lydamorehouse: (renji wedding)
Yeah, that's kind of all I wanted to say: CHECK OUT MY NEW ICON! Of course, in that dress, a few more of Renji's tattoos would show, but who cares, because THIS IS SO F*CKING AWESOME. Thank you, Frank Gosar! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

In other news, [livejournal.com profile] naomikritzer, [livejournal.com profile] haddayr and I spoke at the Regional MENSA meeting yesterday. Naomi says of it: http://naomikritzer.livejournal.com/271725.html.

Mine was like that, only without the need for a PSA. Although I didn't spill coffee on myself right before public speaking, Shawn and I did have a kerfuffle over a painting project that I'd neglected for a long time. So, I wasn't in the best head space either, and we had to rely on Haddayr to be the brains. Luckily, she has enough to cover all three of us.

I did, however, kind of wake up at the very end of the panel discussion to completely jump down the throat of an older guy in the audience who ended up asking this question, "Where were your grandmothers? When I was reading science fiction it was the golden age: Isaac Asimov, Heinlien, etc. I can only only remember a few women--"

I interrupted him right there and said, "Perhaps you've heard of this thing called 'sexism'?"

Where was my grandmother? WTF. Seriously? My father's mother was cleaning houses and lamenting the fact she only had a fourth grade education. My mother's mother was cooking and supporting her family as a widow. It wasn't until the invention of the pill that women of MY MOTHER'S GENERATION finally had the reproductive freedom to even CONSIDER the luxury of writing science fiction for chrissake! And YET, despite all those barriers, SCIENCE FICTION WAS INVENTED BY A WOMAN: MARY SHELLEY.

So f*ck you!

My response, I'll note, was only a little more measured and thoughtful.

But, I did finish painting the hallway. It looks great in "castle path." The ceiling (which was the original project) still needs doing, but we'd been meaning to do this hallway for a long, long time. I didn't take any pictures, because I'm not sure you could tell the difference any more.

Tomorrow, I may post the pictures of the beautious and delicious brunch I made today which included: fresh homemade cinnamon swirl bread, eggs, and sage sausage patties.

Anyway, great icon, neh? LOVE IT!!
lydamorehouse: (more renji art)
Last night Mason had a sleepover at a friend's house. They don't have school today because it's parent/teacher conference time, so said-friend invited a bunch of boys over for a birthday party/sleepover. At any rate, this meant that Mama and I got to have a date night.

The last couple of times Shawn and I tried to plan something even vaguely elaborate like going out to dinner or having people over, Shawn got horribly sick (once with the stomach bug and once with a migraine). So I told her, let's not plan anything. Let's just see where the night takes us. So, the night took us to watching BOURNE LEGACY on DVD, which I have to say is the single worst example of storytelling possibly of all time. I'm probably exaggerating because I'm sure something is worse. However, this one really stuck out because it seemed like there were several things that could have been done to fix it fairly easily. I feel like no one told the filmmakers that basic rule of storytelling: start with action. If they'd started with the cabin in the woods scene (a little character set-up) and then blown the thing up, and let OUR HERO figure out that his own people are trying to exterminate the entire super-soldier program that ONE CHANGE ALONE would have made a huge difference. Also a little "show don't tell." If the big conflict we're supposed to sympathize with our hero over is him "running out of brains" then we need to see the HORRIFYING CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT THAT MEANS.

As it was it was jumbled and confusing, and thus ulimately boring because I couldn't care less about what was at stake for our hero or the love interest.

The love interest, at least, got to have the single LEAST sympathy-inducing line of all time. When our hero is explaining why he has to take the risk to go to the next place (keep in mind he's a killer who has been losing bits of his soul with each murder he does as a tool to the system that spawned him) she starts sobbing, "You don't understand. You probably don't care, but I've made sacrifices too. I couldn't publish! I couldn't CONFERENCE!!"

Shawn and I actually laughed so hard we had to rewind. I would have ADORED this film to pieces if the Bourne-stand-in hero dude would have shot her at that point. Because, seriously, this is your big sacrifice? You couldn't watch the power point presentations! You couldn't get the tote bag! The college coffee mug! The per diem!! Don't you understand I didn't get the cheap cheeses at the meet-and-greet!!?? I missed out on the inside snark fest of Academia!!

As someone who is the child of a professor, I do actually GET that colleagues and publishing and conferencing is one of the big perks of the job. But would you really whine about it to a professional killer whose GENES you manipulated as part of your "research"?

Did I mention she was living in a gorgeous Victorian on a 100 acre lot?

But she COULDN'T CONFERENCE, people!!! Don't you feel her sacrifice!?

Okay, all my professor friends. Feel free to tell me I shouldn't mock. I mean, how would I feel if I could never attend a science fiction convention again? Hmmmm, yeah, still I'm not feeling the HUGENESS of that. Sorry.

In other news, I continue to be a weirdo. I know. Alert the media, right? I say this because yesterday afternoon Shawn had a hair appointment in Edina at the "Hair Police." I always wait for her at a nearby Starbucks. There, I overheard a barista talking about how Nikolai Tesla invented "I mean, like, everything, man. EVERY-thing." I had to at least support him to his friends who didn't seem to have ever HEARD of Tesla, but then we got into an argument about genuis and insanity.

I have to admit this is a personal pet peeve of mine. I kind of hate that trope because I think that it makes creative people afraid of the medication they need to be stable and healthy. I think that stability and (financial, emotional, societal) support is what artists, writers and inventors need much, much more than teh crazy.

Being a weirdo I think is a fine requirement for the creative life. Being ctually medically crazy? Nope.

I'm pretty sure the people at Starbuck thought I was nuts. I mean, this is Minnesota, not New York! Not only did I barge into a conversation with strangers, but then I argued with them! Werid-O! :-)
lydamorehouse: (Default)
So, I'm feeling a bit nobody-loves-me whiny today afer reading this aritcle via [livejournal.com profile] davidlevine because I suck (in my Tate persona) at the whole contest, games, downloadable extra thing. And, of course, my Lyda Morehouse website is, and has always been full of that sort of thing, since its inception and it did NOT help my books stay in print at all. Which goes to show you that, really, not much helps when it comes to self-promotion. I have hardly lifted a finger to promote Tate, and she's wildly out-sold anything I did under my own name.

This makes me weirdly grumpy.

I'm jealous of myself.

However, I did find this bit of information kind of telling in a way that the article doesn't really explore: "[Stephanie Meyer of "Twilight" fame, whose website is currently the most visited of any of the fiction authors they studied,] [has] got a daily blog, and more than any other site in our study, she has links to fan sites. Fan site links appear to contribute to loyal audience traffic."

Of course, this is NEWS to the publishing industry. The rest of us say, "Duh."

It also amused me that the authors of this article appeared surprised that people liked seeing pictuers of Sue Grafton's cats. To which I also say, "where have you people been? This is like internet 101."

Anyway, enough of that. I could probably rant about the publishing industry until my head exploded, and then where would I be? I have no brain and a lot of cleaning up to do. We can't have that, now can we?

Yesterday I wrote about 1,000 words on Tate's young adult series, which (if I may complain just a BIT more) flipping writes itself. I mean, seriously. I sit down with the laptop and an hour later I have a whole chapter. It's insane. And more than a little frustrating (see above and the being jealous of your own alter ego). Meanwhile, I'm still trying to decide what I want to do with the Mouse prequel. I like my do-over, but I'm still lacking direction. Alas, even when it sucks, my writers group perfers the Mouse stuff because it's at least science fiction, even if it's BAD science fiction....

In food news, my friend Barb came over with some of their CSA extras, so now we're well stocked on greens and radishes again. Hmmmm, a salad for lunch anyone?? Mason and I decided to be mischevious last night and we went out to dinner at the Chinese buffet on University Avenue that's just about four blocks from our house. Despite the crushing heat (and few measily drops of rain), we walked, which was actually surprisingly pleasant. Then [livejournal.com profile] seanmmurphy stopped by for an evening chat on the porch, which was lovely (although Mason had a hard time putting himself to sleep, and didn't end up in bed until almost 10 pm, which is astoundingly late for him on a school night.) Still, we slept in until almost 8 am this morning since we didn't have to talk mama to work, and so I think it mostly evened out.

Despite Shawn being in D.C. I managed to remember to pack Mason's lunch AND give him is backpack, which I think is pretty amazing. Then, I went to work out, though I did forget my cell phone at home, but I remembered to write down my first ten random .mp3 songs to share on a Facebook meme sent to me by John Jackson. Keep in mind these are my work out .mp3s, so they're mostly stuff I chose because it's "dancable."

1. "Hands Clean" by Alanis Morisette
2. "One Reason" by Tracy Chapman
3. "Stray Cat Strut" by the Stray Cats
4. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something
5. "Dragula" by Rob Zombie
6. "Rack 'em Up" by Johnny Lang
7. "Silent Legacy" by Melissa Etheridge
8. "Bang Go the Bells" by Babylon A.D.
9. "Paved Paradise" remix by Counting Crows
10. "Tangled, Tortured Hearts" by the Dixie Chicks

I have another list of music that's on my more extended .mp3 player that probably much more accurately expresses the horrible, yet ecclectic musical taste I have, and it goes like this:

1. "Angola Bound" by Aaron Neville
2. "They Can't Take That Away from Me" by Billie Holliday
3. "Captain of the Nightengale" by Stan Rogers
4. "Suds in the Bucket" by Sara Evans
5. "December" by George Winston
6. "Pour Me" by Trick Pony
7. "Belfast Town" by Irish Anon
8. "Hunger Strike" by Temple of the Dog
9. "Goodbye Again" by John Denver
10. "Mrs. Steven Rudy" by Rascal Flats

Uh, yeah. That me.

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