Affirmations

I'm trying to fight one of those funks where I keep thinking to myself, "Geez, I'm not really that great at anything." Part of the rumination that keeps bothering me has to do with the role of difficulty of a task, or perceived subjective difficulty, and whether and how that relates to ability, aptitude, potential, success, etc. That is: if I feel like something is difficult, does that mean I'm not really that good at it--that I don't have a noteworthy ability or aptitude for it? Or does it mean that I am actually good at it because I'm trying to struggle through problems that others aren't willing or able to tackle? Or are the two completely independent, nothing to do with one another at all? [Something is difficult] AND/OR [I'm good at it or not good at it] but there is no causal relationship.

Mostly, though, instead of tackling the why and the self-analysis, I end up going through this list of things I like to do (or even things I don't like, just things I have to do or could do) and sort of checking them off, like, "Nope, I'm not all that great at that; oh, playing the ukulele? not so good at that; singing is fun but I'm really not that great at it; I could go back to working in a corporate environment but I'm not so great at stuff like meetings and getting to work on time and grown-up shit like that; I used to be pretty good at picking up languages but I don't think I am any more and hardly ever have time to practice;" and on and on.

So I decided to try to list a few things I am good at, to make myself feel a little better.

• I'm really amazingly good at sitting on the couch with a purring cat on my lap. Making the cats happy is something I can do.
• I can kick ass at cleaning out the refrigerator. In fact, I did that just yesterday. Now it's cleaner than it's been in many moons. (Of course, I don't know if this counts, since I was also at least partly responsible for failing to clean it for many moons...) 
• I'm generally pretty good at things related to our household food management: grocery shopping, putting the shopping away, cooking or otherwise assembling the food into yummy form.
• I am amazing at filing. You wouldn't really know this from the current state of *my* office, but while working as a temp, I once reorganized an entire file system for the City of Modesto Wastewater Treatment Facility--at least a half dozen large filing cabinets that had last been sorted sometime in the 1980s. In fact, that's how I met Joe Barretta, although he probably doesn't remember me. We had a long conversation about how he was taking his son to a Green Day concert.
• I am good at consuming mass quantities. 
• I am good at fading into the background (except in India, where I apparently stick out like a sore thumb--hence the many photo-ops people insisted on having with us).
• I am good at being quiet. Too good, sometimes. In fact, sometimes that quietness extends to this blog, for which I apologize, because I do go through vast epochs of silence from time to time.

 I will try to be less silent. Bust out of the box! We'll see how well I do...and whether "busting out of the box" is one of the things I'm good at, or one of the other things...

A Few Things I've Done While Dithering on my Revision

I'm supposed to be sitting here working on my revision of Underneath. Before actually doing so, however, I did the following:

• Updated the Recent Reads column on Guys Lit Wire
• Wandered throughout the house at least five times
• Did a 10-minute breathing meditation
• Futzed around on Facebook
• Updated my Goodreads
• Went in search of the perfect pen for taking revision notes
• Made a halfhearted attempt to tidy up the mail area
• Wrote this blog post

Damn, I am good...at procrastinating.

WFMAD Day 1: Getting In My Own Way

Today’s Prompt:  What things do you allow to get in the way of your writing? Be specific, detailed, and brutally honest.

Today is the first day of the Write Fifteen Minutes A Day Challenge. I'll be posting my fifteen minutes on this blog. I need to post here more (and I promised to do just that several weeks ago, after which I failed miserably to keep up with my promise). I need to do more regular writing and in order to both of these things I need to get over my fear of posting personal writing in public.

It's not just the normal fear of having other people read my writing. I always have that. You just get over it, more or less, or ignore it. It's the fear that nobody is going to care what I have to say. It's the fear that I'll regret having posted something too personal, that it will feel self-indulgent or too revealing. That I'll be boring. That not even my friends will care about what I write. That I compare unfavorably with other writers--I spend a lot of time comparing myself to others and coming up short. Hey, the prompt said to be brutally honest.

A lot of these same fears apply to my writing in general. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up planning to become a writer, didn't grow up knowing that was in my future, but I often feel like an impostor. I didn't think of myself as a writer, just someone who enjoyed writing stories on occasion.

So, yes, fear. Fear gets in the way of my writing--all kinds of fears. And really, when I think about all the other things that get in the way--procrastination, time management issues, failure to prioritize, not having time, not having energy--I begin to realize how many of the things that get in the way of my writing are related to fear, at least at some deep-down level. Fear that if I embrace being a writer, I'll cease to be an artist. Fear that my efforts will ultimately never live up to my expectations and hopes for myself. Fear that I'm not going to earn enough of a living simply by writing and making artwork. Fear that I don't have what it takes, that I'm not disciplined enough or devoted enough. Fear that I don't want this writing life enough, or that I want it too much.

I wish I were the type of person who could let go enough to embrace the artistic, creative life wholeheartedly. But I'm just not. I can't leave behind practical issues. Issues of money, of survival, of fairness in our household. There is a simple joy and relief at having a partner who understands what it is to be an artist at heart, because he also is one. But I also feel tension at the inherent inequity that results from one of us having the "real job," and I end up feeling like the opportunity to do my creative work is a luxury, rather than the gift that it is.

I need to give myself this gift once in a while.

48-Hour Book Challenge: One Book Many Brisbanes 6

Title: One Book Many Brisbanes 6 by Various Authors
Time: 3 hours 10 minutes
Total Time Reading: 7 hours 10 minutes
Total Books: 1.5
TIME TOTAL (Including Blogging/Networking Allowance): About 8 hours. SIGH.
Total to Donate to RIF: $10.00 (I'm rounding up.)

Notes: As I mentioned in the previous post, One Book Many Brisbanes is the 6th volume in a series of anthologies of short stories related to Brisbane, Australia, and the product of a short story competition put on by Brisbane City Council and Queensland Writers Centre. My half-sister in Australia sent me this one, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her hometown through the medium of fiction. You get a very different sense of a place when you read stories set there, stories in many voices, as opposed to a travelogue or memoir or Lonely Planet guide.

What really impressed me about this collection was its variety, and the fact that it was overall pretty solid for me in terms of quality and enjoyment; I find a lot of anthologies to be hit-or-miss, but there were few misses for me in this one. From post-WWI struggles to coping with modern-day floodwaters, from rural to city life, from aging actors to young punk rockers to Japanese exchange students, from plot-driven stories to character studies, this book reflects the diversity of life in a city that has grown and changed and yet retains a certain character, a certain flavor. And now that I've experienced it through fiction, I can't wait to actually see it in person. (We hope to visit within the next few years, if we can afford it.)

SO. To recap my 48-Hour Reading Challenge. I foresaw 2 days where I thought I could squeeze in at least 12 hours of reading. I was wrong. Emergencies materialized, my husband and cats somehow became more distracting than ever before, I was tired and cranky. Though I could wish for a better outcome in terms of actually sitting around and reading and putting in the hours, I am happy to have at least attempted to participate this year, and I've loved the support and encouragement of my co-participants and having the excuse to go look at a lot of blogs I haven't visited in a while.

And that's that.

48 Hour Book Challenge, Or How I Rekindled My Romance With This Blog

Hey, have you heard? I'm doing MotherReader's 48 Hour Book Challenge this year. It involves a LOT of reading and a lot of blogging, too, so I thought it would be just the thing to get myself going again with this blog, since I've been sadly neglecting it. I'll be reading mainly adult books during the 48-hour period, so this is really a better place to write about them anyway, rather than the YA blog.

In addition, this year, participants are being encouraged to sponsor ourselves for every hour read and donate the total amount (the hourly rate being up to us) to Reading Is Fundamental and their wonderful Book People Unite initiative. I will be donating $1 for every hour that I successfully read during the 48-hour period from Friday to Sunday...starting more or less NOW.


My goal is to actually make the 12-hour minimum to be competitive. I know a lot will come up during the 48 hours--it always does. So I think that's a realistic goal.


I'm starting off by finishing a book I started a couple of days ago (I know, lame, but I MUST FINISH IT). I plan to count that in my total time but NOT in my total books read except maybe as 50% of a book, since I'm about half done. Sorry, but it will drive me crazy if I put it aside. You'll find out more when I blog about it.


Right--off to leave my link at the official starting line.

Too Much Information

--commence infodump--

Today is International Women's Day. What are you going to do about the increasing disappearance of colossal megafauna? Drink 8 8-ounce glasses of water every day. Don't drink too much water during meals as it may upset your digestion; drink the water between meals instead. Don't ingest too much caffeine or you'll have trouble sleeping. Don't ingest too much alcohol or you'll have trouble sleeping. If you have trouble sleeping, try these other pills instead. Or meditate. Meditating can promote habits of mindfulness in your daily life and positive emotions like compassion and forgiveness. If you have trouble getting your thoughts to focus on loving kindness toward yourself, change your thoughts. If your thoughts focus too much on negative interpretations of events, change your thoughts. Your thoughts are not you. Also, too much telling is bad for your fiction writing. Too much description is also bad. Social networking can help increase traffic to your blog or website. But don't make your search engine optimization efforts too clumsy and overt. When Savonarola ruled Florence he perpetrated the Bonfire of the Vanities. You only need to know 3 chords to play "Rock This Town" by the Stray Cats on the ukelele. There is a cat version of Prozac and it is basically the same as regular Prozac. The giant Pacific garbage patch is not the only gigantic patch of decomposing plastic in the ocean. Boxwood hedges can smell like cat pee, and not necessarily because a cat peed there. Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Dick Dale, and Brian May started off as ukelele players before taking up the guitar. The Sassy Gay Friend stereotype is SO over. Dystopian fiction is also over. Or it's just getting started and will replace zombies, which were the new vampires. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. That line is from "Me & Bobby McGee," which was written by Kris Kristofferson, who has been a prolific songwriter as well as an actor. Oh, and there's going to be a Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover comic book.

--end infodump--

This glimpse into the chaotic inside of Sarah's brain was brought to you by Stress: Causing Insanity and Burnout in a Brain Near You.

My Jerk Boss

Over the past few days, I've come to an important realization. I've been thinking a lot about how burned out and exhausted I've been feeling, and it occurred to me that what I need is a mental health day. A MASSIVE mental health day.

This is something I wouldn't think twice about at a more everyday-type job with a regular employer. My boss wouldn't even have to know I wasn't really sick. Or, if your boss was cool, you could just tell them you need a personal day. But I work at home--self-employed--and apparently I am a really mean boss. I don't think twice about giving myself weekend work to do; I often force myself to work late into the night until it's time to go to bed; when Boss Me says "jump," Beleaguered Employee Me says "how high?"

And I'm a pretty good employee. Sure, I goof off now and then. Twitter appears on my monitor more often than it probably should. But I work hard. So I think I deserve a mental health day. I haven't had one in ages. So I started making a list of things I want to do on my mental health day: not a to-do list, because mental health days and to-do lists don't mix. Just a list of things I haven't really allowed myself to do in a long time--months, in many cases. And on my mental health day, if I'm wondering what I want to do--if, that is, I want to do anything other than being a TV-sated couch potato--I'll just consult the list. So far, I've got:

• play the Wii
• play the piano
• bake cookies
• read in the bathtub
• do a craft of some sort (perhaps going back to that knitting project I'm destined never to finish)

Anything remotely relating to or resembling work of any kind does not belong on the list. Even working on my new linoleum block print is not on the list (keyword there: "working"). Now comes the tricky part, though: figuring out when to "allow" myself the mental health day. I almost feel like if you have to schedule the mental health day more than a day or two in advance, it loses some of its power. But I do know it'll have to be soon--and I know I'll be happier (and probably more productive) in the long run because of it.

How about you? Had a mental health day recently? If not, why not? If so, what did you do with it?

HTML to Kindle: An Aggravation Odyssey

Today I spent several hours making a nifty HTML file of some recipes that I'd scanned out of an old cookbook and converted to text, and then had a hell of a time trying to get the email-to-Kindle service to accept my file. Allegedly, HTML files are JUST FINE, but it seemed like every time I sent it, I got an error message in return. I don't know how much of my aggravation was due to the fact that I had omitted a critical HTML tag and therefore my file would not convert no matter how many settings I twiddled, but I suspect probably most of it. Yes, that's right; it was probably user error.

Still, I'm going to note down the steps I took to get my scanned recipes into a format that looks, if I say so myself, rather nice on my Kindle, and even has a table of contents. Mainly, this is in case *I* forget how to do it later, but hopefully it's useful to someone else, too. I used so many random web pages to compile these instructions that it's not even funny, but Kindle Formatting was one of the most helpful.

First, though, a note on why I didn't just send the PDF straight to my Kindle. Well, I did. BUT the PDF viewer did all kinds of annoying things like auto-rotating and generally making it hard to read. So I tried cutting and pasting the OCR text from my PDF into a Word doc, and then converting that back to PDF, and putting it on the Kindle. It was...better, but I wasn't able to browse to locations, and the spacing was all messed up. So here's what I did that DID work, from beginning to end, in ten not-so-easy steps:

The Want-Tos and the Have-Tos

I had a great conversation this morning with a friend of mine, Brenda, who is in her 70s (I think; she's very energetic, so I'm not entirely sure) and recently had a hip replacement. We hadn't spoken in some time, but over the course of getting caught up, she told me that she's always found it difficult to get around to doing the things she really wants to do because she's so focused on getting done all the things that "have to" get done. She said that she feels like she has to tackle the "have to dos" before she can allow herself time for the things she wants to do.

I realized that I'm much the same way. I set all kinds of priorities, many of them arbitrary, and most of them woefully inattentive to what I would actually like to be doing. Ultimately, it seems to lead to stress about what I have to do, but what's worse, I get stressed out about what I *want* to do, too, so that even those things seem like a chore. Or they seem like an unattainable reward--unattainable because I feel like I'll never tackle the "have to dos" to my satisfaction.

I haven't figured out a solution to this yet. I suspect the answer lies in simply taking time for the things I want to do, and not worrying about it. Letting it go. This sounds so simple yet it's so difficult. Both parts of it are difficult. I even tend to feel I must prioritize my "want to dos"--I want to make new artwork, so that should take priority over playing a video game, practicing the piano, or (here's a brand-new one) knitting a hat with ear flaps, all of which I also want to do. (Here's one hat I'd love...probably too difficult for my rudimentary skills, especially if I want to make it big enough for me...)

And where does exercise fit? Is it a want-to or a have-to? If it's a have-to, is it more important or less important than, say, working on writing, or attending to my freelance work?

Questions like these rapidly cause me to spiral into completely unproductive paralysis, so clearly my current method of addressing the issue is inadequate.

At least I did manage, a couple of weeks ago, to take time to sit in on Rob's class and do some figure drawing. The first two images (sets of 3 drawings apiece) were done using only my thumb dipped in Speedball ink. The third image was done using a Tombow pen, plus a brush and water. Currently the Tombow pen is my nemesis; this was the only acceptable drawing I did that day with the pen.

I'm hoping I can use one of these sketches, or another sketch, for a new set of artworks that I'm rather excited about. They'll incorporate block printing, found text, and other mixed media alterations. Finding the time...that's the problem.

There Are Books, and Then There Are BOOKS

Some books, when I sit down to read them, are so impressive or intimidating or amazing that they make me never want to write again. They make me question my entire career decisionmaking process (not that that's too difficult). Obviously, that's my problem, though, not the books' problem. It's not the author's fault that they're so awesome—in fact, I'm sure they put a ton of work into it and deserve it. Anyway. There are other books, though, that, when I sit down and start reading them, make me excited in a different way—make me want to open my notebook or my word-processing program and start writing, too. They make me eager. They make me gleeful. I'm reading one of those now: Mad Love by Suzanne Selfors. I'm only a few pages in, but I'm getting that I-want-to-write-right-now feeling.

I'm not sure what the difference is, or even if there IS one—it could be as simple as a difference in mood on my own part. Or maybe it's that the writing resonates with me in some underlying way—the style? The tone? It's hard to say. It's not as though those books that make me want to give up entirely DON'T resonate; they do. But they usually, in some way, make me feel like they're "up there" at the top of some pinnacle of awesomeness, and I'm "down here" just trying to muddle along, and when such incredible works exist, why should I bother when I could never do half as well?

And of COURSE it isn't the case that the books which make me want to eagerly start writing are not also awesome books. They're great books, too. It's very hard to put my finger on what the difference is, which is why I guess I have to assume that it's me and not the books. Does this happen to anyone else? I can't help thinking that if I could figure out what the difference is, what it is that makes some books spark that need to write, maybe I'd realize something important (or at least interesting) about my own writing.

Writer's Block

One of my blogging friends recently talked about a corollary or, perhaps, expanded definition of writer's block that includes the difficult-to-ignore feeling that one's writing, to put it plainly, sucks. That the suckitude is all-encompassing and inescapable. And that feeling of suckitude keeps you from writing.

I'm very familiar with this species of writer's block. I guess if you're prone to it in the first place, it never really goes away. And I wonder how other people deal with it. Sometimes I have a deadline, so it's a matter of B.I.C. - Butt In Chair. I have to do it. It's my work and somebody needs to see it by a certain date. Then, it's like homework: there's just no getting out of it, and if it sucks, too bad. It still has to be done.

Other times I spend days or weeks in a funk; that seems to be my preferred M.O. I eventually get over it and want to write again; eventually get to the point where I'm willing to risk the suckitude. Why? How? Who knows? I guess because ultimately creating stuff is the only thing I really want to do, no matter how hard it is or how much it sucks sometimes. I can't help it. It's just what I'm meant to be. Nothing else will do.

The Creative Person's List of Laments

….Because we creative people have the amazing magical power to create neuroses out of thin air!

I may not be as helpful or clever as Merlin Mann, but hopefully this is reasonably entertaining. I enjoyed writing it, although I'm vaguely embarrassed at how many of these neuroses—er, laments—I have personally indulged in on repeated occasions.

So You've Got a Bouncing Baby...Whatever That Is 

1. I'm not even sure this is a very good idea in the first place. Perhaps I: am getting old / killed too many brain cells in [insert college name here] / should have been a [insert more lucrative career here]. (select all that apply)

2. I'm never possibly going to finish [project title].

3. I'm never going to finish revising / perfecting [project title].

Once Your Project Is Done. Or IS it? 

4. Is it really done? Maybe I should just tweak this word / sentence / line / stray pencil mark.

5. It's not done. I never should have sent it off to that literary magazine / editor / agent / contest / juried show.

6. Another rejection? I'll never find an agent / a gallery / a publisher. (See #1. Repeat as needed.)

Break Glass In Case of Unexpected Non-Rejection 

7. They're never going to like it as is. They're going to ask me to completely recreate my drawing / painting / sculpture / main character / plot. 

8. Nobody's going to read / notice / like my book / poetry / artwork.

9. My work will never be as good as [insert name of more talented and accomplished colleague] or [name of ridiculously successful professional in prime of career].

10. The reviews and sales figures will only prove my unsuitability for this career / lack of creative ability / mediocrity / insanity.

When It's All Over...Lather, Rinse, Repeat. And thank your lucky stars you're doing this instead of anything else in the world.

Behind on Life.

Ever feel like you're falling behind on life? That's me, right now. I just managed to post something on the YA blog and realized that was only the tip of the iceberg as far as blogging is concerned--I've been neglecting this one, my Welsh blog, and the reviews blog, mostly through the flimsiest of excuses. Too much work? Ah, c'mon. That's never stopped me before.

I do have too much work, though. I'm caught in another downward spiral of inferiority feelings and self-recrimination for a) failing to publish any fiction this year, b) failing to garner enough paid work to feel like I'm contributing adequately to the household, c) actually losing some paid work for various reasons, and d) still managing to have way too much on my plate to reasonably accomplish in the time available to me. How does this happen??!!?

Anyway, wallowing makes me even less likely to blog, as does the fact that at any given moment I'm actually either working or attempting to force relaxation upon myself by reading or watching TV (and I'm usually not able to do these very well when I'm worrying about what I'm not getting done). But for you, my wonderful and loyal posse of readers (all five of you), I will stop wallowing. I will get to work. And when I finish working, I will blog you into oblivion. (Whatever that means.)

Downstream

It almost didn't begin at all.

We packed up the car, bought beer and snacks at the grocery store and tucked them safely in coolers, and drove an hour and a half to Rancho Cordova. That part went as planned.

At Rossmoor Bar, the landing point, we met up with David, our kayaking guitar-virtuoso friend, and parked our car. Then Rob and I piled ourselves and the food into David's Jeep, which was already loaded with our inflatable raft, paddles, life vests, and David's kayak on the roof. On to Upper Sunrise (I think) where we kicked in the four-wheel drive and parked on the gravel road next to the river. There were only a few other people parked there, unlike at the height of the summer. We unloaded everything onto the riverbank, and unrolled the raft, only to realize that we had failed to pack the raft plugs. Plugs are these handy items that allow you to effectively inflate the raft and keep it from deflating.

Feeling like jackasses, we drove about eight minutes back out of the park to the raft and kayak store, which, luckily for us, was open on a Sunday. We bought plugs. We drove back into the park (hooray for all-day passes) and pulled up to our chosen spot yet again, passing deer and wild turkeys as we meandered along the road.

This time, the launch was a go. We took turns spraying on sunblock and inflating the raft with the battery-powered pump, and then tossed the three small coolers into the back. David was sporting a new life vest, helmet, and kayak, because he received $1000 of kayak store credit for saving a guy's life earlier in the summer. Meanwhile, we were sporting the nifty Intex boat that we got brand new on eBay a couple of summers ago. And off we went.

The weather was beautiful: in the 80s and sunny, hardly a cloud to be seen. The water level was a bit low, and the water itself a bit cold, as usual--that happens when it's mountain runoff. In midsummer heat, it's refreshing. Late summer...well, we didn't do any swimming this time. Mostly we floated slowly downriver, drinking beer and eating cold fried chicken, bananas, and pita chips. David tested out his new kayak. We all tested it out a little--my first time in a kayak. I went in a lot of circles. It turns out you don't have to paddle very hard in a kayak compared to a raft.

Not that we paddled much in the raft; a bit more than usual because the current was very slow, and we had to be a little more careful to avoid rocks because of the lower water level. At times I felt like a gondolier, poling the boat with the paddle, the river was so shallow in spots. We saw minnows, crayfish, herons, egrets (which, as it turns out, make horrible noises), vultures, and a dead salmon. Earlier in the summer, we saw otters.

We stopped at our usual "play spot" for a rest, and skipped stones. Now my arm hurts. No professional stone-skipper am I. I can usually get at least two bounces, though; sometimes up to four.

Between the three of us, we managed to polish off a 12-pack of Heineken Light (the choice of canned beer at the store was limited, and they don't allow glass on the river any more) and two tallboys of Sapporo in about 3 and a half hours. The problem is, we're of the philosophy that "we brought all that beer with us; now we HAVE to finish it!" It's like a challenge, or some bizarre beer-related guilt trip.

And so went our last (probably) rafting trip of this year. I just hope we remember to hose all the fried chicken crumbs out of the bottom of the boat before we pack it away for next summer.

Oh no, I'm in the B-52s!

Oh. Wait. Scratch that. I'm a B-52.

What military aircraft are you? B-52 Stratofortress You're a B-52. You are old and wise, and you absolutely love destruction. You believe in the principle of "peace through deterrence" and aren`t afraid to throw your weight around.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Kudos to Liz B for one of the strangest quizzes I've ever taken. I think my results may have been affected by the fact that I said fascism was the most effective form of government (given the choice between communism, fascism, and "pure" democracy). Dude, it's an honest answer - they didn't ask what was the BEST form of government, or the most noble. You gotta admit, when you oppress an entire population and bend them to your will, it's pretty damn effective.

Facebook Follies

Let me say this right now: I am not one of those people who will add people to my Facebook friends list willy-nilly. I don't ask every person on my friends' friend lists, and I generally only accept friend invitations if I actually know you--that is, if we've worked together, or we've been friends at some point in the past or present, or if I've communicated with you regularly in some capacity. Since this includes a rather wide range of people, including my online and blogging friends, I have a decent-sized friends list.

However: even if we have something in common such as going to school together or having friends in common, I might not add a person on that basis alone. And I surely am not going to add someone whom I remember but didn't actually like.

This is what happened to me this past week. I get a friend request from somebody whose name seems vaguely familiar. We don't have any friends in common, but out of curiosity I click on their profile. It turns out, yes, the person went to my high school, as I was starting to suspect. Then, the more I thought about it, I realized that yes, I did recognize the person's name, and, what's more, I couldn't stand 'em.

In fact, the one extended conversation I even remember having with this person was a rather confrontational one about religious beliefs. As I recall, they were the ones to bring the topic up in the first place, in an argumentative fashion. Since I generally follow the attitude that religion and politics are no-nos in polite conversation--and did even in high school, though I was more willing to debate politics at that point--this was clearly not a situation I was happy to be in. From what I remember, this person started asking me about my religious beliefs. I told them, well, I'm kinda sorta Catholic (which was true at the time). The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Teenage Zealot: Oh. Catholics aren't really Christian. They don't even believe in the Bible.
Me: Yeah, they do--they just don't always take the Bible literally.
TZ: Well, they should take the Bible literally. Anyway, it doesn't matter, since you're all going to go to hell anyway.
Me (having entirely lost patience): Well, half my family is Muslim and Islam says that Christians are all going to hell, so I guess I'll see you there.

Oh snap. Admittedly that's a pretty weak retort, but it was all I could come up with on the spur of the moment at the age of, I think, fifteen. Witty comebacks have never been my specialty, despite reading all the Mad Magazine Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.

So, yeah. Needless to say, I did not accept this person's friend request. Getting the request in the first place was a sort of WTF moment, unless they just don't remember who I am and...are maybe adding people willy-nilly.

It's About Time, Eh?

Yep, I finally put up some new blog graphics. I don't quite want to say I "redesigned" the blog, since all I did was replace the preset template graphics with my own (taken from a segment of a painting I did a while ago, which I then fiddled with in Photoshop). But it has a new look, put it that way. Not new enough to have to change all the text colors--I didn't have THAT much time on my hands.

Wanna know why I didn't have that time? Because I signed up for Twitter. Hooray for yet another goofy time-wasting activity! Hooray for yet more bombardment of the interwebs with my daily trivialities! MY MANY YAWN-INDUCING MINUTIAE WILL BE THE DOWNFALL OF SOCIETY! BWAHAHAHAHA!!! PREPARE TO BE BORED! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

By the way, if you want to read any of the yawn-inducing minutiae, I put a widget in the sidebar. Why am I so unproductive today? One reason is I'm unmotivated and bummed because I lost a design client a few days ago--evidently it just wasn't working out and I wasn't giving Client X what they wanted, though I was a) doing exactly what they asked for and b) doing it for a much lower price than I normally charge. Oh well. So I decided I should spend time on non-work-related activity, though I did put up a few book reviews, which I guess is technically work-related.

Oh. I'm also bummed because I gained five pounds for no apparent reason, and they haven't gone away yet. I'm hoping it's five pounds of muscle, but in case it's not, I'm going to go hop on the exercise bike now. Okay. Now I'm considering worst-case scenarios and hoping I don't have a five-pound tapeworm.

A Change in the Daily Routine

So, time was, not too long past, I was all excited about this service called Blogarithm, that would e-mail a daily digest of all my subscribed blog updates straight to my inbox. It was convenient, although it was getting a bit daunting, to be able to peruse the digest at my leisure. I was starting to think about switching to Google Reader just because it's easier to mark things as read, to look through some blogs but not others, etc. And I'm already a Google whore in terms of my use of other Google products, so it seemed only natural.

This past week, when Blogarithm was bought out by RSSFWD, I realized that the time to switch to Google Reader had come. How did I know this? By the fact that my daily digest started looking like crap. Sorry, RSSFWD, but it's just not working out. You cannot send me a digest in which every single link is in a numbered footnote at the bottom of the message. No, no, no.

So today marks the official completion of the changeover, complete with an enormous number of new subscriptions--especially to kidlitosphere blogs that I hadn't quite gotten around to subscribing to before. I hope to be able to spend my blog-reading time more effectively now. It was a source of frustration, let me tell you.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

This is really a continuation of a blog post I put up over at the YA blog, answering the question of what I was doing watching the Sci-Fi channel in the middle of the day today. Well, I needed to listen to something while washing the dishes and doing a couple of other mindless tasks, but also, I've somehow acquired a guilty pleasure. Somewhere along the line, I started watching a really stupid program called Ghost Hunters. I don't watch it religiously or anything, but I've caught at least 10 episodes by now. This mostly happens when I'm washing dishes or cooking or doing something else in the kitchen, and for some reason, when nothing else appeals to me I will gravitate towards Ghost Hunters.

It's really a sort of soap opera "documentary" series about a "team" of paranormal "investigators" from The Atlantic Paranormal Society ("TAPS"!). They get dispatched by their leader, who appears to have a few more IQ points than the rest of the group, to try to prove or disprove reports of paranormal activity in houses, hotels, etc. They bring a whole array of infrared cameras and sound recording devices and flux capacitors and holy water and so forth, and then they sit up all night attempting to get recorded proof of ghosts or voices or whatever. Sometimes they even perform an "exorcism."

And I honestly don't know why I watch it. It's not particularly exciting. Of course they mostly don't find whatever ghost the homeowner was going on and on about, and when they do find something, you have to doubt the validity of their research methods. It's full of totally forced interpersonal tension--The Dude Who Never Takes Anything Seriously! The Unreliable Agent Who Might Get Fired! The New Guy! Yet still...I watch it sometimes. I try to tell myself it's because I might be interested in writing ghost stories, or historical mysteries, or some such likely excuse, but I just don't know what it is. I've never personally seen a ghost. I don't particularly believe in them. I'm not afraid of them, with the exception of the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man and his cronies. (Just kidding. Well, maybe not entirely--I was only 7 when that movie came out.) Maybe I'm just bored. Maybe there are certain brain cells I'm trying to kill off. I just don't know.

Tienes Huevos?

So, apparently we live a scant twenty minutes' drive from the Cowboy Capital of the World. Amazing. We're sandwiched between modern civilization and a place where they hold an annual Testicle Festival. Nope, I shit you not. These are the types of things I find out by editing the Convention & Visitors Bureau newsletter, and sometimes...well, sometimes I wish I didn't know.

Although I do find the logo rather amusing, I'm distressed by the assertion that "it's a cowboy tradition, eating these all-beef nuggets." All-beef nuggets!! Marinated overnight in wine, basil and garlic, breaded and deep-fried! I think I'd almost rather go to the Chinese restaurant I saw in Albany (CA, not NY) that served chicken uteri.