(the other part involves lawyers and birdhouses.)

It was my brother's birthday.

Steven: Yeah, but I got it all figured out!

Keffy: Yeah?

Steven: Yeah! See, 'cuz the Army pays for college while I'm in it.

Keffy: Well, there's probably...

Steven: No! Listen. I've got a plan.

Keffy: ... I don't think it's that simple, but okay.

Steven: The plan is that they'll pay for my college, and I'll get a PhD!

Keffy: You do realize that you still have to pass the classes, right?

Steven: I'll get one and you won't have one, and then you'll have to call me, "Doctor."

Keffy: You're only going to be in the Army for four years!

Steven: I could reenlist! 'Doctor.'

Keffy: You'd need eleven years of school!

Steven: DOCTOR KEHRLI.

Keffy: ...

Steven: DOCTOR. KEHRLI.


That's it. It is SO on. THE GAUNTLET. IS. DOWN.

WHERE'S THAT GRAD SCHOOL APP?

dsmoen wrote:

Just recently, one partner in lesbian couple in Fresno who'd signed all the right paperwork was barred from making medical decisions about her loved one. Fortunately, her partner lived, but what if that couple had been in the situation that me and my late husband were in?

What if someone waiting for an organ (or another donation) was deprived of the opportunity of life or health because of that? Because the hospital stalled?

Being married meant I had the opportunity, at a time of need, to help someone who would have died.

You very likely will be entirely unable to get in touch with me for the next four glorious amazing beautiful wonderful spectacularly awesome days.

I'm just going to be at Iron Springs, having fun without you.

Unless you're going. Then I'll probably see you later.


I don't have to go back to work for five days, everything is amazing, I love the world. THE WEEDS ARE IN BLOOM AND THE INSECTS ARE SINGING, LET'S PARTY.

James Maxey is giving away free copies of his new book to people who donate to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

"Followers of my blogs, and the readers who read the acknowledgement pages of my books, will know that I lost my partner Laura Herrmann to breast cancer in May 2006. I've been interested in cancer research since then and have privately made contributions to cancer related charities, but I've never put out any sort of appeal on my blogs to solicit for this cause, until now."

LINK

I present to you a three step diagnostic test to determine if your cat is evil.


1: Is it a cat?

Yes No

If Yes, proceed to the next question. If No, come back when you have achieved cat.


2: Has it peed on anything (everything) you own?

Yes No

If Yes, proceed to the last question. If No, you're living on borrowed time.


3:

?


I rest my case.

Yeah, despite what I've been telling people who are unable to parse my name and thus MUST know its pedigree, I am not actually the only Keffy. Well, I mean, that's obvious, but yeah. You probably wouldn't be all that surprised at how many people take me at my word.

For example, this: http://www.myspace.com/desperadogroup is a Keffy who is not me.

There is apparently a Keffy who is a Russian rapper. I'm not sure, though... my Russian is very bad and hasn't really been used much since I went to Moscow/St. Petersburg in 2005. The Featured Keffy could just be the "aaah" singing voice in the background.

I'm glad though. Now when the mandated 1-5 people a week who MUST tell me they've never seen "Keffy" as a name before come by, I have something to tell them.

"Thanks, Kelly."

"Keffy, actually."

"Oh! Keffy... Huh! I've never heard that one before."

"It's actually a Russian name."

"Really."

"Oh yeah, it's the diminutive of Kirill*."

"Wow!"

"Yeah, it means I'm pretty awesome."

"Are you Russian? You don't have an accent!"

"Nope, I'm just trendy and appropriative."

"What?"

Of course, now that I've been exposed to Russian hip-hop, all the people who go on road trips with me are experiencing a deep-seated feeling of horror and alarm.

As well they should.



*Note: Keffy is definitely not the diminutive of Kirill.


Edit: Also, "Четверг", the song title means "Thursday". In case you were wondering. SEE. I remember SOME of my Russian.

Today, I went looking for my courage.

The novel with a working title nobody but me can pronounce did the whole Frankenstein's Monster bit last night. I slowed way down to write some description because if I can't smell the setting, I can't write the story.

So here's a wordcount... thingie in which I continue to delude myself that this is a 120,000 word book instead of a five bajillion word book that I'm going to have to cut back down to size because otherwise the agents I'll query in the future are going to assume that either a) I'm stupid-crazy or b) the wordcount in the query letter is a typo.

"IHMWTEMTIHTNI"


I was initially planning on racing Jay Lake with his drafting of Endurance, but that's not feasible, because I seriously don't write that fast unless it's NaNoCrap. I've recently discovered I have very little patience for the amount of rewriting that NaNoCrap requires, so I'll save that until November.

In any case, LOOK! LOOK! MORE WORDS! THERE ARE MORE WORDS NOW! I'M NOT COMPLETELY USELESS ANYMORE. ALERT THE MEDIA.

And finally, (because the entire point of having an author blog is to inflict unedited writing on the now-wincing masses) have a paragraph of exposition!

"Twin streets traced both sides of the angled form of the Virine River's south branch, chained as she was by a latticework of bridges. Brick and stonework walls rose from the muddy riverbank, striped by months of high water lines. This near to the sea, the river had tides. When they shifted, the water would run backward toward the Print District, running salty as far upstream even as Slaughter Row."


And I'm using one of my Arthur icons because I added that movie to the Netflix insta-queue and everyone else was horrified, since I'm the only one in the house who likes it. Well! It's not my fault you people* have no taste.


*both cat hoarding and non-cat hoarding roommates alike, damn it.

Have started the long and time consuming task of searching for a surgeon who will perform top surgery on me.

So far, the large quantity of information leaves me feeling a little 'buh', But I'm also slightly sick today. Or allergic. I can't quite tell, but I suspect it was not actually allergies as the allergy meds did nothing to help me this morning.

I suspect that the best thing to do is lose a lot of weight first. I've been trying anyway, but I will just have to find a way to try harder.

Overall, however, I think this is the best next step for me regarding my transition.

I'll be looking for a surgeon who is highly recommended and has had success working on transmen who had larger breasts. I would prefer someone located on the west coast, but good results are obviously more important than saving on travel.

I'll probably end up paying for it out of pocket or taking out another loan. We'll see.

For now: gym, then writing, then... stuff.

I went to work. It was dull, but we actually made some money so I could justify my presence there. Hooray.

Then I came home and signed up to be typed for bone marrow donation:

The Marrowthon

Between June 8-22 the first 46,000 volunteers can sign up to be a bone marrow donor for free, ONLINE. I'm supposed to get a testing kit or whatever in the mail in a few days. I just have to swab my mouth and send it back - those cells are enough for them to figure out if I'm a potential donor, and then things get more complicated, like blood tests, etc.

Apparently roughly 1 in 200 volunteers ends up donating.

All told, volunteering will probably take a total of 15-20 minutes, and it was free! But if you want to donate money, they estimate it takes about $100 to get people tested and into the database.

Then I went and took pictures of Jay's book in a tree.

( PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN )

I originally intended on also being upside down in the tree. Unfortunately, I am kind of too fat and out of shape for that. The first tree's branches were too thick for me to try being upside down. We found some slightly better trees, but I discovered that I really can't climb trees like I used to. Then I tripped and a rock fell on my ankle, because it's not an adventure if nobody gets killed maimed slightly injured.

See also: http://csinman.livejournal.com/87772.html

***

Oh dear, and now the reality check time.

I haven't been writing nearly enough. Part of this is depression, yes, the 'crawls into the funky furrows in your brainparts' kind, the 'things aren't that bad for me, I'm just in a phase of my life that is transitory' kind, the 'why did I get up this morning' kind. Yes, boo-hoo. My brain is moving superslow or time is moving superfast, but I don't honestly know where time goes. Time is accelerating, I am left behind.

Sean requested wordcount bar updates. Well, they look a lot like the last ones, and that's embarrassing.

"IHMWTEMTIHTNI"




Smoke looks about the same. I'm not really sure what happened to the past month. I need some kind of crazy motivational scheme. That way, even if at the end of the day I'm depressed and the books suck, they'll be finished crappy books instead of crappy books eating their way out through my skull.

My angst is 25 going on 15.

SOMETHING EXCITING IS HAPPENING IN CATHLAMET, WA.

Nirvana Bassist seeks County Office.

Cathlamet is where my parents grew up and where I spent a lot of time growing up. Since my grandparents lived on Puget Island (in the middle of the Columbia!) I mostly just drove through Cathlamet on the way there, or spent time on Main Street. I erroneously thought for many years that it only had one street. Turns out, the town has 5 or so streets. Maybe a few more, I don't know, I didn't really count.

ANYWAY. SOMETHING EXCITING IS HAPPENING THERE. Nothing ever happens there. Nothing. Not only are there no streetlights, but Cathlamet had horse hitching posts in the sidewalk outside the town grocery store up until at least the year 2000.

Haha, he lives in Naselle. (For all that I can make fun of Wahkiakum county small towns like Cathlamet, Naselle, Skamokawa and, hahaha, Stella, they are all a step up from Aberdeen, WA, which is the last place I'd like to live west of the mountains. I'd even rather live in Forks and have to chase off obnoxious Twilight fans than live in Aberdeen.

In other news, I have to go to work now, I have revived something that vaguely resembles a work ethic and am in a challenge of sorts to write 500 words on my novel a day, although we have not worked out a suitable incentive to Not Fail yet, seeing as I fell asleep before we figured it out.

That's what I get for gchatting in bed.

I've been sitting on this for a little while, even though I didn't really have to.

Talebones #39 TOC

:)

I'm very happy that this story found a home - and that it is such an awesome home at that. It's actually the first short story I wrote after deciding to treat writing like Serious Business. Prior to Norwescon 2007, I was laboring under the delusion that I didn't write short stories because I couldn't, and that was that.

I decided that was a stupid reason, went home, wrote a short story, got eaten by physics homework. The usual.

Two years later, Patrick announced he was going to buy the story during Talebones Live. It was very yay.


In case you are wondering, yes! Now is a great time to get a Talebones subscription. All the cool kids have one.

EDIT: This post is moderately incoherent. Well, there is a jackhammer that sounds like TEISEL in my skull so it's not my fault. I swear! The internal editor in my head was eaten by a cat!

Sybil's Garage No. 6 is out!

It is my first publication. I am excited. I will get to see it in person on Friday!

This was my week 2 Clarion story. :)


Oddly, I have already received fanart of the story from one of my co-workers:




I leave tomorrow at late-o'clock to catch a red-eye to Minneapolis, and then I'm riding with Kathleen and E.J. (Clarion classmates) to Madison. The reasoning is quite simple: plane tickets were more than $200 cheaper to fly into MN than WI.

WISCON PANELS:

Friday 9pm - 10:15pm TYRANNOSAURS IN F–14S!!!!

Saturday 1pm-2:15pm Keeping Up With Science (Moderating)

Saturday 2:30pm-3:45pm Feminism, Anarchism, & Power: The Marq'ssan Cycle

Sunday 1pm-2:15pm The Obligatory Workshop Panel (Moderating! Didn't know that, good thing I checked. Heh heh.)


Yep, looks like a good mix of serious business and not-so-serious business.

Between panels, I'm sure you can find me at parties achieving high booze-ahol levels, in the dealer room huffing the sweet smell of new copies of Sybil's Garage No. 6, which will totally be available there at the Prime Books table (or so I was told), and just... generally being there.

I will probably roll in some time Friday afternoon and we* may be leaving relatively early on Monday.

*E.J., Kathleen, and Myself.

BASEBALL AND LOLCATS AND PROOF THAT AWESOME THINGS ALWAYS HAPPEN FOR MY BROTHER'S BIRTHDAY.

cheezburger nite wif seattle mariners!

SRSLY, TIKITS R $11. WHOS WIF ME?

Feeling some need to embarrass myself:

"I Hate My Working Title Even More Than I Hate The Novel Itself" (For future: IHMWTEMTIHTNI)



(FYI: IF I can actually finish this book in 120,000 words without leaving out huge chunks of it, I will demand cake and possibly a parade. Freaking mother****ing epic fantasy bloated wordcrap ow. csinman tells me he doesn't think it'll be as long as I think it will be, though, and honestly we are a long way from the days when I would get 40,000 words in and be all "Oh crap, the plot is starting! Quick! Throw in a flash-back!" Heh heh heh.)


Smoke




If I wasn't a wimp, I'd do something like systemcrasher and offer people my hard-earned day-job dollars for some do-or-die encouragement.

This really shouldn't be so hard. I don't watch TV, or do most of the other crap that eats time like candy. Somehow, however, getting anything written either before or after my day job seems to be some degree of impossible. Granted, I have utterly and completely hated everything I've ever written for a few months straight now, with no sign of that letting up, so it is difficult to feel motivated. Oddly, knowing that I'm not alone and that this is just a "writer thing" doesn't really help. If it's normal, then I need to be able to get over it to get anywhere, but that isn't happening currently.

mikigarrison came up to visit this weekend. We ate at locations all over Bellingham and inflicted monkey surprise on Ladies' Night. It's funny if you were there. Honest.

Day before yesterday, criada told me she was going to need a translation of my critique of her novel.

"What part?" I asked, like I'd be able to help without it in front of me anyway.

"Well... this one part you wrote "ADENOIDS! NEEDS TO BE KIDNEYS."

"Oh, that's easy," I said. "The scenes I pointed to were like adenoids, but they'd be much better off if they were kidneys."

We sort of stared at each other.

"OH! They need to be more VITAL! I GOT IT!" she said.

I was secretly (not so secretly) glad that she figured it out, because I honestly have no idea what I meant by kidneys at the time.


Yep. Day job now, hyperventilating and car windshield-wiper fixing later. Hopefully. I am hoping to not be stuck in SeaTac on Monday night. I would take the airporter, but the last shuttle leaves at 11:30 and my plane gets in at 11:07. I don't trust myself to deplane (haha! love that word!) and make it to the shuttle in time, so driving I will be. Unless it rains.

Well, tomorrow I'll post my Wiscon itinerary and mope about my day job some more.

Star Trek, a review that does not fit on Twitter:

SPOCK spockspockspockspockspock SPOCK! SPOCK! SPOCK! and not the guy who writes about babies, either! SPOCK!!!!

Seriously though, I could give less than a half a crap about Star Trek four hours ago. I mean, I always liked Spock because hey! Half Vulcan! He's all, "blah blah logic logic science logic" until he hauls off and neck pinches some asshole for getting in his face.

Plus, you know. I've always kind of been a sucker for pointy ears. But don't tell anybody I said that, it's kind of embarrassing.

And Picard had a nice bald head. I mean, that was pretty cool. But I didn't want to watch the old series because it was boring, and the new series... all of them... were boring AND there was no Spock*.

I did try. I think I gave Star Trek's previous incarnations more than a fair shake at being non-crappy. I've seen the first four Star Trek movies, out of order. I think I saw them 3, 1, 2, 4. "Search For Spock" really didn't make any sense before seeing "Wrath of Khan" (oops), and the best part of the first movie was the 20 minutes at the beginning where the screen was black and it just played music. Pretty much that's all I remember of the first movie, except that there was also a part with some Vulcans standing around on a rock staring at each other.

And the fourth one was... well, there were whales. I guess.

OH! I saw that first Next Generation movie too, with Picard. The one where people are afraid of the Flying Rainbow of Doom!** Yeah. I don't really remember what that one was about either.

Anyway.

I was expecting that I would go to Star Trek and have a pretty explosionfest and maybe drool over a 20-something Spock.

I did not expect to be filled with complete and utter JOY through the whole movie. They snarked at each other! They did... stuff! STUFF! It was exciting! It was nothing like my first exposure to Search for Spock, wondering if I really ought to finish the movie, or if it'd be better just to hit the stop and eject buttons on the old Beta machine.

YAAAAAY.

Okay. I'll stop filling Livejournal with blathering.


... baby Chekov, omg squeeeee

*I have been informed that there was occasionally SPOCK in later Star Trek shows, but never when I flipped past it looking for cartoons.

** I have also been informed that other people call the Flying Rainbow of Doom the "Nexus". I don't care. It will always be Flying Doom Rainbow to me.

Coldplay - Viva La Vida.


This song has been bothering me since I first heard it. It manages to be equal parts stuff I love and stuff I can't stand.

For me, it's the lyrics, or at least, the idea that what I hear of the lyrics inspires in me. Revolutionary blah-de-blah from the point of view of a king who has lost his throne. I love that kind of stuff. (Honestly, the king should feel lucky he didn't get his head chopped off, but that's beside the point.)

I also tend to really like "rock" (I use this term SO lightly right now) songs that use orchestral backing.

The problem with "Viva la Vida" for me is that the song is so watered down that I have to listen to the lyrics alone for them to mean anything to me. It's -pretty-. It's -bland-. I've caught this song hanging out with the Soft Rock kids on 104 KAFE, once and had to shun a little. Not that it's hard to shun Coldplay or bands that sound like them right now... don't even get me started on the Killers.

The song needed to have an edge to it. Just making pretty sounds come out of your mouth doesn't make you a good vocalist, damn it. There should be some hint of understanding in the sound of the song, otherwise, you know, why BOTHER writing lyrics about a revolution? You might as well just sing "Lalalala dee dadada lalala" or whatever.

That being said, my intolerance level for Coldplay-osity lowered several points when I saw them on SNL. There was just something I couldn't stand about the lead singer. I suspect it was that not only was he singing a song about a revolution in an emotionless-pretty-voice, but he also seemed to be groping himself in between having fits of flailing that looked like "Man, I totally wish I was Thom Yorke, but I'm NOT!"

And to be completely honest, it's not even that it's a heinously pretty and thus meaningless song. Did it really have to be the same kind of pretty that half of the radio is right now?*

"Are human or are we dancers?" - No, I promised myself I wasn't even going to start on The Killers. I promised. Even if they do make me feel like I'm about to go into a sugar coma every time that song plays.

Mutter, mutter, grumble.

Also, why did John Mayer do a cover of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin"? WHYYYYYYY.

* Well, yes, it did. I mean, it's Coldplay. Everybody wants to be Coldplay, right?

Saw Wolverine (Origins? whatever the full title is. Too lazy to check.)

Anyway, it was just exactly what I expected and wanted. Which means, roughly, that it had Hugh Jackman and some comic book violence. See also: "I liked Chronicles of Riddick."

I was moderately impressed that the people in charge of the movie were aware of its weaknesses and thus didn't waste time on them. Namely, the writing and dialogue were... yeah. When characters kept their mouths shut (HAHA) it was better than when they were talking. I suspect this is because roughly 75% of the dialogue had been pulled from the Writer's Compendium Of Action Movie Quotes and just sort of stuck into the movie.

Instead of dwelling on the storytelling that just wasn't there, the movie clipped along pretty quickly, thus preventing necrosis of the brain. Unfortunately, at times it felt a bit like listening to an out of breath five year-old tell his favorite story. "And then this happened! And he did this! And then this other thing happened! And then!" However, I didn't care because, hey. That's what I signed up for. Also, Wolverine's backstory is Mary-Sue-Oh-Cry-Me-A-River enough as it is.

The movie also had to contain the SF/F-movie-required EYEBALL PAIN scene. Just. Of course. WHY NOT. JUST DO THINGS TO EYEBALLS WHY DON'T YOU. SEE IF I CARE.

However, just in case some of you out there are trying to determine whether or not you should see this movie and are turning to reviews for information, I have created a quick four step diagnostic quiz.


Should I go see Wolverine?

1: DO you think Hugh Jackman is hot?

Yes          No

If Yes, go see the movie. If No, continue to question #2.


2: IF, hypothetically speaking, Hugh Jackman were naked, would you think he was hot?

Yes          No

If Yes, go see the movie. If No, continue to question #3.


3: DO you find Hugh Jackman to be at all desirable in any way?

Yes          No

If Yes, go see the movie. If No, continue to question #4.


4: DO you enjoy lots of ridiculous explosions for no particular reason except to create a fireball for Hugh Jackman to stand in front of and look hot?

Yes          No

If Yes, go see the movie. If No, just go read Nick Mamatas' review instead. I LOLed.