I mean... you know the scene I mean...

"Tell me your name" - so obviously about to kiss, breath/choking play... I mean, it's not just me being corrupted, right? They're just outright BDSM slashing in the show...?

( For those who don't want to follow the whole liveblogCollapse )

Tags: drwho

I just realized my last entry was a) in April and b) had a line about my freelance work "winding down."

Ahahahahahah.....

Yes, one of the projects ended. Another one has kind of exploded. Luckily, that's the manga proofreading/rewriting work, which is fun. In addition to the really porny series, I was just handed another series to rewrite.

Three words:

Evil
Fairytale
Bishounen

That's one of the nice things about the proofreading work: it means I get to read things I might not otherwise have either had time for or thought to seek out. Is it all high literature? No. But I've found some delightful and unexpectedly poignant surprises. Not to mention one amazingly slow-burning Bioshock joke. That was then punctuated with a Portal joke.

In other news, fiddleheads are back in the grocery store. Yum! They're so unusual in appearance and flavor, and around so very briefly, that they're a favorite spring ritual.

Health news: My weight is now holding at between 123 and 124. I've switched from weight-loss to maintenance. Aggravatingly, I still have that annoying belly-roll. Am trying to do Pilates to see if that helps. Part of it's due to a certain minor health issue which I will be finally taking care of in June. (Sorry to be cryptic - it's nothing major or life-threatening, just involves womany details people might not want to read about.)

Tags: update

( To be updated for the next hour under the cutCollapse )

Tags: drwho

Denmark wins! But the best song never wins! Even though we voted for them (well, them and Iceland, half of who's lyrics I could understand either because of Jack Daniels or Viking influence on us Scots, so since we were tied we thought it was fair that I voted Denmark and Lesley voted Iceland)

So, this is the state of the magpie right now:



Crap, empty, but at least Eurovision's over and I'm not crying any more.

And I must have drunk enough (half a bottle of Jack) cos for the last half hour I haven't wanted to stab Graham fucking Norton in the throat every time I heard him.

Tags: eurovision

Because I've noted an interesting consistency in reactions, this is just for my own curiosity. You will not be graded (or judged) so please answer honestly...

(any deviations should be listed in comments)

Poll #1914202 Exercise
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 45

After I exercise I want to....

Tags: ask a question enough times

Today, construction workers are installing the first parts of a new overpass at SE 17th and Powell, about ten blocks from where I live. This will carry the future Portland-to-Milwaukie MAX light rail through my neighborhood, and also reconnect that part of 17th northbound with Powell.

I photographed this from a pedestrian bridge over the existing railroad tracks, which the MAX will parallel there. This bridge will eventually be taken down; it's in the way of the future MAX tracks. I haven't heard for sure if there will be a replacement pedestrian bridge or other form of crossing for the tracks there.

I'm grateful that I'm at least a few blocks removed from construction. Still, it's been neat watching the progress.

I have been a bad bad Livejournal poster, and rarely blogged at all of late.

But there's a buncha blog posts at the Los Angeles Review of Books Naked Bookseller Blog now, most of which were written by me, if you've been feeling M'e babble deprived...

http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/post/50756892683/the-naked-bookseller-bares-all-maryelizabeth-hart

Tags: books / reading / writing
Current Mood: amused

if you're making curry and drinking Jack Daniels, do the curry *before* getting through half the bottle of of JD, not the other way round.

Tags: drinkinininge..., food

So, now Lesley wants to see Bonnie Tyler on Eurovision, and I want to not see or hear that fucking Irish twat...

Between the DW-triggered pain, and Graham fucking Norton, this night may see the end of another bottle of Jack Daniels...

Tags: this can only be decided by thunderdome

Fantastic teaser. Some predictable developments, and overall... Triggered again.

Well, that was... Mostly good, covered a bit too many of the usual Moffat tropes we've already seen, but still did it for me.

( minor spoilers and me being triggeredCollapse )

Tags: dr who series 7
Current Mood: distressed

This post will presumably be buried in Doctor Who reactions and never heard from again, but what the hell.

I have been agonizing over bathroom shelves. Aaaaaaaagonizing. What kind do I want? If I want them to go from wall to wall, I need them specially cut - which wood should I use? Then I need to paint. If I buy them pre-made, they won't go from wall to wall and then may end up not secure in the drywall instead of the stud. How deep? If they're right by the toilet, then they can't be too deep, but they need to be deep enough to be useful.

And on and on and on like a James Joyce sentence. So last night I thought "fuck it. What doesn't need to be painted, specially cut, drilled into the drywall at all, etc? TENSION BARS."

Ta da! The hanging cleaners trick I learned from Martha Stewart (dontjudgeme)


That cup with the book is the one thing that I amended. Because occasionally the ipad will end up in there, that I did nail down, literally. Right through the sticky stuff that you're supposed to hang it with, just in case.

I put the picture of the mail stop on FB; did I talk about that? My other big home improvement was to put a little table, shredder, and recycle bin next to each other in the central hall and nail a container full of letter openers over it. I'm already loving that thing, although I may have to find a really interesting something or other to hang over it for longer shredding sessions. Possibly one of these. (Which is the best presentation of Wuthering Heights I can think of. Make it look pretty and make it nigh unto unreadable.)

Tags: diy, remodel

Holy fucking shit - however this episode ends up, the opening scene is fucking amazing

Fuck knows whether the rest of the episode can possibly live up to the precredit

Tags: dr who series 7

(as seen from the High Line, Meatpacking District, Manhattan)

Tags: dispatches from nyc

Yesterday, Jersey Girl in Portland flew down to San Jose. We ran into Richard Lovett on the plane, and shared a cab to the convention hotel. Once there, the afternoon became a blur of old friends and new that I couldn't possibly do a sane job of listing. At the author signing, I was seated between John Scalzi and Joe Haldeman, with Connie Willis and Stephen Gould on the far end, safely out of range from me. Signing was busy and a lot of fun


DNA transfer between myself and John Scalzi

After the signing, Jersey Girl and I went to dinner with C.E. Petit, Catherine Shaffer, and the Locus crew, led by the indomitable Liza Trombi, along with Francesca Myman, Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw.


DNA transfer between myself and Francesca Myman of Locus while Catherine Shaffer looks on approvingly in the background

Post-dinner, we hit the reception at which the Nebula nominee certificates and pins are handed out, along with drinks and photography. It was fun to stand with Aliette de Bodard, Ken Liu and Lawrence Schoen. We were only missing Nancy Kress. And I am in awe of both Aliette and Ken for their across the board strength on the award ballots this year.


(Most of) the Best Novella ballot lining up to be photographed for the later restraining order

Eventually I retired early for a crappy night's sleep.

Today my parents show up, as does my aunt and uncle, as does the_child. My profound thanks to Crystal Black for making her trip possible. Plus a ton more friends.

Tomorrow, I am off to Rio Hondo at the crack of doom.

---

Photos © 2013 N. Schaadt. All rights reserved, reproduced with permission. As usual, more at the Flickr set.

Tags: awards, california, child, conventions, events, family, friends, jerseygirl, photos, travel

Hm, was intending to paint the hall buttermilk/cream as a good match to go with the mahogany woodstain on the stairs, but was watching Grimm last night and a house in it had deeper red walls to go with mahogany- and it looked nice.

OTOH, the house in the episode only had the red up to shoulder height, then it was white/cream, so maybe I should stick with the cream/buttermilk plan after all...

Also, for the living room, I'm going to keep the window wall and longest wall red (with a new coat of it) and the kitchen wall and sofa wall white/cream. That should have the effect of a darker colour backing the TV and lighter colour opposite to reflect more light back into the room

ETA- and the little ascii diagram I tried to draw didn't work, thanks to DW and LJ's formatting... Arse.

Tags: rebooting the tardis

Your Saturday moment of zen.



Test tank interior at Hanford Site, 2008. Photo © 2008, 2013, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Tags: photos, zen

"Into the Gardens of Sweet Night" by Jay Lake — A review of my 2003 Hugo-nominated novella.

Stone Age Cinema — This is cool.

Brain Stimulation Can Boost Math Skills — The study was small-scale and is not something that should be replicated at home, because of the possibility of harm/ Ya think? (Via David Goldman.)

Farm Equipment That Runs on Oats

Huge Rock Crashes Into Moon, Sparks Giant Explosion

Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds — Of more than 4,000 academic papers published over 20 years, 97.1% agreed that climate change is anthropogenic. Reality's well-known liberal bias is not an inherent property of the physical universe. Rather, it's an emergent property of conservative privileging of ideological thinking over evidence-based thinking. Conservatives would serve themselves and the country as a whole a great deal better if they relied less on arguments from authority and more on arguments from reality.

Justifiable Cause — The Obama administration is making the case for conservatism better than Mitt Romney ever did. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

The Great Benghazi Conspiracy and Republican Forgeries — As I said on Twitter and Facebook yesterday, GOP makes up fake White House Benghazi emails, cons news with fakes, now can accuse White House of covering up when real emails are released. Classy. The worst part, it works. Keeps their white men angry over outright lies.

QotD?: Have you handicapped the Nebula ballot?

---

5/18/2013
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (WRPA)
Hours slept: 4.25 hours (solid, but yikes!)
Body movement: n/a
Weight: n/a
Number of FEMA troops on my block covering up evidence about Benghazi: 0
Currently reading: Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Tags: art, climate, cool, history, links, personal, politics, reviews, science, space, stories, weird

Catching up with some of this Dr Who from the start stuff - The Crusade's a good one (if unintentionally funny in places, especially if you've read certain Persian-themed fics) - Camfield's direction is great, the script is very respectful to the culture (making a good stab at correct pronunciations for the Arab characters), and Julian Glover and Jean Marsh make immediate great impressions.

One of the early masterpieces, and it's a damn crime that two of the episodes don't exist any more. (And that the CD that came with the VHS version has no linking narration for the visual bits.)

Tags: dr who at 50

The contract for Gin & Tonic #3-#4 arrived in my inbox, and has been gone over. I will say that reading the marked-up pdf on my iPad mini was more enjoyable than trying to wrangle the legal-size paper Simon & Schuster still uses.  Anyway, it reminded me that #3 is due in SEPTEMBER, not October as I had in my mind, so the pace on that's been picked up a bit.

I'm still knee-deep in reading submissions for Entangled, trying to get back into the editorial mindset of "scan-for-brilliance."  I know the skill set's intact, it's just taking a while to reclaim.  Two projects that were almost-but-not-quite, and one that's probably-not-sorry.  This is the brutal part of the editorial job, and the one that many people sneer at, but my job here is to find the best stories I think will sell the best, not to make allowances or be gentle.  :-(

Meanwhile, I'm working on the on-spec manuscript, and juggling my two long-term freelance clients, and going through the final stages of production for PROMISES TO KEEP for the kickstarter release.

So yeah... if I've been quiet lately, all that would be why.

I still haven't seen either Iron Man #3 or the new Trek, mainly because I'm a social movie-going creature and nobody's schedule seems to be syncing up with mine.  *sighs*  But soon.

Coming up:  BEA and the related chaos thereof, and then a brief pause before I'm into the whirlwind of HEART OF BRIAR's release, and the related book-pimping. The sightings-and-signings page has been updated, and will continue to be updated on a probably-weekly basis... (so if you have a bookstore or book festival you think I should swing by, let me know!)



Originally published at Writer. Editor. Tired Person. You may comment here or there.

Tags: dispatches from nyc, g&t, the editorial life, the freelance life, the state of the meerkat, the writing life

As I have stated before, this weekend is Ariel’s graduation. There are various activities that we are participating in to celebrate this momentous occasion including a dinner dance this evening. Tomorrow she walks and receives her undergraduate diploma. Then she will spend the next year working on her Masters in Early Childhood education and will be receiving that in a year.

Just to make some of you feel much older, Ariel is now 21 going on 22. I know there are a number of people who remember her birth announcement in CBG.

We have some errands to run before we go. I have to finish the packing for the short trip and make sure that the cats are set up for food and water. It will all be fine but I have quite a list of things to do.

Next week is getting ready for Phoenix Comic Con. Including making a couple of new Doctors and possibly some Phluzzies to sell. But that is next week. This weekend is first.

I am grateful that Ariel is graduating.

I have to figure out what to wear for my birthday party.

Ummm...


Eeep.

A little about me, from A to Z. :)

A - Age: 10 days away from 40
B - Bed size: Queen
C - Chore you hate: Mopping, with dishes in a close second
D – Domestic Animals names: none
E - Essential start to your day item(s): toothbrush, glasses, snuggles
F - Favorite color: Pink
G - Gold or Silver: silver
H - Height: 5'8"-ish
I - Instruments you play(ed): bohdran, recorder, and a mean kazoo
J - Job title: Professional dilletante
K - Kisses or hugs: Embrace the power of and.
L - Living arrangements: A 2 bedroom colony of weird.
M - Mood: peaceful
N - Nicknames: Al, AliMarie, Sock Monkey
O - Overnight hospital stays other than birth: as a patient, I've only stayed overnight when I was having the boys. Otherwise, I have spent overnight in too many waiting rooms or by bedsides than I care to talk about.
P - Pet Peeves: People who say/write "myriad of." Cheap tippers. People on the bus who think their backpack deserves a seat when people 3 times their age are standing.
Q - Quote from a movie: "It's social. Demented and sad, but social." The Breakfast Club.
R - Right or left handed: Right
S - Siblings: By birth, one younger sister. I am also lucky enough to have a number of chosen brothers and sisters.
T - Time you wake up: somewhere between 4am and 7am
U - Underwear: Not if I can avoid it. Otherwise, it depends who is going to see it. I like lacy boy shorts and cute cotton low rise panties with cartoon characters if I must.
V - Vegetable you dislike: eggplant
W - Ways you run late: trying to find my keys and wallet. Otherwise, I tend to be disgustingly early
X - X-rays you've had: dental, pelvic, spine, wrist
Y - Yummy food you make: soup beans and cornbread
Z - Zoo favorite: penguins

Preakness weekend is upon us. I am worried about this race, because Orb is a distance runner, and this one is the shortest of the three Triple Crown races. Plus, I don't think Shug has ever won this race-- though, he came close with Easy Goer! Here's hoping he learned from that. The Preakness is traditionally won by a front-runner, which Orb is not, and Orb drew the rail, which is not necessarily a good spot to be in this race. Still! That is why the Triple Crown is the test of champions, because you must overcome all the obstacles in all three races. I am TOTALLY rooting for Orb, because I love him, but I also think he could get upset here. My picks for the upset are Itsmyluckyday or Mylute, both of whom came out of the Derby well and look to be moving forward. I don't know if either of them can take out Orb on his best day, but... Anything can happen in the Triple Crown. Here's hoping Orb wins, and proves he's a horse for the ages.

C is coming home early, since he travels tomorrow, and I have to run a few errands before I can relax. He wants a light dinner, so soup and a salad are on the menu for tonight, and I have no salad! Thus, I shall run to the store to get him drinks to travel with, salad for dinner for tonight, and maybe soup. I need to check the pantry to see what we have before I run off.

I have cleaned the house, somewhat. I really need to buckle down and clean the kitchen floor, but I HATE mopping, and I am not ambitious enough to get on my knees and scrub floors. We shall see if I manage to find the ambition for that this weekend. (I doubt it.)

I am still squeeful over the new phone. I LOVE IT. It is awesome. No more random vibrations! No more locking up! No more randomly dying! And so many free apps! Happiness is an Android phone. I should be getting the case C bought for me soon, and then I will feel better about carrying it around. Currently, I am nervous because it is slick and there is no case to protect it. I'm still kinda side-eyeing the fact that a case I spent $40 on for my iPhone was $20 for this phone. Apple users really get ripped off, and that makes me sad. (I still love my Mac, dammit. And I would totally squee over a MacBook.)

Anyway, so far plans for the weekend are chill, play Mass Effect 2, cuddle kitties, and get my sleep schedule back on track. I have been dealing with crazy insomnia and broken sleep when I do sleep, and that's making me cranky. I also want to do the self-care things I haven't managed to get to, including eyebrow plucking and nail polishing. So, this weekend I shall do those. :D

For now, I need to go get dressed so I can run to the store. Have a good weekend, everyone!

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. There are comments there. You may comment there, or here.

Current Mood: happy

Y'all better get in my good graces now, since I am spending the afternoon babysitting Mars Maximus, Destroyer of Worlds.

Yes, that is his real name (okay, aside from the last part). His mom needed a well-deserved break, and TinFoilHatBoy is out of town this week, so I volunteered. I know what it is like with your first kid, and this is the first time she has been out by herself since....er...February?

And...baby??? Okay! (Shut up, uterus. You're done)

Keep in mind that I have 2 half-grown kids and almost 28 years of babysitting under my belt. The list J left me is hysterical until you realize that she's a first time mom. Leaving your child with someone else for the first time is freaking scary. The fact that she's an older mom probably doesn't help.

However, I can't help but chuckle that she left the number for 911. While I miss those days, I don't miss that level of being neurotic. Why would I? There are so many other things to be neurotic about.

I was warned that he probably won't nap. And that he's been colicky (I'm trying to figure out a delicate way to suggest she lay off the pepper-cabbage-provolone sandwiches she's so fond of. That might help).

Guess who is snoozing in his cradle next to me after three good burps and two rounds of quietly crooning "Walking After Midnight"?


I don't think I'll tell her that.  Are  babies on a  personal crusade to make their mothers insane?  Liam and Ashe did the same damn thing to me.  I think I'l lie and say he fussed right up until she got home.

Meet our future evil overlord.  He's already got me covering for him.