a fool's musings

Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write...

Warning: Adult Content achromatic unfinished fic graveyard recs journal new stuff recent stuff my back pages January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 the five Ws, or, all about me profile e-mail victoria my livejournal the original P&R comments current mood: "pathological and unbalanced" Items of Interest People LiveJournal folks Baraita bishclone claritylit Jintian Kat Allison Kit Mason metablog mix-tapes Neil Gaiman Nestra Sarah T. Seema Shrift Sundry Mourning zendom Music Walk On - U2 Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen If I Can't Change Your Mind - Sugar Sick of Myself - Matthew Sweet Town Called Malice - The Jam One - U2 The Space Between - DMB Books Lord of the Rings Catch-22 The Neely Trilogy Absalom! Absalom! Possession: A Romance Foucault's Pendulum Dreamhouse LA Confidential I Capture the Castle Sandman Waking the Moon Shows Angel Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in reruns) Alias West Wing The Simpsons webrings < ? fanfiction ! > < ? writers ! > diaryreviews.diaryland.com NYC Bloggers Comments by Haloscan.com all links, if I haven't screwed up somehow, should open in a new browser window

08.15.02 - 9:04 p.m. The Mole Well, I don't have skin cancer. Whew. Apparently, this odd little mole on my leg isn't even a mole (which you know, doesn't surprise me. For the longest time I thought it was a blood blister when it first appeared, a couple of years ago). It's a blood vessel mole or a "cherry" mole (not to be confused with the sauce *g*) or cherry angioma (for more information, go here, here, and here). I raised my skirt to show the doctor (very dapper and gentlemanly) and he looked at it and said, "If that's your only problem, then you have no problem. It's a cherry mole." He pointed out a couple tiny ones I have on my chest (that I'd always wondered about) and said they're harmless - they start to appear with more frequency after age 25, and if I wanted it removed he could burn it off ("A little needlestick that stings, then we burn it off and it's gone.") I said no, thanks. *g* The visit cost $20 and took all of 15 minutes from the time I walked in the door to the time I walked out. I went to the mall (it was only 2 blocks away) bought the Best. Bra. EVER. (5 of 'em) at Victoria's Secret (and this time, I tried 'em on in the story, so it's not a turkey shoot) and came home and slept like a baby. Now I'm going to try to catch up on some email and LJ/blogs. ~victoria link [current mood: relieved] [current music: silence, as my radio freaks out] [random quote: Am I marrying a demon? We could really raise the beam on making marriage a hell...] ~*~ 08.15.02 - 11:02 a.m. what we have here is a failure to communicate Been waiting for this memo to be signed by the CFO before he goes on vacation. Yesterday was his last day in the office, and it was in his hands, and his assistant and I were in close contact all day in order to make sure it got signed. My boss called in numerous times from *his* vacation to make sure that the CFO had the documents, and that they were going to get signed. As of 3:30 yesterday, I knew CFO had it, but hadn't signed it yet. I was here until about 6:30pm, which is when I left to go down to Chinatown (lovely dinner, btw, the whole duck and whole fish thing notwithstanding. I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm somewhat squeamish in my carnivorousness - I don't want something that looks like the AFLAC duck or Charlie the Tuna to show up on the table, you know? But the orange chicken and the beef with broccoli were really good, as were the dumplings, and F. insisted they bring me some fried rice *without* shrimp, so I could have rice too. Sometimes it's nice to have someone just take over and make demands so I don't have to. *g* D's a lucky woman. She looks FABulous btw. I told you she's having twins, right? A boy and a girl - one shot deal. *G* And two of the women told me this hilarious story about... well, let's just say it may be coming to a fic near you soon. *snicker*). [/digression] Anyhow, I hadn't heard from DW, the CFO's asst, by the time I left yesterday, so first thing this morning, I called her and... she's on vacation until Monday. So I call the woman who's covering for her (J) and she has NO CLUE what I'm talking about. Which worries the living shit out of me, because this memo is for the board and, well, you don't fuck around with board stuff. (And how is it that no matter where I end up, I'm always doing something with board meetings. Since my RIRM/SLP days and the NAA - and yes, my "career" *snicker* is full of acronyms - I've been doing board agendas or board books or planning board dinners, etc.) So I call around and leave messages for a couple other people, and then J calls me back and tells me that yes, the memo was signed (whew) and delivered to the Legal Dept. (from whence it originally came). Much relief is felt by all in my little corner of the world. If people would just, you know, TELL me things, I'd be a much happier person. Communication is key, as wanky as it sounds. I'm leaving at 1:30 this after because I have an appointment with the dermatologist about The Mole That May Have Changed Its Appearance Recently (TMTMHCIAR). I think I just nicked it shaving, but TMTMHCIAR is suddenly a little bumpy on the surface where it used to be smooth. It doesn't even look like a mole. It appeared a few years ago on my thigh, and I thought it was a blood blister. It's a very dark purple in color, not brown like most people's moles. Or maybe my color perception is off. Who can say? Anyhow, this is the appointment where, when I asked for their late hours, she told me they're open until 3. ::shakes head:: So I have a bunch of letters to send off for vetting to Legal, and then I am outta here. ~*~ Quote of the Day: Man is, then, only disguise, falsehood, hypocrisy-both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others; and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart. ~Blaise Pascal ~*~ ~victoria link [current mood: busy, tired] [current music: Hotel California - Eagles] [random quote: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave...] ~*~ 08.14.02 - 6:00 p.m. Let us go, then, you and I From Jae Gecko: The "You and I" meme, which was damned hard to do. 1a. What do you think is the funniest excerpt from a piece of your own fanwriting? I suck at the funny, but here's a tie, one long, one short: From Faculty Follies: When they were done, he walked away, trying to hide his grin. Even Jean was going to be surprised by this, he thought. He heard them chattering behind him, their whispers loud enough to carry across the lawn, and the grin broke out before he could stop it. "Stop staring at his ass," Jubilee said. "I was not staring at his ass," Kitty replied furiously, blushing. "It's a nice ass to stare at," Rogue said wryly. "Rogue!" Kitty was shocked. "What? It is." "Logan wouldn't like hearing you say that," Kitty said, neatly turning the conversation away from her own contemplation of Scott's ass. Rogue tossed her head. "I don't give a damn what-all Logan likes or dislikes. He walks around like a half-dressed savage, lettin' all the women drool over him and he's gonna tell me I can't look at other men's behinds? I so don't think so," she responded emphatically. Oh, yeah, Scott thought, this is going to be fun. *** "This is a nightmare!" Scott snapped as the girls rejected yet another of his suits. "You can't look like an off-duty cop, Scott. You have to look cool. Like a pimp," Jubilee said reasonably. "Like a --" Scott choked on the word as Kitty and Rogue broke into giggles. "We're going shopping," the Asian girl said firmly. "You need a suit and a fedora and maybe a nice coat to drape over your shoulders." "Like James Brown," Kitty added. "Huh!" Rogue barked in imitation of the Godfather of Soul. Scott sighed. He was outnumbered and outgunned and he knew it. And this, from "Time's Fool": They heard something bang into a wall, and a curse from Jean. "Watch out with my stuff," Logan yelled, but there was no heat in it. He didn't care. He had retreated back into the state of being which had come so naturally for so long. Before Marie, he hadn't cared about anyone or anything. And he'd managed to avoid getting hurt. He thought it was time he went back to that, before he did something stupid and they both got hurt again. "Yeah, yeah," Jean replied, breathless from the effort of using her powers. Scott thought it'd be too great a strain, but she wanted to prove to him that over the years, she'd gained strength and control. "I don't see either of you getting up and helping me." "Don't want to ruin your concentration, darlin'. I know how distracted you get when I'm around," he said, noting how Scott's hand tightened around the neck of his beer bottle. "I bet you wish that was my neck, eh, Cyke?" 1b. What do you think is the funniest excerpt you've read in a piece of someone else's fanwriting? This whole story is hilarious, but this will do it ( did the hard work. I just copied her answer): From Yahtzee's "Them Mean Ol', Low-down Lando Calrissian Blues": "Mr. President," Wesley said, leaning forward intently. Every muscle in his body, every word he spoke, testified to his incredible concentration, his desperation to convince the President of the United States of the truth of his words. "Unless you place the Majestic Crystal of Emen-Reth-Va atop the Washington Monument during the six weeks when the demon Algorep could break free -- the entire world is DOOMED." For a moment there was silence. Then President Bartlet shrugged. "Done." 2a. What do you think is the most gutwrenching excerpt from a piece of your own fanwriting? Er, I don't really do angst well, but possibly this, from "The Very Sickness of My Heart": Rogue lives in a small room just beneath the attic, now. Jean's telepathy was too much for her -- the voices overwhelmed her into catatonia, and broke her completely. She cannot control it, nor her skin, so Xavier and Logan decided it was too dangerous to institutionalize her; she needs Xavier's presence to keep her from invading others' minds with her madness, and to keep them from invading hers. She is a legend among the new students, a bogeyman, the crazy lady only a few of them have seen, on warm spring days when Logan slips her out of her room while Scott is busy teaching. She has occasional lucid days, asking Logan when he's taking her to Alaska, and what it will be like when they get there. Logan tells her all about the world she'll never get to see. He keeps his voice steady and stares blindly out at the horizon during these monologues, never letting his own pain show. She ties him to this place. He sometimes wishes he'd never seen it, never met her. Most of all, he wonders what he could have done to stop it from happening -- all of it... If he'd taken her with him that first time. If he'd never left at all. If he'd never come back. They sit in the drowsy afternoon shade, and when the sun dips below the horizon, he takes her back to her little room, decorated in soft shades of blue, accented with white eyelet lace. She says the same thing every day, just before he leaves her. "Love me, Logan. Love me." He, who has never cried a tear that he can recall, invariably feels his eyes burn at her words, even as he finds himself incapable of giving her the answer she desires. He couldn't say it when it would have meant something, and to tell her now would be a mockery of all his impossible hopes. He leaves, and, as he does every evening, he leans on the door after it's closed and whispers, "I do, Marie. I do." 2b. What do you think is the most gutwrenching excerpt you've read in a piece of someone else's fanwriting? Oh god. How do I choose? I guess this, from "Eight Blues" by darkstar, which damn near broke my heart. It's the most recent, anyway. Then later, as she stands in his room, upon the return, and notices that he keeps the torn Paris scarf tied around his bedpost, she asks him: (how did we end up in this place, how could we become so stupid, so unseeing, so given over to blindness? I once swore I could not live without you. But I am living, at least by threads, and it's enough. It's enough. It will have to be.) His hand with its heavy metal traces its way to her hand then falls back to his side. Then they walk away, both dreaming of that drowned grass field and the garden of lightning in the sky, straining to read the vows of love written on each others skin. But it's raining too hard, for too long, By now all the letters have washed away, all that's left is a stain of blue, an indigo splotch of ruined ink from the lost words: lover. beloved. lover. beloved. All drowned now. Drowned in blue. 3a. What do you think is the most visual (or otherwise sense-activating) excerpt from a piece of your own fanwriting? I suck at visual description, but how's this, from "Day of Beauty"? He admired the perfection of her back as he poured the almond-scented massage oil into his hands. She was all smooth, porcelain skin, lightly dusted with ginger freckles, the arch of her spine calling for his touch like a siren. He slid his hands over her shoulders and felt her sigh deeply. Her breathing was even as he touched her. At first he was impersonal, working the knots out of her shoulders and back expertly, knowing exactly how much pressure to apply to ease the tension that hard workouts and too many long nights saving the world had made almost a permanent fixture in the set of her shoulders. But as his hands moved over her neck and massaged her scalp, he could hear her heart race and the hitch in her breathing. Both of them were breathing raggedly as he motioned for her to turn over so he could work on her legs. He held the towel for her as she turned over, and it was only through a Herculean effort of will that he averted his eyes from her nakedness. She smiled a small, secret smile at that, one seen on women's faces since time immemorial. But Logan had never expected to see it on Marie's. He covered her with the towel, but she flicked it off, exposing herself to his hungry eyes. Her body was flush with arousal and the dim light cast her partly in shadow, a chiaroscuro of love and desire, glistening with almond-scented oil. His hands stroked her legs reverently, easing the muscles of her thighs and calves before gently rotating her ankles and pulling on each toe. He licked his lips and fought the urge to take each slim digit into his mouth. 3b. What do you think is the most visual (or otherwise sense-activating) excerpt you've read in a piece of someone else's fanwriting? From "Tamburitza Lingua" by luna She turns on enough light to see by. Then she sits down on her couch, and finds a pen, and a hardcover book to serve as a flat surface. She braces it against her knees and leans back against the cushions, writing with a shiny purple pen that can defy gravity. And she sends the ink across the paper, scribbled and unsteady, halting here and there and then plunging ahead. Though she talks all day long, there are infinite things she cannot say. She writes them down. She writes that she is terrified. She writes that she is no longer sure she trusts anyone. She writes that there are no maps she can count on following, that she's been let down by her world and herself. She writes down guilt. She writes down blame. She writes that she wants out, over and over again, in all the languages she knows. The pen runs low on ink, and it becomes a battle to scratch the words out, but she can't stop. She confesses sins, betrays confidences, strips herself down. She opens her veins. She names names. She crosses things out, viciously and without a second thought. She writes in swift streaks that run together and stutter across the page, like chords fingered fast on a tamburitza, like dancing around a fire. Then the pen dies, and her eyes are blurred almost to blindness, and the paper is damp and tattered and worthless, and her hand aches almost as badly as her spirit. She crumples the letter, the salutation long since forgotten, and buries it in a desk drawer. She does not need to look at it again, but she will never throw it away. And her pulse pounds, and she has to keep her body busy. After a drink or two and maybe a bite to eat, after she's gone through her notes for the morning and showered and thrown on a bathrobe, after she's made phone calls or gone out with her friends, she may be able to settle down. There are a small notebook and a yellow pencil on the stand by her bed, and she curls up on her pillows and takes them in her hands. Her world is complicated, and sometimes claustrophobic. Her victories are small. But she writes them down too. She writes down the laugh she got from thirty people in a briefing (and if Helen Thomas didn't laugh that's her problem, the old bat). She writes down the good idea she had in a staff meeting that saved them all a few hours' labor. She writes down the fact that she has friends who are brilliant and brave and talented, who have stood by her, who she stands by, at least so far. She writes down that they have made some marginal but meaningful improvements in the world. She writes down that she is good, frighteningly good, at her job; that she will never be as good at anything again. She writes down that there is a man who sometimes lets her fall asleep with her head on his shoulder, that he is sometimes still there when she wakes up. She writes that she has power. She writes that she has faith. Forty-year-old women with sensitive political positions can't keep journals, C.J. knows. But they can write letters, and not all letters need envelopes and postage to get somewhere. And when things are at their worst, when she is trapped, the note of possibility rings clearest of all, strummed high and strong from the strings of her frayed nerves. So there are letters, on scraps and on stationery, smeared with stray ink and sweat and release. There are letters, and there is music, and there is hope. 4a. What's the excerpt from your own fanwriting that you think comes closest to resembling something the original writer could have written? Well, that's awfully presumptuous of me. But this, from "In the Service of the Queen": "Describe it again, Cordelia," Wesley said, removing his glasses and rubbing his tired eyes. He couldn't believe Angel was where Cordy was describing. He'd never really believed it existed at all, though he'd seen far stranger things in the years since he'd taken up the fight against evil. "It was very -- green. And old. Full of lots of power -- and not a happy kind, either. There were people - they were having a party. But they weren't people." She took a sip from the mocha frappaccino Gunn had brought and looked at her companions. "They weren't human." "Demons? Vampires?" Gunn asked. "She." "She? She who? Ursula Andress? Like in that movie?" Gunn persisted. "'Cause She was hot." "No." Cordelia shook her head. Her eyes widened as she took in the image that had just loaded on her computer. "Not 'she' like 'her'. Sidhe. S-I-D-H-E. As in Ban Sidhe," she said excitedly. She smiled brightly at the two men -- hopeful for the first time since her vision. "Here! It's her! I've found her!" Wesley put his glasses back on. "You're sure?" She rolled her eyes at him and pointed at the screen. "That's her." Both men jumped up and rushed to look over her shoulder at the monitor. She put a finger on a picture of a beautiful woman with silvery-blonde hair and cruel blue eyes. "The Faerie Queen," Wesley breathed. "Oh, my." "Angel got taken out by demons in drag?" Gunn cracked. Wesley pinned him with a steely glare. "The Faerie Queen is one of the oldest of the Old Ones. She is extremely powerful and has no qualms about killing anything that gets in her way. I just-- You don't hear much about the Sidhe in the New World. I'm surprised she's operating so far from her power base..." He trailed off, struck by an insight, and grabbed one of the heavy books piled on his desk. "So, how do we track her down?" Gunn asked, cutting to the heart of the matter, as usual. "Normally, by riding widdershins around the sacred hill," Wesley answered absently. "You really cleared that up for me, English." 4b. What's the excerpt from someone else's fanwriting that you think comes closest to resembling something the original writer could have written? I can't pick an excerpt since this is like a missing scene from "Gone Quiet": Why, Why Do You Want to Do This Again? by Sary could be slotted right into WW without anyone missing a beat. 5a. What's the excerpt from your own fanwriting that most epitomizes your interpretation of a character or characters? Logan, from "The Nature of Everything": He'd been with a lot of women, but he couldn't bear facing the disappointment he knew he'd see in her eyes after they slept together. It would be good -- first off, it would be sex. How could it not be good? And secondly, it would be Marie. Sex with Marie would be mind-blowing, at the least. But it wouldn't be right. He'd somehow manage to screw it up, and then he'd run at the first sign of trouble. He always had. He always would. It was nice to dream about his one true love, the woman who would keep his heart safe and happy for the rest of his unnaturally long life; it was another thing entirely to expect that from a twenty-two-year-old who'd never completely gotten over her adolescent crush on him. So, there would be no magic moment for them, no revelatory kiss as the music swelled and the credits rolled. He continued to flirt with and leer at Jean, who knew it meant nothing. He pretended to ignore the way Marie looked at him, as though he were the only thing that gave her life meaning. He found comfort in the arms of other women when he traveled, women who always had dark auburn hair and large, brown eyes. He avoided thinking about how he always made them wear gloves. And he tried to deny the pain in Marie's eyes on the rare occasions he came home smelling like one of those women. He told himself it was better to hurt her this way and keep their friendship, than to ruin the friendship by letting sex enter into the equation. Rogue, from "The Space Between": She thinks about it sometimes, even now. The soft glide of his lips over the skin of her forehead. The desperation in his voice as his hand strokes her cheek. She wishes she could remember it from her own point of view. It's strange, knowing how your own skin feels beneath your lips, but it's all she has of touch now. She thinks of David -- his lips pressed to hers, gentle and sweet -- before the horror began. That memory is hers alone, she thinks, until she realizes she can also see it refracted through his vague memories. Her mother's kisses, her father's hugs -- all have faded into a hazy blur of long ago, like the ink on the last letter she received, smeared from tears falling on it. The tears of her mother's apologies, which she has yet to accept. All her other memories of touch are theirs. Logan's. Erik's. The salt taste of sweat on her tongue as it trickles down the valley between his lover's breasts. The copper taste of blood as he bites her and then laves her wound, her rough velvet tongue rubbing against his desperately. The sour taste of bile tinged with metal -- a taste that never leaves the back of his throat, even as his lover tries to ease his pain. The feel of his bald head, smooth beneath his hands -- he lost his hair young, and Erik wouldn't have him any other way. She forgets sometimes, that she is not Logan, not Erik, when she calls these memories up. She speaks in German, Japanese -- angry words she knows the meaning of, but only if she doesn't think too hard. By trying to hold the thoughts, she loses them, like grains of sand trickling through her bare hands at the beach. She smells the fear -- another gift he gave her, one that has lingered far longer than the healing -- when she moves too close to the others, especially the newer students. Some have grown accustomed. They touch her covered arms or legs, and, for the more adventurous, her hair. Her hair is amazing, they tell her; she craves their bare fingers sliding through it, the closest she will ever come to the familiar sensation of touch they have never even thought about. She contemplates the feel of leather on her body. She touches herself with bare hands usually, but sometimes she likes to pretend her hands are his, and she knows he would wear leather gloves to touch her. She rarely lets herself think of a day when he could touch her without gloves. She's too pragmatic now to indulge in such unattainable fantasies. And on her bad days, she silently thanks Erik for that. Her life is painful enough without setting herself up for even more disappointment. She would think it's impossible that he wants to touch her at all -- gloves or no -- except that she's seen into his thoughts, and his thoughts about her include things that make her heart race and her breath ragged. It's possible he doesn't even know he has those thoughts; it's possible he has those thoughts about every woman he meets. She prefers to believe the former; the latter brings with it too much pain. The pain of rejection. Something she has in common with all of them here. They've accepted her cheerfully, and if she sometimes hates the space they leave between themselves and her, she accepts that there are risks some people are not willing to take. She contemplates the personal bubble in which she is enclosed. Very few wish to enter, and she's weeded out the ones she wouldn't let touch her, even if they could. Those left -- Scott, Storm, Jean, the Professor, Kitty, Jubes -- are all she imagines she needs on the bright days, when she reminds herself that this is home now, this is her family, this is her life. 5b. What's the excerpt from someone else's fanwriting that most epitomizes your interpretation of a character or characters? Donna Moss, Definition by Marguerite: She creates her new role in fluid strokes of a verbal brush: helper, organizer, guardian. The calm at the center of Josh Lyman's storm. She appraises the quality of her work and finds it good. There's room for improvement, but for now she negotiates with the stranger who wants more of Josh's time than he has to give, and she does it smoothly. Donna turns around, still clamping the phone between jaw and shoulder, and she discovers she's earned something she's only ever seen directed at others. Josh's expression shows that he understands the miracle she's wreaking right here in this madhouse of an office. He respects it. Values it. Josh doesn't really smile but dimples crease his cheeks, taking at least ten years away from his face. He removes his badge from around his neck and hands it to her. She glows, trying not to let her face betray the fact that this meager chain is the only piece of jewelry anyone's ever given her. Some would say that she is letting Josh define and appraise her, but she knows that in this moment she is finally defining herself. Josh Lyman, "The Best of Me" by Perri Smith It's pretty damn embarrassing to admit that my relationship with Donna is the longest-standing relationship I've ever had with a woman. My record before her (and during, if you count Mandy, which I try not to) is something like six months. Even my friendship with CJ didn't kick into gear until after Donna joined the campaign; we were too busy working and I was kind of a pain in the ass. But Donna... she's stuck it out for four long years. And I know it's not a relationship in the conventional sense of the word -- there's no romantic crap I'm expected to know how to do, and there's sure as hell no sex. But we talk, we joke, we take care of each other, we interfere in each other's lives as necessary (I've met some of the gomers. Trust me, it's necessary). In short, we've got the strongest, healthiest relationship I've ever had outside of my family. And if I let myself dwell on the fact that Donna likes me -- that, if I wanted, we could probably have a relationship in the conventional sense (including the sex, which, since I *am* a guy, is not an inconsiderable factor) -- then I start getting tempted to go for it. Which would, of course, lead to the end of this great relationship in about as long as it takes Donna to announce "I hate you!" and slam the door behind her. See, I've done this before. Some things are just inevitable, and the fact that no woman can put up with Josh Lyman for more than six months is one of them. Whatever it takes to keep any kind of romantic relationship going, I haven't got it. Period. Friends, I can handle. Sure, I do a lot better some days than others (as CJ and Donna will, again, be happy to tell you), but I've got the basic dynamics of friendship down. Anything else.... Do the words "slow-motion train wreck" mean anything to you? *** And now I must head to Chinatown. ~victoria link [current mood: sleepy] [current music: smoke on the water and fire in the sky] [random quote: Do I dare disturb the universe?] ~*~ 08.14.02 - 1:17 p.m. Quotes and Sundry Over in the LJ, my participation in fandom by the numbers. *** Why Sundry will always have a place on my "To Be Read" list: Frankly, I like being overcaffeinated. I like the jittery thing my foot does, and the machine-gun rapid fire of my fingers typing. I like the clenched jaw I get, and the vague sense of tunnel vision. I like drinking, too. I like the mellow, liquidy feel of my muscles relaxing with a glass of wine. I like the giddy talkiness that hits you after a stiff gin and tonic. The occasional railroad-spike-in-your-eye-socket morning - yeah, not so much, but when Imbibed Responsibly, booze is a good thing. This is actually from today's McSweeney's: "The trick to avoiding depression is figuring out which states of mind require vodka and which require coffee. If you can do that, you are saved." That's...that's perfect. ::nods in agreement:: We laugh because it's funny, and we laugh because it's true. Which leads me to one of my favorite quotes of all-time: "You know, everyday I get out of bed and drag myself to the next cup of coffee. I take a sip and the caffeine kicks in. I can focus my eyes again. My brain starts to order the day. I'm up, I'm alive. I'm ready to rock. But the time is coming when I wake up and decide that I'm not getting out of bed. Not for coffee, or food or sex. If it comes to me, fine. If it won't, fine. No more expectations. The longer I live, the less I know. I should know more. I should know the coffee's killing me. You're suspicious of your suspicions? I'm jealous. I'm so jealous. You still have the heart to have doubts. Me? I'm going to lock up a 14 year old kid for what could be the rest of his natural life. I got to do this. This is my job. This is the deal. This is the law. This is my day. I have no doubts or suspicions about it. Heart has nothing to do with it anymore. It's all in the caffeine." Frank Pembleton, Every Mother's Son, Homicide: Life on the Street God, I love that episode, and that speech. I still get a little shiver whenever I hear, "See this child, twice stolen from me, out the window, backwards" in "Full Moon, Empty Heart." *** Speaking of Homicide (see how these segues are flowing so smoothly? Why can't I do that in my stories?), Hope thinks I should put together a poll so people can slot themselves in my writers-as-artists theory (see below). I'm thinking about it, since LJ does all the work. Would anyone else be interested? Leave a comment. *** Speaking of which, I will be responding to comments soon. I'm going to do a big "Vic answers her comments" post possibly later today or sometime tomorrow, time permitting. I'm going to dinner tonight with D&F, whom I haven't seen since May, so that's exciting. Last night I had dinner with G (not my boss, "G", a different G *G*) for the first time in a year. Since we've known each other since we were both shy college frosh, it was great to get together. My plans for tomorrow night have been canceled, which I kind of expected, but that's all right. I have an appt. with the dermatologist tomorrow at 2:30 (nice life! I asked for a "late" appointment, meaning after 5pm, and she said they're open until 3pm on Thursdays. And they only have office hours on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Why don't *I* have a job like that? Oh, wait... *eg*) and I would have had to schlep to Queens and then come back into the city to meet her, so it's okay. Plus, this way, we can go see "Possession" next week. I lurve that book. *** And speaking of books, a couple of excerpts from Empress of the Splendid Season by Oscar Hijuelos, which I'm quite enjoying: Like Florencia, Lydia was proud of being Cuban. In her happy moments she basked in the kind of serenity that comes from knowing, in no uncertain terms, who and what you are--the serenity of belonging without a doubt to something greater than yourself-like the most devout priest, die-hard military men, musicians, and the very rich. And certain immigrants--those Irish whose clothes somehow smell like the mists of Dingle Bay, or those Sicilians on Mott Street who speak an Italian that confounds the university professors, the Jewish folk of Hasidic faith who would never, in their lifetimes, read a single English-language newspaper. Or those Ukrainians of the Lower East Side who still trundled the streets in peasant garb, in babushkas and heavy skirts in the summertime, as if walking up a hill in the Caucasus. Or those Chinese restaurateurs whose establishments one found at the end of a twisting passageway--as twisting as any search for identity--and down stairways, and into yet more passageways until one passed through beaded curtains into low-ceilinged rooms with dark scarlet walls where the steam smelled like bamboo and one would not hear a single word of English spoken--like those Chinese, and those others who precisely knew just who and how and what they were, even if life wasn't always easy--that kind of serenity. and this one: [...](in those days he had the daydream of becoming either a schoolteacher or a guitarist in a rock band.) An electric guitar lick, played on a Stratocaster out of a big Fender Reverb amp, with the volume all the way up and a power booster or fuzz tone added as effects, imposed itself in his mind as a major symbol of virility and youth, notes rising like scimitars, aftertones aflutter like birds, the bending of a blues note like the rising arc of an erection. I like his writing a lot. It's evocative, detailed, but not too much. I definitely get the sensory experience, but without a lot of obfuscation or heavy handed description. It's clean. As I may have mentioned once or twice (or 83 billion times *g*), I aspire to that. *** On the archive tip, I've uploaded all stories up to Q, so that's going along well. I realized halfway through that my old email address is on all my stories over there, so I'll have to change that, and again, if anyone has a change in email address or wants their stories removed for whatever reason, let me know now. Off to Duane for supplies and then lunch. Ciao, belli. ~victoria link [current mood: busy] [current music: Lawyers, Guns and Money - Warren Zevon] [random quote: Heart has nothing to do with it anymore. It's all in the caffeine. ~Frank Pembleton] ~*~ 08.13.02 - 5:10 p.m. I've got a theory. It could be ... Fauvists? Was talking to Jenn the other night about writing and word count and my own inability to write epics and other people having difficulty writing things that are less than 30K words etc. I made the remark that she's a muralist, I'm a miniaturist. And in thinking about it - writers can be compared to painters, both in regard to scope and style. Some writers are muralists, covering a huge canvas and painting a broad and, if they're good, deep and detailed picture. Some are portraitists, depicting the characters so realistically, you can almost feel them breathing. Most beginners paint still lives - flat, static, not yet assured enough to tackle life and motion and - that all-important element in good writing - growth and development (of characters, of arcs, of action). Some are landscapists, more interested in the physical surroundings and the outsides of things, and only rarely seeing the characters as more than dressing for elaborate scenes - these writers are usually idea driven (to steal a phrase from djinanna), and view the characters as vehicles to accomplish the plot. Though landscapes can also represent emotions, and so some paint emotional landscapes that speak to the viewer/reader viscerally, evoking a strong reaction. Some are action painters, ala Jackson Pollack, flinging everything they've got at the page and hoping something sticks and that that something, when it's done, has meaning. Some are miniaturists (me!), painstakingly depicting small scenes in exquisite detail, unconcerned with the larger scene. Some are Fauvists, using bold strokes and brilliant color to make the story explode off the page, vibrant and exciting. Some are Impressionists or Pointillists, building the whole picture up stroke by stroke, point by point, where you can't see what's really going on until you've the whole picture in view and got some distance from it. Some are Cubists, rejecting traditional narrative methods in favor of stream-of-consciousness, jumping back and forth through time, coming at POV from odd angles, and taking one thing and making it into something wholly new, and yet still recognizable. There are your Pre-Raphaelite types, who like to mix classicism/mythology/medievalism with Romanticism to produce something dreamy and yet realistic at the same time, tackling big themes and giving them human faces. I've just about exhausted my knowledge of art, so I'll stop here. But think about it. Not everyone is good at everything, but I think everyone should at least *try* some of the styles/methods/genres (in the sense of short story/novella/novel/series) to see which ones you *are* good at, and which ones are not your cup of tea. I mean, I'm definitely in the miniaturist/portraitist category, length and focus-wise, but I try on occasion to write longer things. I also am occasionally driven more by an idea than by the characters - or more precisely, I'm intrigued by the interaction of the particular characters with the specific idea. I like to play around with tense and structure and POV, as well, though I'm not *that* adventurous. If I had a choice, I'd like to be an Impressionist or Pointillist, because I like the way that little details build and build to the big denouement, or a Pre-Raphaelite, but that could just be because I'm a fan of their art - but there's a lyricism there that I long for. I don't have the skill, or the desire, really, to be an Old Master, and paint with rich dark colors and dense strokes to produce a masterpiece of tension and longing and pain beneath the surface. If I do that, I tend toward the Fauvists with big splashes of color and blood. *snicker* Anyhow, the metaphor has been extended long enough. I'm finding it tiresome now, but I figured someone might find it interesting. Go here for the definitions and the sources I used. ~victoria link [current mood: ] [current music: ] [random quote: ] ~*~ 08.13.02 - 12:54 p.m. drams of artificial people Weird dream last night. Well, no, all dreams are weird, but this one was one of my patented long-and-plotty dreams that seems like it should be a movie or book. I'm working as a maid (possibly the influence of the book I'm reading? Empress of the Splendid Season by Oscar Hijuelos - it makes me want mojitos at lunch *g* and is about a Cuban cleaning lady in NYC) for this guy and his sister. He's a freak. A certifiably mad scientist, who has invented a way to create people without sex. he's hyperfocused on reproduction, but completely asexual himself. He's got this machine with all these needles that harvest eggs and semen, and injects them into these pods where humans are grown. At an accelerated rate. As in, they get rid of childhood altogether. So I somehow piss him off, but he discovers, via a mark on my ankle, that I'm one of his very first "children", and he wants to save me and use my genetic material over and over again. So he knocks me out and impregates me with the machine, using me instead of his baby pods. When I wake up, it's 89 years later (very specific about that. Not 80 or 90 but 89) and society has been "revolutionized" by this divorcing of reproduction from sex. In the way of those dystopic novels, "natural" children are outcasts (hmm.. it's been a while since i saw Gattaca - what a depressing movie) and well, other bad stuff is going on that I don't remember. Anyhow, I'm in the house -it's all blue-lit - and I'm trying to get out and I stumble over a wire and unplug the machine, leaving my shoe behind, so they know that it's my fault. They try to capture me, but I jump out the window and start running. I finally make to beneath the train tracks which are draped in huge canvas dropcloths (in the waking world, my subway station *is* currently draped with huge canvas dropcloths, as they're painting/repairing or whatever) and that's where all the "naturals" live - mostly women who make a living as hookers (see! It even invades my dreams). They agree to hide me, and I go to the doctor who lives with them - she's a kindly woman, but she recognizes the mark on my ankle and knows that the mad scientist isn't going to let me go so easily. There's some bonding with the other hooker women, and then, as the years pass, the birth of a daughter (?!) and then they find me again. My twin brother - born from the same experiment as I was, shows up. He's in very bad shape - his body is deteriorating and he's dying. Turns out the people reproduced "artificially" are somehow defective or something (why, I don't know, it has to do with the speeding up of the aging process). So the scientist finds us together, and I've made myself up to look like a leper, with parts decaying and falling off, and he sees this, and thinks "failure" and since we're dying soon anyway, he leaves us. So we're free to live amongst the "natural" people and I can raise my daughter. Strangely, none of the natural people seemed to be men, so I guess the men who patronized the hookers were all articifially reproduced. And then I woke up. *nods* I've spent too much time soaking up science fiction, I think. Ooh, "Bad". ::sniffle:: Love this song. Heh, I was going to correct the typo in the subject line, but I like "drams of artificial people" - it sounds like what the dream was about. *g* Oh, and see me go ballistic over in the LJ. If you like a good rant, you've got one, bad language, sweeping generalizations and all. *g* ~victoria link [current mood: cranky and crampy] [current music: Bad - U2] [random quote: If I, through myself, could set your spirit free, I'd lead your heart away to see you break away into the light...] ~*~ previous - next DiaryLand Disclaimer: Reading this diary is not required by law. If you do not like or agree with the contents herein, or find them to be offensive on more than one occasion, please go elsewhere and don't come back. Management is not responsible for any adverse reactions to content within. The painting is "Boreas" by John William Waterhouse. Again, not a muse, but I like her. She suits the color scheme. The quote is from Sir Philip Sidney. This site is best viewed with IE4+ | 1024x768 | true color | verdana | tables