I Go Straight For The Aardvark.

Username:	Password:
Forgot your password?	Remember Me

Nerd Holiday! Happy Tesla's Birthday!

NERD HOLIDAYS!

Happy Nicola Tesla's Birthday!

Go play with electricity! But be careful, it bites.

In addition, we got a NERD HOLIDAY TWOFER...

FRIDAY will be Mr. Wizard's Birthday!

Honor SCIENCE! Or blow some shit up!

I've lost my JUNE NERD HOLIDAY, since it was Systems Administrator Appreciation Day, but either I was confused or they moved it, cuz it's celebrated on the last Friday in July.

And I don't got one for August neither. *sad face*

( Upcoming Nerd Holidays )

Let me know if you discover (or think up) more!

A Writer

I want to be a writer. I call myself a writer, despite the fact that I mostly edit. Copy edit, even, no longer the editor of a publication, just a freelancer, chugging through the assignments of students and the occasional report that only government types will read.

I am a writer.

Am I a writer?

Writer. Writing. Why don't I write? I scribble, I covet, I play pretend. I buy books about writing, about marketing myself as a writer, about the writing market, about putting my ass in the chair and doing the work, but I don't finish anything. I don't publish. I don't even submit.

I read, have read, continue to read web articles and books and magazines about choosing places to submit to and crafting query letters correctly (or at least with minimal annoyances) and I can quote a lot of it, explain it, give excellent advice that I cannot take.

There is no center, I have no center, I'm just waddling around, sprawling, bawling, whining about it without actually doing it because I can't find the way THROUGH myself, through the thicket that is my brain, through the tangled forest of my own resistance and love and desire and fear to GET TO THE OTHER SIDE or at least find a fuckin' path and a scattered trail of white stones.

I'd settle for a breadcrumb.

I've recently read that fear of success is a fear of change, a fear of the unknown that could dramatically shift my world around and make me adapt, which is always a creaky and awkward, ungainly thing for me to do. I embrace change, just not in my nest, not in my hole, my messy and disorganized little reality bubble.

I don't know if that's the problem, but I wish I did know.

Contrast

Well, fuck. I just pulled links for all the articles I wrote for Comixpedia (which is now called ComixTalk), as they'd changed a couple times over the years with site software management relaunches & I didn't have a current list.

I wrote 31 articles in the three+ years I was there.

The first published in February 2003, the month the site premiered, and the last in April of 2006, around when the founder took back the mantle of editorship and axed the magazine format. (He brought it back, kinda, a while after.)

Given that each article required upwards of 5-20 hours research (reading webcomic archives for reviews; doing research both online and in print books for features) AND given that by the end of my run, I was editing the Features, Reviews, AND Columns sections (which meant coming up with themes, finding writers, cajoling them into writing, editing their work, and then posting articles, each with a certain amount of formatting/HTML work), that's pretty impressive.

Not long after that, I fell into the worst depression of my life. I can't remember the last time I wrote a complete article. Might have to go back to that last one in 2006.

I wonder if the events are related.

Femme Epiph

It occurred to me today, as I observed many young ladies in light summery dresses and floppy little shoes, that most women don't expect to be climbing up ladders or crawling around on the floor or picking up heavy things to move them around.

They probably don't even wistfully imagine beating the shit out of men saying disgusting things.

So they don't dress as though they need to be prepared for anything.

Weird.

July Fourth

You can take my Bleeding Heart Liberal card if you like, but when I see a member of the armed forces, I like to take a moment and say "Thank you."

That is all.

4th Annual World Ebook Fair

Ganked from

barbarakitten_t:

Project Gutenberg, Baen Books, the World Public Library and many other groups are getting together to promote the 4th Annual World Ebook Fair from July 4 to August 4 2009.

http://worldebookfair.org/

Thinking About Anger

This is an interesting monologue on anger. I found it through Samara O'Shea's blog, Letter Lover, and the reason I clicked through to read the article is because Ms. O'Shea said

Insightful Times piece about anger and how getting angry does no good to one’s mental or physical health. It focuses on anger that fuels revenge. I struggle with this—thinking sometimes that it is my job to teach people a lesson.

And the phrase that was (and IS) KEY for me is "teach people a lesson."

One thing I have noticed is that when you attempt to "teach someone a lesson" is that they NEVER LEARN THE LESSON YOU ARE TRYING TO TEACH! I just doesn't happen. Instead, you get something like this:

Driver A cuts off driver Z.

Furious, Z cuts off A, to teach her a lesson, not knowing that A's original offense was accidental.

A has NO IDEA why Z cut her off. Therefore, Z must be an asshole.

Now A is pissed and decides to teach Z a lesson, and it escalates from there.

The KEY to keeping yourself from acting like either of these two jokers is to always remember YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT S/HE'S THINKING! You don't. You really REALLY don't. She could be late; he could be suffering from a kidney stone; she could have just signed her divorce papers; he could be chronically angry, and actively cutting off EVERYONE on the road.

YOU. DON'T. KNOW.

And if that doesn't calm you down, think about this. Yes, I'm repeating myself.

NO ONE EVER LEARNS THE LESSON YOU ARE TRYING TO TEACH.

They'll get angry, frustrated, pissed, aggravated, annoyed, inconvenienced, etc. But they will NOT EVER spontaneously say to themselves, "Gosh! I guess he showed me! I've learned my lesson! I shall never cut off another person in traffic ever again."

No.

What he's learning is that YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE! or something similar because, if the situation were reversed, that's what you'd be learning. No one ever learns the "I must be wrong!" lesson. Ever.

Thoughts On Journaling

This started out life as a comment in a locked journal, but I think I want to talk about it ( more... )

General Science Magazines: A Poll

I'm looking for one, maybe two General Science Magazines to subscribe to, to keep up with scientific happenings in the world. I'm looking for something like The Week or The Economist for science - brief summaries of new discoveries or changes to thinking, with in-depth articles around a page long, not much more.

Poll #1423004 General Science Magazines
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All
Do you read any general science magazines?
View Answers
Yes
4 (44.4%)
No
5 (55.6%)
Which are your favorite?
View Answers
21st Century Science and Technology
0 (0.0%)
American Scientist
0 (0.0%)
Cosmos
0 (0.0%)
Discover Magazine
1 (10.0%)
Earth (was Geotimes)
0 (0.0%)
Issues in Science and Technology
0 (0.0%)
National Geographic
8 (80.0%)
Natural History
0 (0.0%)
Nature
2 (20.0%)
New Scientist
1 (10.0%)
Popular Science
0 (0.0%)
Science Magazine
0 (0.0%)
Science News
3 (30.0%)
Scientific American
7 (70.0%)
Seed
0 (0.0%)
Smithsonian Magazine
2 (20.0%)

If your favorite isn't listed here, please add it to the comments.

I'd also like to know why it's your favorite.

Breaking My Brain

I've gone to sleep around midnight the last couple nights and woken up around noon, whereupon I've gotten out of bed.

It's pretty weird. But in a good way.

I think it has something to do with seriously breaking my sleep schedule last week by skipping a night's sleep at least once, possibly twice. Almost definitely twice, but over more than seven days. I think. Can't remember now.

The brain elevator ain't going all the way to the top. Perpend...

Today's errand, wherein I meant to visit CVS, Cambridge Naturals, Porter Square Books, and Shaw's resulted in me getting out of the house in time to make it to Cambridge Naturals but stopping to chat with neighbors such that I got there about 2 minutes after it closed, then realizing I'd forgotten the prescription I needed to drop at CVS. I proceeded to wander around the Porter Square Bookstore because they didn't have any of the books I wanted (which I discovered after finally giving up and asking). Then I failed to stop by Shaw's because I couldn't remember what the hell I wanted there. (Something I can't get at Stop & Shop, where we went food shopping earlier in the week, but damned if I can remember what.)

Dude.

Goin' to bed now because I'm actually sleepy. Hallelujah.

Nota Bene: I'll be at the Million Year Picnic tomorrow (Sunday) from around 2pm til closing, at 9pm.

Small Paws

This is one of those "did I miss it? am I an alien?" questions.

I'm guessing other people feel like this, but I don't want to assume, because it gets me in trouble. And then I have to recite the stupid "makes an ass of u and me" phrase, which I hate with the violent passion of angry ninjas battling killer bees.

I feel like I'm always going a million miles an hour and never have time to stop and think and evaluate how my life is going. So today (well, maybe yesterday now, I dunno, the days and nights are getting a little blurry) I stopped and I thought.

I asked myself, "How are things going?"

And, I got nuthin. No real answer. Sort of a "on what scale?" kind of mental response.

I mean, I'm not happy. There are a lot of things I wish I were doing that I'm not. A lot of changes I want to make, but I don't know where to start. I've done a lot of work, through personal reflection, therapy, and exercises like resolutions, mind maps, and lists of things I want to do or always wished I would do.

But it's all a big messy tangle, a jumble in my head. I can't really make sense of it, partly because there's no recognizable underlying structure.

I want to tease out the threads and review some of the fuzzy bits. I want to go over what's good for me and what's bad for me and then find ways to get around or distract myself from doing the bad stuff and reward/focus on the good stuff.

I want to figure out my own scale of good to bad and put stuff on it, so I can look at their values in relation to each other.

I want to plan out my future more, make a map or find a path toward where I want to be. Of course, I also need to figure out where I want to be, cuz I don't really know.

Anyway. There's not a standard way to do this, right? This is why there are thousands of self-help books out there? Because humans haven't really figured out good, universal ways to do this?

Yes? No? Maybe?

Incomprehensible

From a note to myself dated 5/20/2009 (punctuation & spelling exactly as I wrote it):

Dreamt I was in a basement rec. room/laboratory & we had to share it with elves, pirates, & monster-scientists. Lots of fighting over chairs. Weird asplodey event in the lab from playing with The Box.

No memory of this whatsoever. At all. Not even a twinge of recognition.

Goat Tower

A goat tower. I mean, a tower for goats, rather than one made OF goats.

I kinda want one...

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/12/goats-enjoy-living-i.html

A Few Things Got Done

I'm setting the standards for success VERY LOW today.

I got up before 4pm.

I took a shower.

I girded my loins, gathered my courage, and called one of the credit card companies. Negotiated some payments, got off the "impending legal action" list.

I got out of the house for a little while & went for a walk over to the LSE. (Actually started the previous phone call while walking and completed it on the LSE porch.)

I fed my craving for linguine with clam sauce by ordering from Cinderella's Italian Cuisine in Cambridge. It was good. The BF's pizza was burnt, though.

I edited two last-minute papers.

I am going to bed before dawn.

Fear And Anger

Interesting. I was reading

hammercock's post about women and fear, which was inspired by

cereta's post "On rape and men."

I'm not sure where it came from, but there is a deep, abiding rage inside me. I have had it for as long as I can remember. Meaning, for me at least, that I can't remember my brain from before it, if that makes sense.

However, it is so thoroughly banked that I only get well and truly angry once every few years. (I don't count "pissed" [in the American sense of the word] as anger; it's more extreme irritation. I get irritated a LOT, although less often as I get older.)

Very few people have actually SEEN me well and truly angry. If you think you've seen it, odds are good that you're wrong.

Anyway, when I was in college, I used to walk other girls home. If a woman needed fetching from a frat house because her friends were nervous about her safety, I put on my work boots and whatever layers of cheap clothing were handy (t-shirts and overshirts - often flannel overshirts - and my denim jacket), and I'd clomp in and retrieve her. We didn't have a contingent of guy friends we could count on. Our few really trustworthy guy friends had to be walked home too - skinny little nerds, mostly.

It wasn't so much that I was unafraid. It was more that, when I was in protection mode, I had no room for fear because I could feel those warm coals inside me, trying to stoke up and get out. I was all business and at the first sign of any sort of shenanigans, my teeth would clench and my face would draw back in the sort of smile that any dog or ape would recognize as having everything to do with fighting and nothing to do with good humor.

It's not a smart rage. It responds very poorly to threats.

Which is odd, because when I'm alone out in the world, especially at night, in the dark, I'm often afraid. But I'm more afraid of the unexpected, the startlement of an attack, than the actual attack itself. I'm not afraid of rape so much as being caught off-guard and unprepared.

I'm not sure if I have a point. Just ruminating on fear, power, and gender stuff.

A Nibble, Not A Bite

I'm sad again. Stupid brain chemistry. Stupid credit card debt.

I'll be at the MYP all day today, opening the shop around 11am & closing around 7pm. Please drop by if you're in the area.

I won't be in on Thursday (I swapped shifts). In fact, I won't be in again until Sunday, 6/14. I'm supposed to get there around 1:30pm, but I'm often late.

I read Doug Tennapel's Gear the other night and it was awesome, all skittery lines and brilliant colors with a surreal, but compelling story. Definitely not a kids book, though. Gotta remember that. (I loved Creature Tech and Flink. Both are great fun and kid appropriate, so I recommend them to adults buying for kids on a regular basis.)

I also read the Neozoic trade (called volume 1, but I'm not sure there will be more) from Red 5 Comics and liked it. Alternate earth where the dinosaurs didn't die out, but evolution progressed to humanity anyway. Weirdly patriarchal, actually, but an interesting adventure.

Still savoring Sarah Vowell's Take the Cannoli.

Still working on wish fulfillment as a career option. (My wishes, that is. As opposed to fulfilling the wishes of others, which actually, now that I think about it, would be awesome.)

That is all.

Hey, That Worked!

Picked up Sarah Vowel's Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World yesterday as it's on EVERYONE's list of "If you like David Sedaris, you'll enjoy..." and read about half of it this evening, laughing quite a bit.

And when I sat down at my computer, later in the evening, I wrote a poem and an essay.

Go Go Gadget creativity!

Attendance Question

Anyone want to go to the DARBI Lunch at Green Tomato (noon, 6/10) with me?

http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/1806684.html

Gotta RSVP in advance, so comment or email me...

If You Like David Sedaris, You Might Like...

I have finally accepted a truth that many of you have suspected for years.

I love David Sedaris' writing.

HOWEVER, I really only enjoy his personal essays. His short stories actively disturb me.

I'd like to read more stuff in the area of humorous personal essays of the nonfiction variety. (Otherwise, if I just read his stuff, I'll burn myself out on his work; WoWFTVoE.)

Not uncoincidentally, I suspect this may be the area where I have the best chance of getting published and I believe I need more exposure.

Suggestions/recommendations?

Awesome Quote

Found here: http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/7151716.html

songs_of_winter's Mom Knows Women:

Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she'll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit.

(Original is f-locked, but damn! That is a fine sentiment there.)