The Desert Mermaid

There are some bottles of experimental Earl Grey cream soda settling up in the fridge. I'll let y'all know how it tastes. If it goes well, I may try some Pride of the Port soda next.

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Have been taking up jewelry-making again. Taking chainmaille a bit more seriously this time around. It's always difficult to get started with something, but this place has a few great starter kits. Plus, it's got colorful jump rings, and I am a sucker for colors. So far I'm trying a simple Box Chain rainbow necklace. I'm idiotically proud of how closely I'm managing to get the jump rings closed.

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In the meantime, I've come across some pretty nifty-looking images of handmade LED Zelda-style Fairy-Inna-Bottle necklaces, but none of them are for sale. So I went with the next logical course of action and decided to make it myself.

Problem is, my knowlege of electricity is roughly that of a fifth-grader working through Fifty Fun Science Projects You Can Do At Home: something something battery something zinc copper something something circuit something LIGHT! And, y'know, for some reason I've picked up the impression that a potato is involved somehow. So I called my brother, what with him being an electrical engineer and all,* and he offered me some tips. The rest has been trial, error, and a lot of Googling. Oh, and gathering components. Once I get that done, the rest should be easy.

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Mom got herself some roller skates, too. Now we just have to find a place to skate--outdoors, possibly, as spring gets moving.

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I have mastered the art of Fish'n'Chips. I'd make myself a medal, but I'm already making a few other necklaces, and that would just be redundant.


*On the one hand, this a running joke along the lines of asking a linguist how many languages they speak. "Can you program my TV? I mean, you ARE an electrician!" No, he's an electrical engineer. On the other hand, though, I figured he probably knew a LITTLE more about practical circuitry than me and my potato.

Got my squash all planted today! It feels really late, but the packets did say "one week after last frost," and that means I'm right on the nose there. Now if I can only keep them planted, what with all the garden pests going around digging them back up. And by "garden pests," I mean Mom'n'Dad. They're worse than gophers. And like gophers, their own goals are totally reasonable to them. They are fixing up the staircase down to my garden, which is really nice of them, but it seems to necessitate digging up all the seeds I had just so carefully planted.

But at least the corn and the sunflowers both seem to be on their way up! And I didn't actually kill my tomato starts, so that's always good.

Also, apparently there is catnip in the garden. Either that or my cat is really interested in botany.

I can only imagine what it must be like to be mobbed by scrub jays when you're stoned. The cat reports that it is not a lot of fun, though.

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Meanwhile, my sister sent me an author! Or, at least, there was an author doing a debut book tour at my sister's book shop, and they struck up a conversation, and somehow I came up. And when my sister found out the nice author lady would be doing an appearance at one of our local bookshops, she told me to go find her.

I'm not sure how this will work out--nice author lady writes thrillers and I do not--but it's nice to have someone cheering for you. And I returned the favor of cheering, all like "Dude, you got published! High five!"

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I may actually be almost maybe going to start my museum job this week! Possibly. I still have no idea what it entails--in fact, since the orientation, I have LESS of an idea. I will let y'all know on Tuesday what is up there.

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And in "The Arbitrary Rules Of Life Still Hold" news, the month of May has not at all relaxed its Ahab-like vendetta against my family. It's been piling stressful and uncool things all over us this month. I'm just hoping the barrage ends before, say, we discover the cat's been running a meth lab in the basement when it suddenly explodes or something. That would fit right in with my May, dammit. Let's just skip right along to June, shall we?

Hoo, busy weekend!

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It turns out a pitched roof doesn't do much good if it connects to a flat awning over one's deck. The entire back half of the thing is sagging dangerously, and it's going to take money--a whole lotta spending money!--to fix it. In a stunning development, our homeowners' insurance is actualy going to pay for some of it. And as long as they're rebuilding anyway, they're going to throw in some skylights for free! Maybe the lighting in my house will actually improve!

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Went to a Passover seder this weekend at Kate'n'Matt's. I had never been to a seder before. I am really not the sort you would normally invite to a seder unless you are exceptionally laid-back. Fortunately, Kate'n'Matt and their other Jewish buddy are exceptionally laid-back, so it was in the nature of a fun dinner party with some tradition tossed in. Also it was vegetarian, and Kate is a great vegetarian cook. Once we got to the part where we can actually eat, it was delicious.

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Finally got some new soil worked into my garden and planted some beets and radishes and carrots, with the assistance of an enthusiastic three-ish-year-old neighbor who has been acting as local anecdotal evidence of the existence of Einstein Syndrome. Until a few months ago the little guy only communicated with squeaks and shrieks, when most two-to-three-year-olds are progressing from two-word telegraphic speech to full sentences. Then one day apparently his brain was all "Hey: WORDS!" and suddenly he went from little squeals to being full on motormouth. He narrated the whole time he scooped dirt and planted seeds and watered the garden and, I think, suggested mixing concrete in with the dirt to make a skyscraper. I ... I may have created a monster.

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So, yes, it's lovely and summery out, and it is marred only by the fact that our next-door neighbors are AWFUL dog owners. They like to leave their stupid fucking pit bull* out on the back porch so that he can launch into a thousand years of barking every time something startles him, such as when a stiff breeze blows through the backyard or a moth lands on the side of the house. You would think this would be an easily solved problem--"Hey, your dog barks his fool head off whenever you're gone, here, I even printed out some tips on how to train him to not do that, thanks"--but these neighbors, like so many bad dog owners, are also terrible people, and a casual suggestion that maybe they should actually pay some attention to their dog results in DECLARATIONS OF WAR. Do not get me STARTED on the Saga Of This Goddamn Fool Dog. It's a tale retold many times in bad sitcoms. I wish it would stay in them.

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But it is so NICE out! I may just head out and climb a tree. Maybe take along my notebook, get this stubborn installment of Scatterstone worked out (it's a great installment, so by god I gotta get it RIGHT!). Or maybe I'll just noodle around on my ocarina. If that dog's gonna bark, I might as well give him something to bark ABOUT.


*SPECIAL NOTE TO PIT BULL APOLOGISTS: I am sure there are lovely pit bulls in the world! I expect they have responsible owners and are themselves the very essence of dog urbanity! There are certainly pit bulls out there with intelligence and poise and the ability to not bark like incessant car alarms! THIS PIT BULL IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

A day late, but gimme a break—yesterday was as bonkers as Monday. Anyway, here’s …

What I Learned Since The Winter Solstice

• Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds had lupus.
• In other WTF music deaths, Melvin Franklin, the awesome bass singer from my favorite band, died of necrotizing fasciitis—the FLESH-EATING VIRUS.
• The platypus’s bill is electrosensitive.
• Quinoa comes in all the colors!
• Friendship bracelets work on the same knot-tying principles as macramé, except for some reason they’re a lot more fun.
• Gliese 436b is an ice planet with a surface temperature of 800˚F. Yes, that means it’s a planet of hot ice.
• Gallbladder surgery can be avoided with magic purple stuff!
• If you watch enough of them, it’s possible to date old western movies to within three years of their release.
• Scientists have spliced spider genes into goats, making spidergoats whose milk can be processed into spider silk. And the spiders aren’t even radioactive.
• Even turning into a skid won’t always save your car from blunt force trauma.
• Wearing a seatbelt can save you from a lot of injury, but it may give you a purple boob if your car has a front-end impact.
• There are three timelines in the Zelda universe, splitting with Ocarina of Time. In one, Ganon got the Triforce and was defeated by grown-ass Link. In another, little Link tipped everyone off to Ganon’s shenanigans (shenaniganons?) and Ganon didn’t get to become the King of Evil. In the third, Link failed and the sages had to seal Ganon into the Sacred Realm.
• The receptionist from Monsters, Inc. has a MEAN older brother.
• The brain-eating amoebas are IN YOUR TAPWATER RIGHT NOW. RUN.
• Contadina sauce is the best for pizza.
• Writing a synopsis for your own book is never easy.
• Bomber jackets can be amazingly warm.
• People seriously believe that monitoring the state of my reproductive system is a serious job requiring lots of government resources.
• THERE IS A SPACE OPERA VERSION OF THE HOBBIT.

I got me some blogger’s block. Know what that means? A bullet entry!

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Went to Ed the Hairbender today so’s he could silly up my hair again! I’ll post pictures at some point, unless I don’t, but I’ll tell you now it’s my usual tortoiseshell swirls with a warmer twist—I look a bit tigerish. It was that or Xmas colors.

While I was waiting for the dye to set another lady saw my book—a juvie fantasy novel—and we started to talk about how awesome fantasy is. After a bit of book comparing (she liked The Name Of The Wind), Ed came back. “Oh,” I said. “Looks like it’s time go get this foil out of my hair and let the aliens hear my thoughts again.”

There was a pause.

“Okay,” the lady said, “maybe you read too much fantasy. “

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She wasn’t quite correct, though. It’s not so much the fantasy as the way I’ve been on a serious Fringe binge. Goddamn, y’all, THIS SHOW. I love every single character and am a total fangirl of Astrid. And as I said earlier, I get a huge kick out of the fact that the pale bald mystery dudes are called Observers. I really hope that’s a sign that some writer was an MST fan.

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So! My Thanksgiving weekend this year still had a few small adventures. First came an abortive trip to the mall on Black Friday (“Are you crazy, Mom?” “Oh, it can’t be that bad!” “I’d better come along. Let me get my old sparring pads and some safety goggles.”) After fifteen minutes we decided that it was too damn much trouble to find a parking space, so we came home and did our shopping online as I had suggested.

That was still a bit of a treasure hunt, though. I even had to go to the internet UK to track some stuff down, and enlist the aid of good buddy and great sport acrossthelake in the actual UK to finish the job.*

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But the good times did not last! That evening Dad came to find me.

DAD: Can you help me? It’s your mom. I was talking to her, and I went to the bathroom, and when I came back she had stopped making sense.

ME: Is she asking herself, “How did I get here?”

DAD: Just get over here. *to Mom* Hey, do you recognize this person?

MOM: … Yeah, I know who that is.

DAD: …
…
…
Who is she?

MOM: That's Amelia. ... I don’t feel good.

ME: What’s the matter?

MOM: Well, my clothes are all sticks and there’s a wax cat on my chest. Also my feet are tennis balls.

ME: Ah. Dad, I see what you mean.

DAD: You’re lucky I’m a doctor.

MOM: Why? Who needs a doctor?


So I spent the evening helping Dad do neurological tests. After some science and detectivery we ruled out “stroke,” “aneurysm,” “flu,” “space rays,” and “Pazuzu,” and decided it was a bad reaction to her new sleep medication. So after we escorted her to the bathroom for the old-fashioned DIY stomach pump, we figured we could let her sleep it off. Though we did keep checking to make sure she was breathing.

And the next day we teased her mercilessly about it. After all, she ddn’t remember, so we certainly had to remind her.

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Ocarina Xmas carols are happening! Which is great, except I am still indirectly allergic to my ocarina, in the sense that every time I play it I suddenly get facehugged by the cat. Either that, or I lock her out of my room—and she tries her damndedst to either batter down the door or crawl under it.

But it’s worth it to be able to play through “Jingle Bells.”

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I also owe y’all the story of Thanksgiving Weekend In Mombasa. I thought I’d written more about it before, but I suppose I hadn’t. It may take me a while to put it together, but I’m working on it!


*Also I got her address, so I can send her the awesome thing I found for her!

Okay, no more silly posts, now that I can type on a real keyboard. I like my Nook, but I have a certain distaste for touch screens. I like to have a bit of resistance. I can see my oldness from here: in the future when we all have BrainPal implants, I’ll still get a keyboard instead of just typing WITH MY MIND like a normal person.

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Anyway. It’s also surprisingly nice not to wind up getting up-to-the-minute news. Hope all y’all East Coasters are picking up the pieces of your shattered lives, or at least the pencil cups that fell off your desks. Other than that, I hope I don’t need to catch up on anything. It’s nice not to have the weight of the world on my shoulders.

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Good grief, American Girl, who is picking your illustrators? Cécile and Marie-Grace are adorable and will definitely fill the fancy richness void left by Samantha, but what is with the illustrations that look like cut-and-paste? It’s not even like it’s the same illustrators who did the bad cutout drawings for Rebecca or Chrissa* either. Find someone who can do texture right, dangit.

On the other hand, those outfits just make me want to play Doll Dressup Time. Especially Cécile’s Meet Outfit. IT’S SHIIIINY.

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I managed to get away to Grand Teton National Park for a few days. I know it’s got a stupid name, but don’t knock a place that looks like this:



We go here a lot to get away, but this time it was a weird dynamic: me, Mom, Dad, and Dad’s younger sister and her husband. It was … weird. I’ve been coming here since I was three years old, and I’m pretty sure when I get into that context everyone assumes I’m three again. The good news is that, since I’m technically not three anymore, I could wander off if I started feeling that way. At night I could look at the stars, and in the day I could hike around and look around, see if I could spot wildlife.



And yes, I used an opera glass to observe stars and moose, because I am a classy motherfucker.

Oh, and there was a show about raptors on the deck one day. My favorite was a completely adorable great horned owl.



The owl’s handler was standing there to give the owl some shade. She’d try to move when someone wanted a picture, but every time she did the owl would get completely confounded and watch her wildly, like “WHERE YOU GOIN? WHAT HAPPEN?”, so the sunlight pictures are all of her blurry head.

I did pretty much nothing else while I was there. Wrote and read, in the view of some awesome majesty. Except for one day when I was all comfy in the cabin and reading, and I had the door open because it was a nice day, and a little marmoty thing** just strolled in and started inspecting my luggage. I tried to get a picture, but before I could he completed his inspection and strolled back out. Probably for the best, as otherwise I’d’ve had to punt him out the door, and I am pretty sure that is against park rules.

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Got back home and immediately got lost in the Tomato Jungle that is my garden. The pumpkins may be having issues, and somebody may have eaten my strawberries (I’m looking at you, birds), but WE WILL NOT LACK FOR TOMATOES.

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My sister started school this week. Ye gods, she’s a senior. No word on whether she has any excellent classes, but one can always hope.


*MOM: This one doesn't look so bad!
ME: Yes, it does.
MOM: Okay, yes, it does. I was just trying to put a positive spin on things.

**I am not sure what kind; the closest I could come was what the guidebook told me was a “Uinta ground ssquirrel,” but I have no idea if that is accurate. Also, I had no idea you spelled “ssquirrel” with two s’s.

Alas, my brother’s visit was too short all around. I wanted more time to hang out and chat with himm. I know he wants to move back out this way at some point—I am just hoping it’ll be soon, since we both suck at telephones and IM. I keep trying to convince him to get an LJ, but that’ll never happen.

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The biggest thing we did this week was take his girlfriend down to Moab, largely because it was an excuse to go to Moab. It’s always different down there—this time it was a bit cooler and rainier, like everything in the world right now, and the Colorado was flooded. Also, tragically, the bookstore that sells books you’d actually want to read went out of business, leaving the rest of its merchandise to be assimilated by the pretentious desert bookstore it had merged with last year.

ME: Hey, dude! You should totally get The Way of Kings! Look, it’s right here, and I believe it is exactly your type of thing.

MY BROTHER: Good god, I am not buying that monstrosity here! Do you want me to have to check a whole new piece of luggage?

(I wander over to a display where a tender picture book entitled Go The Fuck To Sleep sits cheerfully mocking anyone who thinks loving one’s kids means never being exasperated by them)

ME: Hey, I heard about this book on the radio! Is it any good?

BOOK STORE LADY: If you have a sense of humor.

ME: That was the conclusion of the radio people, too.

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ME: This condo is a bit overfurnished. How am I supposed to get anywhere with all these chairs and coffee tables everywhere? Should I just parkour my way to my teacup over there?

MY SISTER: YES, YOU SHOULD.

MY BROTHER: PARKOUR, MOTHERFUCKER!


Somehow this became the running (har) gag of the trip, since we all find parkour to be a punchline in and of itself. Need to get out of the back seat of the car? Parkour! Need to get your windstolen hat out of a canyon? Parkour on down! Condo pool locked? Parkour! Hear about another Batman ally? Parkour, motherfucker!

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I spent a lot of time editing. The OGYAFE is coming together, and I’m in that wonderful stage where it all looks GREAT. I’ve started to think I should’ve written it first, since Doctors! is not really marketable for a first novel, but hey, after I get the OGYAFE sold it might be easier to sell the crazy one about alien medical drama.

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Meanwhile, while we were all hiking around the desert checking out breathtaking natural rock formations, my seeds sprouted! The corn and squash and beans are looking good, and the nasturtiums always make me happy. I am especially amused that I found the spot where I dropped my packet of marigold seeds. I’ll have to buy some started tomatoes, and once that happens I am going to have an awesome garden this summer. Unless it snows.

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The last thing we did with brother and his girlfriend was go see the Green Lantern. And we were baffled. How do you take a story about superheroing and aliens, one where the hero can construct any goddamn awesome evil-battling thing he can think of, and make it completely boring? You would think it would be a visual extravaganza. My sister and I are starting to suspect that the writers had no idea they were writing an action movie. They seemed to think it was a pilot for a low-budget sitcom with a sci-fi premise.

Also, I have to admit, I am getting just a little sick of having completely useless women in these fucking superhero films. I am at the point where I’d rather have NO female lead than have a female lead whose only purpose is to be the love interest and offer vague advice about how Mr. Hero has to feel his feelings and commit to responsibility and other such psychobabbly bullshit. C’mon, you even decided to put Amanda Freaking Waller in the movie and there was still no sign of a formidable female. I am half-suspecting that a great sequel twist would be finding out that this "Amanda Waller" is in fact a pod person.*

At least the "green" part meant they scrapped the dreaded Teal And Orange Filter. Small favors there.

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Anyway. That’s the week in highlights. Anything interesting happen to you guys while I was off gallivanting?


*Obviously, that will be the B-plot, since the credits set up the sequel's A-plot already. Even though this movie stinks, I will still be courteous and not spoil it for those of you who are a) not aware of the Green Lantern canon already and b) absolute dumbfuck morons who can't see exactly who the sequel villain is going to be by about five minutes into the film (he has never been particularly subtly rendered). Although to be fair, if you're like me you were waiting for him to be the villain in this film, if it had ever gotten its shit together.

So apparently we have decided to skip spring this year and switch from winter to summer pretty much overnight. It’s kind of awesome to have 76-degree weather and snow at the same time, but this does mean that we’re gonna get a lot of snowmelt really fast and the canyons may flood.



But it sure looks cool.

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Mom and I went to the quilt show last Saturday. We are obviously drawn to the same sorts of bright colors:


Alas that the lighting isn’t better here. It was equally wrong with and without flash.


It was tough to get good angles on these things, too, since people kept jostling around. This was the best I could do.

God help us if someone makes us a Lisa Frank quilt. We may not stop at pictures, and just steal the whole dang thing..

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Oh, sure, the say they’re just two friends enjoying sodas together, but I am beginning to suspect that Daja fancies Kuen a little.



Okay, actually I set them up this way because it’s impossible to make a doll without knee joints look less than silly when they sit on chairs. I was surprised at how nice this looks.

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My sister and I managed to convince each other to watch different versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The 1978 version of the movie is hugely entertaining for its hideous fashions (plaid tweed and turtleneck sweaters!), its attempt to oversell that THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE, DAMMIT,* and its giving you the sense that you're watching an entire cast of people with short-term memory loss. Every time they run into someone they haven’t seen for a while, they forget to check to see if they’re dealing with a fresh pod person or not. And Donald Sutherland just can’t let go of the idea that the police are his friends.

Also, I know it doesn’t makea sense and the 78 version is a remake, but I like the idea that Kevin McCarthy spent 22 years running through the streets yelling “THEY’RE HERE!” at passing vehicles.

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I am always stunned when someone tells me they have never seen Donald in MathMagic Land. I thought it was required for substitute teachers to show this video to keep the kids from overthrowing the administration. Which was just fine with me, since it always fascinated my nerdly little mind.



Yup. Still awesome. And still clinging to that 50’s We Can Do Anything WITH SCIENCE attitude at the end there. I wish there were more of that around.

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Got The Farm all planted out on the deck—finally. The seedlings were ready for their big kid beds. I’m not sure the thyme is really thrilled with the transplant, though. I may have to replant it, but I’ll see how it does first.

I was excited to see my carrots and beets actually sprout this year, though. I’ll let you know how they do!


*The soundtrack tried way too hard, but Ben Burtt's use of ultrasound noises was inspired, as is most of what Ben Burtt does. Fit in with the whole fetal motif of the podbabies.

Got my mushroom log up and running! It is so far a bit of an ugly sight, sittin’ on my desk next to my Klein bottle and my jewelry pile.* I am led to understand that they will look quite lovely when they grow, but for now it looks like I have a very weird shrine to nougat sitting near my window. We shall see how that unfolds.

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Speaking of mushrooms, I’ve been learning “Beware the Forest’s Mushrooms” on the ocarina. Only trouble with video game songs is trying to end them. Perhaps this is why my cat has taken to punching me in the stomach when I play them. But it’s worth it—this song is ridiculously fun to play.

Anyway, while trying to find some sheet music for it I discovered that my weird love of Geno is shared by many other people who are probably equally weird. He is one of my favorite characters in the Mario franchise, despite Square’s refusal to let him come out and play anymore. (It’s okay! I made up for that prominently in my own extremely bad Super Mario stories, which I wrote obsessively in sixth grade before I even knew that anyone else in the entire world wrote fanfiction!) Good to know I'm not alone.

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I love the way people who make TV shows are completely clueless about video games. They don’t even try. They’ll have some scene where two people are furiously button-mashing, and saying scripted things like “Aha you got me that time!” or “Let me get the next powerup!”, except that any gamer could tell you that these idiots have got the game on single player mode, and furthermore it’s the middle of a cutscene. It has the great effect of making any character with a controller look like the little kids at the arcade who are furiously toggling the joystick and cheering while the screen still says INSERT TOKEN TO PLAY.**

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I have been craving pizza lately, but there is no good pizza place around here, frozen pizzas are nasty, and ready-made some-assembly-required pizza sauces and crusts all have about four cups of sugar dumped into them to appeal to the discerning consumer palate. But by god, it got bad, so I finally caved in and made my own damn pizza yesterday evening. IT TURNS OUT I SHOULD DO THAT MORE OFTEN.

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It’s a mite cloudy these last few nights, but I did manage to identify Betelgeuse as Betelgeuse and not just “one of the stars in Orion.”*** I’d never bothered to pay attention to star colors before, but it really is orange. I’ll be damned.

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Had to do this the night after a raccoon-and-skunk skirmish in the yard so’s I didn’t pass out from skunk fallout. That must have been some battle, because it involved a raccoon disguising itself as our cat, possibly replete with papers forged by Donald Pleasence. Mom opened the door and called for the cat, and lo a big furry thing with a stripey tail responded instantly by bounding toward her. No hesitation, no wild animal wariness, just “You’re inviting me in? THANK GOODNESS. THERE ARE SKUNKS OUT HERE!” We literally had to slam the door on it when we realized it was an imposter. And yes, we kept the real cat in for the rest of the evening.


*I try to keep my jewelry in boxes, but it always outgrows ’em. It’s like pasta from Strega Nona’s magical pot, only with more shiny bits.

**Or like your little sister back when she was really tiny and wanted to play video games so you gave her your other controller, which was not even hooked to the console, and told her she could “help” you, not that I ever did this.

***I know the four stars are supposed to frame his tunic, but frankly Orion always looks more like a guy doing a jumping jack to me. But at least it’s one of the few constellations I can recognize by gestalt!