sundries

[rm]

Did my federal taxes last night. I'll get $49.97 back. Which is nice, as I rarely get anything back, but sucks, because I know if I got that little back on federals, I'm going to owe on shitty, shitty New York State taxes because they are really awful as a rule. I'm grumpy, because I really thought this year was going to be different.

Yesterday: mailbox money! Of an even tinier amount, I'm afraid, but hey.

Claudette/Cricket (we're in name limbo) just ate a spider. Patty is not so good with spider-kind, so she'll be pleased.

Ask Morbo.

via ellen_kushner: Saving a NYC candy store.

Death Bear. If you read one link from me today, read this one. Also, if you live in Brooklyn, Death Bear is available to you.

Today's tasks: work hard; go to DWNY thing with Russell Tovey; somewhere between the two send an email even stranger (and a lot more important) than the one I sent to Virgin America about the ants on the plane.

Patty was up in New Haven all day yesterday (like, out the door at 7am, home at midnight) for academic stuff.

Last night I went digging on my harddrive for a story I wanted to finish before tonight (Jack/Alonso) and instead found this depressing Gwen story I'd been working on instead and noodled on that a bit.

Today's arbitrary wish: that I had the sort of brain that could devise television game shows. Someone I know just optioned something that's going to make him rich beyond rich. Seriously, his entire life is going to be different, and if you'd asked me, before I heard this thing come out of his mouth, I'd have said "least likely to anything." Goddamn.

Meanwhile, I have to write two fucking treatments this week and I haven't even decided for what yet. And don't even ask me what the fuck I'm going to bring to the meeting I have mid-month. I've no goddamn idea yet. And it's frustrating, because my pitching is GREAT, I just gotta know what the right here, right now, gonna sell, sell, sell thing is. It is, I'm finding, a bit like playing poker. No matter how good a gambler you are, there are elements that are never going to be within your control; that said, attitude is everything.

Semi-tangentally: this week I need to deal with some possible agent-y stuff for the made of words part of my life.

WWII-era plane crashes off Florida. A lack of specificity in the CNN report led some commenters to ask if it flew out of the Bermuda Triangle, but apparently this was an airshow accident.

The former German naval officer who saved the port of Bordeaux has died.

The no-longer secret co-author of baseball history.

The New York Times covers abuse allegations about Scientology. It's nothing you've not heard before if you follow this sort of thing online, but big papers generally avoid the subject, and this is notable for that. Also: photo essay!

Weirdest internal response I've ever had to RPF: wanting to defend the honor of LAX. And I hate LAX. It's only saving grace is it's generally warm when you get off the fucking plane.

Which reminds me: this week I've got to make an appointment at the retouchers for my headshots and get this stuff done. Oh hey, photo you haven't seen. I don't really like it (my photog does), but I know I don't like it because my main reaction to it is the same level of discomfort I get looking at photos of other people -- I feel like it can see me and thinks poorly of me. We're not well in this business, we're really not. Also, my hair is doing something stupid and the line of my waistcoat leaves a bit to be desired.

Meanwhile, I've got to start poking at my website, although I can't really do that until I get the retouched photos back.

Finally, I've received two communications in the last week that have sat oddly with me, through no particular fault of the communicators.

The first, was from my private school, of which I am not an alumna, but since I went there for ten years, and only went to my other school for two and a bit, I asked to be put on their mailing list at some point mainly to market my book. The head of the alumnae association is currently a woman who was in my class. We were relatively friendly (I was playing at her house when Anwar Sadat was shot), because we were both low on the social hierarchy, but we also fought, because that's what the trampled on girls do -- claw their way over each other. And she had good breeding (DAR) and I didn't. So a postcard came in the mail from the school, informing me of the date of the all-classes reunion and noting she hoped I would be there. And I thought: what will I wear? I know how to fit in perfectly (and feel miserable) and I know how to be myself (and still be judged by these people), and it's hard to know what to do, since all these years later, I still don't want any of them to think they won. These are, I know, my own issues.

The second communication was via Facebook from a photograher I modeled for some years ago. It said, in part "You look... different. But I had fun working with you." My current Facebook photo is very masculine, and I can't stop staring at the "..." of his message. I hear an awkward pause, a disappoint, a desire to ask what's in my pants about it. It may be none of those things -- I mean, for fuck's sake it's Facebook and it took me twenty minutes to remember who the guy was. But I found I didn't like it. It's funny, believing myself to be a hundred beautiful things, and also being this type of insecure.

Comments

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

That's a very good photo :)

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

That photo is GORGEOUS. You have a SECRET, and I/the viewer/that casting director wants to know what it IS.

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

I agree, but I know what you mean about being bugged by those errant tufts of hair.

As a viewer, the clothes are fine with me. We're in the middle of an intense brainstorming session trying to solve some mystery, and you just figured it out and are about to start teasing me for not getting it earlier. Waistcoats are allowed to do whatever you think it's doing; if you wanted to look unrumpled you'd be wearing your jacket.

And, ugh. I'm sure the list of grammatical errors that perturb me is longer than the average person's, but among them is a hatred of use of the ellipsis in written communication to represent a pause in the thought process while writing. You're WRITING a FACEBOOK COMMUNICATION; you can edit it to mean precisely what you want before hitting the send button, dumbass.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Communication the second strikes me as the sort of thing that is "ugh!"-worthy, but can safely be ignored.

Communication the first...well, in your shoes I would go as myself, let the fuckers judge all they like, but be open to my own badassery (and the possibility that they judge out of fear of that, not because I am doing it wrong).

Not sure if that's helpful or not, but those were my reactions.

I can see what you mean in that photo. It's a good shot of you, but it's not the Ideal Shot, if that makes sense.

And strangely, I didn't hate LAX. Everyone I know does, though. I feel like I've fallen through a rip in time and space and wound up at the wrong airport.

Hooray for Tovey day!

[rm.livejournal.com]

You haven't seen enough airports to hate LAX. It's jsut that the baggage claim is pretty much designed so peopel can steal your shit. Also, if you're flying in from AsiaPacific, you come into a totally different terminal, have to go through customs and then go over to the domestic terminal to connect through to NYC -- it BLOWS. Also, WHERE IS THE FOOD IN THE VIRGIN AMERICA TERMINAL?

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I'm also all wide-eyed and curious about everything. So, you know, the new hasn't worn off of LAX for me yet. I also kind of dug the mysterious tile thing in one of the badly lit corridors from a "now that's interesting" POV.

So, you know, consider the source.

Though you may be amused that I got quite Henry Rollins about the moving sidewalks, and how not walking on them = stupid because you could be going so very fast. Hell, I was faster than the Slovakian Olympic ski team in Phoenix because they were just standing on theirs and was walking on regular floor because they were obstructing it.

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

The DAR, huh? I've been watching the Gilmore Girls a lot lately, and I kind of smirk every time someone mentions the Daughters of the American Revolution. Technically, the group is doing nothing discriminatory by law, but at the same time, how many non-white, non-Christian people can trace their lineage all the way back to someone who was a part of the American Revolution? Bleh, sort-of-tangent. Thinking about the DAR both amuses me and makes me seethe at the same time.

Your photo, though, is very expressive and I like it a lot. I'm not sure why you don't. As redstapler said, it looks like you know something we don't, and it draws us in. We want to KNOW.

That stupid Facebook photographer. I want to strangle people like him. You can never call them on their bullshit, because they'll always turn around and accuse you of reading too much into what they said.

[rm.livejournal.com]

8th grade argument with another girl. I said something awful to her and she said, "you can't talk to me that way, I'm a daughter of the American Revolution."

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

Oh my dear god.

[delle.livejournal.com]

she.... WHAT? for fuck's sake, that was 16-17 generations ago. I'm not impressed with her lineage.


also, I am 16th generation American on my maternal grandfather's side. I can trace my family back to the mid-16oos. I am not, however, qualified for the DAR as my family was Quaker and did not fight in the war. And, as <lj user="nicoli_dominn") says above me, how many non-white anglo-saxon non-Christians were there, fighting in the war?

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

That photo makes me think - this is Severus who was happier and went to Yale.

[rm.livejournal.com]

You're breaking my heart.

[fleur.livejournal.com]

That is so much win!!

[torenheksje.livejournal.com]

This. I was gonna say Oxford, but the idea is the same. And if being a DAR is indicative of good breeding, how come I'm one? :cP

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Awww...

[meirion.livejournal.com]

I hated LAX the first (and only) time I saw it. I was 5 years old at the time. In defence of the poor airport, it was in the middle of major reconstruction.

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

Another photo response: you look wonderful and eye-catching. I have a hard time commenting on the way your clothing lies because I keep getting drawn to look at your face.

[introductory.livejournal.com]

What redstapler said.

[pocketmouse]

I agree, that photo is a little off. But I swear, my first thought on seeing it was 'Stephen Colbert!' So, uh, there's a thing.

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

And OMFG. I don't know how you nominate people for McArthur Genius Fellowships, but Death Bear is AMAZING. I am awestruck by how much good he must be doing and how beautiful it is that he isn't trying to do more.

[graene.livejournal.com]

Love that photo. See why you don't, but use it!

Also, facebook thing, yeah I get similar with my hair sometimes and don't like it either.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

I am fascinated by the Church of Scientology. It's such a bizarre entity: a pseudoscience rebranded as a religion.

[ravenskye8.livejournal.com]

I know how to fit in perfectly (and feel miserable) and I know how to be myself (and still be judged by these people), and it's hard to know what to do, since all these years later, I still don't want any of them to think they won.

This is exactly why I stopped going to my reunions. I could go, but I would only be there for, as you said, to make sure they don't think they won. But, they're still all the same shallow judgemental people, and will continue to think they won, just because they're still judging me as if we were back in High School and it only matters who has the most money and is the prettiest. At some point in High School I stopped caring what they thought of me - so what do I have to prove by showing up? There is no one that I desire to see again... and since I'm not interested in torturing myself for several hours trying to be cordial to people whom I dislike and who treat me with open disdain on a good day, I am simply much happier leaving all of it in the past.

Re: Current music: a cat is eating spiders

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

But spiders are great! Or least they must be from a cat POV. Maybe they're crunchy and taste like popcorn... I haven't tried one, but I do remember a co-worker complaining that the baby (who was crawling) wanted to tried eating bugs because he saw the cat eating bugs.

I did witness one of our cats tasting a green locust bug for the first time. It was one of those bright green ones that sort of look like a grasshopper, but they have red eyes. She picked it up in her mouth, dropped it, smacked her lips and licked her chops. Then she ate it right up. After that, if she saw one of those bugs, she didn't even bother playing with them. She ate them right away.

Well, at least I can say she didn't play with her food.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Dear gods, Death Bear is amazing. Most of us live in a world devoid of rituals that are meaningful and powerful, and we keenly feel their lack. I'm awed that someone is working to fill this need. Very cool.

And I thought: what will I wear? I know how to fit in perfectly (and feel miserable) and I know how to be myself (and still be judged by these people)

I'm certain you can guess my opinion, but I'll state it anyway. You are amazing - go there are yourself. Some may judge you, but I'm betting more than a few will look at you and compare it to their own gray & limited lives and feel some mixture of envy and awe. You are not 10 anymore, in photos and from the 2 times I saw you in person, you are powerful.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Loved the articles on Death Bear. See this is why I like stalking, uhm, following your LJ; you always post such interesting links.

As for the HS reunion, go only if you want to. I would hope that everyone has left their high school issues in high school. But I've had co-workers who still did the ego battles and liked to play faves. Sigh... and here I thought we were supposed to be adults now.

For the cat, I think Cricket is cute, but that's me. And if she's a bug eatin' cat, calling her Cricket would appeal to a certain sense of humor.

Like the pic of you in the waistcoat. I see what you mean about the hair.

Facebook comment; what's hard about comments is you can't tell intent sometimes. If you heard the comment you'd be able to tell by tone of voice. But with the internet, sometimes it's hard to tell.

On the taxes

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Texas has no state income tax. I've heard stories from New Yorkers who moved just to get away from New York's high taxes. So while I can't relate to your tax pain, I hear your pain.

[phaetonschariot.livejournal.com]

That photo makes me think of Tamsin Greig.

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

DEATH BEAR?!?!?!?!?!?

His other projects also seem to be mascot / furry related. I'm fascinated, repelled, and intrigued. DEATH BEAR.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yup.

It's really fun to say too.

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

. . . . . . death bear.

Deathbeardeathbeardeathbeardeathbear.

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

Sweet Jesus . . Death Bear.

http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/archives/2010/01/creepy_plushie.html