Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 46

Happy Birthday, Kubo-sensei!

According to someone on Tumblr (so, you know, a GOOD source,) today is Tite Kubo's birthday. He's 36, which makes him EXACTLY a decade younger than me. If you have no idea who I'm talking about, Kubo-sensei is the writer/illustrator of Bleach, aka my fannish obsession. You may also wonder why I always add the honorific -sensei. He's was not *my* teacher (though, yes... in a way...), but mangaka (Manga writers) are always addressed with -sensei.

Can you imagine if we did something like this in the US/UK? The day after my first novel came out, you would change how you referred to me FOREVER. I wouldn't just be Lyda, I'd be Lyda-author (if we were close, and Morehouse-author, if not so much.) Except, I wouldn't be allowed this title in Japan, being a mere author of novels. This honorific would be the exclusive purview of people like my friend Christopher Jones.

Can you imagine respecting the comic book/graphic form that much? That you'd get to have a new honorific. My father had to get a Ph.D. to get the title "Dr." which, being an American, he often eschews in favor of his informal nickname "Mort." But, in another place, mangaka get an honorific bestowed on them JUST FOR PUBLISHING COMIC BOOKS.

How f*cking awesome is that??

Though, the title MAY go away after Kubo-sensei retires, I'm not sure. It may only apply to an active mangaka. Which is also weird to consider, given the voitale nature of publication both here and in Japan.

Anyway, the point is, happy birthday to a guy I have never met, but whose work I admire greatly.

I think I will celebrate Kubo-sensei's birthday by writing my own original fiction for a while and then play around in his universe this evening. But, then again, maybe there will be cake. There should always be cake.

An Incentive?

You want these don't you?

They're all five of the AngeLINK books (Archangel Protocol, Fallen Host, Messiah Node, Apocalypse Array, and Resurrection Code), and I've donated them to my publisher, Dybukk Press, as a new incentive for their kickstarter that they're running to recoop the production costs of the newest anthology King David & The Spiders of Mars, in which my short story "God Box" will appear.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/king-david-the-spiders-from-mars-tales-of-biblical-terror-bible-fiction

How can I entice you? Should I let you know that some of these books are bordering on rare--in particular Fallen Host, which has been out of print the longest. I ran out of my private supplies about a year ago, and have taken to picking them up wherever I see them. This one is in mint-condition (not even previously incribed!) All the others are straight out of the box I bought them in, new!

I'd also be willing to personally inscribe them to you and/or just sign them.

So, what do you say?

SOLD! I'm happy to report these were gone within the hour that I posted the were available! Thanks to whoever took the plunge! They'll be winging their way to you ASAP.

Monday Blues?

I woke up this morning at 5:00 am to a very lovey cat. Ms. Ball, I think, was secretly a little annoyed with me. I'd thrown my arm over her and was probably drooling into her soft, shiny coat. But, being the kind of cat she is, rather than meow or scratch or bite or even just do that thing some cats do where they extend their claws JUST-SO to remind you that if you don't back off they have recourse, she rolled her body against me so joyfully that she woke me up.

I had a dog-walking gig early AM, so, instead of rolling over, I got up. For those of you just tuning in, my writing career is in such a slump right now that I've been supplimenting our income by helping out a friend of mine who runs Friendly Face Pet Services. Whenever she needs a break or extra help, I do a few doggie walks here and there. This way she can actually have the ocassional vacation and I get a little "folding money" as Shawn's dad would call a bit of cash. It's a perfect job for me in so many ways. I get outside with happy dogs who don't mind if I tell them all the stories that rattle around in my brain. It's also usually no more than a couple of hours at a time, so I have lots of time during the day to do all the things that I've gotten used to being able to do as well as squeeze in extra time for writing and Internetting.

But... I felt really... stalled when I woke up this morning.

I have a lot of writing related projects out there. My agent is still, as far as I know, shopping around the first few chapters and proposal for SAMURAI HIGH as well as my lawyer-in-space proposal/chapter. Another publisher expressed some interest in a YA that takes place on Mars, and I started that once--it got completely off course, so I restarted it again. Some friends and I are collaborating on a mutal promotion/support group, and, as part of that, I started a short story in someone else's world. I also went back to my Precinct 13 sequel and have the beginning of another short story I started for an erotica anthology.

On top of all that, if I get enough students enrolled, July should be a month of teaching at the Loft for me. I've got an on-line course for adults that starts in a couple of weeks and in-person classes for teens (including the one on writing fan fic.)

When I list it all out like that, it looks pretty good.

But, today I just feel driftless and I don't know why. Probably because none of these projects is lighting a fire under my ass. I feel like I have a lot of things I should be doing, but that none of them are... I'm not sure... right, exciting... under deadline? I don't know. It's a weird feeling.

I'm hoping to shake it by making a list and picking one thing to focus on during the time I have today between my various pet gigs.

Wish me luck!

Project Kickstarter and Stuff

First of all, I have to let people know that an anthology my short story "God Box" is going to appear in is doing one of those kick-starter things, so if you're inclined, please help them out at: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/king-david-the-spiders-from-mars-tales-of-biblical-terror. The anthology is a follow up to SHE NAILED A STAKE THROUGH HIS HEAD, which featured Biblical horror stories. This one will be called KING DAVID AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS. My story, alas, takes place on Ganymede, and while it doesn't feature any spiders, does retell the golden hemorrhoids story. Because golden hemorrhoids are horror.

In other news, I've been somewhat incommunicato because Mason returned from Indiana with a cough that was very reminiscent of Whooping Cough. So, we kept him out of school for the past few days until the test results from the clinic came back. I'm pleased to be able to say that they were negative. He's back at school today--although very, VERY bummed about it. I thought we might be out a while so I took him to the library yesterday and we had a little checking out "accident" of about twenty-one books. And, yes, he'll read most of them by the time they're due back--partly because at least five of those were Toriko manga, all of which he finished yesterday before bedtime.

Mason is not fond of school. It cuts into his reading time.

My only other "news" is that Shawn and I finally watched "Magic Mike," the stripper film. I should preface my review by saying, you know, I like pretty men. I like watching pretty men get semi-naked. Yeah, I'm a lesbian, but I can appreciate all the glistening rock-hard abs and whatnots. But OMG THIS FILM WAS BORING. Let me give you some sample dialogue: "So... um, like, hey." [long pause] "Hey."

I'm not making this up. It was as if the director decided to be "artsy" and go for hyper-realistic dialogue. That can be cool, but ONLY IF THE CHARACTERS AREN'T MORONS. Seriously, the two main characters Mike and Adam have mind-numbingly stupid conversations for hours. Most of which were made up of those kind of grasping, half-finished sentences that dripped into other thoughts without any context or preamble. Characters who were "fast talkers," ie anyone who completed a sentence in less than twelve hours, really stood out. Okay, that's an exaggeration, because it couldn't have possibly been actual _hours_, because the film is only a couple of hours long, but holy shit it felt like a glacial age was passing before these two dolts of supposedly sympathetic main characters said anything of substance. Oh, and I should say that substance usually was signaled by, "Shit. Fucking shit, man."

Yeah.

And the there was dancing.

The dancing was fine, honestly, as it picked up the pace of this film by lightspeed jumps, and Matthew McConaughy's charcter had potential. Actually, they all did, but the story was hampered by DULLNESS. The love interest spends half her time looking so depressed to be there that I finally decided she was a symbol of THE AUDIENCE.

Shawn kept saying to me, "Can we turn it off now?" I doggedly said, "No! It will get better! People said this had a story!"

People LIE.

Too Old for Tumblr

How do I answer this? I've been corresponding with a fellow Bleach fan on Tumblr, who emailed me to squee over my fic. She doesn't have an AO3 account, but has been following the fic from the beginning and wanted to finally be able to tell me how much she enjoyed it. All good right? Absolutely! The talk, as it does, has strayed to other things and this morning she wanted to know if I was on summer vacation yet or if I, like her, was suffering through finals week...

...

I kind of hate the answer I'm going to have to give, which is, "Girl, I haven't had a finals week since 1989, and that was THE YEAR I GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE." Hello, your mom is on Tumblr. (And writes smutty ByaRen!)

Awk-ward!

In other news, Shawn and I are settling down over our wedding... a bit, anyway. Thanks to a friend, we have a summer venue. Now we just have to figure out a date. And what to wear. And get the invites out. And...

Tilt.

But, at least we have a place and that's huge. The rest is... well, cake.

It's funny the difference between my folks and Shawn's remaining parent-type relative, her stepmom, who we just visited in Indiana, when it comes to the wedding. My folks are very traditionally excited, with talk about how it might go, what people might wear and all that fun stuff. Her stepmom and stepsister are very reluctant to talk about that stuff, but plenty happy to acknowledge that I need the health insurance and that "it's a good thing" and not a whole lot else. I'm not sure if they're that way because they're aware that it's kind of strange to be making it legal after all these years together, or if it's a political/religious conservatism making it somewhat strained. It's actually not easy to fathom. Shawn's stepmom has a gay son, our stepbrother Mark. So, it's not like the whole idea of queerness is alien and they'll talk about it... just not with enthusiasm.

Ah, well. Otherwise, the visit was nice. One of the things we always do is make a visit to Ogden gardens, which is a really nice community garden/park in Valparasio, Indiana, that has, among its many features, a Japanese garden. It's become overgrown in the intervening years, unfortunately, but this year I was really struck by the Japanese maples and the color of the sun through the leaves:



Don't be surprised if, at some point, my Byakuya references this particular color in regards to a certain-someone's hair. Also, Odgen is big enough that they have room for several features that include this roofed perogla that looks out onto a man-made koi pond:



There's also a "stream" that begins at a waterfall:



There are several wood and stone bridges that criss-cross the stream at various places.





There's also the classic stuff like a red torii gate and stone lantern features. I didn't take very good pictures of those, however, because, like I said, parts of the garden have become very neglected and overgrown. They really need to have their master back, or whoever designed the garden for them. Or at least pull up the Virginia creeper that's over grown the wooden fencing. Even with all these issues, it's still one of my favorite places in Indiana. That at the Blackbird Cafe, which has coffee AND WIFI, and thus, was a godsend during our trip. Also, the barista I flirted with there TWO YEARS AGO, remembered me and she said she thought of me when she'd heard Minnesota passed the right to marry act. So that was cool. I told Shawn that Valparasio is so white-bread that I shouldn't be surprised to be memorable. I'm probably one of the few butch lesbians they ever see. It'd be better if I were a person of color, because then everyone would remember me (ValPo isn't entirely white, but given its nearness to Chicago and Gary, it's surprisingly white.)

That was our trip in a nutshell (and a few pictures.) Now my family is trying to recover. In Mason's case, literally. He picked up some road crud on the way down, and is taking the day off school today because his cough is still so hack-y. Poor boy. Hopefully, a day of rest will be what he needs.

It Only Just Became Legal, and I Already Suck at It

Gay marriage only just became legal and I already suck at it.

That's how I feel today, anyway.

The other day Shawn made me scream and back way quickly when she pulled out a wedding planner. The problem is, we're still trying to figure out what we want to do. Should we wait? The problem there, of course, is that my health insurance costs a lot of money per month, since I'm a individual, self-imployed. Shawn is already carrying family health insurance and adding me would cost nothing more than we're already paying for her and Mason to be covered. So, it makes sense to do something legal as soon as possible. But, it's not a simple matter of going to the courthouse here in Ramsey County. You have to book and hire a judge and it's not like they'll meet you there in the filing office. At that point, you might as well get your requist paperwork and use a minister. Once you're doing that, you might consider inviting family. Once family start coming, then you have to think about where you're going to do this and if you want a ceremony...

It's like that picture book, "If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want some milk..." until the whole house is wrecked.

So, now Shawn and I are thinking about maybe doing the wedding in August... and the reception too.

Or maybe not.

This is why weddings are for kids. I don't have the time or the patience for all of this. I just want health insurance and maybe some cake.

But when I talk like that Mason gets very upset. He knows Shawn and I love each other, but he views weddings as something special, something ROMANTIC. Of course, he's not paying for it, but I think he'd want us to pull out all the stops and do a fantastic venue like Como Conservatory and then rent some giant pavillion. Have the dress, the veil, Westminster Abbey... the horse drawn carriage... all of it.

I kind of want that too, if only for Mason and all our friends... but I WANT SOMEONE ELSE TO PAY FOR AND ORGANIZE IT.

sigh.

Also? Shawn nixed my idea that I could get married in my soul reaper cosplay outfit. I told her it was a military uniform, but she wasn't going for it. :-)

How Much Do I LOVE Pie??

A lot.

On Friday, just before the hail rolled in, Shawn and I stopped very small farmer's market that's on the way home from her work. It's on Lexington Avenue and Summit, in the parking lot of that big church there (St. Thomas Moore?). At any rate, there was one Hmong farmer there selling veggies, so we picked up two bundles of rhubarb, some green onions, and asparagus. The rest of the sellers had specialty items like honeys and jams. One lady sold meats and eggs. The majority were flowers. I guess it was really more of a flower market than a farmer's market which reminds me of Italy, but the point is, we got rhubarb!!

On Sunday, Shawn and I made a small batch of strawberry-rhubarb jam and a super-duper delicious strawberry-rhubarb pie (she did the filling, I made the crust):


Here's some action shots of the jam making:





More later! I have to run and pick up the little guy from school!

How Much Do I Hate My-Psuedo-self...?

I ignore Tate Hallaway a lot.

I think I've always been a little jealous of "her." But, ever since I created her persona, I drag my feet when it comes to things like posting to her Facebook page, Twittering as her, or even opening her gmail account to see what people have written to her.

It's been a couple of months since I checked her gmail account. I'm not proud to have gone that long, but, honestly? Since I've been "between contracts" I get really, REALLY depressed to open fan mail from someone who just discovered Tate and absolutely adores Precinct 13 or one of the Ana books. So, I've been avoiding it kind of subconciously and kind of super-consciously.

Guess what? Tate apparently had an LJ account. LJ deleted her for inactivity.

Wow, I feel like an idiot. Of course, I didn't even remember getting an LJ account for her until it hit me that I'd used it YEARS ago to contribute to the fairies, fang, and fur group LJ... except I was terrible at that too. I actually kind of failed at being Tate a lot. I loved the books I wrote as her, but I really felt fake when I participated on the Internet ast Tate. I should probably delete her from Twitter, too. Because hell if I even remember my password it's been so long since I've check her Twitter account.

I had thirteen friends waiting at Facebook for her too.

Man, I really suck. I must seriously hate my-psuedo-self.

Into Darkness and My Supicious Parentage

I'm pretty sure my dad has a secret identity--as Leonard Nemoy. The older Leonard Nemoy gets the more he looks like my father. Seperated at birth? Maybe, but I can tell you this for a fact: I've never seen my dad and Leonard Nemoy in the same room at the same time.

At any rate, since Mason was still away at Audubon overnight camp last night, Shawn and I hit a matinee showing of Star Trek: Into Darkness.

As I said on Facebook, my first impression was: WHEEEEEEEEE! and then, afterwards, Shawn and I sat down with the http://io9.com/star-trek-into-darkness-the-spoiler-faq-508927844" target="_blank">io9 spoiler FAQ </a>, which we'd bookmarked just for this moment, and laughed our asses off. Because, as I told my friend empty_mirrors , ST:ID the kind of movie that really only works with your brain turned fully off, and you just sit back and enjoy the show.

Because it is quite the show. And there's nothing wrong with that.

It had been so long since Shawn was in a movie theatre, she couldn't get over the concession prices. She asked me during the previews, "Are you sure this is the right size popcorn?? For TEN DOLLARS??" Since, at matinee prices, that meant we paid more for popcorn than we did to see the movie.

It was interesting to see the movie with other people. Some people clearly didn't know the big spoiler of who Benedict Cumberbatch is playing that's been around the Internet for ages, and there were audible gasps when he revealed it. I found several laugh-out-loud moments no one else in the theatre seemed to find funny, but then I'm easily amused. (I will admit to laughing at a serious moment, and I apologize to my fellow theatre goers, but COME ON!)

A couple of other things I can talk about outside of the spoiler cut, is that I left the theatre asking Shawn what happened to the warp drive in this alternate universe. (BTW, I kind of love that ST movies have become their own fanfic, as the reboots can clearly be labeled: AU.) It used to be in OT (Old Trek, for the fandom newbies,) there were degrees of warp. "Drop us down to warp 2, Mr. Sulu." Now the warp engines are either on or off. Frankly, that makes slightly more sense than imagining a space ship hurtling through... well, time at that point, really, at NINE TIMES the speed of light. But, it's one of those things I missed, though I will say that the special effects of warp is COOL.

[ Spoiler (click to open) ]
So, okay, building on what io9 says about the cheap shots of using old Star Trek tropes, I will say one thing that is starting to not work for me is seeing the Enterprise (nearly) destroyed. The first time it happened, I balled like a baby. Because this was OUR Enterprise that we'd been with through nearly a hundred episodes and several movies. But, AU Enterprise is nothing to me. I don't know these people yet, not really. They have the names of beloved characters, but entirely different back-stories. The same is true for this Enterprise. But seeing NCC-1701 in flames still hits me where it hurts, because LOYALTY, you know?

As io9 also points out Kirk seems to have to go though the same character arc. What would have been a good moment to prove that AU-Kirk is becoming OT-Kirk might have been after, during the year time skip, if there had been a montage of funeral after funeral after funeral until we get to Pike's. Just a close-up on Kirk's concerned face, as he hands out YET ANOTHER folded up UN flag. Because OT-Kirk was always telling his enemies, "There's 423 [or however many] souls aboard that ship" and he always knew the EXACT number, and you got the feeling that, even though it became its own trope, he gave a shit every time a red shirt bit it. And to see the captain of the ship going to petty officer Jo/Jane-schmoo's funeral is a powerful thing. I SAYS something about the character of the man. Something we instinctively ASSUME about AU-Kirk, but never get to really see.

Now, to defend ST:IN for a moment. The biggest caveat should be a reminder that all my comments/criticisms are post-high let down. I really enjoyed the hell out of this movie. io9 went on at great length about 'teh stupid' of the opening sequence. I LOVED THAT PART BEST. Why? Because it's such a beautiful homage to OT. All teh stupid was AT LEAST as ridiculous as some of the crap OT-Kirk pulled for THREE SEASONS and I loved those old shows to pieces. The irony of Spock worrying about the Prime Directive when he apparently (I'm thinking, drunkenly,) signed on to the plan that involved Kirk and McCoy stealing a sacred relic is CLASSIC FUCKING TREK. So, bite me, io9. That was the best damn part of the movie, IMHO. It does not bear nit-picking, but a person could make a career out of tearing apart all the stupid, non-science, poor planning of every single episode of OT.

Shawn was saying in the car ride into work this morning that the first scene was like the entire crew of the AU-Enterprise was like a floating frat house from the Academy. Their 'plan' seemed totally hatched after too many beers and bongs, you know? "Dude, I know, I know--let's get everyone away from the earth-killing volacano by running. Cuz, you know, no one will stay behind, and we can totally get far enough if we really haul ass. And I see NO FLAWS in this, do you?"

Makes more sense if you imagine that's how it went.

Shawn also thinks I'll start Cumberbatch-Fail if I say this, but, while I ADORE him in Sherlock, I thought Cumberbatch over-emoted every single line he had as Khan. What was up with his lips? Why so many close-ups on them? Not attractive. He actually often works for me as Sherlock, but maybe that's because with better writing and directing, Cumberbatch gives Sherlock some lovable vulnerablity. And, invulnerable Khan was a bad fit, IMHO.

Okay, YET no one has made much of the other fact that among the twist-ups of this AU is the fact that Star Fleet is now canonly evil. Khan is attempting, thoughout the whole thing, to STOP STAR FLEET FROM PROVOKING WAR WITH THE KLINGONS. Maybe we're suppose to think that turns out to be a front for him trying to rescue his crew, but he does seem to be acting the role of a peace-maker. He saves Kirk when he doesn't need to (during the blast through space.) He could have taken the Dreadnaught (btw, fan sqee! I remember the Dreadnaught in my Technical Manual,) on his own. Presumably, he was thinking "hostage," but he still would have had Scotty and Carol what's-her-name.)

Also, the time-skip kind of glossed over the fall-out from the fact that Kirk was complicit in treason against the commander of Star Fleet, but that's par for the course.

One last ramble-y thought: when I first heard the spoiler that Cumberbatch was playing Khan, I thought that maybe we'd finally see the Eugenics War. The Eugenics War is one of several OT throw-away 'historical' moments that has been fodder for my plot bunnies since I was in high school. Like, before we got the animated show, what the mysterious references to The Clone War were in the original triology of Star Wars. I was kind of disappointed that JJ Abrams missed the opportunity to start that war. What's fun about AUs is that you can mess with time lines and play 'what-ifs.' What if the Eugenics War starts later? What if Kirk and crew are a live to fight in it?

But, as usual, they didn't ask me. I could have helped. Clearly.

Dinner and a movie!

Mason's school does an "overnight camp" at the Audubon Center of the North Woods every year for the 4th Graders. So, yesterday, we packed off our little adorkable boy and sent him away for two nights with his class.

Shawn and I went on a DATE last night.

It was crazy. I got dressed up. We went to Scusi where I think we officially ATE ALL THE THINGS. We sat in the lovers' nook (a weird little set-in alcove that feels super-private) and had happy hour pizzas and wine _like grown-ups_. We had the calamari appetizer, I tried the salmon/dill pizza with a side of asparagus (very good!) and Shawn had the sausage pizza. At the encouragement of our waitress, we pushed the boat out, and EACH had a seperate dessert--Shawn had the apple cobbler and I had this donut-thingie that was so yummy (think donut holes with whip, chocolate and dried cherries smoothered on top). I ended up having the leftovers of it for breakfast.

Shawn was super-cute, because after her third glass of wine, she announced to the waitress that she might be a little buzzed, but that was OK because this was a big date night for us. At which point the waitress brightened and cleverly found a way to mention HER partner.

Suddenly, we got the BEST service.

See, it's the gay agenda at work, folks.

But, after all that excitement and rich food, Shawn and I rolled home and settled in for a movie we'd rented a long time ago from Netflix but hadn't been able to find time to watch: LOOPERS (with Bruce Willis).

Wow, "Loopers" was hard-core science fiction. It was no-holds-barred BRUTAL, but really, really well-done. I don't want to give any spoilers in case you, like us, haven't gotten around to seeing it yet, except to say, 1) put it at the top of your queue right now (if you can handle shocking, sudden violence and off-screen implied death of children/stories of giving up children), and 2) the main character(s--future and "present" Joe) really goes through a tremendous story arc that takes several unexpected turns.

It's really well done. I can see why io9 liked it so much. But it was so intense that I said to Shawn afterwards, "I know it's late, but can we watch something else?" because I was afraid I'd spend the night getting shot in my dreams, you know? We ended up watching EastEnders, which we've been faithful fans of since it started airing here on PBS in the early 90s. If you're watching it in the UK, we're AT LEAST two years behind where you are... right where Den returns from the dead to become the sleeziest father-in-law-to-be EVER. Anyway, it was just the right note of "OMG! You are so GROSS!" to cleanse the palate of "OMG! Shocked!"

Hmmmm.

Anyway, the point is we had a good night. Tonight we're considering trying to catch a movie IN A THEATRE. We're thinking about trying to see "Star Trek: Into Darkness." Wish us luck!