atuinsails

Yeah, kind of graphic, but between a wretched cold that still doesn't want to completely leave my sinuses, and a wishy washy main character that insists that she never speaks, it goes swoosh.

I already admitted it on Facebook, but I didn't want to write about it here. It's kind of depressing to get about fifteen percent of the way through Nanowrimo to find out that the idea is bust. I'm going to try and revive it later, I think. Right now, it's going in the trunk.

In other news, my zombie movie script has gone another edit. I just didn't find much that I think needs to be changed. I think, in fact, that it's pretty good. Chris is going to help me tonight by sitting down and talking through the dialogue with me. I'll probably have a much different opinoin after that.

I found a post on another blog about a very cool activist group that teaches abstinence until you find your one (of either sex, they are not homophobes) and then you stay monogamous your whole life.  In essence, the idea is if you find that one person you can have a healthy sexual relationship with and then stay with them (no cheat, no do overs), sexually transmitted diseases will die out because they won't be transmitted.

www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2009/04/08/why-the-chaste-aids-movement-cant-get-paid/

So I haven't posted in awhile.  Not for much of a reason, just trying to stay on task.  Finished the gay fantasy story revision.  It's coming in at just over 11k words.  Eventually, this will be longer.  On this pass I was just trying to fix the names and getting every thing written from the POV of the main characters.  Next time I'll fix the time line, add in the important bits that will make it a serialized story told from two PsOV, and generally start to clean it up.

Now I'm going back to my distopian future slasher novella that I'm rewriting.  I hope to have most of it done by November 1st, because then I'm starting NaNoWriMo with an idea I came up with earlier in the year for a flash fiction.  That story was more of a character study, so I'm thinking that by expanding it I have a pretty good story going on.

Anyhoo, busy, busy, busy.

Did you know I ddn't know about this until several days after the fact? The sinus infection was seriously kicking my ass, and I couldn't read very well toward the end with all the eye watering. I don't know why my eyes were watering but they were.

Anyway, everyone keep going on about what did he do in the four to six weeks of his Presidency that might have prompted the Committee to award it to him. I took it upon myself to find out. Imagine my surpise that Wikipedia actually has such an entry.  So let's summarize pretty much the month of January and some of Februrary.

• January 20 - Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel puts a hold on the last minute stuff that Bush passed, Obama enacts a pay freeze on Senior White House Staff for those making more than $100,000
• January 21 - Obama reverses the standing policy of Ashcroft's for Freedom of Infomation Act requests so that people can get the information they want. 
• January 22 - President Obama signs an executive order announcing plans to close Gitmo within a year and outlawing torture and other illegal coercive techniques durring interrogations and detentions. 
• January 26 - Obama signs the first of two Presidential Memoranda concerning energy dependence
• February 4 - Obama announces that companies receiving large amounts of federal bailout money through TARP must cap executive pay at $500,000/year.  He also signs the Children's Health Insurance Program and Reauthorization Act of 2009.
   

Of course, this isn't everything.  I skipped quite a bit, but these I think are the important ones.  I think that just these things might have fostered that increase in global diplomacy they were talking about, don't you?

I really enjoy Elizabeth Bear's work.  I've read several of her short stories (fave is Shoggoths in Bloom).  But I never really got a chance to read any of her novels until just now.  Hammered is smoking.  I really enjoyed it, like I enjoyed her short story work.  Of course, it's different, with the longer structure, but I'm thinking that Elizabeth Bear will become my benchmark for scifi/fantasy like King is my benchmark for horror.  Go forth and read her stuff please.

I feel stupid but better.  If I had gone to see the doctor on Saturday, I would never have gotten so bad.  By the time i got to a doctor on Tuesday, I had a sinus infection with a side car of bronchitis, not to mention a band of sore muscles from trying to cough up mucus that just wasn't coming up.  I also skipped two meals and hadn't slept in two days..  They gave me two shots in the ass -- one steriods for the bronchitis and the other a booster of antibiotics --  two presciptions, and an order to take over the counter sinus allergy medication.  One for antibiotics and the other for robotussin with codeine.  BTW, robotussin with codeine is absolutely nasty tasting, but it is the schisse.

Today, it's hard to believe I spent most of Monday night trying to convince myself I needed to wait for the morning to go to the doctor because we couldn't afford to go to the emergency room.  The steriod shot was working before I got back to the car, and now I can kind of move around without having to stop to cough.  I can eat without feeling like I'm going to throw up when I cough.  The fever is gone and I feel 100 percent improved.  I'm still having some coughing and nasal problems, but it's nothing like before.

Next time, I need to remember that if it is symptoms I would rush Freesia or Chris to the doctor for, then I need to go myself.

I have the plague.  Pretty sure, I do.  I'm just waiting for the black pustules in my underarms.  If I survive their subsidence, I will let you know.  I'm going to crawl to my death bed now.

There are days I love to ready King's work, but then there are other days that I read it and despair.  Tonight, I despair.  I've come a long ways, but it's not far enough yet.

The writing isn't going as much as discovering.  I am reviving something from the trunk from several years ago.  And I have to say, I'm a lot better than I used to be.  I mean much better.  I can't wait to sit down tomorrow and get started.  I might just do that now, to be honest.

I'm still blown away by how bad I was just three years ago.  Because it's bad.  I'm a lot better.  I may not be perfect, but it's nice to see that my ability to write is getting better.

Are people just not hearing what I'm hearing, or am I just so stupid as to believe in the person I voted for?  And if that guy that called Obama a liar and I ever meet on the street I'm going to give him a small piece of my diminishing mind.

I just don't get it.  Are we so backward that middle America would rather believe the fear mongers than actually listen to the guy and his party that are making sense?

This month is a "writing month" for me.  I'm supposed to be writing.  I even found something in my trunk that I want to rewrite, but I'm arsing around.  I just need to put in the priner cartridges, but it seems like such a big deal at the moment.  I had planned on doing this huge clean up, but that isn't working out either.  Sometimes I hate my life.

Selling parking passes at a State Park

Teddy Kennedy passed this morning.  He has reached the clearing at the end of the path, where I'm sure his brothers were there to meet him.  He wasn't a saint.  He was a sinner just like the rest of us, but that didn't stop him from embracing the greater good.  Stephen Kind called his brothers the last of the great gunslingers, but I have to say that Teddy Kennedy certainly deserves a place among them.  He has done much good against great odds.

Hile, gunslinger!  May your rest in the clearing bring you peace.

This week has been nothing but fail from beginning to end.  No new writing, except for some stuff on Associated Content and Helium.  I don't really count that stuff because I'm writing it to try and fight the writer's block, oh, and maybe pick up a freelance writing/copy writing job.  When you get down to it, I'm just glad the weekend is here.  The week is over, and now we can start over fresh on Sunday, right?  Please say yes.

... that I'm only just getting over.  I assume it was a fourty-eight hour flu.  I suppose it could be a stomach virus.  All I know is that I have sympathy for the tube of toothpaste that is squeezed in the middle until contents gush from both ends.  Literally.  Then you sleep between eruptions.  For a day.  Even if you are an insomniac.  And everyone tells you you are burning up while you are actually cold.

In all, it was horrible except for the pettings and rubs and sympathy from my lovely hubby, who kept me alive with gatorade and convincing (not very hard) our lovely local Nana to keep the little darling for us.  Freesia was very upset by my throwing up.  But then again, so was I.

... is nothing like buying a computer.

So we bought a new vehicle, a Chevrolet Aveo hatchback.  It is nice and fluffy friendly.  They had one on the lot that had automatic transmission and AC which is apparently rare.  We qualified for the maximum clunker rebate.  That and a six year loan gave us payments that will exactly take the place of the payments to our debt management plan.  So we pay off the credit cards on the first of August, and then we start paying on a car loan on September 5.  The word irony springs to mind, as well as several curse words.

As for fluffy friendly, I'm close to 400 lbs, and the seat belts still had a bit of stretch even after I buckled up.  Even with the seat all the way back, my daughter still has leg room in her car seat.  I also don't have to skootch down to reach the pedals.  I can adjust the seat to actually fit me so I can drive comfortably.  I would have to give the Aveo the fluffy seal of approval for those bumping against 400 lbs and who wants a smaller car.

Otherwise known as the death of a series.  Spoilers and rant behind cut.

( SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS )

is the air conditioning on the fritz, but now my period is early again.  I'm calculating that I should be back to a normal cycle by the end of the year, since I'm already back to a 37 day cycle after coming down from a 42 day cycle at the end of the year.  Still I'm be glad when I stabilize.  Goddess knows, my hormones are killing me enough as it is.

BTW, another novel went swirly.  I'm not sure what happened but the beginning came out all wrong, and I just couldn't fix it.  I've put in in a folder to marinate for awhile longer.  My new idea (yes I started writing again immediately.  This is a writing month, this is what we do) is going along well.  I'm not sure yet if it's going to be a story or a novel, but it's going to be good, I think.

... that Michael Jackson will fade from the news now that they've buried the man.  Leave him in peace, people.