standing on a star unstable

On Thursday, I bounced around in my chair at the Brown Jug and explained to splash_the_cat how excited I am by the polarized reactions Reparations has been getting. People are angry! People are enthused! Accusations of white liberal guilt are being bandied about! And the questions of paradox--!

Being a writer, for me, is a bit like being a neglected child. ANY attention is GOOD attention.

Plus, I'm really good at paying attention to the comments that are complimentary, and ignoring the ones that aren't.

And then, my story went reallytruly live at Coyote Wild. Check out The Girl-Prince. (Or not. I mean, obviously, based on previous, even if you don't read and then come tell me you hate it, I'll like what you say.) sartorias and her crew did a fantastic job picking stories. Some rich financier needs to hire sartorias as editor of a YA spec fic magazine and then let me buy a subscription. Anyway, lots of nice comments from folks. It's as good as writing fic.

And then, Surreal Botany got reviewed at io9, and that was extremely cool. (Even cooler is when I realize patrons at my library are buying it, and they don't even know their local ILL circulation supervisor and shipping manager is involved.)

And then, Dunesteef Audio Fiction purchased (or rather, is in the process of purchasing, but I anticipate seeing the contract soon) "Rampion in the Belltower" for podcasting reprinty goodness. Which makes 3 podcast reprints this year. Fan-awesome-tastic!

Not a bad week.

...is without cynicism
...is wildly romantical without being romance-focused
...is entanglingly character-driven
...has characters with swords
...has mysterious religions
...is written with transparent prose so I don't have to fight my way through it going, "Wait, this is what I wanted, but it's not."
...has assassins. Good assassins.
...and gruff old men with hearts of gold
...and lost heirs in disguise
...and is basically all wish-fulfillment fantasy, all the time, but for girls who used to like unicorns but don't anymore
...and maybe there's a desert. And if there's no desert, there's a mountain fastness. And if there's no mountain fastness, there's a some other fancy, dominating landscape.

I want, basically, The Blue Sword again for the first time. Plus a little Seven Daughters for Seven Sons and a lot of Crown Duel, and maybe even a tiny bit of Dragonsong, with a dash of David Eddings and Mercedes Lackey (no really). And little tiny bit of I Capture the Castle, but only in the voice.

Anyone know where I can find that?

No, I'm not selling friends, but stephanieburgis, fellow Michigan native who now lives in Yorkshire (*jealous*) has sold her YA trilogy!

She SO ROCKS. Which we already knew, but now EVERYONE will know!

Congratulations, Steph!

Your first thick book is your first book in almost every way. It's the one that makes you feel like a grown-up. Not only are its flaws meaningless, but since it's your first, you don't even know about the flaws.

My first thick book is Clan of the Cave Bear. My second was Mists of Avalon. I was 11 with Clan and 12 with Mists, and I felt like those books changed my life, my view of the world, my view of myself, everything. They were the best books I'd ever read. I wept over them. I fretted over them. I thought "What would Ayla do?" when faced with difficult situations in my own life. (Or not so difficult ones.)

I look at them now and think: Clan was really kind of boring, sort of a vicious infodump with a Mary Sue and a lot of nonsense, however well-researched. (My assessment upon a recent re-read.) Mists... oh, urgh. I can't even bring myself to contemplate re-reading it, and haven't since I was 18.

So. That's what the girls--our girls, our teenagers, the girls we would have been if we'd been born ten or forty years later, the girls who are going to pop up in the next decade in the ranks of writers and feminists and online presences--think about Twilight.

Does it matter that Twilight is not the book we would have written? It's what we would have read.

Do you really think that all the girls who read the series are going to become little Bella Swans, Bella, who seems to us passive and self-absorbed and only interested in boys? I don't. She's self-absorbed and they're self-absorbed. It'll pass for them. Not so much for her, since she's all fictional and static.

And they're not passive, our girls, any of them, and Bella Swan won't make them passive. They identify with her because they're young and they don't know yet that they can have real agency in this world, because we're still there, telling them to practice their violin and to brush their teeth, and let's not even get started on the helicopter parents. The girls, they'll get it when the time comes. They've grown up on the other side of feminism, and I haven't met one kid under the age of 19 yet (in my rarefied Ann Arbor circles), male or female, who thinks any of the things about women that were rammed down my throat when I was growing up are true. Or that anyone can really think those things.

And as for being only interested in boys... frankly, it was a consuming passion for me, and it's a consuming passion for them. Of course there's more to their lives. There was more to mine. And even though I actually rarely acted boy-crazy because I didn't want anyone to ever tease me once ever about it, or to think that I actually had emotions that they could get their hooks into, Boy-Crazy was the second level of my consciousness at all times: is he looking at me, does he like me, is he cute, do I like him, am I cute, am I thin enough, am I acting too smart, oh, well, fuck it, I'm smart, he's smart too...

The adage that teenage boys think about sex all the time doesn't seem to get disputed very often. We know that, if it's true, they do other things while thinking about sex all the time, and it's not really all that it's about for them. Your experience of girlhood might have been different, but that's how I was wired--where a boy thinks about sex, I was thinking about relationships with boys. (And sex.)

So, anyway. Twilight is a lot of people's first thick book now. And there's very little about the book that's really going to scar them. Even the Edward/stalker thing isn't going to come through that way. I don't think a single one of them is going to think that Edward's behavior would code as acceptable behavior in real life. Because no boy is ever going to be as perfect and pristine and marbulous as Edward. Which is okay. At that age, holding out for perfection might just save a bit of heartache. And they'll get over it eventually. They'll see the book for what it is. But for now, it's the best book they've ever read.

I woke up this morning with two things in my head. The first was a complete plot of a short story. The second was this poll, exactly as I've written it. I sat up and wrote down the poll, certain that I'd remember the story instead of the tripe of this poll.

So now it's 11:13 PM, I have a poll and no story.

Good job, me!

ENJOY!



[Poll #1221310]

To recap:

Woke up Wednesday morning to find a screen out of a window and a(n indoor) cat missing.

We were supposed to leave on vacation on Thursday night. Granted, it was just vacation to the cottage, not a thing with tickets and reservations and hullaballoo, but still, vacation, plus out-of-state relatives, that sort of thing.

After combing and recombing the neighborhood and emailing and posting on craigslist and calling and weeping and gnashing teeth, we left Friday, saw the fireworks, and I drove back today to visit the Humane Society and to wander around and to get up at 3AM and do "cat vigil."

Before bed tonight:

I left the garage door open about a foot, and left the door to the laundry room open, since this is the only room in the house you can both sequester and leave open to the outside. That was one of the several tricks for luring home lost cats that you all told me.

I left food out front and out back.

I set my alarm for 3AM.

And I fell asleep for about half an hour before MERLIN came PESTERING ME. Like, seriously, TIMMY IS IN THE WELL, MOM. I thought, "Really? Can he have seen Arthur?" So I went downstairs and there was no food in the front dish. I put more in, rattled it good--and proceeded to summon the neighbor's cat, who was like, "Hey, what? You mean the buffet comes with conditions?" Neighbor's cat stalked off. I despaired. What if all the missing food was just her dining out?

And I think I maybe mumbled some curses at Merlin and went back to bed.

Who, within ten minutes, was tap-dancing on my head and chirping. It was a lot like his usual demands for affection, but he wouldn't settle down and get petted. So I got up again. Nothing in the front, nothing in the back. I said, rather pointedly, to Merlin, "LOOK. I set my alarm for 3AM. I will go find your brother THEN. Okay?"

I got another half hour of sleep at that point, before Merlin was back. TIMMY, MOM. IN THE WELL.

I went downstairs, checked the laundry room again, and this time, I decided to lie down on the couch. And by god, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, Merlin calmed right down and started this very dutiful patrol: stand at the back door and peer out. Trot off to the front door. Come sniff the laundry room door. Perch on the couch arm above my head for a minute. Back to the back door.

Now, earlier today, on one of my patrols, Merlin sneaked out the door as I was coming in and ran all over the yard before I finally caught him and brought him back inside with stern warnings that I was not losing two cats in one week. At the time, I didn't know if he'd just gotten his taste for the outdoors back with our foolishness on the leash the other day, or if he thought he was going to find his littermate, but now I think it was the latter.

I dozed, while Merlin patrolled. The other two cats were kind of just doing their usual thing--they'd look out the back door sometimes, but mostly just to watch moths and I think a vole (something small and fast). Maybe I'm not giving them enough credit now, but there was no pattern like with Merlin. I woke up when Merlin's tail drifted down on my forehead during his intermittent perching, and when the other cats got excited about the vole.

And when I heard the thumps in the laundry room.

I swear to god, Merlin and I looked at each other. I feel like I'm anthropomorphizing this cat, or at least imbuing it with dog-like qualities, but we did look at each other, and then he crouched to stare at the laundry room door, ready to squirt through. I shooed him back, muttered, "Please don't be a raccoon, please don't be a raccoon," and opened the door a smidge.

Guess what?

Raccoon.

I slammed the door shut, waited ten seconds, looked again. Raccoon was on his way out. I slammed the door to the garage shut after him, but decided I'd wait 'til morning to lower the big garage door, because lord knows I don't want to shut the raccoon in.

Back to the couch.

I was dozing again, when Merlin chirped. And there was a rattle of the food outside the back door. I opened my eyes to see--unmistakably--Arthur! I jumped up and ran outside, slammed the screen door shut after me (because Merlin was ready to pounce on his brother), and scared him straight into the bushes.

Crap.

I sat down, and started calling softly to Arthur and rattling the food, and eventually, he came back. Circled around, in fact--I was looking left and he came in front the right. He chirped a little, and ran past me. Chirped again, came closer. Let me pet him, skimmingly, three or four times. Wouldn't eat the food off my fingers, which I thought was odd. He doesn't look any skinnier, but we have been leaving food out. Finally, he came close enough, and I grabbed him and tossed him inside.

Kali growled and hissed and took a swipe at him.

Merlin ran around like he was doing a victory lap.

I cracked open a can of wet food, petted the heck out of him, and came up here to email my husband. And write this, of course.

I bet now Merlin will let me sleep.

Day three of absent cat.

Thank you to captainblack and redmomoko, who offered to come help look for the kitty... though as Dann pointed out, Arthur is so skittish, he'll run from us. Someone on craigslist posted that they'd found a small black cat not far from here, but that person won't get back to us. Humane Society doesn't open until Saturday, with the holiday. We are currently planning to drive out to the cottage to see our family there, and one (or both) of us will journey back on Saturday to haunt the shelter.

In (my) desperation, I put the cat leash and collar that we never use on Merlin and took him outside. Merlin spent a lot of time lying down underneath bushes, or trying to leap away from me and hide underneath the neighbor's porch. Merlin, he would like us to know, is not a bloodhound sort of cat. I don't think it was totally futile, though; he marked up a lot of trees and maybe that will let Arthur know he's home, should he get this far. Merlin's antics lightened my mood a little, even though in the middle of the night, when he comes storming up to us for purrful lovings, I think he's missing Arthur--because he doesn't often bother us in the middle of the night. I think he's used to getting affection from his littermate, and now he's coming to us more. He used to be extremely affectionate to us--now he's insatiable.

Time to change the litter boxes. The other Kate at work suggested putting a little of the litter outside, so Arthur would know this is home. I'm desperate enough to try that...

a) Bar night may be good for the soul, but it does NOTHEEENG for my reputation.

b) Merlin, the Gray Cat,



has recently discovered the wonder of the Human Water Glass. To the point where I have to hide my water from him. I realize many other cats have discovered human water glasses before him, but it's just weird that he's been alive 8 years and figured out how awesome cold water is at this late date.

c) I still have a sore throat. STILL. Most other symptoms seem to have receded, though I was coughing rather a lot on Friday.

d) I gave Kali a shower today, and cut out some mats. She has lost enough weight to be able to clean her own butt--a victory--but it needed a little help. A reset, if you will. She did not enjoy the shower, and lay in front of the door this evening and pouted, and refused to move.

e) I've had two awesome couch naps this weekend. Last time, I think I dreamed of my grandparents' farm. I don't really remember the dream. It's just that I woke up, and the memories of running around the hayfields on windy days, trying to race the cloud shadows to the fence, seemed really close.

Ah, the Long Weekend. What a fine institution. ( In which we install a dock, assault some poor woman's popcorn, and go swimming in 65 degree water. )

Today at work Suzanne and I went downstairs to our new annex (room 17) to talk to the electrician about outlet placement and some schmancy kind of conduit.

The Door was open.

There are three doors in Room 17--the main, double door from the hallway, the unpassable back door that opens onto shelves in the MonoCat room, and the Sekrit Door, the Locked Door. The door that opens onto a cement staircase overhung with pipes and pipes and pipes, that leads to a brick room with a layer of rust dust a centimeter thick, or so it seems.

We went down the stairs.

Into the steam tunnels.

It was awesome.

The electrician came down. "You guys going to Angell Hall?" he asked.

"Not today," we said regretfully.

I told Ralph--and my boss--, "It's how we can escape the zombie hordes when they show up."

Ralph said, "Won't the zombie hordes be IN the steam tunnels?"

"No, the doors are kept locked," I said gravely. "Zombies can't pick locks. But we can."

They didn't look like they believed me, but trust me. Someday they'll be grateful that I think of these things.