Amy Lane's Blog: Writer's Lane, page 174

SQUIDTASTIC!

Forgive the blurry photos-- my camera phone does NOT do well indoors.



Yesterday, Mate took three out of four kids to Six Flags (and me of course) as sort of a last hurrah to summer. It was fun-- we didn't stay too long, mom rode the water ride, the weather was fanTASTic, and Zoomboy was allowed to win (buy) a giant squid hat. Since he's been saying all summer long that he's a tanned squid, the whole family pronounced the hat "SQUIDTASTIC!"



And so he is. This is Zoomboy and my baby, Squish, who has asked that I call her Dollbaby in front of her friends, all dressed up for school. They were so happy--I can only hope Squish has fun-- I don't want her to be sad, I don't want her to have Chicken's self-esteem problems during middle school, but I am aware that her mother is a handicap, and there's not too much I can do about that.



But today they were happy, and I took a picture or two... God, I'm proud and sad at once.



And to mark the proud, sad theme, Big T was in the living room at 9:00, waiting for me to take him to his job, mowing my parents' lawn. "Yeah," he said, "it's weird. No school today for me. There was no school bus waiting."



For the first fall in fifteen years, there is no school bus waiting for him. Or me. Happy and sad indeed.



But look at my children--and remember the happy. They really ARE squidtastic!

This Week Was...

Busy enough to make me feel envy for Steve the Cat. (I don't know why she stays in there--but she does. For HOURS. The kids put a blanket over the bucket, fill it with soft toys, and go, "Shhh... Steve is sleeping." Seriously. I really fuckin' wanna be the damned cat!)







Too busy to let me blather some more about Vancouver. (But I'll show you the picture of the building lying on top of the building--that's what the etchings across the windows of the lower floor say. Fascinating.)









* In fact, it was busy enough to make me feel like Big T's Shoe.









It started well enough-- last Saturday, Mate had a reunion. Including the handsome man and his lumpy spouse pictured here, we knew two other people.







And then it got busy.



Chicken had two doctor's appointments to get ready for school (thankfully not pictured) and Squish had TWO bouts of Kindergarten orientation--one regarding testing, and one regarding how to get through the lunch line without darting around like startled tadpoles. You think I'm kidding, don't you? Look! I've got proof!







Everyone had soccer. Twice. Squish had her first game. She did fine:-)







And then there was the shopping! Shopping for school supplies! Shopping for clothes! Shopping for this hat, that fit Zoomboy like a glove and that we HAD to buy for him! It was a moral imperative. That, and he looked like he was gonna get wiseguy on my ass if I didn't!







On top of that, I was working on the galleys, because they moved Clear Waters to September 2nd!!!







All things considered, it made me long for the days when I could lounge in the sun, like a lizard. Ah well, the kids are starting school... maybe next week!

Alien Moons

My heart beats to tides pulled by alien moons,

Sailing an acid yellow sea beaten by boiling martian winds.

The vessel has patched sides, a thin hull,

Threadbare sails made of time. Rips punch through,

rending ragged fabric edges, with infinite space

through the gap.



For so long I clung to the mast, screaming

until my throat bled: THE UNIVERSE IS PEACE,

YOU DO NOT NEED TO STRUGGLE, VIOLENCE

IS FOR THE BLIND, FIND THE GENTLE

IN YOURSELVES! While my ship mates

Only laughed at me, a fat woman who had

No place among the brutal-muscled

Fraternity of those who sailed

A sea they could not fathom.



And I'd be clutching that mast still,

Splinters beneath my nails, the skin of my chest shredded

By shattered wooden dreams.

But the ship heaved ignorance and I tumbled

through a tattered ghost fabric to the great beyond.



I found the universe was vast

And echoed with peace.



I floated untethered, found a berth in a burst of brilliance

And I sit and hum my message

Surrounded by busy stars

I strive to serve.



Sometimes when I close my eyes

I can feel the heave of that acid storm

Beneath my feet

And see distorted rainbows of polluted skies

Behind my lids.

I can hear the echo of the unfathomed

Bitter sea

And wonder that the ship

Would not founder without me.



I keep my eyes closed

For fear of my grief

When I no longer see

My alien moon.

Where to start, where to start where to start...

Okay-- Canada was one helluva week--and I'm sure I couldn't even remember everything I wanted to tell you even if I tried. Seriously--between the time I got off the plane home and now we've had:

A. Picking up the kids

B. An emergency edit--I shit you not!

C. A visit to Mate's relatives and a visit to mine

D. Squish's Kindergarden placement tests

E. Soccer practice

F. Various moments of sleep



So I need to tell the story now, but oi! Just so much to tell!



So I'm going to take a stab at it, one picture at a time style...



I e-mailed a bunch of pictures in random order--and you know what they say about pictures and thousand words, blah blah blah... so I'm going to call up the pictures and tell the story and see if that is slightly more organized that the linear trivia dump that kept threatening to erupt on the keyboard when I tried earlier, okay?



Let's see...





Alrighty then... the's start with this. It's a library. It's in the shape of the coliseum in Rome, because they had a contest and voted to see what Vancouverites wanted the building to be, and they have pretty good taste.







Okay... this is a little harder. Mate was actually WORKING during this trip--he was at siggraph, which is a conference of engineers and artists, built around how graphics programs can better work to entertain the hell out of us. I went on Tuesday (more about that later) but on Wednesday, I didn't want to mooch around the hotel room anymore, (because one day was bliss, but two days would have been boring) and so I caught a tour bus to Grouse Mountain. One of the stops up the mountain was here--it was sort of a walkabout attraction. You could go on the suspension bridge, the cliff walk, the treetop walk or just generally ramble. This is the suspension bridge, and it's sort of cool. It wasn't that far up (for me, anyway--I'm used to going over the Forresthill Bridge, which is around 800 feet up--this one was 250 feet up) but that didn't keep me from cold sweating and freaking out as I crossed it. Both ways. But still-- wasn't going to take the tour to say I wussied out at the last minute, was I?







This here was also on the Grouse Mountain tour--this was one of the many views from the sky tram that took us up the mountain. The most spectacular view was of the city itself, but it was sort of hazy that day, and the pictures turned out for shit, but this didn't. It's the cliff face itself as the tram is going up. There's apparently a hiking trail called "The Grouse Grind" that takes you up the mountain at a 45% angle. I passed. The tram was just fine, thank you!







This was also on the Grouse Mountain tour--this was part of the lumberjack show. The men (boys) in the show were amazing--their schtick was as drinking, brawling yokels, but the truth was, they were world champions in their events--axe throwing, log chopping, log rolling, and, yes, scaling the pole. In this picture, the guy on the left is a little behind--but that's because he gave the guy on the right a five second head start. He still won--there are benefits to falling with style, which is what the guy on the left was REALLY good at. Still scared the hell out of me. Which was, I guess, the point.









Okay- this is our first skyline. We actually spent our time in two hotels--the first one for one night only. That hotel had some construction going on, so we got a room upgrade. When we went to bed, we went, "Oooh... purty lights." When we woke up we went, "Oh holy crap! That's a STUNNING view!" And then we went, "You know, if we'd been in our original room, we probably would have woken up to a concrete wall or something." So, yanno, serendipity. Has it's moments, oh yes it does.







And this is a morning view of the city we spent the rest of the week in. Welcome to Vancouver, everyone--it's as lovely inside as it was on the out.







This was back on the Grouse Mountain tour--this was the cliff walk. So far, this picture has just tripped people out--especially because I was obviously on the walk when I took it, and it looks really scary, and I'm not known for my stability on heights. What can I say? I was up to my armpits in hurricane fence on a very securely bolted catwalk. It didn't trigger a single anxiety attack--I even looked down from the walk to the cliff face and the ground. Felt completely safe--but the picture's pretty damned cool, isn't it?







You already met the damned bird. He was cool--but he was hella vain. You ever seen an eagle preen? It's a little disturbing--like watching a war hero check his hair and makeup.









This here is Stanley Park--it's actually bigger than central park. Mate and I took a 90 minute bus tour, just to get a view of the place on the large, and Stanley Park was a big attraction. We took the tour on Sunday, our first day there, and it was sooo purty outside. It was sort of overwhelming--there wasn't a soul in Vancouver who wanted to hide in their lofts that day-- they were all at Stanley Park, and we couldn't blame them. It was twice as pretty as it looks in that picture--and the city must have been calling their names!







And this is an example of Vancouver's architecture. Just amazing--truly amazing. It was a city of chrome and glass, and every building attempted to be unique at the same time it fit in, and they all worked. Walking on the streets was designed to be pleasant, the the residents kept their city very clean. (Hell, even the street people were organized and assertive--I tried to give one my last Canadian dollar, and he tried to specify that he wanted American, in smaller denominations. I told him he'd get my last Canadian two-buck, and like it, and he managed a very thin thanks.) Anyway, this is just an example. I could bore you all day with random buildings we snapped, because each building seemed to be organic and perfect where it sat.



And that's all for tonight. I may find a couple more shots next post, or even chat about some of those other things that happened since we got home. In the meantime, I'm going to leave you with the following Squish-ism:



We were driving down a section of freeway that had been roughed out for repaving, and the car was jiggling up and down and Squish started giggling. "Mom! The road is massaging me!" Dude--I'm serious--for that child, even the freeway is kissing her ass!



Night night!

Changing

Whew! I'm glad to be home, but I sort of stepped off the bus and into the grind. They're trying to move up the release date for Clear Water, and Alpha is out which needs some promo and, well, I actually have a new release today!



Tomorrow or Monday I'll put together my vacation post (because I'm desperate to chat about it!) and SQuishy fans will get a fix at the bottom of the page (it's cute, too!) but today I sort of need to get pumped for Changing!



Changing is the fourth book in the Jack & Teague novella series--and the place where the series REALLY sort of picks up in intensity. Reaching was almost light hearted--Teague got upset, Cory calmed him down, Happy Thanksgiving, all is well hurray! Changing has action, adventure, and a lot more angst--and we see how TRULY tight Teague's emotional wire is wound, and it's sort of dangerously tight, and we feel for the guy. (When I released these online, I used to wait for Katy's exclamation whenever she read one-- "Oh Amy!" let me know I'd done it right, and this one got that in spades!)



Anyway, I love these guys--and knowing this one was coming out prompted me to write on Quickening in Canada. (The @#$%$@@ computer promptly LOST 5K of work, which I'm trying to find, dammit! but I was enjoying working on it!)



So let me introduce Changing--I hope the Jack & Teague fans enjoy. (And if you AREN'T a Jack & Teague fan, by all means, start at Yearning and work your way down!)



It's available at ARe (which has the .prc format for Kindle) and Torquere Presswhich, I believe, also has all e-book formats as well.



And for those of you doubting I will get to the vacation stories, I'll show you what the kids were up to while I was gone.



The lizard has a name, btw--I think that one was Right-Tail, and he and his brothers (Billy Bob and Shortie) were released into the wild shortly after this picture was taken yesterday. But in the meantime, the lizards got to play with my adoring children, and the children got to watch them eat giant moths in a terrarium. Can I just say that grandmas house has never rocked this hard?

I'm not dead...

I'm just in Canada.



Actually, I love it here--but I've been having a helluva time coping with a limited internet connection, and walking EVERYWHERE.



I've got pictures--no worries, they will come--and some stories--lotsa stories, trust me! But right now, I'm a little tired, and a lot grateful--Alpha came out, and so far, so decent. People seem to like it--or at least think about it--and that's really all I really want.



The kids barely miss me (I'm sure they'll change their story when they see me) and in the meantime, my mom seems to be having the kind of time with the super-shorties that she wanted to with the older-shorties, but couldn't, because T wasn't that great at being left and Chicken was an entirely delicate creature altogether.



Anyway--



All is well. I'm enjoying the hell out of myself--but on Friday, I will be glad to be home:-)



(Edited to add: Okay--I AM home-- and I'll be posting tomorrow, I swear! I wrote this post up in a hotel room in Vancouver, and then pressed "Post" and it didn't! But I'm home, and I can send you a picture of Rocko, an American Eagle in Canada, and promise that probably around Monday, I'll have a lovely post about Vancouver for you. Saturday, I'll have a lovely post pimping Changing, the next Jack & Teague novella, and tonight? I've got a lovely sleep in my own bed planned--sorry, that one's all for me!)

A Solid Core of Alpha

Okay, so I'm going on vacation with Mate. We're leaving tomorrow, and we'll be back on Thursday, and I may manage a post or two between now and then, but in the meantime, I've got a little thing like a book opening going on without me.

And it's kind of an interesting sort of book.

You may have noticed I put out a fuck-ton of work in the last couple of months. Part of this is due to my hyperactive brain, and part of this is due to a mindset that has been particularly driven. (Some of that's lightening up, which is good, since I was about to become a raging workaholic.) Anyway, I've already posted about the really odd mindset of someone who is constantly driven, and whose inner life threatens to become more real than the actual real life that everyone talks about.

In a way, that's the root and kernel of A Solid Core of Alpha.

It starts when Anderson Rawn's world is ripped apart (and anyone who loves sci-fi is going to recognize at least ONE of the names I threw on my characters. It was an homage, and I'd hope the authors would think that as well.) Anderson is thrown on board an escape shuttle by his older sister, and remote launched from his mining colony as it is being destroyed. What follows is ten and a half years of isolation in space. Anderson is almost thirteen when the shuttle launches. When he arrives at his destination--a space station surrounded by three fertile planets--he is nearly twenty-three, and he is not alone. Utilizing the ship's basic holographic programing, he has created a family--and his family, in turn, has created a companion for Anderson.

And his companion is beating the shit out of him.

I hesitated to add that last part--but remember my post about warnings? This one is not for the faint of heart. I know some people have triggers--people who have undergone trauma of abuse, sexual or otherwise, do NOT like those elements in their fiction. I'm warning right now, there is that element in this VERY fictional work. The people on the holodeck are real to Anderson--and whether they are real or not to the world around them, I leave to the reader to decide. Real people do hideous things to each other, and sometimes for reasons that do not start out as monstrous in the least. This story looks into that, and it looks into the nature of mental illness, and the nature of what's real and what's not, and whether or not the monsters our subconscious makes for us are any less horrible than the monsters who wait behind dark alleys or hide behind a family member's eyes.

This is some very dark stuff.

My beta readers asked me two things as I was sending this to them a chapter at a time:

A. This IS going to end happily, right?

The answer to that one is Yes. I'll say that right now, for those who, for some strange reason, *cough* *Adrian* *cough* doubt my ability to do that!

B. What medication regimen are you on? You seem to know mental illness so very well. You cut to the heart of what's wrong with the family member/friend I have the hardest time talking about, and you make his/her suffering so very very personal. How do you know this?

The answer to that one is the same way anyone else who has dealt with mental illness in a family knows this. My bio mom, the one I need to go pick up during holidays and family gatherings, has suffered with mental illness since she was very young. I'm not going to go into that too much now--mostly, I just want people to know that there's nothing exploitive in Anderson's suffering, or C.J.'s response to it. Their problems are something I've seen/felt first hand. Of course that's going to come out in my writing. Where else is it going to go?

And that should be the end to question B--it was hard to answer, laid a little bit of myself bare, shouldn't that suffice? Except that alone is not completely honest.

The other reason I understand what's going on with Anderson and his torsion between reality that you touch and reality that you have going on in your head is almost the simplest one of all.

I'm a writer. When I write a scene--painful, joyous, funny, sexy--I AM all those people on the page. I laugh, cry, celebrate, get turned on--all those things, as I'm writing. Those people in my head are VERY VERY REAL TO ME--and a part of my life force really is devoted to giving them life. And sometimes, they really do win out over the people in my house. That's the nature of mental illness, and that's the nature of writing, and there's a reason so many of our best and brightest writers self-medicate and self destruct. The lines between what's real and what's not blur, and sometimes what's not real isn't even a good place--but it seems to be where we're stuck, and the people in those dark places are the people we can't escape.

It's funny--I spent eighteen years teaching, and the attitude toward science fiction/fantasy/ucf was so disdainful, so dismissive. A modern author couldn't be taken seriously if he/she was writing sci-fi. "It's not REAL. How can you address the human condition if it's not REAL." Forget that half of our curriculum was science fiction/fantasy--George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand, Mary Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Beowulf Poet, The Gawain Poet, Homer, Mark Twain, WILLIAM FUCKING SHAKESPEARE (Hello? The Tempest? Midsummer's Night's Dream? )--yes, all sci-fi/fantasy. Yup. We teach it! And the reason we teach it in our schools is that A. It's often an excellent vehicle for satire, because satire needs a naive or ignorant hero to filter the bizarreness of human behavior through his understanding, and B. WATCHING HUMANITY DESTRUCT UNDER IT'S OWN FLAWS HURTS LESS IN A BRAVE NEW WORLD.

Anyone knows that Star Trek knows that it featured the first interracial kiss and made some of the first media generated political statements about race relations, ecology, gender issues, xenophobia, post traumatic stress syndrome and about a thousand other things PERIOD knows this. Kirk and Uhura COULD kiss on television, because HEY, it was SCI-FI, it couldn't possibly be construed as REAL. And by putting up that barrier there, that show was allowed to say all sorts of politically incorrect truths that people who had achieved abstract brain function could understand, but the politicians (who, for the most part, have the abstract operant functions of a sixth grader) could not. If we want students to be able to understand satire, predictive thinking, irony, symbolism, imagery, politics, self-actualization, THINKING FOR THEMSELVES etc. etc. etc. we need to teach them science fiction and fantasy.

And that's why it ends up in curriculum. But the people teaching it don't always get that just because it's not on the class roster doesn't mean it doesn't do the same things that stuff does.

What I'm trying to say is that yes, this is a romance. Yes. The two leads are male. Yes, there is sex. But, just like a lot of my other writing, it is not frivolous and it's not always easy. And yes, it is REALLY frickin' dark.

But, just like Anderson, it's got some redeeming features as well.

I really hope people enjoy it. I hope it makes them think. I hope they don't throw it across the room because it disgusts them.

Holy Goddess, Merciful God, PPPPUUUUUHHHLLLLLEEEEEEZZZZZZZE LET IT NOT SUCK!

Dreaming

I was just thinking about dreams.

We all have them--things we'd do in a perfect world.

Of course, by adulthood, we know that the world is not perfect, and even if we got what we think we wanted, we'd find that we wanted something else all along. This is not always true--sometimes, it's EXACTLY what we thought we wanted, we just thought we'd be better people when we got it. As a fellow writer said to me, "Hey--if we're worried about writing and editing deadlines, that means we're successful. We're working!"

I said, "I thought success came with a smaller waistline and a better car--geez, SOMEBODY has good press, because that is SO not the case!"

We both laughed our asses of, but that does bring about the idea that once you've achieved one dream, you're going to dream about making it better, and then you're going to get other dreams, and you will ALWAYS HAVE something to dream about--or at least you will if you're going to embark on any sort of creative endeavor whatsoever.

So, thinking about this, and about "In a perfect world with a fat bank account, what *I* want to do is..."

And I came up with this--and I love it. I may never achieve it, but that's what makes it such a perfect dream.

Besides the whole NYT Best Seller list (don't hold your breath--not in MY genre!) thing, there's the fact that I want to meet people.

In my last post, Roxie said, "Hey--if you're going to be in Washington, VISIT ME!" Unfortunately, I'm going to be in CANADA, but that doesn't mean that Mate and I haven't been entertaining half-baked notions of how to visit Roxie and Knit Tech and Julie and LittleWitch and Galad and Donna Lee-- every time we propose a trip, I think of someone I could say hi to as I passed. I'd load up my vehicle with the full tub of fabric JUST FOR ROXIE, and a whole lot of yarn for Knit Tech and even more sock yarn for Donna Lee, and a variety of things for Galad and books for LittleWitch and Bonnie and... and on and on and on.. and I'd just visit you and squeee, and jump up and down and leave big honkin' gifts on your doorstep and drive away to visit someone else and wish I could come back.

The really cool thing about writing full time now, is that I keep thinking, "Hey! THAT came true, right?" Of course, not the way I'd envisioned it, but it came true nonetheless, and I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, that other thing can come true too. And after that happens, I'm fully confident that there will be other dreams in wait.

And of course, there will by my children's dreams to come true as well.

I've already pointed out that some of the drawbacks of what I do is a REALLY hyperactively busy brain, but that's also one of the perks. It means that when I'm dreaming, I'm not just drooling on the couch with my eyes glazed. (Actually, when I do that, fetch me a soda, because there really is NO EEG activity going on there, NONE, and I need caffeine STAT!) It means that when I'm dreaming I'm CREATING, and often when someone is CREATING, there is not just the ozone stink of unaccustomed brain activity being generated, there is some sort of tangible RESULT. Dreaming begets DOING, and DOING begets ACCOMPLISHING, and that is a very fine dream indeed.

So alas, I'm not going to show up on Roxie's doorstep on Sunday with flowers and a huge-assed container of fabric--not yet.

But someday, sweetheart, you can betcyersweetass I will. And everyone else? Stock up on the diet coke (or, yanno, turn off the lights and hide behind the couch!) because it'll happen. I have faith:-)


Oooh-- and funnies! Kewyn has been telling monster jokes--we have the following:

"What did one vampire say to the other vampire? You can enter this room over my dead body!"

"What did the ghost say when it was drinking a glass of water? This is going to go right through me!" (Okay-- this last one is moderately funny, but when accompanied by Zoomboy's following explanation, it's fucking hilarious! "See? If a ghost drinks water, it will go LITERALLY right through them, as opposed to when I drink water, and then it goes FIGURATIVELY right through me, because then I have to pee!" *nods head* And now you're laughing so hard, so do you!)

And finally, mom's addition to the list, because ZB was having trouble with Zombies:

"Why did the boss fire the zombie? He started out okay but then things really started falling off."

Ta-Da! Funnies:-)

(Friday, I'm posting about Alpha, and it's gonna be up for a little while so beware, 'kay? Then it's all me, loose on Vancouver streets, mostly by myself. Be afraid British Columbia--be very very very afraid!)

Funny Little Things

Just bizarre little stuff going on right now. I'm trying to finish a story by tomorrow--it was supposed to be a little novella, but weird stuff got in the way:

*Took the kids to see The Smurfs on Friday--it was fun, but I invited the neighbor's kids too. Fun, but nuts. On a good note, apparently Goddess approves of fun but nuts--twenty years I've gone to that theatre, and I've NEVER gotten the parking spot close to the front next to the tree. It was a hundred and two on Friday--that tree was AWESOME!

* Mate went out last night with his friends. I was invited (if I wanted to drive) but, well, I thought I had too much work to do. (Spent the entire evening as a barcalounger while the little kids got in snuggles. Go figure.) Anyway, our conversation went like this:

Mate: It's okay if you don't want to go. I WILL be okay without you.

Me: *chin quiver* Okay. *lip wobble* If THAT'S how you feel... *checks self in the reality mirror* Nope. Nope--you know what--I'm not going to do that. This is fine. You'll be fine, you'll sleep it off at your friend's hotel, and I'll get some other stuff done.

Mate: Good, because I was wondering how I could cheat on that Kobiyashi Maru.

(This is a Star Trek joke--Trekkies, please check with non-Trekkies to make sure they get the many layers of irony that this reference gives us.)

* Got some fan-knitting from a VERY nice man named John. His husband spins, John knits, and this scarf is two different skeins kettle dyed. I'm tickled to death--I've already posted it on Facebook and I'm not joking when I say it's as soft as a kitten's ass, or that John set out to (in his words) knit the gayest scarf known to man. I love it. I'm going to wear it from November to April nonstop.



* Am currently designing a pair of socks to go with the Super Sock Man story posted on goodreads.com. If they don't suck and I can get a test knitter to help with the directions, it may get posted with the finished novella. Wow. I very well could become the Debbie Macomber of m/m romance. Wouldn't that be fucking BIZARRE?

* Will be getting ready to go on a semi-vacation with mate next week. He'll be attending a conference (on his own dime--he REALLY wanted to go!) and I will be hanging out in Vancouver, visiting yarn shops, walking around and generally doing the Yarn Harlot goes traveling thing. I'm looking forward to it. That, and he and his buddies are planning to hit the pubs after hours, and they're fun people.

*Mate was grooming this morning and he came out of the bathroom going, "What the hell is this?" He had a giant eyebrow hair going in exactly the opposite direction than the rest of them. When I was done shrieking with laughter like a five-year-old I told him that it hadn't looked like that when I picked him up that morning--odds were pretty good he hadn't gone out with friends wearing what looked like a deranged caterpillar's erection over his left eye.

* I was trying SO hard to work last night. It didn't work, but I did get proof that our cat is possessed by demons. You always knew this was true, but proof is nice.



Anyway, that's about all. Except for the worry doll-- Chicken has been making them for Squish with some yarn I gave her. Those things turn out soooo much better with fine wool than they do with acrylic. Or I could be biased. Sometime next week, I'm going to talk the HELL out of Alpha--because it really needs it's own post:-)

Temperature

Okay-- forgive me-- I've got my cheezy metaphor of the day, and I'm going to run with it.

When I was in high school/junior high, we lived in the same place my parents live now--it's semi-rural, and my closest friends lived 4 and 4 1/2 miles away, respectively. My best friend was my bike--first a three speed girl's bike, that got me a lot of grief even though it was my first brand new bike EVER, and later, a hand-made bike that looked like a ten-speed but was really just salvaged parts my dad put together and then pinstriped with a flame motif. (I am not shitting about the pinstriping. As a kid, I was not impressed. As an adult, I'm wondering how my head got so far up my ass to not be impressed.)

Anyway, these bikes were my FRIENDS, and in the summer, the only way I could visit my FRIENDS--I even had babysitting jobs that I rode to on my FRIEND the bike, in the blistering, sometimes muggy, heat of the summer.

Now heat is an interesting perception. There was no such thing as a spare-the-air day, or an air-quality index. My parents thought (still think) air conditioners were for sissies, and there was no gym coach telling you to hydrate, goddammit, or your spleen would fall out. Your SPF was the shirt you chose to wear, and if you were smart you ripped the sleeves and the neck out of an old t-shirt so you didn't sweat as much. A sunburn was the mark of a summer well spent. Nobody gave a shit about the actual temperature-- fucking hot was fucking hot--or, thanks to the Samurai, it was ALL hotter than Satan's taint on a barbecue... ride your bike and get the hell over it, right?

I just knew sometimes it was more fucking miserable on the dusty backroads than others--and sometimes that seemed to get worse in different places.

You'd be riding along, and WHOOMP! A big vacuum would replace your oxygen for a steaming wet rag, and breathing would become a challenge you hadn't imagined when you woke up sweating that morning.

And explaining this to people just made you feel like a big fat goober. "It's hotter in that one place in the road, you know?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about--are you making up another story? Maybe there's a rip in the space time continuum there, you think?" *insert disbelieving laughter here*

Anyway--it didn't leave scars and it didn't bother me forever, but about ten years ago, we got the crapmobile, and it's got this nifty little gadget up above the dashboard. In addition to telling you "Hey, dumbass, you've got two miles left before your car sputters and dies because you didn't put gas in the tank!" it also tells you what temperature it is.

Now I've put some mileage on that thing--and I've put a lot of it on the same city streets throughout the last ten years, and I can tell you something weird.

You know those hot spots I used to imagine on my bike as a kid?

They really fucking exist.

No lie. I'll be driving along, and on one specific hill, (the corner of Madison and Manzanita, for anyone local) the temperature is damned near five degrees hotter than anywhere else in the area. And there are other hot spots, and some that are cooler, and my neighborhood is about five degrees cooler than the nearby Greenback and San Juan/Sylvan intersection--but that's no consolation to anyone walking from, say, our house to the Safeway on that corner.

So what's my point?

I don't know what causes them--sometimes I think it's that they're a little higher with a little less foliage to cool them down, or sometimes, I think there's a stream or a wet field nearby to up the humidity and make the thermometer go a little higher. I don't know what causes them, I don't have an actual map to them--but now, I have PROOF THAT THEY EXIST.

So, you know those times when you're feeling just grump-funky, and you snarl at everyone and you're totally pissed off and you don't know why? Well, think about it. There are probably perfectly reasonable, rational explanations for how pissed off you are--you just don't know what they are yet. Thinking back on some past moments in my work history, I have specific memories of being SUPREMELY unhappy with the people I worked with--I mean, not once but TWICE I had my schedule completely reworked to my inconvenience because I had maternity leave coming and SOMEONE was unhappy to be taking orders from my uterus. And no matter how much people tried to convince me that there was no way around this, I would be SERIOUSLY pissed off for a while. Now that I've got some space from that situation, I realize that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN pissed off. In fact, I should have been A LOT MORE pissed off than I was--I just kept telling myself that it was my imagination.

Like a hotspot in the road.

That I just proved really exists.

So I'm going to keep that in mind. Telling myself a hotspot doesn't exist just makes me madder. Acknowledging that it DOES exist even if I don't understand the causes of it at least assures me that I'm not crazy.

And it's VERY VERY VERY possible that I just may be right.