New Paranoia

I'm currently temping for a govvie contractor in a complex that is home to many fed agency offices. There are folks in various uniforms moseying around and the secret squirrel/petty bureaucrat quotient is high.

Recently I was tasked with determining the fire safety rating of the filing cabinets in my office. Yes, I was tempted to just light one on fire and see how long it took to burn. In reality I just called the supply company and researched the various office furniture safety ratings available on teh interwebs.

I also recently watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries again. You know the one? The one where Caprica gets nuked about a kajillion times? Yeah, that one.

End result of all this: today there was a bright lightning flash followed by a very loud crack of thunder. I'm glad I was alone in my office because I immediately put my hands over my head and hunched down trembling over my desk. I was about half a second from crawling under the damn thing. It took a full minute for my heart rate to return to normal.

I thought I'd gotten jaded and insensitive to living in the DC area... apparently, not so much.

Les after effects de Le Refuge

Yesterday was my mom's birfday, so last night my dad took us out to Le Refuge, a country French restaurant in Old Town Alexandria.

The place is cozy and packed with tables and frenchy decorations (old ads, wine labels, etc.) I was in a spectacularly bad mood to start out with, on account of a bad day at work. Said bad mood completely evaporated after my third sip of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. J'aimes beaucoup le vin, and its magical bad mood killing properties.

I'd pre-perused the menu online and ordered the hearts of palm salad and beef wellington. My dad got the hearts of palm salad and frog legs, my mom got spinach salad with warm goat cheese toast rounds and cassoulet, and my sister got pate and duck with raspberry sauce.

The food was really, really good. The hearts of palm salad was served with a creamy vinaigrette which obliterated any hopes of it being low-fat and healthy (hooray!) I ordered the beef wellington on the grounds that it's not something I could get at too many other places, and I've never had it, and I'm currently fascinated by puff pastry foods. Also, after watching a few seasons of Hell's Kitchen, I wanted to know what the big deal was.

Apparently, the big deal is total deliciousness. Roast beef wrapped with duxelles, a layer of pate and then buttery pastry. What's not to love? The scalloped potatoes it was served with were also amazing.

This morning, I had a particularly hard time getting out of bed, and then needed an extra cup of coffee to peel my eyelids apart. Apparently this is one side effect to eating a fatty french meal. Note to self: plan another outting to Le Refuge on a Friday or Saturday night so as to allow for necessary post-meal sleeping in.

Internet Anonymity

Has anyone applied for a job with the Obama administration yet? Even if you haven't, perhaps you've read that one of the items on the 25 page application (that's just a guess, but really, it is long) is: list every internet alias you've ever used. Yeah. They want to make sure they know what online shenanigans you've been up to before they hire you.

I mention this because it relates to something that's been happening for a while now to me on Facebook. I'm using a fake name on Facebook. Lately, lots of people, people who I know must have encountered teh interwebs before, have been asking me questions along the lines of "What is up with your wacky name? Is that your real name now? I had no idea who you were!" To which I say... really?

I use: Myspace, Facebook, Yahoo, one personals site, Gmail and Blogger. To date, the only account which includes my full real name is my Gmail account. This is because I use this account to send out resumes. I want potential employers to a) know my real name, and b) know that I'm not an idiot of the type who submits resumes under the email address SpankyPants69@whatever.com. (OMG LOLPONIES!!1!)

My Myspace name is my roller girl name, cuz I mostly network with derby types on Myspace. They know me as my derby name and most don't care much about my real one.

My yahoo account is a line from a Smiths song. I use this address for online dating correspondence. I don't need any blind dates knowing my real name until I've met them more than once and have established that they're not crazy.

My blogger name is a reference to the Teen Girl Squad cartoon on Homestarrunner.com. I could blog under my real name, but then I'd know folks would find it if they searched me, and then I'd feel pressure to represent myself in a certain way, and then I just wouldn't blog.

My Facebook name is a fake name referencing the fact that I don't want to be searchable. Prospective employers do search Facebook. I was in HR for a hot minute, and I know this for a fact. I'm frankly baffled that 90% of Facebook users post under their real names. Sure, anyone who really wants to find your internet presence will find it, but still... do you really want it to be that easy?

Sing Your Psychosis - It's More Fun

This weekend I went to see Next to Normal, a new musical now showing at Arena stage, with my mom and Hobbit Shawnie B. I wanted to see it because it's new, it's a musical, and it got a couple of fairly positive reviews in the Post and the City Paper. The City Paper reviewer said he's rarely surprised by anything in a musical not written by Stephen Sondheim, and was surprised by Next to Normal. I like surprises, so I decided to see it.

I opted for cheap seats because well, I'm cheap. I thought about inviting lots of folks to go with, but well, it's a new musical. Even good musicals aren't for everyone, and despite the positive reviews, I didn't know if it really would be good or even bearable. Going to the theater is such a leap of faith anyway. When it's good it's divine, and when it's not, it's excruciating.

My mom likes the theatah, and Shawnie B is a theater nerd from way back who will be appearing in Greater Tuna at the Little Theater of Alexandria in a few weeks. (Go Shawnie B!) We metro'd to Arena's Crystal City space and were relieved to find our seats, while cheap, still had great sight lines. We were elated a few minutes before the curtain when the usher said, "Ok, who wants to move up?" The economy and state of theater being what it is, the show was far from sold out so we got to move up to a center row. Sweet!

Next to Normal is about a suburban mom with mental illness: bipolar disorder with a touch of psychosis/hallucinations. Peppy, right? Well actually, yes. The music is rock-ish, a la Spring Awakening - guitars, drums, piano, lots of impassioned loud vocals. The music was good, but too much the same. There were few musical motifs. Andrew Lloyd Webber gets a lot of crap because he uses repeating motifs too much, but they do work - it's nice to have one melody introduced in the beginning and then get replayed in a later part. It's even better if the motifs can be interwoven in an end of the first act fugue. N2N didn't so much have that, so the music got a bit boring at times.

There was some dancing; I could have done with more. Instead of dancey-dancing, the actors' movements seemed choreographed - they all sort of flung themselves around the stage. That sounds bad but it was actually well done. I just wanted more of the ensemble shaking lit up pill boxes and stuff like that.

The set and lights were awesome. The set was a three level scaffold with pieces that folded in and out and slid left to right, so they could build the house levels and open and close rooms. There were also rolly chairs and tables and one moving staircase, all used to dynamic effect. The lights - well let's just say that in a rock opera about mental illness that includes an ECT song, you need specacular and varied lighting, and the lighting design was both of those.

Acting and singing wise, the lead actress was amazing, and the guy who played her son was great too. The dad was an understudy and was ok, and we all had issues with the daughter - she was very one-note in her caricature of a sullen teenager. The dude who played her boyfriend was aight, and the psychiatrist was aight as well.

I enjoyed it quite a bit. I had problems with the second act - things didn't end in a way that felt true or resonant. I did have a hard time watching a lot of it, because I'm a sucker for music + emotion. If you have actors talking about how they feel invisible to each other I'm ok; but if they're singing about it over electric guitar I get sniffly.

I'm left with a feeling of frustration because there's no recording. If I like a musical I need to hear the songs about ten more times, and I can't because this was a merch-light workshop production. I reckon I'll just have to go see it again.

They starts out maids of honor, but they ends up tarts.

Happily for those of us living at home and trying to lose weight, it is currently pre-Christmas lent in Ortho households, which means we eat a vegan diet (until my mom gets tired of it and we go out for peruvian chicken and steak. Or until I get tired of it and go out to Bertucci's with the hobbits and eat cheese.) The fast is either four or six weeks long, I forget which. Anyway, we've been having stuff like pasta, buckwheat, bread and margarine and vegetable soup for dinners for a good while now. I enjoy most of it but yesterday I got a craving for something different.

So I sent a recipe I found online for vegan mushroom tart to my dad and asked him to make it. Being a very nice and indulgent dad, he totally did. Here's the recipe:

5 tablespoons vegan margarine
4 tablespoons unbleached white flour
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed or very finely chopped
16 ounces mushrooms, sliced
1 1/2 cups soy/rice milk
1 1/2 cups white wine or vegetable broth
1 tablespoon dried parsley
salt and pepper to taste
18 ounces frozen puff pastry

Melt the margarine and saute the onion and garlic until soft. Add the sliced mushrooms and cook for a few of minutes more. Add the flour and stir well. Gradually add the soy/rice milk stirring all the time. Add the wine and keep stirring over low heat until the sauce thickens. Once thick, remove from the heat and add the parsley, salt and pepper. Allow to cool slightly while you prepare the pastry.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll the pastry out into 2 circles approximately 11 inches, reserving some pastry for decoration. Place one sheet of pastry into a greased 9-inch pie plate and fill with the sauteed mushroom mixture. Place the top sheet on and seal up the edges with some soya milk or water, fold over if needed. Make some small slits on the top of the puff and decorate with the reserved pastry. Glaze with soy/rice milk and bake 45-55 minutes until puffed and golden.

Apparently we're never having it again, because it was a huge pain in the ass to make. The main problem was that the mushroom mixture didn't set as it was supposed to. However, it was very pretty before we cut into it. Then we cut into it and the filling sort of oozed out and looked kind of greyish. Again however, it was also delicious. My dad used Riesling, and it had a nice wine and mushroom flavor. He also quadrupled the garlic, because duh, that's what you do in a recipe that calls for a paltry four cloves. The filling soaked into the bottom layer of phyllo dough like gravy, yum. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Later we discussed what might make the filling set; my mom said corn starch and my dad thought tapioca thickener. Either way it's an aesthetic choice, as the filling tasted awesome but just didn't look good or hold together.

I sort of thought you didn't have to roll out frozen puff pastry. I thought it came in flat sheets, but it doesn't, it comes in squares, and you have to thaw and roll them. It's still a time-saver because if you made the pastry yourself you'd have to roll and fold, roll and fold, a million or so times. Good to know.

The Youth and What They Have to Teach Us

Wow, I had no idea I'd grown up to be such a tight-ass. But it's true. I got given an intern today. Once again, still a temp here... why am I being tasked with keeping the intern busy? I reckon because keeping the intern busy is not the best of jobs. Anyway, there's always random work that no one else has time to do, so I've been giving her stuff, no problem.

Every time I give her instructions she asks me for a piece of paper so she can write them down. Today I tried to give her a swag notebook I'd gotten from our extremely hot software salesman (seriously, dude was foin!) I said, "Here. You can keep this. And use it." She proceeded to rip a page out of it and take only the page with her.

I also have yet to give her a task without her stopping to take a call on her cell phone. And it's funny, so far I don't think any of the calls have been business calls. Although, does it count as business if it's your mom who got you the internship who works in the next building over who calls four or five times a day? I guess probably.

I overlooked the gumsnapping and excessive chatter, because, well, whatever. But I really want to sit her down and give her what for, just in general. That first professional ass-kicking can be so crucial to a career.

Is Tom retarded?

The critique group went well, and I think I'll stick with 'em. A good number of people showed, and they'd mostly all read the works up for crit and brought copies that they'd marked up. The discussion was thoughtful, and everyone found the good in each piece and talked about it before moving on to things they thought could be better. Everyone was kind, which is good. No one was therefore reduced to tears. Also, guy who talks a lot wasn't there, and everyone else took turns in a very civilized fashion.

I got lots of useful feedback. I'd been worried that everyone might be too kind, but they weren't. All in all it was a good experience.

There's a character named Tom who comes in at the end of my story to cause problems for my protagonist, and I foiled him in an extremely stupid way. I'd already decided to ax him before the crit group. So the first comment I read was "Is Tom retarded?" which I thought was funny. Yes, dear reader, Tom is retarded. And now he's dead because I killed him. So put that in your literary pipe and smoke it.

This one's my favorite...

This is my favorite nano-news. My dad clued me in when I axed him about nanotech. Apparently cosmetics companies have started using nanotechnology. Because their products are not FDA regulated, they can do it sans clinical trials. So what happens is, you put a magical never comes off foundation, and guess what? 1.) it literally never comes off, because they use interlocking molecules in it, and 2.) the particles sink into your bloodstream and wreak havoc on your various systems. Like that one Batman movie! Only not so dramatic.

http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=1505.php

Why research is hard

Here's the latest abstract on nanotech:

Abstract. Er³⁺ and Ni²⁺ doped single-crystalline Al₁₈B₄O₃₃ nanorods were synthesized by a facile one-step toxic-free combustion method. The products were characterized by x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, and integrated and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) measurements. The phase purity, morphology, and PL properties of Er³⁺ and Ni²⁺ doped Al₁₈B₄O₃₃ nanorods can be readily controlled by tailoring the annealing temperature. The mechanism for the formation of Al₁₈B₄O₃₃ nanorods with different aspect ratio is discussed. Er³⁺ doped Al₁₈B₄O₃₃ nanorods show strong PL centered at 1531 nm, while Ni²⁺ doped products show superwide PL with a full width at half maximum of up to 250 nm. These aluminum borate nanostructures are promising building blocks for optoelectronics nanodevices.

Guuuuuuuh. And heh, 'nanorods', heh heh heh.

The nanos are coming, the nanos are coming!

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nanotech-02a.html

There's a Space Daily? 

What I do and do not know about DNA

What I do know about DNA:
-everyone has it
-it is the 'building blocks of life'
-DNA stands for Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid
-proteins form chains that link up along two lines, and the two lines and protein hooks form a double helix
-the order and type of proteins that a person has determines their physical, mental and maybe emotional characteristics
-it took scientists forever to map the human genome but they finally got it done
-you can analyze someone's DNA to figure out if they're susceptible to certain diseases
-some doctors have tried curing diseases by altering DNA but so far have only succeeded in killing their patients this way

What I don't know about DNA:
-if you could program nanobots to dismantle specific proteins in a human DNA chain
-if you could then release said nanobots into the American water supply
-if people, upon drinking the water, would eventually discover that they had been rendered unable to have children
-if, upon discovering this massive act of nanobot bioterrorism, the nation could pull together a repository of non messed-with human DNA and grow children out of it

So, one really awesome thing about writing a short story is I get reaffirmation of how much I don't know. My mom suggested perhaps I might do some research. Or stick to not sci-fi. Both are good ideas. I'm committed to finishing, so I guess research it is. Unless any of you lovely readers know any of the things I don't? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

More work

Yesterday I blew off a friend in order to have another writing night. Yes, I'm now headed down the dark path of eschewing actual human contact in order to sit alone in my room and pursue a probably futile goal. And again with the fear: I was scared that maybe the night I'd skipped to go to the writing group would already be too much time away, and either I'd read what I'd written and hate all of it, or just feel no connection to it at all and not be able to work on it.

But, I think it's good that I went. For one thing, I left the draft alone for a night, which gave me space to think about it. Some major problems bubbled up and made themselves known. I had a small conversation with them and let them know I was aware of their concerns, and sorry, I had a meeting to go to, but I promised we'd discuss things as soon as I got back. They huffed a bit but said ok.

As always, there's the fear. This time, it wasn't the fear of having to invent something out of thin air, but rather having to go back and read what I'd written and see that it was crap and again consider not ever trying again. Writing group to the rescue: we did the exercise, and it drove home the point that when it comes down to it, you can write something. Yes, it's hard to do it well, but it's not magic. It's labor. I brought a pen and pad to the group, and I hate long-hand - it hurts my hand, my handwriting sucks, it's physically tiring. That's good because it reminds me that it's physical work, and knowing that makes it so much more do-able. (Also, it makes going back to my laptop SO appealing.)

Before I pulled up the draft, I opened a second word doc and wrote out all the problems, and some possible solutions. I fleshed out the world the story's set in, then saw some problems with that, and then changed that so it made more sense. I also wrote about the characters a bit, and immediately realized I've made assumptions about them, specifically about their relationship, that aren't true. I'd thought they'd be linked in one way, just because of where they are in the story and what they're trying to do, and it turns out they're linked in another, messier and less pleasant way.

I'm trying to get to know the characters, rather than trying to make them up. This is the first time I've had no problems learning the character's names. They just told me, which was cool. I still don't know them very well, but as we spend more time together they tell me more. One surprise is that one of the characters who I thought was minor is starting to come out of her shell and insist that I know more about her. I've made her no promises about how much to show, but it's nice that she's standing up for herself.

(I know this sounds frou-frou, but it's a process that's working for me.)

After all that, I went back to the draft. Because of what I now knew about the characters, I had to change a lot of the first part, which led to necessary changes in the middle. I wrote for two hours. There are three characters now who I know ok, and they manage to accomplish something, but there's a fourth one who's probably going to make an appearance and cause some trouble. I need to know him too, and to know what the others will do when he shows up, and if and how everyone's going to get what they want. And after I do, guess what? It's still probably crap. Good times!

So far it's about 3000 words, and will probably get longer before it gets shorter. This is not to say I didn't ax a bunch of stuff, but then I wrote more than I'd deleted.

Now I need to decide whether or not to post what I have for critique next Wednesday. The group only has two pieces of writing to discuss, so they need more submissions. And, there's going to be a few weeks of no groups because of the holiday. So my inclination is to post. I know it's not ready, and my preference is to work on it more, but I also think I can continue to work on it now even if a bunch of people I don't know praise it or criticize it. Probably.

Shut up, That Guy!

I went to the writer's group meetin' last night. They meet in a well-known chain bookstore in NoVa... I don't want to be too secret squirrel about it, but one thing writer's groups are supposed to be is safe - a safe place to share ideas and writing and not get blogged about in a recognizable way. So that's why the vagueness.

Anyway, I didn't have really high hopes, but let's say I had medium hopes. The group seems well-organized, has a plan of attack, and there were at least 20 people there, which seemed a good sign. There's a range of ages and the ladies outnumbered the menfolk. After a little bit of chitchat the leader (nana nana nana nana LEADER!) handed out writing prompts on small pieces of paper and we all wrote for 20 minutes or so. My prompt said "Write about a strange tourist attraction." So after writing a bunch of ideas (a two story statue of a foot, a place where you can have a conversation with ten-year old you, the amazing glass-skinned boy, catch an armadillo) I wrote a story about a family on a road trip who stop at a Race The Alligator sign and the dad decides to try the race.

I thought the writing exercise thing was good - it offered the entire emo writing experience on a micro scale. First there was panic, then trying stuff, then despair, then trying again and writing, then elation, then doubt, then nervousness. After the writing time was up, the group leader - let's call him Billybob - asked if everyone like doing it. Most people did. One girl said she didn't like her prompt - write about a homeless person, but avoid using cliches. She said she could only think of cliches; the clean homeless person and the dirty one, so she just wrote Christmas cards instead. One guy asked her to read the Christmas cards but she said they were sealed. Billybob gently encouraged others to read, and about half the writers did. Some of the stories were quite good, some not so good. I read mine and was glad I had, just cuz getting over a fear of sharing is as important as getting over fear of writing, for me.

After the exercise portion, Billybob asked for suggestions for the non-critique meetings in 2009. Here's where I started to think maybe this group won't ultimately be for me. A lot of members expressed interest in genre discussions. One girl said she's always been interested in learning about the differences between scifi and fantasy. I would not attend such a meeting because a) it's an easy answer: scifi = rocket ships, fantasy = unicorns, case closed, and b) if the story's good, I don't really care what genre it is.

Then Billybob asked if we'd be interested in reading articles by writers about their writing process. I almost jumped in to say, yes yes yes! Because I'm interested in that. However before I could, he started apologizing and saying he knew we had a lot to read already, with the stories for crit being posted, and he knew people didn't want more 'homework' before a meeting. I was put off. People don't have time to read? Isn't reading rule one of writing? You're a writer, you read. You're a musician, you listen to music. You're a painter, you look at art. Anyone who doesn't read shouldn't be writing. It's like the scene in A Chorus Line (or maybe it's the All That Jazz), where the one girl messes up the ballet audition, and the director says, "If you haven't taken ballet, DON'T DANCE!"

And then there was That Guy. Everyone likes That Guy, but I have a problem with him, because he likes the sound of his own voice a lot. I quit after one meeting of the last writing group I went to, because not only was That Guy there, he was also the leader, andI wasn't having it. In this group That Guy isn't the leader, which is good, but he's allowed to run free anyway. Sigh.

The focus of the group is writing, and not publishing, which is ok by me. There's a ton of info out there about how to query for publication, and I think it's safe to say that I'm not thinking about publishing, being one week into establishing a writing schedule. However, I do think the ultimate goal of writing is to get published. I want to get better, and one way to know your writing is good is to have someone pay you for it so they can put it out there for an audience to read. So that's fine then - but then Billybob started talking about writing contests. He's going to post a bunch of them and encourage us all to submit. Maybe the group thinks this is a baby step to trying to get published. I'm not really down. Sure, it's a goal to meet - write something and submit it within a certain format by a certain deadline. But if you're going to put in the effort, why not put it towards getting published?

I'm going to go to the crit meeting next week and then decide if I should start lookin' elsewhere. I've read the stories that are up for criticism, and I'm interested to see if other folks see the same issues with the stories that I see, and how they give that criticism.

Fear and loathing and ecstasy

I have a writing hangover. I think it's a good thing.

For almost a week now, I've been sticking to a writing schedule - every evening around 7pm, I sit down and hit those keys. And it has been, well, hard. Writing is hard! I know, it's not exactly a unique revelation. Except, to me, it sort of is. I always thought I should do it, and I always thought when I did, it would automatically be amazing, and I'd have tons of stuff to write about because my life is so very exciting, and I have a unique point of view and I read a lot so I know how sentences go together and I can hold the mirror up to nature and shed astonishing light on any number of subjects. Right? Totally!

Only, it wasn't like that. When I started writing I had only one goal: words on a page for two hours a day. I can do words on a page. (e.g., this blog.) What I ended up writing, though, was real stuff that has happened to me. How is this different from journaling or keeping a diary? It's not. And after writing my life for a week or so, it occurred to me that my life is pretty boring, if not downright depressing. Maybe not TOtally depressing, but, you know: I work. I come home. I eat dinner with the family. I watch TV with friends. I watch TV by myself. I break car mirrors, I take my car to the shop, I obsess over why my friends from college who I saw again at the wedding didn't email me back after I sent them pictures I'd taken of them at said wedding. It's not... anything I want to share, necessarily. It's definitely not something I want to have critiqued. I critique my life enough as it is, thank you. (Conclusion: the characters are amazing, but the plot lacks forward momentum.)

Also, I've joined this writer's group. I missed the first meeting cuz that was the day I broke my car. The group alternates critiques every other week, so this week is a non-critique week, but next week there is one, and well, if I'm really going to participate, I kind of need to put something out there. Hence, I have to write something I wouldn't mind sharing. I've got hubris but I'm not going to pretend I can write a novel, so that kind of leaves poetry or short story.

That's easy enough, right? WRONG. I started to worry. Do I have any imagination? Can I make something up, start to finish? Just sort of... out of nothing? I can't lie, it made me very depressed. Why was I bothering, and isn't it a bit late in the game to start trying to do this again? I'd started strong with two hours, and then a couple of nights later it was just an hour and a half, and then an hour. I'd write and get disgusted and stop. Yesterday I considered just quitting, and continuing to live a life of quiet desperation.

Circus Jeff has been writing a lot about memory (among other things) on his blog, Odin's Aviary (www.jeffwills.blogspot.com.) In this case, memory saved me. I remembered feeling this bad, back when I was in college and writing plays. I'd gotten through it then, so maybe I could get through it now. And at the peak of my anxiety I made a conscious effort to take the pressure off. No one says you have to sit down every day and write something good. You just have to sit down and write something.

My mom and Stephen King helped too. Stephen King because he's recently published a new collection of short stories, and my mom because she went to the library and got it, read it, and handed it over to me. As my mom said, "He gets a lot of crap for what he writes, but damn, the man can write." I read the first two stories at lunch yesterday, and another while waiting for a prescription at CVS. My mom is right; they're good.

Driving home from CVS, I had an idea. It was dumb, but fun. My thinking went like this: This idea is dumb. But I like it. And I don't have any other ideas, so I have to write this one, or I'll quit and never try to write anything other than corporate meeting notes again. I got home, I sat down, I wrote for two hours.

And now I have a story. While it has characters and a beginning, middle and end, it's definitely not done. The ending in particular needs work, and well, a bunch of stuff in the middle does too. I think I still like the beginning. I know I like the characters. Did I rip the premise off from a favorite sci-fi writer? Sure. Is that allowed? Definitely. Go ask Shakespeare if you don't believe me. (He probably won't answer right away, being dead and all.)

So now, I come to something else Circus Jeff eloquently addresses - I want someone to read it! Right now! I want praise for facing my fears and writing something! I remember this feeling too. And it's a trap, Skywalker. Even I admit the story's not done, and probably sucks. No way in hell should I give this to anyone else at this stage. My fragile ego would shatter into itty bitty pieces at the first even slightly negative comment. Maybe later after I've gone back and fixed problems. Or maybe after I've gone back, fixed problems, let it sit for a month, gone back again, buried it in a dark basement and written something completely different and better. Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

And now to the hangover: I wrote from 8pm to 10pm. I put off watching Buffy Season 4 to do it. And then, I wanted to watch Buffy. Cuz, it's Season 4, the one with the Initiative, where Faith wakes up and switches bodies with Buffy and Willow's got the relationship with Tara and then Oz comes back... you know, good stuff. So I watched Buffy until 11:30. And then I couldn't sleep because I WROTE A STORY! Outcome: I didn't get enough sleep last night, and now I'm woozy and groggy. But like feeling sore after going back to the gym, it's good pain.

Yay.

Quatres ans de francais dans l'ecole

Because I am awesome, yesterday I broke my driver's side mirror backing out of a space at my office's parking garage. I distinctly remember thinking "I'm pretty close to that pillar, so I'll have to be careful pulling out!" which is why the fact that I then promptly broke the mirror means I'm awesome.

So I took my car to the shop this morning and called a cab to take me to work. The cab driver was listening to French NPR. At least I'm assuming it was NPR - they talked about le minister du petrol and les gens avec des problemes evec ses maisons et leurs argent. I took four years of French in high school (nous aimons toujours, Madame Alnwick!) so I enjoyed listening and trying to understand.

The driver was quiet during the ride, and I debated saying thanks in French. I always have this internal debate when deciding whether or not to addres a stranger in their native language - will they be happy I did? Will it not matter? Will my pronunciation suck? One time my mom was at a Greek store during Orthodox Easter, and she said "Khristos Aneste!" (Chris is Risen) to the proprietor. Rather than giving the standard response, the guy narrowed his eyes at her and barked "You grik?" So you just never know how people will react.

But what the hell; when we reached my office I said "Merci beaucoup!" to the driver. He got all animated, and said, "Merci! Au revoir! Bonne journee!" So that was nice.

I took French in high school only because my sister was taking Spanish, and being a defensive snot I didn't want her correcting my speaking/writing/reading. (Our relationship has improved a lot since. Hopefully I'm also less of a snot.) Sometimes I'd wonder why I bothered, figuring that French was way less useful in the NoVa area than Spanish. Realizing now that large chunks of a rather large continent were colonized by les francaises, and that many of the people living on that large continent have fled genocide and poverty and ended up here, I feel better about my four years o' french. Even if it's just to say thanks to cab drivers.

Reeejekshawn

Last night I got my Thanks But No Thanks email on the rewritey job. It made me feel disproportionately sad, so I watched Simpsons reruns on Hulu to dull the pain. It worked! Let us all gather around tv's warming glowing warming glow.

Then this morning I submitted my o-ficial application to be full-time here where I'm temping at now currently at this time. (If good writing doesn't want me, I don't want good writing. LOLPONIESLOL!!1!!) I've been informed that because the position will be advertised, the competition will be fierce. Fierce! That's cool. Hopefully I won't be too sad if I don't get this job. I think I've been doing it and doing it and doing it well, but it is not for me to decide.

I joined a writer's critique group. The next step would be actually writing something. I'm a fan of Stephen King's book about writing, and he advocates reading a lot and writing a lot. So far I've got the reading a lot part down. Lately I've been reading Sophie Kinsella books. She writes british chick-lit on the lines of Bridget Jones' Diary. The books are like candy - sweet, very fast reads. Pretty soon now I'll have read them all and I'll actually have to write something. D'oh!