I am capable of doing NaNoWriMo. Strangely, I can breathe better this morning than last night, and the drugs should have worn off by now. I have taken tons of vitamins. I have kept myself hydrated. I am drinking juice. I have had eight or nine hours sleep the past two nights. So maybe I am not going to have a cold after all. It's a dangerous line my body is walking. We'll see what happens. If it were up to me, I wouldn't go to work today. But then, it is nearly impossible to find people to cover day shifts, and they most likely will NOT take pity on me and let me not come in. I just have to disinfect myself and try not to breathe. Sure, that's a piece of cake, not breathing for four hours.

Remember when I had the stomach bug a couple weeks ago, and I said, "Don't go to _____ for lunch"? Yeah. Don't go there today either. In no way does this equate to a real and useful warning, because I am a semi-anonymous blogger. So if you live in New Orleans and work in the CBD, you'd better not go out for lunch at all, just to be on the safe side. Your waitress could be me.

Edited to add: OH NO! The cat just sneezed four times in a row. We have the SAME COLD. Poor us.

Ugh. How Mundane

So I am pretty sure I stood right next to my lame ex-boyfriend at the bank just now. I say "pretty sure" because I glanced sideways, thought, "Eek! Is that...?" and then stared down at my deposit envelope and tried to look very busy writing $500.00 in the blank spot, so as not to have to pretend friendliness. He was accompanied by a somewhat unfortunate-looking dumpy short girl (the girlfriend he got after me is a somewhat unfortunate-looking dumpy short girl), and there was a truck parked outside that I realized, in retrospect after I escaped, could have been his vehicle. This is what happens when you forget a pen in your bag. You have to go inside the bank to use theirs. And SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

Anyway, I didn't look, so I am not even certain it was him. I figured, why confirm the distasteful proximity? Much better to deposit and depart. Here is the thing. I am not usually bitter about ex-boyfriends. Usually I'm just like, "Oh, good to see you, what are you up to, blah blah." Because I'm happy without them, and they might or might not be happy without me, but either way it is not my problem. And talking with someone you had fun with recalls to you the fun moments of your life, such as when your friend and your ex stood in the Wendy's in Canal Street and shouted drunkenly about how there was a "PYYYYYYRAMID OF SHIT" in one of the toilets in the bathroom, and made friends with a homeless man, while you felt the glares of the other customers on your back and wished you were less sober. OK, that was a different ex who I also occasionally see around New Orleans, but it was a fun moment.

This ex, though... it was one of the more bitter breakups I've had, namely because this person said and did a number of sheisty things and then tried to take the moral high ground. It makes me appreciate, though, how valuable a thing it is to have someone who is similar to you in ways that matter. In a lot of ways, the beginning of my relationship with this ex was similar to my relationship with Mike: we realized we were both into sci fi, into creativity, and had a lot to talk about. The difference, as I soon found out, was that while this guy and I shared a lot of superficial interests in common, when it came to the deeper things like morals, maturity, and beliefs about relationships, we could not have been further apart. Now, this happens. We can't be expected to discover everything about a person right away. It's why dating sucks, right? The thing that pissed me off about this person in particular-- to the point where two years later I am too disgusted to turn my head four inches and confirm that it is indeed him standing next to me at the bank counter-- is that he misrepresented himself. Or well, it's more than that. It's that I am pretty "out there" about who I am. I'm the kind of person who will throw abortion, feminism, geek talk, and philosophy out there on a first date just so, you know, the other person has a chance to turn and run if they don't like my vibe. Because that is who I am. So my issue with this guy is really a combination: 1) that he pretended to be all bohemian when he was extremely conservative, and 2) that he knew who I was right off the bat and thought he could "deal" with it because he liked me so much. That is way different from Mike loving me but "dealing" with my inability to do the dishes. It is more like saying "We like the same movies! Yay! And, well, I'll learn to deal with everything you believe in and hold sacred." Whatev. No biggie.

He represents all that I hate about lame fake people. And I hope he chokes on his deposit slip. So there. (If, um, he were to, for some reason, eat it.)