Tempered Thoughts

I believe I may have outsmarted the spammers. For the moment. By installing one of those word recognition typing thingies. Sorry for the inconvenience to the living humans who comment.

• The bleeding hearts shady shade plants that were crushed by huge pallet full of deck redoing fake wood last summer and I thought were dead dead dead but which came back this year. Even the one that was puny. Though it's still puny.
• Coming across books I've already read in the 50 books poc journal (such as Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi) and realizing that while my reading pattern is pretty white, it's not completely white, and that's before I start intentionally seeking more diverse reading!
• Sunshine.
• My leather jacket (sorry, vegans).
• The way my daughter plays "Ode to Joy" on the piano.
• Empanadas.
• One Password.
• Yes, you're alive songs: "Leeds United" by Amanda Palmer, "Karma Slave" by Splashdown, "Walk the Walk" by Poe, "Up to the Roof" by Blue Man Group, "Flowers" by They Might Be Giants.
• Newfound stability in poses like Utthita Trikonasana.
• Coloring and drawing with Sophia.
• Local Taizé services.

What gives you joy?

I have too many tabs open. Most of them were things I intended to post here.

On your mark, get set, go!

Videos:
• The trailer for the gorgeous, wonderful "Surreal Guide to Botany"
• The awesome Amanda Palmer, giving us all a Christmas gift: "What's the Use Of Wond'rin'?"
• Ok, so who am I kidding. There's no way one Amanda Palmer video is enough, so here's "Leeds United" aka the Belly Incident Video.
• An insightful interview of Derren Brown conducted by Richard Dawkins (link is to part 1 of 6. They're all worth watching, though.)
• Hilarious post-election Get Your War On video. Yeah, I know, it's been a while. But you know what? Still funny. "America's new flag is just a white flag, but there's a picture of a burning American flag on it." and "Dude, he's Muslim, that's how we do!"
• Coolest Theremin EVER. I hope I can get my husband to make one of these.
• New Coraline trailer! New Coraline trailer! New Coraline trailer! Man, I totally need to get on the ball if I'm going to read Sophia the book before the movie comes out.

Miscellaneous:
• Interesting word test. Fun to take, though it does require some endurance and even my prodigious attention span flagged a bit about 170 words in or so. I did ok, though I don't trust the claimed score percentile to IQ correspondence.
• The Graveyard Book won the Newbery! Neil Gaiman didn't swear! (like he did when he got the Hugo).

Stories I kept planning to recommend in my story recommendation posts and never got around to. But I want a clean slate, so here they are in a glut:
• In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection by Caitlín R. Kiernan. This is a gorgeous, wonderful story. It's everything I love about Kiernan. I can't quite understand why her King Kong story won year's best in Clarkesworld's reader poll instead of this one, which I think is so much better.
• Rampion in the Belltower by Merrie Haskell. Because happy ever after fairytales are better with zombies.
• Watermark by Michael Greenhut. My favorite thing out of Fantasy magazine in ages and ages. I always read, but I'm usually disillusioned. This one works for me.

I believe I am more susceptible to meme transmission from Transylvanian Dutch than from anyone else. Don't get me wrong, he passes along plenty that I don't bother with, but so do most people. But sometimes I get snagged and sucked in, and for whatever reason, it's usually from one of his.

Here's the meme (as copied from his blog):

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me. It will be about or tailored to those five lucky “victims.”

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
• I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
• what I create will be just for you.
• it’ll be done this year
• you have no clue what it’s going to be. It may be a poem or story. I may make something all craft-y like. It could even be a CD. (altering the original to add: or a bathbomb!)
• I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this on your site as well, if you expect me to do something for you!

Remember, chime in, and be forced to participate in your own playground!

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

That's what I'm talking about! It's about time. Thank you, sir, for saying so. You have my full support.

I've always liked the Babylon 5 intro, where Sheridan (I think it's Sheridan, anyway) says "It was the year of fire... the year of destruction... the year we took back what was ours. It was the year of rebirth... the year of great sadness... the year of pain... and the year of joy. It was a new age. It was the end of history. It was the year everything changed. The year is 2261. The place: Babylon 5." Pretty epic, no?

Well I'm not really living an epic here, but I'm looking for a brief way to sum up 2008, so I'm going to steal that format, as a reference for what happened, which I'll be dropping here for the future.

It was the year:

• of Guitar Hero and of the Wii Fit
• of DIY detergent and the new HE washer
• of many pictures (over 2800! here's the first of the year: and here's the last: )
• of finding a decent King Cake in St. Louis, and of the brawl with Oz
• of the cubbies, built by Kurt for Sophia's room
• of the eclipse, observed from our front door
• of music for Sophia (she performed a flute duet in church and started piano lessons in late August).
• of Disneyworld, of Sophia's first time at the beach
• of the new Ford Focus, to replace the sadly defunct Cougar
• of the nonos coming to stay for a while
• of pneumonia
• of Sophia playing a flower in a play based on Alice in Wonderland (though she wanted to be Alice, because, as she said, she had the right hair)
• of pierced ears, and the bike that she still cannot ride, and the Snip-Its glamour party
• of fairy ears, and princess camp
• of learning to eat honeysuckle from the bushes in the backyard
• of Chocolatier:Secret Ingredients, Spore and Battle of Wesnoth
• of driving to Texas for Fourth of July
• of Blue Mountain Camp in the Fall and being Nastia Lukin for Halloween (even though the only Olympic events watched in this household were soccer matches)
• of electrotango and Amanda Palmer
• of joining book club, and of making the 52 book challenge (finally!)
• of the new deck and porch
• of finally giving in and getting on FaceBook
• of bad teeth
• of publication, at long last (x2)
• of two sales, doubling the number from 2007
• of learning to make bath bombs
• of playing assistant in the Montessori classroom
• of gorgeous hair ornaments
• of Christmas for the birds
• of MySims and Lego Star Wars
• of rollerskating for the first time, and getting roller skates for Christmas
• of a New Year's Eve murder party
• of learning to make soup, and wishing I'd known how years ago

All in all, a pretty good year.

I'm published! Again! I know, crazy, who'd think it could happen twice? I'm also a little behind on giving notice here. I updated my facebook when my piece came out on December 4 and it seemed like enough preening at the time. With Christmas season stuff revving up, I've not had time to also update here until now. This week in particular has been insanely busy, with extracurricular stuff every single night so far, and more to come.

At any rate, I'm published in a fabulous market: Escape Pod. A dream market, actually, so I can tick off one on my checklist of places where I wish to see my work appear. You may listen to my flash piece, The Way Before absolutely free of charge, distributed on a creative commons license (because we at "Tempered Thoughts" heart creative commons!). If you're not familiar with Escape Pod and are interested in Science Fiction audio, allow me to recommend some episodes that are among my favorites:

• Episode 99: Start the Clock by Benjamin Rosenbaum.
• Episode 131: Hesperia and Glory by Ann Leckie.
• Episode 157: A Small Room in Koboldtown by Michael Swanwick.
• Episode 175: Reparations by Merrie Haskell.
• Escape Pod Flash Fiction Contest, 2nd Place winner: Skyscrapers by Rachel Swirsky.

One thing that posting this so late allows me to do is to note how super pleased I am by one of the comments that a poster wrote on the entry for my piece. John posted he had a sudden realization at the end, and his realization is completely right and I now believe what I've heard other writers say, which is that whether someone likes what you write or not, when they GET it you feel so gratified. Dude, you got it, and I feel great about that! Mild spoilers in his comment, if a 300 word flash piece can be spoiled, so listen before you read if you intend to listen.

A word of advice to those of you who are personal friends and family of mine. It is ok (no, better than ok, ideal really) to simply say "Congratulations." You do not have to pretend to like what I write. You do not have to criticize what I've published, and be fair or objective about it. The time for fixing the piece's flaws is long past, so you might forbear pointing them out, since plenty of people are available for that, and they aren't people I need support from, as you are. You can elect to simply rejoice in victory with me. I encourage that! For the record, if you say you read it, but don't say you like it, then it's quite obvious to me how you felt about it. So instead of carefully avoiding praising my work, if you disapprove of it, simply say "Congratulations on getting published", ok? I promise not to put you in the uncomfortable position of pressing you on your opinion, or even asking if you heard the story. Thanks!

Last but not least, in honored Scalzi tradition, you may use the comment thread of this entry to point out the cool stuff you or your friends are doing all across the web. Links encouraged! Let me start you off by pointing you to my niece performing "Silent Night". She can seriously sing. Listen to my story, and her passionate singing, and post cool links, as the spirit moves you.

So do you remember about eight or nine years ago, when I was obsessed with bhangra music? Oh, right, that was before I had a blog. Some of you have known me for that long, though, and know what I'm talking about. Anyway, for you newcomers, I went through this phase where I was totally obsessed with bhangra. My daughter's Sanskrit middle name is a gift of that era. I finagled my way into an Indian wedding reception just to hear the stuff and dance. It was awesome. I still love it, even though I'm not obsessed with it the way I used to be.

Now I'm completely obsessed with electrotango instead. I mean, yeah, this makes a little more sense than my earlier bhangra obsession because tango originates in a place I've lived and a quick check at my last.fm tells you I listen to Thievery Corporation more than anything else except TMBG, and I've liked Gotan Project for some time as well. But I didn't know there was more than Gotan Project. I thought Gotan Project was an outlier, a lone band kind of doing its own thing. Turns out there's a whole genre there! And I LOVE it.

So in the last month, I've been listening to tag radio on last.fm. A tag radio is a series of tracks that have all been tagged by users with the same tag. It's a good way to get a solid mood listen, when you need a certain consistency in what you're listening to. Or when you're obsessed with a certain sound.

The tag I've been listening to is electrotango. I LOVE this stuff with intense singlemindedness. Tanghetto, Bajofondo, Supervielle, Federico Aubele, Bulevard Tango Club, San Telmo Lounge...I could (and do) listen to it all day. I wish I'd known to look for this stuff when I was in Buenos Aires last year.

The electrotango radio was in heavy rotation during the composition of both "Kenosis" and "Mi Buenos Aires Querido" and I believe they are better stories for having that musical backdrop. "Kenosis" in particular has been liked by almost every critiquer who has read it, and that sort of thing never happens to me. By and large, my stories are not well-liked, and never universally. (Some might wonder why, in light of that, I continue to write them, but that would be a question for another day. This is not the writing angst post. This is the electrotango is fantastic post).

The pinnacle of my obsession is "Perfume" by Supervielle. If you have a Last.fm account you can hear it; it's one of their free tracks. I love the lyrics, so dramatic and intense. You can rely on "Like water seeks thirst" being a blog title at some point. Listen, do you hear the tango? The sea? It sounds like Buenos Aires, that weird mix of nostalgia and anticipation: the wind and the water and the memories. Say it: "el impulso antiguo y sutil del eco de tu perfume". Feel it in your mouth. It's totally lovely and wonderful to say.

Right, I did say I was obsessed?

Ok, a music post deserves a scorekeeping update:

• 2 points Sunjunkie
• 2 points Jerm
• 6 points Lanfaedhe
• 2 points Dave Lartigue

WTG, Lanf, leaving all the other participants in the dust! But it's not too late for folks to catch up, so keep playing.

If you're wondering what the scoring is about, I give two points to the first person who comments with the line following on the one I give in my blog post title, when my titles are lyrics (which is often, though sadly, not today). There are unclaimed entries since I started the game back in July, if you'd like to dig through the archives and play along. Some day there will be a prize. I don't know what and I don't know when, yet. But it will be fabulous, in the style of the prizes awarded in Dave Lartigue's leaf bag contest. I promise. (BTW, Dave, you are the first link under a google search of leaf bag contest. You must be so proud!)

Be very, very quiet. There's an actual story unfolding in my head. I thought it was just a flash thing, but it's trying to be bigger than 1k words and trying to have more than one scene. When I went down to eat lunch it pestered me to jot things down on paper. I know, paper! How peculiar, that urgency, and the paper has a green broccoli stain on it because I was eating. I haven't been inside a story like this for quite some time. I'd forgotten how absorbing and delightful it is. I'm not taking back any of the good things I said about teaching or anything, but yeah, love this part of writing. Seven different things collided in my head and then poof there was a story place with a story in it and I was also standing nearby.

Here's the (mostly uninspiring, subject to change) first line, because I feel like I got to give you something for reading this far: "The class has eleven students in it on the first day it meets." Yes, there's a countdown, how clever of you to notice. And yeah, I know, present tense. How funny, right? I reserve the right to change it, but it's working for the time being. Maybe because it's 'in conversation', as Bujold would say, with horror? I dunno. I'm not sure whether anyone dies yet.

I'm sorry I haven't written here. There was dentist and elections and various and sundry schedule cluttered things, but mostly I've been mad busy the last week being a sub assistant in one of the Montessori primary classrooms at my daughter's school. It has been way cool. Kids are amazing. Montessori is amazing. Going into a classroom and leaving everything at the door for four hours to spend time with children who live completely in the now is TOTALLY amazing (and exhausting). I'm all like 'woo moveable alphabet, woo north america map, woo number rods, woo button frame'. Also, there's now a button on my arm. Push it and I say,"Choose a work." The button on the other arm, when pushed, makes me say,"Walking feet, please."

It's absorbing and interesting, but it doesn't leave much energy for writing. If I decide to go do the training (and I'm still thinking elementary, actually...sweet as the primary kids are, cool as their lessons are, I still had to change two diapers this week and I strongly prefer my students potty-trained --not that I minded it in the short term, with a finite deadline), I don't think I'll also be writing. I'm ok with that, essentially. I like kids and I like Montessori better than I like writing. Huh. That seems all turned around crazy because I was pretty sure writing was the thing I liked best in the world. And I was pretty sure I tolerated kids but didn't really love them, or have any interest in being with them every day. And maybe I still love writing in its own way, but this writing career thing is really unsatisfying and burdensome and not what I'm after, I don't believe. Like even if I ever 'made' it (of itself a statistical unlikelihood) to be a recognizable name that regularly sold stories and maybe even a novel...that doesn't seem like a gratifying achievement...it's not something I'm longing for. Whereas there's at least one rewarding moment to be had EVERY single day in a classroom. There's disappointments, but there's no shortage of joy and positive reinforcement either. Writing (the business side anyways, with the submitting and the rejection and the submitting again) is 98% disappointment and 2% joy. It doesn't seem crazy to want the thing that gives daily joy, does it? I mean I totally feel like a quitter, even just thinking about giving up on the writing thing, but really, what was the point of the experiment if I can't except a failed outcome? I'll have to think about all this some more. Huh. I usually think things out first and THEN post them, instead of thinking out loud on the page. This was supposed to be quickie update post, not a muse about life and writing post. It has been a long week if I'll just spill my guts unpremeditated like that.

Right well, what I really wanted to post about is how Montessori is so coooooool, and I'm more convinced than ever that it was (and is) totally the right thing for my kid, and I want to learn all about it and maybe even teach it to other kids someday. That is all, good night.

Dear Colin Powell-

I forgive you for standing in front of the United Nations, before a shamefully covered "Guernica", and lying about WMD and advocating a badwrong war. You spent pretty much all your capital of integrity on that move. I was disheartened by it and lost faith in you.

I forgive you even though we're still being battered by the consequences of that action, and none more than the military men and women of this country.

But see, now you get to go back into my "good guys" pile. Because you said what needed saying (that the face of America includes Muslims, and we're a better nation for it), exactly when it needed saying. Thank you, from a Christian who happens not to believe Muslim is code for terrorism, evil, or the destruction of America. Long live our country. May it ever promote religious freedom, including the right to pursue no religion.

My husband was gone to training last week. When he got back, he asked me how much TV the Princess Monkey Toes had watched in his absence.

"None," I said. Then squinted at the TV, "Wait, maybe we watched some on Sunday night." He'd left Sunday morning. I was just hedging, though. I don't believe we actually watched any then, either.

"When you die, the first thing I'm selling is that damn TV," I told him.

The funny thing is, I hadn't even noticed we didn't watch TV all week. TV enters my conscious mind only under pressure from other people, who turn it on or talk about it or tell me I'd love to see this or that. Left on my own, it's not even part of my mental landscape. It's not that I'm better than anyone for not watching TV. God knows I have a thousand other ways of wasting my time and I'm not nearly as productive as an absence of TV in my life should make me. It's just peculiar how deep my non-interest goes. My husband watches TV without me, as does my kid. I never watch TV without one of them (except earlier in the year when I had pneumonia and was too sick to read).

Lately, every time I hear the president say something, instead of getting all angry and tense like I used to, I react with surprise, almost laughter: this guy is still president? He still says stuff? People stop to listen and broadcast what he says? Really? It seems like a peculiar throwback and I feel indulgently amused, as if my dog just performed a trick without my asking him to and is waiting hopefully for his treat.

I can't be the only one who reacts this way.

Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane. (38) [litfic, book club]. I checked this book out of the library. I'd read three quarters of this book for my book club and then set it aside, but I finally finished it. Here's the thing: it's a really lovely book with a strong sense of poetry and it's sad, but I hated the protag. You're inside his head the whole way, so if you hate him the way I did, there's not much for you. On the other hand, some of the imagery is just lovely and there's a certain wryness to the writing that's appealing, so it wasn't a terrible read, by any means. Finished 09/01/08.

Kushiel's Mercy by Jacqueline Carey. (39) [specfic, althistory]. I checked this book out of the library. I enjoyed it but it was verging on too angsty and not-enough-happensy. It certainly is the weakest of the series so far. There's one last book out in this series, though, and this book wasn't so bad that I won't be checking that one out to read soon. Finished 09/07/07.

The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snickett. (40) [childrens]. I own this. I liked it. Finished 09/14/08.

Magic's Child by Justine Larbalestier. (41) [YA, specfic]. I checked this out of the library. I have to say Larbalestier nailed the ending. I think she closed this up just right. I still have lingering misgivings about the surfacy feel of the books, but it was nice reading, and I'm glad I took the time. She does a really good five-sense-enfolding setting, which makes the world-travel aspect of the books particularly enjoyable. Finished 09/21/08.

Sly Mongoose by Tobias Buckell. (42) [specfic]. I checked this out of the library. I enjoyed this book a great deal, but everyone knows I love zombie stories. I really liked the eyeball kicks: the floating cities, the otherworldly vistas, the groundsuits, the winged zombies (ok, they're not technically wings, but that's how I thought of them: raggedy, rippling wings). There's the non-stop action, action, action one expects from a Buckell book, which I was happy about. Pepper is a difficult character, and in some cases, I feel like the author stacks the deck in his favor. When Pepper says "This always happens", the author arranges it so that he's right, and it feels a little bit like cheating. Again, I had trouble with some of the emotional context. A lot of the external dialog is treated with subtlety and interest, but a lot of the internal dialog is strangely uncomplicated and straightforward. I guess I want a little more emotional ambiguity to color the characters' inner world. Finished 09/24/08.

Good morning, world! And why, you might ask, is it such a good morning? What could possibly be the cause of back-to-back blog postings when I rarely manage more than once a week? Well, today I have been published. No, seriously. There it is, my flash fiction piece "Another Boot", published at Every Day Fiction. Go! Read! Enjoy! Subscribe to their RSS feed and get flash fiction daily!

First time only happens once, right? Here it is. First. Time. Woo! This is particularly significant for me because it is my third sale, so I had begun to think all I could hope for was to sell stories so that they could languish on editorial desks, unpublished and forgotten. I know the publication process is slow, but one of my contracts has actually expired in the eighteen months since I signed it and was paid, so really, that's a lost ship at this point and not just writerly melodrama on my part. Not that it's bad to get paid, mind you, but it also feels unreal. I get money in hand (which again, is great and validating on some level because editors are the first hurdle), but there's nothing I can point to: see there's what I got paid for, there's the work.

Until now.

And in true John Scalzi fashion, since I have ruthlessly pimped my one and only published offering, I am now declaring the comment thread to this post to be an open pimp thread. Read something cool? Made a cool video? Built the tallest Lego tower in the world, or know someone who did? Link away! Point us all to the creative goodness that exists out there in the wide web, most especially if it's your own creative goodness. Comments no longer have the link filter, by the way, so if you know three cool things instead of one that you think everyone else should see, feel free. Share the joy.

And when I get my share of rejections in the next seven or so days, remind me of this moment of tiny glory, will you? Thanks.