Cherie Priest

Friday 4:00, Montreal/Vancouver room - Steampunk: From Fiction to Reality. Steampunk has made the leap from the printed page to being one of the fastest growing subcultures around. Come to this panel and learn how the steampunk aesthetic is influencing fashion, music, and lifestyle.

Friday 8:30 p.m., Montreal/Vancouver room - Bad Mojo. An exploration of magic, psionics, and “wild talents” in dark fantasy and urban fantasy.

Saturday 11:15 a.m., Decatur, Georgia - [:: Not at the DragonCon site ::] SFF panel with me, Kevin J. Anderson, John Scalzi, and Tobias Buckell at the Decatur Book Festival.

Saturday 10:00 p.m. Montreal/Vancouver room - Mondo Zombie. Because you demanded it, the long-awaited presentation on zombies in literature! A panel of writers talks about how they have used the icon of “the walking dead” in their creative works.

Sunday 2:30 p.m., M301 - M304 - Signing/autograph session.

So come out and find me! I’m arriving on Thursday afternoon and leaving Sunday immediately after that signing to head up to my dad’s in Kentucky for a few days. I’m always happy to meet readers and fans, and I’ve got some space in between my scheduled activities, here and there.

I’m going to try and log off shortly, in order to pack and plan for travel, but I’ll still be around until this evening. Aric* and I will be leaving at Oh-Hell-No-thirty in the morning, and Lord knows what internet time or access I’ll have during the convention itself.

So I wrap this up with fond hopes to see some of you down in the ATL, and a superbly retouched photo from yesterday’s set, courtesy of LJ’s own Kakaze.

Have a good one, folks!
I’ll catch you on the other side.

Today I spent much of the afternoon at the park with Caitlin Kittredge, where we played dress-up and took pictures. Then we grabbed Aric and jaunted off to see Death Race, which was exactly what it was supposed to be. It was awful, and awesome. I’ll try to compose a proper review tomorrow, but I’ll also spend tomorrow packing and preparing for DragonCon so we’ll see how much time I can snag to spend online in the morning.

I am pleased to note that Caitlin seems pretty happy with her pictures. You can see the full set here, on her Flickr page. And you should totally go and look, because she’s absolutely lovely.

I am also tickled pink by the shots she took of me. She did an amazing job; she’s not just a wonderful model, but she’s a damn fine photographer, too. My favorite shot (of me) is below this jump cut. Click “read more” to see it.

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* Have you written a zombie novel? The inimitable Night Shade Books wants to hear from you, or at least, its proprietor Jeremy Lassen does. Click the link for details. Favorite post excerpt quote: “If you have a completed zombie novel, and it doesn’t suck …”

* I don’t appreciate the attempt to put a woman’s birth control choices in the hands of someone other than the woman concerned. There’s been a great deal of discussion re: the leaked memo and a certain politician’s quest to see birth control reclassified as abortion. We’ve got until September 30 to be heard. Go to Tamora Pierce’s journal for a collection of useful links on the subject.

* Anachronistic Victorian post-apocalyptic field nurse costume — not a joke. It’s coming together nicely, in fact. This afternoon I’m going to wander down the hill and make one last grab at thrifting my way to a more appropriate (plainer, long-sleeved) shirt to wear beneath the apron. I’m shooting for the “I just amputated a soldier’s arm with a hacksaw, then I delivered a baby and fought my way through a horde of zombies, punk, so what’ve you done today?” vibe.

* Geek Ink. Comics fans show off tattoos; some are better than others, most are quite impressive. I’m all about embracing it and permanently displaying it, baby.

In the wake of my previous post about the post-apocalyptic Victorian steampunk nurse character, I’ve experienced something of an outcry from nursing professionals. That post generated several LiveJournal comments endorsing the idea, as well as two emails on the subject — all from folks who are totally psyched about the prospect of a nurse-hero, if only I would see about writing one.

So it got me thinking, and it got me doing a smidge of research. If I were to set such a figure in the same alternate-history universe as BONESHAKER, that’d put her (she’d almost certainly need to be a woman) in 1879-1880, while the Civil War is still swinging. Since western medicine in the 19th century was — let’s be fair — something of a giant effing joke, I wondered if I could find a good example of healthcare badassery that would lend itself to spinning off a nurse hardcore enough to traverse the war-blasted zones of the south and midwest.*

There will definitely be roving bands of outlaws and raiders, Native American conflicts of interest, and there might even be a few mutant-style zombies. You never know. Regardless, she’d have to be one tough customer.

Then I remembered something about a Confederate hospital in Richmond, and a few minutes of googling took me to Sally Louisa Tompkins. When I saw her private hospital’s righteous stats — 1333 patients, only 73 deaths in 4 years of active warfare — I said to myself, “Self, this is the kind of operation that could spawn a nurse such as I require for snappy genre fiction.”

I don’t want to use Captain Sally, mind you; if the war were still going on in the 1970s there’s no doubt that she would’ve been soldiering on in her hospital, serving the war wounded. But there were half a dozen doctors and a score of other personnel working beneath her, and I’m pretty sure I can nab one of those folks for fictional purposes. Or, yanno. Create one. Whatever.

Anyway, this post was just to say to the eager R.N.s out there — yes, I’m thinking about it. And maybe once I get back from DragonCon, I’ll have a chance to noodle around on it. It’s entirely possible that you’ve shoved me down the track of a pretty cool idea.

A couple of days ago I started seeing signs around my apartment for several blocks, indicating that we were not permitted to park, well, pretty much anywhere come August 24th or we’d be towed. The situation looked frankly desperate; we live in the most densely populated residential neighborhood in the city, and for the vast majority of us, there’s nothing but street parking available.

I expressed my concern and outright consternation to Ellen, with the added complaint of, “What am I supposed to do with the Sentra? Stuff it up my ass?” And that’s when Ellen told me about Mayor Nickels and his idiotic Car Free Days initiative.

Apparently, stunts like this are intended to “open up the streets for pedestrians” and “encourage residents to drive less.” We are hereby commanded by our clueless civic overlords to imagine what the streets would be like with fewer cars and embrace the resulting idyllic, emissions-free utopia. Apparently this utopia will be populated by loud festivities, street dancers, buskers, and bouncy castles.

Well Mayor Nickels, the thought of awakening every morning to loud festivities, street dancers, buskers, and bouncy castles makes me want to go buy another spare car or two just to preemptively clog the streets, thank you very much.

Under every normal situation apart from parades, streets are for vehicles, not people. And if the idea is to prevent cars from puttering around town, I can assure you that this initiative is a dismal failure. When about ten blocks (I am guestimating) around my home — and the homes of thousands of other people — are declared NO PARKING zones, WTF do you think happens to all the folks who park there every day? If you’re my husband, you spend half an hour driving around the hill, desperately trying to find a place to leave your car. If you’re me, you do all your driving errands the day before this farce, hoping to return home early enough to find a parking place within a mile of your apartment.* If you’re my neighbors, you do laps around the hill in your little red truck, swearing your way through the forest of NO PARKING signs.

I daresay several thousand other people have had similar experiences over the last 24 hours. And the great and terrible irony here is that the vast majority of car-owning people who live in this neighborhood … almost never drive those cars. My husband’s vehicle had been sitting in the same spot for a couple of weeks until he was forced to relocate it. My own car gets likewise left for days at a stretch. Most of my neighbors? Ditto. Therefore I shudder to calculate the additional driving miles heaped upon the Seattle area thanks to this preposterous little exercise in visionary motivation.

If the city leaders really wanted me to drive less, they’d do a better job of funding public transportation — which I am more than happy to make use of, when it’s actually running where I want to go, on a schedule that meets my needs. But this asshattery? This is absurd, and the mayor can bite me.

Later on tonight, I’m going to have to drive my car unnecessarily again and wander around trying to score yet another parking place. Because the only spot I could find yesterday was in a 2-hour zone, and if I’m still there come Monday morning, I’ll get a goddamned ticket.

[Edited to add: HA! After a couple of hours, the event was rained out. The streets are open once more.]

Today I pestered Ellen into taking me out to the army surplus store in Belltown — where I paid cash dollars American for items that, if I’d thought to ask for them sooner, my dad could’ve probably pulled out from under the bed and mailed to me for basically nothing.* But DragonCon is right around the corner and time is short. Costuming waits for no one. So I’m now the proud owner of a kicky Red-Cross-style canvas medic bag, a tin canteen, an assortment of field pouches, and more.

Why? Well, I’ll tell you — and as soon as I do tell you, I’m bound to get a dozen emails and comments arguing with me, but here you go: Because I was thinking about all things steampunk (I might as well; I’m doing another panel on it this coming weekend), and for some reason the idea of character classes came bouncing around in my brain, and I realized that in all my steampunk wanderings I have noticed many mechanics … but virtually no medical professionals of any kind. No doctors except mad scientists, no field medics, no nurses, no midwives, or helpful therapists.

Ergo, for my second evening-running-around-dressed-up outfit for DragonCon, you’ll be seeing me dressed as a beleaguered post-apocalyptic Victorian nurse. And if you’re about to guess that I might consider writing a story based on such a premise,** then you would not be too far off base.

Anyway. I’d continue to gush about the shallow fashion details, but I want to haul out my bags o’ steampunk hardware and noodle with the finer points of the outfit. Also, I think I’m getting hungry. Maybe I should make supper first. Mmm. Supper…

Sorry I’ve been so quiet lately; I’ve been pretty sick for the last couple of weeks, and I’ve also been working a lot — you know how these things go. Even so, in between the coughing and the writing, I managed to nab Kat for lunch, and I had a good time puttering around Bellevue with Ellen in search of fine paper goods and her freshly repaired sewing machine.

And now I’m interrupting my Friday ritual of housework in order to meet Melly and Neil, who are bopping up from Tacoma for an afternoon investigation of Archie McPhee and maybe lunch. I’ll see if I can’t talk them into Bad Albert’s; it’s been awhile since I’ve had a nibble on one of Seattle’s finest fish sandwiches.

So now I prepare to dash off again, but I leave you with a new site around which you might care to poke: Podiobooks.com. Podiobooks serializes free audio books from a variety of sources, and there’s much to investigate. I don’t have any affiliation with this site or anything, so I can assure you that I’m not “selling something” by linking it … but I do freely admit that my old pal Abigail Hilton is using the site to present her epic modern fantasy novel The Prophet of Panamindorah under a Creative Commons license.

Coilhouse: Issue #1 - on sale now. “Get ready for 96 glossy, full-color pages of art, photography, music, fashion and literature. In this issue, the stark android beauty created by Andy Julia for our cover is counterbalanced inside by his elegant portfolio of vintage-style nudes.” Oh yes. You want to go take a look at this.

Why we deserve better villains. i09 tackles an issue I’ve considered more than once, to varying degrees of depth and success. I don’t agree with every single thing in the entry, but I appreciate that someone is thinking about it, and talking about it.

Happy birthday, dear Howard. You weird and wonderful son of a bitch.

Mummified remains from a 1948 plane crash identified. ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Map, News) - Nine years of sleuthing, advanced DNA science and cutting-edge forensic techniques have finally put a name to a mummified hand and arm found in an Alaska glacier.

Yoda heard what you said just now. Of course he did. He has four ears. Actually, the auxiliary set of ears looks more like devil horns, but that’s cool too.

A steampunk wedding. Too damn cute! More pictures available here. A tip of my favorite tiny top hat goes to Richelle for passing this link along.

(Via my old friend Andrea:) Despite opposition from the community, historians, and Civil War enthusiasts alike, Walmart is planning to build a 141,000 sq. ft. Superstore next to the Wilderness and Chancellorsville Battlefields — just feet away from the battleground that hosted the first showdown between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant.*

The store will be built at the intersections of routes 3 and 20 in Orange County, VA. This is within the historic limits of the Wilderness battlefield, but not technically within the boundaries of the national park — and therefore, the state historic commissions cannot block the development. Not only would this Superstore pave over land where soldiers from both sides fought and died, this little corner of Virginia is one of those places where Mom & Pop general stores still actually flourish, and Wal-Mart will very likely put an end to that.

But the Civil War Preservation Trust** is kicking back, rallying the opposition forces in a valiant effort to force Walmart to reconsider. Before you roll your eyes about another internet petition, do be aware — these kinds of movements have worked before, successfully blocking Walmart and other major retailers from environmentally and/or historically sensitive locations.

So if you’ve got a minute, please consider visiting this helpful website, operated by the Trust. Fill out their survey, send off a sternly worded letter, and customize your message right there on the screen before sending it off to the Walmart executives. You can also poke around and find specifics and documentation on the process, as well as historic context, maps, and photographs.

It’s a good cause, guys.
Go check it out.

So the internet is formally restored unto my home, and that’s a beautiful thing — but I’d be lying if I said there’d been much of anything else afoot. I’ve been pretty sick off and on for the last week, but I’m much better today; though my under-the-weatherness has come to mean that the apartment is trashed and we’re out of food, so I need to get off my duff today and take care of that.

Anyway, today you get a links post, because (a). I have some cool links that I want to archive here for my own personal convenience and (b). it’s easier and faster than generating new content. Let it not be said that I ever mislead you on my motives.

* The last Victorian Leviathan steam ship. (Built in 1858) An Iron Monster, framed in a cloud of billowing white sails, or looming through the hellish black smoke - this was the ultimate Victorian luxury Trans-Atlantic liner, affectionately called the “great babe” by its eccentric designer.

* John Stewart: Most Trusted Man in America. I may be preaching at the choir here, but I really love this guy. “It’s been more than eight years since “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” made its first foray into presidential politics with the presciently named Indecision 2000, and the difference in the show’s approach to its coverage then and now provides a tongue-in-cheek measure of the show’s striking evolution.”

* Contemporary retro-futurism. Or something. I love Currier and Ives prints. That one over on io9 reminds me of a (unrelated) little 6×18-inch fold-out print I own that depicts a 19th century Japanese painting envisioning what life in America must be like. (I picked it up at S.A.M., and intend to frame it one day. It’s gorgeous, and dirigibles feature prominently.) [Edit: It’s a print of this piece, Amerikakoku, by Utagawa Yoshitora.]

* Dottie Collins, 84, Star Pitcher of Women’s Baseball League, Dies. I’ve been interested in the WBL ever since I learned of it years ago while living near Evansville, Indiana (where A League of Their Own was filmed). “Pitching for six seasons in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, created in 1943 to provide home front entertainment while many major leaguers were off to war, Collins dazzled opposing batters.”

* Texas Mormon fringe sect may lose 8 of its 400 kids. I’ve already said my piece on this matter, but the follow-up remains interesting. I think that the lawyers are right to debate if this is further religious persecution; but I think it also shows some back-pedaling on the parts of these mothers who previously vowed to vigorously and openly obey all laws in order to retrieve their children.

Something is wrong with my home internet connection, thus I bring you this blog post from the Tully’s down the hill from my apartment. I noticed that things were amiss with the web this morning, but I didn’t have time to noodle with it before Ellen turned up so we could wander off to Bellevue; but as soon as I returned home I unplugged, reset, and rebooted everything in the apartment to no avail. It’s not our hardware, it’s our service. Either Aric will fix it when he gets home, or it will randomly fix itself later on. Whatever.

Anyway, I’m alive and all is well, but you can reasonably expect that I’ll be offline for the rest of the afternoon and maybe longer, barring unforeseen miracle.

I’d like to hang around and surf some more, but the air conditioner is cranked down to “Arctic” in here and I forgot to bring a sweater, so I’m out of here before I lose some fingers or toes.

My new story “Tanglefoot” has been bought by Subterranean Magazine! I will now perform the ceremonial “Not Gonna Starve at DragonCon” bootydance of utmost glee.

[:: groove-thang commences shaking ::]

Yesterday afternoon I drove out to Bellevue, in order to visit with Caitlin after her dentist’s appointment. Together we snuck into a bar for supper — where we were lucky enough to catch Ladies Night overlapping with happy hour. We didn’t do any drinking, but we helped ourselves to the happy hour menu and gorged ourselves for a collective price of about fifteen bucks. SCORE.

The food was pretty good, but by about six o’clock we were surrounded and vastly outnumbered by scores of inebriated, overdressed women prowling the place in various states of disarray. One of them approached Caitlin’s personal pizza, sniffed so deeply that she nearly dropped her hair into the plate, and swung a set of over-long, manicured fingernails over it like she was casting a spell. Then she demanded to know if “it was good enough to eat.”

At least, I think that’s what she asked. She was brightly lit, and none too articulate. For a minute there, I seriously thought this woman was going to swoop a finger through the cheese and stuff it in her mouth, or at least do a face-plant in the waffle fries; but instead she burbled at us about what she was going to order from the happy hour menu and staggered off.

Caitlin made this face: O_o

Once we were happily stuffed with bar food, we moseyed the mall for an hour or two and noodled around in a store that was crammed with D&G fashions which we can’t seriously afford, but seriously giggled over regardless. And then, it was movie-time. That’s right. We went and saw Tropic Thunder (from whence this post’s title cometh).

In 100 words or less: Due to excessive princess-like behavior, five actors bungle a Vietnam movie based on a bestselling book. The book’s author (a comically grizzled vet, played by Nick Nolte) recommends that the director dump the actors in the jungle and film guerrilla-style. This works fine until the actors stumble into a Myanmar poppy-processing operation and fail to notice that they’ve gone off-script. Cameos abound. Tom Cruise is a gruesome, powerful, oddly compelling Hollywood big-wig; Bill Hader is a flunky; Matthew McConaughey is a pecker.

General Impressions: This one’s worth the price of admission purely for the “advertisements” and “movie previews” at the beginning, wherein we see our hapless actors playing other roles. If no one ever makes Satan’s Alley into a real film with Robert Downey Jr. and Tobey McGuire as hand-holding monks, I will make a big cry. Flashy, filthy, and honestly funny more often than not, Tropic Thunder is a fairly strong comedy — but the story becomes hit-or-miss when it tries to lend depth to the players.

Deeper Impressions: Unsurprisingly, Tropic Thunder talks primarily about artifice and reality; but surprisingly, it sometimes becomes a little complex. RDJ’s character (the fake black guy) takes the situation seriously because he stays in character, and he’s the most “successful” performer/survivor in that regard — but he walks a strange line between insisting on his role and being more aware of the real-life peril than the other guys. There’s evidence to imply that he’s the smartest member of this band of brothers, but there’s also evidence that his method acting may have taken him off the deep end.

Later in the movie, there’s a lot of back-and-forth about people with weak personalities but strong egos, and how they might tangle their identities into crippling knots of insecurity. But these scenes of quasi-depth and attempted development often drag on too long, and bog themselves down with deliberately wacky wordplay and exposition.

Recommendations: Not remotely for children. Probably best viewed in a crowded theater surrounded by people who have a semi-silly sense of humor. I laughed a lot during this one, but I was later forced to wonder if it would’ve been so funny if I’d seen it under different circumstances.

I give you … word metrics. I’ve finished Draft Zero of “Tanglefoot” and it’s far longer than anticipated (no big surprise for me, really); tomorrow I’ll whittle it down and tighten it up, then I’ll pass it along to an interested party for editorial assessment.

Project: “Tanglefoot”
New Words: 7773 (across 3 days)
Present Total Word Count: 11,171
Goal: 7000 words (guestimation FAIL)





Fiction Things Accomplished: Completed Draft Zero for my story about a senile scientist and his orphan apprentice. It certainly took a dark and terrible turn somewhere in the middle — which is good, I think. I’ll try and even it out a bit when I tackle it tomorrow for revisions.

Real Life Things Accomplished: Mailed off some bills; exchanged many emails; made plans with Caitlin for movies and goofing off tomorrow night; ate a pot of Mac ‘N Cheese which isn’t quite agreeing with me; contemplated going thrifting and restrained myself because I had lots of work to do.

Stumbling blocks: This isn’t so much a “stumbling block” as food for thought — but last night I was chatting with Aric and it dawned on me that “the BONESHAKER universe” is sort of a mouthful and it’s altogether inadequate. If I intend to write more and disparate stories set in this weird little alternate history morass, I really need a label that will umbrella the whole batch of it — Boneshaker, Clementine, short stories like “Tanglefoot,” and anything else I might try to compose with this setting as a backdrop. Brainstorming occurred. Ideas were bounced off esteemed colleagues. And now I think I’ve got something cool, and I’m trying to write a 200-300 word abstract for it. I’ll provide details later, if I decide that it doesn’t suck.

Reason for Stopping: Finished the draft. Also, I want to drag out the vacuum and give the apartment a quick run-down before husband gets home from work. Cat has dumped kibble all over the kitchen, and the crumbs from eating at my desk have achieved a downright embarrassing state.

Total Fiction Words Composed in 2008: 257,413

I didn’t quite finish “Tanglefoot” today, for no good reason except that it’s running longer than I anticipated. I’ll try to wrap it up tonight while Aric’s at his martial arts class, but we’ll see how it goes.

In order to distract you from my failure, I offer up kitty pictures.

Click the link below to see more camera-strap violence, copious cat belly, and etcetera.
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It’s been one hell of a weekend — not quite as hectic as the weekend scarcely survived by Mark & Caroline, but busy nonetheless. Please allow me to sum up briefly, with bullet points, because I need to sit down and finish my story-in-progress before I go nuts.

* Friday we went and saw the most recent installation of The Mummy franchise. I found it tough to swallow that Brendan Frasier is old enough to be the father of this 20-something dude, but maybe that just dates me. It was fluffy and fun, despite its aggravating replacement of Rachel Weisz (as Evelyn Carnahan) and the laughable CGI yetis. And seriously — how cool must it be to BE Jet Li? Every morning I bet he wakes up, stares in the mirror, and says, “Today, I’m going to wear the coolest clothes, display the baddest moves, and generally kick ass, as per usual.”

* The Little Internet Petition That Could has gained a couple thousand signatures since Friday. That’s nice. Is it earth-changing? No, surely not. But it’s nice, and I fully support their efforts.

* Saturday, there was a book-release party for Richelle Mead’s latest, Storm Born (which you should totally buy and read). The shindig occurred at the home of Richelle’s S.O., and Team Seattle was in Full Effect (except for Kat, who thumbed her nose at us by going to WorldCon. Like we blame her, or something). Aric and I drank hurricanes. Then we tried to learn how to play Zombie Fluxx. One of these things was generally more successful than the other. Mark wrote more about the evening here.

* I got several thousand words of writing done, and will try to finish “Tanglefoot” today, after lunch. Lunch took most of the morning to sort out, since we desperately needed some groceries; but now the fridge is semi-full again, and once more I have a package of veggie hot dogs from Trader Joe’s sitting on top of a tub of ground beef — for I am nothing if not inconsistent.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Have a good one, folks, and I’ll come back with writing metrics this afternoon (or so it is to be hoped).

I realize that not everyone in the world gives a damn about this, but I do — and maybe you do, too — so I’m going to go ahead and circulate an internet petition. Ridiculous? Yes. Pointless? Absolutely. Useless? More than likely.

But as part of MTV’s ongoing quest to meddle itself into absolute irrelevance, there are plans in place to remake The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (Play the YouTube video below to see the original full-length trailer from 1975.)

For God’s sake, leave it alone! It’s a kitsch relic, a moral abomination, and a cheaply preposterous cult piece, and that’s just how I like it.

I’ve been hijacked by a short story. It’s set in the BONESHAKER universe, though it has nothing to do with any of the characters in that book; and I’m fairly confident that it will stand alone just fine when I’m finished. Ordinarily it takes me the better part of a week to compose this kind of thing, but writing is going smoothly and I’m pleased with what I’ve got so far.

Project: “Tanglefoot”
New Words: 3398 (not bad)
Present Total Word Count: 3398
Goal: 7000 words (guestimation)





First Sentence: “Hunkered shoulders and skinny, bent knees cast a crooked shadow from the back corner of the laboratory, where the old man tried to remember the next step in his formula, or possibly — as Edwin was forced to consider — the scientist simply struggled to recall his own name. ”

Fiction Things Accomplished: Established the dear and formerly estimable Dr. Archibald Smeeks, who presently resides in the basement of the Waverly Hills Sanitarium with his young assistant Edwin — an orphan whose mother (an inmate) died there three years previously. Edwin is a bit lonely, and he’s a bit useful with tools, just like his senile mentor. He’s always had a hard time finding friends; so now he’s found it easier to simply make one.

Real Life Things Accomplished: Not much, frankly. Corresponded with agent; chatted with Justine a bit via IM; cleaned off my desk; did a little housework; arranged a viewing of a movie this evening with husband and friend; made myself a tuna sandwich and ate some leftover birthday cookies.

Stumbling blocks: It’s hard to start a new story, even when it’s a new story in a familiar world. But now that I’m rolling, I hope to have it nailed down over the weekend — Richelle’s book release party and costume preparations for DragonCon notwithstanding.

Reason for Stopping: I’m getting hungry and the apartment is still a little dirty. I always try to start the weekend with a fresh living space, so I suppose that means I’m going to have to clean the litterbox now.

Total Fiction Words Composed in 2008: 249,640

So Richelle has already posted her pictures from Tuesday’s event, including a picture of me and Caitlin Kittredge “milking something for all it was worth.” In retrospect, I cannot recall what precisely we were pretending to milk, but it sure as hell made for a goofy picture. Drat you, Jay — and your stealth photography tactics!

Anyway, since I had no stealth minion to assist me, my shots are perhaps less titillating. But here they are regardless.

Behold, Kat Richardson and Richelle Mead — relaxed and happy before the readings/signings:

And click the little “more” button below to see … well … more.
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Yesterday I finished something I’d been putting off for weeks: I finally Fed-Exed a vial of my own pee to a laboratory in Chicago. You’d think, since pee is something most folks make every damn day, that it wouldn’t be such a big deal to collect half a cup and chuck it into the Fed-Ex box … but you’d be mistaken. Or perhaps you would not be dealing with the excruciatingly picky laboratory with which I’m dealing.

To back up and give you a little context for this TMI — as you may recall, a month or two ago I landed in the ER with what turned out to be kidney stones. A few days later I saw a specialist who told me (in effect) that I was a freak of nature because women almost never got the kind of kidney stones I boast; and therefore he wanted me to send a full “24-hour collection sample” to a specialty laboratory, on the off chance that I have gremlins working my kidneys like dwarves in a diamond mine. Before he sent me on my way he handed me a pamphlet with a phone number to call in order to request a kit, and added, “There’s no real rush on this. Do it sort of like, whenever.”

Eventually the kit arrived (in a screamingly suspicious plain brown box, the kind you’d expect to contain a blow-up sheep doll). And for the last few weeks this box had been staring me down from a corner in the living room, until I finally got tired of looking at it sitting there, like some daft reminder of embarrassing things that I was putting off.

So a couple of days ago, while my husband was briefly out of town, I opened the box to see what was inside. Within this plain brown box I found fully eight pages of forms and demands which were augmented with sporty little diagrams explaining what appeared to be a full episode of Mr. Wizard’s World using things that ought to be flushed down the pipes rather than stashed in a big red jug.

I panicked. I failed chemistry in high school, and I had no faith whatsoever in my ability to combine preservatives and pee in the correct ratio in order to preserve a yellow puddle for four days. And God help me if I were to fail; any number of ridiculous little things could cause the laboratory to reject the “sample.” If I happened to be sick and didn’t know it, they’d bounce the sample and call it unsatisfactory. If I were on an unapproved medication — of which they provided only a partial list — then the sample could be refused. If the preservative mixture failed, or if the stars did not align, or if I didn’t light the correct incense and chant the right prayers to the gods of the golden rivers, then the whole thing would be a bust.

No pressure or anything.

The big brown box also included a handy-dandy white bib-shaped tray for “people who might find it difficult to urinate directly into the jug.” A pair of parentheses at the end of the sentence announced (women) as if I might otherwise assume that it’s typically dudes who have a hard time directing pee into a slot the size of a sippy cup.

I held the bib in one hand and the jug in the other, and stared down at my coffee table, where the directions were laid out in graphic, insulting, vaguely frightening detail. Repeatedly it warned that once I’d begun the test, I did not dare skip a dribble OR ELSE THEY WOULD TOTALLY KNOW, and that would be yet another reason for them to reject the sample. Even if I GET UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT I must make a point to save every drop regardless of mental acuity or wee morning hour; and if I happen to be out on the town then I’d DAMNED WELL BETTER HAVE A STERILE ZIPLOCK BAGGIE OR SOMETHING HANDY, because any missed potty opportunity meant REJECTION.

Fantastic. Well, since Aric was out of town and I had the bathroom to myself, I figured there was no one to laugh at me except the cat. And my cat, like so many others, is one of those cats who assumes that she must monitor all bathroom activities at all times. She found this whole thing fascinating.

I found it somewhat less fascinating — though not, I must confess, as wholly impossible as I feared. I spent half an hour filling out the paperwork and making print copies of my insurance card, and then I used the magical bib tray. It made me feel like a toddler on a plastic trainer pot; and then, of course, I had to unscrew the jug lid and dump everything down inside. I obsessively followed all eight pages of directions; but rather than take sterile Ziplock baggies around town, I just stayed home for the full 24-hour stretch. I don’t have any innate objection to toting sterile Ziplock baggies — don’t get me wrong. I object instead to the thought of carrying a Ziplock baggie full of my own pee around in my purse. Call me crazy.

When my 24 hours were finally up and I’d stored all the pee I was going to make during that time span, I shook the jug to mix the preservatives [:: shudder ::] and used the contents to fill a smallish vial up to the indicated marker line.

The end result was surprisingly anticlimactic, like flat ginger ale that’s been left in a warm car.

I sealed the vial into a baggie with a huge BIOHAZARD symbol stamped across the front and stuck it down into the convenient Fed-Ex postage paid return box with all my paperwork and a fervent prayer that I would NOT be hearing from them again anytime soon. I did everything right, as closely and perfectly as I possibly could — and I’d very much like to consider this awkward event completed. Maybe I’ll learn something new and exciting, and maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll pass more kidney stones one day, and maybe I won’t.

But I know this much for certain: If they don’t accept my sample, I’ll be … well, I’ll be pissed.

Go here to find out what your zombie apocalypse survival odds might be. Then, at the end of this peculiarly thoughtful quiz, click through to read the answers, with explanations.

Dr. Bizmoe says that my knowledge, strength, and will to survive are unstoppable. It would take a nuclear holocaust to remove me from the face of the earth. The zombies don’t stand a chance.

That’s a bit of a surprise, really. The first few questions are easy and obvious, but they become progressively more nuanced and complex as the quiz unfolds, and I found myself guessing, second-guessing, and overthinking quite a few of them. But my score was ultimately inflated because I have a solid handle on basic first aid and disaster readiness, as well as an intellectual knowledge of guns.*

And … erm … well, you know.
I watch a lot of zombie movies.

Anyway, that was an honestly entertaining quiz — which is not something you’ll hear me say every day. Good stuff.

So I logged on this morning to learn that my book Not Flesh Nor Feathers is a finalist for the Endeavour Award. I’m tickled, no lie; I’m in some damn fine company on that ballot. (Which is why I don’t seriously expect to win — yet my w00t overfloweth!) The list:

The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari*
Bright of the Sky: Book One of the Entire and the Rose by Kay Kenyon
Not Flesh Nor Feathers by Cherie Priest
Powers by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Silver Ship and the Sea by Brenda Cooper

From the website: The award is announced annually at OryCon, held in Portland, Oregon. The next award will be presented at OryCon 30 (November 2008) for a book published during 2007. The award is accompanied by a grant of $1,000.

I guess that means I’ve got an excellent excuse to attend another convention this year after all :)

I typically keep my goth and/or club-wear in a suitcase in the closet; and I recently removed this suitcase in order to dig out my aviatrix cap for costuming purposes. You see, I’ve been talked into doing a steampunk ensemble for DragonCon (less than a month away, ye gods!), and I spent the day bartering my way through secondhand clothes stores in search of gear that would be at least marginally suitable for Atlanta in August.

[Let the record reflect: I love steampunk clothes and stuff. But they tend to layer up, pile on, and weigh down the wearer with excessive warmth. Nothing says, “I’m ready for the Peach State in the dead of Summer” like a full Victorian skirt with bustle, velvet full-length corset, long-sleeved and high necked blouse, a wool felt top hat, and a double-breasted military-style black wool coat.]

Anyway. I’ve decided to lean towards the aviatrix theme, since I can get away with wearing fewer clothes and my mobility will hypothetically be greater. I say “hypothetically” because when I wear the omg-so-suitable britches I found on deep-bottom clearance at Urban Outfitters … they appear to be painted on my ass. I swear, if I gain even one more ounce of booty-weight between now and the end of the month, I’m going to blind and maim bystanders with my exploding buttons of death.

But I got myself a super-cute black corduroy vest with grommets, the aforementioned death-pants, a kicky brass-and-leather belt, some very cool goggles (yesterday); and when all of this is combined with my existing aviatrix cap and knee-high Fluevogs with brass buckles across the toes … let me just say that the end result does not suck. Everything remains to be weathered and otherwise customized, but I’ve got the bare bones of a very fun costume.

Anyway. Speaking of that finery-stuffed suitcase (from the first paragraph; please pardon the intervening fashion digression) … it’s still on the bed. I haven’t yet been able to remove the cat and restore the gothwear to the closet.

My entire day was eaten by one small task that got way the hell out of hand.

It began when I was doing dishes and noticed that, as per usual, my husband had a stack of travel coffee mugs lined up beside the sink. It should surprise no one to learn that he has quite an assortment of them.

I stared down at them and said to myself, “Self, I happen to know for a fact that he has left at least two more of those things floating around in my car someplace. I’ll just run downstairs and get them, and wash them all at once.”

So I went downstairs, extricated the travel mugs, and while I was down there I was disgusted by my car’s interior. It was littered with fast food and candy/energy bar wrappings, as well as broken CD cases, stray socks, Jurassic Slim Jims from road trips past, and melted Chap-Stick tubes.

I took the mugs back upstairs as intended, and decided I couldn’t just leave my car like that.

That’s why I grabbed a trash bag and went back downstairs. I got most of the junk out of the car’s interior and then, on a lark, I took a peek in the trunk. It was stuffed with more trash (hastily thrown there in order to clear the interior for passengers), some hopelessly dirty rags (and some clean ones), and more miscellaneous junk than you could shake a stick at.* I filled my trash bag and chucked it into the nearest dumpster. And then I realized that there were plenty of non-trash items still lurking in the car, and I didn’t want to throw them away but I didn’t want to drive around with them anymore either.

Back upstairs I went, and I got a tote to hold the sweater, the scarves, the CDs that were intact, and some pens. They were dusty. And sort of gross. I chucked the clothing items into the laundry and then felt compelled to reach for the Windex and a roll of paper towels.

I mean, you know. While I was at it.

So I removed all the nasty goop that had worked its way into the cracks and coated my dashboard, as well as the door handles and the gearshift. This operation took the better part of 45 minutes and half my brand new roll of paper towels. But oh, how nice it looked in there when I was done!

Except for, well … all the broken glass on the floorboards (from when the car was broken into a year or two ago), all the dirt, all the grass, all the leaves, and that nasty-ass stain on the back left floor mat where I spilled laundry detergent back when I lived in Tennessee and regularly drove to a laundromat.

Ew. Hmm. I knew of several vacuums at several gas stations, but if I was going to plunk down a fistful of quarters I might as well give the exterior a good rinse too. Hell, I hadn’t washed that poor car since I’d moved here. The time had surely arrived.

But I didn’t want to run the car through a machine wash because my driver’s side exterior mirror is held together with clear packing tape (shut up. don’t laugh.); and, the longer I gazed upon my car’s exterior, the more embarrassed I was about the prospect of taking it to a place where real life people would wash it for me by hand. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. My car was too filthy to take to a car wash.

I needed a wand, and maybe a long-handled brush with hot soapy foam, and a stall where I could scrub away my shame. And the only one I knew for absolute certain was several miles away, on the other side of downtown near Ballard — the Brown Bear car wash on 15th, right before the Ballard bridge. But did I want to make that drive?

It was too late. I was too deep in my car-maintenance trap to refuse.

I grabbed my purse and all the quarters that were left in my laundry fund (about six bucks) and hit the road. Twenty minutes later I’d found the spot and I commenced vacuuming the hell out of my interior — probably sucking up a tall mocha’s worth of pennies and nickels, as well as one moth-eaten glove without a match. Then I moved on to the stall.

I was down to about three dollars in quarters. This was a “Wash your car for two dollars!” scam, and I say “scam” because if you can soap a car, scrub it down, rinse it off, and be out of the stall in four minutes then you are a superperson and I just don’t want to hear about it. I especially don’t want to hear about it when my poor little used-to-be-white Sentra has spent 2-1/2 years being parked on Seattle city streets underneath trees that shed strange sticky things that embed themselves in the paint job.

I ran out of quarters. But I had a ten dollar bill and I cashed that bad-boy in for more coins than could comfortably fit in my pockets. I used almost all of them, though I could’ve still hypothetically sprung for the “floor mat shampoo” station a few yards away. In the end, I was too tired, too wet, and too cold. I was also thoroughly lacquered with “final rinse/clear protective coating,” courtesy of Puget Sound’s ocean air backdraft.

Besides. I know that the gruesome-looking backseat stain that looks like liquid mold and Starbucks is really just plain old Tide. Passengers can deal with it.

The end result is not flawless, but it’s quite satisfactory. My car still bears the scars of too-narrow parking spaces and aggressive drivers, the scrapes of God-knows-what and the smudges of nobody-remembers -how-that- got-there. But it’s mostly white again, and the interior looks more like a civilized North American land-ape drives it, and less like carbonated beverage-flinging is mandatory.

I topped off the afternoon with a full tank of gas and a Coke-flavored Slurpee in a plastic 3D Incredible Hulk cup. And yes, this took almost all damn day. When I realized how much time I’d blown on this automotive hygiene quest, I was sublimely annoyed with myself. I was going to write and clean the apartment; I was not going to spend the whole Friday driving all over town trying to make my tiny four-wheeled beater look like new.

But there you go. And I was hungry, because I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and it was about five o’clock. So I pinged Ellen, who was also hungry; and together we went out for Chipolte burritos.

The end.
Not my most exciting blog entry ever, perhaps.
Here. Let me make it up to you.

Have some Daily Show, and by God, the news had better run.