You know, I wanted to watch something light and silly, so I decided to watch Sleepless in Seattle, because 1. it's why no one can afford to live on a houseboat any more, and 2. it's by the person who did When Harry Met Sally, so how bad can it be?

How bad? I'm halfway through, and I have lost all respect for Meg Ryan and want to punch her right in her weird mouth. I think the Tom Hanks character needs to be investigated by social services, because he is clearly an unfit father. I think anyone who writes a movie that presents stalking (ETA: and abusing your employer, and utter superficiality) as some form of true love deserves to have creepy freak shows inhabiting their bushes for the foreseeable future. And I am bored. Jesus!

Current Mood: bored

It's just the cutest thing ever, right? The other day I gave Niece 2 something random--some food, maybe? And she said "Thankths," which delighted me to no end. It's just great when they say it spontaneously like that: Niece 1 of course had the classic "Thank you, Gamma," and there was another time where I put her in the car for a drive and realized she would be pretty bored back there with nothing to do, so I went back in the house and grabbed her a book and a toy, and she said, "Awww, nank-oo!"

Current Mood: pleased

1. Someone makes the bed.
2. Someone drags STRING around the house.
3. Something small and round is dropped on the floor, where it rolls.
4. The curtains are opened.
5. A squirrel, bird, rabbit, dog, human, vehicle, or (OMG!!) another cat is visible outside.
6. A new cardboard box arrives.
7. The cardboard box is opened and left around. (Note: If this is so exciting to you that you pee in the box, it will happen much less often.)
8. MEALTIME!!! (Duh!)

Current Mood: amused

Oy. I woke up today because the cats were meowing at my door, so I sprayed them with water and only then looked at the clock--to realize that it was 12:30. So, I can totally understand why they were hungry, and wow, I really slept a lot.

The problem with sleeping like that is that the sun sets around 4 pm these days, and it's dark and overcast anyway, so basically there was no sunlight today. Anyway, it took me forever to actually get out of bed. Once I did, I was hoping to do some freelancing writing, but my brother's wife had called yesterday, so I figured I would call them back first.

So I phone, and I get her dad. He was like, Oh, let me put your father on, and I'm thinking to myself, How funny, he said "father" when he meant "brother."

NO. My parents are visiting, so my dad answered the phone. I was like, FUCK, I do not want to talk to these assholes. He immediately started complaining about his health (HE HAD A COLD! OH NO!), and I was like, Is my brother there? And he was like, No, and I was like, Well, when he gets home, tell him I called. Bye! Click.

He called my brother, who called me, so at least I got to talk to someone I like, but the whole thing was disconcerting--a rather unpleasant surprise, and of course I never did get to speak to my sister-in-law or talk much to her dad or talk to the nephew.

I was too upset by it to work, so I ran errands instead, which turned out not to be very productive either. I got some non-skid tape to put on those steps I painted (the top coat dried fine, but the surface is a little slick now). According to the directions, you should apply the tape when it's warmer than 50 degrees. Warmer than 50? Do they know where I live? It hasn't cracked 50 around here in quite a while--I guess I'll be laying this stuff down in May.

Current Mood: depressed

So, there's this "classic" article on why you shouldn't give gift cards. The author has received a gift card once, as part of an awkward and inappropriate gift. He's given one once, to a store that was an hour-and-a-half drive away from the recipients' home. I can top that: My parents, who are masters of the awkward and inappropriate gift (my mom once gave me a diet book for my birthday), gave my sister and her husband a very generous gift card--to a hardware chain that has locations only in California.

Notice a theme to these disastrous gift-card stories? They just weren't good gifts. How do you give a lousy gift? Put no thought into it! Harford couldn't be bothered to go on-line and see if there were any Borders near his niece and nephew's house, and somehow that is magically the fault of the gift card. Nor apparently could he go on-line to see if there was a Bed, Bath & Beyond near his home--was this before the Internet? (Sadly, my parents were perfectly aware that that hardware shop didn't have outlets outside of California--anything north of San Francisco is "up north" to them.) I don't think a gift card is ever going to qualify as a romantic gift, even if it is to Tiffany's. (And seriously--Tiffany's? Unless you're getting a $5,000 gift card, what the hell are you thinking? "Here's $20 off that diamond necklace you wanted.")

Nonetheless, as with any other sort of gift, if you put some thought into a gift card, it can be very good. I ask for gift cards all the time (Home Depot = always useful), and I offer gift cards, but typically I ask first--you know, "You just moved. Do you want something for a furniture or housewares store near you?" or "Your kid's 14 now. Do you think he'd like a gift card to a clothing store, or maybe iTunes?" I recently had someone request a particular gift card, noting that one of the best gifts they had ever received was this gift card. Gift cards are small and hard to break, which makes them easy to mail, which is an important consideration for me because I have family and friends all over the freaking place.

Of course I've received less-useful gift cards--around here, it seems like the primary social currency is Starbucks gift cards. You'll pick those up without even trying--from contractors, employers, whoever. Unlike 99.9% of the population around here, I rarely drink coffee, and when I do I brew my own. Still, I'm happy to use those $5 gift cards to buy a bag of coffee beans when I need them--$5 is $5, and while Starbucks coffee isn't my favorite, it will most certainly do.

Current Mood: thoughtful

So Castle not merely stars Nathan Fillion (occasionally in full Mal regalia), but it tends to feature other actors from the Whedonverse. The problem is, when I'm watching the show and Reed Diamond or D.B. Woodside show up as random dudes, well, I just know they did the crime. It doesn't matter how innocent or tangential the character seems, there is no way you're going to waste either one of those actors on non-significant roles. (Seriously, why doesn't D.B. Woodside have his own show? He's gorgeous and has fantastic presence, plus he can really act--his turn as a child molester on C.S.I. was amazing, in an extremely creepy way.)

Current Mood: amused

Uf. Thanksgiving for the most part went very well--good food, no broken bones, etc. But one of my sister's friends is this very dramatic woman, and she is doing her darnedest to raise an even-more dramatic child.

Today, for example, the child walked quietly out of the room where she had been playing and quietly into the room where her mother was, and then started screaming because her arm had been pinched. Got that? Pinched--no cut, not even a mark. A pinch.

I'm not saying that a pinch can't hurt. But this girl was completely incoherent (as it turned out she accidentally pinched her own arm, but she was kicking up such a fuss that we were asking the other kids what happened--of course, they had no idea, because she didn't say or do anything to indicate that she was hurt when it actually happened, which gives you an indication of the kind of brutalizing pain she was in). She screamed for at least five minutes, and probably closer to ten. Now, let's be honest, you can tell when a child is screaming in actual pain and when they are screaming because they like the attention--and this kid isn't going to be winning any Academy Awards.

The mother never did anything to indicate, Hey, maybe you're overreacting here. No effort was made to calm the girl down by pointing out that the injury was obviously not serious and certainly not worth blowing out the ears of everyone else in the house. It was pretty ridiculous when it's clearly fake screaming (very loud fake screaming, I must emphasize), and the mother is acting like it's some sort of real crisis. (My sister apparently needs to alter her children's toys so that no one could possibly pinch their arm in them--we'll get right on that.)

I was thinking what crappy coping skills this woman is teaching her daughter--when anything goes the slightest bit wrong, just fall apart! That's certainly better than trying to put things in perspective! But to be honest, those are pretty much the coping skills this lady has--she is never, ever happy in any situation for any length of time, because whenever anything isn't 100% perfect, it's the end of the world!

Current Mood: frustrated

We're potlucking Thanksgiving at my sister's with a couple of her friends--potlucking is totally the way to go, is it not? It beats the hell out of my mom's approach to all holiday dinners, which can best be described as I Will Accept No Help, I Will Do It All, Including Having The Fucking Nervous Breakdown!

Anyway, I'm in charge of vegetables, more or less (someone else is doing salad, and my sister just called and had me run out and buy corn chips and vanilla ice cream). The nice thing about holidays is that you can just say fuck it and make it the unhealthy way--I just used an entire stick of butter to make carrots. Yum!

Current Mood: happy

Yes, I was bad today, but I had put the three volumes of The Runaways that predate the Whedon volume on hold at the library, and they came in, so I read them. Once again I found myself liking the title while feeling a general dislike for comics: The last volume ends as a cliff-hanger. I was like, Wha--? there's no mention of this in the Whedon volume! And of course, that's because there's some utterly convoluted crossover comic that comes in between them. To hell with that--it's one of those things that won't make any sense to me unless I dedicate a huge chunk of my time to reading everything Marvel has ever produced, and you know something? I have a life.

The other thing that came in today was the first volume of American Splendor. I saw the movie, which got me interested, so I've started reading the comics. I already read The Best of American Splendor--most of the things in that volume are about Pekar's later life, which involves getting cancer and a hip replacement and going on Letterman and having a movie made about his life. My feeling after reading that was, this guy's later stuff is more interesting, because his later life is more interesting. But the volume I read today was earlier stuff, and you know, it's interesting too. It's generally a lot less whiny that you might expect (although on occasion it is quite whiny). I think I probably relate to Pekar because I feel kind of like him (albeit a far more bourgeois version)--I'm not really a proper bohemian, but I'm not on any kind of normal career track, either. You kind of have to do the boho thing if you want to write, and that's why I'm doing it--it's not like it's my life's ambition to live this way, it's just what I have to do to get time to do creative writing.

Which I will get back to, after I get finished with the freelancing, which I realize will never get done if I keep spending my day reading fun stuff! Oh well--I'm not immune to temptation, that's for sure....

Current Mood: guilty

Today I made it to the gym again (30 minutes on the elliptical--that was harder, and I'm a little sore, but it didn't kill me), and I actually got some freelancing done. Whoo-hoo!

Current Mood: pleased

I canceled another credit card today (I know, I had a lot of credit cards--I have far fewer today). Anyway, this was an American Express card, so I thought they would be classy and take the high road, but no. There was a lot of unseemly Why are you canceling your caaaarrrd!!! whining. And you know, it's not like AmEx hadn't hopped right on the "Let's jack up your rates for no reason" train.

Current Mood: annoyed

I've got more energy now that the flu is finally going away (I also am having a far more normal time in the bathroom, which is a relief). Today I actually went to the gym and worked out--I just did the recumbent bike and took it easy, but I was able to go a full 30 minutes. I was assuming that I probably wouldn't--the flu-fatigue is just a killer; the other day I had to sit down after playing with the cats, and on Friday I feel asleep on the couch at my sister's, which is the kind of thing I never do (normally I just can't nap).

I'm glad it's over with--it really was like having a severe depression, because I couldn't really do anything except sit around feeling crappy and like I wasn't doing anything. I am having to adjust to normalcy, though--before I was sleeping 14 hours every night, and now that's not happening.

Current Mood: pleased

Niece 1 is really in the question-asking stage of life, which is always pretty interesting for me. I am not actually one of her parents, and therefore I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to tell her about certain topics. I've run into the same problem with my friends' kids--I'm happy to tell someone what puberty actually is, but I don't know if that's OK with the parents, so I tend to keep mum.

This Halloween was the first time Niece 1 got really interested in vampires and ghosts and the like, and they were pretty worrying to her, so I made a point of assuring her that these things were not real. This led to some debate about haunted houses, because of course those are real--her school had one, duh.

Anyway, as a result, I am often asked if things are real. I had the kids Friday and Saturday, and in that time I got asked if many things were real, among them angels. Part of the problem here is that I haven't had a conversation with her parents over whether or not they want Niece 1 raised to have religious beliefs--they're OK with my telling her that ghosts aren't real, but angels? I went with "It depends on who you ask." I don't really like having to give these kinds of non-answers: One time I said, "Jesus Christ!" after a guy tried to drive his truck into us at an intersection, and she asked, "Who's Jesus Christ?" (because you really want to get into these knotty theological discussions right after some asshole tried to wipe you out with his Ram Charger), and I said that some people think he's the messiah, in hopes that the large word would intimidate her into silence. But of course she asked what a messiah was, and I had to tell her that it was really complicated.

I was also asked if "bad guys" are real. I told her that super-villains like you see on television are not, but that sometimes people do bad things. I think that's a tough one, because I don't want her to grow up thinking that people are going to try to do her dirt all the time, but then again I had a very naive belief in the basic goodness of people that lasted up until the point I got raped by my neighbor, so I'd like her to be a little more cautious.

Of course this was all leading to the mother of all uncomfortable questions: How does a baby "get dropped" (?? I'm assuming that's from a book or something) into a mommy's tummy? Well, let me tell you: The mommy and the daddy work together to put the baby there. Yup--the mommy and the daddy decide that they want to have a baby, and then they work together to put the baby in the mommy's tummy.

I'm actually fairly proud of that one, especially since 1. it's basically the truth, and 2. she didn't asks for any specifics regarding how such work was accomplished. I'm sure that question will crop up later....

Current Mood: thoughtful

Here's an article about how much business Chase is losing from it's WaMu customers. I love how Chase is all like, Um, that's OK, it's just the hot money going out the door! And since it's in the Seattle Times, the article doesn't really challenge that assumption that there's any kind of difference between hot-money customers and customers who look at rates and fees. Of course, it was certainly the case when I banked with them in NYC that if you were the kind of person who wanted to actually keep your money, then you were not the kind of customer Chase wanted, but I don't see what motive the Times has to parrot that line. (Oh! It was written by Drew DeSilver. That explains the motive--laziness! I'm now less surprised that the people leaving comments on the article seem better informed than the person who wrote it.)

Current Mood: annoyed

OK. I understand the thinking behind articles like this one. Possibly there's a new mortgage-crisis time bomb ticking away, so that's newsworthy--as is, really, any large change in the mortgage market these days. On the other hand, possibly all those people who now owe less on their houses will actually be able to make their payments.

What I really don't buy is that it's unseemly that Wall Street (which apparently consists of a single, amorphous, cigar-smoking blob of bankers) is making money by--this is shocking--providing a valuable service to people! I'm just not quite ready to go burning torches in the street, here. The fact that people make money doing stuff is precisely why, if regulated properly, capitalism works--for the most part, you don't have to rely on the goodness of anyone's heart to get a needed service out there, you can just rely on the desire to make a buck.

Current Mood: blah

You know, something that I've never done before is buy meat (or other perishables) on-line, because they have to overnight it, so the shipping winds up costing as much as the food. But then Filthy Commerce mentioned that there are (apparently quite good) game sausages at D'Artagnan. I was getting kind of desperate for ideas for my brother-in-law, who like every other person in my life right now has a birthday right around Christmas, which means that I have to cough up yet another gift idea and some more dough just when I'm about tapped out. (If you're one of those people, and you're reading this, I love you! It's just the timing that sucks!) As it happens, he is something of a sausage aficionado. So I figured, what the heck?

Since he lives here, I just had them ship it today, because I can store them in the freezer. I figured the $20 shipping bill was just because they overnight it, but it turns out that they sent the stuff in two reusable styrofoam coolers (one big, one small) with three reusable ice packs. It's not like I was in desperate need of these things, but I certainly do have need of coolers and ice packs from time to time, so it was kind of a nice bonus (not $20 worth of material, but still--not a complete rip-off, anyway).

Current Mood: pleased

Seriously, WHAT do they WANT? I wasn't able to nap with Niece 2 because they kept meowing at the bedroom door and waking her up, and then when I came out they kept mowing at the door (just on principle, I guess), so I had to get busy with the squirt bottle so the poor baby could get some rest. And now they are in the office with me, meowing.

I have fed them, and I really don't know where they're trying to go with this.

Current Mood: tired

OK. First there was this article about how Lululemon has become a successful brand of yoga clothing by #1 being really expensive, and #2 acting like a Wonderbra for your ass. That made me feel obligated to point out (as does the article) that that is really not what yoga is about.

Now they're pushing competitive yoga. Competitive yoga!?! I'm sorry, whatever happened to "It's a practice, not a performance"? I mean, I can see Mr. Gans' point at the end, and yeah, one of the things that first attracted me to yoga was the fact that there were some really, really flexible people out there, and I am not naturally very flexible, so I was interested. But of course, the first thing I tried to do when I started yoga was to force my knees to do what Rodney Yee's knees do, and I was promptly injured.

That was a valuable lesson about accepting your own limitations and not being so competitive--and the fact of the matter is, you can't do the physical side of yoga without accepting at least some of the mental discipline. Making yoga all about impressing other people is fundamentally un-yogic, and on a practical level it's going to result in a lot of busted bodies, yoga drop-outs, and practitioners who are more stressed out rather than less. Olympic athletes get injured in competition all the time--what's it going to mean the first time a yogi has to be hauled off the floor on a stretcher because they just had to push it?

Current Mood: annoyed

In my career, I've worked places where the best writing was encouraged, and in places where it was actively discouraged--where you were supposed to produce material that was bone-dry, or where sloppiness was encouraged, or where every story was supposed to follow the same format, no matter what. Not shockingly, the places I enjoyed working the most were the places where I produced the best writing. That was not simply because I like to win things or because I like to be challenged, but also because the people were just plain better to work with--they were smarter and more pleasant and didn't spend their time trying to kick everyone down to some allegedly desirable level of mediocrity. I remember when I applied to journalism school looking at the material I had produced during a fairly lengthy spell at a place where good writing was actively discouraged, and realizing that I would never send any of that material anywhere as a writing sample, because it was all God-awful. I also realized that, if I was interested in pursuing writing as a career, this would be something I would need to pay attention to--not just looking at a job as a paycheck, but looking at it as a source of clips. ("Clips," for the normal people, is a term used to mean the articles you actually write--and then clip out of the paper to show, say, your mom or potential future employers.)

Anyway, my point is that the place you work for can really affect the quality of your writing. I've recently discovered the Web site of a writer friend of mine who I have lost touch with, and this person has posted a lot of their clips on the site. A lot of this person's older work was for a publication that clearly put a premium on good writing, and those stories are quite good. But a lot of their newer work is for a publication that clearly does not--the newer stuff reads a lot like what is called "notebook dumping," which is what happens when a reporter just dumps everything from their notebook onto the page without organizing and pruning and massaging it into a proper story with a beginning, middle, and end, and all that good stuff.

I'm a little worried because this person is both a good reporter and a good writer, and they have a book coming out fairly soon, and I want it to be a good book that makes them more successful, not a clunker. The bad habits you pick up writing for kind of crappy publications can really screw you up (and the crappiness of a publication is not necessarily directly related to how much they pay, which complicates the issue even more when you're trying to make a living as a writer).

Current Mood: worried

The thing about this flu is, at this point, the fever is gone so I don't actually feel sick--just tired as hell. Yeah. As in, reading a novel is a major challenge, and I had to stop doing it (good book, too, at least so far--a sci-fi novel called Sparrow). I guess the fatigue is how we know for sure that it's the flu. And since this is likely H1N1, it stands apart because I'm still having the symptoms that made me think this was food poisoning, albeit somewhat less severe.

I'm supposed to teach tomorrow, but that's not happening. Obviously freelancing is really out of the question--I don't have the mental bandwidth to tell characters apart (I'm having that problem with this novel, too--all the Jesuits are starting to meld), much less research and analyze the events of the past seven years. Today I left the house for the first time since Saturday, because I had to pick up my CSA box--I really wanted to vomit, but I was able to carry the box up a hill to my car without doing so, so yay.

Current Mood: blah