Blather, rinse, repeat

Because I am so pleased about the editors' choice thingie, (I did just find out that an editor has to actually like your work to choose you for a featured critique,) and because my beloved Mangler is back up, I decided to honor today with some prime bits of story mangling.

Would you all care for some mangled fiction? Why, don't mind if I do, ta very much!

( You like honey in your place of business.  )

Mmmm, yummy. The Mangler!

And uhh, I just mangled my LJ, too.

Shop for groceries (toothpaste, floss, soap, possibly hair-dye, don't forget!) Stop to pick up a little tsundere .
I totally ran out.

I am going to get sick or die. And to eat tons of incredible artists.
Which, obviously, is not too good for you.

He said, "It's nice in here. I want a big blue wobbly thing that goes over the side. That the man in the ass. :)
Umm. *cough*

I bought one for my food sins. Cool. I want them.
What would you actually buy for your food sins?

Kenshin was supposed to be tutoring in neurology! It'd just be for a longass time.
He just couldn't fit it into his busy schedule.


I know it was Summer. I adore summer, but I need to write like a blob.
That's what agents are really looking for.

He accidentally killed her during a fight with the ridiculous power tools at 8 AM so I swing back around (one-way tide, what?) and go out the revolution, and then he accidentally killed her during a fight with the Obvious Bat.
Must be awful to be killed with power tools at 8 AM, but just mortifying to be killed with the Obvious Bat.

He said, "It's nice in here. I want to punch your TV in the chapter, "Thank you, universe." Haha!
Don't punch my TV, damn you!

She fell in love with him for completely unspecified reasons, never mind that he cries frequently and finally I just hope it's not like I'm lagging in week 2 or something.
YOu can never know what will attract another person.

He gives me a lot! But maybe it's better if they tried talking to me.
Uhh, yeah, that might be better, or at least a bit more socially accepted.

Note to future self: After Penn, take the water-slides.
Much quicker way back to LI.

So Monday night my beautiful God(dess)daughter Jo-chan went into the world to help other suffering people.
But, she's back already! And now there is no more suffering.

A CHAPTER OF MY STORY IS AN EDITORS' CHOICE AT THE ONLINE WRITING WORKSHOP AND WILL BE IN THEIR NEWSLETTER.

I PEED. HARD.

I don't think that means that it's terrifically good or anything; perhaps the choices are random or perhaps I racked up enough crit points, or perhaps they looked at it and said, "Let's help her." Either way, this means tons more critiques and help for my story. Just when I was feeling frustrated that I wasn't getting anywhere, this came along. As my main character says in the chapter, "Thank you, universe." Haha! Could this be the start of an Unexpected Miracle? OH, DAMN. I just expected it. Suck!

In less "OMG NEW UNDERWEAR" news, I did get all the classes I wanted for next trimester, and I also got all the clinic hours that I wanted, too. That means that on Thursdays I'm going from 8:30 AM straight through to 7 PM totally without any breaks, though. But, it's only one day a week, and my only other class is on Monday. I get both my Kung Fu days back, and it's great having to go the over-hour-long drive only two days a week. I'll have to pack a lunch, but I'm pretty happy about next trimester.

Now, I only have to pass the clinic entrance exam and get first aid/cpr certified. I could do it at the school, but it's too expensive.

Eff school I am going to be a famous author starting tomorrow Massage therapy is a pretty good job, seems like. And I can go on from there and continue with different medical studies, once I get my loans etc. paid off.

Sad: My beautiful orange swordtail Kenshin died today. Auwe. I liked his sweet little spirit. Also, yesterday my new teeny catfish Wufei died, too. So right now all I have is Leon/Jason, Lucrezia, Sephiefish, Onion, Kaoru, and Quatre Raberba Winner.

Happy: Emails from an old friend. ^_^

Oh! I remember what else. I started tutoring. I did my first session with Neurology yesterday. I hope that I helped her some. With neuro it's more a matter of understanding the material rather than memorizing it. My other two students are for Myology and Pathology. Myo is straight up dry memorization. Pathology is a little bit of both, at least the chapters we're on now. Technically I'm not supposed to be tutoring in Path yet since I'm still in it, but the school called me anyway and asked if I wouldn't mind giving it a shot. I'd be glad to, since that helps me learn, too. This all seriously cuts down on my "eating yummy food" time at school, but maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Last night after school I watched Samurai X (I'm over ten years late for that, I know,) found it a bit boring until the moment when Kenshin raspy-growls "KISAMAAAA" and goes Battosai on dat ass (I love Mayo Suzukaze, MWAH! MWAH!), ate over a pint of ice cream, and felt mild regret over the entire evening.

Today I: Cleaned the fish tanks, did nothing, did nothing, did nothing, started laundry, did nothing, PEED MY PANTS OVER THE EDITORS' CHOICE, and then made this entry.

Go, me.

Umm, I am so looking forward to the next few hours in which I can revise and re-write, but I have to address the dream I had last night, too. These are the dreams that make me burn, burn to write once I wake up. But first I have to get it out of my head and in front of my eyes.

It started out being about Dexter. (Well duh.) He got caught, but was not in prison or anything. Instead, he was locked in my childhood playroom, which, in the dream, had fishtanks and all manner of reptiles in tanks and cages along with a bunch of my old baby toys. As a part of his punishment, they (“they” being random law enforcers) had removed his eyes, just plucked them right on out.

I have mentioned this before but in case anyone doesn't know: When a character in my dream gets into big trouble, my dream-self is convinced that they can't handle this on their own, and steps in as a surrogate until the problem is resolved in some way that really fires up my nerves – but in a good way. It's as if I have a mission, one that I'm dying to accomplish, and it involves saving someone. Because I somehow know how the cards are stacked, and they don't.

So, in order to help, I step in and become Dexter. My way of helping this time is to unlock the door (security's not too great in this playroom) and face the captors reasonably. I'm not yet going to do anything by force. But when I try to explain to them that I—Dexter--have not really done anything morally wrong (remember, it's just a dream, okay, I don't condone serial killing!) I find that they've also removed his tongue. OMG, now how am I supposed to explain this? And then I hear them talking about how other body parts are next! So I run back into the playroom where I find my Wonderful Glassworker friend there. She will understand, for sure. To my surprise, she does, and she slams the door shut to stop them from getting in. We're trapped, but I—Dexter--can't tell her anything because of the whole no tongue issue. And even though they took his eyes out, I can still see. I can't let anyone know that I can see, so that has to remain our little secret.

In the corner I find my old guitar, the one I bought for myself with my first few real paychecks when I was 16. I think, Well, I'm in here for a while. I might as well re-lean how to play the guitar. If I—Dexter--can't speak, at least I can make music.

Then I sat down and started playing Ozzy's Diary of A Madman. (That's not as significant as you might think. I could play the crap out of that song when I was a kid, and I heard it on my iPod recently.)

Then the dream kind of switched, and I was in Disneyworld with Haku and Sano. Dad came along. This is the first time I've dreamed of him, knowing he wasn't really here. Usually in my dreams, he is still with us and then when I wake up, it takes me a second to remember. But in this dream, I already remembered. Put I kind of shoved logic to the back. He patted Haku, like he always did, and said, “Poor little guy. Poor little Haku-kuku.” Which is exactly what he always said whenever Haku had his health problems. I started crying (like I am now, god! I'm such a little kid sometimes,) and Dad said, “What the hell you still crying for?” (Which is exactly what he would say.) Then he asked me how Dexter ended. I said, “I can't tell you; that would be spoiling it. You just have to watch it for yourself!”

Then I woke up, and I knew exactly what I wanted to to do liven up the pace in my story. I've got it all worked out – or at least I had, at 9 AM. It seemed perfect, like it couldn't fail. I guess that's why I'm so excited today. I can't explain it. Once I woke up, I just knew.

Before I get to writing it, I want to add just a few more things. I just gutted the other day to learn of the loss of Jo-chan's and SB's wonderful dog Fiona. She was a big old beautiful Irish Wolfhound with a gentle heart. She died of bone cancer, the same thing that got Trisky. Jo-chan, who still lives at home, is just devastated. I'm gonna miss old Fi; she was a beaut.

I brought my poor deceased Valentine fish back to the store today and had the Fish Guy check my water. He said the water was perfect, so probably I'd just gotten a bad group of guppies (they all died, too,) and an already sick betta. Don't I just pick them? So he gave me my money back and threw in a nice marble molly, too. Then I bought a silver and black catfish which is the coolest looking fish ever. Hopefully these will work out.

While I was out, I bought season 2 of Dexter at Border's. I had an awesome coupon, and it was on sale. I paid $23 for the whole season! I walked around Border's for a few minutes, just seeing my own books on the shelves. (And a new Margaret Weiss called Dragons of the Hourglass Mage. I'll wait till it goes to paperback, but goddamnit, why am I still in love with Raistlin Majere?) I was filled with excitement and longing. Waiting on the longass line, the woman behind me started chatting with me. She had four books in her hand and told me about how she and her husband were going on a road trip and she needed tons of books to read. I told her that someday, she'd be seeing my books on the endcaps there. She asked what they were about and I exuberantly told her, “A time traveling physics teacher!” She thought it sounded really neat. She wished me luck and promised she'd buy it someday. ^_^ Haha, I love my local peeps. But, going back to this morning, I don't know, I just have a feeling.

Dogs: Sano is less itchy, Haku is tons MORE itchy. And this lime sulfur stuff reeks. I hate it.

Today I spent more money than I have. I haven't done that in a while, but I needed to fill my gas tank, buy some groceries, then I realized that I am in fact missing about three Kenshin DVDs. (Mom and I are watching Kenshin lately, and we're right up the part where my collection has a huge gap. WTF!) So I went to Amazon and shelled out the, like, $40 for season one. I have the rest of them. Waiting. I hate it!

Last night the Gold Dragon called me. I told him how disappointed I was that I had to cancel and that I was sorry it was on such short notice. “Don't be sorry,” he said. “You're doing me a huge favor. Let me know when everything's all settled.” Then I just rambled about the whole damn ordeal. “...and both my dogs got it, and I have to bleach everything and I hate bleach, and this dip smells like rotten eggs, and I broke the washing machine and, and, and!” “Wow,” he said, “you have really bad luck. It's not contagious, is it?”

I seriously hope not.

And anyway, my luck will turn around with the Chinese New Year. Man, I just know it!

Today, instead of studying and keeping to myself like I normally do, I was joined by a 20 year old pretty surfer boy who apparently wanted to do nothing other than talk to me all day - during lunch, during class, between classes, etc. In the halls between classes, he'd poke me with his finger to get my attention. I'd seen him around before and sort of misjudged him as kind of a nitwit. Ends up he's a math whiz who tutors all the local kids in calculus. I halfway wanted to tell him, “I know you're probably thinking I'm about 25, but you and your green eyes and enviably thick, long blond hair are so barking up the wrong tree.” But I didn't. We had lunch together and I let him talk to me for hours, about surfing, math, martial arts, and Monty Python.

Nice kid.

School was all right; I got a hundred on last week's quiz and I seem to be back in the swing of it. Applying myself, and such. I guess.

I might have mentioned a few times (a minute) about this rad agent I am not yet ready to query, but I've been following her Twitter because she posts such great stuff. Today she posted this video and said that it was exactly what agenting was like:



Dude, I seriously hope I don't (do?) get an agent like that. I know nothing about the show, but am immediately crushing on the ginger with the impeccable comic timing. “A squid, or a pebble, or a police officer.” “Absolutely write that! OR! Don't.”

I'll be off now to write my MC in love with a pebble.

To begin with, gacked as usual from skitty_kitty:



Kung Fu was its usual awesome release tonight. Don't know what I did to make my left hand feel tight and weak but it does, so please disregard and excuse any typos. It just can't seem to keep up. Maybe I kept my fist too tight.

After work on both days this past weekend, I sat down with my entire novel in hopes of tightening the pace and striking as many passive phrases as I could find. (There are a few. I still have some bad habits.) I also re-did the entire first and third chapter. I swear, I feel like I'm back at square one every few months, and this novel has been with me since forever. The good thing is that every time I make a huge change like that, I like it even more. It feels daring, to shake it up like that, and I have a better time re-reading it.

Is a novel ever complete?

Ummmm fangirling out for a few paragraphs here, this is a good example of what I love about FFVII and its fandom. FFVII fandom is conspicuously low on wank—or maybe I just missed most of it over the years—and I wonder if that's because the story is so damn complicated, subtle and full-on creepy that we're all just too caught up in it (thirteen years later) to start plastering the ceiling about who's banging whom or whatever. For the link-wary, it's a post from ff7_oldschool in which a fan pulled apart one of fandom's favorite scenes to pull apart, the Wall Market arc:

The first half of the game spends its time building Cloud up into the cocky, aloof hero we later find out he isn't, and while we do see cracks showing through very early on and they serve to make Cloud immediately interesting and mysterious, it's not really until Wall Market that Cloud gets blatantly humiliated.

( Here there be fanpoodling, and I say that with love... )

I adored that, so I replied:

All very interesting! Let's not forget that other room, where you can watch Reeve's parents trying to get it on (or not trying,) in the room their son rented for them, while their son's freaky ass catbot watches them from the corner. WTMFF?
...

This whole scene struck me as really taking the piss, because Cloud does come across (finally) as the emotionally stunted adolescent that he is, fundamentally misunderstanding human relations and being overwhelmed by sexuality. His reaction to peeking into the keyholes is a 12- year-old, "WOOOOOW."

It's a safe bet at this point that Cloud, having been kidnapped at 16 and having spent his formative years as a test subject up until the beginning of the game, has never seen any kind of female hoo-haa (all manner of fanfic aside.) Homeboy gets out of captivity, girls throw themselves at him, and his first real sexual experience comes from about ten dudes in a tub with him. ("Not to be rude or anything, but could you go do someone else?") What goes on in that goddamn tub? Why does he complain that it hurts? O_o And why is it played for giggles?

I've also always found it really intriguing that this is our boy's first real collapse, and, like you mentioned, the music. (Depending on which room you chose, you can choose Cloud's collapse and the participants' various reactions.) The scene gets some laughs out of you, then forces you to re-evaluate the hero as a total effing psycho an unreliable narrator, and asks you to pity him and mistrust him at the same time.

This is why I love Cloud and why I love this fandom. ^_^

Seriously, I should just get the entire game tattooed on my back. It's too bad they can't tattoo entire games. You know what's funny too, speaking of tattoos, I keep having this weird reality-slip in which, while listening to a favorite song, for a moment I'll think, "What a perfect tattoo idea! This song means so much to me, I'll tattoo it on my shoulder!" Then it takes me a full second to remember that you can't tattoo songs.

And I believe I've babbled enough nonsense for tonight.

Tomorrow: Doing an Asian Bodywork massage for high School Homeboy (my friend from Kung Fu who went to HS with me,) then taking Sano and probably Haku as well to the animal dermatologist (this rash of his won't quit, and now Haku is itchy, too,) studying for a little while, then the Gold Dragon is coming by after dinner for a bit.

Wednesday, longass school day and HUGE TEST.

Presently: Going to Mom's to watch TV and probably Dexter DVD. ^_^

His name is Valentine. (For the heart on his tail, but really mostly for Vincent Valentine.) Also, his name is Jason. Isn't he cute? He's the first of maybe four or five. Not other bettas, though. Yesterday I finally got the tank cleaned and mostly set up. I fought for hours with the goddamn filter, finally giving up, letting it sink to the bottom and insisting that it was broken, stupid, in five pieces and somehow at fault. Today I went in bitching at the Fish Guy about this goddamn lameass filter, until he advised me that it went outside the tank with the suction in the water, not the other way around.

Oh.

I seriously felt like Owen Wilson in Zoolander. “The files are in the computer.” Well, at any rate, the damn thing is up and running and looking seriously zen. I really wanted the shiny silver catfish today, but they were fresh out. If not tomorrow, then next week.

In writing news, I put my opening chapters up at a highly recommended (by the agent that I really dig) SF/F critique group page thingieding, and got some excellently helpful and thoroughly eye-opening feedback. It's funny, because I've gotten so many critiques, really serious ones, from this thing's inception, and every single time I think “I took all the advice and now it's so much better,” there is yet more to change and improve. This one critique, I felt, set me back almost to the beginning. It set me back, but also jettisoned me forward at the same time. I felt really daunted, and really excited, too. What a huge task, making it work. But one that I know is possible, and maybe even around the corner. As I told the person who did the critique, I like knowing what I can do to make it better. I like being pointed in the right direction, because I know I can walk it myself, eventually.

But also, daunting for sure.

Right now, I'm waiting “a few minutes” (read: 45 minutes) for a vet to call me back about Sano. He's got this skin rash that just won't quit and it's driving the both of us up the mothergrabbing wall. He can't stop itching, and he itches and scratches himself raw. When he's not scratching, he's licking. He's been wearing a sweater and a cone for two weeks and it's only helping a little. One vet increased his dose of pred. Today all of a sudden I wondered if the massive amounts of pred have given him Cushing's disease, the first symptom of which is a skin rash. It might just be time to take matters into my own hands. “A few minutes.” My ass.

Complain complain.

Gacked from skitty_kitty:



It took me watching this about six times before it utterly cracked me up. I think it's when he flies away at the end.

Work tomorrow, Kung Fu Monday, and then a day off on Tuesday. ^_^

I'll probably always remember '10 as The Year I Got Serious About Getting Published. At least, I hope I can remember it that way, and not in some awful as-yet-unknown way, like I remember '09.

There's the agent and she's the BOMB, and I want so badly to query her because I'm convinced it would work. I know it's not wise to pin all my hopes on just one, (and I do have a few other really awesome-seeming ones on my list,) but I think she's really the cat's pajamas and I want to do this right. I was this close to querying her today, when I decided to take some of the advice she dishes out on her website and go to this one writing forum she highly recommends. I honestly think my query letter could get her attention, but if she doesn't like the manuscript, then what good would that do me? It'd be a waste of a good goddamn query, and of a really cool opportunity. Goddamn, she even really likes fanfic writers and wants us to mention our fanfic experience in our query! Can you imagine? Me, the writer of the most extensive LOZ fic in LOZ fandom history. ^_~;; *polishes fingernails on lapel* Hehe. *cough*

However, being a fanfic writer is the whole big fish/little pond thing. It's not enough and it's not good enough. I know that; I do.

So, I panicked about the ms and decided to get further crit. I changed up a few things. As I always do, each time I panic over it. And I just can't query her yet. Not until I can get a few suggestions about how to make it shinier. Or how to make it shine at all. I mean, I know I don't suck or anything. My grammar, syntax, and spelling are all usually just the berries, I have a decent voice and a pretty good ear for dialog. But my pacing, man, the pacing. I know I get lost in my own head and for as much as I cut back to get the effing show on the mothergrabbing road, I feel like it's still not enough. I don't want to screw up.

It's funny, I was having a nice, long soak in an oil bath before and thinking, “Oh man, I got this. I've just got it. The novel only needs a few tweaks. It doesn't need to be re-written, just snazzed up a little.” And, I had the perfect ideas, the perfect how. It all made sense in the womb of the bathtub, I dunno why that is.

Then I had to get the laundry out of the dryer, put a t shirt on Sano (skin infection or rash or something, don't you know, more vet bills,) and finish up washing all the dogs' beds and coats and such (in case it was some kind of allergy to something in the fabric,) and clean up the bathroom, fold my own sheets, blah blah dicker blah, and by the time I sat down with the OpenOffice program and looked at the frakking blinking cursor, that mafah was gone like—to quote my own MC--”like a gnat's whistle in a windstorm.”

I want this. I really, really do. I know that's not enough and a book deal is not going to be handed to me for free like an old fish tank. (Hey, now there's a simile not many people can use. “Handed to me like an old fish tank.” “Vanished, like an old oak table.” LOL.) I am willing to work, but of course, one never says that in a query letter. “I'd be glad to send you the entire manuscript at your convenience. It's finished and all, polished to Your Mom and back, but if you don't like it, I can totally make it tons better. I mean, just say the word, really, and I will get right on it. I'm a hard worker and with a little direction I can make it even better.”

I'm watching Dexter last night and wringing my hands over how the protagonist is going to get away with it. My palms sweat when it looks like he might get caught. I don't even want him to be suspected. I feel sympathy if someone hurts his non-feelings. And I just have to know what comes next. Sometimes the stuff they get away with is full-on retarded and the plot has light-year-wide gaps in it, (honestly, did you just let a civilian junkie into a crime-scene morgue so she could poke a dead body and take a gander at the evidence?) but I don't even mind, because I care too much about what's going to happen next. That's what I'm saying, see, the storytelling is masterful, and I want to be so masterful that even if I do make some kind of dumb oversight or leap of logic, readers will still not want to put the book down.

I just don't know if I am doing that, because I'm so goddamn tired of this novel that I don't even know right from wrong anymore. Err, in terms of writing. :)

That's what I wish to put across to a prospective agent, that I take crit and suggestions very well. I want it to be as good as it can be and I'm willing to work in order to make it so.

But you kinda can't just put that into a query letter. It's simply not done that way. But, it's hard not to rush into it. What if she decides before then that she doesn't want queries? GAH.

Le sigh.

Ah, the fish tank. Well, I wanted to clean that all up today and get it running, so that I could go and get some fish tomorrow, but that ended up not happening. Sano, the vet, the sudden washing of all dog stuff, the lack of a stand to put it on. It sucks because Monday and Tuesday are my only days. Then there's shopping, writing, eating, cleaning, homework, stuff. Well, maybe I can do it Friday and then get some fishes after work Saturday. Who knows. I know just which fish I want, too.

Oh, snap, I haven't done a word of homework this weekend. Not a single word of it. :/ Well, that's what 3 hour breaks are for, I guess.

Back to it! ^_^

So, a Sunday, work is done for the week, Kung Fu is closed tomorrow, and I'm off Tuesday. That leaves me plenty of time to write, query, clean the house, watch Dexter, water my plants and other such fun things that I actually really enjoy.

Last night My Wonderful Glassworker Friend came over. She brought the movie K-PAX which I had never seen before. It was funny how we each saw that movie from a different angle. She commented, “One thing I don't understand was how he knew all of that unheard-of and totally unpublished space information, and where the other woman went.” And my angle was, “Well, because he was from K-PAX.” I said that it all depended on if you looked at the movie as a heart-warming “Wise Crazy People” movie (in which the crazy person helps the psychiatrist more than the other way around and is maybe not so crazy after all, see: Don Juan De Marco,) or a mystery, or sci-fi. I saw it as sci-fi. If it was going for Wise Crazy People, Don Juan De Marco blew it out of the damn water. But, I love Kevin Spacey.

I also ate raw cookie dough, which I'd been so looking forward to for weeks, but when I finally started nomming it, it wasn't as satisfying as I'd hoped. Because it was Tollhouse and not Pillsbury. For future reference, Tollhouse is kind of nasty raw. It has a tang that I don't like. Also, it made my heart go all skippity in an entirely unpleasant way for the rest of the night.

And then we watched another episode of Dexter. Yay.

Last night I had yet more of those “Dad is still here” dreams, interrupted twice by Sano licking himself—or rather, his sweater—so much that it was soaked through by 4 AM. Gah. And each time I'd go back to sleep I'd go back to that same dream. I actually hate those dreams because when I wake up, it takes me a moment to remember. As I think I've mentioned.

Today at work I found out that the really nice dude who works the competition brand in the store is leaving for CA next week. Auwe! That sucks. Who's going to keep me company?

Le sigh. I'm going to send a query to the really cool agent tonight after 9:10 PM. Don't ask. I'm neurotic. I know this will eventually work. I know it's a longass road.

Oh! My brother called today and he had this great idea. He wants us to write a story together. His idea is a one-on-one conversation with Death. Death changes forms throughout and answers questions, and accusations that s/he is a coward, or someone to be feared and hated. He thinks it's a really cool idea (and I agree) and that we can both shake off a lot of garbage if we has it out with Death fictionally. I'd love to work with my brother! We'd be like the Morgans, except without the murder and stuff. I guess.

Tonight I'll go to Mom's where we'll watch the Golden Globes and eat walnuts and drink tea. Should be fun.

This icon because I'm in one of the mirror-hating phases.

Tomorrow I want to clean out that fish tank and set it up. I want angels, gouramis and shiny silver catfish.

Just today I received the postcard from DAW to let me know that they had received my manuscript and logged it into their files. Uhh, cool! Now I just have to wait for the second rejection. It's a shame it takes so damn long; I'm all psyched to print the 399 pages up again and go through the whole "pack it away and send it out" thing again.

Not really.

So I may or may not have ever mentioned, but the setting is alternate reality quasi-Victorian and the other morning I woke up from a dream thinking, "When people say 'steampunk' they probably mean like sci-fi in the time when things ran on steam. You wrote steampunk, retard." Not that I think it's retarded because it's quite neat; I just never knew what steampunk meant and well, now I do and I had no idea that something like this had a niche.

Neato.

Oh, there was one more thing I wanted to add re: Sara Palin as McCain's running mate.

McCain is playing a cagey-ass game for sure. I was watching his speech (GUH! but you do have to know the other side,) and I saw someone in the audience hold up a sign that said "Hillary's Supporter's For McCain" and I was like, WTF! WTF! WTMFF!

Okay, because first of all: One would hope that Hillary's supporters weren't supporting her just because she is a woman. People have to remember that Palin is anti-choice, and most importantly that McCain is going to follow policies that Bush has set. It should have nothing to do with gender--and indeed, nothing to do with your personal feelings toward the candidates at this point!--and everything to do with policies.

If you don't like Bush's policies, you have to vote them out, and that means voting for Obama even if you don't like the guy!

If you like Bush, if you like the way things are going now, then vote for McCain or don't vote at all.

Talk about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, right?

And secondly, I think the person with that sign was planted there. How the hell did they know in advance to make up that sign to bring to his speech, huh? Yeah, that's right, they couldn't. Up until lats night McCain had a decoy dude pretending to pull all of his public appearances for today so that people would think it was him instead of her.

Cagey-ass game.

PLEASE let him lose.

OH HAI AGAIN, INTRAWEBz CONNECTIONS!! I wrote all of this before I switched back to cable modem. I am now happily back on cable, even though it costs more, but my boss just switched my insurance so that costs less, so I guess it all evens out. Anyway, here's what I wrote earlier:

I'm having a weird week. First, see locked post up there with that oddly congruous name thingie going on, okay? So I wake up this morning and I have a few hours free, so I decide I'm going to print the manuscript and get to sending it out to people; remember the guy from Daw had told me to just send it anyway, right? So I figure, give it a shot.

Then I get the mail this morning and it's a reply to the query letter I sent, saying that they don't think the premise is right for them (not "commercial" enough,) but to try another publishing company. Very polite and not discouraging at all. I decide to hang it up on my bedroom door.

As an aside, today is really frustrating because anytime I want to get on the internet to check my mail or whatever, I have to unplug and disable Linksys, restart, plug it back in, enable it, re-enter the code, and wait for it to verify. Then I get about 40 seconds (if I have a lot of email coming in, I don't manage to get it because it takes too long,) before I get chucked offline again until the next time I decide to do the whole thing over.

So a few minutes ago I do the whole thing over, get online for all of 20 seconds this time, but it's enough time to get the one email I've got waiting. Imagine my surprise when it's from the editor of Daw, a reply to my email of "Hey, sent you guys a query letter a million years ago, ya get it?" He apologizes for the wait, saying he was out of work for a long time (he mentions a specific reason,) and says to let him know if I don't get a reply soon. I actually did email the guy back, and here's what I said:

I'm very sorry to hear about (reason for being out of work.) Interestingly enough I did get a reply today, telling me that the premise is not right for your company. I'm glad I got it today because I called a while back and spoke to a young man who informed me of your (reason for being out of work) and asked me to send the manuscript anyway. I was just going to send it tomorrow, so your reply is timely.

I thank you for your reply and for this email, and I hope you're doing better.

Best wishes!

Etc.

That's pretty decent of me, I think. And then I got chucked offline before I got to send it, had to re-do my entire connection again, got about 15 seconds on this time and sent it just as my manuscript was finishing printing.

The printing of the manuscript took about an hour and a half and is 392 pages long, but that's actually not very long. I still have some options open, like the company that published one of my favorite books. And then recently I got interested in a small but well-funded indie company, but I'm not sure what exactly they want to publish so I have to send them a message. Which obviously I can't do until I get enough time online to actually send a message (and it's not as easy as sending an email, I have to do it through accessing their page, so that might take longer than I'm getting online.)

Anyway, I just thought it was really weird how this all happened in the space of two days, right?

Oh, another wierd thing that's a sign which I forot to mention, check this out: Last Wednesday I aws having a really rough day, with my car and computer and stuff like that. I was feeding the birds when I heard this EPIC crash in my house. I checked my living room, figuring the dogs had knocked a bunch of stuff over, but nothing was out of place. It wasn't till later when I went into my bedroom do get my Kung Fu shirt on that I saw what had crashed. One of my glass shelves had just taken a dive onto the floor, and everything on it--everything--got shattered into shards. I had a bunch of little glass and ceramic things up there, mostly gifts from over the years. Some of the stuff was pretty old. One of them was a dragon snowglobe and music box that Jeremy gave me in college, and that one was just totally wasted. I tried to salvage as much of it as I could and managed to keep the dragon figure and the music box part, but the globe, the stand and everything else in it was gone. That was a few days before I got the "Hey it's me" email from him, and like a week before I got that crappy email from him. How weird is that?

If I'm posting this, it means that I've gotten online for more than 30 seconds. YAY.

Okay, so now you know, I'm posting this and it's because I went back to cable modem. It's nice to have, you know, a signal again and stuff.