Wandering Slade

Achievement Unlocked: Happy With Who I Am

2012-01-07T22:25:00.004-05:00

Here's an update on my life to weigh out all the times I've posted saying how insecure or overwhelmed I am.

I'm satisfied with where I am. I like the person I've become. My self-loathing is significantly less than my contentment. I know what I want and a ton of resistance to getting there has just...dissolved. I know my context, I understand myself well, and I have all these fantastic tools in use to keep me focused and doing what I want to be doing. I'm awesome!

And what do I want? A house with a view and oceanic kitchen tiles, a big fluffy dog, a self-sufficient income from writing for magazines and other publications, and a person to marry.

That's the real bucket list at the moment. And after that, there's the other bucket list: sail across the Pacific, hang-glide over the Amazon River, write a comic in Fez, and walk across the United States.

I don't know where April's rent is going to come from, and that freaks me out, but I can take that on. I know who I am and what I live for. Just wanted to let you know.

Crises

2011-07-29T19:32:00.005-05:00

First of all, my dear friend R. Parisi has released his long-awaited album CRISIS, which is now available on iTunes through his website: http://ronaldparisi.com. Check out the website for free samples, ringtones, and merchandise as well. (The shirts are a goddamn treasure.)

And now, I'm going to unleash some serious self-doubt and wibbling about my future and my present and the apparent imbalances between the two. Be warned, and close this window if you don't want that.

I am on vacation this week, which is much-appreciated and much-needed. The problem is that, by the nature of the summer season, I can't stay on the boat for my vacation time. It simply would not work. So I have to go someplace else for these nine days, which is great because all I really want to do is go home, curl up with a book, a boom box, some tea, and a series of beautiful sunsets and sunrises, and chill. I want to finish Moby-Dick and listen to Crisis a lot. I want to just relax in my own space, on a couch, with nothing and no one to bother me.

But I don't have a home.

I live on a boat with eight other people, for a contracted period of time. My parents' house isn't my home anymore, for all that I love the people who live there. Baltimore isn't home. Pittsburgh is sort of home. Seattle still feels like home, even though the winters try to kill me. But I don't have anywhere I live that's mine.

I long for my little apartment in Capitol Hill. I just spent two hours looking through real estate listings on or near the Hill, breaking my own heart looking at the listing prices.

And that's what it comes down to: I want to buy a house. That babylust that some women get in their thirties, where they just NEED to have a baby, I have now as homelust. I just NEED a home. I can't take the psychic stress of packing all my worldly belongings into a duffel bag anymore. I want plants, and windows, and sunlight, and couches, and knicknacks, and bright paint on the walls, and tilework, and a big fluffy comfy bed, and a fireplace -- I want my own fucking HOME, and not having it is driving me slowly insane.

But I have $2000 to my name, and all the jobs I want to do for hourly wage or salary are all extremely low-paying. (My current job is the highest pay grade I've ever had, and I'm a seacook on a tall ship. Not glamorous or profitable.) So -- and I've known this is true for awhile now -- I need to quit working for other people. I need to start my own fucking business already. It's not going to be a bookshop, although I did love that idea when I had it. I'm thinking about a few other ideas right now. But there's no guarantee that any business I start will succeed, so I don't want to just jump in.

Maybe what I need is to force myself to make it succeed. Raise the stakes. Earn a downpayment and put it on my dreamhouse, then do whatever it takes to pay for it. Maybe that would work. I know myself, and that eustress is damn good for me. I think I could make it work, although the idea makes me sweat bullets. Sweating bullets isn't a bad thing.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. I've had a wonderful visit with the Hubers and now it's time for some rest.

Mary's Effing Hot Land

2011-06-11T10:50:00.004-05:00

(I cheated on this post. It was originally an email to my parents, and I decided to repost it here.)

I've been cook on Lady Maryland for about three weeks now, and it's going beautifully. Stressful, amazing, back aches, sunburn, wind on my face (on good days), getting into the swing of things, mastering new skills, feeling inadequate, feeling totally up to the task, an emotional roller coaster. The crew likes my food and Michael, our captain, says I'm doing a good job. (YAY!) And this is my first day off since Memorial Day, so I'm really wringing all the relaxation I can out of it. I'm going to take a nap and see a movie. It's crazy awesome. I have determined that for my next boat job I'd rather not live aboard, because it's hard to turn my brain off of work mode, since I live at work and it's very hard to get private time. (Nearly impossible to get private time with air conditioning.)

Speaking of air conditioning: The heat in Baltimore is fucking ridiculous. There is no need for this much humidity unless it is actively raining -- and we've had two really awesome rainstorms the last two nights that did little to drop the humidity, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The South is weird.* The last couple of days were just crazy hot -- around 100 degrees -- and we actually took all the kids out of lifejackets on the water, because they were in more danger of heatstroke wearing the jackets than they were of falling off the boat without them. A girl threw up, and we took to misting the kids with cold water at regular intervals, like house plants. (I also learned how to douse the jib, but that's not really related.)

I have spent my entire life disparaging air conditioning and preferring a strategy of opening windows and encouraging circulation. I now understand air conditioning. I've become an A/C rat, scurrying from one air conditioned building to the next as soon as I get off work. I slept in the lighthouse last night because it was air conditioned, even though I was the only one left on the boat for the weekend. I understand how so many people have died in heat waves in cooler regions because they don't habitually have air conditioning. The South understands air conditioning. I'd like to find historical statistics for the number of deaths in the South from heatstroke and other diseases in which your body just fucking broils to death. Why do people live here? My excuse is that I'm only here another couple of weeks before we head north, to normal summer heat, where 80 is never considered "normal" or fucking "cool."

Crazy fucking temperatures. Crazy fucking Southerners. Beautiful fucking pink schooner.

*Yes, there is much debate about whether Maryland really counts as part of the South, and that debate is as hot as the recent record highs. I don't care. It's south of the Mason-Dixon and it topped 90 degrees before June 1st; I am a Yankee and that's South enough for me.

Review: Sucker Punch

2011-04-10T18:43:00.003-05:00

It's taken me nearly a week to figure out how to review Sucker Punch, because there's so much going on in it and my thoughts won't gel. I'm sorry in advance for any lack of eloquence or coherence in this review.

Let's start here: I loved it. I'm going to watch it at least once more in the theater and when it comes out I will pay full price for the DVD.

This is not a movie about girls in sailor outfits killing giant robots with katanas, or about baby prostitutes decked out with guns. It is also not about girls whose sole purpose in the movie is to titillate the male audience. It is not about sex, period. It is about fighting for control of one's own destiny. It is about escape from the system that has been built to enslave nice little girls and fetishize them. It is about reforming reality around one's own needs and desires, in order to cope with whatever it is that is too big for you to handle directly. When you need most desperately to escape being raped and lobotomized in a mental institution full of morally corrupt men, perhaps the most effective method is to re-envision the asylum as a bordello in which you and your comrades fight your way out every time you dance, because when you dance all of you become badass women warriors armed to the teeth, with air support and a series of inhuman enemies. Maybe no other way will get you through. Maybe without all those layers of self-deception and self-manipulation, you would just be a scared little girl waiting in a cell. Maybe they're just your way of getting in touch with yourself, with the strength you keep in the core of you body or the depth of your mind.

It's hard to be strong. It's hard to keep faith with yourself, to hold out hope, to put yourself out there instead of wilting. It's even harder when it's assumed that you can't maintain your strength, that no matter what eventually you will fail. It's damn hard work, being strong. It's hard work being a girl, every second of every day proving your strength. People like to talk about how hard it is proving yourself to the people around you. But that's no problem at all compared to proving yourself to yourself. Doubt is easy. Doubt is seductive. It's so simple just to give up and admit to the weakness that deep inside you fear is all you have. Proving over and over that that weakness is nothing compared to the depth of strength you possess -- well, that takes time. Time in which you must sustain yourself, must persist, must overcome each obstacle (every one of them bigger than the last), must keep that faith in yourself, must hold strong. Until it's enough. Until you believe yourself when you think, "I can do this." Until it doesn't matter what anybody else says.

And maybe it helps to think of yourself as a badass ninja in a sexy costume striking down dragons and zombies and robots -- invincible. Men are vulnerable to sexy costumes, and that makes sexy costumes empowering. (And in the context of this movie, renegotiating the power dynamic of a uniform the characters are forced to wear in the asylum really is winning a power struggle.)

Sucker Punch brings the fight to you. That's what this whole film is about: when any force threatens your soul, you must fight it or die. Haul out your arsenal, put on your lipstick, and kick some ass. As the films says right before the credits roll: "You already have all the weapons you need. Now fight."

For another Sucker Punch review I really like, go here.

Line in the Sand

2011-04-03T02:12:00.006-05:00

Thank God I went to college.

I'm not grateful primarily for the education I got (which was adequate) or the people I met (who were significantly more important) or for all the fun I had (which was a lot, amongst the stress). I am grateful for how fucking unbelievably miserable I was. Thank you for the nights I spent lying in bed unable to sleep because I couldn't see how it was possible to get all my work done. Thank you for my freshman year mantra, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." Thank you for Foster's horrible food, which made me physically nauseous by the end of my first year. Thank you for roommates I couldn't stand, for a study abroad that stressed me out every day, for never having a moment to breathe, for crying without knowing why, for an all-nighter, for D's, for late papers and academic guilt, for feeling less human because I couldn't get my shit together and turn in a damn thing on time that was of any quality, for books I pretended to read, for seasonal affected disorder, for a twenty-minute walk through the snow and ice and sludge uphill both ways. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

When I dropped out of college in my second semester, I went back because my parents scared me into it with the health insurance boogeyman. Now, I know that, whether I have insurance or not at any point, I will never let fear of "what might happen" scare me unthinking into a decision about insurance. I know that I can handle years of misery, in unchanging gray skies and a spirit-draining snow-slush-ice-snow-slush cycle, overworked, underfed, underslept, and certainly undersexed and undertraveled. I can endure anything.

But even better than that...I drew a line in the sand and swore to myself I would never do anything like that to myself again. No more school. No more compromises. No more deadlines. No more sludging through misery because it's what I'm supposed to do. Never. That was the moment (in my junior year, sometime in March or February) when everything great in my life that I have now became inevitable, the moment from which the rest of my life will lead triumphantly onward, knowing it has already won.

If you're urging me to go back to school and finish my degree, then it's time you faced exactly what you're telling me you want me to do: you want me to quit pretending I'm God incarnate and act like everyone else, because that's just what people do. Put another way: you're asking me to betray the oath to myself that is the basis for all my self-respect.

And that is the one thing I will never do. I am God incarnate, and I have had enough of the things that other people like to do in order to go along to get along. I don't have any Joneses to keep up with.

All I have is me. Isn't that enough for you?

Review: The Golden Compass (Spoilers for Movie and for All the Books)

2011-03-18T22:21:00.003-05:00

So, I just got around to seeing the Golden Compass movie. And I'll just get it out of the way: the book was better. A lot better. You should read it instead of renting the movie. All that hyped furor from the religious quarter when this movie came out was justified; it certainly beats the viewer over the head with its big fat anti-Catholic Pope-crook. Unforgivably, in my opinion. The anti-Catholic rhetoric steals the helm of the story more than once, and not to the story's benefit. This theme was present in the book, but not nearly to the degree of shameless theme-stick beating that paints the entire movie. (That doesn't come until at least the second book, and it didn't bug me until the third, when Philip Pullman just gave up on common decency and good storytelling altogether.)

The movie is amazing for the acting -- especially the girl who plays Lyra, who is just perfect -- and a lovely use of color and sweeping crane shots. Serafina Pekkala and Lee Scoresby were exactly as they should be.* The bears moved like humans on all fours, which bugged me. Lyra's alethiometer is by no means the only one, and yes, Father Coram has some idea of how to read one; Lyra's gift is the intuitive ability to understand the alethiometer, instead of requiring weeks of study and a huge reference book.

However, the storytelling choice that in many ways baffles me the most is the point in the story at which they chose to end the movie. (SPOILERS!) Immediately after the point at which credits roll, Lyra's father kills Roger in order to fuel the creation of a doorway to another world. Asriel murders her best friend, whom she has led to the slaughter, and Lyra's character is altered forever. Her parents are murderers, she helped kill her best friend, her shiny newly-found dad wants to give her everything she's ever wanted on a silver, blood-soaked platter. It's the most emotionally charged scene in the book (debatably) and a turning point for Lyra. And they cut it out of the movie. As it stands, the movie operates as a very nice introduction to a story that never gets told. Were they planning to do a Subtle Knife movie and just sneak in the killing-Roger-to-fuel-the-gate part? It doesn't fit into that story; you'd have to recap the first movie too much to make it worthwhile. Skipping it entirely just cuts out the guts of Lyra's hero's journey. And the movie they did make just ends...lamely. Flying off into the sunset, quest unfulfilled, character arc unfinished, the climax retrofitted not with personal tragedy but with a big, dumb fight at Bolvangar. This is an epic quest, people. You know because there's a big fat prophecy (also unfulfilled). Do it some fucking justice and go read the book instead.

*With the exception of a personal pet peeve of mine. I hate when people pronounce characters' names differently than I do in my head when I'm reading a book. To me, Serafina Pekkala is pronounced "seh-rah-FEE-nah peh-KAH-luh."

Lady Maryland: To the Sea!

2011-03-15T16:21:00.002-05:00

You know how I asked myself last December, "What will I do come April?!" The answer is:

I'M GOING TO SEA, BITCHES!

From mid-June till Thanksgiving, I'll be the cook aboard the Lady Maryland, a lovely schooner based in Baltimore! Yaaaaay! It's going to be awesome, and I'm very, very glad to return to the sea. I don't know what I'll do after this, but it's become apparent to me that I need to learn Maghrebi Arabic. So we'll see. Maybe I will go to Fez, or Tunisia, or Cairo...or somewhere else entirely. Time to take my life into my own hands. :)

Lament of a 21st Century Traveler

2011-03-15T16:03:00.004-05:00

As a traveler, an inveterate wanderer, I long to see many things that are gone now. I want to sleep on a roof terrace in Fez under the stars -- but there isn't a city in the world now from which the stars can still be seen at night. Not the stars I'm thinking of, where the Milky Way is as plain as the Big Dipper. I've seen those stars from a mountain in Hawaii, and from the open sea, and nowhere else. I miss them. I like modern conveniences, like plumbing and wifi and cookies, but to achieve them I must kiss goodbye the stars. Choices like these, if nothing else, will keep me wandering. I long to buy a house, but where? Where could I possibly choose to live for long enough to justify a mortgage? In which country, what climate, which degree of civilization? It's impossible. I'll be renting for a long time now, keeping my living places clean and walls eggshell-white for someone else, instead of painting them aqua-green and tiling the kitchen and refitting the cabinetry and putting up contact-paper fishes swimming in the painted sea. I long for my own space to do with as I choose, my own kingdom to tear down or build up or sell as I choose, and yet I have no idea where to put it. If only I could see the stars from the center of a city, I would stake my life there.

Beyond Seattle

2010-12-09T04:40:00.003-05:00

I never thought I would settle in Seattle. Hell, I've been here a year and a half already (minus two months in Hawaii), and I never thought I'd stay that long, honestly. So I'm wondering what I'm going to do when my lease is over at the end of April.

I want to start this bookstore -- I'm eager and anxious to do so, actually, as if the possibility of pulling it off is only effervescent, which is nonsense. I don't think I'll have the capital, or more importantly, the emotional wherewithal necessary for opening a business, by spring.

More than that, opening a business isn't just -- or even, isn't really -- about opening it. I will be tying myself down for years, to one place and one job and one dream. On the one hand, that's awesome. I get to really do it, to drink deep and suck all the marrow out of life. I love that. I think I will sincerely adore running my bookstore. But simultaneously, I am scared shitless of that responsibility and that self-made cage. Since October 1st, 2008 -- just over two years ago -- I have lived in twelve different places. (Those count all the addresses I've lived at, an extended motel stay, and "my car.") I do not have a history of geographical steadfastness. I am an inconstant place-lover. I cheat. A lot. Hell, I couldn't even claim in the first paragraph above that I'd really been in Seattle for a year and half because that time period includes Mountlake Terrace, WA; Ninole, HI; Hilo; HI; and the actual city of Seattle, WA. I mean, hell! I know that I'll be okay in one place with something good going to hold me there, but the historical evidence is severely lacking and I doubt myself.

So I doubt I'll be opening the shop in the spring. Where does that leave me?

I could stay at the cafe until inspiration strikes or they go broke, either of which may happen at any moment. I could build up the life I've started in Seattle. I could grow some roots. hat's tempting, interesting, a different kind of adventure. I could learn to really love it here; I'm already further along that path than I expected to be. It's a possibility, at least for awhile. This bookshop is not a Seattle shop; it's a Midwestern one. So I would know that I'm leaving, no matter what.

I could run away to sea for awhile and get my head straight. It'll be the beginning of sailing season, perfect for running off. I could perhaps get a job on a ship, although my lack of experience makes me pessimistic about that. But I could cook. Or spend some serious time on the Nyckel. I miss the sea. A lot.

I could move to Iowa, or whatever other place looks good for my bookstore. I could start setting down roots there, learning all the things only locals know, get a better feel for where and how to set my shop, see if I can handle living in that place for so long, etc. That sounds fun, honestly.

So I don't know. I've even toyed with the idea of moving back to Pittsburgh for a bit, but that's just this strange bout of homesickness I'm going through. Pgh is where I'm from, not where I'm going. So...no idea.

Avatar review (SPOILER ALERT)

2010-12-01T23:52:00.005-05:00

For dinner tonight, I had pasta with pumpkin-peanut sauce, pumpkin beer, and the movie Avatar. (I'm talking about the one with blue people, not M. Night Shyamalan's latest catastrophe.) I was prepared to dislike it; I had heard from some people that it was overrated, that it won its Oscars for the effects, and that the analogy to present day Earthling racism, genocide, and war profiteering was so heavy handed that viewers should wear helmets.

Those people are assholes. I have seldom seen such tight writing in an effects-laden blockbuster in my life. It was -- is -- epic, in every integral sense of the word. It's the story of becoming the man you were born to be, of leading a people to victory -- a planet to victory -- with nothing but guts and faith to guide you. Shit, if that ain't cinema I don't want to watch what is.

It's beautiful. The ecology feels like a real ecology, like it all could have evolved together. The Na'vi, the blue people on the posters, their skin is even blue realistically! Everything on this planet glows with phosphorescents, so of course the intelligent species does too.

Some of the signposting is obvious, but I would not say that it is too obvious. After years of avid movie-watching, I can tell where I'm being led, and I personally don't mind that most of the time. I did not mind it here; it's just normal signposting. Of course Jake becomes a Big Bad Archeopteryx rider. Duh. The clans have to be united under a common symbol, and there he is. Boom. It's not beating the viewer over the head to tell them beforehand, "Hey, dude, there's this old symbol of a badass archeopteryx rider uniting all the clans in time of need. It's sweet, right?" That's actually called good writing.

But that isn't the themestick I heard Avatar was beating people with. That themestick was the Bad White People Destroying Good Natives And Good Nature Because They Are Bad allegory. Now, to start with, that's not just some allegory that's tacked onto the screenplay in order for some producer to feel good about himself. It's not an unnecessary twist of the core themes like the Bush critique built into the V for Vendetta movie or the exhausting Christ imagery and evils-of-war panoramas in Children of Men.

This "high-handed theme" is not just a theme. It's the fucking plot. And that plot is not more over-the-top than, say, Fern Gully or The Lorax. Anyone who thinks they've been smacked in the face by it ought to be smacked in the face again, because they are just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

With that out of my system, let me talk about what I really thought was cool in this movie.

1. The effects. Hell, yes. The entire non-existent planet looked real. I had no idea the Na'vi would look so good, or so natural. It's amazing, and the visuals actually served to help bring me into the world-building, to make me care about the safety of this bizarre, beautiful world and what would happen to it. I nearly cried when Eywa took Grace. I flew with our main pair when they soared. It was beautiful.

2. The humanity of the bad guys. Yes, it's there, and not just in Trudy. The Colonel is a wretched son of a bitch -- which some people are, especially (I expect) when they've spent the better part of their lives fighting for their lives in awful terrain against hostile civilians. He's a character you see a lot in Vietnam War histories. That shit gets to you. So, good job on a believable villain. Now, Parker, the commander -- there is an interesting piece of work. He's driven by his job, by fears of disappointing the people in charge of him, by probably many things of which we are ignorant. He gives the orders to kill the Na'vi, and he gives them staunchly. But he can't watch the Home Tree burn with the Na'vi still inside it; he has the monitors turned off. He turns away rather than watch the bombing mission on the Tree of Souls. He does exactly his duty, and I get the idea he doesn't sleep very well at night or like himself when he looks in a mirror. That's fascinating; I wish we got more of that, but it would jeopardize the integrity of the story. And anyway, the story isn't about him.

3. Jake's identity crisis. This is what the story is about. Personally, I think questions of identity are at the heart of every good story, so I guess I'm biased. Jake's identity struggle is blatant, however, and relayed through his video log voice overs as well as through his actions. He says the life he lives as a human becomes the dream, and his Na'vi avatar's life is the real one. He's a double agent who defects. A John Smith who actually does go native. He's Dances With Wolves. It's simple, yet it becomes brilliant through Jake's integrity, fearlessness, and depth of attachment to the world of Pandora. His experience is what sells the world -- and the story -- to me. He is a true warrior, and I cannot fault that. I wasn't sure I'd like him until the scene when he first wakes up in his avatar's body and runs just because he can, because these legs still work. (I nearly cried then too.) A lesser story would have succeeded in sedating him.

4. And ultimately, I think that is why I love this film. It never holds back. In the words of Vincent from Gattaca, it doesn't save anything for the swim back. It runs straight forward, does not pull its punches, does not stop to make sure the audience is following every step, does not ask forgiveness or permission. It just runs -- and then flies -- straight to the inevitable conclusion to its well-developed premise. That is why it is not high-handed. This is not a story sitting around waiting for viewers to catch up; every scene adds something to the story, to the characters, to the world. Every character is stock. Let me repeat: every character is a stock role. The idealistic scientist. The greedy, violent soldier man. The double agent who goes native. The chief who refuses to listen. The jarhead next chief. Pocahontas. It's not that the story is original, it's that it is played with such depth of feeling, and every stereotype fleshed out into a real individual, that it becomes its own singular story despite all that. I love it. I will watch it again. I'll even pay money for it. :)

And damn but I wish I'd seen it in a theater.

Paradise Regained!

2010-11-30T16:48:00.002-05:00

I just discovered a link I posted in 2008 to a flickr account I forgot I had, in which I posted all my best photos of Jordan and Cyprus. When I switched from my Mac last year, I put everything from the hard drive that I wanted to keep -- including all of my photos -- on a flash drive. The flash drive was lost or stolen in Hawaii. I am so so glad to have these photos back! Thank you, blog!

Return of the Queen

2010-11-30T15:47:00.000-05:00

I feel I need some kind of explanation for why I left this blog so many months ago and have now returned to it. I started This Car Is My Pants with Steve as part of a half-baked plan to win a year-long job blogging on a beach in Australia. (Literally, this was the job.) Obviously, we did not get to Australia, but the blog became something that we shared during our relationship, even though the updates were as sporadic as ever. I liked the thoughts I expressed there, and still do, and I feel that I grew during that time. However, now that we've broken up it seems wrong to continue writing in that blog. It was something we did together, not something that either of us could just pick up and continue separately. So here I am again, on my own personal blog, which is an appropriate analogy to the way I'm taking back my own life. I never realized how much of it I had given to the relationship, how much I wanted to let my self dissolve into that couple-closeness. I don't think I'll do that again -- well, at the very least next time I'll know better what I'm getting into and be prepared to watch myself against it. I'm developing a much better idea now of who it is that I really am, under all this bullshit and fear and the layers of social conditioning. I am really, really cool. Under all this, I am fearless and invulnerable and supremely loving. I worry a little about all the changes I'm putting myself through and whether some of them might not turn out for the worse, because I can't see all the effects at this single pinprick in time. I know they are though. I just ask the little bastard voice in my heart (the one that always tells the truth) and he cackles and says, "Yes, of course they are! Are you a moron?"

Well, yes, sometimes I am. I am starting to become okay with that. Of course I'm a moron. Would I ever be perfect? Someone once said that the quest for perfection in art was the greatest protection against creating good art. I am starting to really identify with that sentiment. I am amazing; why would I wish to become perfect? It's also helped me to stress out less at work. Last night I broke a whole tray full of dishes and nearly had a coronary. But thinking calmly, what is the point of that coronary? They were just dishes. We have plenty. Nothing is truly hurt.

I came back to this blog because I'm sick of starting new ones, thinking that each one will be my iconic blog, the one where I finally begin exploring deep truths and funny topics and get lots of followers and generally starting giving a shit about making a good blog. That blog will never happen. It certainly will not happen now, no matter what format or forum I use, because I am just not that dedicated to blogging. I hardly ever sit around and think, "Hey, that would make a great blog post!" It is just not in my head.

What is in my head is who I am, who I have been, who I can be in the future, where that person is going, what I can do now to help her get there, what frailties I exhibit that I've never given dignity to before, what strengths I have always taken for granted. I cannot honestly explore these in a blank slate, a brand-new blog with no past to reference, no frailties of its own, designed to cover up the moron I have been all my life. That's disingenuous. I came back to this blog, to Wandering Slade, because here I have been a moron. I have an even more moronic Livejournal that I am still ashamed of, which I will have to address at some point. But this blog is the height of the stupidity and foolishness that I can look at and recognize as me. This is where/when I started to grow. I feel comfortable here. So I came back, gave her a new paint job, and here we are.

Let's roll.

Radical Honesty Dilemma

2010-10-23T00:26:00.002-05:00

If I posted here, or in any public forum, everything I really think, or managed to convey how I see the world, I would be committed on the spot. Anybody who cared about me would advise me to seek help. But total honesty with myself -- for me, specifically -- involves a high degree of honesty with the people I care about, because I am so intimidated by their opinions. If I'm not willing to be vulnerable with them, then how can I be vulnerable ever? How could I respect myself if I just cowered in a corner dodging bad vibes from everyone on the dance floor and never standing up and courageously getting out there and doing my own thing. Opinions are just wordtrash and emotional residue, and they only have the power I grant them.

So does everything else. (Big thought. Another time.)

I'm babbling. This isn't really about opinions, it's about honesty and self-respect. Dishonesty makes me respect myself less -- so I guess I won't be lying about the product codes for bulk foods at the grocery store anymore. (Dammit.)

Tonight I've been wrestling with a related dilemma. (Well, all dilemmas are related. It is one mind, after all.) Part of me wants/needs to go forward, and the other part is very well-entrenched exactly where it is, keeping the other part from being able to go far. They are at constant war in my psyche and the energy expenditure is draining. The entrenched part, the me that wants to go nowhere at all, is miserable and always has been and feels at home in misery. The forward-part cannot fucking stand this and needs/wants to get the fuck out of that misery space. Entrenched part cannot abide that kind of change, unknown, risk, potential happiness and success, potential despair, etc. (Emphasis: It hates success and happiness, which it does not understand or trust.) It doesn't trust anything it doesn't already know/have and cannot make the leap of faith necessary to take big risks that the forward-self desires to take. The entrenched self just holds back the forward-self so that the forward-self's repeated attempts to leap to the other side of whatever chasm I'm facing always fall short and never succeed.

The center cannot hold. This aggression will not stand, man.

So, real question I'm really asking because I do not know the answer: How do you get your whole self on board for serious change? Not just getting the balls together to start a bookstore (which I want to do), but to overhaul my personality and the way I see the world. How do you un=entrench yourself?

This blog is in my pants

2009-03-01T11:40:00.003-05:00

You may wonder why I haven't updated what with everything I've been doing. (Specifically: I have moved to New Orleans to live with my master Steve, whom I love madly, and have gotten involved in the BDSM community, worked Bourbon St. at Mardi Gras, and am enjoying the hell out of life.)

The answer is that I have, but they're not here.

There was this great opportunity called The Best Job in the World, which was a caretaker/blogger position on a tropical Australian island. Their application window has now closed. However, since they were interested in multimedia blogging, Steve and I started a blog specifically to tie into our video submissions and show our prowess at that shit. The videos never got made, but the blog is still there. And it's starting to evolve into a more thoughtful, interesting place than this blog has been. I'm not done with this blog, but I suggest checking out what's going on there.

Here's the link to: This Car Is My Pants. (Once there were a bunch of reverential people seeking a famous Daoist* master for wisdom. They came to his hut, and upon entering discovered him stark naked inside. They freaked out a bit, and the master replied, "The world is my hut! This hut is my pants. What are you doing in my pants?" Gods love the Daoists.)

*Or a Taoist, if you so prefer.

Surrender

2008-12-13T18:45:00.004-05:00

I'm writing this post because there are things I want to say, which is novel. Usually I only update it out of a vague sense of obligation. I'm giving up obligations.

A lot has happened since I last posted: much travel, some organic farm work in Georgia, a torrid and lovestruck affair conducted partly in a gorgeous beachside motel with a spectacular view of the sea (and the other part in Orlando, in the shadow of the tackiest, silliest, most brightly colored mouse on the planet), and now I'm staying in North Carolina for the holidays awaiting a plane ride to Zihuatanejo, Mexico,* where I plan to reside for awhile.

But all of that is completely beside the point.

The point of all my time so far has been figuring out what I want to do with my life: not how I wish to kill time making money till I eventually kick the bucket, but to what end I most desire to use the time I have. And figuring that out has been all about surrender.

I'd like to explain what the fuck I'm talking about here before you make the association with twelve-step programs and go read about something more interesting on Wikipedia.

The surrender I'm talking about is the crux of taking your life in your hands. It's drawing a line in the sand and saying, "No. I'm not doing this shit anymore. My life is fucked. I will not live like this." It's having the courage to give up control of your life to whatever the fuck runs the universe. (If you have an idea of what that is, great. It's not necessary, but it's helpful. Mine is a vision of the flow of the universe itself, as a big playful omniscient puppy.)

I started surrendering in October, when I was babysitting for some family friends. I'd known I had to, but I'd put it off. It scared the fuck out of me. I mean, it's not like I was doing a very good job of living the life I actually wanted, but hell, I could do better, right?

No. No, you can't. Nothing runs your life better than the thing that's been trying to run it your whole life anyway. The universe has a flow to it; that is, in fact, all it really is: everything that is, flowing. It's beautiful, and being a part of it fucking rocks.

Yeah, this sounds like some kind of Born-Again Christian testimonial of how much finding God changed my life. The reason is because sometimes Born-Agains aren't full of shit. Sometimes they've actually given themselves up to their God, and in that case they and I have more in common than I do with most of y'all who are likely to be reading this.

Absorb that fact for a moment.

I know you guys. There isn't a single one of you I think is reaching their potential. Not even those of you with your shit together. Getting your shit together is just baseline functionality in this world. Stopping there is like calling yourself literate because you finished The Cat in the Hat without help.

Some of your lives suck outright; some of you haven't admitted that to yourselves, but it's no less true. And you're thinking, "Yeah, the last thing I need is to lose the last shred of control I have over this trainwreck. Good advice. I'm sure it wouldn't leave me eating a bullet or taking every pill in this house."

There's only one sane reply to that:

Shut up, you fucking pussy. Your whining is not endearing. I know you are whining because I have been watching you keep a strangle-hold on that one shred of control for years** and your situation has not changed in all that time. You are still miserable. You are still having trouble talking yourself into hope. You still wish you were somewhere else, someone else, living some other life. Your joys are fleeting. You wake up every morning and have to convince yourself to get out of bed and start your day. You have no compelling answer to the question of why you don't just kill yourself now, except that you don't really want to, or maybe other people will miss you.

When are you going to start living? When do you stop just waiting to die?

When you stop doing the same stupid shit that hasn't worked so far. A "pull" door doesn't open no matter how many times you push on it. Your life will not change no matter how many times you repeat your patterns of behavior. Isn't it time for something new? Isn't it time you stopped being miserable?

Surrender still sounds scary. It sounds like giving up, like sinking further down into the abyss, like a standing army of every vague and nameless demon you fear might be waiting for you in the darkness of your own soul. Maybe like if you don't control your life, you won't even be you anymore, you won't even be real, you'll just disappear into the morass of horrors.

Don't worry, that's normal. The terror, I mean; not being dragged into the pits of hell by gap-toothed harpies and unborn fetuses wearing little hair ribbons. (Yes, I'm scared of fetuses in pink ribbons. Moving right along...)

The thing you might not have realized is that you pretty much have to be desperate to surrender. You have to finally understand that you can't fix your life yourself, that nothing you do is going to make this better, that there is no panacea for human misery. That's when you turn yourself over to something else, when you draw the line and say, "I'm yours. Make me better. Take whatever you want, kill me, just please get me out of this."

Understand that I'm talking about myself here too.

Surrender is unconditional. If you're to stop trying to run your life, you have to stop it on all counts, in all aspects, of your life: emotional, physical, romantic, financial, medical, professional, psychological, everything. This takes awhile; it's hard to break the habits of a lifetime. Be easy on yourself, but keep affirming your surrender. Say it any way you like; I think of it in sailing terms, as standing at the helm but letting the whipstaff swing however it pleases, because the idea of doing that still scares the fuck out of me. Let the universe, or whatever you envision running the universe, do the steering for you.

That means surrender is not just about letting go. It's about cultivating a new attentiveness to the world and how each thread of it touches you. After all, if someone else is steering your life, you have to learn how to take their direction. It's like relearning how to see your life, not as a series of difficult tasks to perform or hoops to jump through, but as a unified organism with a place in the larger organism of Everything. With time and attention, you learn to see the way the world moves, how it makes things happen in your life, and you learn to follow them. You become part of the flow instead of resisting it. It takes time and sometimes it's frustrating, but so is anything actually worth doing.

And it's worth it. God, it's worth every damn second I spent trying to think of a reason to wake up in the morning. I'd have given another decade of misery for this, it's so sweet. I'm still a neophyte at this game, and I can't believe it could get better, and somehow it just keeps doing it. I found true love, and discovered I didn't need it. I wanted somewhere to retreat to and get my bearings and really start living my life, and I have the choice between two (TWO!) beautiful, seaside, tropical, affordable, laid-back locales with good contacts in them to help me get oriented. I'm living on my own terms. I'm getting so close to discovering my ultimate desire I can taste it, and it involves becoming my own hero, self-sufficient, someone I respect above all others -- which itself means I need to draw up training plans so that I can learn to outrun a car, heal myself, and focus my brainpower and energy much more efficiently, among other things. I am having the time of my life, literally. Every week, I look back at where I was the week before and think, "Really? How could I have been such a benighted fool? Was that really only a few days ago? I'm so much different now, so much better. I wonder what I'll be like next week."

And these changes still scare me a little, but they are so wonderful most of the time I don't have space for fear amidst all the gratitude. I feel alive.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure and honesty, I've put up two posts that I found hanging around finished as drafts. They're backdated: look for them here and here. The latter may be helpful as a counterpoint to this post, since it's me explaining how I felt about my life in April and what I planned to do with it then. That was somewhere around when I started realizing that taking responsiblity for my life was going to be important. I'm glad I did.

*You remember the name of the town, don't you? I could use someone who knows how to get things.

**Yes, years. All of you. No, you are not exempt from this statement; if you wish to beg exception, email me.

Radio Silence

2008-10-17T14:35:00.004-05:00

At the beginning of this month, I declared radio silence. I emailed everybody in my contacts list and told them that I would not be speaking or writing to them in any form for the foreseeable future. Most of them had some prior warning, though not all. I completely forgot to post about it here.

And now, clearly, I am breaking it. I destroy my relationships with everyone I know and care about, and here I am breaking the ban? Why the hell would I do such a thing?

Because this journey thing is all about growing up, and part of growing up is learning how not to be a short-sighted self-absorbed little bitch. And part is learning to see when something has lived out its usefulness.

That's not to say I'll be emailing everybody anytime soon to say radio silence is officially lifted. That's not what's happening here at all. Just, I'm going to be posting here occasionally. Letting y'all know I'm still alive. I've got requests on that point that I feel the need to honor. So if you want to make sure I haven't been killed by a large white whale, this is the place to check. If you want to chat about what you did this afternoon, that's still going to have to wait awhile. This silence is still being very very useful to me. I can hear myself think and I like what I'm hearing.

So, that's it. I'm the only one who can post to this blog, and any posts you see mean "hey, there, I'm still around somewhere."

Oyster Bay

2008-09-09T17:42:00.003-05:00

Still alive. Staying on the Nyckel until probably the 13th of Sept. Then off to spend a couple days with Augie, and eventually get home, pack my shit up, and fuck off to parts unknown. Currently docked at Oyster Bay, on Long Island, a crap little town I must say. It doesn't even have a whaling museum. I swear to God, if we see a single whale on the way down to Lewes, I will take the Zodiac out and harpoon it with a ship's knife. And then eat it off the capstan, render the blubber into whale oil, and make a mint -- definitely enough to pay off officials on an epic run from the law to the Cayman Islands. I bet I could make a bitchin' harpoon out of a whale's own jaw.

This is what New Bedford does to people. It turns them into whalers.

Life

2008-08-28T14:27:00.003-05:00

It may not be a minor holiday, but here I am actually updating.

I don't think there's anyone who reads this that I haven't already informed (and if there is, I'm sorry, I probably just forgot who's told me they keep up with the blog), but my future plans have gloriously changed. None of you are surprised, I'm sure.

I will not, in fact, be taking the job as a ship's cook on the Hawaiian Chieftain this September. Instead, I am sailing the Kalmar Nyckel to Martha's Vineyard, which will have me back in Pittsburgh something like 9 Sept., after which I will pack my shit up, store it in my parents' basement, and get the hell out of PA.

I don't really know where I'm going, but I'm definitely running away to sea. I need to find some way of sailing single-handedly, with no other people around, just me and the sea in every direction. So I think I'm going to find a small vessel in need of love and a good community of small-craft sailors, and learn. That's it. This is the life I've sworn to myself I'd one day embark on, and it is high fucking time I do it. I made myself an oath last winter that once I was through college, I would never commit myself to a time contract I was not 100% absolutely sure was the right thing to do, that I wouldn't read any books I didn't want to, that I would live my life for myself, as I wish to live it, no matter what -- and that's what I am doing. I extended my time on the Nyckel by two weeks in order to do it. So when I next get to Pittsburgh, I'll be 23. Which is cool. 23 seems like a good year; old enough to be out of that standard college bracket, but young enough to still be stupid and optomistic without raising suspicion. I have a lot of hope for 23.

My name in print

2008-08-08T22:58:00.002-05:00

So apparently there was a lawsuit going down in Seattle involving the Sonics. Here is part of the story. And let me tell you, there is ony one word of it I give a shit about: there is another first-name Slade in this country. And he's a senator!

Jamboree

2008-06-21T15:32:00.004-05:00

I will also be attending the 1908 Centennial Jamboree today.

The Lusty Month of...June?

2008-06-20T23:27:00.002-05:00

Happy Official First Day of Summer, and a joyous Equinox to you! We're apparently continuing the minor-holiday-posting routine.

I am back in the Wex, having finished my summer classes. On Monday, I'm starting doing random lawn care at the kennel I worked at through high school and part of college. This is usually my brother's job, but he's got a second gig now as a roofer, so I'm helping with maintenance. This is brilliant because it looks like I won't be spending the quiet summer at home that I'd planned.

On July 3rd, Giffy is coming down from Somewhere In New York State, and early the next morning we embark on a road trip all the way to South Carolina to visit Cassidy. We're staying at his place for four days, then hiking back up to Indiana, PA, for a couple of days before Giffy continues his car-bound trek back home. I will be remaining in Indiana for two weeks as a counselor at the RECHC Summer Honors Program (SHP), where I'm getting 10 high schoolers to do with as I please and to keep from dying/shooting up/fucking/stabbing anyone/huffing incense/whatever kids these days do for fun. Some of you may remember that I was an SHP counselor two years ago as well, when I was assigned to the illustrious Dr. Gwen Torges' Constitutional Law class. You may find my next sentence repetitive: this year I will be assigned to Dr. Gwen Torges' Constitutional Law class. The subject this year is different; last time was the Supreme Court, this year it's constitutional amendments.

After SHP, I will sleep for 48 hours straight. Upon waking...who knows. I still have to find some time to get on the Kalmar Nyckel (and I'd love to do the Lewes-Provincetown voyage). My birthday is Sept. 2nd, the day after Labor Day; sometime probably after that, but not by a lot, I'm leaving Pittsburgh for something new. Hopefully a boat (I'm looking at several). Definitely something warm year-round; fuck this winter shit, I'm done with it.

And that's where things stand right now. I've walked graduation but won't be officially out of the system till August. Can't wait.

Some quotes for you in May

2008-05-26T21:20:00.005-05:00

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! Do something memorable.

I've been doing a lot lately, like graduating, taking classes, hanging out with people (especially on the moon), and finally enjoying some decent weather in Indiana, Pennsylvania. But that's not what I'm putting this post out today for. You see, I collect quotes, and today I realized how many really glorious yet unknown quotes I have that others would likely enjoy. So here are a few.

"During the 1998 refit of the U.S.S. Constitution, a number of interesting artifacts were found; one was a provisioning record. When the ship left Boston on July 22, 1798 with a crew of 475 officers and men, she carried 45,600 gallons of fresh water (enough for six months), 7,400 cannon balls, 22,600 pounds of black powder and 79,406 gallons of rum. Her mission was to harass English shipping. Making Jamaica on October 6, she took on 828 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum. Then she headed to the Azores, where she arrived on November 12. She took on 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine. She then set sail for England on November 18. In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled twelve merchantmen, but not before salvaging the rum. On January 27, 1799, powder and shot exhausted, Old Ironsides, undaunted, slipped up the Firth of Clyde, put ashore that night a landing party, and captured a whiskey distillery, hauling away 40,000 gallons of what we now call Scotch. Then she raised sail and headed for home. She arrived in Boston on February 20,1799 with no cannon balls, no powder, no food, no rum, no wine, no whiskey and 45,600 gallons of stagnant water. Length of cruise: 181 days. Alcohol consumption: 252,000+ gallons, or 2.93 gallons per man per day (this does not include the unknown quantify of rum captured from the 12 English merchant vessels in November). Naval historians say that the re-enlistment rate from this cruise was over 92%."
---from various sources, including the National Park Service

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.
---Glenn Clark

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both
incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by
twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
---Rod Serling

Last night Rusty pointed out a waitress who was taking orders at the next table. He said that four years ago she was married, had a fourteen-year-old daughter, and was the school system's consultant on dyslexia. It was summer. She and her husband were having a drink in a bar in Aransas Pass. Her husband went to the rest room and while he was gone a man at the other end of the bar said, "Hi. Would you like to come with me to Mexico?" On the spot she walked out. She lived with the man for three years in Guatemala. Even more unexpected than the story was the reaction at our table. We were all staring at the woman as if she were a heroine. A time comes when you need to clean house. No, you need to go even further, you need to burn the house down with yourself inside it. Then you must walk from the fire and say, I have no name.
---Hugh Prather (from Notes on Love and Courage)

Not one of us ever grows up to be what he intended to be. Not one of us
fulfills his own expectations. We are all our own children, in that sense.
At some point, somewhere, we have to stop making demands.
---John D. MacDonald

In the land of the dark the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead.
---Egyptian Book of the Dead

"One unexpected result came from the seismic experiment recording the impact of Intrepid on the surface after we had jettisoned it. The entire Moon rang like a gong, vibrating and resonating for almost on hour after the impact."
---Cortwright, Edgar M., Apollo Expeditions To The Moon, By C. Conrad,Jr./ A.B. Shepard, Jr., U.S. History, 1 Sep 1990.

How to fix a broken Slade this summer

2008-04-17T00:47:00.010-05:00

I feel that I've been emotionally dishonest with myself and the world. I've worked myself like a forastero Indian at Potosi for the last four years, and although I've done a lot of cool stuff, I feel like I've cheated myself out of a lot of emotional growth. I haven't focused on my writing in years. I haven't taken an art class or touched wet clay since sophomore fall. I'm drained from Jordan. I'm drained from getting back on the grindstone this semester, even though the last few months should not, on paper, have been so hard. I'm utterly spent trying to pull more energy, more time, more caring, more anything out of myself to feed into a system I think is innately craven, dehumanizing, hope-crushing, and stultifying. I still can't believe I'm graduating, not only because it's been so long I can't believe it's already here, but also because there is a large part of me that knows I'm a sellout for finishing my time on the system's terms instead of tunnelling out when I could.

So I'm coming up with a plan. It's a plan for a fresh-out-of-college adventure in replanting myself in reality and rejuvenating/rebuilding from years of partially self-imposed exploitation. I made a list like this for myself last year around this time, and it went pretty well (1.5 goals met out of 3, by my reckoning*). I want to make this list public in kind of the same vein as an alcoholic coming out so that everyone knows to expect her to be a bit fucked up for awhile.

Therefore, my big, fun, and scary adventures for the summer are:
1. Insofar as possible, read only books/comics/etc. that I actually have a strong personal desire to read. And get them from the library. Lots of them.
2. Clean, organize, and paint my bedroom at home.
3. Make a fairly rigorous writing regimen that I can stick to.
3a. And make a glorious start into the Goddamn Nordic Hero Novel.
4. If I don't have some stonecut future and summer employment set up by June, get some of each.
5. Make myself a decent website. (Dan, I'll probably be in touch. [grins])
6. Sell off as many useless old textbooks as possible. Donate the rest.

There. I think that's excellent signposting.

*Jordan was supposed to be my semester off and doing NaNo was dependent on my taking real time then for my writing, instead of having this boyfriend and spending three months playing video games and mooching around in the Middle East. So half a point off each of those goals. And I definitely learned to sail, so that makes 1.5 goals accomplished, which isn't bad when really 2.5 were dependent on No. 1.

I CAN HAZ SPRING!

2008-04-01T14:38:00.004-05:00

It seems to be my destiny only to update on minor or national holidays.

Here in Indiana, this is the second consecutive day of truly beautiful, warmish weather. It's in the mid-60's* for gods' sakes! And the forecast says it won't drop more than a couple degrees below 50 all the rest of the week.

THAT MEANS IT'S SPRING!

And the groundhog lied; this is the 9th week since he saw his shadow. I'm wearing a T-shirt, the window is open, I'm contemplating getting an ice cream tonight and actually taking it outside the building, and the last thing I really want to do is start my first draft of my research paper, which is due later this week and really must be begun today. And after that I read Kannani and the Document of Flames for East Asia and, more awesomely, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Of Love and Other Demons for Colonial Latin America. And write papers on both of them. Then, another exam and two short papers for US Since 1877, an exam in Latin America, some more random reading quizzes in US, my Seminar paper presentation, and then finals, and then nothing for a few days, and then I walk graduation, and then I have a month taking two summer classes (Psych 101 and Geography of the Non-Western World, both of them easy), and then I am finished with School forever and ever, amen.

I can smell the end. It's wonderful.

*That's almost 19 degrees for anyone from a metric country reading this. Isn't that crazy?!

St. Patrick's Day update

2008-03-17T14:59:00.006-05:00

Hey, guyshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif. I'm still alive, despite not posting since Thanksgiving. Some things have changed around here in that time. I'll be graduating this summer instead of this fall, after taking two summer classes. I'm behind on work for school and trying to make it work so I can get the hell out of here. The Global Scavenger Vlog is back on -- watch this week for a new post from me. John and I went to Cairo over New Year's and now are both home safe in the States (and still dating). I'm doing my last major research paper of college on Marvel's Civil War extravaganza and how it uses recent history and old Marvel stories to talk about national American ideals and identity. Steve McQueen, my adorable wonderful rat, is very broken and has either pneumonia or an inoperable tumor in his lungs.* I'm getting new glasses soon, and the first pair of prescription sunglasses of my life. Usually I find a pair of wholly inadequate and stupid-looking clip-ons and just deal, or go without sunglasses entirely. But now I'll actually be able to see outside in the summer! And they're cool-looking, too, with little gold lions on the sides. Pearle Vision had a two-fer special.

Other things have not changed. Like I said, John and I are still dating, and it's still great. I still can't wait to get out of college; Becky Chamberlain has a countdown on her door that I pass every day, and it just makes me want out more. I still have not given anyone but my mum their Christmas presents. I just got back from spring break, which was partly restful and partly restless. Can't wait to travel again, do something new, get out of Western PA for awhile.

To that end, I'm applying for a job (technically two: bosun and cook) on the Lady Washington, who operates out of Seattle but roams all up and down the West Coast. Most of you have already heard all about her from me babbling about it nonstop. (She has naval battles! Come on!) I haven't seen the Pacific since high school, when we took a family vacation to San Francisco. And I haven't been aboard ship since last summer on the Kalmar Nyckel. I'm missing the sea like I usually just miss writing or pottery. I really hope they hire me; that would be amazing. I'd get a good summer in Pittsburgh (and some sort of summer employment), then move to the other side of the country in a backpack and maybe a duffel in order to sail a new boat year-round and learn to care for her properly. Perfect. Maybe there'll even be holystoning. Application goes out today or tomorrow (I forgot to check when I was home about my last tetanus shot and high school GPA). My fingers are crossed.

And speaking of writing and pottery...well, not much change on that front. There's an Advanced Ceramics class offered this June that keeps tempting me but I'm going to have to say no to in order to keep from incurring more debt and more time stuck in Indiana. Kills me though. And while I keep getting story ideas and I can't wait to get back into the novels I have in progress -- especially the one about the girl who stops Ragnarok -- I can't do a damn thing with them right now because as per usual there is no spare time whatsoever aside from classes.

So, that's how things are here. Drop me a comment; how are you doing today?

*Normally this would get a whole post to itself in which I wailed at the horror and cosmic unfairness of such a wonderful rat having such horrible genes -- he's a pet-store albino rat -- but I'm working on not dwelling here. I love that rat. And I hate that another of my rats has gotten a tumor.

Pics: First Posting

2007-11-26T10:35:00.000-05:00

Happy Late Turkey-Day, everybody!

I've finally posted photos to my Flickr account! You can see them here; if that doesn't work, search my username, AMPowell.

These photos are from Aqaba and Petra. I'm afraid they're not all labelled by location. If it's a building, it's Aqaba; if it's rocks, it's Petra. And if there's nothing but dirt and road and the occasional outcropping, then it's the desert in between everything else.

Hope you all enjoy.

Weather and Jobs

2007-11-21T10:21:00.000-05:00

PART ONE: LET'S TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER

Irbid is dry. And hot. And brown. Technically brown is not part of the weather, but after staring at enough of that same brown dirt and brown buildings and brown dust and brown sky--no wait, the sky is still china-blue--you get to start thinking of it like that. I have to use lotion just to keep my hands from cracking. The humidity has to be in the negatives, regularly, with temperatures in the 80-90 (Fahrenheit) range most days. I liked that weather. It was monotonous, but always good. Sometimes there would be decent winds, for variety.

Then winter started settling in. There is no fall here, unless you count the two weeks of blustery chill before it just goes straight to winter. That was hilarious, when John and I were perfectly fine and every Arab in this city was bundled up for the apocalypse.

Now it's mid-November and I'm sitting in a drafty netcafe unable to fully feel my feet, remembering why I hate winter, and watching the rain outside that's been pouring down almost constantly for the last three days. At three in the afternoon today, the sky looked like evening. It's five now and it's moved on to nine o'clock or even eleven. John's been watching the lightning outside, and the stormclouds are impressive--firstly because there are actually clouds in the sky, and secondly because they haven't left. They're actually pretty wimpy compared to good Pennsylvanian thunderheads.

The moral of the story is that the Middle East does get buttfucking cold, and I need to get to the suq tomorrow for a decent winter jacket.

PART TWO: ELECTION DAY
Yesterday, on Day Two of The Rain, Jordan celebrated Election Day. And I am not kidding when I say "celebrated." There were parties in the streets, chanting and shouting and honking car horns, nine people hanging out the windows of a minivan in kuffiyyas carrying homemade banners for their candidate, people sitting on the windowledges of taxis that had been painted with slogans and candidates' names, people just stuffed into the backs of lorries with Jordanian flags and banners held up high, vehicles racing in victory laps around the college and the town even before the votes had been tabulated. The race was for the Jordanian Senate. The head of state is King Abdullah, who is the actual monarch (not a figurehead), but the Senate has governmental power as well. The people here freaking love Abdullah, too. There are pictures of him everywhere: in offices, outside shops, in people's homes, in people's cars, in cafes, on the street, absolutely everywhere. This is no authoritarian cult of personality either, like the mandatory paintings of Chairman Mao. I've seen the print shops where you can buy your picture of the king in any situation you could think of, and posting them up is (with perhaps the exception of government buildings) entirely a voluntary act of citizens who want enormous posters of their king plastered on every visible surface. You can buy Military Abdullah (in several varieties, including Abdullah Firing a Machine Gun), Family Abdullah with his wife and kids, Abdullah Playing Video Games, Abdullah Surfing the Net, Abdullah in a Kuffiyya, Abdullah in a Western Suit, Abdullah in Jeans, Abdullah Looking Ahead to the Future, Abdullah Eating Dinner, Military Abdullah Looking Approving While Small Military Son (And Heir to the Throne) Shouts Orders, Queen Rania as Dutiful Wife, Queen Rania Loves Her People, and a wide variety of The Face of Our Great King, which come in Stern, Friendly, and Bowed With the Demands of Power. People here just freaking love their freaking king. (So do I; he's got great policies and he was on Star Trek: Voyager And they freaking love voting for Senate. The parties and honking and chaos did not end until sometime in the middle of the night, after the results came out and also after the rain returned. Not exactly the kind of political frenzy that makes CNN.

PART THREE: ANALOG JOB-SEARCHING
This one's more of a note than anything else. I'm trying to figure out what to do after I graduate in May. I want to spend the summer on the Nyckel, but I also need to see the friends and family I'll have neglected by that time for eight months straight. And much as I hate it, I'm going to need money and the boat only has volunteer positions. By next November, I need to be employed and able to start paying off my loans, or in some kind of debt forgiveness program. I need to keep travelling, but again, I miss my peeps.

At the moment I'm looking at a few options. I need a job that will send/take me to new places (preferably warm ones) in order to do good, meaningful work to disseminate knowledge or aid to some portion of the world, and pay me for it.

I could try to use my (admittedly small) expertise at sailing the Nyckel--which will be greater after a summer living aboard--to find work as a deckhand on a boat that sails during winter. That seems to mean moving to the West Coast, Caribbean, or some other warm-water area. I don't know how possible that is with less than a year's time shipboard, although I might be able to swing something.

There are also NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations).* I need to save the world, and this is a good way to start. Hopefully, they'd want to send me abroad to cool places to help people do cool things.

I'm also thinking about just picking up and moving to another country with flexible immigration standards and finding random work once I get there. I've wanted for awhile to work my way around the world.

The problem is that my internet access, as you may have noticed, is sporadic at best. I need to be able to research my options more fully, and I can't exactly just walk over to their offices and drop off a resume when I have some free time. I'm having a lot of trouble chasing down leads in my designated weekly netcafe time (ie. whenever I can get to it). So if you know of any cool or interesting opportunities, please tell me about them. I'd love to pursue them.

*I always thought this was a stupid label. Most organizations are non-governmental, and most of them are not NGOs. Be more specific, abbreviation-maker people.

Food Porn

2007-11-18T11:22:00.000-05:00

Now that I have a surplus of time to blog today, there's nothing new to say. Living abroad in the Middle East may seem dangerous and exotic, but the reality is mostly boring. I eat, sleep, go to class, do homework, read...with the exception of John and his PS2, it's mostly like any other semester. It's just in another language and the grades don't transfer.

So I'll talk about food, because of late it's been on my mind. I eat Arabic food every day, enough that I'm getting sick of hummos. What I wouldn't give for some General Tso's chicken and a pint of Chunky Monkey. And a Blue Moon; beer is prohibitively expensive here. I'm craving variety, any variety, in my food. I want some Thai peanut noodles, some seitan fajitas, some chile rellenos, some fucking bacon.

Some of this lack is my own damn fault. In a perfect world, John would be eating American fast food every meal, every day, and I would be cooking fresh vegetable and meat dishes from produce bought down the suq. But in reality we both eat together, I don't like cooking enough to do it for every meal, and you still can't get half the stuff I'm craving from the suq. I don't even know how to make General Tso's, and I'm pretty sure I'd be arrested if I asked around for seitan.* I could feasibly be eating better, but it's faster, easier, and not expensive to get falafel and shawarma takeaway. And they're good. We've found arguably the best falafel and shawarma in this town. They know us and make jokes with us. It's nice to be a regular.

But damn, would I like a fucking waffle.

*Pronounced "Satan." Satanists are well and truly arrested here, and if you dress too goth or punk you could be mistaken for one, too. There is no counterculture in this country.

Placeholder

2007-11-12T10:54:00.000-05:00

Still alive. I still only get to the netcafe (Rabiah Cafe; if you're ever in Irbid, look it up) about once a week. So I've really only missed updating about half a dozen times, in terms of cafe visits. I'm otherwise doing quite well and travelling a bunch. I owe you guys the tales of weekends in Israel (Tel Aviv, twenty minutes in the Old City of Jerusalem, the beauty of actual diversity and being out with John as a couple), Aqaba (Jordan's port city, lovely, carries duty-free booze and allegedly also hot Arab girls in bikinis which I was apparently on the wrong beach to find), Petra (amazing, actually not just the one famous gate carved into the cliff face, but in fact a whole ancient Nabatean city of cliff-carved buildings), and various exploits in Amman (capitol of Jordan, fairly lame, includes a totally soulless shopping hell called Mecca Mall).

I've also got plenty of social commentary to make. I just had a conversation with Andrew (one of our Fulbrights, from Virginia) about how young people here are not expected to be self-sufficient until they're about 25 and graduated from college. Everyone at Yarmouk commutes from home, even if home is in Amman, an hour-and-a-half bus ride away. The only students living in the dorms are foreign students (like us) and children of professors. You live with your parents, that's just what you do.

Jordanians also don't start co-ed education until college. All grade schooling is gender-segregated, and you can see the effects of this system in people's behavior. You know how fourteen-year-old boys treat girls? With a combination of derision, terror, awe, and total incomprehension? That's how twenty-something Jordanian men treat women their age. And when I told a small group of women (non-Jordanians, even: a Syrian, a Moroccan, a Sudanese chick, and a Frenchwoman) that I had a boyfriend, they were impressed, as if I had done some kind of big-kid thing that they weren't allowed to yet, like biking without training wheels. A friend of mine and John's* is throwing a party this coming Saturday in which he plans to have games and prizes and very organized emceeing. The games include dancing and limbo competitions, karaoke, and charades. I kept flashing back to middle school, when such games were somewhat acceptable for a (gasp!) Boy/Girl Party. I kept waiting for the drinking and making out and getting high to come into anyone's heads...and it never did.

Yet somehow, the rate of people buying condoms is apparently comparable to the States. I'm mystefied. This country is bizarre. And I crave General Tso's.

*This is Ash, from Dubai in the UAE, probably the most Westernized, liberal city in the most Westernized, liberal country in the Middle East. He's cool. When he played a song about fucking for us at work, he apologized constantly for its obscenity (cursing and explicitness), and it took ten minutes of convincing for him to tell even one remarkably clean dirty joke in front of me. Madness.

Dating in Jordan, Part 2: The Stunning Conclusion

2007-10-16T15:30:00.000-05:00

Two posts ago, I started talking about how dating in Jordan is a lot like being in a closeted gay relationship in southern Kentucky. Here's the rest of what I intended to post that day.

Here's a situation you don't find yourself in very often Stateside: someone introduces himself to you, as happens a lot to John and I. We're easy to spot; there are only four white students at Yarmouk after all. You and your SO return introductions, and the guy asks if you're siblings. "La, nakhnu sadiqiyoon," you reply. "No, we're friends." And in your head you're thinking to yourself, yeah, right, because that's how I show affection for all my friends: with tongue. But there isn't even a standard word in the Arabic language for "boyfriend" or "girlfriend." You can use "friend" or "loved one" or something, but nothing translates directly. There was a guy who decided he was really into me (because I was "innocent", by which he seemed to mean "not a criminal") whom I had to let down by telling him I had a boyfriend already. It took ten minutes to describe American dating to him, and he was still asking me at the end whether I was engaged. The concept does not translate.

And then you start planning travel throughout the Middle East and you find yourself in the suq in Amman pricing cheap wedding rings in order to pass for a real couple.*

Then there are the jagoffs who yell things, or just stare at us. Sometimes they stare because we're weird and foeign and pale. And sometimes they can't tear their eyes away from my breasts, as if this is normal, polite interpersonal interaction between peers. It pisses me off and makes me very uncomfortable. I just dyed my hair again, partly on the Kass Headgear Principle: if you intentionally look funny, you know exactly what people are staring at. That hasn't stopped John or I from working on a good Arabic translation for "I will tear out your rib cage and wear it as a hat," however. For his part, John hates that I have to deal with this shit and acts as my wingman as much as possible. At the same time, he's in the unusual position of dating apparently the most desirable woman in Jordan.

In our flats or with Andrew and Tony, our fellow American students, it's a normal American straight relationhip.** We try not to PDA, but I can ruffle John's hair or whatever and it's no big deal. But when we go out, it's as if we're not dating at all. We walk together, but we don't touch. I am a very touchy-feely person when I've got someone to touch and feel, and this drives me insane. The smallest physical contact gains layers of meaning: brushing hands while walking, touching elbows during class, etc. I used to scoff at Victorian novels for their obsession with relatively uninteresting pieces of anatomy, like ankles and wrists and elbows. Damn, I thought, get a life. Now I find myself fully understanding the plight of all those Heathcliffs and Catherines. When you can't touch your boyfriend, all touch is significant.

John is trying to arrange a semester in Russia immediately following Jordan, and if that works out then we will break up because neither of us wants a long-distance relationship. However, if we end up back in the States together and are still dating, do not be surprised if our relationship seems to be one long PDA.

*This is a surreal place to be in a relationship, let me tell you. I think we're married at the local pharmacy, too, because I wasn't willing to say that John was my relative. We've been dating for a month tomorrow, for the gods' sakes.

**Well, as close to that as we can get, it being us. There's a lot more talk of gender theory and foreign policy, a lot more lighting things on fire, and more blanket forts than most straight American relationships can probably boast of. We're both sort of like sixteen-year-old boys.

Ramadan and Aiyd al-Fitr

2007-10-11T17:09:00.000-05:00

It was announced today on the evening news: today is the last day of Ramadan! Tomorrow is Aiyd al-Fitr, the start of about a week of crazy feasting and visiting relatives and giving gifts. Tonight is basically Black Friday; John and I tried to get to the suq, but we couldn't get a taxi that would take us because they cannot physically travel into that entire section of town due to pedestrian congestion.

Ramadan has been nuts. Even as a non-Muslim, I ended up accidentally fasting much of the day because I have to eat in the privacy of the flats. Even buying food at supermarkets during the day feels weird. And even more than the food is the water; John tried to keep the Ramadan fast for a day and nearly passed out from dehydration. I don't understand how anyone can keep this up for a month. Everyone who actually manages that deserves praise and the biggest slab of post-sunset kanaafa imaginable.*

I've lost weight. My belt, which I cut a new, well-fitting hole in just before leaving the country, is now about four inches too loose. I wish there were a better (ie. less painful) way to have lost that weight. I am not going into what unintentional pseudo-fasting does to one's eliminary system.

Even more than the obvious fasting going on, there's Angry Time. People who don't eat all day get pissy around 4pm. To avoid having to deal with that, everything on Sha'ar al-Jamaiya shuts down at 3pm. The suq is still open, but then the suq would probably stay open through a tornado.

John and I are planning to do some kind of traveling for the next couple of days. We have no class till Tuesday (four-day weekend!), although we have to be back Sunday night because we're going to a wedding. Very exciting. It's the cousin of Khalid in the Expatriate Students' Department. Pretty cool.

All right, it's 1:30 am and I have to get back and sleep. More on dating in Jordan later; believe me, it's worth the wait. That shit is crazy.

Miss you all. Be well.

*I have found God, and it is called kanaafa. This stuff is a sweet cheesy orgasm dripping with syrup and pistachios. It's amazing. It's wonderful. It's bright effing orange. If only it kept for more than half an hour, I would do nothing but eat kanaafa for the rest of my happy life. Last night we ate falafel and kanaafa in the olive orchard in the middle of campus; what could be better than that?

Dating in Jordan

2007-10-08T16:27:00.000-05:00

On Facebook, John and I are listed as "It's complicated," even though our relationship is fairly well-defined. That's because any and all dating in Jordan is complicated.

Imagine that the only people commonly seen holding hands on the streets are good frineds of the same sex. Imagine men and women walk in largely segregated circles--not completely so, of course, because that would be nearly impossible, but they don't hang out together as friends very often. Now, imagine you're spending the majority of your time in the company of someone of the opposite gender. In fact, imagine you're in a closeted gay relationship in southern Kentucky.

And then imagine the Net cafe is closing sooner than you thought. Shit. More later. Sorry.

End of September Round-up

2007-09-30T14:42:00.000-05:00

Sorry as always for sporadic, sparse updating. Here are the highlights of what's happened since last I posted:

1. The sky-rats are nearly full grown. One has already left, and the other should be gone in the next couple of days. Then I'm going to scoop out the birdshit, put up plastic bottle fortress, and open my effing window for once.

2. Everything in this country is made of concrete. No, really. Every building is cast in concrete. I passed an old, old stone building the other day and gawked. American wooden housing does not exist.

3. The standard workweek/class week is Sunday through Thursday--which messes with my head. A lot. Ramadan hours are roughly 8am-3pm with often a second opening sometime in the evening, around 5pm or 7pm (before or after iftar, the sun-just-went-down-let's-all-pray-and-stuff-our-hungry-faces meal). This means that late afternoon is somewhat dead; some businesses stay open, but not all.

Damn, there is so much to post. How do you do culture shock in bullet format? I get stared at everywhere I go. There is no public touching at all, not even jostling in crowds. John and I have effectively been forced into a bizarre twisted version of Ramadan due to not being able to eat out during daylight and not wanting to be the asshole Americans going grocery shopping in the day--even though Jordanians do it all the time. There are special Ramadan street foods that have come out, like these fantastic little pancakes that taste like pretzels. I really, really miss having Net access in my room. I never realized how much of my college lifestyle depended on having Gmail, YouTube and Wikipedia at my fingertips 24/7.

And perhaps most monumentously, I have a small public service announcement to make. You all may remember my friend John, who's travelling with me. Well, as of the 17th, we've started dating. It's pretty awesome, actually. I'd forgotten how much more fun things are with a significant other, and Jordan just keeps getting better this way. For those of you who don't know him, he's an International Studies/Asian Studies/Philosophy triple major, a year under me, has a twisted sense of humor, and would fit in at a WorD meeting.

And now I have to go. It's nearly 2am here, and I still have stuff to do for class. Hope you're all doing well. I miss you. And seriously, email me. I will not reply promptly, but I will reply. I want to hear from you guys. Rock the States while I'm gone.

Sky-rats!: News at eleven

2007-09-12T08:58:00.000-05:00

Alive and well! Placement exam taken; probably in Beginner level. I know so much less Arabic than I'd rather hoped I did. Have been hanging out with John McMurray (from IUP, whom some of you know) and Andrew, who's doing further language study for his Fulbright before starting research in spring on Jordanians' actual opinions regarding American foreign policy as broadcast on major regional news stations (ie. Al-Jazeera). I'm all for that project, actually. It's something that's desperately needed studying for a very long time and yet hasn't been. I'm getting a bit more into the swing of things--just in time for Ramadan to start tomorrow and throw everything off again.

And now, let me tell you about pigeons and my new phone.

PART I: PIGEONS

The sky-rats are everywhere.* Most particularly, they have roosted, shat upon, and nested in my window-box. There are two--TWO!--ugly baby pigeons growing in my window-box. Their names are First Pigeon (which is smaller and appeared first) and Second Pigeon (which is fat like an obese water balloon sparsely pasted with ugly yellow feathers). There are also two eggs, which promise future pigeons as well.

Both First and Second Pigeons and their Mama Pigeon(s) bed down for the night in the soft, downy layers of old pigeon shit layering my window-box, which smells bad enough that I can't keep my bedroom window open for more than ten minutes.

Apparently, you can stop pigeons from landing somewhere by lining the spot with old plastic bottles. Pigeons hate plastic. Who knew? It's like a less vicious version of those spikes you see people put on their windowsills in the States. But I do not want to be responsible for killing baby pigeons by starving them. I definitely don't want to watch them slowly die of exposure in my window. Any ideas?

PART II: JORDANIAN PHONE

Because of the craziness that is non-compatible continental cell phone networks, my American cell phone is useless in Jordan. And Jordanian phones are really, really cheap, even when you're ripped off because you look like a tourist. So I have this new little Nokia phone now.

And God, it is amazing. There are more ringtones I like on this phone than there are ringtones on my American one, full-stop. The options are organized sensibly. Prepaid phone plans are standard, and pretty cheap. My phone cost 25JD and my plan 15JD (incl. 5JD prepaid): about 56USD. Craziness!

Plus, this is an insanely cell-phone-obsessed culture. Walking down the street, you can see about a fifth of the people on phones. If you're talking to someone and your phone rings, you always answer it (unless it's your annoying cousin Ahmed who's called you four times today already, or something like that). And unlike in the States, where getting someone's number is a sign of knowing them well, in Jordan you get the numbers of everyone you know. I have the personal cell number of the guy employed by the supervisor of Yarmouk's team of repair guys, and he has mine. You just do that. It's weird, but I'm starting to get used to it.**

Still miss you all. Drop me a comment or an email, tell me how your day went.

*I have a lot of love for rats. But pigeons are just vile.
**If you want my Jordanian number, just ask. I'm sure someone out there must have a decent international plan.

The Jordan Chronicles: Chapter 1

2007-09-09T08:56:00.001-05:00

Hello, you wonderful people! You're awesome! I miss you! I'm safe, have housing, and I'm getting to know some people. It's nuts here. If you're reading this page, you're probably wondering what things are like here and what I'm up to. Your answer today comes in two parts: my flat and culture shock.

Part I: My Flat

I have a one-bedroom, on-campus apartment. It's crazy. The building, like nearly all the buildings here, is made of concrete. The walls are painted white, which makes for very bleak surroundings. It's three storeys, reaised off the grounds so that you can park underneath it. It's also professor housing...plus us foreign kids, that is.

The flat itself is...well, the internet lied to me. It's gigantic. The living/dining room seats eleven easily, including a counch. I have a TV with bunny ears that gets maybe five stations (two of them the same one). The windows are enormous, and the living room has this credenza thing that I've already truned into a windowseat.The kitchen has a freidge, a strange collection of Goodwill-esque silverware and dishes and cooking utensils that include full Arabic coffee-making equipment. The stove has a separate propane tank and must be lit by hand--which freaked me out the first time I did it. (Weirdly, John's talk has Enligh directions and mine has Arabic. Aand the on/off knobs turn opposite directions, which was confusing to learn while making pancakes last night.)

The bedroom is set up for two people, and apparently the previous tenants were a pair of Turkish girls.* I have no roommate, but there are plenty of pigeons. In fact, my window planter seems to be a nesting grounds fo rthem. (24/7 Animal Planet).

...more later. Internet cafe is closing. Miss you all. I'm safe and sound.

*They even left a poster on the dining room wall: "Go with the rhythm...enjoy Istanbul."

RIP Harry Potter (SPOILERS!)

2007-08-16T21:06:00.000-05:00

It's been 24 days since Deathly Hallows came out. I borrowed someone else's copy while I was on the boat and read it in snatches over the course of about a week, between (more or less) twice-daily sails and learning belay points. I hated some bits, like the epilogue, and I loved others, like Narcissa Malfoy. I loathe Snape's pointless death; I am angry at the pointlessness of ALL the deaths, from Hedwig straight through to Harry himself. I still held out hope that Harry would pull out a Glock and shoot Voldie between the eyes. There was not enough laughter.

And now it's over. Well, technically it was over 24 days ago. I used to plan meeting up with friends knowing that, at the very least, nearly every summer we'd have a book release and days of discussion afterward, no matter what. I started reading these books in the sixth grade, and now I'm a senior in college. Somehow, without any Potter book ever reaching my personal all-time favorite books list, I remained obsessed with the series for years. I was in fandom for about seven years. (That time spans four school campuses, three rodents, and the course of a relationship.)

And now we're done. I hardly ever get fic cravings anymore; I've been falling out of fandom for a couple years now. The canon is complete. Not only is there no speculation to be had about future books, but that window of opportunity between books--when the new canon is still new and must be played with from every angle, followed to every possible conclusion whether logical or illogical, because no one knows what JKR might make obsolete when the next book is released--that feeling is dead. There's no more series coming. I loved that mad dash to carve fanon in granite before the next book killed it. It was a whirlwind of energy that spun the tubes of the Interblag like a cybercarousel. It fueled fandom.

That doesn't mean fandom is dead. It'll be around for awhile; there's still a lot of momentum in a series that held this whole planet spellbound for over a decade. I give it at least six months before it becomes but a ghost of its former glory. It's probably too much to hope that the ratio of good writing to bad will improve in that time.

I'm not sure what to do now with the time I used to spend thinking about Potter stuff. I have a list of theme songs for most of the major characters, which I could post here. I'd always intended to find a small hourglass and some wire and make myself a Time-Turner. I suppose I should just dig into my intended reading list, which is mostly YA fantasy anyway. (OT: The top fourteen YA books, by best-selling and best-reviewed, on Fictionwise are all fantasy. The SF community has been debating for years how to attract kids to its books; I think that this is somewhere near the reason.)

Requiem In Pace, Harry Potter Madness. It was a good way to grow up.

Post-Boat

2007-08-09T10:05:00.000-05:00

Hey, there, guys. I realize I forgot to post when I was leaving for crew training aboard the Kalmar Nyckel, but now I'm back again. For ten days. Then I'm going back to the boat for a week--which should be enough to tell you how much I liked learning to sail her. I think I have my ultimate can't-find-a-job fall-back plan: live on a recreation 17th-century Dutch pinnace. (Honestly, what do you think half the people who live there now are doing? Exactly that.)

So from 18-25 August, I will be on the boat again. This time, she's docked in P-Town! Yay, gay! I hear the Cape has some fantastic waters for sailing and lots of wind, for all that you have to weave between the lobster pots. There will be one constant crew, too, instead of the large number of day-volunteers who come for a sail or two and then leave for awhile. That means we'll get really, really good at working together. Yay, mastery of all boat-knowledge!

In the meantime, I'm finally getting around to writing the term paper I was supposed to have finished months ago and putting together some final paperwork for Jordan (like a visa). Never ever again in my life will I ever take an incomplete. They are horrible and bad for you.

Steve McQueen Returns: Squee at Eleven

2007-06-22T19:35:00.000-05:00

MY RATTIE IS COMING HOME TO ME! Some of you have met him. He is a furry ball of love with adorable fuzzy nose that loves burrowing into my elbow like a melty package of cute. I hadn't realized just how much I missed him until I arranged to pick him up.

Will has been rat-sitting since I finished college, and apparently he and Chad have fallen in love with Steve McQueen as well. Because he is that charming. Will called him "Master Longtail" and "Sir Rat." Steve McQueen has been knighted in my absence! He has also apparently gotten a new aquarium because the old one developed a crack (!!!). (Steve McQueen lives in an aquarium with a two-storey wire fortress on top, with ramps and levels and stuff. He spends most of his time on the middle level.) Steve McQueen is adorable and sweet and kinda dumb--no, make that really dumb--and lovable and partially blind and cute and he hearts me. So there. Squee!

Becoming More Findable

2007-06-20T10:09:00.000-05:00

My kid brother's graduation party was last Saturday (yay kid brother!). We had more family over at our house than we have since...well, my high school graduation, back in the Primordial Soup of Time. Family from Ohio, family from Colorado, family from distant Morningside. It was crazy. And somewhere in the midst of family I hadn't seen in ages asking me about my trips to Crete, to Greece, to Egypt, to dig up pyramids, and to go on Semester-at-Sea, I realized that there was a some misinformation floating around due to crappy communication.

I thought about how to fix that, and I came up with the Internet. I know some of you guys aren't exactly techno-savvy, but if you can keep up with my blog, then you can handle this. It's a Google calendar that tracks my every movement from place to place.

Okay, not as stalker-ish as that. But it will tell you which country and/or state I'm in at any given moment and roughly what I'm doing there. If you have a Google account, excellent, you're already equipped for this and you can click here:

If you don't (that is, if you do not use Gmail, Writely.com, Blogger, or any other Google service), then you can get a Google account here or you can subscribe to the calendar by XML (for feed readers), iCal (for Mac iCalendar and other applications), or straight-up HTML (for just bookmarking the page if you don't use a computer calendar. This the best option for you technophobes).

I hope this is useful for you guys. This is good for planning in general, not just for my peace of mind at parties. And, family, please don't be offended. I'm not trying to talk trash about you; obviously I've been less than helpful before about telling you what I'm up to, and you all have lives that don't revolve around keeping up with my every project. Friends, you're in the same boat; I'm not exactly fantastic at this keeping-people-updated thing. This calendar is here as a reference tool for all of you, anybody reading this. Download it once and check it any time you're wondering what I'm up to these days. All of the versions linked above will update automatically every time I add something to the master calendar. It's all for you, honey.

Nonstop Excitement

2007-06-17T22:23:00.001-05:00

I haven't made a single post about being back in the States since I returned, so here we go.

It's boring.

Now, Cyprus wasn't all fun and games. I washed pottery with a toothbrush for hours at a time. I walked along hills staring at the ground. I grew to loathe the company of certain people whose personality quirks really got under my skin. But there was always something to do. My most boring time those three weeks was the last two days, when the IUP All-Stars (Mara, Megan,* and myself) had time off for souvenir shopping and packing. I loathe the idea and practice of souvenir shopping** and had almost nothing to pack, so even after I spent half a morning shopping and drew out the packing as long as possible, I still ended up with vast tracts of unused time. I napped. I read. And then I begged to go out in the field after the other All-Stars had left. I want to do something with my time.

Now I'm home. Unemployed, living in my parents' house, waiting for PALCI books to come in so I can do research I don't enjoy. I'm checking the internet every few hours and continuing to get no love from it, and I'm slowly reordering my entire room so it'll be good to go when I leave for Jordan, instead of piled with mess as it usually is when I leave. I'm bored out of my fucking skull.

Writing, you say?

SLUMPED, I reply. I'm so bored thinking is hard. Tomorrow I'm going to call the climbing wall in Cranberry (10 minutes from my house! Score!) and check them out. I need to get out of this goddamn house. I need my peeps -- where are my writers, my queers, my dorks and geeks and nerdy types? I feel underrepresented in my own house.

And so, to the point, as per always: LET'S DO SOMETHING. BEFORE MY BOOKS COME IN (probably late this week). AFTER THAT I HAVE PAPER TO DO.

*That's "MEE-gen", with a hard G. It's Australian.
**Which is not to say I don't love buying you guys stuff. I do. But souvenir shopping is not about finding good gifts; it's about finding kitschy shit to appease the people back home you're going to assail with ungodly mountains of vacation photos. Combined with my normal loathing of shopping even at the best of times, this really is the lowest you can go.

Neil Gaiman picked up my brain waves

2007-06-17T18:36:00.000-05:00

At the bottom of this post, there are a couple of links to mp3's of the beginning of Neil Gaiman's Interworld, read aloud.

People, that is exactly what it's like being lost in Some Town That Is Not Larnaka. You know where you're going, then suddenly you have no idea where you are. Everything looks simultaneously familiar and alien. Somehow, Neil Gaiman picked up on my brain waves from the past, and wrote them down. Perhaps this is another miracle.

Crazy techno gamer geek vid

2007-06-16T21:31:00.000-05:00

You gotta check this out.

1) Cool techno done with a racing game steering wheel console.

2) He looks just like Julian. Down to the glasses. Only Ukrainian. Go look; it's freakish.

Lost video

2007-06-10T22:09:00.000-05:00

I spent my last Sunday in Cyprus lost. Not my finest hour by any stretch of imagination. However, as I was going through my vids for the scavenger vlog, I found this bit of video that I took right at the moment I realized that I was, in fact, rather far from home. If there were anyone from PKAP reading this, they'd probably find it hilarious, but I hope you enjoy laughing at my expense as well. I certainly did when I found it.

Back From Cyprus

2007-06-07T22:47:00.000-05:00

Back in Pittsburgh. Mostly dead at the moment. For some reason the weather is hotter here than in Cyprus. Possibly the humidity, despite Cyprus being an island. No idea.

But I found out this morning that I've gotten a Gilman Scholarship, which is sweet. Also flabbergastifying. Will blog about that more later, especially since this blog is part of my follow-on project for said scholarship. (Paid to go abroad and blog about it? Brilliant!)

All is well. I have to unearth my bed from the piles of stuff I left on it when I was last here, and then I'm crashing.

Official Summaries:
Number flights rerouted: 1 (of 6)
Number of hours 6 June lasted for due to the magic of time zones: 28
Number of clean clothes brought back: -6
Amount of time spent walking in a straight line: infinite
Improvement to ability to fake out drunk tests: equally infinite
Beers native to Cyprus: 2
Good beers native to Cyprus: 1
Overall success of Cypriot beer: 50%
Amount of confusion as to why I'm still blogging and not sleeping yet: 100%

Good night, all. Be well. I will be at the Parsec meeting on Saturday, so you should be there too.

The Thin Green Line

2007-05-22T03:40:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I got rolled by the U.N.

It was our first full day of survey; we'd done a practice unit the day before in the afternoon, but yesterday was supposed to be the first day entirely in the field for us undergrads. The project had gotten permission from the British to work in the UK Sovereign Base Area (SBA), which is right by the buffer zone between Greek and Turkish Cyprus; indeed, the units we were to walk nearly abutted the buffer. We could see into what Bill (Dr. Bill Carahar, University of North Dakota) knew was the buffer zone. He wasn't sure where the buffer started exactly, since there was a big modern highway on the northern edge of the field that he assumed would have to be in the SBA. But whatever--we started walking.

I discovered that I really like survey. It's not terribly exciting, but it is relaxing. What you do is line up at one end of a squareish plot that's been marked off with flags, take a bearing to the opposite line, and walk straight along that bearing scouring the ground for pottery, glass, mortar, tile, and any other kind of artifact. It's repetitious, by no means mindless, yet allows you enough free brainspace to think about other things. It's a good time.

Partway through our fourth unit (of 15, I believe), a white van pulls up the side road. It's got blue paint on the side: "UN". Bill gets kind of tense, quietly passes by all four of us who were walking and facing away from the van. "Finish the unit and drop your bags by the pin flag. I have to go talk to these guys." We did.

Turns out that the U.N.'s maps differ on the minor point of where the buffer zone starts, and we were in it. Systematically walking in straight lines picking up artifacts in the demilitarized buffer cutting across an island that could blow up at any moment, the island with the last divided capitol in the world.

The Slovakian UN unit kindly asked us to follow them to the base in Pyla.

In the car, Bill kept telling us to keep our heads, not do anything stupid--in fact, just to shut up and let him do the talking. We were not actually trying to restart open hostilities, so we had to make sure our intentions were not mistaken. We met with the base commander, a very nice man from Melbourne who'd only just gotten back from vacation. Bill showed him our permission from the Brits and explained how the maps at the SBA HQ looked a lot different from the one he was looking at here at the UN HQ, and this must be just some confusion here. He volunteered to abandon that field entirely, which the commander readily accepted. The commander seemed very glad to help and to avert the political headache that could arise from a team of Americans wandering into the buffer zone. He called in an escort to take us back to the field to get our flags, so that the UN didn't have to, and then sent us off to get a coffee and wait for our escort to arrive.

We had Cyprus coffee, which was excellent. It's kind of like Greek or Turkish coffee (imagine!), and comes in similarly tiny mugs. Having been surviving on the Nescafe provided by the project, I was glad to have something I didn't have to bury in sugar to get down.

Our friendly Dutch escort arrived and followed us out to the field. We found our flags and collection bags, dumped out the artifacts, and brought the empty bags and flags back to the car. It was a shame to lose the collections. There were some very nice pieces there, including some colored glazes that Bill estimated as medieval. But given the sensitivity of (a) the island, (b) the buffer, and (c) removing archaelogical materials from anywhere, leaving them was our best option. The Dutchman identified our orange flags with his country and asked about the significance of the site, we piled in the car, and we headed back to the range. Joe Patrow, our videographer, was very, very sad that he had missed probably the most exciting thing to happen this season on the project. But that's probably for the best, since he's rather attached to keeping his camera and footage intact.

Welcome to the exciting world of archaelogy, everyone! Fedora and bull-whip donations appreciated.

First Cyprus Photos!

2007-05-20T15:32:00.001-05:00

Context:
On Friday, my first full day here, we (Bill, Dave, John, Megan, Mara, and I) went on a walking tour of the town of Larnaka and some cool old shit within its boundaries. These include: the Church of St. Lazarus (alleged resting place of that Biblical Lazarus guy), its attending Byzantine museum, a very comfy-feeling local mosque, and the Mediterranean Sea. In more site-seeing later in the day, outside of Larnaka, there were: an ancient Byzantine church with amazing artwork and the Sultan Halal Tekke Mosque, which was lovely. Good day.

There are also a couple of photos from the roadtrip to the Nebulas with Diane and Mike, and more from NYC with Anna.

Photos are here, at my Flickr account.

And photos from the Nebulas with me in them are:
here (no dress),
and here (no dress),
and here (no dress),
and here (photos I may have
taken: three in the middle of the authors at tables, including their
name tags),
and here (still no dress),
and finally HERE (CRAPPY SHOT OF DRESS -- also of me being Very Obviously Oogled in a manner that makes me feel very uncomfortable, esp. since it's on the nets at a well-respected site).

And that's today's photo post! Enjoy.

Frequent Flying

2007-05-18T11:34:00.000-05:00

I am in Cyprus. I remain tired and cannot wait till my circadian rhythm gets its shit together again. Already been to two mosques, two churches, and a Venetian watchtower. Many pictures to come.

And now, something I wrote in the Heathrow Airport:

Behold now unto you, a tale of airplane woe. Remember ye that my original itinerary was to fly from JFK in NYC to London Heathrow to Frankfurt to Larnaka.

The JFK-LHR flight was fantastic. Virgin Atlantic rocks my socks; it's like British Airways but with bells on. They have individualized movie capability in all the seatbacks, and a very nice database of movies and TV episodes, on call whenever you want them. I watched The Illusionist (not bad, great atmosphere) and the Dr. Who episode "The Girl in the Fireplace" (bloody fantastic, Tennant is still hot). Plane came in pretty much on time despite storms racing across all of North America, including NYC.

Which was not true of many, many other flights. LHR Transfer Connections was a freaking zoo, with only one very slow guy checking in transfers onto Lufthansa. Net result: by the time I reached the desk (now staffed by an additional person, Prussian Efficiency Lady) I had twenty minutes until my plane left. Prussian Efficiency Lady told me I was too close for her to give me a boarding pass (wtf) and sent me to Terminal 2.

Terminal 2 was empty. There were shops, gates, and people, but no desk at which one might obtain a boarding pass. I stuck my head into an open office-type room and made a general plea for help to a very nice lady who sent me through immigration to the Lufthansa ticket office. This meant going through a Restricted Section* because you're really not supposed to do this. It's kind of cracked-out to try, apparently. The man at the immigration desk thought my plight was hilarious but managed to keep a straight face...mainly.

Lufthansa ticket desk informed my watch-less self that my flight had left already and that rerouting me would be Virgin's problem. Virgin's ticket desk was in Terminal 1.

The wonderful, dignified Irishman at Virgin found me a flight directly from LHR to Larnaka, leaving at 3:40 pm, a full three hours later. I could have kissed him. I estimate by that time I'd speed-walked about a mile from terminal to terminal, and it's not like I got a full night's sleep on my plane across the Atlantic. I checked in, was assured that my bag would be transferred with me, and updated Dr. Moore (whom I am now training myself to call Scott) via pay phone.

And now I've gotten through security again, eaten an overpriced though tasty sandwich, and found The Tiniest Chocolate Bar in the World. And one of the stores nearby is playing "The Final Countdown." In conclusion: human institutions such as airlines and airports are far more convoluted than than is advisable, but the people who run them tend to agree with you and are largely fantastic individuals. Also, Vigin's ticket desk had a "Don't be a bitch to our peeps. We will smack you down" sign; whatever stupid institution (LHR, Virgin, the UK?) is responsible for that is doing at least one thing right.

FLASH FORWARD TO PRESENT:
Now, since I wrote that bit, I've landed in Larnaka at 10 pm, found that my bag was not transferred with me, met the other project people, and jaunted around our bit of the island a little. Apparently we're in time for Kataklysmos,** which is only a one-day holiday for most of Cyprus. Larnaka, however, is there with Gigantic Glittery Extravagant Bells On. It lasts for a week. There are carnival rides already appearing. Our hotel is just a block or two from the boardwalk. It's gonna be a paaaar-tay.

So now I'm here in the Internet cafe, discovering that uploading photos and video from camera may indeed be possible and that when I'm actually paying for every minute on the Webs there really isn't as much I need to do. Also waiting for my bag, which carries within its bowels not only my shower stuff, sarong (for religious sites), and camera cables and plug adapters, but most importantly my teddy bear. Never put your teddy bear in your checked luggage! It's cruel! My teddy bear has been nearly lost to me many times before; I hope he manages to return to me again.

To keep in touch with me, comment on this blog or my vlog (see next post) or send me an email at damnowls@gmail.com. I'll be checking the internets 2-3 times per week. I arrive back in Pittsburgh on the evening of 7 July.

*and only narrowly avoiding the screaming book.
**Hey, Anna, is this a Russian Orthodox holiday as well, or are the Greeks just weird? I'm curious.

In the Wex

2007-05-08T20:35:00.000-05:00

Moved out of the BGH now. Back at my parents' house in Wexford and I'm slowly unloading the Unholy Landslide of Boxes, Laundry Baskets, and Miscellaneous Loose Items that my mum, Cassidy, and I somehow filled the van with. Why do I have so much freaking stuff? If I took all this stuff and lobbed it into Lake Erie, I could build a land bridge to Canada. (Well, a stuff bridge, anyway.)

Now I'm going through my exciting to do list!
Laundry: in progress
Packing: to follow laundry
Set up Skype: later tonight or possibly tomorrow
Pick up air mattress: KASS WHERE ARE YOU AND WHY DO YOU NOT REPLY?
Find Dad's plug converters or buy my own: really, people, what is up with such varied plugs of the world? Can't we all just get along and be compatible with all other plugs?

And then tomorrow there are errands for regular business hours, like bra refitting and getting travel-size shaving cream. (Sorry if that's TMI. I'll also be getting a Greek phrasebook and notifying my bank that I'm leaving the country, if that makes it better.)

And that is the conclusion of Slade's Exciting Travel Update Series, Episode 1. For far more awesome offerings, you should stay tuned. Anna and I are going to be doing a video blog while I'm abroad, like unto one eerily similar blog that shall remain nameless. More details to follow. It's gonna be SO FREAKING FANTASTIC AND FUN. And we'd appreciate suggestions for what to call it, too.

Moving = LEAVING!

2007-05-06T15:53:00.000-05:00

I do not enjoy inhabiting Indiana, Pennsylvania. The town is too small, there are no good cruising highways for half an hour in any direction, the fashion sense is so bad that even I have noticed how bad it is, the college is largely lame, and I've had a couple of really bad roommates. But tomorrow I'm leaving. I'm moving out, going to a huge gala for my chosen profession, and leaving the country.

Moving. Back into my parents' house. Which is almost as far from most of my friends as Indiana is. And means losing autonomy. And I can't walk anywhere. Or talk about how pretty girls are. Or just go out to the bar with friends. Or run downstairs and show Laura some wonderful thing I found on the interweb. Or picnic with Audrey in the backyard. Or scream the chorus of "Luv, Luv, Luv" (by the Pansy Division), or in fact any of my queer music. Or get my head around writing properly.* In fact, my feelings about moving out of my one and only fabulous Big Queer House, successor to the Big Gay Apartment, are more like this.

I love this house. It's falling apart a little, it's been a pretty drama-full semester, and I haven't always gotten along with everyone living in it, but goddammit, I love living here! It's been keeping me sane. I love being able to yell downstairs to Audrey anytime I want. I like having people around with whom I can talk about serious shit or weird shit or utterly silly nonsensical shit. We have our own vocabulary subset. We've proclaimed our own individual gender identities.** For the love of God, I told these guys about pixel-stained technopeasant wretches, and despite being in no way attacted to SFWA or even writing fiction, they've picked it up and use it in conversation because it's such a great phrase and a great thing to do. The amount of knowledge about gender I've simply osmosed, let alone researched! I have drinking buddies, people to go to for hugs, people who like just spending time with me, people whom I like spending time with. I don't want to break up the BGA now! GODDAMMIT, THIS IS MY HOME AND NOW IT'S GOING AWAY RIGHT WHEN I'VE REALIZED JUST HOW GOOD IT IS. How is this right?

*I have to leave the house to write. There's a good place in my neighborhood for this, but Wexford is really not set up for spaces to go and hang out for long periods of time. I hate this.

**I am a slutty goth girl who really wants to wear plaid and climb trees.

Bed or Meditation Platform?

2007-05-06T15:47:00.000-05:00

You ever see those people with little daises in their houses, and when you ask them if they're planning a very small dinner theater event, they tell you that it's a meditation platform? Like the lotus Buddha sits on in many Buddha icons?

I have one now. It's made of metal and cracked plywood.

Really, it used to be the thing that passed for a bed frame in my rented house in Indiana, Pennsylvania, but today my dad and kid brother took away the first load of my stuff, and my mattress and box springs were part of that. Tonight I will be sleeping in a borrowed sleeping bag on my new meditation platform.

If I attain enlightenment, they have to publish me. Right?

Rat-sitter Needed

2007-05-04T21:57:00.000-05:00

As some of you know, I have a wonderful little rat named Steve McQueen. He's well-behaved, adorable, loves people, and currently in danger of being neglected for five out of the next seven months.

As you may have noticed, I'm going to be spending a lot of time out of the country. That means somebody needs to take care of Steve McQueen while I'm gone. My mother really, really does not want this job. She hates cleaning out rodent cages. So does the rest of my family. My family also has a tendency to let pets in cages stay in their cages, instead of letting them out to play and be petted and suchlike. This leads to very sad pets trapped in sad cages.

Steve McQueen is a wonderful rat, and I know you guys are wonderful people. I want to hook the pair of you up. I'm looking for someone who is willing to temporarily adopt Steve McQueen into their household while I'm away. I'll buy his food, bedding, toys, etc., so that caring for him brings no extra expense for you. That just leaves maintenance tasks (feeding, watering, cleaning the cage) and playing.

Steve McQueen loves to be played with; in fact that link could be a freaking documentary of this ratty's life. That cute. No joke. He gets along with other animals; my housemate has a cat whose tendency to track our dear rat's movements hungrily goes completely unnoticed by the rat himself. (Steve McQueen is nothing if not friendly and charming, but he may also be a little bit dim.) As long as your current pets can handle cohabitating with a rat, Steve McQueen is perfectly content to cohabitate with them. And petting him can make you healthier, too. He even doubles as a recycling center/garbage disposal, because he chews up light cardboard (such as cereal and tea boxes) as a hobby. Steve McQueen can reduce your environmental footprint.

This deal is really win-win. I get the peace of mind of knowing that Steve McQueen (who is currently poking his nose out of my comforter and licking my fingers) is being well cared for and nurtured as he deserves. You get a happy ratty to pet, play with, and pretend not to secretly address in babytalk when no one else is around. And Steve McQueen gets all of the above, plus new places to explore and elbows to burrow into!

So if you think you might like to rat-sit Steve McQueen for the three weeks I'll be in New York and Cyprus (May 10 through June 6) or the two weeks I'll be in Delaware (July 19 through August 6) or the four months I'll be in Jordan (September 10 through sometime in December or January), please contact me. If you're on the fence, contact me with whatever concerns you have and we'll see if they can be addressed. If you would like to meet Steve McQueen before you commit to anything so that you know he's not secretly an axe murderer rat, then contact me and you can come hang out with him. If you're not sure you'll have a stable address in the future but you think Steve McQueen sounds pretty freaking cute--well, you obviously have good taste, and if you keep me posted on your housing situation, then I can keep you posted on Steve McQueen's, and perhaps they'll dovetail later.

The best ways to effect this contact are:
1. to leave a comment on this blog and
2. to email me at powell.slade @ gmail.com (obviously, delete the spaces before you click "send.")

Thanks in advance for any help you can give us on this front. We really appreciate it. Steve McQueen is even giving you a standing ovation on his hind legs. (Yep. That cute.)

Prepping for the Nebulas, Part 3.6 Gagillion

2007-05-04T20:00:00.000-05:00

Audrey (housemate) and I drove into civilization today and met up with Joseph and Kass to scour the Monroeville Mall for formalwear. It was awesome, ultra-efficient (for us), and draining (read: it was shopping). Skip to the end: I have a gown, and it is beautiful. In fact, even after three hours of mall-searching, it was the first dress I tried on. I have shoes and a bra for it, which leaves only jewelry, a bag, and possibly makeup. I'll post pictures when I can get them off my camera; that'll probably be after the Nebulas, because Anna has a thingy for that. Which means there will be marvelous Nebula photos to go with them, and you can see the dress in its native environment.

In news possibly of more interest to other people, I have things to do now! On Thursday I'll be helping with setting up the hospitality suite. And on Friday I will aid Susan Hanniford Crowley by taking names and giving directions for the book signing. (That means I'm like the bouncer, but with more lip gloss and less promise of unspeakable, eternal torment.* Come for the hot chick at the door, stay for the brilliant, famous people you find inside.

*I'm going to hell for that link. You know, as if I weren't before for that whole non-believer heathen infidel denier of the three-for-one true deity of whatever thing...and maybe I shouldn't go around likening deities to really nice sale racks. That can't be helping my case.

**Maybe that link isn't the reason I'm going to hell. Oh, well. Party on the sixth level! We'll be serving hard liquor and chocolate body paint (contraband in heaven)!

Perspective

2007-05-03T20:59:00.000-05:00

I complain a lot. I know this, and I try to stop myself when I hear myself start, but a lot of the time I fail. For one thing, it's hard to see that line between useful, socially acceptable venting about a legitimate problem and beating the shit out of an annoying yet inescapably dead packhorse. I fail a lot. And I fail more when I'm stressed.

You see, Slade's response to overwork is to look at the length and complexity of her to-do list, freak the fuck out, tell everyone she sees about her to-do list and how it's freaking her out, and then go read Boing Boing for two hours while pretending said to-do list has ceased to inhabit the same plane of existence she does.*

Some of you may remember the last time I blogged while the third stage of this cycle.

Everything I said in that post is still relevant. It's just me that's changed. Because you know what I realized today?

I'm done with Core. If I haven't failed the class, I am finished with the entire Honors College track.

Finished as in done. Done as in through with. Never again. Gone. By the wayside. Completed, finite, nothing, the end. That's it. No more of wanting to shoot myself in the face during in-class discussion with people who militantly misread all the major points of the chapter. No tri- or quarto-weekly** journals full of high school-style regurgitation of the reading. No Thesis, as in no all-nighter to finish a paper you know is shit in which you're supposed to answer one of the Big Unanswerable Questions of Life that all the profs acknowledge are unanswerable. And best of all, No More Consensus, Ever, Ever, Ever Again. No more am I stuck in a room with 20 other students forced to agree on one, unified, coherent, practically applicable answer to Those Same Unanswerable Fucking Questions. How do we understand art? Suck me. How do we tell the good from the bad? Get the hell out of my life. Must the need for social order conflict with individual liberty? Yes, full stop.

I love the HC; it's been a second home for all my three years here. Some--hell, most--of my best college friends are in it. We have great times, we laugh, it's been a great ride. But there comes a time when you've taken the same class eight times in rapid succession when you are just so fucking glad to be done with that shit. As of this semester, if I haven't flunked Science Core, I'll have completed all my HC requirements, including Senior Synthesis. It's a rush. I can't really believe I've come that far, that (1) not only is there a light at the end of the tunnel, but (2) it is not an oncoming train and (3) I have reached it somehow without even noticing. It's a pretty great feeling.

I just wanted to share that moment with you, the one that's about how close I am to the finish line and everything I've done to get here, instead of all the stupid shit I have to do before I can cross it. Tomorrow there will be dress shopping, and then that will (hopefully) be done too. I like this "all things will pass" thing. It's neat.***

*And occasionally, when you're very good and put away all your toys right away, she blogs about it. Highly productive.

**Now I'm making up words.

***I thought about finishing this post with a notice of my discovery that I can continue to have casual, mature, friendly conversation with someone who rejected me on the dating front due to a prior engagement--the kind that comes with kneeling and diamonds--but then decided against it because I couldn't make "prior engagement" sound less stuck-up. Sorry.

Spring Fever

2007-05-01T16:28:00.000-05:00

This is a bizarre time of year. The sun has finally returned to us up here in the north and seems to be here for the long haul till November, even out in dreary Indiana. There is birdsong in the morning again and warmth seeping out from the pavement and the air. The world is gilded with sunbeams. I am happy again.*

However, it is also the end of the semester. Today was my last day of classes. Tomorrow is reading day and Thursday is the beginning of finals week. Next Monday I take my last final, move out of my house in Indiana, and move back into my parents' house for the summer. In that time, I have to write a 20-25 page term paper, take one real final exam,** redye my hair, find an evening gown (and matching shoes, jewelry, and purse), meet with my study abroad advisor to make sure everything is working out for Jordan next semester, finish my paperwork for Cyprus this summer, acquire and fill out job applications for summer, find a rat-sitter for the next seven months (because my mother doesn't want to deal with cleaning Steve McQueen's cage), and pack up all my worldly possessions for transport--twice.

And I am not the only one facing this dichotomy of interest. Check out my flist. Everyone who's in college is posting something along the lines of "OMG SO MUCH WORK JFKDJFKDSJFKDSJFKDJSDSS WANNA GO PLAY IN THE SUN" while the people who are not in college are posting things like "Man, sun rocks. Life is good."

I think the obvious solution to the sun/work dilemma is to make college shorter. Say, ten weeks in a semester. Those ten weeks might be an extra special hell, but then it would be done, just in time for proper spring. Summer classes do something similar; IUP runs three sessions lasting five weeks apiece, in which classes meet every day for twice as long as usual. It's intense and it's a bit hard to get excited about (being, after all, a more intense version of the sun/work dilemma). However, the system works. One of my summer classes was Beginning French, and in this context it was practically an immersion course. My Comics Lit course was similar; for how inept the prof was, I learned a remarkable amount.*** And there was still time for me to complete my final project, a comic script, such that I was proud of it. A shorter semester may interfere with research projects; however, I would gladly put in the extra time and stress every day of getting my research done if it meant I could finish each semester sooner.

What say you? Would you temporarily give up some degree of emotional sanity in order to have more time to yourself in which to cultivate greater inner peace?

*Seasonal Affected Disorder: bitch in the winter, but gods above, if it ain't a treat all summer long.

**The rest are papers. Don't be envious; I'd rather stuff myself with information and then vomit it into a Blue Book than have to pull it out of my ass in a slow, painful, supposedly intelligent and synthetic manner. And I apologize for how disgusting that metaphor turned out.

***In part, this may have been due to my relative newb-ness to comics. I only started reading them in high school, for all that I've fallen hard in love with the medium.

What Slade has learned from dress-shopping to date

2007-04-27T18:34:00.000-05:00

1. There are more dress shops in Indiana than previously supposed, including two within walking distance of my house.

2. I have a size 14 ass matched with size 12 boobage, no matter what certain Hong Kong dressmakers have to say. However attractive that might be, it is definitely not convenient.

3. Really hot, classy, gorgeous dresses are almost universally out of my price range.

4. Case in point: The dress that has been hanging in the window of Michael B's for months, which I walk past every day, by some miracle does fit me. There was a chorus of angels till I checked the $500 price tag. (Note: That was a $200 dress, tops. $500 is outrageous.)

5. I seem to have a very different idea of what dresses are worth than the people who set their prices. This ought to be rectified.

6. Things on sale racks are usually there for a reason. (Exception: Snug, adorable, red-and-white strapless at the bridal store. But maybe there just aren't many size 6's around Indiana looking for hot dresses.)

7. Trying on dresses is fun.

8. Trying on dress after dress that almost-but-not-quite fits or requires alterations I don't have time for or turns out to be uglier than presupposed or for whatever reason is Entirely the Wrong Dress, is depressing.

9. My theory of differentiated passing of time between the inside of a changing room and the rest of the world has been upheld.

10. This shopping trip was brought to you by Slade actually taking her measurements and discovering that Dress No. 5, which I had decided to buy as a backup because Good Orient has a fantastic return policy, will in no way fit. The waist is two inches too small, which is enough for me not to be able to breathe right. They do have tailored dresses, but those are twice as expensive and probably won't get here in time.

In conclusion, I'll be going to the Nebulas ceremony naked.

Dress Me Up Pretty

2007-04-25T20:07:00.000-05:00

Okay, guys, we -- well, I -- have a situation. It has just been brought to my attention that I need to have an evening gown and associated ensemble in hand and ready to wear by the 10th of May. That is 15 actual days, or 11 business days, from now. I have since been madly searching the Interweb for dresses that are:

1) actually evening gowns and not mislabelled as such
2) pretty (read: gorgeous yet NOT SLUTTY)
3) pretty on me
4) affordable in any universe not encompassed by Paris Hilton's closets

This search has been difficult, but I have in fact turned up a few choice picks. And this is where you come in and why I'm bothering you with this trite matter of not looking like a slob or a slut in front of important, fancy, famous people: the list of dresses (and accessories) is here. Please please please go look at them and tell me what you think. I'm going for elegant, stylish, comfortable, and if possible, hot.

If the link doesn't work for you, then go to my regular The Things I Want page and click on the "Nebulas 07" tag. (For future reference, this is my end-all-be-all stuff-I-want list, if you're ever in the mood and/or holiday season to get me some kind of gift. Not pushing, just saying it's there.)

Seriously, I'm overworked and underslept as it is without fashion butting into my life. There are seven dresses there; please comment here with, at the very least, a number. If that doesn't work for you, then email me: damnowls @ gmail.com. Thank you all; you're wonderful people.

Reality imitates fiction (that ho)

2007-04-24T23:10:00.000-05:00

...because kryptonite actually EXISTS.

My world is a better place now.

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch Day

2007-04-23T19:05:00.000-05:00

In honor of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch Day, here is a short, flashy story about eating babies. (No, I'm not kidding. This is your warning; if A Modest Proposal grossed you out, this is not for you. In fact, if you dislike gore or the implication of gore, this really isn't for you either. Sorry. I'll try for something with happy unicorns and puppies next time.)

Dragonnade

The sight of them made me want to vomit. In our hiding-place at the top of the stairs, I covered little Marie's eyes. They came in like locusts, waving their parchment so heavy with official seals it wouldn't roll up right. They demanded our wine, our bread, our meat -- Mother tried to explain that we had no meat, but her words fell upon callous ears.

"Bring us your food, woman," they growled, bayonets glinting in the sun through the window. "All of it."

Mother did as they said, carrying plates and platters and boards full of onions, stale bread, cabbage, turnips--even the tomato she was saving for Sunday.

"More," the soldiers shouted, crumbs covering their uniforms.

She did as they said, ferrying flagons of wine until the cellar was empty.

"More," they screamed. "Where is the meat?"

"We have none," Mother whispered.

One of the soldiers spoke up, his hungry eyes on Marie's terrified little face. "Oh, yes, you have."

Mother's eyes followed the soldier's. Her mouth opened, formed the word "no," once, twice, then other words that made no sound. When he climbed the stairs after Marie, I tried to hide her behind me, to drag her up higher away from him, but like a Musketeer's rapier his hand shot out and snatched her away from me, dragged her downstairs by the ankle.

They boiled my baby sister alive. Mother tried to pull her out bare-handed, but they wrenched her arms behind her and tied her to a chair. One of them held me by the arm, hard like steel, but that didn't stop me screaming like Marie was screaming. I cried and cajoled and begged them to stop, to look somewhere else.

"There's a butcher's shop around the corner," I pleaded. "You can smell it from here on hot days." That was a lie, but they were boiling Marie, and I didn't think God could mind one little fib to save her life.

He did.

They carved her up on the solid kitchen table, each one awarded his fair share of my baby sister's flesh. They ate badly, no manners, ripping the meat from her little bones. One collected his in a teetering pile, crunched them in half with his teeth, and sucked the marrow out.

When there was no more flesh for them, the one holding my arm asked, "What do we do with the skull?"

The one that had hungrily watched my baby sister grinned. "Is there any brain in it?"

There was. They fried it.

Finally full, the one holding my arm found some old rags and bound my wrists in front of me to the oven door, and then the lot of them trooped cheerfully upstairs.

It took me half an hour to untie the rags with my teeth, carefully lift the carving knife from what had once been Marie's body, and cut the throat of every man in the house.

Mother and I ate very well for the next few weeks.

Question: "Where is Slade right now?" (May 07 - May 08)

2007-04-20T14:37:00.000-05:00

Answer:

Present - 7 May: in Indiana, PA, doing college. (Note: 3-7 May is Finals Week.)

7-10 May: in Pittsburgh, at my parents' house. THIS MEANS WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING BEFORE I LEAVE THE COUNTRY.

11-13 May: in NYC, at the Nebula Awards.

13-16 May: in NYC, hanging out with Anna.

16 May - 6 June: in Larnaca, Cyprus, doing archaelogy and sight-seeing.

7 June - 18 July: in Pittsburgh. AGAIN, WE SHOULD TOTALLY DO SOMETHING. I LOVE YOU, I NEED YOU, LET'S GO FOR TAIWANESE.

19 July - 6 August: in Lewes, DE, learning to sail the 18th-century tall ship Kalmar Nyckel.

7 August - sometime between 3 and 10 September: in Pittsburgh. HAVE I DECLARED MY INTENTIONS FULLY ENOUGH ALREADY? YES, I DO MEAN YOU. I AM ABROAD FIVE OUT OF THE NEXT SEVEN MONTHS; LET'S SPEND THE REMAINING TWO NOT CRYING AT NIGHT BECAUSE WE'RE ALL ALONE IN THE WORLD. INSTEAD, LET'S GO MINI-GOLFING. AND YES, I WILL BE HAVING MY BIRTHDAY STATESIDE. PLAN FOR FESTIVITIES.

Sometime between 3 and 10 September - sometime in December (or January): in Jordan, learning Arabic. Please note that there is a possibility that I will not be in the States for Christmas break, but that such a development cannot stop me sending you presents at the very least. More information when I have it.

14 January - sometime in May: probably in Indiana, PA, doing the college again. And GRADUATING "JGHDFHDJFHDJFDJ!!!11!one!! (which means...)

Sometime in May: in Pittsburgh, moved out of my parents' house. Expect Massive Extravagent Gradumacation Par-tay! W00t! (in addition to/in combination with Ultra-Fabulous Housewarming Party. It's gonna be great, people.)

And that is the upcoming year, as it looks right now. And I am not even joking about the bits that say "let's do something." The world is young, I love you guys, Indiana is the devil, let's all go dancing.

Dykey brain

2007-04-06T23:52:00.000-05:00

You know, one of the weird things about being bi is that sometimes you get on a long stretch of being attracted mainly to one gender. (Which also tends to make it harder for some people to accept that you do, in fact, not prefer that gender exclusively.) And then sometimes your brain is just like, "Hey, you remember girls, right? Well, here's one for you now."

If you are interested in women, follow the link. Possibly the most beautiful woman I've ever seen; at the very least, in the top ten. Smokin'.

(ETA: Never mind. The image is on a rotating thingy. If you follow the link however, and you see a beautiful Hispanic girl looking straight at you with a half-smile and wearing a green bikini top, then that's her.)

Collision of worlds

2007-04-03T11:26:00.000-05:00

Weird shit: getting into a writing kick/zone/high/thing and using it to write a paper. There must be Cartographers for Social Equality around, because it's freaking me out.

Keeping It Real review

2007-03-31T17:24:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Real by Justina Robson

This is a fun book. Lila Black, our cyborg, spook heroine, is currently undercover as bodyguard for elf rock star Zal, the best thing to hit rock music since electricity but whose fellows elves show their appreciation with death threats. Lila travels not only through Otopia (Earth, the human domain) but transdimensionally to Alfheim (the elf domain), trying to keep Zal's pretty head and vocal cords attached to the rest of him. There is love and a whole lot of lust, racism and revolutionaries, rock and roll, an an elf who sings like Mick Jagger and a bionic soldier who gets back in touch with her humanity. I didn't think I'd like this novel and honestly I still think the prose is inelegant, but the story is an intense joyride that screeches through sexual tension, a political morass, impending doom, and then more sex and doom, and skids to a halt on the other side with a great big whooping "HELL YEAH!"

One of the cool things Justina Robson does in this novel is break down the racism common to fantasies with multiple "races" (which are often in fact species). Lila starts out our story hating elves -- all elves, indiscriminately -- despite her knowledge that racism is bad and she has to deal with elves anyway. There are even very good reasons that Lila began hating elves, which you'll have to read the book to find out.

And then Lila goes to Alfheim, befriends an elf or two, sees how the elf stereotypes are wrong in some places. Where some of the stereotypes hold up, such as that elves hate living in Otopia, she discovers why: in this case, elves are such a part of the Alfheim ecology that being removed from it is somewhat like always being too cold. Robson portrays this breakdown of Lila's prejudices well. A bit preachy on occasion, but the message is strong: overcoming racism, reducing prejudice and discrimination, require as much interaction between the groups in question as possible. Lila willingly travels with and among elves in their homeland; she becomes friends of some and enemies with others, but she learns that elves are not a homogenous, monolithic group. An elf is an individual person, not a representative of some monstrous elf organism. The value of a book that portrays large, hot-button issues as solvable problems is obvious.

On the other hand, I would have liked to see more development of the relationship that Lila and Zal's bizarre, frantic interactions are certainly cementing into. Through the intervention of a great deal of mortal peril and magically intensified sexual duelling/foreplay, they have skipped right over the dinner-and-a-movie stage of relationship-building and gone straight to the post-climactic-explosion sex. (Think The Fifth Element. Think The Italian Job. Think James Bond.)

There are a lot of personal and gender issues they'll have to deal with. Near the beginning of their intense courtship, Zal angrily predicts that "after a few more sessions [of Lila saving his life]...I can feel grateful and emasculated and throw myself into further extremes to prove my virility" (119). And that's more or less what happens by the end, except that Zal doesn't seem to mind so much by then.* However, Zal's inability to bench-press a sequoia is matched by Lila's emotional IQ of 12. I think they could either make a good go of it or let it blow up in their faces.** I'll be interested to see how that evolves.

Overall, I suggest giving Keeping It Real a read. Especially as you come off of a semester of hellish paper-writing from college, Robson writes a great adventure story for relaxing after finals. You can find it at all the big-name bookstores (B&N, Amazon, Borders), but I suggest giving your money to Overstock (who offer a variety of fair trade goods), Better World Books (who ship green and donate part of your purchase to literacy efforts), Powell's Books, or your local independent bookstore. By and large, it is not more expensive to shop locally or eco-friendly. You can also price-compare across the Internet at BookFinder and Campus1.

*Could be the nookie.
**Stating the forfeit was probably the stupidest thing Robson did in this book. It guarantees a happy/angstful ending even beyond the chicklit-ness and ruins all the suspense and curiosity of figuring out how the Game will end.

Caribbean: E.T. Paradise

2007-03-28T20:41:00.000-05:00

OMG, kids. Have you looked at the Bahamas on Google Earth? Go do it now. It looks like this.

Yep, that's right, and its freaking me out. That famously clear Caribbean water is truly transparent that you can see down to the ocean floor through it... from space.

I can muster only a two-word response: Road Trip. Who's with me now?

Long post about academic disaster and emotional draining

2007-03-27T11:06:00.000-05:00

I like the way this man's brain works.

And now I have to complain and freak the fuck out, so if you're in a good mood, skip to the next blog on your flist.

I hate this goddamn semester. I know that every semester I say that, and I also say "This project/class is kicking my ass" and it's always true. College is not my thing. I hate classes, I hate stupid busywork, I hate giant-ass research projects that make or break your grade, I hate grades, and I hate the institutionalized boredom wrapped up in overwork that so clearly defines School. I have loathed school since the third grade, if not before. This is not where I ever want to find myself again in my life. If Albus Dumbledore (RIP) walked through my front door and told me I was to enroll in Hogwarts for the next seven years because I'm magic, I'd be hard pressed not to rip this throat out with my teeth.*

And this semester is in fact worse than most. I have not dropped out of college, which is good, but I'm running GPA numbers and grade percentages a lot more than normal, trying to see just how badly I can afford to do in my classes, and it's not looking good. Usually there's one class that I just can't manage, and a couple of weeks where I honestly cannot complete all the assigned work -- but now it's all my classes I can't handle and all my weeks I'm dropping necessary things to do other necessary things. And too many of those "necessary things" are along the lines of "get drunk with roommates and watch CoS in Spanish because I can't even face the tonnage of work that is even now toppling over on top of me and dear God I want to have something in this semester that I can say I enjoyed."** I have barely hung out with my Whit friends (which is, sadly, not unusual; another thing I hate about school).

Tomorrow I have to meet with my Seminar prof to explain to her that I've scarcely gotten beyond background research on the paper that makes up 75% of my grade, and then beg her for either a topic change or an incomplete, neither of which is all that good with three-and-a-half weeks left to pull this bastard together and then a summer full of not-school.

It's bad, kids. Even my drop-out semester was better than this. I'm taking my two senior-level classes, plus Science Core (and Arabic). I'm madly planning for leaving the country twice this year and scrounging money to make that possible (ie. grant proposals). My Jordan paperwork and Gilman scholarship packet are due the 3rd, and thank almighty fucking powers that be that I have profs who like me enough to do recommendations on that short of notice. My thesis is due halfway through the unit, on the 9th (final due the 15th), instead of at the very end of the semester as per usual. My Seminar paper is due the 18th, also obscenely early for a term paper. After that, there's a paper on serial killers due the 27th, presenting my Seminar paper sometime that same week, and a presentation on Angela Carter, none of which I've even started dealing with. I have no finals (except Arabic, which will not be graded by Motasim and hence is going to be hell), only papers and presentations. I'm drowning in work. I have no idea how to get any of it done, let alone all of it, and don't even talk to me about turning in quality. Last year I thought I had a shot at graduating Summa Cum Laude (3.75 GPA); now I'll be glad to get Magna (3.50) -- and that's including a semester abroad in which grades don't transfer (THANK GOD).

Can I even explain to you how very, very fucked I am academically and emotionally right now? Spring is popping out all over even in Fuckin' Indiana, and it is not making it better. A bit happier, but my SAD-addled brain is not soaring in delight as if usually does this time of year. I want the semester to be over now so that I can forget it ever happened and move on to things I like, things I love, things that make me happy and that I'm passionate about. There's a part of me that really doesn't fucking care that I've already sunk three years and loads of money into this bullshit and that I only have one semester left next year on this campus; it just wants out. The people who tell you these are the best years of your life are fucked in the head.

*Now, personal tutoring on the side would be fine for something as awesome as magic. But no school. No classes, no bells, no term papers, none of this fucking bullshit. Besides, that means Voldie is real, and if that is true then I had better learn magic, sharp-shooting, and wilderness survival pretty damn fast.

**I AM NOT A DRUNK YET GODDAMMIT.

Best Rube Goldberg EVER

2007-03-22T15:04:00.000-05:00

It's got a water wheel, a dart board, an empty wine bottle, a slinky, CD dominoes...seriously, it's worth three minutes of your time. Click here for the video.

Money for Nothing, Words for Free

2007-03-21T22:12:00.000-05:00

Oh my God, kids, there's a Fulbright for writing. They'll pay for you to go abroad to cool places and write cool things. Oh my God. Travel+Writing+Free Money=OH MY GOD

Civil Unions in Mexico

2007-03-16T11:38:00.000-05:00

Can I get a hell yeah for Mexico City's new civil unions laws? In general, Mexico is a lot more conservative on this issue than the States is, and here we have the first, brand spanking new same-sex civil unions. I'm thrilled. A lot of European countries have already passed national legislation allowing civil unions or even outright marriage. (Some have also done just the opposite and legally banned such innovations. And others are battling it out much as the States is doing.) Honestly, I think that eventually this is a done deal. Barring major disaster in Congress or a sudden outbreak of gay serial killers, I think the States is hitting the point where there's a decent gay rights movement that can create change. At the very least, it has demonstrated that gay people exist, are not going away, and will just yell louder if anyone tries to silence them. Making us part of what America is -- that's half the battle. Now our governing bodies, including church groups and lobbies and every voting block there is, have to deal with our existence. If we do this right, we might be able to make the next generation's lives that much less hellish.

The Riches: Pilot

2007-03-13T19:37:00.000-05:00

In case you live under a bigger rock than I do, Eddie Izzard's new TV series The Riches premiered last night at 10 pm on FX. He plays Wayne, the father in a family of white gypsies who witness the death of a couple in a car crash, and then take over the couple's house and lives.

It sounds creepy, and in some ways it is. And you know what? The characters agree. Dahlia, the mother who just got paroled, refuses to go along with her husband's insane scheme. The kids are respectively freaked, apathetic, and have very few lines (in order of age). The characters are amazing. The set-up sounds far more contrived than it played out on the screen.

And this show seems to have been written just for Eddie Izzard. There's a bit where he randomly recites poetry, his youngest son likes wearing dresses, there's some random bad French, and Eddie Izzard plays it hard, like this role matters. If you've seen All the Queen's Men, you know what I'm talking about. But more hardcore.

I am very, very sad that I won't be able to keep up with this show upon return to my house under a rock where we get no cable. I'll have to rent it on DVD.

Wasted Weed

2007-03-11T11:29:00.000-05:00

Someone in California is wasting weed -- the States' number one cash crop. It is a sad affair. I hope the cop who found this poor, forgotten, abandoned cannabis was smart enough to snag a sample before he called in the find. Oh, what a sad day this is.

And in other news, I'm on spring break at last, despite much research to do for my pirates paper. So let's hang out. Seriously, I need this kind of break right now. Let's go ride bikes.

And take the quiz! Come on, you know I wrote it, so you know it'll be funny. I know there are more of you out there than just Anna.

Quizimacation

2007-03-06T23:57:00.000-05:00

Yes, yes, it's a quiz and not actual content. But c'mon, it's fun, I made the questions up myself. Give it a whirl.

Create your own Friend Quiz here

How's this for a slice of fried gold?

2007-02-24T19:41:00.000-05:00

11 May: Take Amtrak (Pennsylvanian line) from Pittsburgh to New York City.
11 May: Catch taxi/subway from Penn Station to the Nebulas' hotel.
11-13 May: Nebula Awards. Be useful and professional, and have fun.
13 May: Catch taxi/subway from Nebulas' hotel to hostel (such as this one).
13-16 May: Chill in New York City. Write in Central Park. Go to a couple museums. Have some fun.
16 May: Catch taxi/subway from hostel to JFK Airport.
17 May: Arrive in London and catch connecting flight to Frankfurt two hours later.
17 May: Arrive in Frankfurt and catch connecting flight to Larnaka, Cyprus, seven hours later.
17 May: Arrive in Larnaka at 2 am. and get picked up by PKAP car.
17 May-6 June: Work on PKAP (with the inimitable Dr. Moore, my advisor) in Cyprus: archaeological survey, data entry, washing ceramic sherds,* eating Thai and Cypriot food cooked on a Foreman grill, and visiting lots of historical sites on weekends in 90-100 degree weather (perfect).
6 June: Catch 3:15 am. flight to Frankfurt.
6 June: Arrive in Frankfurt and catch connecting flight to London nine hours later.
6 June: Arrive in London and catch connecting flight to New York two hours later.
6 June: Arrive in New York and catch taxi/subway to hostel. Collapse after epic 28-hour day despite local time being 9 pm.
7 June: Catch morning train to Pittsburgh.
7 June: Get picked up at Amtrak station. Collapse again.
8-11 June (approx.): Pack all worldly possessions into moveable boxes and similar.
11-12 June (approx.): Move worldly possessions to new flat/room where I will be living for the next eight months while on semester off.

All for about $2400-$2600, of which I can probably get $2000 in grant money from the RECHC Enhancement Fund for PKAP (which is $1000 by itself without airfare), and my parents have promised to help out with the Nebula costs.

BOO-FUCKIN'-YAH, BABY.

*Not shards. Apparently there is some subtle yet gargantuan difference between a shard and a sherd, and archaeologists get pissed off by people confusing the two.

The first of the last days of winter

2007-02-19T17:59:00.000-05:00

The icicles are melting in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Do you know what that means?

Spring is coming.

The sun is getting brighter. The little grasses are wiggling around under the mounds of slush and ice. The snow is melting enough to reveal the dogshit that people left there in January. Pretty soon I'll be starting the slow process of stripping off layers of necessary clothing, till I can head off to campus in a tank top. I might just make it through the semester.

And weirdly, I think that Dr. Zens' classes help combat the evil of winter. They're informative, useful, fun, relatively easy, and involve random tangent storytime at least once a week. Best classes ever. (And what am I taking now? Environmental history? Why did I think that was a good idea?)

Gray Matters

2007-02-15T10:52:00.000-05:00

This movie looks AMAZING. Like the funniest coming-out movie EVER. Check out the trailer -- brilliantly filmed, cut, perfect musical cues, gorgeous, FUNNY.

23 February. I'm going to ask the Indiana Theater to pick it up.

Link: http://www.graymattersmovie.com/?utm_source=phase1&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=728&utm_campaign=IndieClick

This Just In:

2007-02-13T18:37:00.000-05:00

IUP has declared a SNOW DAY TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!

(this never happens. this is like that year in high school when the new superintendent was from some Carolina or the other. )

World War Z

2007-02-13T16:55:00.000-05:00

As some of you know, this semester I'm taking Horror Lit with Dr. Carse. We're studying horror films and fiction through postmodernism,* and we're starting our unit on Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse. Films include: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Shaun of the Dead. Books include: The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, both by Max Brooks.

I read our selection from the Survival Guide grinning the whole way through it. Tire irons and crow-bars are the best hand-to-hand weapons. Voodoo zombies are just different. I loved it and I went straight on into WWZ. It's a memoir of a global struggle against a huge zombie outbreak, and it never happened. What, I asked myself, could be more (a) postmodern and (b) hilariously absurd?

The answer is: dead grandmothers. Because the book is absurd, there's no denying that, but it's not funny. It's the most depressing, gruesome, realistic novel I've read in a while. It's horrible; remember the opening sequences of Dawn of the Dead, with the army trying to clear buildings room by room? It's like that, only there are so many zombies that it's more like block by block, and eventually, the humans close themselves off into safe zones and just try to survive. The book is a series of interviews with survivors who never existed, a lot of them important people (the Vice-Prez of the US, the guy who came up with The Plan to Save Humanity, etc.). Most of them, however, are just people, like a girl whose mother tried to strangle her before the zombies got them, a Russian soldier whose entire base was decimated (in the Roman sense, with rocks, by each other, at gunpoint) for trying to abandon their station to reach their families, a girl whose family fled north to the Canadian wilderness where the zombies would freeze in winter, the guy who invented and marketed a placebo vaccine (Brooks' zombies are viral) that he knew did not work, and even the doctor brought to treat Patient Zero.

I do not read war memoirs, and now I remember why. This book is genius -- twisted, soul-crushing genius. Part of its brilliance (and its horror) is that it is so perfectly contemporary. If there were a viral pandemic now, this is how it would happen, how people and the world and various governments would react. When evidence of the zombie virus gets out, Israel quarantines itself instantly, while China (the source of the outbreak) tries to cover up its existence, and the States skeptically deploys a token force to protect against it. The entire world is totally depopulated, especially large population centers like India and the Chinese coasts.

This book is fucking me up, but it's good. Really good. If you don't mind -- or hell, if you enjoy -- war memoirs, read it. It's a piece of dark, depressing, horrible, zombie-filled reality, and it's worth your time.

*I <3 postmodernism. A lot of it is pretentious nonsense, I'll grant you, but it's so playful! So cute, like a kitten with a ball of string theory! Gotta love it.

O Frabjous Day!

2007-02-12T21:46:00.001-05:00

Today is one of those days.

1. Joseph is out of surgery! And making jokes on morphine! YAYAY! W00t!

2. At 10:30 this morning while I was washing dishes* the DHL man came to my door, bringing me computational joy! I am writing this entry on my Brand New, Sweet-Ass, Fucking Gorgeous, Utterly Unexpected MACBOOK! It's a Macbook! I was expecting this instead. It's name is Peter Pan because it gets along with everyone (except pirates who trying to hurt it first) and knows its way around cyberspace, which is much like a forest, and it will never get old and die. Because Macs live for fucking ever. I'm going to put Ubuntu on it. It will be happy and white and brown.

3. Hung out with Arabic!John for about...Jesus, five hours. Playing with Peter Pan and the Intarveb.**

4. Just read my stupid homework and I'm going to have time for it tonight (assuming I don't fall asleep).

So it's been a pretty good day. I spent an hour in shock after I pulled Peter Pan out of the box. And Joseph, I had a good drink for you tonight -- whoohoo!

*THE HORROR. EUUUGGGHHH, I wish we weren't such dirty kids.

**Sounds like innuendo, and yet it's not.

Visitor map!

2007-02-10T12:37:00.000-05:00

Create your own visitor map!

Google-bombing for Neil Gaiman

2007-02-02T12:48:00.000-05:00

Penn Jillette

Core

2007-02-01T12:23:00.000-05:00

I. Hate. Science Core. It is stupid and evil and I don't fucking care about writing about biology. Jesus, people, who wants to write a bajillion journals a week on biology?* If I cared about biology enough to write a bajillion journals, I'd be a biologist. What am I instead? An historian. History is not biology. I can't stand talking about the scientific method. The Core question is "Why does science matter?" which is at least as stupid as "How do we understand art?" which had been my previous most hated question. How the hell do you address why science matters in a bio class? I could totally see it in a history class, following the rise of science as the accepted avenue to objective knowledge about the world in Western tradition and how that rise affected stuff -- but in a bio class? Even my cool prof (Dr. Hinrichson; this is his first unit of Core), who's a dirty hippie scientist and pretty good at doing this whole discussion of science thing, eventually comes down to "Well, science is useful. Obviously, as a biologist, I feel that science is really useful. So, uh, yeah. There's the question."

WTF, HC. WTF. "The Dynamic Earth" wouldn't require me to think or do work, you know, and it would fulfill the same goddamn requirement. Get it straight.

*3-4 journals a week. Each journal is 1-2 pages -- single-spaced. Who the fuck asks for single-spaced papers? What the fuck twilight zone academia am I in now?

Big, Fun, and Scary start

2007-01-27T15:35:00.000-05:00

So, Chris Baty, of NaNoWriMo, has declared the start of a different sort of year-long challenge. 2007 is to be The Year We Will Be Trying Big, Fun, Scary Things Together.

"Think for a moment about those activities, classes, and endeavors that you've long daydreamed about, but have never quite got around to tackling. I'm talking about the roads less traveled---the tuba lessons, the family-history writing, the foreign language learning, the transformation of your living room into a multi-story race course for feral hamsters. These are the nonessential creative activities that get us in over our heads, bring new people into our lives, and help make life more magical.

"As adults, we tend to steer clear of these pursuits because they take time and cost money. But putting off all our adventures for later comes with its own set of costs. Our souls become dry and brittle. Our energy levels sag. Our noses fall off.

"Which is why I'm inviting you to pick one or two never-before-attempted endeavors that have long intrigued and daunted you, and then do them in 2007."

It's a marvelous idea. Here are my 2007 big, fun, scary adventures:
1. Take a semester off from college.
2. Move out of my parents' house.
3. Learn to work on/sail a boat such that I could theoretically sell my skills to work my way around the globe.
4. Do NaNo. Write and finish that goddamn Nordic hero novel.

And if I still have time in all that (and I should):
5. Learn at least beginner level Spanish.

Which means I need to stop by Clark Hall and figure out how to accomplish No. 1.

Indiana, why are you so flat?

2007-01-27T15:33:00.000-05:00

My Fortune Cookie told me:
Tomorrow will be an excellent day for putting Slinkies on an escalator.
Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

And they're right! Where can I find an escalator in this town? There must be one.

Sir Ken for PM

2007-01-25T12:22:00.001-05:00

Sir Ken Macdonald, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service -- and hence
an aspect of The Man -- is my new
hero. I kid you not.

"London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7
2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their
vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded,
narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to
be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a
'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'.

"The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is
the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice
for those damaged by their infringement."

(first seen on Neil Gaiman's blog)

Unearthly Squeaking

2007-01-24T18:36:00.001-05:00

There is an unending squeaking coming from something near the Leonard Hall computer lab, where I currently am. It sounds like a very, very large metal hamster wheel turning lazily, as if propelled by a very, very large and very, very lazy hamster. It has been squeaking for the last two hours, without pause.

This is me right now:
o.O;;;

If my gnawed remains are found in the Oak Grove tomorrow, then I request that my memory be honored with a B-grade SF slasher movie about giant, radioactive rodents with a taste for human flesh.

:(

2007-01-23T12:50:00.000-05:00

[imagine a sickly-sweet voice, like a cute, adorable, baby kitten with huge eyes] I'm sad. :(

Yeah, take that, Anna. Pbbbbbbtt.

The Big Gay House has become more of a Domicile of Bitter Depression. Oh, baby, is it fun here. You wouldn't even believe.

Back at college

2007-01-19T12:05:00.000-05:00

Been meaning to make a back-to-college post all week. And, Jesus, it's been a week.

My roommates who have been dating since they were freshmen have been dealing with some relationship issues. They're doing a lot of time apart and a lot of getting smashed -- each separately but at the same time, which is bizarre. Monday was "hey, if we get all our shit done in half an hour, then we could watch 10 Things I Hate About You and get trashed!" night. So I've now been properly trashed and sick afterward. Ew.

Wednesday was an Irish session at the house: boozed-up musicians playing reels on flutes and whistles. Looks like tradition in the making; Audrey and Jess have no classes on Thursday. (Jerks.)

Have discovered that I still have time to turn in my Enhancement Fund proposal (think money, lots of money) but only a month till the NSEP is due -- and I haven't asked for recommendations yet. Eek.

I still fucking hate college. That hasn't changed.

I'm going to do my Capstone History Dept. Major Research Paper on pirates. I may present a paper on zombies to the IUP Undergraduate Conference (but probably not).

But you know what's really killing me? NOT FUCKING KNOWING ANYTHING. I will not know until April whether I have any Enhancement money. I will not know until March whether my current scholarships transfer abroad. I will not know until early May whether I have an NSEP award.

AND I WILL NOT KNOW UNTIL FUCKING MAY WHETHER I'M EVEN ACCEPTED AT EGYPT!

My brain is full of possibilities of what I could do with a semester off if Egypt falls through (and it seriously may). They still involve fleeing the country. (One involves working my way through the Caribbean on boats.) Some of them involve mucking about in Pittsburgh. But there are no plans I can make. O.o

So...there we are. I hate my life a little right now. I hope pirates will make it better. Chocolate, coffee, and booze only go so far.

God, is it 8:15 already?!

2007-01-11T20:14:00.000-05:00

It is truly incredible how much time you can waste on the internet. Those are three hours I'm just never going to see again (though my Google account is a lot less cluttered).

Lorelei Goes Bionic

2007-01-11T17:55:00.000-05:00

So, my laptop is le fucked. It's at the shop again (thank gods for warranties) and her hard drive has all the wide open spaces of an amnesiac's frontal lobe. I caught myself thinking, "Christ, why can't she just be fixed and ready to go like she used to be?"

But how she used to run wasn't all that impressive, to tell the truth. She crashed, and took the final drafts of papers with her. She was slow -- oh god, so fucking slow sometimes -- and would rather be rebooted than take criticism. I'd say, "hey, it's a nice evening, let's go for a walk on the Internet." Lorelei would claim a headache, refusing to go anywhere near Explorer. Firefox helped -- it got on quite well with Lorelei, in fact -- but still the problem remained that our relationship was just not going anywhere.

But now, everything can be different. I can rebuild her. I can make her better, faster, stronger. She will not merely stroll along the scenic wooded pathways of the intarblag, she will swing from trees to dodge people walking their Windows '98s! She will be a superlaptop! When the Google OS comes out, she will greet it with a wise nod and accept it as The Way, not waffle over whether she really wants to try something new when what's she's got is quite fine really I mean I guess it's okay when you look at it sideways and -- no, she will work hard to stay on the cutting edge of technology, and steal a space cruiser to do so if she has to!

It'll be wicked.

New Year's Eve

2006-12-31T23:12:00.000-05:00

Usually Christmas and New Year's get me all sentimental and thinking back over the year and what I've accomplished and what I still have to do, and then I need lots of chocolate to cheer myself up again.

Or, I could go to a party, drive home as the first dawn of the new year breaks over yonder notch in the treeline, and skip the self-assessment altogether.

You see, the depressing thing about end-of-year summaries is that they're never enough. Last year I went to China; this year I spent three months on a couch watching Buffy and hating my life. College is just more school that makes me want to stab myself in the face rather than get up in the morning. Writing papers eats up all my time. By midterms, all I want to do is sleep for a month, party with the friends I never see, write constantly, and buy a plane ticket to Somewhere Else. I may be learning some worthwhile things, but mainly I just want to get out.

Which brings us to Egypt, which is how I'm keeping myself sane. Ten months in Cairo with no affect on my GPA? What could be more marvelous? However, Egypt is $27,000 for the full year, not counting airfare or whatever I might do for Christmas break. I have no idea where that money is coming from and I desperately fear that the answer is "more loans." I am scared shitless of loans. I have no plans of maintaining the kind of lifestyle right out of college that can afford to pay back large amounts of loans. I've run into a brick wall I like to call "AUUUUHGHHHH! I HATE THIS FUCKING SHIT AND I DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT DEALING WITH IMPOSSIBILITY!" and hence have done fuck-all towards applying for all the scholarships I had planned to deal with over break. I'm still recovering from last semester for Christ's sake. If I can't make Egypt happen, then I want to take a semester off. I can't keep this up.

I pulled a 4.0 out of my ass last semester (highest GPA ever) and I need to do it again starting in two weeks. Why? Because last year my stupid-ass self decided I should try to graduate Summa Cum Laude. Because I could, if I could get through the trauma.

I fucking hate school. It's a corrupt institution. The President of IUP, Tony Atwater, doesn't even try to hide the fact that he wants to use us, the students, as cash cows. The new dorms are swankier, but twice as expensive. The library catalogue dates from the 1970s. They want to demolish and rebuild Whitmyre Hall (which is fine and just got a new heating system), but Keith (built in the 1920s, heating system operated by a switch in Harrisburg, no I'm not kidding) has only gotten new carpeting and a few more (admittedly appreciated) computers. I refuse to be their cash cow; next year's tuition isn't even going to the same continent they're on.

Thus, in short (too late):
1. I hate college.
2. I hate scholarships.
3. I hate loans.
4. Therefore I'm dealing with scholarships now.
5. I'm getting the fuck out of the country next year if it kills me.
6. Which it may.

Test, test

2006-07-23T17:04:00.000-05:00

Test post. All seems well on the cyber front.