Zoe E. Whitten's Blog, page 88

Random Sunday updates…

Today is a day off for me, and this is just going to be a set of short updates. Tonight, though, I'll sit down to type up a new bar blog post for y'all.

First up is a quick announcement that Belfire Press has added The Life and Death of a Sex Doll to the Smashwords Summer ebook sale. So for now you can get the ebook for 25% off if you visit Smashwords and use coupon code: SSW25. Also, I've had two updates notifying my of purchases on Smashwords. So somehow the software let my publisher set me up with updates. Very cool feature, Smashwords. I like it.

I still don't know how I'm doing on other stores, so hopefully you Kindle readers are racking up some sales. But, if you have a Kindle, you could get the same .mobi file in a DRM-free format, and you can get it for 25% off the cover price. So hopefully that's an incentive good enough to entice some of you into checking out Smashwords. And, did I mention, they accept PayPal for faster purchases?

Second, on Twitter, writer Joyce Chng, AKA: @jolantru, had a good question for US/UK readers today: "What are you going to do as an 'ally' in promoting non-US/UK POC fiction/writing?"

For me, I can say that I've retweeted ads for Joyce's "wolf people" story Wolf at the Door, which was written under the pen name J. Damask and published by Lyrical Press. I've also talked about Koji Suzuki and Ryu Murakami. I'm not doing a lot, and I probably could do more to read and promote folks outside the traditional English-language markets.

But it isn't like I'm reading and promoting out of balance. I go out of my way to read both men and women, and to make sure that I'm reading a good mix of inde/mainstream titles as well. I work to promote writer in the same way, and I've happily promoted for midlisters like Maurice Broaddus and Briane Keene just as much as I push pro and small press writers like John A. Lindqvist and Michele Lee, respectively.

But a this point, I'm at my limits on how much I can read or promote other people. I promote other artists in many fields far more often than I promote myself, and at times I feel like I may need to back off of promoting other people just so my own "brand message" has a chance to reach people.

But, the question I'd like to propose to y'all is, how can new authors outside the US/UK build better buzz machines? It's safe to assume they can't show up for conventions or book signings in these markets. So there has to be some social platform or online promotion method that encourages people to talk up books outside the mainstream markets.

This really doesn't have anything to do with indie or self-pubbed folks, as even traditionally published writers outside the US/UK could use help getting a toe into these markets. But, how do new writers promote to get readers charged up about foreign writers they've never heard of? How do we convince readers to make leaps of faith instead of always reading the same things over and over?

And now, a random music update along with another question. I've started using the Zune player on my PC, and I'm streaming music to my TV. Because of this, my music stats on Last.FM are no longer accurate. I cannot find a scrobbler for Zune on Last.FM, and the only beta Zune scribbler I could find, Zenses 0.2, crashed on startup because I don't have a Zune, only the Zune software. (So I can stream tunes to my Xbox, you see.)

Until I can find a scrobbler, my Last.FM stats will be inaccurate and won't reflect my listening habits, only my habits when I wear my iPod out for shopping trips. So no, I haven't "lost the beat." I've just lost the ability to track my music addictions.

If you're a Zune software user and know another Zune scribbler for Last.FM, please let me know what you use. I don't have a Zune player, and probably won't for a while until Microsoft pulls their cowardly heads out of the sand and try to compete with Apple globally. Which doesn't seem likely, despite Microsoft dominating the OS and gaming markets. (Makes no sense to me, but what do I know? I'm just a stupid consumer who doesn't understand "market forces.")

And to conclude the updates, this morning, I made coffee and then discovered my milk was spoiled. So I got out and RAN one block to the bakery. Except, it was closed. So I ran all the way to the only open shop in the area, three blocks away. Then I ran home. It did not kill me, a sign that my exercise program is already having some positive benefits. But man, I sure wished I could die for a few minutes after I got home. I tell you, this getting older stuff is a real bitch.

And I'm outtie. See you tonight for a new bar blog with a newly tamed Agent Orange.

Three reviews and a beggar

Well, I'm going to make this a short set of reviews, m'kay? On one, I'm kinda lat to the party, but on a couple others, I'm relatively on time.

But first, a reminder that The Life and Death of a Sex Doll is now available in print from the publisher's site, or from Amazon, and the ebooks are live on Smashwords and Amazon. Smashwords has DRM-free files for those of you with Sony ereaders, Nooks, Or some other e-ink ereaders like those from CyBook and Asus.

Okay, I'm coming to the party late on Limbo, an Xbox Live Arcade game that came out last Summer. It's about a lost soul, a boy traveling through a booby-trapped afterlife meant to torment him with unlimited "deaths." If you have not played this game, look it up and give it a chance. The black and white shadow format is gorgeous, and the ambient soundtrack builds tension in all the right places. The puzzles are challenging, but not impossible. Some do require delicate timing, but dying a few times to get the timing right is its own reward in this game.

Every trap, you may even be tempted to off the li'l guy, just to see what happens. One of the mechanical floors rises to squish the hero, ejecting black "gore." Which looks like little bubbles. Harmless, really BUT, then the wall lowers and your hero "peels" from the ceiling and drips at the same time. And the sound effects are just right to make this just a little squicky even if it's just a black and white outline. This is like a Mario platform game for the horror fans, or a more graphic version of the original Prince of Persia PC platform game.

And, something you don't hear me say often in ANY video game: I didn't mind dying. In fact, often I jumped into traps just to see what happened. Even accidental deaths resulted in much morbid chuckling, and multiple death weren't aggravating. It was really fun, even dying. I can't say that about many games.

Another accomplishment worth pointing out is how the story unfolds without dialogue, and even without text bubbles. It's a silent "film" with every character and prop cast as a harsh black outline. They walk or run against an alternating background which at times evokes the sense of a haunted forest, and other times resembles a cavern, a factory, a sewer and an abandoned sawmill where you're inside the mill machinery on a mouse's scale.

I've played the game through twice, but only found one of the Easter eggs. I do plan to play again to look for all of them, because even if I die a few times, it never stops tickling my beady black heart. So I give Limbo 5 stars. Great game for fans of platform games.

My next review is for Arcade Fire's album The Suburbs. Musically their style strikes me as falling somewhere between MGMT and Ra Ra Riot. Despite three listens, I can't really say any track stands out. The songs are all good, but there's nothing to give me goosebumps like MGMT's 4th Dimensional Transition or Ra Ra Riot's Dying is Fine. If I had my mp3 player on shuffle, I wouldn't skip any of their songs. But there's nothing on the album that I think, man, I need to hear that again! For this reason, I'm giving the album 3.5 stars. There's nothing here that memorable for me, unfortunately.

And finally, I was able to get a copy of the pilot for the new Teen Wolf series. I'm sure it premiered here in Italy at the same time as everyone else, but I need an English language version, so I had to resort to grabbing a torrent. It took me a while to sort out the codec and get a converter so I could play the movie on my Xbox, and part of the time I was having trouble with bad files, I was thinking, I sure hope this is worth it.

In my opinion, it really is. If the series is as good as the pilot, MTV can count me down for one box set of season one in BluRay format.

This version of Teen Wolf is a reboot in every sense, so forget the teen comedy and think more like a WB Supernatural/Charmed amalgam. I've seen some sneering comparisons to Twilight, and I can see that in the romantic moments. But the show has a lot of tension and action, even managing to make lacrosse look exciting. (I kid!)

The CGI for the werewolf is kinda meh in comparison to the rest of the show, but in my opinion it's a slight step above Doctor Who CGI baddies. So it's passable enough that I can forgive the fakeness.

I like the new Scott, and I like his best friend, Stiles. The romantic interest, Allison, is cute, and her back story is probably going to be interesting. I pegged Derek's character right as soon as I saw him, and YES, there is a very strong Edward Cullen vibe going on with him. Some people will consider that a bad thing. I kinda like it. But, if you're worried, no one sparkled. In the pilot. There's still a chance for future sparkling. (Fingers crossed! No, I kid. But sparkles would be cool. I kid again! (Not really kidding))

I love the dialogue, and the acting is decent. There's a good balance of tension, mush and humor to keep my interest from beginning to end, and the end of the pilot is the perfect place to cut to credits and whet my appetite for more. So I give the pilot episode for Teen Wolf an enthusiastic 4.5 stars, and I hope the series can impress me as much as the pilot did.

And that's it for the weekend update. I'm off to make a lighter version of Agent Orange with San Bitter soda and see if I can tame so less dedicate boozers can try it too.

Oh gawd, not another TL;DR ramble!

Yes! Another ramble, but I'll spare those of you who just want book updates: The Life and Death of a Sex Doll is now live on Smashwords for $2.99. I'm sure Kindle versions will be ready soon, but the Nook-E-store has a lot of delays that no one else does. Even getting to Apple's filtered store is easier than squeezing into the Nook. Rest assured, as soon as you can nook it directly from B&N, I'll let you know. Having said that, Nook owners, if you don't want to wait, why not get a DRM-free version from Smashwords. I'd ask the Kindle folks too, but eh, the book will be in their store in a few more days. It' not exactly an excruciating delay, as it is with the Nook. So, y'all Nooker Bookers (ugh, I need to stop with the Nook Nook jokes), please consider going to Smashwords rather than waiting. I mean, you can, if you want.

Right, let's move on to rambly bits. So, a lot of you already know I have MS, and you know what a sucky illness this is. For those that don't, Multiple Sclerosis is an illness where the immune system thinks the nervous system is a disease and goes on short attacks, known as relapses. I was diagnosed at 19 after losing focus in my right eye due to a swollen ocular muscle crimping down on my optic nerves. I had to wear an eye patch and take pig steroids. But there were only minor *oink* side-effects. The vision in my right eye has only faltered a second time, and again for the same reason, because I was doing to much looking at a screen, writing. Then I had to wear another patch for a week or two, but I didn't need steroid, just rest.

Some people get plaque scar damage in their spine, but my immune system has kept attacks mostly in my brain. I also have some damage in my arms and legs, resulting in a minor loss of sensation and a noticeable shake even when I'm trying to hold still. (Using my digital camera is hell on me if I have to hold it steady.) Because of where my plaque scars are, I also have trouble studying. After half an hour of intense studying, I feel a pop in my head, and then I get hit with mental fatigue and have to crash on my couch.

I can't understand dates and times written down for me, and I have to go to an outside source to confirm appointment, or to double-check any math I do because I don't see all the numbers at the same time. Some of them just disappear. So I blow a lot of appointments if I'm trying to keep track of them without someone else's help. And I blow my budget because I lost sight of an incoming expense. Oh, I wrote it down, and I got the numbers right and everything. But, looking at the page again, I don't see the numbers. Poof, gone, like brain magic, or something.

I have trouble remembering names now. I was always a little bad about this, but now it's so bad that while I'm working in a book, I can forget a character's name after I've just written it a dozen times. And since we're on the topic, there's not one character name I've made up that I didn't misspell a hundred ways without every once typing it right on the first try. As an example, one of my characters in my new WIP is named Greta, but in typing it 75% of the time I look up and find I've written Great. The other times are divided between Gerta, Getra, Grate, Geart, and Gary. (Really don't know how my dad's name figures into this, but there it is.) And not once will I spell this poor kid's name right. It's just pathetic, really.

Before April, I was suffering more from physical symptoms of my illness, with frequent cases of physical fatigue attacks and swollen legs. Both conditions put me on the couch all day, and that would of course lead to depressions every single time. Because I'd think "I need to do something to get better. I need money to get better, so I need to work harder at getting more readers. I need…"

And then I'd hit a wall and be unable to see past it. I can't get readers. If I put my naked ass on the cover of every book, I couldn't even hustle my ass off the covers to get new readers. All of my major income is from editing, and I lose money on my writing. So I can't exactly afford help with my condition when my hobby takes more money than it puts out. And this also means I will never afford a second trip to Thailand for my labiaplasty, nor will I ever be able to afford airfare to visit my family. (Though on some days I suspect they're grateful for my absence.) I couldn't afford any toys for myself, and I can't afford to enroll in courses with the local college, even though it's less than a four block walk from my building. I watch college students make the commute every morning, and I so want to join them. But I can't, cause I'm a broke, bored housewife.

April 4th, my birthday, I always lose it. Lots of people do something similar on New Year's Eve, when they realize they've accomplished none of their resolutions. But I choose to hold off on the anxiety attack until my birthday, when I look back and realize that I've stagnated. I'm not improving, and I'm just barely managing not to get worse, health-wise. If there is a decline, it's a gliding downward slope, not a screaming plunge to the bottom. But it's still going down early, and I feel I can do better. More to the point, if I want to extend my time here on this planet, it might not be a bad idea to fight against that slow decline.

That's why I decided to make radical changes this year. First came the closing of my site and the acquisition of Lili Home Wrecker, my pretty little electric guitar. Then I got some seeds, soil, and pots, and I started making a balcony garden. I forced myself to do more housework, getting my body back in shape. I started riding our stationary bike more, but I also talked to hubby about getting an Xbox Kinect for the fitness and dance games. Because it isn't just good enough for me to shed a little body fat. I want to learn how to shake my ass like it ain't no thang.

In May, I got an editing gig, a temporary job posting news articles for a glass web site. The pay was awesome, but the job didn't last long. (Pity, because it's one of the few pro editing gigs I've done that didn't make my eye twitch.) Plus, we still have back taxes, so I had to hand over half my check to Zio Berlusconi, and then I had to hand another half of the net profits to hubby so he could pay yet more taxes to the same schmuck. I chose to take my meager leftover loot and buy a new 37" TV in June. Then last weekend, I took the remains of my other check and bought an Xbox 360 bundled with a 250 GB HD, the Kinect controller, and Kinect Adventures.

As I write this, I've done three days of video game workouts, with yesterday being one of my most intense workouts ever. Later that night, I downloaded demos of Dance Evolution and Zumba Fitness. I did two dance classes in Dance Evolution, and then two-thirds of a Zumba lesson before I had to call it quits. But I wasn't blown up and on the verge of collapse. My pulse was barely above a resting rate, and I was barley "glowing". I just reached a point when I couldn't match the instructor's moves because I couldn't raise my limbs.

And today, I'm sore all aong my ribs and my stomach. But I'm not as sore as I was the day after my first workout, and there's no soreness in my back despite all this working out. In fact, today I feel like I used to after a heavy workout in the gym in my 20s. It's a pain, yeah. But it's a good pain, the kind I can live with and work around.

My jiggly tummy has already lost some of its wiggle room. There's less cottage cheege on my thighs, and my sticks aren't pale alabaster. The sun no longer feels like a physical slap that forces me to scurry for shade. It's still hot, sure. But it's a good heat, a therapeutic warmth.

I'll never get myself healthy enough for a full-time job, but it isn't any physical problem that prevents me from working. I still can't get rid of my mental problems, and my issues with numbers makes a lot of jobs out of the question. You would want my doing anything with money, as I'll lose count or screw up my math and fuck up the books. You definitely don't want me doing data entry. My rough drafts are so hideously full of gibberish typos because my brain clicks, and I'm still going. But every single letter I type is wrong, and I don't see the mistakes when I look up.

Yes, my brain is that badly messed up. So when I say I'm crippled, I don't mean I need braces on my legs. I sometimes have leg problems, but it's thankfully becoming more rare as I eliminate more sources of stress. Eventually, with enough damage, I will need a wheelchair. But if the doctors are right, that shouldn't be until around 45 or so. I'm only 36, and aside from the 2% of the year that I need a cane for useless swollen legs or major joint or back pains, my legs still work okay. There is the matter of stairs, as just a few flights of steps can devastate my hips and back and leave me on the couch for half a day to recover. I've tried high stepping as therapy to deal with this, but it doesn't really help much. Thankfully, our elevator doesn't go out more that once a month…usually when I'm bringing back something heavy, of course. (9_9)

But getting back to my brain troubles, it requires 4-6 drafts before my stories can be published, and even then there's the occasional missing s and r, or the migrating commas and missing periods. But this is just fiction, and while people are demanding about editing, they tend to let you slack off for misplaced decimal points turning a 7.62 mm round into a .762 mm round.

So data entry is out. I can't be a cashier anymore, though I've worked in the position before with no issues. I can't maintain mental focus to be a PC tech again. Just studying programs for my own personal use can blow out my brain, so I wouldn't last half a day in a tech shop before I had to drop under my desk for a fatigue attack. Which I'm sure would get me fired, napping on the job and what not. I can't handle a job as a waiter mentally, though I'm sure I could still handle the physical part. The problem is, all it would take is one snappish customer for me to get canned. Because they'd snap, and then I'd snap. But my snap is worse because there's a 20% chance of me actually striking the customer.

I'm really, truly not in control of the pilot's seat when I snap, and one of my baser voices has jumped me and taken over. Even hubby has trouble understanding and dealing with that, and he knows in advance what to expect. A complete stranger isn't going to be forgiving if I read out and slap them over a flippant comment.

So yeah, in addition to being mentally handicapped by the plaque scars, I'm also mentally ill. And, as I age, the combination of the holes in my cognitive areas with my already frightening temper is a deal killer for most public sector jobs. Being blunt, I don't deal well with the public.

Some of you probably noticed that already.

And no, none of this is low self esteem. I'm just admitting my limits.

Editing is nice for making spending cash, but I can't find enough work to budget anything on it. During the last two years, all of my editing cash went to "spiffy services," like hiring cover artists and getting an editor to look through my books for mistakes. I invested the rest in small scale promotions, which led to traffic, but no new readers. And, being honest, adding a spiffy cover and a paid polish job didn't help either. I'm making money on the Zombie Era series because I didn't invest any cash in it. I did the covers, so they're a bit on the simple side. I got a few reviewers to look at both books, and I'm doing okay off of free word of mouth promotions. Not great, but the books are earning money, and they have no budget deficit to work against their net profits. If I ignore the red ink from other titles and just pretend that Zombie Era is its own separate investment, then I can say that as a hobby project, it's a roaring success. It's still not good enough to qualify as a small press success, but then I don't have the marketing budget of a small press publisher either.

What I'm getting at is, I know I won't ever be able to plan for financial stability relying solely on my current skill set. I know that with exercise, I can be physically able to handle at least a part-time job. But my scrambled brains are a handicap, and for now, I can't see any job available, except one. I could try to take a certification course to be a massage therapist. Then I could advertise in quite a few print and online venues and set up appointments with clients during the evenings, when I'm more likely to have energy for real work.

I'm good at giving massages, and hubby is always commenting how nice I am at it. I've been giving out freebies to sore friends and family since I was 9 or so, but I've never taken a proper class, and I don't have any way to pass the certification without the class.

BUT, I can't take a certification course in Italy without first learning to speak Italian. I hear and understand 60% of what comes at me from other people. But I'm incapable of speaking or writing Italian. In effect, I'm functionally illiterate. This, coupled with my mental handicaps make it very hard to move ahead in life. There's always something else that comes before that I have to do, and yet can't because of these stupid scars in my head.

And what that makes me is a frustrated housewife. I suppose that as wives go, I'm not doing that bad of a job. I give hubby massages, try to encourage him to follow his doctor's orders, and I try to get him into trying new things, with limited successes.

But I want to have a job title besides wife, and I can't come up with any job that I can't see myself being fired because of my plaque-scarred brain. I get frustrated a lot by this, and that makes me growl and rant, or to ramble. But this year, I've come to the choice that there are things I can change, and that I should change. Maybe because of my brain problems, it will take me another five years to speak Italian. But that doesn't mean I can't try to train my brain with some music lessons and memory games. It doesn't mean I have to stay out of shape physically either. I can't figure out how to get a job, but before I worry about that, I can change my body, and how I feel about myself.

I can't fix everything, but that doesn't mean I have to give up and let everything go either. So I'll work out, and I'll spend more time cleaning house. I'll devote more time to my other hobbies, though I'm not abandoning my writing hobby. I'm just not taking it so seriously when I know it's never going to pay the bills. (But it is about to pay for another cover, so that's actually an improvement over 2010. Sometimes small victories are better than no victories, right?) Maybe someday, things will change and one of my books will find a strong niche of readers. Then I'd have a working budget to plan for other stuff. But trying to plan for it now is planning on a pipe dream, and that isn't working.

I needed to do something else, and I am. I changed my lifestyle at home, and I'm changing the way I promote. And some of you seem to like this new approach, so I'll try and stick with it through a few title releases to see what happens. Maybe this won't work either, and those titles will flop too. But at this point, it's okay to have one flop after another. After all, this isn't my job. It's just one more hobby of a chronically ill and very bored housewife who is longing to be something more than what she is.

But ultimately, I have to ask; if the most I can be in this life is a wife, is that really such a terrible thing?

Angry women: the fantasy versus the reality

I had a very random thought today about the popularity of strong women in fiction versus the lack of popularity for women with the same qualities in real life. I want to avoid getting into the issues of whether these women characters are written by men or by women, because the depictions are almost the same in either case. Women as written by men tend to be a little more aggressive, but that's not what I'm thinking about right now.

The thing is, on TV shows like The Closer or Dead Like Me, people like to see a tough woman willing to fight for what she believes in. Another example is Katniss Everdeen, which is funny, because people willingly ignore what an odious and self-centered brat she is, celebrating only her "toughness."

But, would any of these characters find success in the real world? No. Because while people celebrate the illusion of an angry, tough woman, when they have to deal with said women in real life, they react very differently.

And you'll note, I didn't assign gender and make a men's only problem. Other women don't like dealing with a fighting woman either. It's "rocking the boat," or "being shrill," or "taking the wrong tone." (Again, reasons given by both men and women, so this is not a battle of the sexes lambasting.) There's always some reason why in the real world, angry women can be invalidated. Then, even if they continue to shout, it doesn't matter, because they're going to be ignored anyway. Even women with strong causes have been invalidated over the last few years, simply because they got angry and were subsequently labels "shrill harpies."

Aaaaand, done. No longer a valid viewpoint, even if real anger was justified.

Societies want to celebrate women with tenacity and grit in their media and art, but in practice, the rules of real life demand that these same women be quelled. What's sad is, it wasn't always this way. It's only our lack of empathy that prevents us from trying to understand why someone else is so mad. That's hard work, and it's so much easier to invalidate the person and move on to other easy thoughts. I don't want to call it mental laziness, but I don't think there's a better term for this pandemic level of apathy. Caring requires more energy, as well as potential moral commitments that would require thinking about something other the the course of our own lives. It's so much easier not to care, so you can move on to your next episode of The Closer on the DVR.

Remember Rosa Parks? She got pissed off about whites telling her where she couldn't sit, and she sat. An act of protest finally sparked the right kind of outrage to get a lot of scared people out of hiding. But today, if Rosa attempted a similar protest in our apathetic online society, a million trolls would invalidate her as "immature," "overreacting," and yes, most certainly she would be called "entitled."

I think of all the strong angry women in history who would be invalidated in our modern day society, and yet we celebrate their fights in our history lessons. How did we reach this level of disconnect from what we preach to what we practice? Are we all just going to accept this everyday hypocrisy as "the way things are"? Because I can tell you, no, this is not the way things always have been. This trend in apathy is traceable back to the media, who glorifies women in fiction, and then attacks them in "news programs." They establish the chasm between reality and fantasy, and they try to dictate the direction of national interest, with…quantifiable successes, though it could not be called total victory.

I'm not suggesting a solution or calling this the doom of all society. But I find it sad how many people worship certain virtues in theory only. That's paying lip service to a value without believing in it. It's like praying to any god when you don't really believe anything is out there, and you're just doing it because your parents said you had to.

You people don't really believe in much of anything anymore. You've become so cynical that you miss out on many real life examples of tough, strong women. You don't miss it because you don't see it. You miss it because you invalidate the women every time you see their temper.

I really don't expect you to turn this around and suddenly start giving angry women high fives. That would probably freak them out anyway. I'm simply rambling and pointing out, "Isn't it strange how you claim to love this in fiction, but in real life, you hate the same women?" And it is strange, yes. It doesn't make much sense. But alas, real life, unlike fiction, never has to make sense.

School: Day 5

The pneumatic door pump hisses a warning of someone else coming in, and I go still in an instant. I dry my tears on my knees just before this guy sticks his head under the stall.

He's probably about to take a smoke break, a suspicion he confirms when he says, "You look like you could use a coffin nail."

I nod, leaning over to unlock the stall door. "And then some."

The new arrival rises and opens the door, slipping inside and locking it behind him before he digs out a flip-top box from the hip pocket of his baggy black jeans. He's wearing a black silk shirt too, and both of his ears are pierced with thick surgical steel hoops.

As he passes me a cigarette, he says, "I'm Scott, nice to meet you."

"Peter," I say, accepting his lighter and flicking it fast. I light mine, and then his.

He smiles as he takes back the lighter and says, "I always let my bitches light my smokes."

I snort and say, "Not the right day."

Scott's smile relaxes as he leans against the stall wall. He takes a long drag, and then talks around the smoke as it exits his nose and mouth. "Somebody died?"

"Not recently," I say, but then nod. "My sister. She…she died in an accident."

That's my little white lie, but I want to believe it's not too far from the truth. I can't tell anyone about my past, not even people I trust. They don't understand, and they don't want to either. So they'll make me stop talking. First they're polite and suggest that maybe I shouldn't make myself "so vulnerable." Then as more and more of the truth comes out, they become more rude and hostile. The truth makes people so uncomfortable that they will fight to keep living with lies covering their eyes.

So I gave up on talking, and I don't bother anyone about it anymore. It doesn't mean I don't think of it. It just means everyone else is content to let me suffer in silence.

Scott's smile is gone, a scowl of sympathy filling his face. "I'm sorry, man. I guess that's pretty rough."

I nod, puff my smoke, and try to keep myself together.

Scott doesn't say anything else, so I spend most of my time looking at the floor. Between puffs I sneak glances at him. He's shorter than me, I think. I can't be sure hunkered down on the toilet like this, but I know for a fact that I'm built thicker.

This isn't difficult to guess, since Scott is a classic beanpole teen; tall, scrawny and awkward looking. His face is drawn, like he's intentionally starving himself. He's got jet black hair like mine, but the lighter red color near the roots is proof of a dye job, while mine is natural. He's paler than me, a nifty trick, almost translucent. The only places where he has real color on his face are the dark circles under his green eyes. They're not bruises, though, and I venture a guess. "Anemic?"

Scott looks at me like he didn't hear me, but then nods. "Yeah. I take pills for it, but it's never enough to get rid of the bags." He takes a drag, snorts, and adds, "Back in middle school, I had to visit the counselor once a month to confirm that I still wasn't being beaten at home."

Funny; nobody ever asked me if I was being abused. But then again, I didn't go to public school like normal kids. Heather and I were home-schooled by our mother, of course. Couldn't risk us saying or doing something to tip off the adults that we were already working stiffs. Or, I was… Bleh. That joke seemed funnier when I was thinking it the first time through.

We finish our smokes and head to the cafeteria together. I'm not sure why I'm following Scott, except my other choice is bugging Kenny and his band mates just so I won't have to deal with "new kid syndrome."

Scott has other friends already eating at a round table, and at a glance, I realize this is the goth crowd. Lots of black clothes, black hair dye, and white makeup. But the group is diverse, with teens in all shapes and sizes.

Scott sits down next to someone who might be male or female. I can't be sure because they have a flat chest and an androgynous face that seems equal measures of boy and girl. They have light olive brown skin, huge brown eyes surrounded by thick black lashes and glossy black hair that hangs down their back like a single sheet of silk fabric. Male or female, I'd still do them.

Scott starts introductions as I wave and set down my tray. "Guys, this is Peter." Kenny gestures first to the androgynous teen on his right, apparently noticing my curiosity.

"Peter, this is Pi." Scott moves on without further explanation, perhaps considering gender unimportant when it comes to his friends. "Then that's Jackie, Robert, Pedro, and Lindsay."

Jackie is a heavyset girl wearing a black skirt and a white dress shirt. She's wearing a black waist cincher, which looks wrong for her body type. But I guess she's decided that she wants an hourglass figure, even if Mother Nature didn't intend her to have one. In my head I see her as a German barmaid, someone built heavy by nature and proud of it.

Or maybe she really likes waist cinchers and I'm just being judgmental.

Robert is a thick, dark-skinned mountain. He towers over his friends, and I'd guess he's taller than me by at least five inches. He's also a lot thicker, like a Samoan wrestler. There's an almost Asian slant to his brown eyes, giving his face an exotic look.

Then again, seeing how little color there is in this school, Pi, Robert, and Pedro all seem kind of exotic to me. In Houston, they'd each just be another face in the crowd, but here in this small town, they stand out. I wonder if they chose to be outcasts, or if they've been politely but firmly put over here.

And that's just great too. Now I'm accusing the locals of racism. I've been here a week, and already I'm winning the "most paranoid jerk" award.

The sides of Robert's head are shaved, and his kinky black hair is styled in a near perfect flat-top. He's got a bit of a gut, keeping him back from the table. But his sleeveless muscle shirt reveals thick, muscular arms. This guy is practically a jock, and I'm not sure what the heck he's doing hanging out with this crowd instead of the jocks. Maybe he's here for the music?

Pedro is closer to Scott's size, but he's healthier looking. His cheeks don't cave in, even if they are a bit lean. He's got light brown skin and a long oval-shaped face, which is made more apparent with his long black hair tied back in a braided ponytail. He's not really handsome or ugly, but he's made himself more unique by wearing color changing contacts. Or, I assume they must be, since I've never seen anyone with gold irises before.

Lindsay is the poster child of the group, not too thin, and not too thick either. She is healthy, and her soft white arms have a toneless look because of a thin layer of body fat. She has silky black hair that can only be natural based on her dark, thick eyebrows and her bright grey eyes. They're almost the same shade as my own, although I think mine are a bit darker. She wears an ankle-length black skirt, a high-waist black vest and a sleeveless white blouse. The fluffed frock on the collar looks like the collar that Kathy was wearing this morning.

I smile as I wonder if she would be offended knowing that she dresses like my foster mother.

She smiles back and says, "Share if it's funny."

I shake my head and say, "I was just wondering if it's safe to ask if those are contact lenses." I gesture toward Pedro. "With him, I'm pretty sure they are—"

"They are," Pedro says.

I go on, acknowledging Pedro with a quick nod. "Okay, but with you, I'm not so sure."

Lindsay smiles wider, her pale cheeks turning pink. "They're natural."

I grin, what my sister used to call my "big bad wolf smile." It's my most charming expression, and I hope to use it to full effect. "They're even nicer for being real."

Lindsay shifts colors, her white face becoming bright red. As I suspected, it's not makeup. She's really that perfect shade of white naturally.

She's nice. You just don't see that many real moon tans in the wild. Lots of girls powder everything from forehead to neck to achieve this look, and then they wear long sleeves and gloves to hide their natural skin tone. But to borrow a bodybuilding joke, it's all her.

"Damn," Scott exclaims, and then smirks at me. "I didn't realize you were so smooth. You keep talking like that, and I think you'll get Lindsay out of her panties before lunch is over."

"Scott!" Lindsay gasps, looking mortified.

I laugh and shake my head. "I don't like to move that fast." Then before anyone can comment, I look at Lindsay and ask, "Can we hold off until after fourth period? I do my best work after my lunch settles down."

Not a dry eye in the house. Scott even falls out of his chair. I try to apologize, but I'm still opening my mouth when he says, "Naw, man, it cool." He laughs again and adds, "That was worth the bruised elbow."

Sensu-Doll FAQ Pg 24

Can I replace my companion's battery?

No, or rather, not unless you are a modder confident in your abilities. For most regular owners, the job is exceedingly complicated. The task is akin to a two-hour surgery, with all the risks that analogy brings to mind. It is possible to make a mistake and cut a coolant tube in your companion's skin, causing them to "bleed out". Repairs on such damage are possible, but for every mistake you make, your cost of repairs increases. Also, repairing the silicon skin without leaving scars is an art, not a science, and is best left to people who for lack of a better term are anally retentive in their attention to little details.

For this reason we advise only the most confident modder use our battery ordering service. For all other clients we advise locating a service center.

Be aware, battery changing is considered a simple job to our technicians who, much like doctors, have performed the same repair procedures hundred of times. So if you bring in your companion for a simple battery swap, whether she's a custom partner or a factory default, we charge the same flat fee of $100.

Help! My companion has been hacked!

This is an unfortunate side effect of allowing your companion to access sites other then Sensu-Doll's service center without installing a proper security pack on her operating system. If your companion has been instructed to read SPAM materials to you during copulation, or if she has begun to withhold sex in exchange for expensive gifts, she may have been hacked by TGF. (Those Goddamned F3m1naz1s, a guerilla-marketing firm of women self-styled as "terrorists". They are, thankfully, a non-violent group, and we at Sensu-Doll don't consider them terrorists so much as a nuisance to our security applications manager. And trust us, she isn't happy with you ladies about all the work you give her. Really, could you please just stop hacking our appliances and put those brilliant minds to better use? We do have some job openings, if you're interested.)

This kind of problem can only be fixed by initiating a personality wipe and restore to default factory settings. And, once this odious task is done, may we advise downloading a security module?

No! I mean someone broke into my house and hacked her to pieces with a sword!

Oh, well that's a different group of troublemakers. The group of Luddites most directly responsible for this have no name, but they sponsor many smaller groups who fashion themselves as cleaners who are purging our world of "evil" technologies.

While these people feel that some evil act occurs when our clients copulate with a machine, we at Sensu-Doll feel it's nothing more than a solo act with a sophisticated sex toy. It's the most expensive pocket vagina (or vibrator, if you own one of our Sensu-Dudes), which just happens to include other useful social interaction features. It's masturbating, with style.

In other words, there's absolutely nothing evil about Sensu-Doll companions. The worst thing that can happen to one of our clients is, they might fall in love with a companion. We've seen it happen, and when those companions get hacked apart by these very real terrorists, their owners are torn up over the "death" or their companions.

Unfortunately, our standard warranty does not, and cannot cover the actions of God-fearing violence mongers. It cannot cover this kind of random damage any more than it could cover acts of God. (lightning, tornado damage, water damage from floods, etc.) But due to the rising occurrence of these attacks, we are now offering a form of insurance specifically for this kind of attack. This kind of insurance policy is available to all clients even clients with companions outside their original warranty period.

By signing up for this service, you will agree to give our servers weekly access to your companion's memory files. We will erase past copies as we receive new updates, and this is a precautionary measure. We will only look at your file in the event that you need to request a companion replacement, and even then we only look at the file name, not the contents of the file.

In the event that your companion is destroyed by any of these groups, we will replace the unit with a newer model of the closest type to your prior model. Premium insurance offers will also allow for custom work to be replaced. In both cases, the replacement models will be uploaded with the last set of memories added to our servers. In this way, we hope to get you and you companions back together with as little suffering as possible. So please do consider insuring your older companions, even if they're a mod job of the most complex variety. If you're copulating with an elf now, we'll paint her replacement grey and put sharp points on those ears, if you take the premium package.

Go on. You know you wanna.

Journal entry: Peter Lupita (age 14)

I really am starting to wonder about what kind of training they give shrinks. "Maybe it will make you feel better if you write about your problems." Right, and then I erase the page and PAF, like magic my problems will go away too, right?

So, I slash my wrist, right? And I mean, I did it right. No grab for attention with an across the wrist cut. No, I put the point down in my vein, and I drew a big line up until I was cutting into the tendon.

I probably would have gone all the way up my arm slowly, but right then, my house guard walked into the bathroom on his patrol. What are the odds? Well…no, I shouldn't be surprised. The guards here in juvi are a lot more alert than the house guardians were at the youth treatment center. It doesn't mean I wasn't being hit by the other guys, but they have to time every attack for maximum efficiency.

Damn, I think I just realized why my suicide attempt failed. I didn't time my guard's patrol and slash right after he checked up on me. So maybe there is something to this writing thing.

For now, I'm being kept in isolation. I'm not allowed any sharp objects, and even my keyboard is padded. Okay, that was a joke. My keyboard in actually bolted to the library desk. Not so I can't use it as a weapon, but because the other kids actually tried to steal them…in juvi. I mean, where are you gonna fence that, dumb-ass?

My new shrink says I should lighten up, so I'm trying to joke more. Heather used to say the same things. Heather used to say, "You're too serious, Peter." She was the goofy one, though. I don't know how she managed to stay so cheerful despite everything our parents put her through, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't fake happiness the way she could, even after the worst torture a client could dish out.

I was the brooding one. I was the morbid one who wanted…who wants to die.

So, why am I still alive?

And why did Heather have to die? What did she do to deserve being killed by a client?

God, I don't want to be here anymore. So why can't you just let me go? I just want to be with my sister.

 

Please?

Transcript of hypnosis session: Peter Lupita

Inmate number: (redacted)

Detention center location: (redacted)

Practicing hypnotist: Jasper Murdoch

Session date: (redacted)

 JM: Patient has just slipped under, beginning recording now. Peter, can you hear me?

PL: Mmm-hmmm.

JM: Peter, I want you to go back to Las Vegas… Peter? Calm down.

PL: (Begins whimpering) I don't want to be here. Please, don't make me go back.

JM: If I'm going to help you, I need to know what happened. Just breathe slow, look around, and tell me where you are.

PL: I'm in a motel room. (whines) I can't move. Please, uncuff me before he comes back.

JM: Before who comes back?

PL: The client. He left to let me recover, but now I'm healed and if… (Begins panting)

JM: Peter, calm down…

PL: (Sobs) N-no…please, don't…

JM: Peter, it's-

PL: (Sobs louder) No, just let me go. (Mutters something) Please, no-!

JM: Try to describe-

PL: (Screams in agony)

JM: (Claps hands) Peter, wake up! (Claps louder) Peter, wake up! (Claps again) Peter!

PL: (Now awake) I think I'm gonna hurl. (Vomits on floor)

(Recording End)

The ones I can't reach bug me the worst…

Yesterday, once again, someone took one sentence I wrote about my readers, ignored everything else I said in the post, and quote-mined me to say I'm entitled. Yes, the privileged, sheltered, able-bodied internet troll points to the crippled and financially disadvantaged minority artist asking for help and says, "damn, look at all that entitlement."

Pardon me while I again contemplate stepping out my window. The only reason I don't is because it would still fail to reach these people. It's a waste of a perfectly good death scene too. (Although for the record, I'm still hoping to go in my sleep. Much less dramatic, but then I won't be so blindingly terrified about the sudden stop at the end of the ride.)

Assholes like this shouldn't have the power to ruin my mood, and yet, they do. On the same day, I had a great interview with Gayla released, and one of my fans did a nice write up for Peter the Wolf on her blog. Only the day before, someone had given me an awesome 5 star review on Smashwords for The Lesser of Two Evils. They said in their review "I'm going to buy the next book right away," and I'd no sooner finished reading the review to hubby when sure enough, my email dinged with a new message: they'd bought the next book RIGHT after reviewing the first. And only the day before that, Tara announced that she'd already scored a location willing to take my QR code flyers.

I should be in a great fucking mood, because there's a whole lot of people who heeded my varied requests for help, and they've busted their humps for me more than I'd asked for. I should be grinning from ear to ear because of these awesome people.

Instead, it's the offhand comment made by one insensitive prick who I can't reach that bugs me. It's not that they won't read my books or something like that which upsets me. I have lots of friends online who will never read my stuff, and we gab about other stuff instead. What bothers me most about these people is knowing that they will never try to know me. All they see is "bitch," and that's good enough to walk away on. They don't see an abuse survivor, or a person trying to cope with a chronic illness and a mental illness at the same time. They don't read any of my positive stuff about my gardening or my guitar practice. They don't see a proud trans woman who had to fight every step of the way to make a new identity and won every battle.

As hard as I work, though, this is a battle I can't win. Some peoples' jerky cynicism is armor so thick, I'll never reach them and connect as a person or an artist. And when those assholes read this, they'll quote-mine this post and make it yet another reason not to know me.

I can't reach these people just by speaking plainly in a blog post, so I have little hope of reaching them in a more layered and complex way using my fiction. And the sad part is, these people don't want to know anyone else. They want to make snap decisions and move on. I'm easily classifiable as "entitled." You don't need to know anything else about me once you've invalidated me as a real person. Just fit me into File 13 and move on to the next snap decision.

Karen Kohler has said on Twitter that I really need to make my own kind of online armor, and that I need to step back from dealing with people like this. I suppose she's right, but it's certainly easier said than done.

It…it feels unfair. I survived my childhood, dealt with most of my inner demons, and transitioned from a life as a miserable male in Texas into a happy housewife in Milan. All the time, people tell me how I'm brave, or inspiring, or interesting. And those are probably the people I should listen to. Instead, all I can hear are the misplaced criticisms of people who will never make the effort to know me.

Yes, Karen is right, and I need to pull even farther away from other people. But it makes me sad because I started this journey hoping to reach out to others. But to paraphrase a famous quote: "Some people, you just can't reach. Which is how they want it. Well, they get it."

Random thought:

Some of the people who come here and comment, or who talk to me on Twitter and Facebook, or through email or IM or chat, I love you people dearly. Yes, even those of you who never read my books cause they aren't your thing.

But you people who talk about me on livejournal, you make me seriously contemplate suicide.