Skip to main content

Monday Miscellany -- the Tuesday edition

Time got away from me this weekend, primarily because it was basically summer outside and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to bask like a lizard in the heat. April in Ohio means both blizzards and 90 degree days.

1. Rummage sale people (meaning the ones who come to rummage sales) are simultaneously very nice and very demanding. Several of them were upset that my Craig's List posting did not have photos of the items for sale. I was unaware that there's an obligation to make my Craig's List posting pop.* But they were very good about telling us when the signs blew down.

2. One of the theaters here in town shows old movies on the big screen, but not classic old movies like Casablanca or whatever, but cheesy old movies like Clue and Ghostbusters. I'm really hoping for Adventures In Babysitting, which is the definition of a cheesy 80s movie. "Nobody gets outta here without singing the blues." Fingers crossed!

3. For my birthday, I received an iTunes gift card, so I now have $30.00 worth of credit on iTunes and no idea what to buy. This always happens to me--if I have a limited budget when I go into a store, I find 50 things I like, but if I have a big pile o' money, I can't find anything. This is why I keep a list of the books and music I want, so that I don't forget when I get money in my hand and end up buying the techno dance remix of "Livin' on a Prayer."**

4. I love spring and summer. I do. What I hate? Yard work. Seriously, it even SOUNDS boring. Yard. Work. It's boring and it's dirty. Also, there are bugs.*** blech.

~~~

* While I was there, I took a gander at the personals section of Craig's List out of curiosity and WOW. Just...WOW. That is some sketchy stuff there.

** Hey! It's a good song!

*** In fairness to the Great Outdoors, there are also bugs in my house right now. mid-April to mid-May is always the Season of the Spider in my house, when all the spiders come out and hang around in the creases of my crown molding. And I know they're good for you and kill other bugs and blah blah blah, but I cannot relax and enjoy Make Me A Supermodel on the TV when there are spiders hanging out above my head. I'm sorry, it's just not possible. They must die. To me, this is the Season of the Spider, to them it's Season Of The Crazy Girl With The Can Of Fast-Acting Raid.

Comments

Katie Alender said…
I totally own that song! Such a mistake, I must say.

Popular posts from this blog

Monday Miscellany

1. I've been watching old episodes of The West Wing on Bravo lately, and have come to the conclusion that I love the character of Sam Seaborn. He's smart, he's earnest, he's a good writer, and he's played by Rob Lowe. What's not to love?* 2. I just bought the cutest jacket at Ann Taylor Loft. I know you care, but it's not every day that one can find a white denim jacket with styling reminiscent of Michael Jackson and a tailored waist. I'm just saying. 3. NaNoWriMo proceeds apace. There is no way that I'm going to be able to keep writing at this pace after this month is over, but I'm on track to finish. It's an interesting project...in some ways the speed is freeing and in other ways it's extremely limited, as to make the word count I have no time to go back and revise. 4. Alien and Aliens are amazing movies. Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection ? Not so much. 5. This week's Glee characterization inconsistency watch: Rache...

Why Are The Characters Friends?

Lately, I've been reading a lot of books where the main character and her best friend don't get along. This is confusing to me. Why is the main character friends with someone she dislikes, or is afraid of, or actually hates? I get that it happens--I've seen Mean Girls . I've read Queen Bees and Wannabes . Heck, I'm old enough to have been the prime audience for Heathers . But in order for this fractured best friend relationship to be convincing, it has to be set up. In both Heathers and Mean Girls , there's a reason why the protagonist is friends with a bunch of b*tches--she chose to be. She knows that they're jerks. In fact, she can feel herself becoming a jerk right along with them. It's part of the character arc, the point of the story, that being friends with these girls is not who she really is. But the relationships I've been seeing lately don't make that kind of sense. The protagonist doesn't have a reason to be friends with...

Jay Takes A Stand

Moonrat, still at Editorial Ass, is making me think a lot lately. She did a recent post here about sexualized violence in print ads, and connected the dots to sexualized violence in books and other media, which got me thinking about how I treat girls and women in my books. To be clear--I'm a feminist. I believe in equal pay for equal work and reproductive choice, and the whole ball of wax. I'm not going to go into detail about all that here because, frankly, there are people out there whose blogs are dedicated to that kind of thing (like Jezebel *) and they do it way better than I ever could. But that's my political orientation, in case you care. So when I was writing The Book, it was very important to me that my female protagonist S did not fall into any of those "heroine needs saving by the hero" tropes that so many books for teenage girls do. Sure, there's something very "romantic" about the hero swooping in and rescuing the heroine, right? ...