I was looking up on eye color. Whenever I fill out official forms and they ask for "eye color," I usually put either blue or hazel, depending on my mood. Once, someone looked and said, "You don't have any brown in your eyes, so they can't be hazel." My reply: "Today I don't. Tomorrow I might."
My eyes are just weird. Many people with hazel eyes claim they change color, whereas really it's just certain colors are "brought out" by other factors: clothing color, sunlight, etc. Hazel eyes have green, gray, and brown, so different colors can be highlighted.
I've compared photos of my eyes. They really do change color. Not just a little. I mean A LOT.
The first time anyone really notice my "chameleon eyes" was on my sister's wedding. I was a bridesmaid, and the dress was bright emerald green. As we were getting ready, my mom stopped me, stared at my face, and went, "Robyn, you're eyes are GREEN." I looked in the mirror. My eyes were totally emerald, no blue at all. This wasn't "bringing out" some specks of green already present. My eyes were never that color before in my life.
Another day, I was wearing a red dress. The friends I was with didn't really know me well enough to notice anything, but they kept staring. I finally had to ask (fearing I had something stuck in my teeth). They said my eyes were purple. I laughed. Was I suddenly some weird anime character? Then I went to the bathroom, and sure enough, my eyes had turned a brownish shade of lavender. It was actually a little disturbing. I wish I could find the picture of that day.
Lately, my eyes have turned steely gray, nearly silver, and even some amber flecks pop up once in a while. One picture I have of me wearing a burgundy dress, my eyes honestly look brown.
I'm not the only one in my family with odd eyes. I have an aunt whose eyes change color depending on her mood. If they go green... watch out!
Perhaps I can blame genetics. My father has blue eyes. My mother has dark brown. Her father had blue eyes, her mother brown. Of my siblings, three have dark brown eyes, one has hazel which are usually more greenish, and I have the freaky blue eyes that will change at a moment's notice. Blue, gray, emerald, lavender, amber, you name it.
In the research I've done, eyes are not supposed to do that, not suddenly, at least. Eye color can change around puberty, like from blue to hazel, but not after wearing something for a few hours.
Maybe I should wear a rainbow tie-dye and see what happens.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Turning Japanese
A friend asked me, with all the Japanese anime I watch, have I ever actually picked up any Japanese?
My answer, totally tongue-in-cheek, was "Hai!"
A politely sarcastic laugh, then "No, really, do you know any, like, totally cool Japanese phrases?"
Totally deadpan, I replied, "Urusai, baka yaro. Korosu-zo. Nametonka?"
They were impressed.
I was ready to laugh.
I refused to translate.
Yes, it means what you probably think it means.
My answer, totally tongue-in-cheek, was "Hai!"
A politely sarcastic laugh, then "No, really, do you know any, like, totally cool Japanese phrases?"
Totally deadpan, I replied, "Urusai, baka yaro. Korosu-zo. Nametonka?"
They were impressed.
I was ready to laugh.
I refused to translate.
Yes, it means what you probably think it means.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Epilepsy = Brilliance? Awesome!
Note: this was totally ripped off of this author but only because I'm recovering from a seizure and can't think to write my own entry. Maybe after this spell, I will have a burst of creativity, eh? One can hope...
===
Did you know that the earliest references to epilepsy date back to the fifth millennium B.C. in Mesopotamia? That's a few years before Sarah Palin believes that the earth was even created. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Priests unsuccessfully tried to cure people with epilepsy by exercising the "demons" out of them. Atreya of India and later Hippocrates, both of whom recognized a seizure as a dysfunction of the brain, challenged this absurdity of superstitious thought surrounding epilepsy. But the superstitions surrounding epilepsy continued for hundreds of years.
I actually feel a bit honored to be amongst a rather commendable group of other epileptics. You see, epileptic seizures historically, have suggested a relationship with creativity or unusual leadership abilities. Scholars have long studied evidence that prominent prophets and other holy men, political leaders, philosophers, artists and scientists, suffered from epilepsy.
According to Epilepsy.com, Aristotle was apparently the first to connect epilepsy and genius.
His catalog of "great epileptics" (which included Socrates) was added to during the Renaissance. Only people from Western culture were included, however. So strong was this tradition that even in the nineteenth century, when new names of "great epileptics" were added, they were rarely chosen from among people in other parts of the world. Working from this biased historical legacy, the famous people with epilepsy that we know about are primarily white males.
Eve LaPlante in her book Seized writes that the abnormal brain activity found in temporal lobe (complex partial) epilepsy plays a role in creative thinking and the making of art. Neuropsychologist Dr. Paul Spiers says:
"Sometimes the same things that cause epilepsy result in giftedness. If you damage an area [of the brain] early enough in life, the corresponding area on the other side has a chance to overdevelop."
We know that epilepsy involves temporary bursts of excessive electrical activity in different locations in the brain, locations which house our bodily sensations and functions as well as our memories and emotions. Psychiatrist Dr. David Bear states that the abnormal brain activity found in temporal lobe epilepsy can play a role in creative thinking and the making of art by uniting sensitivity, insight and sustained, critical attention. According to Dr. Bear:
"A temporal lobe focus in the superior individual may spark an extraordinary search for that entity we alternately call truth or beauty."
What is also clear in the discussion of genius and epilepsy is that some of the most famous people in history had seizures. People with epilepsy have excelled in every area.
The list of famous authors and playwrights whom historians believe had epilepsy is a bit overwhelming. It includes: Dante, the author of The Divine Comedy, who is not only Italy's pre-eminent poet but one of the towering figures of Western literature; Moliere, the master comic dramatist of the eighteenth century whose plays Tartuffe, The Imaginary Invalid and The Misanthrope are still being regularly performed today; Sir Walter Scott, one of the foremost literary figures of the romantic period whose books like Ivanhoe and Waverley remain widely read classics; the 18th century English satirist Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels; the nineteenth century American author Edgar Allan Poe; as well as three of the greatest English Romantic poets, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Charles Dickens, the Victorian author of such classic books as A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist had epilepsy, as did several of the characters in his books. The medical accuracy of Dickens's descriptions of epilepsy has amazed the doctors who read him today.
Lewis Carroll, in his famous stories Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, was probably writing about his own temporal lobe seizures. The very sensation initiating Alice' adventures- that of falling down a hole- is a familiar one to many people with seizures. Alice often feels that her own body (or the objects around her) is shrinking or growing before her eyes, another seizure symptom. Carroll recorded his seizures, which were followed by prolonged headaches and feeling not his usual self, in his journal.
From his writings we know a lot about the epilepsy of the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, author of such classics as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, who is considered by many to have brought the Western novel to the peak of its possibilities.
Dostoevsky had his first seizure at age nine. After a remission which lasted up to age 25, he had seizures every few days or months, fluctuating between good and bad periods. His ecstatic auras occurring seconds before his bigger seizures were moments of transcendent happiness, which then changed to an anguished feeling of dread. He saw a blinding flash of light, then would cry out and lose consciousness for a second or two. Sometimes the epileptic discharge generalized across his brain, producing a secondary tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizure. Afterward he could not recall events and conversations that had occurred during the seizure, and he often felt depressed, guilty and irritable for days. Epilepsy is a central source of themes, personalities, and events in his books; he gave epilepsy to about 30 of his characters.
The other great nineteenth century Russian author, Count Leo Tolstoy, author of Anna Karenina and War and Peace, also had epilepsy.
Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia about 2,300 years ago and one of the greatest generals in history, had epilepsy. At the time epilepsy was known as "the sacred disease" because of the belief that those who had seizures were possessed by evil spirits or touched by the gods and should be treated by invoking mystical powers.
Julius Caesar, another brilliant general and formidable politician, had seizures in the last two years of his life, possibly caused by a brain tumour. Caesar was known to have fallen convulsing into the River Tiber. By this time, epilepsy had become known as "the falling sickness" because the kind of seizures that made a person lose consciousness and fall down were the only kind then recognized as epilepsy. (Complex partial seizures were not recognized until the middle of the nineteenth century.) Human blood was widely regarded by the Romans as having curative powers, and people with epilepsy in Caesar's time were commonly seen sucking blood from fallen gladiators.
Napoleon Bonaparte was probably the most brilliant military figure in history. He too is known to have had epilepsy.
Another extraordinary leader of a very different time and place was Harriet Tubman, the black woman with epilepsy who led hundreds of her fellow slaves from the American South to freedom in Canada on the Underground Railroad. Tubman developed her seizure disorder through sustaining a head injury: her slave master hit her in the head with a rock.
Saint Paul's seizure-like experiences are the best documented of the major religious figures. On the road to Damascus he saw a bright light flashing around him, fell to the ground and was left temporarily blinded by his vision and unable to eat or drink. Paul is thought by some physicians to have had facial motor and sensitive disturbances coming after ecstatic seizures; they have diagnosed him with temporal lobe epilepsy which occasionally developed into secondary tonic-clonic attacks.
Joan of Arc was an uneducated farmer's daughter in a remote village of medieval France who altered the course of history through her amazing military victories. From age thirteen Joan reported ecstatic moments in which she saw flashes of light coming from the side, heard voices of saints and saw visions of angels.
In the opinion of the neurologist Dr. Lydia Bayne, Joan's blissful experiences "in which she felt that the secrets of the universe were about to be revealed to her"- were seizures, and they were triggered by the ringing of church bells. Joan displayed symptoms of a temporal lobe focus epilepsy: specifically, a musicogenic form of reflex epilepsy with an ecstatic aura. Musicogenic epilepsy is generally triggered by particular music which has an emotional significance to the individual. Joan's voices and visions propelled her to become an heroic soldier in the effort to save France from English domination and led to her martyrdom in 1431, burned at the stake as a heretic when she was 19 years old.
Soren Kierkegaard, the brilliant Danish philosopher and religious thinker considered to be the father of existentialism, worked hard at keeping his epilepsy secret.
In the fine arts, Vincent van Gogh is today probably the most widely known and appreciated artist with epilepsy. "The storm within" was how van Gogh described his typical seizure, which consisted of hallucinations, unprovoked feelings of anger, confusion and fear, and floods of early memories that disturbed him because they were outside his control.
Van Gogh also had convulsive seizures; a hospital worker witnessed Vincent having one while painting outside. He was prescribed potassium bromide as an anticonvulsant and ordered to spend countless hours bathing in tubs at the asylum in Saint-Remy. His most troubling seizures peaked with his greatest art in the south of France, where he painted A Starry Night, the extraordinary Self-Portrait, and the famous Crows in the Wheatfields.
There have been a number of prominent composers and musicians with epilepsy. George Frederick Handel, the famous baroque composer of the Messiah, is one. Niccolo Paganini is another. Paganini was an Italian violinist and composer considered by many to be the greatest violinist of all time. The eminent Russian composer of the ballets Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, Peter Tchaikovsky, is believed to have had epilepsy. Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the greatest masters of music, may have had epilepsy as well.
Modern writers who had epilepsy include: Dame Agatha Christie, the leading British writer of mystery novels, and Truman Capote, American author of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Modern actors with epilepsy include Richard Burton, Michael Wilding, Margaux Hemingway and Danny Glover.
On second thought, boy oh boy, that sure puts the pressure on me to be brilliant. Oh well, I can be one of the not so fabulous epileptics that achieved mediocrity in full force.
===
May I also add to this list:
* Hugo Weaving, one of my favorite actors of all time
* Hector Berlioz, super awesome composers, one of my favs
* Robert Schumann, another fav
* Vladamir Lenin
* George Gershwin
* Neil Young
* Leonardo di Vinci
* Michelangelo
* Pythagoras (remember him from Trig?)
* Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
*Jean Clemens, daughter of Mark Twain
* Hikari Oe, musician and son of one of my favorite Japanese authors, Kenzaburo Oe
===
Did you know that the earliest references to epilepsy date back to the fifth millennium B.C. in Mesopotamia? That's a few years before Sarah Palin believes that the earth was even created. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Priests unsuccessfully tried to cure people with epilepsy by exercising the "demons" out of them. Atreya of India and later Hippocrates, both of whom recognized a seizure as a dysfunction of the brain, challenged this absurdity of superstitious thought surrounding epilepsy. But the superstitions surrounding epilepsy continued for hundreds of years.
I actually feel a bit honored to be amongst a rather commendable group of other epileptics. You see, epileptic seizures historically, have suggested a relationship with creativity or unusual leadership abilities. Scholars have long studied evidence that prominent prophets and other holy men, political leaders, philosophers, artists and scientists, suffered from epilepsy.
According to Epilepsy.com, Aristotle was apparently the first to connect epilepsy and genius.
His catalog of "great epileptics" (which included Socrates) was added to during the Renaissance. Only people from Western culture were included, however. So strong was this tradition that even in the nineteenth century, when new names of "great epileptics" were added, they were rarely chosen from among people in other parts of the world. Working from this biased historical legacy, the famous people with epilepsy that we know about are primarily white males.
Eve LaPlante in her book Seized writes that the abnormal brain activity found in temporal lobe (complex partial) epilepsy plays a role in creative thinking and the making of art. Neuropsychologist Dr. Paul Spiers says:
"Sometimes the same things that cause epilepsy result in giftedness. If you damage an area [of the brain] early enough in life, the corresponding area on the other side has a chance to overdevelop."
We know that epilepsy involves temporary bursts of excessive electrical activity in different locations in the brain, locations which house our bodily sensations and functions as well as our memories and emotions. Psychiatrist Dr. David Bear states that the abnormal brain activity found in temporal lobe epilepsy can play a role in creative thinking and the making of art by uniting sensitivity, insight and sustained, critical attention. According to Dr. Bear:
"A temporal lobe focus in the superior individual may spark an extraordinary search for that entity we alternately call truth or beauty."
What is also clear in the discussion of genius and epilepsy is that some of the most famous people in history had seizures. People with epilepsy have excelled in every area.
The list of famous authors and playwrights whom historians believe had epilepsy is a bit overwhelming. It includes: Dante, the author of The Divine Comedy, who is not only Italy's pre-eminent poet but one of the towering figures of Western literature; Moliere, the master comic dramatist of the eighteenth century whose plays Tartuffe, The Imaginary Invalid and The Misanthrope are still being regularly performed today; Sir Walter Scott, one of the foremost literary figures of the romantic period whose books like Ivanhoe and Waverley remain widely read classics; the 18th century English satirist Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels; the nineteenth century American author Edgar Allan Poe; as well as three of the greatest English Romantic poets, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Charles Dickens, the Victorian author of such classic books as A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist had epilepsy, as did several of the characters in his books. The medical accuracy of Dickens's descriptions of epilepsy has amazed the doctors who read him today.
Lewis Carroll, in his famous stories Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, was probably writing about his own temporal lobe seizures. The very sensation initiating Alice' adventures- that of falling down a hole- is a familiar one to many people with seizures. Alice often feels that her own body (or the objects around her) is shrinking or growing before her eyes, another seizure symptom. Carroll recorded his seizures, which were followed by prolonged headaches and feeling not his usual self, in his journal.
From his writings we know a lot about the epilepsy of the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, author of such classics as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, who is considered by many to have brought the Western novel to the peak of its possibilities.
Dostoevsky had his first seizure at age nine. After a remission which lasted up to age 25, he had seizures every few days or months, fluctuating between good and bad periods. His ecstatic auras occurring seconds before his bigger seizures were moments of transcendent happiness, which then changed to an anguished feeling of dread. He saw a blinding flash of light, then would cry out and lose consciousness for a second or two. Sometimes the epileptic discharge generalized across his brain, producing a secondary tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizure. Afterward he could not recall events and conversations that had occurred during the seizure, and he often felt depressed, guilty and irritable for days. Epilepsy is a central source of themes, personalities, and events in his books; he gave epilepsy to about 30 of his characters.
The other great nineteenth century Russian author, Count Leo Tolstoy, author of Anna Karenina and War and Peace, also had epilepsy.
Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia about 2,300 years ago and one of the greatest generals in history, had epilepsy. At the time epilepsy was known as "the sacred disease" because of the belief that those who had seizures were possessed by evil spirits or touched by the gods and should be treated by invoking mystical powers.
Julius Caesar, another brilliant general and formidable politician, had seizures in the last two years of his life, possibly caused by a brain tumour. Caesar was known to have fallen convulsing into the River Tiber. By this time, epilepsy had become known as "the falling sickness" because the kind of seizures that made a person lose consciousness and fall down were the only kind then recognized as epilepsy. (Complex partial seizures were not recognized until the middle of the nineteenth century.) Human blood was widely regarded by the Romans as having curative powers, and people with epilepsy in Caesar's time were commonly seen sucking blood from fallen gladiators.
Napoleon Bonaparte was probably the most brilliant military figure in history. He too is known to have had epilepsy.
Another extraordinary leader of a very different time and place was Harriet Tubman, the black woman with epilepsy who led hundreds of her fellow slaves from the American South to freedom in Canada on the Underground Railroad. Tubman developed her seizure disorder through sustaining a head injury: her slave master hit her in the head with a rock.
Saint Paul's seizure-like experiences are the best documented of the major religious figures. On the road to Damascus he saw a bright light flashing around him, fell to the ground and was left temporarily blinded by his vision and unable to eat or drink. Paul is thought by some physicians to have had facial motor and sensitive disturbances coming after ecstatic seizures; they have diagnosed him with temporal lobe epilepsy which occasionally developed into secondary tonic-clonic attacks.
Joan of Arc was an uneducated farmer's daughter in a remote village of medieval France who altered the course of history through her amazing military victories. From age thirteen Joan reported ecstatic moments in which she saw flashes of light coming from the side, heard voices of saints and saw visions of angels.
In the opinion of the neurologist Dr. Lydia Bayne, Joan's blissful experiences "in which she felt that the secrets of the universe were about to be revealed to her"- were seizures, and they were triggered by the ringing of church bells. Joan displayed symptoms of a temporal lobe focus epilepsy: specifically, a musicogenic form of reflex epilepsy with an ecstatic aura. Musicogenic epilepsy is generally triggered by particular music which has an emotional significance to the individual. Joan's voices and visions propelled her to become an heroic soldier in the effort to save France from English domination and led to her martyrdom in 1431, burned at the stake as a heretic when she was 19 years old.
Soren Kierkegaard, the brilliant Danish philosopher and religious thinker considered to be the father of existentialism, worked hard at keeping his epilepsy secret.
In the fine arts, Vincent van Gogh is today probably the most widely known and appreciated artist with epilepsy. "The storm within" was how van Gogh described his typical seizure, which consisted of hallucinations, unprovoked feelings of anger, confusion and fear, and floods of early memories that disturbed him because they were outside his control.
Van Gogh also had convulsive seizures; a hospital worker witnessed Vincent having one while painting outside. He was prescribed potassium bromide as an anticonvulsant and ordered to spend countless hours bathing in tubs at the asylum in Saint-Remy. His most troubling seizures peaked with his greatest art in the south of France, where he painted A Starry Night, the extraordinary Self-Portrait, and the famous Crows in the Wheatfields.
There have been a number of prominent composers and musicians with epilepsy. George Frederick Handel, the famous baroque composer of the Messiah, is one. Niccolo Paganini is another. Paganini was an Italian violinist and composer considered by many to be the greatest violinist of all time. The eminent Russian composer of the ballets Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, Peter Tchaikovsky, is believed to have had epilepsy. Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the greatest masters of music, may have had epilepsy as well.
Modern writers who had epilepsy include: Dame Agatha Christie, the leading British writer of mystery novels, and Truman Capote, American author of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Modern actors with epilepsy include Richard Burton, Michael Wilding, Margaux Hemingway and Danny Glover.
On second thought, boy oh boy, that sure puts the pressure on me to be brilliant. Oh well, I can be one of the not so fabulous epileptics that achieved mediocrity in full force.
===
May I also add to this list:
* Hugo Weaving, one of my favorite actors of all time
* Hector Berlioz, super awesome composers, one of my favs
* Robert Schumann, another fav
* Vladamir Lenin
* George Gershwin
* Neil Young
* Leonardo di Vinci
* Michelangelo
* Pythagoras (remember him from Trig?)
* Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
*Jean Clemens, daughter of Mark Twain
* Hikari Oe, musician and son of one of my favorite Japanese authors, Kenzaburo Oe
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Would You Buy My Hair?
Times are tough, Matt's been trying for two months to find a job with no luck, and we're looking into ways to make money.
Matt's been growing his hair for Locks Of Love, and it's at 11 inches, long enough to cut. So I looked up about SELLING hair instead.
Turns out, selling one's hair is big business. 11 inches can fetch an easy $100-200. So I measured my hair (haven't done that in a while) plus the thickness. I compared it to what the going price is for hair my length.
From the nape of the neck to the ends, it's a little over 40 inches. Thickness is 4 1/2 inches. My hair is what's called "virgin hair," in other words, not colored, not permed or treated in any way, and I despise blow dryers. I don't smoke or do drugs (besides my regular meds) or drink heavily. So that's top dollar hair! Plus it's a "natural color," a shade of brown I always hated because it's sort of plain. Some of you may recall when I dyed my hair blue-black in high school It has a limp curl that kinks up if it's short (why I keep it long). That natural waviness is desirable. You should see Matt's hair! He gets the cutest ringlets
According to sites I looked at, I could fetch $2500-3000 for my hair. WOW! Of course, if I cut it, it will not be that short. I look terrible with short hair. Still, 30 inches will fetch $1000 easy.
So, there is one way of making quick money if we really hit bottom. Right now, things aren't that desperate. Matt's folks are helping a lot. Matt is doing everything possible to find a job, even non-tech jobs, like retail or taxi driver, or even a car salesman! Now he's applying to the police academy, anything to get a steady paycheck. Nothing has worked out yet. I'm trying hard to get well enough to reenter the workforce. My seizures are down, which is making my memory issues less of a problem (seriously, waking up and not knowing who you are is very frightening), and my phobias are getting better, probably because the seizures aren't as bad so I'm not as terrified to go out in public. Man, I really hate agoraphobia!
So, I don't have to be Fantine just yet.
(I wonder how many know that reference?)
Matt's been growing his hair for Locks Of Love, and it's at 11 inches, long enough to cut. So I looked up about SELLING hair instead.
Turns out, selling one's hair is big business. 11 inches can fetch an easy $100-200. So I measured my hair (haven't done that in a while) plus the thickness. I compared it to what the going price is for hair my length.
From the nape of the neck to the ends, it's a little over 40 inches. Thickness is 4 1/2 inches. My hair is what's called "virgin hair," in other words, not colored, not permed or treated in any way, and I despise blow dryers. I don't smoke or do drugs (besides my regular meds) or drink heavily. So that's top dollar hair! Plus it's a "natural color," a shade of brown I always hated because it's sort of plain. Some of you may recall when I dyed my hair blue-black in high school It has a limp curl that kinks up if it's short (why I keep it long). That natural waviness is desirable. You should see Matt's hair! He gets the cutest ringlets
According to sites I looked at, I could fetch $2500-3000 for my hair. WOW! Of course, if I cut it, it will not be that short. I look terrible with short hair. Still, 30 inches will fetch $1000 easy.
So, there is one way of making quick money if we really hit bottom. Right now, things aren't that desperate. Matt's folks are helping a lot. Matt is doing everything possible to find a job, even non-tech jobs, like retail or taxi driver, or even a car salesman! Now he's applying to the police academy, anything to get a steady paycheck. Nothing has worked out yet. I'm trying hard to get well enough to reenter the workforce. My seizures are down, which is making my memory issues less of a problem (seriously, waking up and not knowing who you are is very frightening), and my phobias are getting better, probably because the seizures aren't as bad so I'm not as terrified to go out in public. Man, I really hate agoraphobia!
So, I don't have to be Fantine just yet.
(I wonder how many know that reference?)
Monday, January 19, 2009
Can I Restart This Week?
Okay, this had been my week:
Sunday - started getting sick, not a way to start the week.
Monday - flu/cold/something nasty hit me pretty hard.
Tuesday - slept all day... literally! Missed band, rather pissed about it.
Wednesday - sick, blowing my nose, coughing, moaning and groaning, slept through all the crap meds. I don't really recall Mon-Wed.
Thursday - I spent over an hour playing psychologist for my poor stressed out mother (they're about to lose their house and lots of other issues I can't discuss)
Friday - Matt got laid off... again! The day pretty much went downhill from there.
Saturday - My symptoms mutated from snuffly cold to achy flu, I now have no clue what I've caught and it's not getting better. Then to top it off, Capone got diarrhea all over the carpet... joy!
Sunday - I got a call that my brother-in-law's family were in a serious accident; a chunk of metal went through their windshield while driving down the freeway, hit my uncle-in-law in the face, busted his jaw and eye socket, missed piercing his brain by half an inch, then it went through the back of the car and missed his son's head by two inches. The impact knocked him out, and by a miracle his wife managed to grab the wheel and keep them from crashing or flipping. He's in the hospital awaiting massive reconstructive surgery; my sister's family is in shock.
Monday - A new week, I'm just beginning to feel better, then I'm woken up at 2am with a bloody nose. Once that's stopped, my stomach began to seriously cramp up and I realized I started my period. I have a feeling today is not going to turn out good at all.
Then tomorrow.... the most liberal President since FDR will be sworn in. Although he's African American and I'm glad the color barrier that has plagued politics in this country has been broken at last, and he seems very charismatic and surrounding himself with people who know what they're doing, I severely disagree with Obama's views and worry what might become of this country.
(psst, FYI-- Franklin D. Roosevelt used the New Deal to give people jobs, but he prolonged the Depression in the process, and our country could not recover until we were thrust into WWII... so a Socialist President coming into power during a time of financial meltdown with world events looking like a bad Hollywood rendition of Armageddon... yeah, it concerns me. We're praying... a lot!)
I am afraid to wonder what ELSE could happen. If I say it aloud, I might jinx something.
Can I just have a do-over? Where is the reset button on life?
Sunday - started getting sick, not a way to start the week.
Monday - flu/cold/something nasty hit me pretty hard.
Tuesday - slept all day... literally! Missed band, rather pissed about it.
Wednesday - sick, blowing my nose, coughing, moaning and groaning, slept through all the crap meds. I don't really recall Mon-Wed.
Thursday - I spent over an hour playing psychologist for my poor stressed out mother (they're about to lose their house and lots of other issues I can't discuss)
Friday - Matt got laid off... again! The day pretty much went downhill from there.
Saturday - My symptoms mutated from snuffly cold to achy flu, I now have no clue what I've caught and it's not getting better. Then to top it off, Capone got diarrhea all over the carpet... joy!
Sunday - I got a call that my brother-in-law's family were in a serious accident; a chunk of metal went through their windshield while driving down the freeway, hit my uncle-in-law in the face, busted his jaw and eye socket, missed piercing his brain by half an inch, then it went through the back of the car and missed his son's head by two inches. The impact knocked him out, and by a miracle his wife managed to grab the wheel and keep them from crashing or flipping. He's in the hospital awaiting massive reconstructive surgery; my sister's family is in shock.
Monday - A new week, I'm just beginning to feel better, then I'm woken up at 2am with a bloody nose. Once that's stopped, my stomach began to seriously cramp up and I realized I started my period. I have a feeling today is not going to turn out good at all.
Then tomorrow.... the most liberal President since FDR will be sworn in. Although he's African American and I'm glad the color barrier that has plagued politics in this country has been broken at last, and he seems very charismatic and surrounding himself with people who know what they're doing, I severely disagree with Obama's views and worry what might become of this country.
(psst, FYI-- Franklin D. Roosevelt used the New Deal to give people jobs, but he prolonged the Depression in the process, and our country could not recover until we were thrust into WWII... so a Socialist President coming into power during a time of financial meltdown with world events looking like a bad Hollywood rendition of Armageddon... yeah, it concerns me. We're praying... a lot!)
I am afraid to wonder what ELSE could happen. If I say it aloud, I might jinx something.
Can I just have a do-over? Where is the reset button on life?
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The Plot Less Traveled
Matt gave a warm reception to my latest chapter. It involved him running into the living room, grabbing me up, jumping up and down, shouting "Gimme more, gimme more! Want next chapter! More! More!" I think that's the most encouraging reception I've ever received.
Any writer knows, no matter how you plot your novel, no matter how detailed the outline or extensive the notes, sometimes an event happens that you just don't expect. In my case, Matt has been watching Charmed reruns for months, going through the entire series, and is now going back through for episodes he particularly liked. He has ideas he wants to see done in Shadowstrider. Some things I think are intriguing, some I just raise an eyebrow and tell him firmly "No!"
I have a character with psionic abilities. Matt's idea was to have this character able to, for lack of a better word, teleport. It's a lot cooler explained than simply she can go from one place to another instantaneously, but I'm trying to keep things vague so I won't spoil any plotiness.
This concept of teleportation was solely Matt's idea, having watched a dozen ways the demons, witches, and white-lighters do this on the television show. A cheap plot device, hero has to get ten miles away to save helpless dame from evil demon, but jumping into your car and driving that far, especially in San Francisco where the show takes place, will take such a long time, our hapless dame would be worse than dead by then. How do we shorten the episode time and make things more fast-paced and exciting? Oh wow, look, they can teleport anywhere, and lookie, simple computer graphics make it all so pretty!
Matt basically wants to turn my character into a white-lighters, "orbing" from one place to another, with the body dissolving into white glowing orbs of energy that float away. The concept of turning into energy was one I established back in Book 3, and this is Book 8, so it's not something new. In Book 7, it is a major issue in almost a third of the story. Other characters have turned into energy, but energy has to travel. Going from point A to point B can be done super quick, but teleporting? I dunno...
So we've been haggling how to handle this. Charmed is all about magic. Shadowstrider makes fun of the possibilities that exist in the realm of science being passed off as impossible and therefore shoved into the catch-all phrase of "magic." So whatever it is I'm doing, it has to be within the laws of physics. E=mc^2
Of course, all of Books 7 & 8 are Matt's idea. If I stray from the usual pattern, I can blame him. The two of us, over dinner at Shari's, came up with an outline for these two books, but it was generalized for the most part. I have strayed from so many key issues. Just a few days ago, I went through and changed the names of three characters, including one who is mentioned in all ten books. About to wrap this story up, and I'm making massive changes like that!
Then again, the fun things about plot outlines is deviating away from them and seeing what strange areas we end up in.
At least the reception he gave me after reading the finish chapter was good.
Any writer knows, no matter how you plot your novel, no matter how detailed the outline or extensive the notes, sometimes an event happens that you just don't expect. In my case, Matt has been watching Charmed reruns for months, going through the entire series, and is now going back through for episodes he particularly liked. He has ideas he wants to see done in Shadowstrider. Some things I think are intriguing, some I just raise an eyebrow and tell him firmly "No!"
I have a character with psionic abilities. Matt's idea was to have this character able to, for lack of a better word, teleport. It's a lot cooler explained than simply she can go from one place to another instantaneously, but I'm trying to keep things vague so I won't spoil any plotiness.
This concept of teleportation was solely Matt's idea, having watched a dozen ways the demons, witches, and white-lighters do this on the television show. A cheap plot device, hero has to get ten miles away to save helpless dame from evil demon, but jumping into your car and driving that far, especially in San Francisco where the show takes place, will take such a long time, our hapless dame would be worse than dead by then. How do we shorten the episode time and make things more fast-paced and exciting? Oh wow, look, they can teleport anywhere, and lookie, simple computer graphics make it all so pretty!
Matt basically wants to turn my character into a white-lighters, "orbing" from one place to another, with the body dissolving into white glowing orbs of energy that float away. The concept of turning into energy was one I established back in Book 3, and this is Book 8, so it's not something new. In Book 7, it is a major issue in almost a third of the story. Other characters have turned into energy, but energy has to travel. Going from point A to point B can be done super quick, but teleporting? I dunno...
So we've been haggling how to handle this. Charmed is all about magic. Shadowstrider makes fun of the possibilities that exist in the realm of science being passed off as impossible and therefore shoved into the catch-all phrase of "magic." So whatever it is I'm doing, it has to be within the laws of physics. E=mc^2
Of course, all of Books 7 & 8 are Matt's idea. If I stray from the usual pattern, I can blame him. The two of us, over dinner at Shari's, came up with an outline for these two books, but it was generalized for the most part. I have strayed from so many key issues. Just a few days ago, I went through and changed the names of three characters, including one who is mentioned in all ten books. About to wrap this story up, and I'm making massive changes like that!
Then again, the fun things about plot outlines is deviating away from them and seeing what strange areas we end up in.
At least the reception he gave me after reading the finish chapter was good.
Friday, January 09, 2009
The Sex Scene
A writer friend and I were discussing sex scenes in novels. These tend to go three ways:
1) PG-13 fluff, man and woman kiss, maybe go so far as to collapse together in a bed, cut scene before anyone gets naked;
2) trashy romance novels, rippling muscles, heaving breasts;
3) smut-books, oh-baby-god-yes with screaming profanity.
In her endearingly blatant way, my friend brought up that people either fear any form of romantic involvement between characters (oh dear, high schools can't force their apathetic students to analyze your novel), they read Fanny Hill as a teen and think anything vaguely erotic has to contain enough nearly-archaic words to make the reader forget what is going on as they research a dictionary (example: "lo, a turgid passion did throb in the weapon of his manhood as, through the revealing casement, he beheld the swathes of virescent and rufous chenille tumble off the junoesque ingénue, disclosing her swart opulence, as her limpid orbs gazed wistfully into the hesperian blush of the gloaming welkin"), or they are oversexed (or even more likely, undersexed) slash wannabes who believe every moan of the porno business, that sex really can't be good unless it involves oral, vaginal, and anal sex with a cum shot and lots of vulgarities. Androgynous boys and lesbian twins help, too. And fetishes. Lots of fetishes.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but the last thing I want to hear as I experience utter physical bliss is a guy yelling "oh f***, yeah, you b****, I f***ing love how you f*** my c*ck." Just ... no!
In the book I'm currently working on, more than in any other serious project, I'm faced with many explicit scenes as my young main character discovers love in its many forms, from cute teen love with fears of loss of virginity, to endearing romance and walks along the beach, to the persistent jerk who only wants a wife, to total WTF oddities only possible in the realm of science fiction. Therefore, I've been experimenting with how many ways to present the trouble of a love scene.
I've already had my husband tell me to tone down one scene, and for my own defense, I knew it was over the top, reaching into Category 3: the smut novel. It was an experiment in writing, done mostly because I wanted to see if I could write that graphically. I got it out of my system, yay me, time to get serious again and at least tame it to rated R. After all, I want Barnes and Noble to be able to sell this book, not Fanny Hill's Bordello of Books.
I've also gone so far as to write a whole love scene in which I say very little about what the two characters are doing, but by describing what is going on around them (sex on the beach is very nature-filled) I show the reader precisely what is going on in my own roundabout way. And yes, there are many cutaway scenes, nothing more than pulling toward the bedroom, then cut to the next morning. After all, a reader doesn't have to be told the gory details every time a couple copulates or the intensity of the scene vanishes into blasé acceptance. Ho hum, she's at it again.
One thing I aim for in any lovemaking scene is the "love" part, an element too often missing in novels these days. Even if it's with a total stranger or friend-with-benefits, there has got to be a reason, emotions the character feels. I don't want to be Lady Chatterley's Lover and spend ten pages delving into his/her emotional mindset, not when it'll probably take the reader longer to read all that emo-tripe than it would take them to have the ride of their life, but I think a reader deserves to know just why Johnny and Susy are playing hanky-panky in the backseat of a Buick.
Crude? Verbose? Coy? The nice thing about this current project is I have 800+ pages already (yeah, major editing needed) to experiment a little with it all, from the adorable to the abnormal. And if it's too much, that's what editors are for. I'm sure, like my husband, someone's going to tell me to take it down a few notches.
1) PG-13 fluff, man and woman kiss, maybe go so far as to collapse together in a bed, cut scene before anyone gets naked;
2) trashy romance novels, rippling muscles, heaving breasts;
3) smut-books, oh-baby-god-yes with screaming profanity.
In her endearingly blatant way, my friend brought up that people either fear any form of romantic involvement between characters (oh dear, high schools can't force their apathetic students to analyze your novel), they read Fanny Hill as a teen and think anything vaguely erotic has to contain enough nearly-archaic words to make the reader forget what is going on as they research a dictionary (example: "lo, a turgid passion did throb in the weapon of his manhood as, through the revealing casement, he beheld the swathes of virescent and rufous chenille tumble off the junoesque ingénue, disclosing her swart opulence, as her limpid orbs gazed wistfully into the hesperian blush of the gloaming welkin"), or they are oversexed (or even more likely, undersexed) slash wannabes who believe every moan of the porno business, that sex really can't be good unless it involves oral, vaginal, and anal sex with a cum shot and lots of vulgarities. Androgynous boys and lesbian twins help, too. And fetishes. Lots of fetishes.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but the last thing I want to hear as I experience utter physical bliss is a guy yelling "oh f***, yeah, you b****, I f***ing love how you f*** my c*ck." Just ... no!
In the book I'm currently working on, more than in any other serious project, I'm faced with many explicit scenes as my young main character discovers love in its many forms, from cute teen love with fears of loss of virginity, to endearing romance and walks along the beach, to the persistent jerk who only wants a wife, to total WTF oddities only possible in the realm of science fiction. Therefore, I've been experimenting with how many ways to present the trouble of a love scene.
I've already had my husband tell me to tone down one scene, and for my own defense, I knew it was over the top, reaching into Category 3: the smut novel. It was an experiment in writing, done mostly because I wanted to see if I could write that graphically. I got it out of my system, yay me, time to get serious again and at least tame it to rated R. After all, I want Barnes and Noble to be able to sell this book, not Fanny Hill's Bordello of Books.
I've also gone so far as to write a whole love scene in which I say very little about what the two characters are doing, but by describing what is going on around them (sex on the beach is very nature-filled) I show the reader precisely what is going on in my own roundabout way. And yes, there are many cutaway scenes, nothing more than pulling toward the bedroom, then cut to the next morning. After all, a reader doesn't have to be told the gory details every time a couple copulates or the intensity of the scene vanishes into blasé acceptance. Ho hum, she's at it again.
One thing I aim for in any lovemaking scene is the "love" part, an element too often missing in novels these days. Even if it's with a total stranger or friend-with-benefits, there has got to be a reason, emotions the character feels. I don't want to be Lady Chatterley's Lover and spend ten pages delving into his/her emotional mindset, not when it'll probably take the reader longer to read all that emo-tripe than it would take them to have the ride of their life, but I think a reader deserves to know just why Johnny and Susy are playing hanky-panky in the backseat of a Buick.
Crude? Verbose? Coy? The nice thing about this current project is I have 800+ pages already (yeah, major editing needed) to experiment a little with it all, from the adorable to the abnormal. And if it's too much, that's what editors are for. I'm sure, like my husband, someone's going to tell me to take it down a few notches.
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