User:	stolen_tea
	Date:	2009-07-17 19:32
	Subject:	Huh.
	Security:	Public

I just got a compliment from someone in a parked car that I was walking past, about having a truly wonderful smile.

Clearly I need to do this more often.

	User:	jazzkittykat
	Date:	2009-07-17 20:29
	Subject:	In Chicago this weekend
	Security:	Public

I'll be in Chicago this weekend for the Pitchfork Music Festival. If you'll be in Chicago and you want to meet up, let me know!

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

	User:	webcowgirl
	Date:	2009-07-17 23:25
	Subject:	More family memories - on optimism and paranoia
	Security:	Public

I had Wechsler ask me this week why I wasn't the least bit optimistic. And tonight he said he thought I worried too much sometimes, in this case, I think, about how I think people feel about things (often me), feelings which they are not always comfortable expressing (I believe). J thinks this, too, but I don't think I'm paranoid. I think I'm right. I think I had to learn to be attentive to people's moods and the subtle clues they give long ago as a survival tactic.

I find I've written before about my mother's moods, about how she treated me badly when I was in high school because she was trying to drive me out of the house (at her boyfriend's instigation). Coming home was making me get stressed out because I was being attacked all the time for I knew not what. It all made so much more sense when I realized that he'd told her I was the one standing between them. I only found this out after he'd broken up with her ... once she'd managed to get me out of the house and discovered it wasn't really me keeping them apart, it was his wife and baby.

And then there's ( totally triggering, be warned ), but suffice to say I had to be very aware of the clues of when it was safe for me and when it wasn't and I needed to go straight to my room and lock the door.

Conclusion: paying attention to people is a survival skill. And while it's nice to assume the best, it's no way to protect yourself from a world which is actually full of a lot of nasty people. I don't expect the worst of people, even though I do know more about the bad things they're capable of than I'd like to. I do believe that life is full of disappointments, though, and it's better to shield yourself with low expectations and the hope that you'll be surprised with something nice, someday. (Like not getting that Tripadelic job? If I'd got my expectations high, I would have been crying when they told me no.) And, well, it's good to be the person who does nice things for other people when you can, because God knows there's little enough of that going around.

And also, today has been missing my grandma day, so I've changed my user picture to one of her. I always knew that she really loved me, even though I made her really mad sometimes.

User:	softerworldfeed
Date:	2009-07-17 11:29
Subject:	A Softer World: 462
Security:	Public

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=462

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User:	xkcd_rss
Date:	2009-07-17 04:00
Subject:	Disaster Voyeurism
Security:	Public

http://xkcd.com/611/

	User:	daemonwolf
	Date:	2009-07-16 20:44
	Subject:	Mint
	Security:	Public

One of those plants that would be a weed if we didn't think it was tasty.

That stuff has quickly spread out to take over the entire long container that it was in.

	User:	robodart
	Date:	2009-07-16 11:49
	Subject:	SocialNext Interviews Dart
	Security:	Public

The SocialNext social media blog interviewed me about my participation in the Fiesta Movement, and what that means for the future of humankind.

Ironically, I have the time to post this now as the Fiesta is being fixed in the shop...

	User:	yuki_onna
	Date:	2009-07-16 14:47
	Subject:	Stuff I've Made
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	accomplished

So I was still feeling glum this morning, since it's my second full day of being a Sexy, Dangerous Divorcee.

So I decided to make muffins. I may christen them Divorce Muffins.

What they actually are are Mango-Coconut Marscapone Muffins, my own recipe, and holy mother of three-legged turtles they are amazing. So impossibly moist, and the mango is tart, and the coconut is toasty on the top....ZOMGYUM. Easily the best muffins I've ever made, or tasted, or anything.



These muffins are pure unadulterated (ha!) win. I probably need to double the recipe, since I think these are also, secretly, Amazing Vanishing Muffins.

( Edited to Add Recipe )

In addition, elisem  gave me a bunch of marvelous beads while I was at Fourth Street. I immediately thought, since they were so brightly colored, and there were so many of them, that I ought to make myself a Fairyland necklace, to wear while I'm writing. I occasionally dabble in the jewelry. (In fact, alankria wore the Cat-made Omikuji necklace she won to the IAF Salon last night and deliasherman  and ellen_kushner  both remarked on how much they loved it!) Then, a pendant arrived with a ton of pumpkin imps from rubymulligan . It was too perfect--how could she know? After a lesson from kythryne  and some quality time spent with pliers, I have a necklace I love--and the Goblin Fruit party at Readercon seemed to love it too!



You may notice the six pomegranate-seed like beads, which were gifts from parrish_relics , as well as a kythryne  bead to denote she who taught me to wrangle wire. There's a lot of tribe in this necklace!



On my person. Also, cleavage. I love how bright and beautiful it is, just like Fairyland, full of color and movement. (Speaking of, there is an Ask the Author thing going on over at onaleopard today. Go forth and query!) I am very proud of myself, that I learned a new skill and forged my own mantle for the writing of the book. I wear it while I write every chapter, now. Also it has a pumpkin on it. I have a couple of tiny ceramic pumpkins I kind of wanted to put on there, but I can't wire wrap well enough to deal with things that have no holes in them. Next necklace, I guess.

This is just to say I made stuff, and am proud of self, because the Making of Things is an important Human Activity. Tonight I think I am making posole again, because it is awesome. I am a Witch. I wield a Spoon.

	User:	qazwsxmko
	Date:	2009-07-16 03:29
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

Made more (2 AM, which seems to be my working time) good progress on the pony site, which makes me happy. Now getting to the point where I really need to read RW's book on Type (which I've been putting off, because it's so easy to get sucked into reading about what you're supposed to be doing and not actually doing it).

At the point in Tango where I have four things (lifting the rib cage, relaxing the shoulder, foot position, and collecting) that I need to get firmly down before really being able to move on to anything else without ingraining a whole bunch of bad habits... which means that I need to practice this stuff on my own every day for a while. What I really need to do is put together some sort of daily schedule for myself of things I want to do - X number of hours of dance practice at Y hour; X number of hours of stretching; X number of hours of website dev/design/reading; X number of hours of reading for other stuff. I've been meaning to do this for a while. I'll try to get it done tomorrow...

	User:	eversearching
	Date:	2009-07-16 00:49
	Subject:
	Security:	Public

I've always thought it was a sign that I'm an open minded and accepting person that I am not particularly interested in changing the belief systems of the people around me. I am really way to busy understanding and adapting my own. But maybe it has nothing to do with open minded and everthing to do with self centered? Maybe the various evangelical whatevers of the world are, after all, inately more concerned with the well being or welfare of others than I am?

I don't know. I should think about this more. Namely, I have to figure out what the tangible and intangible benefits my belief system would offer to someone other than me, such that they suffer for not having my belief system. Unfortunately, the really big ones (heaven, easy inclusion in intellectual circles, etc) are pretty much outside the purview of anything I have to offer. Less general angst about the direction of the world? Larger enjoyment of the differences of people around you? A god that seems inclined towards joyful trickery as much as anything else?

I feel (for what it's worth) mine is a really fun faith, and very sustaining when times are difficult, and makes me more prone to be loving when I am leaning on it. In the marketplace of ideas, though, maybe that's simply too quaint? What kind of faith is it, I wonder, to see everything, even yucky things, as miraculous? To a certain mindset, it probably seems a lot like cheating. And my faith doesn't even have awesome rituals.

Also, there is a serious tangible loss for me if the world converted, en masse, to my way of thinking. Namely, that during the parts of my life that are tedious (working out at the gym, ordering medical equipment at work, doing dishes, laundry, or any other household chore, etc) what on earth would I have to occupy my brain if I couldn't spend my time trying to fathom the world view of others? I am not joking. A homogenized mental universe seems like the most drearily boring world imaginable to me- even if it's a mental universe that is homogenized to be in perfect sympathy with me.

Which brings me to another point. In reflecting on how I've spent the past 30 years, I really think I've spent the bulk of it trying to make sense of things. See God's pattern, etc. And I have a way of interpreting it that works for me, more or less. But, honestly, I have some serious doubts about my objectivity, not to mention the depth of my understanding. Frankly, I just don't want to think about the entire world taking my faith as The One True One, because it's actually The Thing I Have That Works For Me That I've Been As Honest As I Can About Deducing. I kind of want much smarter minds than my own working on this problem, and want to know their ideas about it along the way.


Anyway, all of that came about because i am currently beset with another case of "Fervernt Youngish Person Who Earnestly Wants To Convert Me To The One Truth, Which (conveniently) Happens To Be Theirs!" I want to gently deflect this person's very earnest testimonals about How God Does Not Exist (seriously, universe, I take back all my irritation in past years about born again Christians. Please, please, send me a deist of any (non-violent) sort!) by letting him know that I've more or less worked that question out to my own satisfaction, but I also want to let him know that I am not interested in converting him, or see any reason why our understandings can't coexist, happily, side by side. I'm not even very intersted in talking about my ideas with him, and have considered faking atheism, or indifference to religion, or deafness. But I think really I need to just come up with a gentle way to introduce the agree to disagree notion into our discussions. Which is a pity, because I like hearing his ideas- up to the point where he tries to get me to say that I agree with them. Because I don't, but why should that matter? They are really great ideas, and interesting, and I learn a lot from them!

I just am grumpy, I guess, by feeling beset by converters. Was I ever a converter? Well, I sincerely repent of it now if I was. But also, maybe the converters are right? Maybe having faith- whatever that faith consists of- implies a certain necessary set of steps, one of which would be spreading that faith?

Arg. All of me rejects that notion (It just seems so weird to think whatever is responsible for black eyed susans is interested in conversion. Or whatever is responsible for hormones cares too deeply about precision of definition), but maybe all of me rejects that notion because I personally don't want to engage in that behavior At All?

On a different note, the moon is beautiful and the cats are watching it with me, and that is a really nice thing indeed!

Hmph.

	User:	yuki_onna
	Date:	2009-07-16 00:06
	Subject:	I Am Not Today What I Was Yesterday
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	gloomy

Today, I am divorced.

The papers came in the mail, but it turns out that I've been divorced since July 8th. I was walking around all this time, not knowing I was divorced, and yet, I was. Schrodinger's marriage, and now the waveform has collapsed.

Most of you probably don't even know I was married and have been since December 2002. My ex-husband never met any of you. He was never part of the world I live in--a large part of the problem. I've made reference to an Ex in interviews and my former life as a Navy wife, but it's just a story I tell, you know? It seems like so long ago. It seems like another woman. Like a rhymey joke with some sad fucking punchline. The choices I made then seemed like the right ones all along, until they were the wrong ones. So it always goes.

For a long time, after we separated, I thought that when the divorce finally went through, I'd want to have a party. Like a reverse wedding. I'd wear a black dress and we'd dance and play the wedding march backwards or something. I wanted to mark it somehow, I wanted to have the dissolution of my marriage take some sort of physical form. My ex--wasband, as my friends like to say--was the first man I ever slept with, I was with him from age 16 to 28. That has to feel like something when you lose it, right?

But the divorce took forever thanks to an inept lawyer and now I just feel empty and you can't have a party to mark emptiness. It's been almost three years since the "it's over" phone call. Because of course it would be a phone call. He left me alone for five years and expected me to be waiting, with his life on a silver platter, when he deigned to show up again.

I guess I do still have some anger about it. I guess I'm not totally free of it. Maybe I still need that party.

In the end, my unmarried life will be brief. I've been engaged almost as long as the divorce has taken--and yes, you can probably do the math on that and figure out the fine print. I don't feel, in some sense, like I've ever really had the space to breathe to process my divorce--or maybe the five years of my marriage was one long, slow processing of my divorce. I don't know. I never had a proper wedding. I never had a proper ring, even--my mother bought me one, because he did not. It's like it never happened. How can I have a divorce before I ever had a marriage? I bought a dog right after I got married, so I'd have someone to talk to. It's so pathetic I can't believe it was ever my life. I have recurring nightmares where I have to go back to him, to that old awful world, and I claw and fight but I can't get back to Dmitri, or my island, or the life I love.

I want to mark all this somehow and I don't know how. I've never known how.

I am the child of a spectacularly broken home. I thought, all the days of my childhood, that I would do it right, that I'd never get divorced the way my parents did. I'd find someone and love them forever and that would be it. And for my 30th birthday I got cake and a divorce.

It doesn't feel any different. Like when people ask you on your birthday if you feel any different, but you never do. I'm still the same person I was yesterday--I was even divorced yesterday, I just didn't know. I took off my engagement ring to dry my hair this morning and forgot to put it back on, so I went around with a naked finger. That's all.

He emailed me today to tell me it was final. He was gracious as he rarely is, he thanked me for our lives together, despite how much pain was involved with its ending. I want to say the same, but I just can't. I can't thank him for our lives together. There was pain for him at the end, but for me, it was agony, for twelve years. I just didn't know life could be any other way, so I thought agony was love. I can't thank him for that, I just can't. I know it's vicious of me, as September would say, but I can't help it. I have no graciousness for him. Just a young girl who used to be so bright and earnest and magical, and the cynical old bitch he turned her into.

I never thought, when I first laid eyes on him, and thought he was the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen, that it would end this way--I guess that's a cliche. What I mean to say is that it is possible to leech all love away until there is nothing left, and look at divorce papers and feel nothing for a person who was once your world. I don't want that to be possible. I don't want to have done it. I don't want to have dropped out of grad school for him or come back from Europe for him. I don't want to have made such spectacularly bad choices. I don't want to feel nothing right now. But that's what I've got.

I don't even think I have a black dress.

	User:	yuki_onna
	Date:	2009-07-15 23:46
	Subject:	More Readercon
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	thoughtful

Readercon speaks:

There has been a lot of confusion about Readercon's plans for next year, caused in part by a flier that we distributed on Sunday and in part by conflicting statements made in public and in private by people involved with the con and by various attendees. We apologize for putting out unclear, incomplete information, and would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight.

Attendees, professional guests, and book dealers can expect a Readercon next year every bit as exciting as our previous twenty. Readercon 21 will be held July 8 – 11, 2010 in Burlington, Massachusetts at the Boston Marriott Burlington.

Readercon 21 will have at least one guest of honor, two tracks of panels, readings, discussions, kaffeeklatches, the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, the Rhysling Award Poetry Slan, the Shirley Jackson Award, Meet the Pro(se), and as always the Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition.

Our committee is finishing up the business of this year's convention as well as working on Readercon 21. Full details will be available soon.

Diane Martin & David Shaw
Con & Program Chairs for Readercon 21

It seems like a lot of changes have been made to the original plan, though I'm a little confused at the tone here, which makes it sound a bit like the flyer materialized out of an alternate dimension and the plan was always to have multiple tracks and a living guest of honor, despite the flyer saying the exact opposite. I would point out that the information put out by "various attendees" was not wild daydreaming but repeating verbatim what was said by the programming chair and printed on the flyer.

But I'm at least glad that it might not be our father's Readercon after all. I am very interested in seeing what it will be.

So...will you be going?

	User:	stolen_tea
	Date:	2009-07-15 20:50
	Subject:	Rumors!
	Security:	Public

So, spider88's new roommate was down in the phone box room trying to get DSL installed, and one of the new managers mentioned that they removed this thing attached to some of the wires, which they thought was a wiretap put in place because there used to be a lot of hackers living in the building, and there were some bad ones that the government didn't like, and some good ones that worked with the government, and they were somehow all friends (or pretending to be friends).

You heard it here first.

Now off to dinner with Real Live People!

User:	softerworldfeed
Date:	2009-07-15 10:17
Subject:	A Softer World: 461
Security:	Public

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=461

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	User:	yuki_onna
	Date:	2009-07-15 12:50
	Subject:	each thing i show you is a piece of my death
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	awed

So there's this anthology, Clockwork Phoenix 2. Edited by the awesome time_shark . Published by norilana . I'm in it--a story called The Secret History of Mirrors. It's about Snow White, lesbian archivists, submarines, secret societies, interstellar travel, the siege of Edessa, and mercury poisoning. The title came from a conversation with sovay  at my first convention four years ago and is only now, finally, a story.

But I don't want to talk about my story.

I want to talk about Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer's story, each thing i show you is a piece of my death.

Holy fucking shit, you guys. This is one of the hands-down best short stories I've read in ages. And how fabulous is that title?

It's experimental in structure, chilling in subject matter, genuinely frightening. It's about a sort of viral film that invades other movies, very much set in the here and now of Angelina Jolie and the Toronto Film Festival. It rules with a celluloid fist. (Now I'm a little biased, being a movie freak currently working on, among other things, a novel about old movies, but that's neither here nor there.)

I can't remember the last time a short story got me so excited. It makes me want to start a new Best-Of anthology just to put this story in there, that's how good it is, how scary, how tantalizing and awful and awesome. It's like a scene out of House of Leaves mixed with gossip magazines and The Ring.

You should order this anthology and forget about my story. Read this one.

	User:	yuki_onna
	Date:	2009-07-15 11:35
	Subject:	Two Things
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	calm

1. Because I have never gotten the hang of tags (OH NOZ AM OLD) or been able to remember to use them more than like twice, ever, I have opened this journal up to public tagging. (Also because LJ has no usable search function. I hear kylecassidy 's on that.) Tag away!

2. I am running a writer's workshop at Worldcon this year! You can thank papersky  and elisem  for making it possible for me to attend my first Worldcon despite my straightened financial circumstances--I'd never have been able to do it without their help. Thank you, guys!

Go here to find out more about the workshop and how to apply. Several folks on this here LJ can tell you what it's like to be in a workshop with me--if you guys leave comments about the experience I'll edit the post to contain them.

	User:	webcowgirl
	Date:	2009-07-15 15:51
	Subject:	Extra ticket for Harry Potter tonight at the Imax
	Security:	Public

If anyone wants to go to Harry Potter at the Imax at 5:30 tonight, let me know. Ticket cost was £14 but if you can't afford it, it's probably not a big deal as it's paid for.

	User:	yuki_onna
	Date:	2009-07-15 10:39
	Subject:	A Lesson Learned At Readercon
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	exhausted

I learned something important at Readercon. The learning of it sucked, of course, but I'm glad I know it so viscerally now.

It feels awful when an author declines to sign a book.

Just vile. You feel like you've bothered them and they'll clearly hate you forever now, and on top of that, you brought a book you loved across state lines, not just to have someone scribble on it, but to make a connection with the person who wrote it, someone who reached down to your heart and touched you. And now that connection is "Please?" "No."

Oh, god, it sucks. I almost cried, actually. And no, I'm not going to tell you who it was. But I stood there in the dealer's room, feeling like crap, feeling literally stung, fighting tears, because I was scheduled non stop and couldn't get to the official signing for this author, or reading, or anything, because I was scheduled opposite it all. And because the author's books meant so much to me, and I was sure I'd never, ever get to mend the mistake of asking for a signature. I'm not an autograph hound. I only get books signed if they're by a friend or desperately important to me. And it's the connection I want, not the signature.

I don't blame the author at all. They had every right to say no and I wish I could have gone to the official signing. The lesson was about choices I will make in the future. Everyone else has the right to make their own choices on these scores.

Up in my hotel room afterward, I made emilytheslayer  witness my solemn vow:

No matter how tired or grumpy I am, I will never deny someone a signed book, no matter when they ask me.

I will never show them how tired and grumpy I am.

I will never forget that I wanted this, I worked so hard for it, and it's not a burden to have people track me down in the hall. It's an honor.

I will remember how bad it felt to have someone snap at me and say no, how ashamed and sorry I felt, and I will try my hardest never to make anyone else feel that way. I will remember that they want a connection with me, because they loved my book, and try to give it to them. I will try to always be accessible in all the ways that mean something (while keeping myself safe and sane.)

I will try as hard as I can to treat fans as I want to be treated as a fan.

Now, of course, that doesn't mean I'm perfect and that doesn't mean everybody is my best friend the first time we meet. It doesn't mean I'm super awesome at remembering everyone I've ever met. (Speaking of, will the Michael from Napierville who came to my kaffeeklastch please stand up? I want to email you!)

But I will try. And I will never say no when someone comes up to me with a hopeful look on their face and a book clutched in their hands.

	User:	yuki_onna
	Date:	2009-07-15 09:50
	Subject:	Readercon Redux
	Security:	Public
	Mood:	groggy

Reposted from sovay , a member of the Readercon ConCom:

Let us all agree that "This is your father's Readercon" is a really bad slogan. It has a deskful of negative associations and nothing to do with the current plan for Readercon 21, which is a temporary simplification of the program to something whose creation and coordination will not cause nervous breakdowns among members of the committee. Note that I do not mean simplified intellectually. The only issue is the density of program items. The dealer's room will contain its usual stacks of books. The traditional events—Meet the Pros(e), the presentation of the Rhysling, Shirley Jackson, and Cordwainer Smith Awards, and the Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition—will all take place. And please, if there aren't parties all over the place in 2010, something has gone terribly wrong with the whole de-stressing idea. Further information will be forthcoming as soon as I have it, i.e., after the committee has a chance to check its e-mail, breathe for the first time since mid-April, and perhaps water some of its plants or pets. For now, please repost and link as you see fit. And if you have any concerns about Readercon, ask.

Don't Panic.

sovay

yagathai

	User:	propagator
	Date:	2009-07-15 00:10
	Subject:	Just Found This
	Security:	Public

visited 37 states (74%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Like this? try: The Next President

For some reason, I thought I was only at 33, but this ain't bad.  One more and it's enough to amend the constitution.