IN THE DREAMHOUSE : Daycare Time Travel Improv


              This was a significant dream because of the way it followed me into wakefulness, with no clear line between the subconscious and conscious mind.
              I was dreaming in the early hours before I woke up, influenced obviously by watching episodes of “Abby & Brittany,” the documentary/reality show about conjoined twins who work as student teachers with elementary school kids.

Abby and Brittany. I love these girls.

              My sister and I were working at a day care center, and organizing a play with the kids. I don’t know what my “sister” looked like, and we weren’t actually conjoined. But we were making occasional asides to a documentary film crew, explaining what we were doing with the kids. That’s why I’m sure it was influenced by Abby & Brittany.
              We were going to need to use water in the play, because there were scenes by a river, and something about carrying a bucket of water, so my sister and I had hired a man and a woman who were water technicians so we could have real water in the play.
              The water techs came in with all this equipment, and I told them they could set up in the bathroom. Apparently real water is very complicated.
              The kids were all sitting in a group on the floor, and my sister and I were walking around them, asking comprehension questions, to make sure they understood why the water techs were there, and that they all understood their parts in the play. Their parents were there, too, on the sidelines. Then we had a break so they could all work on props and costumes and stuff. I was narrating for the film crew how nice it was to see the parents and kids all doing their part. For example, a black boy was ironing a purple shirt for a costume, under the direction of his father. I was very impressed that a father and son were willing to do ironing. (It wasn’t significant that he was black, I just thought I’d mention that because I was pleased to note our daycare center was at least somewhat ethnically diverse.)
              We started doing run-throughs of the script, and getting into the concepts in the play. It was a time travel story, with at least one scene in settler times, hence the rustic water bucket.
              One of our littlest charges, a tiny little girl with a pixy haircut, was narrating for that weirdly omnipresent documentary film crew (a la Abby & Brittany) how her directions were to act out a time travel scene on the street, and if a passerby came into the shot, she was to pull them into the scene with her, and hopefully get them to improv with her. She was like Dakota Fanning or something, eerily mature for her age.
              My perspective in the dream shifted, and I was suddenly a stranger on the street, and that precocious little actress was dragging me into the scene about a time travel vortex. It was really tricky, because as a stranger I had no idea what the broader context of the story was, any details I could work with. But I decided to go along with it anyway.
              I had been holding some bags or something, like Anthony and I had been out shopping, and he was there with me. I handed him my stuff, plus my wallet and keys for some reason, as if those things would have been impediments to being able to act/improv effectively. As I was handing him all this stuff to hold while I participated in the scene, I said in a hokey stage voice, “Oh, no, the time vortex has ripped all my identification away from me! If I die in some past era, no one will know who I was!”

Every daycare play needs a T-Rex.

              Somewhere around this point in the dream, I was waking up. There was a perfectly seamless transition between dreaming and day-dreaming, though. It took me a few moments lying there in bed completely awake before I thought, “Why am I day-dreaming all this weird shit about a time travel improv?” And then I realized that my brain had continued the dream from sleep to wakefulness. I’ve never had a transition as seamless as that before, I can’t even explain how weird it was. Usually you wake up and the dream evaporates, and you maybe remember some of it, but your brain doesn’t just keep going. It’s like somebody forgot to say “cut!” and my brain just kept the film rolling. I even turned off my alarm while I was trying to come up with dialogue for the scene. I really wanted to work dinosaurs in, but wasn’t sure if the kids had the budget for that.
              Anyway, before my brain finally said cut! we finished the scene, and the film crew were all so delighted with my brilliantly comedic performance that they begged me to keep filming with them. But I knew Anthony wanted to continue shopping, rather than hang out with these complete strangers, and I didn’t want to hog the children’s spotlight, so I demurred. For the sake of the children.
              They were like, “How will we explain your character’s absence now?”
              I suggested they have the very next scene begin in dinosaur times with the little girl at a makeshift grave for me, because I DID in fact die! Isn’t that funny? For some reason in the dream/day-dream it was, like, SUPER funny.
              Anyway, that’s about when I was awake enough to realize I didn’t have to figure out how to explain my character’s absence in their stupid time travel daycare improv.
  

PUSSY RIOT

     I wonder if people really care that much about the plight of the Russian feminist punk band "Pussy Riot," or if the news agencies are constantly writing about them just for the sheer thrill of putting something as vile as "PUSSY RIOT" in headlines. Not to mention being able to pair it with "PUTIN."
     I know that if their band's name were "Dung Nuts" instead, Madonna would certainly not be writing "FREE DUNG NUTS" on her arms and flashing it for concert photo ops.
Like her arms weren't disturbing enough already.

DOODLE-DOO : a random work doodle

"Registration Beast," #2 pencil on notebook paper, by Tommy Kovac 
     Today was the second day of registration for the new school year, in which I'm stuck standing at my library counter all day initialing paperwork crap, taking library and textbook fine money, handing out library donation flyers, and selling combination locks for their stupid book lockers. It was pretty busy, but occasionally there was a brief lull in which I had to occupy myself.

MOTHER'S DAY 2012

My mom is beautiful, kind, smart, creative, and lots of fun. This is not a biased opinion.
     My mom is totally awesome, and everyone who meets her agrees. When I was a kid, and all through my teen years, my friends envied what great parents I have. My mom and dad created the kind of safe and happy atmosphere that made everyone want to hang out there, even though they still had to follow rules and behave! They treated everyone with respect and kindness, no matter how many piercings or tattoos or whatever color their hair happened to be. If you've read the Moomintroll books by Tove Jansson, my mom and dad are totally like Moominmamma and Moominpappa. All the strange creatures of Moominvalley (the tiny & shy, the big & bold), were always warmly welcomed at Moominhouse, and asked to stay for dinner.
     My husband and I took both our awesome moms out to breakfast together for Mother's Day. Their names are both Barbara. How cute is that, right? Then Anthony and his mom (whom I love, and think is a real hoot!) went off to see a movie, and my mom and I went off to find a craft at Michael's, because we both like busying ourselves.
My mom's wee pots, which she painted with swirls and dots, and then filled with African Violets.

     We settled on painting clay pots, because that's pretty simple and we could easily talk and get distracted and it wouldn't matter. It was totally fun, especially since we used GLITTER PAINT!!! It was a beautiful Mother's Day, and couldn't have been more perfect. Very relaxing. We even spray-painted a small table. Things get DONE when my mom's around. ;)
My larger and obviously manly pot, which I painted the colors of one of those caterpillar cars you ride in on the Alice In Wonderland ride at Disneyland, and now keep some non-standard-size Copic Markers in. (To clarify: I keep the markers in the pot, not in one of the cars on the Alice In Wonderland ride.)

SPAZ ATTACKS

     Yesterday at work I had two spaz episodes I thought I'd capture in words.
     The first was whilst I was in the bathroom, on the toilet.
     Don't worry, it's not THAT kind of incident. But let me explain that the bathroom adjacent to the library is of the one-seater unisex variety. One toilet, one urinal. There's a sliding sign on the outside that you switch to "OCCUPIED" before going in and locking the door. The real problem is that since this bathroom is between a classroom and the library, once in a while, even though they're not supposed to, a student will use that bathroom. So it's VERY important to use the "OCCUPIED" sign and lock the door.
     I live in fear that I'll THINK I've locked the door, but it won't really be locked. Even if I'm in the stall, I will peek out several times just to make sure the latch on the bathroom door is clearly in the locked position. I get totally OCD about it.
     So yesterday I was sitting there on the toilet doing my business and the STALL DOOR swung open.
     It flashed through my mind that I must have forgotten to lock the bathroom door, and someone had walked right in and opened the stall door. My hand shot out lightning-fast to jam the stall door shut with a bang so hard it made the stall wall reverberate hard enough to knock something off the wall. Whatever it was clattered onto my head and I thought the sky was falling and my public social ruination was all happening at once.
     I honestly don't recall what I said or yelped, probably just some defensive animal sound. I know it wasn't anything as sensible and calm as, "I'm in here!" or just, "Occupied!"
     In the frozen moment afterward I slowly grabbed the fallen thing off my head. The cardboard dispenser of tissue seat covers. My eyes were wide, my breath stopped. I peered between the door and the stall wall, fearing to see a sliver of some student already tweeting the incident on their iPhone. Mr. Kovac on the toilet, pants down, nearly knocked unconscious by tissue paper seat covers.
     Silence.
     I slowly eased the unlatched stall door open to find the bathroom empty, the main door indeed locked. I realized I had merely forgotten to latch the STALL door securely, and it had merely come completely unlatched and creaked open. I was still blessedly alone in the bathroom.
     But I had made a banging, clattering ruckus in there, and I'm sure someone in the classroom just a few feet away must have heard it. My heart thundered with narrowly-avoided shame for minutes afterward.  
     The second incident was when I was leaving for the day, passing by a few students hard at work at one of the tables. Under my arm I had clamped my large drawing pad, in which was carefully (I thought) concealed a cartoon I was nearly finished with. It depicts a man in the forest getting his penis caught in a bear trap, while a monstrously huge Slavic woman charges out of the trees yelling at him for this. (See it HERE) Very high-brow.
     Anyway, as I was bustling by the students with my messenger bag and my drawing pad, a piece of paper shot out onto the table and landed right on top of what the students were working on. Luckily, the students were so startled they immediately looked up at me, which gave me time to snatch the penis-in-a-bear-trap cartoon away before they realized what they were looking at.
     But I was HORRIFIED in that brief instant that I looked down and saw my crude cartoon landing right on top of the students' homework. I would NEVER have lived that down.
     I muttered, "Oh, sorry!" and dashed out the back door.

MAILBOX : Australian zines, Bentley Little, and Pauline Baynes

     I just thought I'd share some cool stuff I've received in the mail recently.
     Hot Rod Librarian, who lives in Australia, purchased via Etsy some issues of Library Bonnet, the zine I do with my pal Julie. Then lo and behold she sent us a few issues of her own library-themed zine! In a pink envelope with koala postage and ironic Jesus stickers, no less!
Koala stamp! What adorable postage!
     Did you know that although they look adorable, koalas kill about 5,000 people a year? I swear! I just made it up!

Text reads: "As you do not actually know me, I should point out these stickers were used with absolute irony."
HotRodLibrarian Zine issue #1
     That very same trip to the post office box I also found Bentley Little's newest horror novel, The Haunted waiting for me! He's a nice local dude I've corresponded with for years, and he's kind enough to always send me his latest book, signed. I didn't even know this one was out!

Bentley Little's latest horror novel, The Haunted
     A few weeks ago I also received a lovely hardcover copy of Questionable Creatures: a Bestiary by Pauline Baynes, original Narnia illustrator. It was sent to me by a really nice bookish couple who live in England. They follow my blog and are fans of Pauline Baynes. Apparently they found this copy in the remainders pile at a local bookstore, but it's in perfect condition! Lucky for me they already had a copy, and were generous enough to send this one to Anthony and me.

Pauline Baynes' Questionable Creatures: a Bestiary
     The moral of this story is that people who read and/or write tend to be very generous and thoughtful.
     So why am I such a dick?
     (Am I kidding? Maybe... Maybe not...)

CRAFT TIME : tablet tote out of discarded library book

          I bought a "budget tablet" recently, because I sure as hell can't afford an actual iPad. My tablet is a Lenovo Ideapad A1, and was on sale for $199 at Best Buy. Just sayin'. PC World rated it the best of the budget tablets.
          I was going to fork over some more cash for a cover/case/whatever, but then I decided to get resourceful and creative instead.
          When I told my husband I was going to MAKE a tablet protector case out of a discarded library book, he was like, "Mm-hm. Sure you will." (In his defense, I say LOTS of things. Yesterday I was sitting on the couch watching TV, and said, "In an alternate reality I'm on the treadmill right now.")
"The Wind and the Rain," a book of poetry
          Having worked in numerous libraries, I have collected a stash of discarded paperbacks and hardbacks. Some because I like the books themselves, and some because I was sure one day they would provide craft material.
          First I chose a hardback of pleasing color and title that was just slightly bigger than my tablet.
          Then I boldly tore out the pages. It was an uncharacteristic act of savagery. I liked it.
          I kept the eviscerated insides because I'm a pack rat, and maybe I can use them for some OTHER craft.
          Next I chose a pale blue felt rectangle with which to line the inside of the book cover. I used regular Elmer's glue for that, but have since discovered that actual "fabric glue" works a lot better when you're working with felt.
          I glued two rectangles of black felt together, back-to-back, to give an extra layer of cushioning, and then folded them in half and sewed the two sides up, to create a pocket. Get it? I turned it inside-out, so the stitching is hidden on the inside. This is the extent of my sewing skills, and even that much is really pushing it.
          I glued the black felt pocket to the blue felt lining with Elmer's glue. It didn't really work and made a mess, and I was like, "Shit! It's RUINED! Everything is RUINED!" But I took a deep breath and went to Michael's, where I found cheap FABRIC GLUE. It worked like a charm, and the crisis was averted.
          I made Velcro fasteners using squares of iron-on adhesive Velcro, shown above. If I had KNOWN I'd be using iron-on stuff, I would have done that BEFORE gluing the blue felt liner into the inside of the book cover. Which is why I had to cut a new strip of blue felt, iron the Velcro square onto that, and then glue it onto the existing blue felt liner.
          (Luckily I had figured out the iron-on Velcro BEFORE I sewed up the black pocket, otherwise that would have been a lot trickier, too.)
          But wait- we're not done! On the outside of the book cover there were some icky yellowish stains from old book tape that had been used to hold the dust jacket (which I got rid of, it was ugly) in place. I tried gently cleaning the stains with Windex, but it didn't work.
          That's where ephemera and adhesive decorations come in handy. Back to Michael's.
The front, tastefully decorated
The back, tastefully decorated
          Okay, NOW we're done.
          And look! It's a secret. Nobody will even know there's a TABLET in there...

There it is! Third book from the puppy! Shhh...

WRITERLY WRITING : My teensy article on ebook formatting

     My friend Rilla, who edits a local edition of SCBWI's (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators) Kite Tales e-newsletter (whew!) recently asked me to write an article about e-book formatting for their regular internet/techie column. I happily agreed, even though I'm still a novice. I've really only figured out enough to upload a short story fairly successfully. My article is mainly for writers who are intimidated by the very idea of it, and just need a little reassurance and basic step-by-step clarity.

Here's the link to the newsletter: http://www.scbwisocal.org/kitetales/2012/KTSpring12.pdf

     My article is on pages 27/28, and if you look at the table of contents ("In This Issue") on the left-hand side of the first page and find my article under "Columns," you can click on the page number and jump right to it.

     There's even a handy-dandy "clip and save" square you can cut out and stick to whatever nearby stickable space you have near your desk. Then, when you have a finished piece of fiction to convert into an ebook to sell on Amazon, just go down the line and check off each step until you're done!

     And in case you're wondering if I have any ebooks available on Amazon, I currently have two short (and bargain priced at only 99 cents each!) stories. They're both Halloween-themed, but don't let that stop you from checking them out during other times of the year. Here are the links:



TAPERT : duct tape homunculus

          One day driving to work I suddenly thought, "I wonder if you could make a doll out of duct tape? I made my wallet out of it. How much harder could a doll be?"
          So I grabbed my trusty Sharpie (always in the truck with me) and scrawled "Duct tape doll" on the back of my hand, so I wouldn't forget.
          Tapert is the result.
          To begin with I took the snipped off end of a striped stocking and filled it with these stuffing bead things I've had for years. They're made for stuffing dolls/plush animals with. I like them. Makes his bum weighty enough for proper sitting. But it was tricky taping the stocking closed with duct tape. Not pretty. 
          Then I used some pliant wire (recycled from a cleverly-wrapped Christmas gift someone gave us) to form the skeleton for his limbs and his head.
          For his head I started ripping out pages from a discarded dictionary. My original idea was one page of each letter, so he'd be smart. But I started from Z, and only made it through O, before realizing I couldn't fit any more pages in, or his head would be huge and unwieldy.
          Luckily, the page I happened to tear out of the O section included "okapi," which is my favorite wild animal. There was even a drawing of one. So although Tapert may not know about anything that starts with letters A-N, at least he knows about okapis.
          I wadded the dictionary pages into a nice round ball, and stuck on 3 tiny pom-pons to create a nose bump. Then I wound up his head in the blue duct tape, around the wire loop.
          To give his arms and legs a little thickness, I cut long rectangles of foam and taped over those. Now I'm thinking they're too blocky, but it's too late for that, and I don't want Tapert to feel insecure so I don't say anything disparaging in his presence.
          Hands and feet were problematic. I was determined to use only duct tape for his body, so he ended up with black... caps? Well, actually they sort of look like hooves, or trotters. He is not nimble with them.
          Thanks to plaid patterned duct tape he is wearing a plaid shirt.
          His face is painted white, with jeweled brads for eyes and some hand-drawn details. I knew he was gritting his teeth and furrowing his brow before I drew it, I just had to follow my instincts.
          He needed a hat, so I used another striped stocking. I rolled the cut end up to form a bit of a cuff, and sewed the other end up with a bunch of strands of furry blue string/yarn, so the cap has a puffball.
          I thought maybe I was done, but then Tapert was like, "Bitch, I'm still COLD! Make me a SCARF."
          I was a little surprised at his choice of hot pink, but I think it suits his look. It's bold and fashion-forward. He doesn't give a shit what people think.

IN THE DREAMHOUSE : Asian Swapmeet; Hillbilly Moonshine Truck; Apocalyptic Flood

       I dreamed I was helping run a booth at an Asian swapmeet for an Asian family I was friends with. It was actually a cross between a swapmeet and an indie convention. The booth had lots of fascinating things for a round-eye like me. Jade dragons, Buddha statues, little dolls, scrolls, etc. The best thing was a soft-sculpture radish doll with the most adorable little face full of wisdom and peace. I wanted that doll really bad. I said I was buying it as a gift for my friend Julie, but even in the dream that doll was probably going to end up mine.

       Setting up the booth was a lot of hard work, lifting and unpacking boxes, and putting displays together. Then I was busy helping customers. For some reason we also had a table of heavy metal T-shirts, and these two teenage boys gravitated straight to it. The taller boy put his arm around the younger and, pointing, said, “I’d like THAT shirt, for my boyfriend, here.”

       It was hard to tell if they really were gay, or just joking around, so it put me on edge. The shirt they wanted was something with a screaming skull, and they wanted it in XXL. I had to crawl under the table to look through the boxes of shirts for the right size. I couldn’t find it, so then I had to go to a back room area of our booth and go through a whole bunch of backstock boxes. We kept all the backstock under the tables, especially the T-shirts and caps, because apparently those are most frequently stolen. As soon as I started getting boxes out and going through them, this asshole guy tried to steal a baseball cap, and I yanked it right off his head and told him to beat it.

       That dream ended, and the next began with Anthony and me getting into Julie’s Lexus.

***

       Someone had professionally printed Julie’s job title and the words “GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE” onto the head rests of every seat in her car. She was very proud of this, but it gave me a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. She drove Anthony and me to a dangerous hillbilly area of the Inland Empire, to a little restaurant that made Asian sandwiches with French fries stuffed in them. It was all pretty ghetto, and when we were sitting down eating we really started noticing how scary the other diners were. Scraggly beards, dirty clothes, and they were totally leering at us.

       When we decided it was time to get the hell out of there, we discovered that Julie’s car was gone, so we found an abandoned old truck and appropriated it. The problem with the truck was that instead of a regular gas tank, it had this awkward exterior trunk in the trunk bed. The trunk was filled with moonshine whiskey, and connected to the engine via a long hose. I drove the truck, trying to navigate us out of the Inland Empire backwoods, but the roads were confusing and poorly maintained. Mostly just dirt and gravel, one-lane affairs like in the old days. Whenever we drove past people, they were scary hillbillies looking for trouble and violence. One time we barreled down a narrow tree-lined road just as some hillbillies were shooting at each other ahead. I swerved down a side road to avoid getting caught in the middle of it.

       The truck ran out of moonshine, but luckily we found a gas station and a freeway onramp. The truck didn’t run as well on actual gasoline as it did on bootleg whiskey, but we got on the freeway and raced toward home.

***

       Somewhere on the freeway, the Inland Empire dream dissolved into an apocalyptic scenario in which I knew that a gigantic flood was due any minute. I was by myself, in what looked like a big city park with lots of tall trees and hills. It seemed important to climb as high as I possibly could, that if I could just get high up enough I would be above the flood level and might survive. I picked the tallest tree I could find with lots of easy-to-climb lower branches, and scurried high up into its branches. I made it to the very top.

       At first I thought I’d made it to safety, but then I got a sinking feeling and felt a shadow gathering over me. I looked up and saw that the wave of the flood extended impossibly high into the sky, much higher than my treetop perch.

       I thought if I could just hold on through the breaking of the wave, maybe the water would course down around me and still leave me high and dry when the wave moved on. But as the flood crashed down onto my tree, the trunk and all its branches splintered like matchsticks.

       I drowned/woke up.

SOILED SANDALS


          Someone left these in the bathroom at work, and they've been sitting there for MONTHS, now. Why does the owner refuse to remove them? They are totally gross, and for some reason one of my first thoughts upon seeing them was, "What if you had really bad OCD, and felt compelled to LICK these nasty sandals?"
          I will not lick them, but now that the thought has occurred to me, I sort of feel like SOMEBODY should lick them. That is DISGUSTING. It would be the perfect punishment.

OZ : new movies to be nervous about

          Well, it would certainly be nice if these new Oz-related movies helped drum up some new and broader interest in The Royal Historian of Oz, a graphic novel I recently completed with artist Andy Hirsch, published by SLG, Inc.
          Aside from that possibility, I'm scared. I'm always scared when somebody treads on literary sacred ground. Will it be a sacrilege? Will I want to gouge out my own eyes? That's what's so nerve-wracking about CREATING something based on a much-loved children's classic. I was nervous when I started writing Royal Historian, but I'm a fan of the original books by L. Frank Baum, and tried to show as much respect and reverence for the original material as possible.
          Here are the new Oz movies in the works:

          Oz: the Great and Powerful. A prequel starring James Franco as a younger Wizard of Oz, scheduled for a March 2013 release. Here is Disney's official synopsis:
Walt Disney Pictures' fantastical adventure "Oz The Great and Powerful," directed by Sam Raimi, imagines the origins of L. Frank Baum's beloved character, the Wizard of Oz. When Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he's hit the jackpot--fame and fortune are his for the taking--that is until he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity--and even a bit of wizardry--Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well.
          Here's what I don't like about this so far: I don't find the Wizard to be one of the most interesting characters, especially if they're going by the movie version of the Wizard. Also- I saw James Franco most recently in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and the CG ape turned in a far more nuanced and believable performance.
          I don't like that bit at the end, about the Wizard transforming himself into a better man. Are we going to get hit over the head with a moral? Besides, since this is a prequel, I think it's too early for the Wizard to become a better man, since he is still a charlatan and a fake when Dorothy meets him. It's only later in the original series of books that the Wizard develops real magic powers.
          But who knows? Maybe I'll end up liking it. I LOVED Disney's 1985 live-action Return To Oz, with Fairuza Balk as Dorothy.

          Dorothy of Oz. This one is a CG animated movie (Summertime Entertainment/Alpine Pictures), scheduled for a May 2012 release. Voices by Lea Michele (Dorothy), Martin Short (a new villain called the Jester), Dan Aykroyd (the Scarecrow), Kelsey Grammer (the Tin Man), and Jim Belushi (the Cowardly Lion). Oh- and Patrick Stewart as a tugboat. WTF, right?
          It's based on a book by Roger S. Baum, one of L. Frank Baum's great-grandsons. The story takes place as soon as Dorothy returns home after her very first trip to Oz. Kansas is all f***ed up from the twister, but then she's whisked back to Oz, where she and her pals are confronted by "The Jester," a character NOT in the original books, and since he's being voiced by Martin Short I can only imagine how annoying it will be. I'm already annoyed by Lea Michele voicing Dorothy, since I find her strident and obnoxious on "Glee." I have a bad attitude about this, and maybe I need to turn my frown upside-down. But that's just how I roll.

          You know, I'm not ALWAYS a sourpuss about this sort of thing. I was really looking forward to Disney & Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. It's a shame that movie basically shat all over Lewis Carroll's beautiful creation. If you want to see what a dick I am about it, go HERE.

IN THE DREAMHOUSE : arterial spray

          Usually I can watch horror movies right before bed without any problem, but last night I watched the last 20 minutes of the Amityville remake. It's not even a good remake, but there's a scene where Ryan Reynolds is seeing visions of the previous occupant's suicide by throat-slitting, and you see Ryan's face covered in showers of arterial blood spray. As I watched it I was like, "Eh... Whatever. Time for bed."
          But I had this nightmare that I was in a multi-level hotel, going up and down elevators trying to escape a serial killer. I ended up in a lounge just as the killer entered the room. Just by chance, I was behind some other people at the bar, mostly obscured from the killer's view. He had a switchblade, and cut down a few people around me, so I dropped to the ground with them and played possum.
          He slit the throat of a man right next to me, and as I lay there on the ground praying I wouldn't be discovered I could feel the man's blood spattering across me.
          Luckily the nightmare either ended there, or shifted scenes, so I wasn't discovered. But it was bad enough, man!
          I woke up, and my mind quickly shifted from serial killers and blood spray to diarrhea. The word itself. It's a nuanced word, with the double-R and the silent H. The double-R gives it an appropriate growl/grunt, and the silent H reflects a miserable silent breath of discomfort. I started getting ideas for poop-related pop art, and that's when I realized it was time to just accept that I wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep.
          I got out of bed, fed the dog, got a cup of coffee, and here I am...

SCATTERSHOT

          This week is agonizingly slow, dragging by legless and nearly dehydrated. It's finals week for the students, so the library has been either frenziedly busy (before, between, and after classes) or eerily silent.
          At my psychiatrist's office yesterday, I confided that I could feel my brain trying to get anxious and fixated negatively on some things lately, but so far I've been self-aware enough to nip that in the bud. Thanks to the drugs. I made a point to insist that I felt the drugs were still working, because I'm not ready to have my dosages increased, or to be put on something more heavy-duty. But I felt it was important to lay a little groundwork of honesty, in case I grow increasingly spazzy, and need to have my prescriptions tweaked.
          The fact that I don't have a publisher yet for my illustrated children's middle-grade fantasy novel makes me feel un-anchored and nervous. I've only written 5 or 6 chapters of it, and only submitted it to (and been rejected by) one publisher. I know I should relax and just enjoy working on it. I've been wanting to shift gears from comics & graphic novels to something more... "novelly" for years now. But my brain doesn't do well without clear deadlines and agreements.
          Maybe I should go straight home and work really hard on it. Maybe I should put my energy into exercising, eating less, and trying to lose some weight. I am 40 now, after all. Maybe I should put my energy into some potentially "fine art" type of creativity. There's (potentially) more money in that, from what I've seen. Why be constrained by the format of a book at all? Sometimes it's hard to tell if I feel like writing, or drawing. And when I definitely feel like writing, part of me wants to work on the children's novel, and another part of me wants to write something for adults, like a full-on horror novel, or something more complex and harder to fit into a simplified category.
          Maybe I just need a nap.
          But then I remember that I got a notice from the IRS about a minor tax discrepancy from my 2010 taxes. I need to figure that out, in case I need to file a correction. The notice I received didn't give a deadline, though, so it's easy to procrastinate, especially something confusing like taxes.
          My mom was kind enough to give me an awesome industrial-type pin-back button (badge) maker for Christmas. It's a small press with metal pieces and a lever. I should make a bunch of buttons and try to sell them on Etsy, or at conventions and stuff. Maybe THAT'S what I should do this evening. I've made some buttons already, of course, but not enough to start selling.
          Maybe I DO need more drugs. Why can't I let myself just relax, take a nap, read, watch some TV? Is that really so terrible?
          But I also have this painting project I started, then abandoned temporarily for button-making. The painting project involves a big metal Medieval shield that hangs on the wall. I've already spray-painted it black and painted a weird blue animal face over what used to be a coat-of-arms. I've been planning to add some Martha Stewart glitter paint to it. The bottles are lined up eagerly on my drafting table: blue, amethyst, and green.
          HOLY CRAP the choir next door to the library is singing "Send In the Clowns." What have I done to deserve that?
          Anyway, maybe I just need to drink more often. Oh- and then lately it's been really grim because the Librarian I work with found out that her husband has terminal lung cancer. It's awful beyond words, and I feel terrible for both of them. Of course she didn't want everyone to know right away because she didn't want to have to talk about it all the time. But people have started finding out and coming in to commiserate. And asking ME about it. Even on Facebook. So I'm trying to keep my mind off mortality, but it's been difficult.
          I thought of a great band name: "Diarrhea Envy." Get it? Like "penis envy," only with diarrhea...? No?
         
         

FRIDAY the 13th

          I'm not at all superstitious about Friday the 13th, or anything else for that matter. (Except for black cats crossing my path, but that's another story)
          BUT...
          Here's why today sucks:
          First off I finally received a response to my middle grade fantasy novel, which I had submitted to an editor with a big well-known publisher. It was a rejection, which is always a bummer, but I have to say the REASONS why my story wasn't right for him made me laugh out loud, considering the obscene and irreverent nature of a lot of my previous work. Here's what the editor said:

"Thank you for letting me read this, but I don't think it will work on my list as the story seems too old-fashioned and twee for my taste. Good luck finding the right publisher for this."

          I don't love having my work rejected, but I understand his reasons and kind of enjoy being called old-fashioned and twee. Especially since just last night I listed two "My Little Penis" coffee mugs on Etsy.
          The other reason today sucks is that I had to sit here at my desk and listen to a discussion/debate between a student and a substitute teacher about whether or not gay people deserve equal rights. It was a Social Studies class, and they're researching the different presidential candidates and their stances on the major issues.
          The student is Mormon, and VERY insistently anti gay marriage. The substitute did an AWESOME job of questioning the kid's faulty reasoning and trying to make him see the other side of the issue. But I have heard this kid go on about it before, and he's unfortunately full of brazen confidence and good-natured smiles and Mormon brain-washing. Blond, blue eyes, clean cut, just as you would expect. He's always been extremely polite and respectful to my face, and he KNOWS I'm gay, and married to a dude. It's amazing how people like that can sit right there in front of you and argue why you shouldn't have the same civil rights they do, and expect you to just accept it.
          It's like they expect you to react the way you would if the disagreement were over which is better, chocolate or vanilla ice cream. No big deal, right?
          So I listened to them go back and forth for a while, respecting each other's opinions, smiling and laughing, yet making their points. Finally I got up and said, "You know what? I wasn't going to say anything, but I have to. You all know I'm gay, and that I have a husband. Well, it's really weird for me to sit here and listen to you guys debate whether or not I should have the same rights everyone else does. I just think you should consider that, and try to imagine what it's like for me. It's like if you were arguing in favor of racism right in front of a black person."
          The kid tried to say that it's not discrimination, and he had all sorts of weird incorrect ideas obviously from his church. He was saying that if they make gay marriage legal, then if a church won't marry gay people, they'll have their tax-exempt status removed, and go bankrupt, and it's not right for the poor churches to go bankrupt over that. I finally interrupted and said, "It IS discrimination. What you want is the right to discriminate, and you should just be HONEST about that."
          I also said that during the 6 months or so that it was legal in California, my husband and I had a civil marriage ceremony, we certainly didn't FORCE ourselves into anyone's church, and I didn't hear about any OTHER gay couples doing that. I told him I wasn't even sure if he was correct that a church could be forced to hold gay marriages. I said, "I wouldn't want any part of a church that didn't respect and honor my marriage, anyway. Why would we want that?"
          Another issue the substitute had raised was the right for a gay person's partner to be involved in medical/health decisions, and hospital visiting rights. The kid actually, honestly, said, "Oh, but that's such a minor thing!" He even argued with the substitute about HOW minor that issue is. And he was not kidding. And he's a SENIOR. And we're a college prep academy.
          I told him it may seem like a very minor thing to him, at his age, but my husband is diabetic and it has and could in the future be a very real issue for us. It is VERY important.
          I tried my best to be firm yet not seem angry, and to give the impression that I respect the Mormon kid's viewpoints, even though I most certainly do not.
          I know some gay people might have thought it wiser to say nothing, but I REFUSE to make it easy for anybody to debate my equal rights in front of my face. Especially when the person arguing my rights away KNOWS I'm gay. That is seriously fucked up. It's like that type of person banks on me (the minority) being too intimidated to say anything.
          Needless to say, my nerves were totally shaken by the time that period ended, but I was determined not to show it.