Mail Daze

Diversicon, Drought, and Depression

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:52:00 +0000

First things first: Jusqu’au Dernier Mot is translating a bunch of my Writing World articles into the French. They have five of them up now. And I wrote two haiku! Wowza!!! It felt ridiculously good. AJ the Rottie caught a baby bunny in the backyard and killed it a few feet away from me. First time in 15 years of big dogs chasing bunnies that anyone’s died. [shrug] That is the natural outcome for a baby bunny. Very few survive to adulthood and get to make more baby bunnies. If they did, we’d be overrun with bunnies. AJ seemed mystified as to why the bunny didn’t get back up and play. I gave it a burial and wrote a haiku about it. Then I wrote a haiku about my very dry garden soil. Which takes us to . . .

. . . the weather report: Not nearly enough rain. Doug went out and bought me a sprinkler. It’s not nearly as efficient as directing water at each plant’s roots with the hose -- you lose more to evaporation, and you water ground where no plants are -- but it sure is nice to set it up and be able to walk away. Effortless! Like magic! (Yes, I take pleasure in simple tool use. You should see me when I’m reading something in dim light and Doug turns on a lamp. Wow! The words leap from the page. Like magic!) One good thing about drought: hardly any mosquitoes!

Diversicon went well this year. We got mostly positive feedback from the attendees. Guest of Honor Anne Frasier’s suggestion of a Flash Fiction Contest attracted some great entries, and the awards ceremony was fun. The vibe was awesome: intelligent and thoughtful and warm and friendly. The location, with a variety of affordable, healthy eating options within five minutes’ walk, was great. One downside was that the hotel dropped the ball at numerous points (e.g., telling people the room block was closed when it wasn’t, not being able to direct people to the con when they showed -- indeed, not being aware the event was at the hotel, losing our catering order for the Auction, “checking out” our suite space a day early, charging our Guests’ rooms to their cards instead of mine, not having the expanded suite available that they said would be built in time for our event and then charging us the wrong amount for the space they did give us). Each individual hotel employee seemed dedicated to giving great customer service; however, the communication didn’t seem to be in place to allow them to do so. Another downside was that attendance dropped. It’s a real little gem of a convention, and we simply have to get better at attracting people to it.

Had a thoroughly icky major depressive episode for about eight days starting during the con. I guess technically eight days isn’t long enough for something to be classified as a major depressive episode, but I know one when I feel it. I’m worthless, never done anything right, everyone hates and despises me, want to slash myself all over to let the pain out, can’t see the point of doing anything, no appetite, crying for no reason, can’t focus on anything -- that last bit was really pronounced this time and made working hard. The good news: This lapse of brain chemistry had a specific trigger -- I knew I was being triggered as the triggering event happened -- I could literally feel the brain chemistry starting to cascade out of balance, like a chain of dominoes falling -- and I figured that if I gutted it out, my serotonin levels would climb back to normal eventually. And they did. I’m still kind of tired, but I’m feeling good about myself and hopeful about the future, and I’m enjoying my work and gardening, etc.

Politics: I’m delighted with Senator Obama’s choice of Senator Biden for vice president. Biden was my top choice when the Democratic primaries began, so I’m thrilled to see him on the ticket. On the other hand, I’m disgusted with our stance with regard to Russia -- we haven’t seen this coming for, like, at least six years? I’m sitting here in Minneapolis with no information except from TV and newspapers and MPR/NPR, and I could see that Putin, the former KGB head, is taking the country back to its imperialistic, autocratic past. Why couldn’t the Bush administration?

Workwise, I’ve got a bunch of live projects, but with all of them, I’m waiting for something from the editor or from the author. Which means there’s absolutely nothing I can work on this weekend! Whee!!! Although living without pressing deadlines takes a bit of getting used to. I have to structure my own day? I can do anything I want? How do I do that? LOL!

Very entertaining book: Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. There’s lots of history in it, but it’s her asides and ramblings that bring it to life in a deliciously funny, ironic, truth-telling way.

Summer Olympics: I’m too wary of doping scandals to let myself get excited about most of the sports, and being decidedly not thrilled about China’s human rights record takes away a lot of the luster for me, too. I did enjoy the tennis, oddly enough. I used to think tennis shouldn't be an Olympic sport -- they've got pro tours and four Grand Slam tournaments each year, so what do they need the Olympics for? But a lot of the players clearly brought a lot of passion to it and it was really meaningful for them, and there were a lot of good matches. I loved that Roger Federer got a gold medal in doubles. I feel terrible for the female Chinese gymnasts -- I'm sure those girls had zero say in being put on the team despite being too young, and they've clearly worked like crazy and sacrificed a lot and are outstanding gymnasts. If they'd been allowed to wait until 2012, they could probably have won Olympic medals legitimately. As it is, even if the results are allowed to stand, they'll always have an "asterisk" next to them.

Fun:

Arienne Cohen writes in the NYTimes about a woman, with the stature of a superhero and the personality of a nice person, and a remaining barrier of difference in our society.

Check out the Cornell University Library Witchcraft Collection, “an online selecton of titles from the Cornell University Library's extensive collection of materials on Witchcraft. The Witchcraft Collection is a rich source for students and scholars of the history of superstition and witchcraft persecution in Europe. It documents the earliest and the latest manifestations of the belief in witchcraft as well as its geographical boundaries, and elaborates this history with works on canon law, the Inquisition, torture, demonology, trial testimony, and narratives. Most importantly, the collection focuses on witchcraft not as folklore or anthropology, but as theology and as religious heresy.”

For when you desperately need a way to procrastinate, there is the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. Try typing in your last name and finding out what sequences other people with your last name have discovered. Or type in a series of numbers and find out all the sequences they might be part of. It’s fascinating in a thoroughly geeky way.

A fishie pedicure sounds like fun! I love sticking my fingers in my tanks and feeling the fish nibble-nibble looking for food. It feels really good.

Whatever the NYTimes’s problems, its health reporting remains top-notch. I found this multimedia presentation on bipolar disorder, featuring the voices of people with the illness, gripping and helpful in understanding the effects that chemical imbalance in the brain can have.

Some R&R (Over Now)

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:55:00 +0000

And I have now complained several times about how hot it’s been. Fortunately, the weather is gorgeous this week. I can stop worrying about my plants shriveling up.

Finally got my "spring break." Every year in the spring, copyediting work dries up for a while. This year, I got about two weeks off. Enough to recharge my batteries; not enough to get worried about my income. Just right.

Read a couple of really good books. One I can highly recommend is In the Woods by Tana French. It’s her first novel, and it won an Edgar Award, and it’s awesome. The characters are deeply flawed. One mystery is solved, but others remain unsolved and justice is not all that one would hope. The characters pay an enormous price for their involvement in the case. The friendship of the male and female homicide detective partners is one of the best male-female relationships I’ve seen rendered in fiction.

Watched a good bit of Wimbledon. The men’s final--Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal--was one for the ages. Wow. I’ve been a Federer fan for years but only this year started appreciating Nadal’s game. All I wanted from their final was a five-set match of amazing tennis, and I got it. Someone had to win -- no ties in tennis. How long ‘til the U.S. Open?

Attended CONvergence. My five panels went well. Enjoyed the Art Show very much. Hung out at the Diversicon party for a while and watched The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, a fabulous spoof of 1950s SF B movies. It takes real talent to write dialogue that bad on purpose!

Also played in the dirt with my plants.

Now I’m back to being hard at work. Just finished editing a really good book about careers in nursing -- lots more options than when my mother became a registered nurse. Now working on a couple of books for teachers working with students of diverse abilities and a book on how to bring a specialty or gourmet food to market. Since I worked for two and a half years at the Wedge Co-op, the specialty food book is pretty interesting -- talks about a lot of the products we sold from the producers’ point of view. How does that organic honey-mustard get developed and made in large batches that all turn out the same and packaged and labeled and shipped anyway?

Fun:

NYTimes columnist Gail Collins writes about vampire chick lit. The whole column is worth reading, but I particularly enjoy the quotes from a Twilight Saga book: "He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare ... A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal." "Incandescent chest"? Really? "Scintillating arms"?

Also in the NYTimes, an article on a rural Albanian custom whereby women become the "men" of the family. They cut off their hair, wear pants, and foreswear marriage, and in return they get treated with all the respect and honor accorded men in their society. Really interesting!

DeadProgrammer's Café explores the genesis and evolution of the Starbuck's logo. Explains how a buxom mermaid could be of more use to a sailor than just as eye candy.

Fascinating history of photo tampering from the 1860s up to, as of this writing, July 2008: http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/.

Great Moments in Procrastination offers, um, great moments in procrastination. Bored people in offices come up with fun games to avoid doing work and so forth. Lots of fun videos. Just viewed "Office Jousting," in which four office workers create a RenFest or Society for Creative Anachronism event using office supplies.

On a more serious note, David Frum offers a realistic view of our next White House in the Prospect magazine (U.K.).

And now on an outré note, here is Edward Gorey's fabulous ABCs book, showing one child after another meeting a grisly fate in a horribly hilarious way: The Gashlycrumb Tinies. And here is an Edward Gorey TrueType font available free under creative commons license.

I slept in Vegas. I worked at WisCon.

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:07:00 +0000

It is spring—I’m happy to at least have that question answered so I can stop asking it. Soon I can begin complaining about how hot it is.

I accompanied Doug to Vegas while he attended GAMA. Stayed at Caesars Palace: we got used to the over-the-top décor in no time (the various Romanesque statues were helpful landmarks) and stopped finding it weird, and the service was absolutely first-class. Could not ask for friendlier, more helpful cleaning people, bellhops, front desk staff, cocktail servers, wagering attendants . . . Really nice. Unlike at Bally’s last year, there were lots of good channels on the TV. There was, however, no door on our room’s bathroom, and it was clearly designed to be that way. It was no big thing since it was just Doug and me, but it was unusual. We were there for about three days from arrival to departure, and I’d say I slept for about two days of it. I arrived nearly walking into walls after working I don’t know how long. Sleeping on the plane -- in the freaking 17” wide seats that recline only 3” and when the person in front of you reclines you get your tray table in your lap -- was nearly impossible, though I did sprawl across Doug and drool on his shoulder a bit. So then I slept, and slept, and slept. Sleeping in Vegas is the most expensive sleeping I’ve ever done, but it that’s what it took to go down for a nap and I needed it that badly, then it was worth it.

Weekend before this last one, I went to WisCon. I was probably at the con for all of ten hours all weekend. The rest of the time, I was in the hotel room either crashed out or working my butt off (except my butt never gets any smaller -- go figure). But I did have a good time whenever I was awake and not working. Most of the artwork I voted for won in the categories I thought it should win. Met any number of cool people and had cool conversations. Was on three panels, including two on class, which tends to bring out the ranting and raving in people, but they all went reasonably well. Someone whose opinion I value complimented me on how I did on panels, so that was a warm fuzzy. Another warm fuzzy: Someone came up and introduced herself and said she’d found my article online, “Finessing the Infodump,” and it had saved her writers’ group. Cool! Found the Land’s End outlet store on State Street and picked up the most comfortable jeans ever for $10, plus some other stuff. Plus a totebag to carry it all in, which Bootsie loves to use to sharpen her claws (it’s canvas, and I guess that’s good).

A while ago, I wrote about setting aside one day a week for writing fiction. Hmm. How about setting aside one day a week for sleep? I keep thinking I’ll hit a dry spot (and begin worrying about money, but what can you do) and then get my schedule organized with some set-aside times for exercise and writing and such. But I’ll probably just keep thinking that.

Now working on a travel guide for people who like antiques, a college guide, a book about Internet bullying, a book about writing teachers’ performance evaluations, a math book for parents so they can help their kids (great idea!), and database records. That seems like a lot, but I’m actually mostly done with most of them and just waiting for other people to do their bit before wrapping things up. I’m entering the week in pretty good shape! Go me! (And I love the variety and the cool books. I’m really very happy with my lot in life—it’s just getting a little out of hand, and I need to get the “success” part figured out.)

Cubby Bear developed some big lumps in his mouth that needed to be taken out. He needed his teeth cleaned badly anyway, so we just had everything done at once. They turned out to be benign, caused by the papilloma virus. Cubby recovered great from the surgery and is more beautiful than ever. AJ keeps injuring her hip with her whirling-dervish-I-need-to-kill-it routine at the front window. She’s either placid and sweet or 110 percent killing machine, and her anger management issue is going to cause her problems as she gets older if she doesn’t tone it down. Hard to believe she’s 7(?) now—6 or 7. New betta’s still alive. New loach is still alive. Yay!

I’m going to pass on putting in a veggie garden this year, because I probably won’t have time to keep it weeded and watered or cook what comes out of it. I did put in a couple of flats of annuals in the boulevard garden, and I added a whole bunch of day lilies and a handful of other perennials and shrubs to the front yard to fill in a few spots. Fingers crossed that everything lives.

The stomach problem turned out just to be a bad batch of eggs, so I can keep eating them. Yay!
And I just looked at my Things to Do List and realized . . . I’m waiting for things from other people on every single one of my projects. THERE IS NO WORK I CAN CURRENTLY DO!!! The sun has just come up (Bootsie is stalking the morning birds in one window after another), and I am going to clear some grass out of my flowerbeds. Go me!

Roland Garros, site of the French Open Grand Slam tennis event, has a pretty neat tennis video game up at the Web site: http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/multimedia/index.html.

Some people really need to work out with less brio. (I’m reminded of a guy in an aerobics class who seemed to think we were slam-dancing.) And others need to learn to ignore those who grunt. CBC’s As It Happens: http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/AS_IT_HAPPENS/20080529.shtml.

Spring Yet? (Redux)

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 07:08:00 +0000

And the exciting news from my part of the world is (a) I continue to live under my Rock of Working and (b) I can't believe it's already been a month since I last wrote words to that effect.

I have been battling a recurrent stomach/intestinal bug. It seems to be related to eating eggs. Either I've developed some kind of sensitivity to them, which would suck, or I had a bad batch of eggs. I'd really enjoyed my winter meal of peas, potatoes (baked in the microwave), and eggs (pan-fried in a touch of olive oil). It was healthy and fast and cheap and used minimal dishes. A few extra peas always went into the fish tank for the veggie eaters. Now I can't have it anymore. Oh well, it's going to be salad time soon anyway.

Had a bunny in the backyard today. Haven't had many backyard bunnies since putting up the privacy fence. This one was hunkered beneath the birdfeeder amid a pile of spilled seed, eating as though there might be no tomorrow. That was one happy bunny. Saw a Fox Sparrow last week, a new bird for my "list." It must have been migrating through and just stopping to rest and fuel up for a few days. None of the pictures I've found do justice to this plump bird's beautiful gray-olive-brown back, streaked breast, and rusty-red tail feathers. Yesterday, Doug and I saw a woodpecker in downtown Minneapolis, of all places! It looked a little lost, poor thing. It was about 10" long and had a brown back and a distinctly red nape. We haven't been able to identify it, though -- frustrating!

On Monday, Doug leaves for Las Vegas for the GAMA trade show, and I'm going with him again this year. Vegas manages to be weird and boring at the same time, but I'll ensconce myself in a sportsbook area and play the horsies to my heart's content. I'll also be taking the laptop with me and . . . working!

I'm hoping that the trip breaks up my routine and gives me enough of a new perspective so that when I get back, I'll be able to tear myself away from the computer and clean up the house and yard, work on Diversicon publicity, answer e-mail, visit with people I'd like to spend time with, and do other life things. At least for a few days, before crawling back under my rock.

Just finished . . . a travel guide focusing on U.S. National Parks and a couple of professional development books for law enforcement officers. I also had the opportunity to edit the first draft of a creative nonfiction work by one of my favorite authors -- that was truly a special challenge and delight. Currently working on . . . a book about how teachers can use digital cameras in the classroom, another about being a school principal, and another about solving the problem of illiteracy. And there's a college guide on my desk. Coming soon are a travel guide for people who like to shop for antiques and a book for midwives. For the first quarter of 2007, my revenues ran about 22 percent above last year (when I was about as busy as I thought I could be); and so far this spring, things are bubbling right along, when last year they had already dropped off pretty abruptly. I'm just so relieved and excited and happy that I'm able to make a go of this!

Sebastian Mallaby wrote an interesting piece on the election decision-making process in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/13/AR2008011302304.html . A bunch of people wrote this interesting article last fall about voters' brain scans when they were exposed to video, etc. of different candidates (Rudy Guiliani was still the leading Republican candidate at that point): http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11freedman.html?th&emc=th .

Crawling Out From Under My Rock . . . Is It Spring Yet?

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 20:11:00 +0000

I can only assume that no one is reading this any longer. But that's okay, cuz I've been pretty much chattering away to myself anyway, plus anyone who enjoys listening in. :)

BTW, U.S. presidential race: I support Barack Obama.

What have I been doing instead of blogging, updating the Market List, or much of anything else? I've been working! Working, working, working! And working some more! I'm really pleased that my clients are pleased with my performance and keep giving me more work. My next challenge will be to make sure I don't take on so much work that I can't edit to a high level of thoroughness and get assignments done on time. The last few months, I've been getting it done, but I've been pushing my limits, too. And, of course, I've had no time for writing fiction. Or exercise. Or housework. Or . . . However, it is good for my bank account.

BTW, health insurance: Our whole system is feckin' fecked up. I decided to drop my coverage from my former employer (COBRA) at year-end because it was going to cost way more than we would ever get out of it. I tried to find individual coverage that would cover our prescriptions (Doug and I happen to take the same medication to manage long-term conditions.) Could only find one plan that would cover this drug, and it would do so only with prodding. Applied there and were denied: too sick, too fat. Never mind that Doug works out intensely every single day and I had been working out regularly. Never mind that except for our known conditions -- and I know what those cost, and it's nowhere near what our premiums would have been -- we seem very healthy and take good care of ourselves to stay that way. So after much research, I decided we should just keep our fixed costs (premiums) as low as possible and count on paying out of pocket for everything -- that's actually cheaper than getting a policy that would be of any use. So with a super-high deductible and super-low premiums, we're just paying as we go. I'm just now fighting to fill a prescription: because my insurance doesn't cover it, no one wants to fill it -- even though I'm willing and able to pay!!! My doctor has said I should have this drug, and I can pay for it. Therefore, the insurance company should have nothing to do with it, right? Furthermore, I've seen an awful lot of my health care dollars at work -- without any good results for my health, all in bureaucracy.

BTW, is it spring yet? We've got a few inches of snow on the ground. The birds who come to the feeder aren't acting springlike yet. (Speaking of the birds: A few dark-eyed juncos stayed all winter. I just checked their range, and I guess they do winter here, but I've never seen them before except as through-migrants.)

I have set aside some time for fun. I had a break in my workload that synced perfectly with MarsCon first weekend of March. I was on a couple of panels, got a henna "tattoo," learned some bellydancing moves, entered a creative trance, enjoyed cucumber sandwiches and amazing cookies with tea in the Tardus Tearoom while watching Season 1 Dr. Who, and bought some great-looking books in the dealers' room. Best of all was hanging out with all the friends I only see at cons and feeling at one with the general geekdom. :-)

I've also set aside some time to play with my aquaria. Fishies!!! They say, "Bloop." That's what they say! New legless friends include an utterly adorable Burmese border loach (I got three, but two didn't make it. I'll get a couple more -- loaches like each other's company), a couple of very cute little Siamese algae eaters (they're growing!), and four more glowlight tetras (making a total of eight). I also got a male betta (red) to be a solo occupant of my 20-gallon tank, but he quickly got ich (an external parasite) and then a bacterial infection and fought hard but didn't survive the diseases and/or treatments. I'm definitely going to try bettas again, though, because when he was healthy, he was adorable -- I'd wiggle my finger in the water, and he'd come right up to it to get fed. I lost one of my two "mystery" tetras (I have no idea of genus/species.). I'm pretty sure someone bit off his tail and osmotic shock eventually got him, and I'm pretty sure it was Mr./Ms. Loach. Meanie loach! Not to be a nippy fish! My next project with the the 50-gallon tank will be to start changing out substrate from gravel, which can be hard on the loach's barbels as he roots for snails, to sand/soil. That's better for plant growth, too. (Oh yeah, I'd had a Malaysian trumpet snail problem -- they were everywhere -- but after a few days with the loach, couldn't find one anywhere!)

Happy Christmas! More Daylight Is Coming (in the northern hemisphere)!

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:30:00 +0000

Writing—Whew! Got several really intense combo copyediting/fact-checking projects this fall that left me no energy to do more fact-checking to update the Market List. I feel bad about it, but what can I do. I also feel as though I got some more good fiction writing news in the last couple of months, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.

I’ve decided, now that my freelance business has picked up so much, that I really need to set aside one day a week for writing, organizing submissions, etc. Waiting until I have a dry spell just isn’t cutting it, because I never have dry spells! Looking at my invoice list, it looks as though I’ll have completed at least 62 projects in the 12 months ending 1/15/08, with only a few of those being less than book-length. That’s a lot! (Knock on wood. Now watch: I won’t get any work for three months.)

After seeing absolutely no allure in it for years, I’ve finally succumbed to sudoku, playing the NYTimes puzzles (easy, medium, difficult) online. So I guess I’ve added that to my crossword addiction and to my repertoire of ways to procrastinate . . . I mean take a break.

Family—The week before Thanksgiving, I had a major, crashing, horrible depressive episode. It came absolutely out of nowhere. After a very scary 48 hours in which I really wanted to do nothing but die, Doug and I decided that when he went to a game convention in St. Louis that weekend, I should go with him, and we’d extend the trip a bit and make a vacation out of it. So we did and had a good time. I took work with me and worked in the hotel room while he was at the con. Then we visited a Lewis & Clark exhibit in St. Louis and, in Kansas City, the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum and the National World War I Museum—both insightful explorations of complicated times and very worth visiting.

I bought a microwavable heating pad in a cute holly-print cover, thinking I’d give it to my mother-in-law for Christmas, but then I warmed it and put it in a cardboard box beneath a spotlight for Bootsie. It’s Bootsie’s now. She lurves it with all her kitty self. The dogs are loving all the fresh snow we’ve been getting. The wild birds are totally pigging out at the feeder. Only one fish has died recently, and I’m pretty sure that was from old age.

Culture—Now reading Barbara Tuchman’s Guns of August, the book about the beginning of WWI that made her reputation as a “popular” historian, much to the annoyance of many historians with PhDs. I picked it up at the WWI Museum in Kansas City. It’s absolutely riveting, well written and with much relevance to today’s situations.

Home & Garden—I have a home? I have a garden? Oh, that’s what that mess all around me is . . .

Fun!—

Thanks to Roger for the “Sci-fi sounds quiz”: My score was 56, eliciting “You're a major sci-fi geek! Do you speak Klingon?”
Super-fun IQ test for your dog with lots of activities you’ll both enjoy, whether your dog is a smarty or just looks baffled.
Researchers have debunked “7 Medical Myths Even Doctors Believe." You don’t need to drink eight glasses of water a day. Reading in dim light does not damage your eyes. Using cell phones around medical equipment won’t cause it to malfunction.
The St. Petersburg Times (Florida) sponsors a political “Truth-o-Meter,” reporting on the truth of the various claims that float about, too often unchallenged or unverified by most media. Well worth checking out! Amazing what people will say about themselves and one another.
Paul Krugman writes in the NYTimes about why, despite official statistics showing years of “economic growth,” most Americans don’t feel better off and, in fact, aren’t better off.
“Global Warming Is Colorblind: Can We Say As Much for Environmentalism?”: Excellent article by Jennifer Oladipo in Orion about the overwhelming whiteness of the U.S. environmental movement.
Douglas N. Arnold and Jonathan Rogness, mathematics faculty at the University of Minnesota, have a YouTube hit with their visual explanation of Moebius transformations set to music. It’s pretty cool, and it got an honorable mention award in the 2007 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.
MIT physics professor Walter H. G. Lewin is an Internet hit with his enlightening and dramatic physics lectures.
A giant rat, five times the size of a regular city rat, has been discovered in Guinea. Apparently, it’s pretty cuddly!
“Young Chimp Outscores College Students on Memory Test”

WotF Honorable Mention!

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 05:27:00 +0000

Writing—Got an Honorable Mention from the “Writers of the Future” contest with a story I wrote last fall. Back when I was submitting regularly, I made Finalist once and got lesser honors a few times. It’s nice to know I haven’t backslid horribly and my stories aren’t crap. That was a real confidence booster.

Knocked out four books in about nine days ending last week, sometimes working 16+ hours at a stretch. Then for about a whole day, I had no projects on my desk. I hardly knew what to do with myself – LOL! Then UPS came with a manuscript for proofreading, and I felt whole again. ;) I jittered away the caffeine and stress hormones, slept a whole lot, and got back to human. Now I’ve got the book on my desk and a packet of flashcards on its way, and I’ll be getting my American Library Association training on Tuesday, so it’s back in the editing saddle!

The Public Handicapper Contest ended in a satisfying manner; I placed 353 out of over 4,500 participants with a $22 balance. I’m looking forward to the “Winter of Our Discontent” contest that runs December-January.

Family—Got the chemistry in my 55-gallon fish tank back into alignment. However, I’ve discovered that my tap water is full of phosphorous (P), so I’ll need to plan to eliminate it on a regular basis. If I had a higher-light setup, the plants might use it up as fertilizer, but since I don’t, the plants don’t grow that fast and use that many nutrients.

Now I’m tackling my 20-gallon “hospital” tank (which I haven’t needed as a hospital for ages). It’s not as bad as I’d feared. The pH is about 6.8, and the carbonate hardness (kH) is quite low, so I’ve hung a mesh bag of crushed coral in the filter’s outflow to raise the kH and, thus, the pH gradually. The general hardness (gH) is fairly high, a consequence of not changing the water very often. Evaporation concentrates the hardening ions; when you consistently remove only a little of the more concentrated water (because the level is already low due to evaporation) and top off with softer tap water, then the water gets harder and harder. More regular water changes should bring the gH down. As with the larger tank, the P is high; I’ll need to place some P-absorbent stuff in the filter or tank to get it out. That stuff is expensive—bleh.

The ammonia and nitrite are good in both tanks—yay! In the 20 g. tank, I toss a little food to the Malaysian Trumpet Snails a few times a week, and they keep the filter cycled with their wastes.

As I write this, I’m leaning back slightly in my chair and wearing a fleecy top, and little Bootsie is curled up on my chest, purring away. I’m so glad I serve a useful purpose in her life!

Culture—Finished Arthur C. Clarke’s Imperial Earth: good book, no idea why someone gave it that title. Now nearly done with Ian McDonald’s Evolution’s Shore (published in the U.K. as Chaga). I like how McDonald’s experience of being Irish has informed his view of neocolonialism and the empowerment (or lack thereof) of Africa. His female protagonist is strong and flawed. However, he occasionally lapses into idealizing ethnic groups—while well-meaning, it is another form of objectification.

Home & Garden—Everything I cleaned last time I had time to clean is dirty again, and the fall chores still await.

Fun!—

The New York Aquarium has a fabulous walrus baby! OMG, he is sooooo cute! He loves his mommy very much, and when they nuzzle each other with their whiskered faces . . . eek! He was 115 pounds at birth and is over twice that now. Read more about mom and baby here and see more photos and videos here.
Plug in your ZIP code at OpenSecrets.org and find out what political candidates your neighbors have donated to. Also use the site to learn all kinds of info about political donations to various campaigns.

Holy Bat Guano! I've been busy!

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:37:00 +0000

Writing—I received a request, and immediately said yes, to reprint some of my “Imagination’s Edge” articles in French. Watch for them at Jusqu’au dernier mot. This will be the second time my work has been translated; the first time was when my short story “May Pole Bones” appeared online in German.

Otherwise, I’ve been incredibly busy editing, editing, and editing. I’ve had a couple of engineering books this month. Hey, they said, “You don’t need to know anything about engineering to edit these books.” I said, “Well then, you’ve got the right person for the job!” LOL! All I can say is, it’s a darn good thing I never got it into my head to become an engineer, because anything I built would fall over in the first stiff breeze. I’ve also been doing a steady series of books on education/pedagogy as well as some sets of flashcards that are a fun way for kids to learn about geography and history. And there’s also been a steady diet of personal finance, career development, and standardized test preparation books. Great variety!

Plus . . . a couple of production managers I’ve worked with in the past gave my name to other editors who were looking for copy editors, and I now have two new clients! I’ll be working on the Mobil Travel Guide series for HowStuffWorks, Inc., and I’ll be working on an online “Reference Guide” for the American Library Association.

A year ago, I struck out on this venture with one client; today I have five clients. I’m very psyched! (And very glad I made the decision that I did, as hard and scary as it was.)

To celebrate a year of full-time self-supporting self-employment doing writing-related stuff at home, I’ve posted my resume here.

Someday Real Soon Now(TM), I should be able to take a day off and dedicate it to finishing the update of the Quick Reference Market List that I started . . . six weeks ago? Gleeps.

One way I relax is by playing each weekend in the free Public Handicapper Contest. The current contest started in May and will wrap up with the Breeder’s Cup at the end of October. I’ve spent most of the time muddling along in midpack, but recently I’ve moved up in the standings—to 367 out of about 4,500 participants. Of course, I’m still about $80 out of 20th place and a T-shirt and $140 out of 3rd place and a trip to the big national handicapping championships! But when I started, I really didn’t “get” stakes races—all the horses looked really good to me, and I didn’t feel as though I had any way to predict who’d win. Now I’ve feel as though I’ve developed my handicapping skills over what they were. You can check out my rise or fall in the standings for the next two weeks here: just type in Rottie in the “Find Player” box at the bottom.

Family—Every summer, I think that the dogs are finally getting older and calmer, and every fall, they show me that they were just hot. Now that the air is once again crisp, they are frisky, engaging in manic whirling-dervish wrestling matches and chasing squirrels as though they’re beef bourguignon (don’t worry—they can’t catch them). AJ the Rottweiler is especially vibrant, as in vibrating, as in all aquiver all the time. She takes the breed’s typical focus to the level of obsessive-compulsive disorder and the breed’s drive to warp speed.

For the cooler weather, Doug brought home a Plush Kitty Nest for Bootsie so he could have his fleece-lined jacket back. The “nest” has a plump, kneadable reversible cushion (one side fuzzy “suede,” the other side fluffy “fleece”) and fleece lining inside the walls. At first, she was pretty freaked by it, but we kept putting her in it, and now she’s completely adopted it. (And Doug has his jacket back, except for when I use it to lure the kitty to her place under the spotlight on the dining room table so she doesn’t keep settling in on, walking across, and viciously attacking a manuscript I’m working on).

The fish are doing well, except that somehow my pH has dropped. I hadn’t tested the water for anything for months, because I didn’t think there was any need. However, after two apparently healthy oto catfish failed to thrive after one and two weeks, respectively, I wondered if there might be a problem. At first, I think the pH was below where my test kit registers. After two daily water changes, I’ve gotten it up to 6.2, which is still too acidic. Well, the tetras might be reasonably happy, but the other Asiatic fish would like it higher, and it’s certainly not good for the snails’ shells. Oddly, the water out of the tap is only at 7.0 or 7.2, not up at 8.0 like it used to be, so that may be part of the problem. Tomorrow will see a trip to the fish store to see what they suggest (crushed coral?) and pick up some other supplies like frozen brine shrimp as well as a water hardness test kit and maybe a phosphorous test kit. Also, the one-eyed Glowlight Tetra succumbed to something, probably bacterial infection that gained entry through the wound, but no one ever picked on him and he had the company of a school of his own kind (important for tetras).

Culture—Finished Frederik Pohl’s Years of the City, which extrapolates a future New York City in what’s really a series of novellas. Quite enjoyable. Now reading Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Imperial Earth, which surprised me with its easy assumption (in 1976!) of bisexuality. It also blends nerdy techie speculation with real psychological insight into complex characters. So far, very enjoyable.

Home & Garden—I took a couple of days and got some cleaning done inside the house; still have a lot to do, though. And the fall chores await. The massive maple tree in the backyard not only still has all its leaves but they’re still green. It always waits until just before Thanksgiving before dropping them. If there’s snow on the ground, I don’t rake! The mess will still be there in the spring.

I brought back the sweet pepper plants, and they were loaded with peppers that were just about to turn colors. Then one dog or the other, or both, raided them. One day, the plants were heavy with yummy vegetables; the next, not a pepper to be found. I could just throttle those dogs!!!

Fun!—

Check out this rhythmic gymnastics montage. Holy smoke! Are these young women actually human or some kind of amazing mutants?!

Consumer Consequences is a fun simulation developed for American Public Media (public radio). Walk through it and find out how many Earths it would take to support humanity if everyone lived like you. (It would take four Earths to support 6 billion of me.)

A boy got bullied for showing up at school in a pink shirt. So a bunch of kids wore pink shirts to make a statement for tolerance and against bullying. And the movement is spreading. Great article in the Globe and Mail.

The Degree Confluence Project is a volunteer project to photograph and journal a visit to every intersection of latitude and longitude on land on Earth. Beautiful photos from all over the world and cute stories.

MapLight.org provides all kinds of tools to show the relationships between money and politics. Very interesting data here.

Lots of editing! Lots of fun! Hay fever!

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 05:48:00 +0000

Writing – No writing of my own to report; just editing up a storm! Will update the Market List as soon as I get a window of free time. New Diversicon Web site is up! Will continue to add content as opportunities arise. Our recent cold snap convinced the plants to let loose their pollen, so I'm either blowing my way through boxes of tissue (it's as though a spigot has been turned on full force at the bridge of my nose) or stoned/asleep on drugs. Makes it hard to be productive -- wah!

Political Rant – Shame on the Republican Party for pressuring Senator Larry Craig of Idaho to resign after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. How disrespectful to the people of Idaho who elected him to be their representative. He’s up for re-election next year, so let Idahoans decide whether to send him back to Washington. They may choose not to vote for him because he’s gay (despite his protestations, I’d bet on it) and they don’t like gay people. Or they may choose not to vote for him because he’s living a lie and they don’t like liars. Or they may choose not to vote for him because he pled guilty to a crime and they don’t like criminals. But it’s their decision. And for heaven’s sake, it’s not as if he was caught accepting bribes to vote a certain way. He’s just a tortured soul in the closet, living on the down-low, trolling for anonymous sex in public restrooms. If there was ever a time for compassion (remember the phrase compassionate conservatism?), it’s when a man from a conservative family, community, and church, who stands to lose career, friends, and loved ones (and, he may well believe, his immortal soul) by coming out, even to himself, is outed. The Republican Party’s stance should have been, “We extend our compassion and prayers to our colleague during this challenging time for him and his family and trust him to make peace with his family, the law, and the people of Idaho. His behavior does not intersect with his performance as a U.S. senator; therefore, we see no reason to take action against him in the Senate.” Instead, we get this frantic distancing by conservatives paranoid about the faintest whiff of homosexuality. I’m beginning to believe that most conservative political and religious leaders are closeted gays, fueled to anti-gay fervor by their own terror of discovery.

Family – The cooler weather is making everyone frisky! Cubby’s had several trips to the dog park recently, where he plays and plays and runs and runs. Also, the cooler it is, the more playful Bootsie gets, attacking everything in sight, and the more friendly she gets (when she’s not attacking you). Doug says that in his office, she likes to sit under his lamp and huddle against the side of the laptop, warmed on both sides. Why maintain your own body heat when human appliances can do it for you?

And I got more fishies! Added a couple of oto catfish to clean up algae and scuttle about cutely. Added four glowlight tetras to de-stress my two remaining glowlights, who were spending all their time hiding glumly beneath the Amazon sword plants. Added another male Boesemani rainbowfish to inspire the rest of the rainbowfish (1 male, 3 females) to more activity. I’m happy to say they’re all doing well so far, even the tetra who’s missing an eye. The clerk noticed the missing eye when bagging them and asked if I wanted a different fish or to be charged only for the three intact ones. I immediately said to charge me for three and I’d try to give the injured fellow a good home. It schools with the others, eats well, and doesn’t seem at all spooked by the larger fish. I think the missing eye just makes it more interesting.

Culture – Have been on a Liz Williams kick. Demon in the City (2006) was a good book, though relying perhaps too much on external action and lacking the internal reflection that would have made it as good as Snake Agent (2005). As well it perhaps could have used one fewer characters and 10 percent less running around (the author splits the characters up, the author arranges for them to run into each other, the author splits them up again . . .). I began to get a small sense in places that the mechanics of the world building were being made up as the author went along rather than being part of an integrated whole that was being discovered. Also, I felt that a leading character who did pretty horrible things got off too lightly. Precious Dragon (2007) suffered from some of the same problems as Demon in the City but felt like a better book, maybe because it had more of Detective Inspector Chen in it. I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series, due out in 2008. I’m now reading her The Ghost Sister (2001), a science fantasy set on a world long ago settled by humans who are now quite divergent in biology and culture, and I’m enjoying it tremendously.

Also watched a good bit of the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Enjoyed Federer, Djokovic, Henin, and Jankovic tremendously.

Home & Garden – Had a risk of frost last night with temps dipping into the 30s, but all my plants look fine, and we’re supposed to get some warm weather yet. Hoping the peppers get a chance to recover from the depredations of the doggies! I could just throttle them!!! They're much worse than rabbits.

Fun!

This article in the L.A. Times discusses a scientific study of the differences between the brains of political liberals and conservatives. Very interesting!
Verlyn Klinkenborg writes a lyrical description of the beauty of Roger Federer’s tennis for the New York Times.
Laura M. Mac Donald offers this brilliant opinion piece on the Craig “scandal” for the New York Times, reprinted at Congress.org.
Check out this rocking response to a New York Times article on nerdiness and race at Laurie Toby Edison’s “Body Politic.” And check out this first-person description of the barriers that an African-American role-playing gamer faced at orgtheory.net.
And finally, be aware that corporations and government monitor Wikipedia and anonymously (though not anonymously, thanks to WikiScanner, a project of computer science grad student Virgil Griffith) edit the articles in self-serving ways. The New York Times article is here.

New format!

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:54:00 +0000

Writing -- Still editing like mad. Just wrapping up a project; am midway through another project (kind of a cool book -- basically tells new parents they don't have to buy every damn gadget to ensure their baby's success and happiness); and about to get another manuscript, probably today.

New computer rocks. I'm learning the 2007 versions of all the software and appreciating its speed.

Attended a Diversicon Con-Comm meeting the other night. Never gotten to one before. I'm not fond of meetings, preferring to work behind the scenes and just accomplish useful stuff. These are nice people, though, and the restaurant's garlic bread is awesome, so it wasn't too bad. And I just found out [drum roll please!] that the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, an African-American newspaper, will be running a front-page story on Diversicon 15 and GoH Andrea Hairston! How cool is that?

Just got a courteous rejection from Forgotten Worlds.

Family -- My last hard-copy editing project went back to the publisher with small holes in several pages, courtesy of Bootsie, the mad paper-attacking kitty! I just drew an arrow next to each mutilation and wrote "Bootsie, a cat." Earlier this evening, I passed by her cat tower and suddenly had pinpricks of pain in my arm. Sure enough, she'd ambushed me from one of her hidey-holes. Cubby is unhappy about all the rain we've been getting; he doesn't like getting his dainty feet or fur wet (except he lay down in a mud puddle at the dog park the other day, so I don't know . . . ).

Culture -- Just read Liz Williams's Snake Agent (2005), which I picked up from Nightshade Books in the dealers' room at WisCon. Wow!!! What a fabulous book! It blends science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery genres effortlessly as Detective Inspector Chen battles cyberviruses, demons, and human criminals to save the world, his wife, a ghost who belongs in heaven, and his tenuous relationship with his goddess. The plotting is tight and the settings and characters vivid. I was recently given a $30 gift certificate to Amazon.com, and I spent it all on Liz Williams's books.

While waiting for those to come, have cracked open a collection of short stories by Elizabeth Bear titled The Chains That You Refuse (2006), also published by Nightshade Books and purchased at WisCon. The first story was elegantly written but irritating. It's yet another SFnal tale that relies on what I call "name dropping"; that is, populating its world with famous historical/fictional characters whom the author doesn't bother to flesh out because the reader is supposed to know them already. Also, I felt that the mechanics of the magic were hand-waved a bit too much -- why is Shakespeare hanging out with Ginsberg in the bar where Ginsberg used to stash his pot? And maybe I'm just too dumb and ignorant to appreciate certain stories. The second tale, on the other hand -- kind of a female Robocop story in which the protagonist has to make impossible choices and finds a moral compass she can live with in the process -- totally got me.

Home & Garden -- From drought to flood. At least we're up on a hill, so even our basement hasn't taken any water as far as I can tell. And we're not in the flood zone of southeast Minnesota/southwest Wisconsin where houses have come unmoored from their foundations and floated down the street with their occupants screaming for help from the roofs. Now the next few days we should dry out a bit, so I hope to get a bunch of weeding and other yard work done. The plants sure appreciate the water.

Fun!

How physics works, and doesn't, in the Loony Toons universe: New Scientist (December 25, 1993)
An insightful commentary on the I-35 bridge collapse from Don Blyly of Uncle Hugo's bookstore: Newsletter #79 (September-November 2007)
AC/DC economics. I found out about this kerfuffle from CBC's As It Happens. While waiting in the Vancouver airport, economist Robert Oxoby wrote a joke paper on the influence of AC/DC's music, as sung by the band's two different lead singers over its lifetime, on decision making. A New York Times blogger took it seriously, then had trouble apologizing graciously. Oxoby's real research interests look pretty fascinating; I wish I'd known economists did such things when I suffered through econ classes. At any rate, such work should be the foundation of a character in an SF story. The paper's conclusions?

The question as to who was a better singer, Bon Scott or Brian Johnson, may never truly be resolved. However, our analysis suggests that in terms of affecting efficient decision making among listeners, Brian Johnson was a better singer. Our analysis has direct implications for policy and organizational design: when policymakers or employers are engaging in negotiations (or setting up environments in which other parties will negotiate) and are interested in playing the music of AC/DC, they should choose from the band’s Brian Johnson era discography.

And last but not least, I recently revisited this essay by Doug McNair, who happens to be married to me, and once again was dazzled by its perspicacity: "If you could change any moment in history, what would it be and why?"

August 13, 2007: Diversicon 15! Editing out the wazoo! Back all better!

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:38:00 +0000

(Maybe I can't make it rain? Jury's still out.)

Writing -- So first, I should say that after five days of virtually complete immobilization, my back got better almost as quickly as it had gone out. A few more days of moving gently, and I was good as new. I'll never know if it was walking the dogs, or sleeping on the couch, or something else.

Which is good, because I've been busy! Holy smokes, I've been busy. I've been working to the point of not sleeping, eating, or showering. (Okay, was that last one more than you wanted to know?) At one point, after getting maybe 11 hours of sleep in the last 72, I thought, "I really just don't need to sleep," and recognized my state as being a wee bit hypomanic.

And my five-year-old computer seems to be on its last legs, at least as far as running a network is concerned. I've ordered a new HP Pavilion a6150e with most of the memory and processing speed I could get and other cool stuff. It should arrive next week. I don't think I could have dealt with my back going out and my computer going buggy.

So back to being busy. Tons of editing work coming in. Got a project that was supposed to be a 350-page copyedit that turned out to be a 520-page rewrite. Prose was often gibberish, and the text was factually wrong in many places. So I had to keep pushing that deadline back and back. The darn thing kept taking longer than I anticipated; I don't know if I slowed down or if the writing got worse -- maybe some of both. Then a bunch of other projects came in. I've had a lot of variety: a book to help high school students pass a standardized math test to graduate, a book to help them pass the Advanced Placement exam in "human geography" (I'd never heard of it before, but it's kind of a blend of economics, sociology, and history), a study guide for new doctors who need to pass a test to practice medicine (the descriptions of all the icky things that can go wrong with the human body help you appreciate the body you've got), and several educational theory/practice books. Now I'm wrapping up another book for teachers and starting a book about statistics for MBAs. I like the variety. Each publishing house (and sometimes imprints within a house) has its own style preferences, though, and sometimes it's hard to keep them all straight, especially when I haven't been sleeping or eating (or showering)!

I've also been busy because of Diversicon 15. It was an awesome time. My panels all went pretty well. I got to bond with some people I have haven't gotten to bond with for a while, or ever. I got to hear Keg Salad, a folk music band with Mark Rich and Martha Borchardt and bought their CD, Touch of Life. I got to wax enthusiastic about the reproductive habits of aquatic snails, and people listened. Later, one man pointed me out to another, saying, "That's the Snail Lady." Man #2 wanted to hear all about them. I saw parts of some early SF films and part of a 2002 British SF film that looked really good (28 Days Later). I did the Program Book for the con, and I think that turned out pretty well. And I found some good books and great T-shirts in the dealer's room and got a lot of books at bargain prices at the Auction. Guest of Honor Andrea Hairston is a rock star, and Special Guest Melissa Kaercher is a firecracker. Altogether, a very satisfying weekend.

Family -- Doug's parents came for their annual visit. We had a pretty good time with them. Visiting the dog park with Cubby was a high point, as was playing Russian Rails with his dad (one of the more fun rail games, IMO -- easier to get started than many of the others). Unfortunately, Doug and I were both so zonked from working so hard and (at least in my case) not eating, sleeping (or showering), that we weren't up to doing a whole lot.

Culture -- Just read Dreamer (1988) by Daniel Quinn, the author of Ishmael and leading figure of a radical environmental philosophy. Dreamer is a really excellent book -- recommended! I guess you'd call it contemporary fantasy/horror but with a definite science fiction sensibility. (If you haven't, you should read Ishmael, too. It *will* change the way you think about everything.)

Home and Garden -- We're having the hottest, driest summer since 1988. I think before that, you have to go back to the Dust Bowl to find anything worse. Starting last week, though, we finally got a series of the furious thunderstorms one associates with June in the northern prairie, and some much needed inches of rain. I was too busy for a couple of weeks to water much, so I did lose some of my newer/more fragile plants, but what can you do?

I planted too many tomato plants, and now they're producing, and I have too many tomatoes. I gave some to my next-door neighbors yesterday, and my therapist said she'd love some, so a bag is going her way today or tomorrow. They're gorgeous heirlooms; the yellow/orange "Persimmons" are especially delish -- sweet and meaty. The pak choy/joi choy hybrid has proved incredibly hardy for a leafy vegetable; the heat and drought seemed to have killed it, but now it's coming back and growing like crazy. Too bad it doesn't taste better. Sauteed with salt and butter, like collards, it's okay. My basil is proving delicious in salads, as are my chives. I've gotten a couple of nice cantaloupes, and some beautiful broccoli is forming (and Old Dog Bill isn't around anymore to eat it off the plant!). Even some lettuce has survived, though only a small percentage of what started. The asparagus I put in the front yard this spring all came up and seems to be thriving, so hopefully next spring, I'll be able to harvest a little. And it's as pretty as an ornamental plant as I'd hoped. Have gotten lots of white, green, and purple beans and one yellow sweet pepper so far. I'd say this has been my most successful veggie garden year yet!

Fun! --

Squirrels and Snakes: Judging from the way they like to throw themselves in front of oncoming cars, I'd always thought squirrels had low survival quotients. But they do have some things going for them. A special protein in their blood that makes them immune to snake venom, for one. And a way of shaking their tails vigorously and heating them when venomous snakes approach. (They shake their tails but don't bother heating them up around nonvenomous snakes.)
Africa: It's a big continent, it's a varied continent, and it's a continent we should all know more about. The BBC World Service has a great page dedicated to news and information from all parts of Africa.

July 14, 2007: Back Pain! Rejections! Editing Projects Gone Astray! Woe is me!

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:19:00 +0000

(But I really can make it rain.)

Writing -- Got a quick rejection (one-week turnaround) from Jim Baen's Universe. On the first couple of e-mails the assistant editors sent each other about my story, they hit the "reply all" button, so I learned they felt my story was either "boring" or "too dark." They were discussing three stories, so I'm not sure which category mine fell into. My story is a bit dark -- it involves a disabled baby who dies and a lot of other innocent people who die -- so for the sake of my self-esteem I'm going to assume it's not boring. I sent it back out again right away [vigorously patting self on back].

Also got a very courteously worded rejection from the Machine of Death anthology. They got about 700 submissions! Good grief. Of course an author improves her chances of acceptance by writing a high-quality story, but still . . . the sheer numbers are discouraging. However, they also take the sting out of the rejection. I just keep telling myself, "Write and submit. Write and submit. It's the process that matters, not the outcome. I control the process; I do not control the outcome."

Have opened up another story I wrote at Clarion that just needs a few tweaks and another page or two to flesh out the ending before being ready to go out into the world. "Lunge endings": I do them in just about every first draft. I get so excited about finishing a story, I lunge for the ending. "So a 16-ton weight dropped on the dragon's head, and the princesses lived happily ever after. The End." We need to know where the 16-ton weight came from and a little more about what "happily ever after" means to these characters. :-)

Editing-wise, knocked off another book on educational practice in good order. I'm enjoying these books on teaching and school leadership, particularly the cogent criticisms from different perspectives of No Child Left Behind. This book was my first project for my newest client. As usual with a publisher I haven't worked with before, I had to ask some "obvious" questions, and I still misunderstood what I was supposed to do! However, the project editor was very nice, and at least I turned it around quickly and (my opinion) did good work.

For another house I work for, I was expecting a proofreading assignment to show up on my doorstep by the end of this week (and it hasn't), I got a copyediting assignment via e-mail (but I only got a couple hundred graphics files I can't read with any of my software and no book manuscript that I can discern, and I didn't notice the problem until the project editor had, very reasonably, left for the weekend), and I'm expecting a copyediting project early this week (hopefully nothing will go amiss with that).

I also have a manuscript for another publisher that's with the authors for review, and that should be coming back to me this week.

So I've got lots of work. Just none of it's on my desk right now, which makes me itchy. However, that's probably just as well, since on Monday, I woke up to agonizing lower back spasms. I ice, stretch, change positions, take OTC painkillers (which do nothing), apply BenGay (which isn't supposed to work, according to the "experts," but relieves pain better than anything else I've tried), and spend a lot of time resting/sleeping on my side with a pillow between my legs. I've also had a couple of chiropractic treatments. Five days and counting, and still can barely sit, stand, bend, or lie down. That leaves . . . ?

Family -- Lost a couple of Glowlight Tetras to the last heat wave (which was miserable -- 88F heat index as the low one night). One just disappeared; presumably its corpse was eaten by something. The other was clearly not doing well -- a combo of "velvet" (a parasite) and a bacterial infection, I think -- but I didn't jump on it in time. I was pretty enervated by the heat myself, and then by the lower back sprain/strain.

In other aquarium news, my floating Water Sprite, which started in February as a few leaves, overran both tanks. I took in a bunch to my favorite fish store for credit (like trading in used books to a bookstore for credit). I'd never brought in anything to a fish store before, but the clerk was very patient, explaining how much was "a bunch" and that damp newspaper or paper towel was better for transport than bags full of water. She even gave me a bag of various baby plants -- she'd just cleaned the plant tank -- to take home. I also left with a new Colombian Ramshorn Snail to be a partner for my old one (though I have no idea how to sex them). I still have two huge Water Sprite plants in my 55-gallon tank, with bitty babies hanging all over them, and the 20-gallon is full, so I'll probably bring in more next week.

Bootsie enjoys being an athletic kitty at night. When the weather is cool, we open the double-hung windows, and sitting on the lower sill just isn't good enough for Empress Bootsie. She must be on the top sill, no matter how much silly effort it takes!

Culture -- No reading with my back the way it is. Do TV reruns count as culture?

Home and Garden -- Pfft! Can't pick anything from my wonderful garden with my back out. Thank goodness, just before my back went out, I'd thoroughly soaked everything with the hose, resulting in about an inch of rain. (I can make it rain!) Since then, it's cooled off, and we've gotten a trace of rain and may get more. The Twin Cities are still running a 5"-7" rain deficit, though, and it's a pain. I certainly can't water anything with my back the way it is! I also want to clean up the place before Doug's parents arrive for their annual visit, but I don't know how much I'll be able to help with that.

Fun --

Merriam-Webster's is adding about a hundred new words and phrases to its dictionary. I guess I'm surprised that words like smackdown and Bollywood aren't already in the dictionary. For writers who want to write character dialog on the cutting edge, here's the Double-Tongued Dictionary, a communally maintained online dictionary of "fringe English, focusing on slang, jargon, and new words."
Check out the Dependable Erection blog (named after a North Carolina fencing company's slogan). I found it after a Google search on some lyrics from a TV beer ad I couldn't quite understand. This guy had the lyrics up, confirming my hunch that the ad was incredibly stupid. He also had up an analysis of how stupid the ad was, and I read a bunch of his other entries about national politics and media and enjoyed them muchly.

July 4, 2007 (U.S. Independence Day): Market List (Anthologies/Contests) Updated! And I really can make it rain.

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:13:00 +0000

Check out the updated Quick Reference Market List. BTW, now that I'm updating it regularly again, I expect to revamp the page layout soon, perhaps with the August update. So hopefully it will be easier to read, navigate, and use.

As I've long suspected, I can make it rain. One way to make it rain is to plan an outdoor wedding; other ways include planning a picnic or washing the car. My way is to water my garden. My green leafies were wilty, so I turned the hose on them, and BOOM! There had been zero rain in the forecast, but suddenly a "pulse thunderstorm" formed. The climatologist on the radio said it covered only about 20% of the metro area. So it really was personally directed at me. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! :-)

July 2, 2007: Writing, Submitting, Baby Birds!

noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:38:00 +0000

Writing -- I've been methodically going through my backlog of unsold stories, unsold because I've hardly sent them anywhere, brushing them up, and submitting them to top markets. It may be a complete waste of time and postage, but maybe it isn't, and anyway, I am a writer and it's what writers do. The point is to participate in the process, not to achieve a certain outcome. Also, after being stuck for a while, I'm working again on the horror story set in Colombia and having a good time with it. Edited another book about school leadership, this one for principals ("headteachers" in the U.K. -- I hadn't known that) about being sensitive to their teachers' feelings will improve students' learning.

Check out the Diversicon 15 Media Guide. I had a lot of fun pulling this together! Also wrote up Wikipedia articles on Diversicon and SF Minnesota. Learning the basics of Wiki was fun -- it's been a while since I've learned a new way of telling computers what to do.

Am working on the Anthologies section of the Quick Reference Market List today and should get it posted.

Family -- Lost the Rainbowfish 24 hours after my last entry. Lost another male Rainbowfish about a week later. Not sure what happened to him. We'd had a stretch of very hot weather, the tank temp had risen to 85F. Then it cooled off drastically overnight, and the heater didn't entirely keep up with the cool wind coming through the open window next to the tank; it got down to 77F or so. That's when I noticed that the fish wasn't swimming as actively as the others and wasn't eating. He also seemed slightly swollen through the abdomen but wasn't dropsy-like. Other than the behavioral changes, there was no outward sign of infection, fungus, or parasites, so I didn't move him to the hospital tank as I wasn't sure what I would treat him for. After a few days, I found him dead with Mr. Snail sitting on top of him. He's now feeding the flowers. On a brighter note, the Head-and-Taillight Tetra with severe fin rot has mostly grown back its fins and got moved back to the main tank last week. Among bigger fish, he's not nearly as mean to his fellow Tetras!

Culture -- Does aerobics music count as culture? Probably not. Have just starting Andrea Hairston's Mindscape. It's all very interesting, though I'm having trouble getting my bearings with her world and characters. It will probably make more sense once I get further into it.

Home & Garden -- The veggie patch is going great! I've got an amazing amount of pak choy. The lettuce and spinach are starting to come into their own. The tomatoes are amazing (and I put in way too many tomato plants -- already asked the neighbors if I could put a bag of tomatoes on their porch later this summer) and the peppers and cantaloupe are blooming and starting fruits.

In the perennial beds, it's weeding, watering, weeding, watering. I just want 0.5" rain a week. Is that really so much to ask? Those poor folks down in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas would probably be happy to give me some of what they've got. Lone Star racetrack, between Dallas and Ft. Worth, had to cancel races the other day when it got nearly an inch of rain in 15 minutes. Yikes! Got to say, though, that the lone delphinium I managed to start from seed a couple of years ago is looking amazing -- such a brilliant blue, and so many blooms!

And it's baby bird season once again. Gaping mouths, fluttering wings, and feed me! feed me! I'm pretty sure I saw a Black-Throated Gray Warbler at the feeders the other day, which I don't think I've seen before. It was a very striking small bird with lots of contrasting black and white and gray. We also have a small red squirrel (not a chipmunk) this year that we've never seen around here before. Haven't seen the larger gray squirrels visiting the feeder for a while, though. Maybe the red squirrel is fierce and chases them off?

To escape the heat wave last week, dropped into a Wild Birds Unlimited for the first time ever. Oh my! What a fabulous place. Their suet has no artificial junk in it, so I got some of that -- the kind with the dead bugs in it. Doug thinks that by providing the birds with pre-dead bugs they don't have to catch, I might be spoiling them. You think? I *love* spoiling them! I also got a bag of seed, which they're going through at an insane rate. Doug picked up Birds of Prey of Minnesota, one of a series of hand-sized field guides organized by the birds' colors and sizes -- much handier than those organized by family-genus-species. I already have the ones for Minnesota and Wisconsin, but it's nice to have one devoted to raptors because it shows what their silhouette looks like from below and from the front/back in front.

Fun -- What could be more fun than baby birds???

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noreply@blogger.com (Paula F.) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 07:33:00 +0000

This is my first post using Blogger. Let's see if it works!