Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 87

A New Generation of Fan

It's been hard to remember that it's Monday, what with boy and partner both off today. Shawn and I had plans to get over to Uncles today, but reviewing our Christmas/Solstace spending put the kibosh on that. (sads.) But, actually, it's more an issue of the things we've decided to spend our money on instead, including this fancy internets at home, a new iTouch, CSA for next year, kuk sool wan, my gym membership... so it's not like I can really complain.

Yesterday I spent the day making fun food for dinner. We had a big roast (corned beef), mashed potatoes with gravy, brocolli, and homemade kaiser buns. It was lovely, but ended up making a ton of dishes, especially since we also decided on a whim to make sand tart cookies. I just had the leftovers for lunch. Yum. Yum. Nom.

A couple of nights ago, and I don't quite remember how it started, I ended up telling Mason about an incredibly charming character that my friend and fellow writer Eleanor Arnason created for her Lydia Duluth short story series named "Three Hoots." Alas, the story "Three Hoots" appears in hasn't been published yet, but Mason has been at the coffee shop with Eleanor when she was struggling with the plot of that exact story. Anyway, it's been marvelous to hear Mason running around the house shouting, "Fierce! Fierce! Many bodies in the shadows, ready to defend!" (which is a paraphrase, but close to some of the dialogue in the story.) At any rate, I knew I had some Lydia stories arounds, so he read all of "Tomb of the Fathers" and pronounced it, "nearly as cool as Harry Potter." So, I spend a few minutes this morning searching my house of the rest of the series. I found Asimov issues that contained "Cloud Man," "Lifeline" and "Moby Quilt," but couldn't locate my copy of "Stellar Harvest" to save my soul! Hopefully, Eleanor will have an extra copy she can loan us. Mason is quite determined to read the Lydia ouevre. I'm sure he could read the other stories out of order, but he's kind of stuck on reading "Stellar Harvest" first. I couldn't find a non-pirated version of "Stellar Harvest" on-line. Am I an idiot? If you know where one is, please send me the link.

Can I say, too, how amazing it is that I can share stories with Mason that, if he has some question about, he can just ask the author? It's super-cool amazing. I don't know if he realizes *just* how super-cool amazing that is. I mean, he's growing up in a house where his ima is a published writer, so I'm sure he kind of expects that anyone can be.

But it is one of those things I always remind my students. If someone as dorky as me can get published, there's a pretty good chance you can too. Not that it's an easy road, mind. Just that it's possible.

At any rate, I've decided to try to make calzones from scratch today for dinner, so I should go check on the dough.

Friday, Friday... Sigh-ai-ai

I'm having a very hard time getting motivated (or, as Shawn's family sometimes jokingly says "motorvated") today. I kind of blame Wyrdsmiths for keeping me out late last night, but I'm also just in a weird space. I want to snack A LOT. I want to curl up in a ball on the couch and nap. I want to write pen and paper letters to my friends in far-away places while sipping tea with a cat on my knee.

Maybe winter is finally getting to me, I'm not sure.

I don't really feel like writing, especially since I read one of the WORST (as in harshest) reviews of ALMOST TO DIE FOR this morning on Red House Books. Check it out. I'm not saying it's unfair, it's just kind of brutal. It's never good, for instance, when the one thing the reviewer liked about the book is its cover.

Yowch!

I suppose it's better than saying they only liked the font... but wow. I think, too, one of the reasons that this review hit home for me is that, most of the time, I *know* when I've written a book that isn't my best. It's not something you're ever allowed to say out loud, and, you always kind of hope that no one else will notice. In fact, with ALMOST I've been quite taken aback by the fact that Publisher's Weekly liked this book enough to give it a starred review, when I personally believe EVERYTHING the reviewer at Red House had to say (before she said it.) I worked hard on the book, but I thought it was fairly deeply flawed from the beginning. And, you know, try as you might, not every book you write is going to be your best.

The Emperor, in case you wondered, has no clothes.

But, reading that kind of sucked the life out of my already fairly weak desire to work today. Alas.

Now don't feel compelled to tell me how awesome I am or run out and post "you're so wrong" over at Red House Books. Well, okay, you can tell me I'm awesome, but you know... don't harrass the reviewer. She's just expressing her honest opinion, which I actually respect. I post critical reviews of books by colleagues all the time. I think it's part of the deal I signed up for when I took on this writing gig.

But let's just say that this may have contributed to my desire to eat a lot of chocolate and nap.

And, tonight, Mason is super keen to go to the school's "Carnival." It's a funraising event, which I like as a concept in theory, but in reality it's expensive and chaotic in ways that totally appeal to kids, but repulse sane adults. ;-) I am steeling myself to go tonight and practicing saying, "We're only spending X amount. Only X!"

Sigh-ai, ai.

The Glamorous Life

I'm "homeless" for a while today, as Shawn has a meeting to which she really needed a ride (her sprained foot is still giving her a bit of trouble.) So I've been flitting from coffee shop to coffee shop, and not getting much done. Though I did, quite miraculously find a missing footnote from the RESURRECTION CODE manuscript for my publisher and e-mailed that off to him. So even if I get nothing else done today, I've accomplished one thing of merit.

Today is *supposed* to be my get-stuff-done-around-the-house day, but as I'm not going to be home until afternooon (and have to take off again for volunteering at Mason's school), I suspect I'll be lucky to get my dishes done before dinner.

Ah well.

At least tonight the only excitement I have going on is Wyrdsmiths.

Last night we had kuk sool wan, and I have decided that there is, in point of fact, exactly ONE thing I don't much like when we focus on it, and that is sparring. Mason spent much of the night grinning from ear-to-ear, so I promised that the next time they have a sparring workshop, we will sign him up. Me, I'll watch from the sidelines. I think, as a nerd, I have a deepseated desire not to get hit -- even in pretend or fun. It's not so much that I'm worried about being honestly hurt at class, because, you know, they're very careful and preach control and precision. It's just the situation, I think. My brain does not say "block". My brain says "run, screaming." :-)

But Mason was so good at it that jo kyo nim actually called out his skills in front of the whole class. We decided on the walk home that he should have a kuk sool wan nickname: "sidewinder."

Completly appropo of nothing, I have to say I can't believe that there are people who are seriously upset that spontaneous cheering errupted at the memorial service last night during Obama's speech. Especially when the news is honoring (calling someone a hero) or amazing (announcing for the first time anywhere that Giffords opened her eyes.) It's not like he made some inappropriate political dig and people hooted or cat called. Honestly, people reacted very naturally, I thought.

Frankly, I've done much more inappropriate things at a funeral. I found myself, in fact, smiling through a lot of my great-aunt Clara's funeral because I found it weirdly amusing how few of us family in the front row knew when to stand or sit during the Catholic Mass. I'm sure the priest looked out, saw my grin, and was fairly horrified. Also, when he read the parable of the ten virgins (out of context, mind you -- see my earlier post), my dad and I made a face.

Finding out someone is recovering seems like the sort of thing that would make me cheer. Though, clearly, I'm not the best example of funerary/memorial service behavior.

Whatever.

Well, I should probably start packing up for my next taxi service. See y'all later.

If I were a boy...

If I were a boy, I would totally date Sir Ian McKellen. Plus, it would be weirdly sexy to call him "sir" in bed. The reason I say this, however, is not just because I'm perverse, but also because I watched "Neverwas" last night via Netflix. What a surprisingly good film. It was not the "thriller" it was advertised to be, but Shawn and I decided it was kind of like a psychological drama, rather than a psychological thriller. It was also kind of a fantasy, but not.

I can see what it wasn't exactly a blockbuster.

But, I really ended up liking it tremendously. The story is about a Christopher Robin/Christopher Tolkien type character, whose father wrote a massively famous epic fantasy/children's story in which, like the first example, he was the star of. The father, unlike either of my two examples, suffers from manic depression and ultimately kills himself. The son blames himself and has distanced himself from his father's work (the "Neverwas" of the title) as well as devotes himself to the study of psychology. He ends up back at his hometown on the 25th anniversary of his father's suicide and worms his way into a job at the very mental health facility that had unsuccessfully treated his dad. The mystery/fantasy part comes in when it starts to seem as if there is a very REAL possibility that Neverwas was a real place... there even seems to be photographic evidence suggesting this... and that Ian McKellen's character is its king.

The movie has a lot of very moving, subtle moments. Shawn didn't trust the ending to satisfy. In fact, she was so convinced it was going to be utterly tragic that she got up and got ready for bed ten minutes from the end telling me to let her know if it was okay and she'd only watch it if it was.

The ending was way more than okay. It was borderline "feel good." It satisfied me deeply, if I were to be perfectly honest. It wasn't quite dramatic enough to be a tearjerker, but I think that might be another reason it wasn't a huge blockbuster. Subtle isn't usually what people go to the movies for.

Anyway, not much else new to report. I'm about to go pick up Eleanor for our usual Wednesday coffee/writing date.

Quick Updatery

Because I decided to go work out, I am beginning my writing day ridiculously late. Alas, the house is still a mess and I'm worried that if I don't change my big fish tank soon my fishy babies will expire from lack of usable oxygen or too much carp crap in the water. (I may end up having to post about the small tank too, because one of my white mountain minnows has started behaving sort of strangely.) Anyway, I imagine it's going to be a short day. I will need to write tonight.

I'm sure most of you have already seen the alternate ending to RETURN OF THE JEDI someone posted on Boing-Boing this morning, but it's too awesome not to place a pointer here. Thanks due to Shawn, my lovely partner, for sending me the link this morning. Weirdly, it made my day.

I also should note that I had a lovely chat with the publisher of RESURRECTION CODE at Mad Norwegian Press this morning and things look to be on track for the March publication. Whoot. Also, if any of you know reviewers who might be interested in reading a .pdf review copy, let me know. It's time to start seeing if I can drum up some interest in this new book.

Despite still being a bit sore, Mason and I went to kuk sool wan last night and had an awesome time. I do have to relay a conversation I had with one of the other parents who brings their child as well as participates himself. He was coming in as we were going out, and he asked as part of our conversation, "Do you ever take adult classes? They're a little like the test in terms of intensity." I looked at him and I said, "Sir, you misunderstand why I come to kuk sool wan. I come to play games, punch people in the face, and kee-yah." I'm sure he thought I was completely insane, but, you know, I am not there for the workout. I'm there to enjoy something with my kid, get out a little agression and show "the drama."

:-)

Okay, well, got to go.

Weekend Report

First of all, I don't have much to say about the AZ shootings that many of my friends didn't already post instantly on Facebook. The only thing I would add to the discussion is that I have never known a "left-winger" who considers Mein Kampf a favorite. I've known plenty of people who have read it, even own it... but list it as a favorite? Not so much.

But the whole thing makes me so sick to my stomach that I'm going to, instead, focus on the entirely mundane.

To that end, I am pleased to report that Mason and I got our yellow stripes on Saturday. And, yes, the test really wasn't so much a "test" as a demonstration of what the instructors knew I (and Mason) was already capable of. That did not mean, however, that the test was EASY. In fact, it totally kicked my butt. My butt still hurts, and the entire house smells of Icy Heat. Sa bum nim said to me as he was putting the stripe on my belt at the ceremony, "That wasn't so bad, now was it?" And I laughed, "Are you kidding, sir? I've never done anything so hard in my entire life!"

But also great fun.

I'm actually looking forward to going back tonight and having my butt kicked AGAIN.

Also, in the realm of complete mindlessness, one of the things my family and I did on Sunday as a sort of post-stripe celebration was go to the bookstore to stock up on winter reading. We did our usual used book circuit, which includes HalfPrice Books and Sixth Chamber. I spent much of Sunday resting my aching muscles on the couch and reading various Avengers comics, which I'll review later. As I've posted on FB, I've been struck by a bunch of strange observations about various superheroes. Like, how many superheroes must smell like Icy Heat... or, how do you suppose Peter Parker explains all his bruises? Do you think he just does like my friend Bill Henry who would ocassionally show up to Wyrdsmiths with a black eye and mutter, "socceer" or "rugby," and lets people just assume he's not out crime fighting in the streets on his off hours? Or why is it that no one pulled this skinny, nerdy kid away from his Aunt May and asked him, "Do you need a SAFE PLACE???!"

Seriously.

I read one of Brubaker's Marvel Age issues about Pearl Harbor and the Invaders, and that just really got me thinking about my grandparents and about all the strange things Captain America probably says/does/eats because of the era he grew up in. My grandparents always had coffee after dinner ....and ate bread with butter, like as a side dish. I'm being told on FB that much of this is probably ethnic (particularly my example of liver and onions), but you've got to figure there's something that Cap used to ask Jarvis to make for dinner that had the rest of the Avengers groaning.

And does he smell like Old Spice?

I mean, you could not go into a grandparent's bathroom without seeing that white bottle with the blue ship on it. And old people just smelled -- not like "the man my man could smell like" -- but like my grandpa'a Old Spice!

So, yeah, this is the level of thought my brain is capable of today.

Visualize a Yellow Stripe...

I'm glad to see the enthusiasm for my not-so-sekrit project. I worked on a third one yesterday, but did that thing that writers' often do, which is I got totally bogged down in research. I didn't get much done at all yesterday, honestly. I didn't even manage to change the fish tanks, despite the fact that it was Thursday. (I did manage to get the recycling to the curb and remembered to go to volunteer at Mason's school, so it wasn't entirely a wash.)

Mason and I didn't end up going to kuk sool wan last night, despite the fact that we will be TESTING !!! for our yellow-stripe TOMORROW !!!!

As I was telling Sean last night, I think I'm especially freaked out by this up-coming event because I have never before in my life successfully passed a single physical test. Though this may seem out of character, when I was in junior high school, I tried out for cheerleading. I learned to cartwheel, and I got really close to doing the splits. I did NOT make the team, however. I'm not sure what possessed me to try out, honesty, because I have *always* been that kid who gets picked the very last for various teams.

Likewise, I never passed the presidental fitness test, either, because I couldn't hold a chin-up for more than a micro second. I have never won a race. I've never even been part of a winning team. I didn't even pass my driver's test until the third try. Yet, I often enjoyed sports from the side lines, though, and have even had FUN participating in losing various games.

I realize, too, that it is extremely likely that I WILL NOT pass the stripe test the first time. But, I think this test has been haunting my subconscious (which it has, as I've had several dreams about it,) because I can't even _imagine_ what it would be like to pass. I don't think that if I don't pass the test that I will cease to have fun at class, however. As a writer, I'm fairly immune to the sting of failure. At any rate, I may feel it, but I have developed a TON of coping methods thanks to years of rejections.

I worry a bit more about Mason, who has an opposite problem, which is, because he's smart and a lot of the challenges of school come so easily to him, he has a hard time imagining failure. Mason is very average in terms of his physical prowess. Plus, he's relatively popular at school, which is a school fairly stocked with bright, science-oriented kids.

It should be interesting.

At any rate, I should go. Shawn has a dental appointment this afternoon, and I forgot my phone at home. I need to stop by and pick it up, and probably try to tackle some of those dishes I left rotting in the sink so that I could have a nice chat with Sean M. Murphy last night.

Oh, and I should change the fish tanks.

So... I was thinking...

I was thinking, which is, of course, often a dangerous thing.

I was thinking that I should really do something fun to get people excited about the upcoming release of RESURRECTION CODE in March. And, it ocurred to me that, because of the plot requirements of RC and the story I wanted to tell, there was a lot of Mouse history that didn't ACTUALLY make it into the book as scenes per se. Some of it ended up as psuedo-memoir or as commentary by Page or news articles or other things, but, the point is, there was all this stuff that I'd pre-imagined, if you will... some of it even got written out a bit.

So starting on Tuesday, February 1, 2011, I'm going to post one Mouse/AngeLINK original vingnette here on my LJ once a week until the book comes out. I've already written two.

How about them apples, eh?

I can't promise they're going to be great literature or even entirely typo-free, but hopefully they will whet your appetite for what's to come.

Okay. Back to writing!

Weekend Report

The weekend at chez Morehouse was delightfully uneventful, even with the welcoming in of the new year.

Mason really wanted to stay up to see the ball drop in New York, so Shawn and I managed to prop our eyes open until midnight. Mason, I should note, had no problem whatsoever. He's actually managed to pull an all-nighter already. As a treat, we ocassionally let him stay up and read as long as he'd like. Mom and I go to bed, and let him do his thing. Just last week, he managed to stay up until 6 am. So staying up was not a problem for little boy, only for us grown-ups. But at the stroke of midnight, we got out the faux champaign (sparkling apple cider,) and put it in these novelity glasses we bought at Walgren's that have lights in the stem of the flute. We gave midnight smooches, toasted, and sang "Auld Lang Syne."

We have two official traditions for the new year. The first is one that Shawn started many years ago, after reading about it in Llwellyn's Witch Almanac, I think. We put "silver" (actually dimes) on our doorstep on new year's eve, and bring it ritually into the house the next morning to symbolize bringing prosperity and money into our house. We add a dime every year we've been doing it (for inflation? fun?) and try to have the dime be minted in the year passing. We couldn't find a 2010 dime this year, so we put in one from 1967, the year both Shawn and I were born.

The other official tradition is that the Christmas/Solstice tree comes down on New Year's Day. So part of the day on Saturday, we spent putting away ornaments and decorations and dragging the tree out to the alley. I managed to break two glass ornaments, alas. Hopefully that doesn't counteract the prosperity magic of the dimes.

We decided on a whim over this vacation, on Friday, to start watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy on DVD. Mason wasn't interested at first, but got caught up when Aragorn fights the ring wraiths and Frodo gets stabbed. When Boromir dies we all wept like dogs, and Mason was totally hooked. After that, it kind of became a thing. We met upstairs in the afternoon and sat down to watch the next one. Which went along fine until Sunday night, when --right at the point when Frodo is stung by the giant spider queen, Shelob -- the DVD flaked. We washed it. We tapped the DVD player. But the disc would spin no more.

So began my quest.

I drove out to Target just up the street on University, but they didn't have it. I called Borders on University, but they only had "Two Towers" in Blueray. Moving northward, I tried Barnes & Noble at Har Mar, called HPB in Roseville, went to Best Buy, called the Borders in Roseville Mall... NO ONE had it.

The guy at Barnes & Noble thought that there might be a copy in Maplewood, but he wasn't sure. I was losing hope. Then, I remembered who I was. I am a proud geek, member of the nerd herd. I got the phone and started calling my friends. Someone that I know must be a fan of the LotRs enough to have a copy! Or at least, maybe they would know someone who knew someone. I mean, come on, this is fandom, I figured I was probably only seven degrees of seperation from Peter Jackson himself.

When I called, naomikritzer happened to be talking to friends who had a copy. I could meet them at their place and they would "but lend it to me." (Remember the scene in Fellowship with Boromir and Frodo? "If you would but lend it [the ring] to me...")

Hooray!

So we were able to watch the end last night. Now Mason is thinking we might do a "Harry Potter" with the Lord of the Rings -- which means read each book out loud and at the end of each book, watch the movie again. I'm totally up for that. I'd forgotten how much I loved the movies and how well I remember the first book. Speaking of fandom, it is my utter shame that I have, in point of fact, never read beyond Fellowship. What can I say? I was thirteen and dyslexic... still, I've always been embarrassed by this and usually deny it, if pressed.

Kind of cool, too, that today is J. R. R. Tolkien's birthday. It's almost like we planned this (only we didn't.)

The Funeral

Despite the rain, I decided to go down for the funeral. I left early this morning and mostly encountered fog and drizzle, though there were a few spots with some heavy driving rain (which Shawn told me a while ago, y'all had in the Twin Cities.) I waffled about the weather for days, and made a last minute decision to come down here because when I drove off to get my coffee in the morning, I started thinking about Ella and about why people have funerals and why people go to them.

I realized that my great-aunt Clara would most certainly make it to her Catholic heaven whether or not I showed up.. But that's not why people gather at gravesides. We gather to hold the hands of the *living.*

So that's why I went.

But I still find Roman Catholic funerals sort of strange. There's a lot that's familiar to me from having been a kind of honorary Catholic growing up (my family was all Unitarians, but the extended family is/was Catholic.) Some of it is familiar, too, because it's so ridiculously pagan. The Christmas tree, the poinsettas... their symbols, sure, but totally mine, as well. A white stag in the stained glass looked to me a lot like my own Horned God. The walking around the casket, clockwise, with incense.... I got that and respected it. The talk of Wisdom as a woman who waits for you when you seek for her in your own garden (Solomon 6:12-16), that sounded to me exactly like the words in the Charge of the Goddess where She reminds us that we can't find Her unless we know ourselves first.

But then there's the stuff that completely jars, like the parable for the ten virgins (Mathew 25:1-13). I ended up having to look it up afterwards in Wikipedia with my dad back at the hotel room, because out of context is sounds like God is a big, fat meanie.

Do you know it? The basic story is about five wise virgins and five fooolish virgins. These ten virgins are waiting outside to go into a wedding. The wise virgins brought enough oil to last the night, and the foolish ones didn't. The foolish ones ask to share, and the wise ones say no, go get your own in the market. They take off and come back only to find out the wedding started and the doors locked. When they beg to go in, the bridegroom (God) tells them, "I don't know you." Door in face. And the story ends. It sounds like the foolish virgins weren't so much foolish as screwed around with and then God is all "talk to the hand."

Out of context the story totally sounded like the priest is looking out at all the non-believers saying "sorry, dude, you aren't invited to the party." Or that God is so picky about who he lets into heavan that you can't even make a mistake with a bit of oil, and try to fix it. He won't look at you, all merciful, and say, "Hey, you're late, but I see you tried to get more oil, so I'll forgive you and you can come in." Nope, he'll say, "I don't KNOW you."

Harsh.

But Wikipedia had some good bits about how to interpret it, which the priest did not discuss in his sermon. Wikipedia suggests that this story was meant as an admonishment to clergy who thought they were "virtuous" and didn't need to do anything more to get into heaven. So you have to do more than just talk the talk. Nicer message. Wish I'd heard that at the funeral. Instead, the story just sort of hung there and then the sermon was about how prepared for death my great-aunt was. Literally. Not, like, how she lived well, but how she had stuff ready.

Weird.

Anyway, we got to sing songs and I held the hands of the living. It was what it was supposed to be.