tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-324659052024-03-06T22:39:24.372-05:00The Ambiguity of TruthIs it?Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.comBlogger99125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-38997492676512465152014-05-24T11:31:00.001-04:002014-05-24T11:31:51.394-04:00Ceci n'est pas une poker story<div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Under the gun, I was dealt a suited 7-2. Spades. I knew it wasn't a great hand, but I felt like I was pretty deep into the tournament and that I should hold--at least until the flop--to see if this should be where I made my move. It was the kind of hand that could have turned into something surprisingly great (with an unlikely-but-still-possible set of spades or a 7-7-2 on the flop). Nobody expects you to hold on to a starting hand like that, especially not in early position--so if it works out, you become that story of dumb luck that everyone wags a finger at while wishing it had happened to them. If it doesn't work out after the flop, you fold. Life isn't full of rabbit-cams; nobody would ever have to know how bad that hand was--how bad a decision I made. I called the big blind. Some called, some folded. The guy to the right of the button put in a min-raise. </span></div><div><br></div><div>Now I had another decision. How much did I want to see this flop? The slim chance that it would come down exactly the way I needed it to--was it worth another chunk of my already-dwindling stack? My luck so far hadn't been good. This was the closest thing to a playable hand I'd seen all night. I worried that this hand, pathetic though it may be, might be my only shot at playing in this tournament, so I took a gamble. That's what this all is, anyway, isn't it? Ultra-high-stakes gambling?</div><div><br></div><div>I threw my chips into the pot, if not confidently, then with bravado. </div><div><br></div><div>The flop came down all black. My heart leapt until my eyes were able to focus on the cards themselves: Kc-10c-Qs. </div><div><br></div><div>In hindsight, seeing the flop wasn't that bad of a decision. I mean, it was bad, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as what I did next. The small blind checked it, the big blind put a minimum bet out there into the pot, and before I knew what I was doing, my fingers were dropping my chips into the center of the table. Even with a minimum bet, I was now officially pot-committed to this thoroughly mediocre hand. </div><div><br></div><div>I just wanted to play. I'd been folding what I perceived as even worse hands all night, steadily being blinded down, waiting for my moment. I just wanted to feel like a part of the game for once, not like some railbird who had convinced herself that by staying above the fray, she was the kind of student who should be taken seriously. </div><div><br></div><div>Although I immediately felt that "oh shit" sinking feeling of having made a bad decision, I tried not to let it show on my face, in my body language. I consciously avoided touching or looking at my stack (a sign of a player who is scared of losing it) and I put on my best façade of unruffled calm. Having observed the tournament while folding until this point, I had some idea of how people generally acted when they had a solid draw. I attempted to act that way, trying out tics I'd seen in other players. They didn't know me. This was the only time they'd even seen me play. I imagined that this hand would be the one that catapulted me into the final table--right into the money. But by then it wasn't even about cashing. It was about making the most of what I was dealt because I was the kind of superstar who could play a hand that most experienced players would have dumped pre-flop without a second thought. I was just that good. Folding without seeing that spade (I was sure!) on the turn would be admitting defeat. </div><div><br></div><div>I had already processed all of those thoughts of my imminent poker stardom when someone a few seats to my left decided to kick in a raise. It was more than a min-raise, and it was carefully calculated (I see now) to be a little less than half my stack. </div><div><br></div><div>Thoughts of one's own poker greatness make one more likely to call a raise like that. Last round's raiser called, and then it came back around to me. </div><div><br></div><div>Seeing the turn wouldn't cripple me entirely, even if it wasn't the spade or pair that I was hoping for. Right? My chips made a particularly piercing clatter as they splashed the pot. </div><div><br></div><div>I took a deep breath and exhaled as the turn hit the felt: 9h, each red pip searing my retinas. This wasn't what I wanted. It wasn't what I deserved. I had been so patient, so trusting. And what of my superstardom? Suddenly, it was all shit. </div><div><br></div><div>All I'd wanted was to play, but it turned out that I hadn't been ready even for that. To play with true confidence, one must be prepared to lose everything--I learned that lesson the moment I saw that red 9, too late of course. The hand I'd faithfully held had betrayed me, and even though I'd had every reason to expect it, my stomach still ached with surprise, grief, and surprise at the intensity of my grief. </div><div><br></div><div>My fingers instinctively reached for my stack, not to bet, but to shield it from further damage. I checked, and second-raiser put out another calculated bet--a quarter of my stack. First-raiser raised again, to about twice my stack. Even then I was calculating the pot odds in my head, though I could be fairly certain that any help I might get on the river would be too little, too late. With the other two players throwing chips around like that, I could be sure that at least one of them was concealing a jack for the straight. Any money I put into the pot now would be the price of being emotionally attached to my own bad decisions. </div><div><br></div><div>So I let that hand go. </div><div><br></div><div>There were a lot of confused faces around the table. My suited 7-2 was the kind of hand that looked like it might be worth something with a little luck. It looked so close to right that I had easily convinced myself (and everyone else) that I was holding a winning hand. I had stayed with it as long as I could have, longer than prudence would dictate, even. And when I laid the cards aside, I surprised everyone--including myself. </div><div><br></div><div>I was the big blind for the next hand, and I checked it down until I had to fold. Then I was the small blind, and got a chance to fold in the first betting round. </div><div><br></div><div>Life isn't full of rabbit-cams, so I'm not going to tell you what I was dealt when I was on the button. It's a good hand, though--a real one. You probably don't trust my poker sense after reading about how I played that first hand, but I learned a lot from it. More than you'd know. Ultimately, I already knew what made a hand good, but I ignored that knowledge in my eagerness to play the game. I didn't have to wait as long as I'd expected to wait for it, but I did wait for a good hand before making another move. I liked that hand so much that I put the rest of my stack in with it. And now, I'm feeling like I might win this tournament after all. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-23706286493046927082013-05-14T14:13:00.000-04:002013-05-14T14:13:00.554-04:00It was like a tiny black hole had opened up in my solar plexus. Time slowed while the anomaly consumed me from the inside, making my diaphragm and stomach and ribs and liver and heart--especially the heart--become less than nothing. Drenched in cold sweat, I forgot my limbs, forgot my face, forgot my hands and feet. They would disappear into the black hole too, if I remembered where they were to begin with. Only a persistent tremor registered, but I couldn't even tell where that was coming from. I tried to find a way to forget what I had just seen, but it wasn't possible. The images and words were seared onto my retinas like cattle brands. That sadly familiar black hole had turned me inside out again, a comically, chronically empty pocket. I vowed that this would be the last time, like I had so many times in the past. It wasn't an empty threat this time, though. It was a promise. Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-66705075151512275212011-01-05T17:26:00.001-05:002011-01-05T17:26:43.096-05:00Aftermath (chapter 2)May 19<br />
<br />
<br />
The weekend after his final, Sean was going out to DC to visit. He had some down time between finals and graduation back at Stanford, and he had already accepted a consulting position in the Washington office of Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the largest consulting firms in the area. The visit was planned ostensibly for the purpose of visiting his sister on her birthday and checking out apartments, but he really just wanted to get away. He was deeply afraid of leaving such a close-knit place, where he had friends and fun just an instant message away: an insta-community. He wanted to come out to Washington just to make sure that he could thrive outside of the womb, so to speak, cut off from the umbilical cord of his alma mater.<br />
<br />
Sure, Jannon had done it: three years ago, she had just packed up all of her stuff and shipped it out east. She left before she even had a job, but soon she was settled in town and working on Capitol Hill like it was the most natural thing in the world. But girls were different. They were communicators. They kept in touch with their old friends and made new ones, without even trying, it seemed. Jannon had met Graham completely by accident. She’d found her house on Craigslist, and they were housemates for a year before they figured out that they were soulmates. Sean, single and scared, couldn’t help but want something like that. Or at least, he wanted to be sure that the possibility of something like that actually existed for him in Washington. So it was with this goal in mind that he boarded a flight from SFO the following Friday, carrying nothing but a backpack and a water bottle. He spent most of the plane ride flipping through an apartment catalogue that Jannon had sent him in the mail.<br />
<br />
It was all so confusing: Tenleytown, Adams Morgan, Logan Circle, Van Ness…all these neighborhoods and no way to tell them apart without seeing them! His office was at Metro Center, and Jannon had advised him to try to live on the red line, somewhere. “Your commute will be full of old, boring, stuffed shirts,” she said. “Real Washington-types. But the trains are less crowded on the red than on the orange and blue lines.” Jannon and Graham lived in Tenleytown, near American University. Sean fell asleep on the catalogue and had strange dreams about apartment hunting.<br />
<br />
Jannon and Graham met Sean at BWI, with Graham in the drivers’ seat of his beat-up old Rav4 and Jannon manning the iPod. The car resonated with Jannon’s odd taste in music as Sean loaded his backpack into the empty trunk of the small SUV. “Who is that, Imogen Heap?” he asked. <br />
<br />
“Very good,” she laughed. Sean liked to listen to mass-produced bands that Jannon didn’t like when he was out running, and she teased him about it almost constantly. “It’s Frou Frou…Imogen Heap singing with a sweet, sweet titanium Powerbook and computer jockey.”<br />
<br />
“You’re such a nerd,” Sean grinned. “Happy birthday, sis.” <br />
<br />
“Well, it’s not until tomorrow. But thanks, Shaw-shaw.” Her use of the childhood pet name showed that she had not let the ‘nerd’ comment pass unnoticed. Sean smirked.<br />
<br />
“And how goes it, my man?” Sean asked Graham as they pulled out of the parking lot and onto route 195. <br />
<br />
“It goes,” Graham said. “Are you getting excited for your job?”<br />
<br />
“I’m not, yet,” Sean admitted. Jannon liked the fact that Sean and Graham got along so well. “I’m hoping that I’ll feel better about it after I have some idea of where I’m going to live. And…you know…when I have some idea about the girls I might get to live with.” Graham smiled conspiratorially into the rearview mirror.<br />
<br />
“We’ll see what we can do about that,” Graham said. “Tonight in Adams Morgan will be just like any other Friday night in Adams Morgan.” Jannon scrunched up her eyebrow, making a face that clearly communicated her skepticism.<br />
<br />
“I don’t think the girls at Adams Morgan are in any way representative of the local population,” she said slowly. She wanted to say that they weren’t suitable for her brother.<br />
<br />
“Well, we’ll just go have a look, won’t we?” Graham purred. “That reminds me. I still haven’t seen that neighbor you mentioned last weekend. Mary?”<br />
<br />
“Maddie,” Jannon said. “I haven’t seen her around either. But that’s the kind of girl I’d like to see with my Shaw-shaw.”<br />
<br />
“Hey, quit it already,” Sean laughed.<br />
<br />
“Not until you denounce Limp Bizkit,” she said, mock serious. <br />
<br />
“Ok, fine, Limp Bizkit blows. I like Nickelback better anyway,” he retorted.<br />
<br />
“Ugh!” Jannon turned up the volume on her iPod, blasting an old song by The Dismemberment Plan out the windows and into suburban Maryland.<br />
<br />
Graham was right: that night in Adams Morgan was no different from any other Friday night in Adams Morgan. 18th Street was packed with people, turning a section of one of the city’s major arteries into a pedestrian mall. The girls were decked out in their end-of-the-school-year finest: halter shirts with no backs, long chandelier-style earrings and shiny bangles to complement coifs and manicures. Long straight jeans ended in strappy stilettos with perfect pedicures to match. Most of the girls were parading from club to club in little herds of pink and denim. A few of them, already drunk at 10:30, pretended to be interested in the Jumbo Slices that their male companions had bought for them until the guys offered to scarf down the girls’ leftovers so they could keep hitting the bars.<br />
<br />
“Let’s start at Tryst,” Jannon suggested. She had dressed for the occasion in a sparkly tank top and her most comfortable (but still cute) pair of wedge heels. <br />
<br />
“Tryst is more of an end-of-night destination,” Graham shouted. “I want Anzu.”<br />
<br />
“Ok, ok, Anzu it is. But you guys have to walk behind me,” Jannon warned. “Last time I was out here, I got my luscious ass grabbed by five strangers who were sitting on a wall.”<br />
<br />
“For real?” Sean asked, shouting to be heard above the crowd.<br />
<br />
“Totally.”<br />
<br />
This place was a zoo. Sean wasn’t sure how he’d ever meet someone here. Anzu was a club that marketed itself as a lounge, so while there was dancing (on the bars, on the tables, and pretty much anywhere there was a flat surface), there was also a small collection of decent couches and chairs. The walls were deep red, and warmly lit with tres moderne sconces that made it look as though the light appeared out of nowhere. But the crowd was the really amazing part of the entire ordeal. If Sean had thought that it was crowded out on the sidewalks, he was in for it in the club. It was like a frat party in a phonebooth in there. Graham somehow managed to push his way to the bar, where he ordered three tequila shooters (Sean and Jannon’s favorite). They came in little salt-rimmed glasses. “It’s a classy place!” Graham said.<br />
<br />
European house music made the walls thump through invisible speakers, and the German lady bouncer seemed to be enjoying it, when she wasn’t eyeing people suspiciously, making sure they didn’t violate the “hip casual” dress code or wouldn’t spoil the fun in any other way for the rest of the patrons.<br />
<br />
“To Jannon’s 25th!” Graham said. He licked the salt and swallowed the drink, sucking on the lime wedge afterward. Jannon and Sean quickly followed suit.<br />
<br />
A girl with a tray full of unidentified shots magically seemed to part the crowd in front of her. She was clearly tipsy and her shirt and Wonderbra were providing cleavage that wouldn’t look out of place in a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. <br />
<br />
“You look sober!” she yelled up to Sean, who had at least a foot of height on her. <br />
<br />
“Just got here!” he answered, noticeably noticing her pulchritude.<br />
<br />
“It’s my birthday! Kiss me and I’ll give you one of my birthday shots!” she yelled back, smiling and opening her smoky-shadowed eyes a little wider. Jannon looked on with interest. She hadn’t actually been out drinking with her brother since he’d reached the age of majority.<br />
<br />
“Ok!” Sean leaned down and planted a really soft, gentle kiss on her lips. <br />
<br />
“Wow, that was nice!” she said. “Best of the night! Take shots for your friends, too…I’m about to call it a night anyway!” <br />
<br />
“Thanks!” Sean said. Graham grabbed a shot for Jannon and one for himself while Sean took his from the tray. <br />
<br />
“Thanks! Happy birthday!” Graham said.<br />
<br />
“Thank you!” she smiled. She groped Graham a bit on her way through the crowd. Jannon eyed her suspiciously.<br />
<br />
“Oh, well!” she laughed. “Free shot!” Sean was already visibly reacting to his.<br />
<br />
“It’s Jaeger!” he sputtered. Jannon and Graham both made faces but tossed the shots back all the same. If they were going to enjoy Adams Morgan to the fullest, they were going to have to get a little blurry first.<br />
<br />
“You start to recognize people if you’re too sober!” Jannon said. “People you see on the Hill! For instance, the chick who you just swapped spit with, my dear brother, works in the same office building as me! I almost didn’t recognize her without her glasses…and with boobs!” she pantomimed a bustier. Graham managed to guffaw and choke on his shot at the same time, spitting tiny flecks of Jaegermeister onto a dancing chubby blonde who didn’t seem to notice or care. Sean looked vaguely embarrassed, but he realized that he hadn’t said no to kissing the strange girl, and thus couldn’t complain.<br />
<br />
“Do you mind if we go dance!?” Graham asked. <br />
<br />
“Yeah, have fun! I’ll be over here by the bar!” Sean answered. It looked like they had all kinds of weird European beer on tap. “Do you have any Belgian white ales!?” he yelled to the bartender. <br />
<br />
“Ya! You vant!?” the bartender was a short man with spiky blond hair. Sean couldn’t tell if the accent was real or affected.<br />
<br />
“Ya! I mean, ‘yeah!’” Sean yelled. It came in a tall glass, with a slice of orange in it. At least they do their drinks right in Washington. When Sean was about halfway through the tall beer, he no longer noticed the incessant pounding of the music, and he suddenly started seeing faces in the crowd a bit more clearly. There was one girl who looked absolutely exhausted, but she kept dancing because she was keeping the company of her enthusiastic friend (the chubby blonde that Graham spit his drink on half an hour ago), who was trying to back that ass up into a completely uninterested (and utterly wasted) blue-eyed blond with chiseled features and a pink polo shirt. <br />
<br />
The girl’s makeup was sliding off her face, and mascara dribbled down from one eye. Her brown hair had been pulled back from her face in a high ponytail, with little wisps curling around her forehead and ears. She looked hastily made up, like her friend had forcibly dragged her away from a night of sleeping or studying. She didn’t seem to care that she looked foolish, dancing so mechanically, though Sean did detect a hint of exasperation every time she looked at her friend and the object of her friend’s desire. He pushed his way through the crowd.<br />
<br />
“Hey!” he said. She didn’t even glance up in his direction. “Hey!” This time, she looked up at him, her face contorted in an expression of annoyance. <br />
<br />
“Am I in your way or something!?” she asked.<br />
<br />
“No! I just wanted to talk to you!” he shouted down at her. When he had gotten closer, he realized that she was about 5’2” in heels. Her face contorted again, like she hadn’t considered that someone would talk to her, and she was trying to figure out how it happened.<br />
<br />
“Huh!” she said.<br />
<br />
“I’m Sean!” <br />
<br />
“Wendy!”<br />
<br />
“Nice to meet you!” Sean grinned. Wendy finally cracked a smile. Her lipstick was on crooked, but it was impossible to notice until she smiled. “What brings you here on a night like this!?”<br />
<br />
Wendy laughed and cocked her head toward her blonde friend, who was still energetically offering her posterior to the disinterested sandy-haired statue in the pink shirt. Sean noticed that Wendy was wearing an outfit like Jannon’s: comfortable. She wasn’t trying too hard, but Sean thought immediately that a girl like Wendy wouldn’t have to try very hard. From what he could tell, she had a great body to go with her pretty face. “Do you mind if I dance with you!?” She got the most evil look on her face. <br />
<br />
“It’d drive Alexis crazy! I don’t mind at all!” Sean bent his knees a little so that he could put his hand on her hip. As he stared at her up close, he noticed that she was wearing two different earrings. He didn’t bring it up. <br />
<br />
“Is that Belgian!?” Wendy asked, nodding to his beer.<br />
<br />
“Yeah!”<br />
<br />
“Can I have a sip!? Alexis didn’t want me to drink because she wanted me to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid!” <br />
<br />
“Could you stop her anyway!?” Sean laughed. She laughed too. He handed her the beer, and she proceeded to gulp down about half of what was left before giving it back to him with a crooked lipstick smear on the rim.<br />
<br />
“You’re like, deus ex machina or something!” she smiled. “This was the worst night until you got here!” Sean liked the fact that random girls in clubs spouted Latin phrases with no qualms about looking uncool. Washington DC had its reputation for being boring, but it was because most of the people here were brilliant. Everyone here worked for think tanks, law firms, and consulting firms.<br />
<br />
Jannon and Graham pushed by Sean and Wendy on their way to the bar. Graham patted him on the back and Jannon studied Wendy.<br />
<br />
“You know them!?” Wendy asked.<br />
<br />
“Yeah! That’s my sister, and her boyfriend!” he shouted back. “I’m visiting them while I’m apartment hunting!”<br />
<br />
“Where’re you from!?” <br />
<br />
“Stanford!” <br />
<br />
“Oh man! We can’t be friends!” <br />
<br />
“Why not!?”<br />
<br />
“I went to Cal!” Wendy grinned again and seemed to snuggle closer into Sean’s embrace. They danced for a little while longer.<br />
<br />
“I think we’re going to Tryst after this!” Sean said. He hoped they weren’t going anywhere else. After the long flight, he was already tired.<br />
<br />
“Alexis might not want to go!” Wendy frowned. “And I have to stay with her! You know how it is! I’m gonna go ask her!” She danced over to Alexis and they conferred for a few minutes. Jannon and Graham came back to Sean with plastic cups full of water. <br />
<br />
“I see you made friends!” Jannon said, gesturing to Wendy and Alexis. “Easier than you thought, right!?” She handed Sean a cup.<br />
<br />
“I guess so!” Sean said. He knocked the water back in one go. Wendy came back with her cell phone in her hand. <br />
<br />
“What’s your cell!?” <br />
<br />
“Six-five-oh, five-five-five, one-four-six-nine!” he said into the ear with the hoop earring. She dialed as he spoke. Five seconds later, he felt a vibration in his pocket. <br />
<br />
“There!” she shouted up to him. “Call me when you move here!” She reached up and hugged Sean around the neck, pressing the ear with the chandelier earring on it into his chest. “It’s time to take Alexis home!” Sean hadn’t noticed, but Alexis had been drinking straight vodka on the rocks for the past hour and a half, and everything about her was beginning to droop. She stumbled over and leaned on Wendy.<br />
<br />
“Are we mmmppppphhhmmmen dee?” Alexis said into Wendy’s shoulder. <br />
<br />
“Yes, we’re going home!” Wendy said, rolling her eyes. “Got to go,” she mouthed.<br />
<br />
Sean smiled and waved.<br />
<br />
“We’re gonna go too!” Graham shouted to Sean. “Tryst!” They pushed their way through the crowd. When they got down the stairs and out the door, the first thing that Sean felt was the distinct absence of a euro-techno beat.<br />
<br />
“Well, that was a trip,” Sean said. <br />
<br />
“Tryst is a little more laid back,” Jannon said. “You’ll like it.”<br />
<br />
It was more like a coffeehouse, this Tryst. Even after 11:30pm, people were sitting on the couches, staring down their laptops and sucking on cups of coffee. Jannon, Sean, and Graham found an open patch of couch, sat down, and ordered a bottle of wine and a cheese plate from the waitress. <br />
<br />
People were talking, but it was quieter, and it wasn’t quite warm enough for them to have justified opening the entire front of the place, so the windows were able to keep some of the street sounds out. The cheese came, and it was a pretty decent platter, with some different types of cheese and some small fruits, strawberries, grapes. The wine was passable.<br />
<br />
“They don’t have any local wines here,” Jannon said. “But the Virginia wineries are a mixed bag. Some great, some not-so-great.” She knew that Sean had been on a couple of winery tours in Sonoma, much closer to home.<br />
<br />
“So the reason I wanted to bring you to Tryst is because it’s meant to be a meeting place,” Graham said. It didn’t look like that, with all the people here glued to their computers. “They have this website, trystdc.com? If you go on the website after you come here, you can see if anyone posted about you on their ‘I saw you at Tryst’ section.”<br />
<br />
“Ha!” Sean said. “The next thing you’ll tell me is that people here actually take the Missed Connections on Craigslist seriously.” <br />
<br />
“It’s almost cultish, really,” Jannon said dryly. She was not a fan of the social ineptitude that made this kind of communication necessary, but because she technically met Graham through Craigslist, she couldn’t really disparage it directly.<br />
<br />
“Actually, I think you can see the magic at work,” Graham laughed. “Check out the guy in the tie and the girl in the suit.” Sean looked where Graham was pointing. “They’re totally talking to each other, I bet. They both worked late. They came here to blow off some steam, but they couldn’t leave the work at the office. So they commiserate. Bam! Instant connection.”<br />
<br />
Maybe the whole “workaholic” thing wasn’t quite his scene, but he could see the merits of meeting people that way. And, if nothing else, he’d gotten a nice girl’s number out of the evening, so it wasn’t a total loss. They finished the wine and cheese. <br />
<br />
“It’s officially your birthday now, Jannon!” Graham said, glancing down at the clock on his cell phone. “I hope you made a wish.”<br />
<br />
“Oh, I did,” she said. “I did. Anyway, we should probably head back. We have a long day of apartment hunting ahead of us. Then later, we’re having a poker party for my birthday.”<br />
<br />
They went back to Graham and Jannon’s house tipsy and tired. Sean collapsed on the couch without bothering to make it up with the sheets that Jannon had left out for him. It had been a very long day.Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-65191125626174505582010-11-01T11:01:00.000-04:002010-11-01T11:01:46.919-04:00AftermathMay 4<br />
<br />
<br />
“I thought The Bureaucrat was gonna ask me to file a goddamn TPS report after that meeting, iswhat I wasthinking,” Jannon slurred her words only slightly, despite having had a three-margarita lunch. Her voice crackled through the phone because she was underground, and Graham struggled to talk back to her in hushed, work-appropriate tones.<br />
<br />
“What?”<br />
<br />
“What? I can’t hear you, I’m—whccsshhhttt—fucking metro,” her voice popped through the static. <br />
<br />
‘Christ,’ Graham thought. “Ok, well, I’ll see you at home, baby,” he said. As he hung up the phone, he couldn’t help but wonder why she went and got drunk in the middle of the day, and how she could get away with begging off from work by telling her boss that she was ‘sick’. Graham opened up an IM window to Sean.<br />
<br />
Graham281: You heard from your girl J?<br />
xcSeanxc: jannon? what up?<br />
Graham281: Some new boss is a bureaucracy freak, so she got drunk during lunch. She’s on her way home. <br />
xcSeanxc: thats my sister for ya :)<br />
Graham281: It blows my mind that she can do that in the federal government, while I’m afraid to take a day off for pneumonia over here. If I’m out sick, nobody else is going to meet my deadlines for me, and all hell would break loose trying to get the magazine out on time. <br />
xcSeanxc: i dig<br />
Graham281: Oh, well. Our tax dollars may be hard at work, but at least I know that our government isn’t.<br />
xcSeanxc: lol<br />
Graham281: Back to work.<br />
xcSeanxc: ya, i got a final tomorrow<br />
Graham281: Good luck.<br />
xcSeanxc: thx<br />
<br />
Graham turned his attention away from his computer and cell phone, toward the stack of index forms that had accumulated on his desk. If he could only finish them now, he wouldn’t have to worry about them come October. But all he could think of was how agreeably tipsy Jannon would be when he got home later.<br />
<br />
It had been a long winter, and a short cold spring, so people were relieved when the air today was so warm that they wouldn’t catch their deaths if they went out with bare necks. The last of the melted snow and ice ran through the streets and down to the gutters, where it trickled down with an audible tinkle. And in this city, the private alleyways of the tony little houses had turned into private creeks, overlooked by the houses’ open windows and the hired help in the front yards, hurriedly getting rid of last year’s leaves to make way for this year’s grass. <br />
<br />
That’s what Jannon saw as she stumbled gamely through her neighborhood, high on the beautiful weather and on her own cleverness. “Ah,” she said aloud, to nobody in particular. “If only more of my problems could be solved by getting trashed in the middle of the day!” There was no doubt in her mind that her supervisor knew what was up, but because he was also a little bit slarmied (only Jannon knew about the flask he kept in his desk drawer), then it was fine. And though her perception had been somewhat tempered by the drink (curse you, Lauriol Plaza, and your delicious mango margaritas!) it had seemed to Jannon that he was in more of a rush than usual to get rid of whatever it was on his computer screen when she came in to see him. ‘Such is life in this city,’ she mused, lustily inhaling the green scent of the late spring thaw. ‘You don’t ask questions, you get what you want.’<br />
<br />
Though she was a bit higher on the totem pole than a staff ass, Jannon’s job was mostly clerical work. She was too highly educated for that kind of job, and everybody knew it. So they let her finish her work in half the time that she was allotted, and goof off for the rest of it. She spent a lot of time on the internet, and today, she’d spent a lot of money on drinks at lunch. Life was good.<br />
<br />
Then she saw her.<br />
<br />
A girl stood on the corner. She looked to be 25 or so, about Jannon’s age, but a bit shorter and even paler in complexion. Her long, dark hair swirled around her head in waves, and everything about her, from her crisply ironed pastel blue tennis outfit to her huge brown-black eyes—it all seemed to sparkle in the sunshine. The only detail out of place was her shoes: tall, white galoshes with deep purple soles and a smattering of forget-me-nots printed all over them. Jannon stopped walking for a moment, struck by the vision of the girl (and a short wave of nausea: perhaps she shouldn’t have had that last enchilada). There were no cars on the road, but the girl did not cross the street.<br />
<br />
“Excuse me,” Jannon said, approaching her. “Can I help you get somewhere?”<br />
<br />
“Not all who wander are lost,” she mumbled under her breath. <br />
<br />
“Pardon?”<br />
<br />
“I’m not lost, thank you,” the girl said. Her voice was velvety and seemed to disappear by weaving itself into the warm May breezes.<br />
<br />
“Oh, do you live around here?” Jannon was not the sort to make idle conversation, but she was tipsy and her nostrils were full of early flowers, and there was simply something almost magical about this girl that made Jannon want to get to know her.<br />
<br />
“Yes,” she said. “I moved in—a couple blocks that way—just last week.” That voice was like butter, melting into the warm air and coating Jannon with something that was somehow pleasantly unctuous.<br />
<br />
“Well! I’m Jannon!” she stuck her hand out. “I live down there.” She nodded in the direction of her house. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”<br />
<br />
The girl shook her hand and smiled a bright white smile. “I’m Maddie. And, thanks.”<br />
<br />
They stood on the corner, smiling at each other in silence for what seemed like five minutes.<br />
<br />
“I guess I’ll be seeing you around,” Jannon said.<br />
<br />
“Sure,” Maddie smiled, and started to cross the street toward the metro stop.<br />
<br />
“Oh hey,” Jannon called after her. “I like your boots. But it’s supposed to be…”<br />
<br />
“Thanks!” Maddie called back.<br />
<br />
“…sunny.” The sky had gone dark while Jannon and Maddie were standing there in conversation, but Maddie’s smile had been so bright, Jannon hadn’t noticed. A stiff breeze rustled the new leaves on the trees. The water started to fall in fist-sized drops, and Jannon ran the rest of the way home, dodging the rain until it started falling faster and smaller.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">***</div>There was nothing about this day that would have made him think of Charles, but that’s where Graham’s mind wandered as he walked home in the rain. The forecast hadn’t mentioned rain, but luckily, he had his emergency umbrella. Perhaps it was the reminder of his Boy Scout-like preparedness that made him think of Charles, his friend and mentor in Eagle Scouts, and his beloved older brother. His brother the soldier had been an officer, and a gentleman. He laughed a little: the most prepared person that Graham had ever known could not have possibly prepared for 9/11. A raindrop blew under the umbrella and landed on the top of Graham’s head, running down his face like a tear. It had been almost five years since Graham had started shaving his head in memoriam. <br />
<br />
Even in the rain, it was a beautiful day. The wind rustled the tree branches and whirled the raindrops around like miniature tornadoes. Charles used to like rainy days, Graham recalled, reaching into his pocket to grab his keys. <br />
<br />
“Jannon! I’m home!” he called, making sure to rustle the keys in the lock particularly loudly. Jannon didn’t like to be startled when somebody came into the house, and she was even more prone to fits of anxiousness when she was tipsy. <br />
<br />
“Graham, daaah-ling!” she effused, breezing into the room in her kimono. ‘Classic Jannon,’ he thought, as he wrapped his arms around her. He liked the way her hair smelled like Herbal Essence shampoo. <br />
<br />
“Did you get caught in the rain, babe?” he asked. <br />
<br />
“I did,” she grinned. “But I met the most wonderful new neighbor!” Her cheeks were flushed with her enthusiasm. Graham liked the way that she had put her short, dirty-blonde hair back with sparkly clips, and he liked the feel of her soft, white skin against his dark brown hands. He liked looking at her without her glasses on, so he could stare directly into her watery blue eyes.<br />
<br />
“Oh yeah? Was he cute?” <br />
<br />
She pouted, her eyes narrowing. “Come on! You don’t even know—”<br />
<br />
“All right, all right, tell me about our new neighbor!” he chuckled.<br />
<br />
“She just moved in a little while ago. Her name is Maddie. And she’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen anyone quite so beautiful in my life.” <br />
<br />
“Mattie?” Graham asked. “Like, short for Martha?”<br />
<br />
“No, Maddie, like short for Madeline.”<br />
<br />
“Well, I’ll have to keep an eye out for this Maddie, then, won’t I?”<br />
<br />
“You won’t have to be on any kind of special lookout,” Jannon smiled. “You’ll just see her, trust me.”<br />
<br />
“Any chance of…” Graham started to ask.<br />
<br />
“Nope!” Jannon laughed. Whenever she came home praising a female friend, Graham took the opportunity to ask for a threesome. It happened often enough that he didn’t even have to ask the entire question anymore. “But if it were to happen at some point…which it won’t…but if it were, it would be with someone of Maddie’s caliber.”<br />
<br />
“Wow!” Graham laughed, too. “Now I’ve got to see her.” Jannon whacked him in the arm once, for good measure. He started trying to tickle her, and Jannon started trying to strip him, because his clothes were still wet from walking in the rain. Jannon wanted him dry so he wouldn’t soak their bed by accident when she pushed him onto it and had her way with him. She wanted him dry so that he could sit at the table with her after that, eating leftover Chinese food and drinking Yuengling while they talked about their days. She wanted to tell him all about the new boss, the flask, the computer, and the margaritas. But first, she wanted him dry.Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-4231344794242565872010-10-12T18:33:00.001-04:002010-10-12T18:33:07.980-04:00How time flies with nary a blog post!<p>Hello, world! I have been quite busy with work and music lately, and I will be the first to admit that I haven't spent nearly enough time on my writing. </p> <p>Luckily for me, National Novel Writing Month (links at right!) is coming up soon. If nothing else, it's an excellent excuse to tell the rest of the world to bugger off for a bit while I get some writing done. </p> <p>This will be the fifth such noveling event that I have participated in. To commemorate that (while doing something moderately useful with this blog space), I have decided to release my first NaNo novel (which is novella-length and will likely remain so) throughout the month of November. </p> <p>Yes, that's right. I'm going to give you (my loyal 10-person readership) my first novella. For free. I'll chunk it up into digestible bits and edit for loose ends, and put it on this blog for you to read throughout November. I think it's a pretty interesting story, especially considering that I started with four names and mental pictures of characters, and just let them tell me what their story was. Feel my frustration as I don't get through two pages without writing an IM conversation. (I very nearly abandoned the entire endeavor after that.) Revel in my freewheeling use of 2006 slang. Be shocked (and moderately appalled) by the plot twist in the middle, where a simple story about four young adults making their way in post-9/11 Washington somehow becomes a twisted tale of conspiracy, betrayal, and madness. There are some overwrought, maudlin bits...and a couple of really good bits that I can't wait for people to read. </p> <p>So, starting November 1st, this space will be home to my first novella, _Aftermath_. I hope you'll join me for the ride. </p> Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-71557268976553020252010-06-08T15:04:00.001-04:002010-06-08T15:06:43.209-04:00Pictures Worth Approximately 960 Words EachHello, readers! Here are some pictures that show what I've been thinking about and doing for the past couple of weeks. <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigermelp/4636791141/" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="NRIs 007 by TigerMelP, on Flickr"><img alt="NRIs 007" height="174" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/4636791141_7a802fb707.jpg" width="400" /></a> This is my band, The NRIs (linked at left), playing the <a href="http://www.blackcatdc.com/">Black Cat</a>. I was hopped up on cold medicine and looking forward to the single bottle of Dos Equis that I allowed myself at the end of the night. (Thanks Jess for the photo!)</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wilwheaton/4642998147/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" qu="true" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3355/4642998147_8f719645a9.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I didn't take this photo, but if I had, I would have gotten to talk<br />
to them. I would have asked so many weird questions.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Yes, this is a photo from Wil Wheaton's Flickr. Yes, it's Wil as Fawkes and Felicia as Codex, from <a href="http://www.watchtheguild.com/">The Guild</a>, season 4, which is supposed to come out in time for ComicCon. Yes, I do know when that is. These people inspire me to make things.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZrnbhhWC9wTIP3u2-Y4DbZU-gOJRGyFM5RrZQDbmy9eVZnj7zoqba6Hcdnapj3Ql4HMn_U7U-GSveVn3wVhufQiA3KIQU_WC7jrJl-GDpdwlQqYQ0yvt952r4i9OjZ_tYibE9/s1600/shot_1275784226500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" qu="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZrnbhhWC9wTIP3u2-Y4DbZU-gOJRGyFM5RrZQDbmy9eVZnj7zoqba6Hcdnapj3Ql4HMn_U7U-GSveVn3wVhufQiA3KIQU_WC7jrJl-GDpdwlQqYQ0yvt952r4i9OjZ_tYibE9/s200/shot_1275784226500.jpg" width="200" /></a>I took this photo of Theresa at <a href="http://www.redandblackbar.com/">The Red and the Black</a> before a Machines on Vacation show. It looks so awesome because I used a "retro camera" app for my Droid Eris, the lighting was perfect, and the bar is a throwback to a French Quarter bordello. </div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/magazine/features/2010/post-hunt/index.html?sid=ST2010060700623" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" qu="true" src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2010/06/06/PH2010060604135.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration by Michael Byers, <em>Washington Post Magazine</em> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>I participated in the 3rd annual Washington Post Hunt, solving puzzles downtown with my good-looking, dirty-minded, married or almost-married rock star friends. We solved the three easy ones right away...then overthought a bit on the super easy one. We were opposed to the execution of the football one (as many other people were, judging by the boos Dave Barry received). And we were a bit flummoxed by the endgame anagram...but all in all, it was a fair showing. We'll rock this thing next year, now that we know what's what. This is only worth about 900 words, but it <em>is</em> an illustration.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/4660968672/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" qu="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvSia94vfnKz-Mgcg1acZhhT_KiPLlCwHJAddbCrRSm6ddE9SndogIh4Rk_2GmrSaxaXoAC83EbASfciUudm6PqSoe9PFU4lcgogMeIxw5p2rU9dfm1L2bkDe5Jt9TTKsyJk8v/s320/alums.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks Peter for the photo! Clicking will take you to his Flickr.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>And here's some orange and black. These photos are out of order chronologically, but again...high-functioning ADD, here. This is how my mind is processing all these things right now.<br />
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That's it for now! I have some more blog topics on the backburner, including a rant about dressing up to drink, a flash fiction contest, and an opportunity for guest bloggers. Stay tuned!Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-64421281136585390312010-05-14T15:22:00.000-04:002010-05-14T15:22:51.335-04:00One HundredOkay, I finally made it to my hundredth post! It's only been, what, four years? Here's to hitting the next hundred before 2012! <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqazrFSi-KXpjCMbQ3pB-USwoikzFqtWG7hd0sbasKnQ3_IHMS85rtsZ2i0l0mtx_4bdlgTrmNHqbUcCFiNJUrYvNg1FC0k4JHYB9aRBXB7BTw1xPX_TY-cpAXmBU8LdDpEMis/s1600/cupcakes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqazrFSi-KXpjCMbQ3pB-USwoikzFqtWG7hd0sbasKnQ3_IHMS85rtsZ2i0l0mtx_4bdlgTrmNHqbUcCFiNJUrYvNg1FC0k4JHYB9aRBXB7BTw1xPX_TY-cpAXmBU8LdDpEMis/s1600/cupcakes.jpg" tt="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I was looking for cute images of the number 100, <br />
but I saw one made of cupcakes, so this <br />
is the photo you get. I made these. <br />
Pretend they spell out "100." </td></tr>
</tbody></table>To celebrate, I thought I would go back into the Critically Ambiguous Truth in Drinking archives and actually finish one of the many story fragments there. After reading the beginning of this story over and over to refamiliarize myself with it, I'm excited to say that I can definitely see some improvement in my voice and narrative flow since then.<br />
<br />
This was the story about the woman who comes back to her apartment and finds a strange gift. The beginning can be found here: <a href="http://critical-drinking.blogspot.com/2006/09/open-your-gift.html">http://critical-drinking.blogspot.com/2006/09/open-your-gift.html</a><br />
<br />
And now, for the thrilling continuation:<br />
<br />
<br />
<hr /><br />
"You again?!" my landlord's mobster voice barked through the earpiece of my Blackberry. "What, ya got another rat or somethin'?" Last month, I had a dead rat decomposing between layers of drywall in my bathroom. Getting it out of there was the apartment equivalent of open-heart surgery. But for my landlord, a thoroughly misplaced New Yorker, it was just another rat. <br />
<br />
"No, Mr. Angelos," I said. "Nothing like that. I just--"<br />
<br />
"Ya got bees?" he asked.<br />
<br />
"What? No, I don't have...bees?" <br />
<br />
"Okay, good," he said, relief in his voice. I couldn't help but laugh a little. This conversation was distracting, at least.<br />
<br />
"I'm calling because I had a package delivered yesterday, and I wanted to ask you about it."<br />
<br />
"What package?"<br />
<br />
"It's a gift box, with a bow on it. I'm sure you saw it, because someone had to open my door to put it inside, and you're the only one who has a key. Right?"<br />
<br />
"I ain't bin to yer building since Thoisday," he said. "No packages."<br />
<br />
"Are you sure?"<br />
<br />
"I keep a hundred tenants' full names, phone numbuhs, and payment statuses in my head and she asks me if I'm sure I ain't dropped by?! Oy. Ya need anything else, or can I go about my Satuhday now?"<br />
<br />
"That's all," I said into the phone. "Thanks, Mr. Angelos." He hung up without saying goodbye, which only served to punctuate the problem at hand: what was I supposed to do about this mysterious gift? <br />
<br />
I paced a little before settling onto the couch, where I could keep a watchful eye on it. If something so strange was so insistently exerting itself into my life, would it be prudent to accept it? Or would that be dangerous? I was so terrified of this gift that I'd put it out in the hallway before going to sleep. I did the lock and the chain, both of which were still done. Yet, the gift had somehow made its way inside again.<br />
<br />
Starbucks is where I go on awkward first dates, to see whether the guy orders something more frou-frou than me. I rationalized the decision to myself as I made it: 'It is clearly meant to be mine, so I can take it to Starbucks to open it if I damn well please. If it turns out to be evil, I'll see if it orders a decaf nonfat soy caramel macchiato.' So I showered and got dressed.<br />
<br />
Nestled under my arm, the gift seemed to lurch with every step as I walked to the coffee shop, like the box was anxious to be opened. It was a short walk, but each step seemed heavier as I went along. I ordered an iced Earl Grey and sat in an armchair by the front window. <br />
<br />
When my fingers slid through a seam in the wrapping, I felt a chill course through my body. The sensation on my fingertips was like touching my own freshly-moisturized face--warm, soft, familiar. I pulled on the flap. The wrapping fell away from the box as though my gentle tug on the flap had started a chain reaction in whatever machinery had been holding it together. And, in fact, it was a box that I held in my hands, a sturdy affair made of stiff, white, glossy cardboard. This box did not suffer from the same affliction as the wrapping the night before: it was immediately clear that I had to lift the lid of the box from the bottom to see what was inside. I set the box on the table and sipped my tea.<br />
<br />
When I looked around for the discarded wrapping, I thought that some fastidious Starbucks employee must have cleared it away. But as I hadn't seen a fastidious Starbucks employee since 1996, I had to assume that the wrapping paper (or whatever it was) had vanished just as mysteriously as the entire gift had appeared. I quickly looked back at the box, just to be sure that it hadn't pulled the same kind of vanishing act. It was still there, on the table, radiating the same soft glow as it had when it was wrapped.<br />
<br />
"What's in the box?" said a voice behind me. The force of my startlement nearly launched my cup of iced tea at the window. I wanted to admonish the man for sneaking up on me, but my voice caught in my throat.<br />
<br />
"Well?" he said, glancing--furtively?--alternately at my face and the box. <br />
<br />
"I don't know," I said.<br />
<br />
"Only one way to find out," he said. Before I could answer him, the barista said his name, causing him to pick up a coffee from the counter and leave the store. It was me and the box, alone again.<br />
<br />
The lid of the box, I found out, was not heavy at all. It came up from the box easily and quickly. By opening the box, I had fully committed myself to finding out what was inside, whether the contents more greatly resembled those of Pandora's box or Marcellus Wallace's suitcase. Inside the box, a machine made of metal and some other materials I couldn't identify gleamed expectantly.<br />
<br />
I wrapped my hand around it in order to lift it out of the box, so as to better examine my prize. As soon as my skin came in contact with the machine, it leapt into motion. The machine was reminiscent of the kind of perpetual motion machine you might find on a boss's desk, a shiny affair with what appeared to be a visible clockwork inside. On Monday, I took it into the office and set it on my desk. Its glow brightened my tiny cubicle and its silent motion often served as a welcome distraction from the daily grind.<br />
<br />
I thought nothing of it for three years, other than to pack it carefully with my framed family photo and my ceramic tea-for-one service whenever I moved from desk to desk up the corporate ladder.<br />
<br />
It happened to catch the eye of an intern who came to my desk on some errand or another.<br />
<br />
"What is that?" she asked.<br />
<br />
"What, this?" I had grown so accustomed to its presence on my desk that I was practically immune to its charms. She nodded.<br />
<br />
"It's a perpetual motion machine, I guess," I said. <br />
<br />
"What do you mean, you guess?" she asked. "How does it work?"<br />
<br />
I looked at it for a long time. The gears in my brain turned at the same rate as the machine, its shiny parts tumbling and resetting endlessly. The machine had no discernible source of power, and yet, I'd never had to restart it from rest. <br />
<br />
"I don't know," I said. I stood up from my chair, picked up the machine, and pushed the chair under my desk. I put on my coat.<br />
<br />
"Hey, where are you going?" the intern asked, still holding the sheaf of papers she had brought for me.<br />
<br />
"Somewhere," I said. "You'll hear something from me soon."<br />
<br />
The machine caught the harsh light of the winter sun and glittered in my hand. Now that I finally knew what I had, what should I do with it?Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-3995193447347325782010-04-29T18:00:00.000-04:002010-04-29T18:00:07.007-04:00My 99th PostMy 99th post will, as usual, not fit into any of the categories I've previously used on this blog. I have written almost a hundred posts and I still have no idea what I want this blog to be about. But, unlike me-at-this-blog's-genesis, I am okay with that. It turns out that I pull myself in so many different directions. This blog goes a million ways because I go a million ways. It's like I have ultra-high-functioning ADD. See Figure 1 for a true picture of what this is like.<br />
<br />
<strong>Figure 1.</strong><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhnO_zsmMbpHs8UbrJj9tSPlEgv5xileaiTo2Ivsnm70tY_cfTdfsVJwbA_ztSSeT2PcDmyFLve9zrrEsbwtZnbC8eb5cru0_Pkgnx7anOfW26h8QdQJ6rk5Q3_GmW7tVBc96V/s1600/distraction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhnO_zsmMbpHs8UbrJj9tSPlEgv5xileaiTo2Ivsnm70tY_cfTdfsVJwbA_ztSSeT2PcDmyFLve9zrrEsbwtZnbC8eb5cru0_Pkgnx7anOfW26h8QdQJ6rk5Q3_GmW7tVBc96V/s200/distraction.jpg" tt="true" width="117" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Actual photo of me <br />
(with straight hair!) being <br />
distracted by someone else's cake</td></tr>
</tbody></table>I like to cook and eat. I like to drink cocktails, beer, wine, tea, and water. I like to play music. I like to write, and I like to learn new things.^1 I like gaming and doodling. I like gadgets and thinking about tech policy. The list goes on and on. I am jealous of people who can sum themselves up in pithy observations like, "I like making complex desserts" or "I'm really into crocheting naughty things." <br />
<br />
What the heck, Blogger? No footnote functionality?^2<br />
<br />
Okay! Anyway. I really wanted this post to mostly be about books that my friends either have published or will be publishing soon. No lie. I know a lot of smart, funny, fabulous people who have written books. This morning, I finished reading my friend <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=109427&view=full_sptlght">Adam</a>'s book, "Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School" (linked at right on my Goodreads widget).<br />
<br />
Adam is one of the funniest people in the world. He's also got a Ph.D. in molecular biology. He works on malaria research. And when he's not in the lab, he's out on the road, doing standup. Really funny standup. So he took the two things he knows best (graduate school and funny) and combined them into a book, which you should immediately acquire and read. <br />
<br />
I'm cheating a bit on this next book, because it won't be released until early August. However, I was able to put it in my Goodreads widget anyway...it's "The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time" by my friend <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3446840.Jeff_Deck">Jeff</a> and his friend Ben. Jeff and Ben run a fabulous band of renegade copyeditors known as <a href="http://www.greattypohunt.com/">TEAL</a> (the Typo Eradication Advancement League). This acronym conveniently allowed them to choose a pleasant color scheme for their blog. I will be purchasing this book as soon as it comes out. Anyone who laughed at Allie Brosh's <a href="http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html">alot</a> will surely appreciate it. (Also, you should apologize! It has feelings, and <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7If3gyf3d0zyeRXlb9FciMHutPDjuJrRTPML7B9JS0dC2_pFkl1p58PoK1w8L0lKbLt1zS_gfPBjs3FBRO7wkUddDz0R7gYykWJHqab877jkKi0fTQrmLPfsIFfZhUJBADtwn/s1600/ALOT2.png">I care about this alot</a>!)<br />
<br />
And that about wraps it up for books. In case you haven't noticed from my multiple tweets about it, my band <a href="http://nrismusic.com/">The NRIs</a> is having an EP release show in May at the Black Cat. On the mainstage. The show is going to be huge, and if you're in the DC-metro area, I hope you come. Info is <a href="http://nrismusic.com/?p=26">here</a>.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://twitpic.com/1f4kf5" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="These CDs look like candy! -M on Twitpic"><img alt="These CDs look like candy! -M on Twitpic" height="150" src="http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/1f4kf5.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo actually taken as soon <br />
as I had the CDs in my hands</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://nrismusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/01-Music-City.mp3">CLICK HERE TO HEAR A FREE TRACK FROM THE ROCKIN' EP YOU SEE IN THE PHOTO.</a> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><br />
I'm going to have to think a lot about what I want my 100th post to be like. It will have to be some kind of reinvention of this blog, because that's what my posts always are. Or maybe I'll go back through the archives and find one of my cool short-shorts, and write something like it. Or continue it. Or maybe I'll have a contest. Or I'll do a collaborative story or something. Well, in any case, I won't take too long deciding, because I am trying to keep this blogging thing up. Life always tries to intervene, but I hope to be able to fend it off more successfully in the future.<br />
<br />
---<br />
<br />
1. The Internets cleared up the Colbert portion of the bear question for me (thanks, <a href="http://crymesyndicate.blogspot.com/">Margaret</a>!), but as far as I'm concerned, the rest of it is still open for interpretation.<br />
2. It took me 99 posts to figure out that there's no built-in footnote functionality for Blogger. I suddenly understand why "traditional journalists" are all "up in arms" about "the blogosphere."Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-30766853120215229382010-04-28T16:54:00.007-04:002010-04-28T17:25:22.181-04:00Must be something in the air......I'm looking for agents again!<br /><br />I don't think I'm ready to send anything out right now, as I have been thinking about more revisions. I also recently sent a copy of my novel to my friend in Uganda. If she sends any comments back to me, they will improve everything so dramatically that it's not worth querying again at the moment. I've also been toying with the idea of putting this novel (or parts of it) up on this blog. So, I'm going to put a few pages after the jump. Let me know what you think.<br /><br />In other news, my band <a href="http://www.facebook.com/MachinesonVacation">Machines on Vacation</a> had a successful show last week. My friend Reed Sandridge, of the awesome personal philanthropy project <a href="http://yearofgiving.wordpress.com/">Year of Giving</a>, attended the show and took some excellent videos of our set. Thanks, Reed! One of the videos is also after the jump, because it doesn't appear to want to work on the main page.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><object height="206" width="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oEStsP2X5vg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oEStsP2X5vg&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="340" height="206"></embed></object><br /><br />And now an excerpt from my novel, <em>Everybody's Ghost</em>.<br /><br />Chapter 1<br /><br />While I was cooped up in my office, nursing a cold coffee and tapping and clicking my way through pretending to work, a moving truck was driving all of my earthly possessions across town. I’d asked Sean for permission to leave work early today to meet my things at their destination, but there was still an hour before I would be allowed to go. I couldn’t focus, wondering whether my couch and chairs were stuck in traffic, whether my books had passed the Ellipse, whether some bored federal drone had looked out a rare office window just in time to see my life in boxes go rumbling by. So I leaned over to Ryan, the guy who sat at the desk across from mine, and said, “Wanna hear a joke?” He tilted his head to look at me, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the light outside the glare of his monitor.<br /><br />“Sure,” he said. He took a sip of something through a straw sticking out of a convenience store cup the size of my head. I started speaking slowly, quietly.<br /><br />“One day, Jesus and Satan are arguing about who is a better programmer, so they agree to have a programming contest, which will be judged by God. They sit in front of their computers and start typing furiously, lines of code streaming up their screens for several hours straight. Just seconds before the end of the allotted time, a bolt of lightning strikes and the electricity goes out. Moments later, the lights flicker back on and God announces that the contest is over. He asks Satan to show his contest entry. Satan stares at his blank screen and just starts crying, right? And he says, ‘I lost everything when the power went out!’ So God says, ‘Very well. Let us see if Jesus has fared any better.’ Jesus presses a key and the screen comes to life in vivid colors while the voices of an angelic choir pour forth from the speakers. Satan is astonished. He says, ‘But how?! How did I lose everything while Jesus lost nothing? How did he do it?’“<br /><br />At this point, I paused for dramatic effect. The messy-haired man at the desk across from mine was hanging on every word, and in my peripheral vision, I thought I could see some other people craning their necks to hear me. So I quietly continued, “God laughs and says, ‘Everybody knows that Jesus saves.’”<br /><br />When Ryan laughed, green liquid shot out of his nose, and everyone who had turned away from their monitors to look at him—that’s just about everyone in the office—suddenly burst out laughing too. I think I managed to smile, but I’m pretty sure the look on my face was of mild horror, which made Sean ask, “What did you do to him, Lily?”<br /><br />Like most everyone who works at the software firm where I am employed, Sean is at least ten years older than I am, but could easily pass for my age, 26. I think computer geeks have a tendency to look younger than they—we—are because we don’t spend as much time in the sun as we probably should. Besides, we’re all dressed like it’s Saturday (even though it’s a regular Wednesday) in geeky t-shirts and jeans.<br /><br />I looked under my desk at my shoes, a pair of sleek grey Pumas with pink detailing. I’m technically “the designer,” and I’m the only girl in the office, so by default, my shoes are always cooler than everyone else’s. I’m also the only one who ever notices this, or cares. “I just told him a joke,” I said. I told a bad joke that I was certain he had to have heard before. But no: this guy, this rumple-headed father of three who sits at the desk facing mine had somehow escaped years and years of computer science education and experience without ever hearing this particular stupid programming joke. From the desk drawer where he keeps leftover napkins, chopsticks, and plastic cutlery from delivered lunches, Ryan pulled out a wad of paper napkins to clean up his keyboard, his face.<br /><br />“Try not to take such a big sip of Mountain Dew when Lily’s telling you a joke next time, eh, Ry?” Sean said. “Back to the salt mines, everyone. Show’s over.” A few of the guys grumbled playfully at Sean while others kept giggling. I received no less than five instant message requests for an e-mailed copy of the joke. One of them was from Sean.<br /><br />As I packed my commuting bag and mentally prepped myself for the long, arduous unpacking ahead, it dawned on me that telling a bad joke to a 36-year-old man and making Mountain Dew come out of his nose might very well be the most exciting thing that I’d accomplished since graduating from college. Of course, buying my condo in the Aldridge was pretty exciting too, but that didn’t quite seem real yet, even as I rode the Metro in a different direction to my new home. The walk from the station to the Aldridge presented me with new sights (a dog park!) and smells (a French bakery!) that, I reminded myself, would soon be familiar. I walked in through the main doors of the beautiful old building and couldn’t help but pause. The sheer beauty of this old place was thrilling, and I realized it would probably take some conscious effort on my part to keep from staring, open-mouthed, at the scenery every time I came in. Whoever had the original idea to turn this gorgeous old city mansion into condominiums was a genius, I thought, as I stared into the dusty crystal chandelier, its light temporarily dazzling me. The cream-colored marble floors shone and the matching grand staircase invited me into the heart of the house. I’d taken the elevator with my real estate agent, but for my first trip up to my new place, I decided to take the stairs.<br /><br />The wide stairs swept halfway around an invisible axis before depositing me on the first-floor landing. For some reason—affectation or earnest character, I wasn’t sure—the Aldridge considered the foyer a rez-de-chaussée, and this floor was the first. Residents lived on the second, third, and fourth floors. On the first floor, however, was this stunning grand ballroom, complete with antique parquet floors and more chandeliers. I’d ignored the words “charming” and “historic” in the original ad, knowing that those were often real estate buzzwords for “dilapidated” and “shabby.” I was glad I did, though, and insisted that my real estate agent take me to see this place. It was old, but well maintained, and now, at least a part of it was mine.<br /><br />All of this only really started to feel real as I climbed the rickety narrow staircase (servants’ stairs, I guessed) up to the second floor and found the door to my new home. When I turned the key in the lock and saw all of my things there, boxed, wrapped, sterile, I felt like a different person starting a new life. I spent that afternoon unpacking, figuring out where to put things in the strange kitchen, how to make the strange bathroom feel more comfortable.<br /><br />That night, there was some kind of event in the ballroom downstairs that kept me staring at the ceiling until well past midnight. I lay on my back in my freshly made bed, feeling the pounding massage of techno beats through the box spring. I’ve never expected to spend the first night in a new place in complete comfort. Whenever I moved into a new dorm room, or into my last apartment, there was always some sort of strange smell or unfamiliar night noise that would keep me awake until I could settle into the new pattern of living there. The walls, unflinchingly bare, also imposed themselves on my peace. But the music downstairs was more distracting than any of those: when I closed my eyes, I could see light pulsating to the beat. It reminded me of college.<br /><br />In college, I’d defied expectations and joined a sorority instead of a math club. It was fun, but the social experience was almost impossible to replicate in real life. The few of my sorority sisters who’d also moved to D.C. had jobs as staff assistants on the Hill and spent their money on happy hours and looking fabulous at said happy hours. That wasn’t really my scene: when I first moved down here, I went out with them a couple of times and got hit on by socially inept frat boys in pastel Polo shirts who thought I’d be interested in participating in a “takedown.” Like I said, not my scene. I wondered whether I’d find any friends among my new neighbors, wondered why the hell it was necessary to have what sounded like a rave in the ballroom downstairs on a Wednesday night, and as the night wore on, wondered whether I’d ever fall asleep again.<br /><br />New dorm rooms notwithstanding, I used to be able to sleep like the dead. When I was in college, I had to set three alarms every time I went to sleep so I could be sure that I wouldn’t miss my classes, meals, even parties. From the time I went off to college to the minute I moved into the Aldridge, it was like I was taking a mental vacation. Somehow, lying there awake, staring at the ceiling—my ceiling—I suddenly saw my life for what it was: office work and sleep, with rare bouts of making Mountain Dew come through a man’s nose.<br /><br />After that long first night at the Aldridge, whenever I had the opportunity to meet my neighbors, I had the strangest thoughts appear, unbidden, in my mind. The second night I was here, I was coming back late from work. When the elevator opened on the second floor, there were two girls waiting to get on board, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, dressed like extras from Cabaret. My mind raced: had I missed Halloween? No, of course not, it was only early October. Then what was with these getups? “Hi,” said the dirty blonde one who was wearing something petal pink that looked like a teddy. “I’m Taylor.”<br /><br />“I’m Morgan,” said the brunette with the Minnie Mouse ears. She wore a hot magenta tunic blouse over a pair of black micro-mini hot pants. Black suspenders completed the look.<br /><br />“Hi,” I said. “I’m Lily. I just moved in yesterday.”<br /><br />“Oh, into 2B?” Taylor asked. “We’re in 2D. We’ll be seeing you, neighbor!” That’s when the images started forcing themselves into my head: Morgan and Taylor holding hands, waving goodbye to an older couple, probably their parents; the girls going out to see and be seen, getting tanked on cheap vodka; an older woman and a policeman standing in a doorway, the woman crying, the policeman stoic; Morgan and Taylor holding each other, crying themselves to sleep. I wondered what these images might mean, why I was seeing them, and why I suddenly felt so cold.Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-23169824046921216512010-04-21T12:23:00.006-04:002010-04-21T15:46:48.821-04:00All right, Internet. I have a question.<div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidB7AFbivd_aJz78WhGzXT1Y5VRmXIVdo7OQ0v00TQZJt012ba6KVZqQGL9Q2jazCc-hIgKxycl1gWokNvcRGrlnk9Oh05BrYrdNvtG3QyB_m7fglOcqphj3dOpFsdHxf7CqmN/s1600/bearpostphoto.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidB7AFbivd_aJz78WhGzXT1Y5VRmXIVdo7OQ0v00TQZJt012ba6KVZqQGL9Q2jazCc-hIgKxycl1gWokNvcRGrlnk9Oh05BrYrdNvtG3QyB_m7fglOcqphj3dOpFsdHxf7CqmN/s320/bearpostphoto.JPG" width="216" wt="true" /></a></div>This is probably going to make me hideously unpopular with the Internet, but I have to know. WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH BEARS? And while I'm at it, I might as well ask what the deal is with SHARKS and DOLPHINS, too. </div><br />
<div></div>As you can see from my Goodreads widget at right, I read eeeee eee eeee! by Tao Lin. I haven't read too many other books this year, mostly because I'm afraid they'll ALSO be about bears, dolphins, and sharks. As you can guess from my intermittent posting, I am the sort of person who is only vaguely aware of things that happen on late-night television. If something particularly awesome is on late-night, I try to find it on the intertubes the next day. Although I know that <a href="http://citizencox.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/colbert-bears-threatdown.jpg?w=272&h=199" target="_blank">Stephen Colbert has it out for bears</a>, I can't for the life of me figure out why. And don't say that it's because they're <a href="http://thegloss.com/fashion/allie-brosh-presents-the-grizzly-bears-guide-to-flattering-fashion/" target="_blank">vicious</a> <a href="http://www.dvorak.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/brown_bear_3.png" target="_blank">mauling</a> <a href="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/08/riba_2.jpg" target="_blank">machines</a>/<a href="http://www.barnardos.org.uk/charmin_roll_bear" target="_blank">culturally</a> <a href="http://untiedmag.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/yogi-bear-show-02-11.jpg?w=445&h=511" target="_blank">relevant</a>/<a href="http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/bear54.jpg" target="_blank">begging for it</a>. That's just ridiculous.<br />
<br />
Who started all this hubbub about bears, and WHY?<br />
<br />
Okay. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I wanted to tell you that my band <a href="http://www.facebook.com/MachinesonVacation" target="_blank">Machines on Vacation</a> is playing a show tonight at the <a href="http://bit.ly/byq7F6" target="_blank">Velvet Lounge</a> in DC. As always, we're DC's premier string quartet rock band. Give us a listen, then come out to the show! We have some new music since the last time you saw us. Here's the poster I made for our show:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKezx9WemTbDmO8l-g4k4cJ94W2mmQGMmB9Qznu-gAYYCKkz2O80mj2H2ssQ82VNLEP6l36W0mO_67s86GVwOD78PEE8-VRrYKv_vQjUmNBT6vx60_tYYYGaiXftiuq6VeWj9u/s1600/monv4-21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKezx9WemTbDmO8l-g4k4cJ94W2mmQGMmB9Qznu-gAYYCKkz2O80mj2H2ssQ82VNLEP6l36W0mO_67s86GVwOD78PEE8-VRrYKv_vQjUmNBT6vx60_tYYYGaiXftiuq6VeWj9u/s400/monv4-21.jpg" width="400" wt="true" /></a></div>Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-52207433648740359752010-04-19T22:42:00.001-04:002010-04-19T22:43:35.146-04:00Dispatch from #PAX -- part 3 (fit the final)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;color:#222222;"></span><br />Part of the reason I was able to justify going to PAX is that I have a bunch of friends in Boston whom I would not normally see (except at Reunions and the occasional wedding). So I made plans to have brunch with a group of them on Newbury St. that Saturday morning. I had a little time to kill before brunch, so I planned an excursion to the consignment shops in the area. Since becoming interested in fashion (yes, this is a comparatively recent development for me), I've felt more able to identify things in consignment shops that are a good value and that will fit with my personal style, so I was super excited to exercise that new skill. I found a bright orange lightweight cashmere sweater and a nice printed shift dress that may be silk (but if it isn't, that's fine--I didn't pay a ton for it).<br /><br />Then, I met everyone for brunch. Ben (the guy I'd been hanging out with at PAX) came out for the brunch as well. While he was there, he told me that his friend had come into an extra weekend pass "because Bob's kids didn't want to go." Dan asked, "Who's Bob?" but somehow I knew that it was folly to ask such a question. After all, strange people were offering me another chance to experience PAX (partially at Bob's expense) for the low, low price of $20. You don't start asking questions in the face of that kind of opportunity, rather, you start digging in your purse for Mr. Jackson and you make it happen.<br /><br />To satisfy your curiosity, however, I will tell you that Bob was a person from the internet whose "damn kids" didn't want to go to PAX after he'd bought passes for them. Ben's friends Pat and Lindsay sold me their extra Bob pass. The very best part about this, however, was actually getting to meet (and game with) Lindsay and Pat. We played Pandemic (hint: it doesn't work with 5 people unless you have an expansion for it) and later we found some people who went to college with my brother (because Pat was there pretty much when my brother was!) and played <i>Bang!</i> I was really excited to get to know this game because it's so bizarre: it's like Mafia with cards, but the cards and all the instructions are written in a combination of Italian, English, and pictograms, and the whole thing has a Wild West theme. It's a "spaghetti western," if you will (har har). Ridiculous. Great fun. And if you're playing with opera singers, as I was, they can actually read the cards for you in flawless Italian (or realistic Italian accents) which improves the hilarity of gameplay by at least 35 percent.<br /><br />Sometime between these games, I played Fluxx with Ben, Kratville, and a couple other people. I kind of think that Ben wasn't a fan of the lack of strategy involved, but we still had fun. Then this other guy had Zombie Fluxx. I'm impressed by the Fluxx variants! I will have to think about this the next time there is money in the budget for gaming!<br /><br />I also watched some of the Perfect Dark tournament in the classic console room, where Ben and Kratville were competing. Ben had a good shot at the medal, but then they switched from N64 to xbox for the final round and he got pwned.<br /><br />After that, I sort of crashed my friend's girlfriend's birthday dinner, which was funny because it was Ethiopian food. Why would I ever go to Boston for Ethiopian? If you've had it in DC, maybe you know what I mean. It was good, though, and I'm glad someone else had left a vacancy in the reservation so I could go and not be too bothersome! It was great to see everyone...like a mini-preview of how awesome Reunions are going to be this year.<br /><br />And that was that. No Wil Wheaton sightings/signings/<a href="http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2010/04/about-that-recursive-wil-wheaton-tshirt.html">recurrence</a>, but no regrets either. I did end up getting <a href="http://www.subterraneanpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=wheaton&Category_Code=PRE&Product_Count=43">this</a> for myself, though. :) I had such a great time. I met people. I did the Iron Guard. I admired Wil Wheaton from afar (but definitely not as far as usual). Will I go to PAX East next year? Probably. I'll even get a full weekend pass, and maybe even get one for my husband! Conclusion: PAX East is made of win.Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-58577605645665568602010-04-01T15:49:00.000-04:002010-04-01T15:49:53.305-04:00Dispatch from #PAX -- part 2I didn't know then that the guy in the blue sweater was going to be so important to how the rest of my day played out, when he finally let me onto the escalator. I didn't want to be a dick, so I didn't run up the moving stairs, but I did walk briskly and with purpose. The Hynes Center is a bit of a contemporary labyrinth, with angles and arcs all over the place. While we waited at the doors of the main theater, someone another floor up was visible to a bunch of people right behind me. He did something which got people excited--then he did something that made them sad. I had never seen quite so many people get so excited at the same time, and then all say, "aww!" in unison. "Yay! Awww. Yay!! Awww. YAY!!!!!! Awwww." It reminded me of being in <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~puband/">Band</a> again. <br />
<br />
That's really when I realized: all these people are here to have fun. They do not care about looking stupid. They do not care about what other people may think of them (and that goes double for the few cosplayers I saw). They do not care about anything but having a fantastic time and learning new things and meeting new people and not getting conSARS. THESE PEOPLE ACTUALLY DID <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/3/26/">THIS</a>. And you know what? So did I. But I digress.<br />
<br />
Walking into the main theater, I was able to take a seat very close to the aisle in the stage right section, very close to the front. I was going to see Wil Wheaton's keynote, by god, and I wasn't going to have to use the jumbotron to do it. That's what I came here for, after all...to be near one of my greatest writing idols while he exuded amazingness. Of course he's not just a writing idol for me--I was obviously the biggest tween ST:TNG fan back in the day, and I was just getting to the point in my life when Wesley was starting to look pretty fiiine (wink-wink, nudge-nudge, know what I mean?) to my little nerd-teen-in-the-making. This won't be any huge admission to the people who actually might read this blog on a regular basis, but I have kind of a crush on Wil Wheaton. But who doesn't? Amirite??<br />
<br />
Didn't I say at the beginning of this post that the guy in the blue sweater was going to be important to the story? Well, at about 2:30--half an hour before showtime--I decided that it was necessary for me to go to the bathroom so I wouldn't be all uncomfortable and whatnot throughout the show. After all, I had been waiting in line, and if you'll recall, <em>sitting on concrete </em>for the past 3.5 hours. I had to go. So I put my coat on my chair to save my seat and I ducked out.<br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">When I returned to the door of the main theater, the guy in the blue sweater was very loudly announcing that the doors were closed and that nobody else was going to be allowed into the theater, per the fire marshal's orders. He calmly told someone who protested that he had no qualms about calling the police if things were to get unruly. My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. I had come all this way to see Wil Wheaton's keynote, and that was it? My lovely winter coat was going to get to see him from my plum seat and I was going to have to watch on YouTube?? I felt my mouth fall open, and my eyes go wide. This was not how I had wanted this to go, at all. But I didn't want to be a dick, so I tried to take a few deep breaths while considering my plan of action. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">With only a little hint of panic in my voice, I said to the guy in the blue sweater, "My coat is inside, on my seat. Can someone get it for me or something?" He looked at me and probably saw the broken dreams all over my face. Then the heavens opened and a ray of unearthly light illuminated him as he said, <em>sotto voce</em>, "Stand to my left. Wait until the crowd is gone." I swear I heard a choir of angels. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Thanks to the man in the blue sweater, those of us with problem bladders were eventually able to retake our seats in the main theater, just in time for the speech. Thank you, blue sweater guy. I owe you like eleventy Guinnesses. </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUQEEUrzZ5ugl4_4VGUMGoNwOTy98PCD-M5ic1HI0hPtveSFT52-2C4GcVfULuq23_P2Tq0ZzklhaoVlTVoNiAjINqqo2v-Nl0UEpY8ypWr8TaCoP9t1Np7mjW6zY3TMbn16MW/s1600-h/wil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUQEEUrzZ5ugl4_4VGUMGoNwOTy98PCD-M5ic1HI0hPtveSFT52-2C4GcVfULuq23_P2Tq0ZzklhaoVlTVoNiAjINqqo2v-Nl0UEpY8ypWr8TaCoP9t1Np7mjW6zY3TMbn16MW/s320/wil.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">This photo, which I took with my phone, doesn't even accurately convey how close my seat was to the dais. I could see the design on Wil Wheaton's ThinkGeek <a href="http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/popculture/bc59/">t-shirt</a> and I could see the different looks in his eyes, a mistiness when he choked back tears or the mischievous gleam he'd get right when he was about to be cheeky (that's my favorite, fyi). </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I was close enough to wonder what it would have been like if someone had introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons when I was twelve. As it was, I spent most of that time writing stories about bard guilds and knights and boarding school (somewhat unrelated, but true) anyway. Having a reason to do it and people to do it with probably would have made it all the more enjoyable. The more Wil spoke about how gaming taught him to use his imagination, the more I realized that I was lucky enough to have gone about it exactly backward: I used my imagination for fun when I was a kid, and, much later in my life, it brought me to gaming. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">As it stands, I still haven't technically been introduced to serious roleplaying games. It may happen. It may not. But the most important takeaway from Wil's keynote was that even though I technically was there alone, I was not alone. Wil talked about hot lava in the grocery store and finding adventures around every corner. I saw the people nodding around me, and felt myself nodding along. I hadn't played RPGs, but I read so many fantasy books that I had always just naturally made my life into one big RPG. Even though I didn't have a character to call my own, I had characters in my head--hundreds--living and breathing and some even dying like <a href="http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/10/im-saying-this-for-the-last-time-his-name-is-aeofel.html">Aeofel</a>...all the time. It was an entire convention center full of people who thought about things the way I did. I was, as he said in the speech, home. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I very quickly met up with my friend Ben and did the Iron Guard with his friend Dave. Then I wandered around for a little bit after the keynote, wondering where I'd have to go to get Wil to sign the books I'd brought. There was a panel I wanted to see on Interactive Fiction, so I went to that with Ben and Dave. I'll probably discuss that a bit more in the next installment. Then I pretty much had to go back to my hotel room, even though I had a wristband for priority seating for the Metroid Metal show. We'd gotten up fairly ridiculously early that morning to drive up to Boston, so I was pretty much ready to have a bath and pass the heck out. I did those things consecutively.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">And as I had a Friday pass for PAX, I suspected that I'd just missed my opportunity to meet Wil Wheaton. Oddly, I was okay with that. I'd gone to PAX a Wil Wheaton fangirl and came out of it with a fresh, delicious pile of self-awareness. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I will let you know, however, that there will be another installment of this dispatch from PAX. What happened? How did I get in? Find out next time...</div>Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-36535094094612840572010-03-30T11:45:00.000-04:002010-03-30T11:45:21.845-04:00Dispatch from #PAX -- Part 1Friday, 11:00a.<br />
<br />
I am sitting by myself on a cold, concrete floor, surrounded by thousands of busy, bubbling strangers with shiny electronic devices in their hands and little picture-cards meticulously placed around them on the floor. I do not yet know who I am.<br />
<br />
While my posterior slowly falls asleep, I gather what I know about myself and try to organize the facts into some sort of meaning. I am a geek in many ways: I can tell you why nobody can accurately reproduce a Stradivarius violin (it's the varnish--nobody knows what's in it); I can properly use a semicolon in a complex list; and I will always take pains to insist that the fourth game in the King's Quest series is called <em>The Perils of Rosella</em>, and that it was the first computer RPG to feature a female protagonist. (I also know how to use words like "protagonist.") While these bits of niche trivia are occasionally handy, it occurs to me that they are but the merest shadow of the collective niche knowledge in the room. This is, after all, a gaming convention. The sheer volume of rules, procedures, and facts that the couple sitting next to me must keep in their heads at any given time is awe-inspiring. They are playing Magic. It has been fifteen years since I have seen anyone playing Magic. There are thousands of couples just like them, all around me.<br />
<br />
I have made the mistake of coming alone to this event. I figured there might be some other loners, considering the sometimes solitary nature of gaming. I was entirely wrong about this. Looking at the line around me, I feel like the only person who has come here alone. I feel strange standing up by myself to let the blood flow back into my arse, so I halfheartedly do some kind of yoga stretch whenever I start to lose feeling in my buttocks. There is some comfort in the fact that I do have at least one friend attending the event, and while I wait, I discover (through the magic of Facebook) that there will be at least one more. I wonder if I will find them easily among these tens of thousands of unfamiliar faces.<br />
<br />
One of the games I've brought in my bag might give me a little bit of geek-cred. It's a second edition of Fluxx, by Looney Labs. I used to play it a lot when I was in high school. Unfortunately, it requires friends to play. I also brought Set (which is probably not worth any geek pointz) which I also played a lot of in high school. If I weren't so introverted, I probably would have met someone in line to play with by now. Yes, that's right. An introvert came to a gaming convention alone. I feel like that's the punchline to something, but the only possible joke is my life. Being on the periphery of the periphery reminds me that I've always lived with one foot in each of two worlds--races, classes, spheres of societal influence. Now this: I'm geek/not-geek. I'm here, but I don't belong. <br />
<br />
(Much of this was written while sitting in line, so I'm going to add an editor's note here. Pro tip: sitting on concrete saps your joie de vivre. AVOID.)<br />
<br />
An enforcer (what they call the volunteers they have to answer questions and herd cats) walks through the crowd shouting for Jacob Wilson. After each repetition of his name, some wise guy shouts things like, "Your Mom's here!" or "You forgot your lunch!" and people laugh. Sometimes applause erupts, and I worry that I'm missing enforcers spiriting Wil Wheaton through some hidden door. Most of the reason I decided to come in the first place was because he said he'd be doing the keynote. The applause, however, is usually because someone has managed to take down one of the oddly flimsy metal line barriers--the material is strong, but the construction is faulty. The crossbars are very easily knocked off the posts. Other times, the applause is for some kind of game that's being projected on the wall across the room from where I'm sitting. People are standing and waving their arms. Enforcers are also walking around handing out small prizes for trivia contests.<br />
<br />
Strains of rock music ("Carry On Wayward Son," among others) float up out of nowhere and die out as quickly as they arose. Roving camera crews pump up the crowd as they pass through the doors. They have to set up for the keynote, so they get to go first. When the door opens to let them through, the crowd doesn't need any more pumping up. There is a guy playing that sailor jig on a concertina <em>just because he can</em>. They are excited. They are passionate. They are one hundred percent ready to not be sitting on concrete anymore, and so am I.<br />
<br />
Friday 2:00<br />
<br />
When the doors open, it is a mad dash to get inside, but we are all hurrying up to wait. Once you enter the main hallway, there is a set of escalators going up to the main theater, where the keynote will be. I can see the bottom of the escalator when a man in a blue sweater cuts the line off, starting with me. There are too many people on the escalator. They will be utterly screwed if it stops, so they decide to let people up in waves. I am the very first person in the second wave. <br />
<br />
Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-68174364453874510882010-02-10T17:03:00.002-05:002010-02-10T17:13:10.734-05:00Object lessonsMy husband gave me a book about writing song lyrics for Christmas. (If you're reading this, hon, I need a book about writing music next time.) I decided to read a little bit of it today because we're barricaded in by a wall of wind and snow. Again.<div><br /></div><div>There are some writing exercises in the beginning of the book where they ask you to write about an object or a sensation or something, to mine the depths of your sense memories. I did two, and I always feel like I go off track with these things, because I end up following a story. Here they are, for your snowtime enjoyment. The first was an object of my choosing, the second was a sensation prompt in the book. See if you can guess what they were.</div><div><br /></div><div>I.</div><div>The tastes of honey, of smoked meats and dried autumn leaves mix in the air while you breathe, more deeply than usual, and I drink from your glass of port, red and sweet. It's dark, but the light is coming from somewhere, and the wine is flowing, and my dress is flowing, and my arms are warm in your tuxedo jacket. You in your shirtsleeves, hair rumpled, bow tie sticking out of the pocket at my breast, I feel the glamour of the day in my heels and toes, cramped for so long in shining gold straps. This is the party of the year, and I'm not sure whether I'll remember it in the morning, except for that smell--which will last for two days, at least.</div><div><br /></div><div>II.</div><div>This is not the way I intended for it to happen, me, submerged and soaked, air trapped in my lungs by closed mouth, puffed cheeks, stubborn nostrils. You threw me in the pool and I stayed down as long as I could out of spite, letting out a bubble when the old air started burning my throat and I started to get dizzy. I was spiteful, but only because I didn't know how to tell you I loved the attention. A part of me--the oxygen-starved, lightheaded part, no doubt--wished that I would pass out so you'd have to jump in after me, warm arms around my unconscious, clammy flesh. You'd have to breathe for me, then, salty mouth on my chlorinated one, lips, pressure, hot breath, you, me, a long moment before I breathe again. I can't hold my breath anymore, so I surface, air foreign to me, sunshine, your gaze, which I can feel prickling at my skin like the boundary between pool water and hot July air.</div>Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-66105854338360949902010-02-01T15:39:00.004-05:002010-02-01T17:37:39.566-05:00capturing the moment of heartbreak"Are you happy?" she asked. It was the first time in a long time that someone had even thought to ask about my happiness. 'Yes' wasn't the right answer, and saying no wouldn't be entirely truthful, either. The reality was that I hadn't given my own happiness a moment of thought in years. A seemingly simple question had revealed that I'd been living a life where happiness was nothing more than an abstraction. She was still standing there after all my deep thought, waiting for me to say something. All I could do was smile--wryly, I hoped--and shrug. <br /><br />***<br /><br />"What did the doctor say?" he asked. The doctor had asked me about my diet--vegetarian? Vegan? No, and no. There were the beginnings of osteoporosis, she'd said, and a vitamin deficiency. So strange for one so young, with the balanced diet I claimed to eat. She'd asked about my drinking habits, and I'd told some socially acceptable lie--a glass of wine with dinner and a couple of cocktails on the weekends, something like that--and she'd just nodded, slowly, her head tilted slightly in an expression of pity. She'd prescribed a vitamin supplement and given me a sheet of phone numbers to call "in case I felt like I needed to."<br /><br />I told him, "She gave me a clean bill of health," which I regretted immediately. But I could never take it back, and it felt easier not to want to. That's when I knew: I'd let myself down the way everybody else had let me down, and it was no use to try to make amends now. <br /><br />***<br /><br />As we loosened up on the starting blocks, the guy in the lane next to me said, "good luck," in this tone of voice that might have been sarcastic. I didn't reply, but at the gun, I shot out into the water and started channeling my response into an exhausting kick and fast, strong strokes. Muscles burning, heart pounding in my mouth, cheers of fans muffled to a wavering whimper: this was it. I owned the flip turn and practically shot myself into the middle of the pool with my legs. I focused on my rival to distract myself from the thought that this could very well be my last chance. I didn't see him, so he was either way out in front of me or way behind. I reached the end of the pool and surfaced, gasping to ease my oxygen debt. I'd beaten the guy next to me, but the scoreboard told no lies: my lapse in concentration made me miss my Olympic dream by three tenths of a second. "Better luck next time," he said, his tone sincere. I knew there couldn't be a next time for me, but I tried to say, "you too," like I meant it.Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-9688596425863531312010-01-26T09:24:00.004-05:002010-01-26T11:10:26.804-05:00The EPI'm listening to the first master of the NRIs' first EP, titled 8:42AM. It's almost perfect now, and we're getting ready to get a bunch of copies printed, and to get the songs up on iTunes and everything. It's the first time I've been involved in something like this, and frankly, I'm really excited.<br /><br />Growing up listening to my dad play the guitar, I always had this vague idea that I wanted to be in a band--sing in a band, really, because I didn't think there would be too many band opportunities for me as a violinist. It's one of those things I would fantasize about sometimes, in the shower, or after that first season of American Idol (when it was good), or if I'd just heard a song that I really liked. It's a popular fantasy. I could say something grad-schoolish about celebrity culture and all that, but I think this is more of a human nature thing. People like to be recognized. They like to know that their sphere of influence extends beyond themselves and their immediate families.<br /><br />I have a fairly clear memory of sitting in front of Saturday Night Live one winter when I was supposed to be researching my junior paper on Hamlet, watching some sketch where the players left it all on the stage. I was sitting there under my laptop and books, thinking, "How did I miss my opportunity? Why am I hidden behind this computer, making these inane and mostly unoriginal observations about Hamlet and its interpreters, when I could be on a stage somewhere, putting it all out there? Where did I go wrong?"<br /><br />Of course, that particular thought was imbued with all the histrionics of a frustrated student whose idea of foresight was seeing the end of the semester. At 20 it felt like the best part of my life was rapidly drawing to a close. My next stop, as far as I could tell at that point: administrative work and the "secretary spread" that came with it. It always feels like doors are closing, and okay, sure, I'm too old to be on American Idol now (not that I would want to be). But those doors have a tendency to close so loudly that they drown out the subtle appearance of new doors.<br /><br />I got back into music in graduate school, and then when I moved to the DC-metro area, I eventually found some musicians to know and love. I waited for my new doors. They appeared. At the end of last year, I tried the knobs.<br /><br />I've performed at the Velvet Lounge and Iota since then, two venues where I'd always gone as a spectator. Usually when I play in a string quartet, we're background music, but I performed in my very first featured string quartet at Silver Spring Stage. I've got a show coming up with the Machines on Vacation at The Red and the Black (Valentine's Day, opening for Barton Carroll). And the NRIs are going to try to do up this EP release party right: big venue (maybe), writeup in the Post, press release, everything.<br /><br />Performing scares the hell out of me. I breezed through my Machines show--maybe it was because I knew half the audience, but it was probably because the lights bouncing off my glasses rendered me completely unable to see any further in front of me than where Ethan was sitting. At Iota, I had a moment of complete and utter panic ("WHAT AM I DOING???"), from the jaws of which I managed to snatch a decent performance. But what's the point of living if you never do anything that scares you?<br /><br />I really appreciate all the support thus far, you guys. Why write--why make music--why make anything if nobody else can enjoy it? I wish I could promise that our EP show won't be snowed out like our last one was, but for now, please plan on coming. It will be <em>so much fun</em>.Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-84150856975379973972010-01-25T11:48:00.004-05:002010-01-25T12:03:44.299-05:00Dear Blog,I had food poisoning. It was so bad, I couldn't even blog. And then I found five dollars. Except that I didn't, I only wish I did.<br /><br />The way I got it was fascinating--complete user error. When you are cooking dried kidney beans, here are the steps you should follow:<br />1. Go back to the store and buy some canned kidney beans.<br />2. Open cans.<br /><br />Dried kidney beans are a nutritious staple food. But if you don't cook them enough, or if you have the foolhardiness to taste them before they are fully cooked, you are in for a world of hurt. Don't believe me? Check it: <a href="http://www.fda.gov/food/foodsafety/foodborneillness/foodborneillnessfoodbornepathogensnaturaltoxins/badbugbook/ucm071092.htm">http://www.fda.gov/food/foodsafety/foodborneillness/foodborneillnessfoodbornepathogensnaturaltoxins/badbugbook/ucm071092.htm</a><br /><br />The long and short of it: raw kidney beans contain high levels of a poison that binds to your intestines to prevent absorption (of nutrients or anything else, for that matter). When you heat the beans to about 80C (not quite boiling), the poison's strength is multiplied. Undercooked beans are even more toxic than raw ones. This sounds like a big pot of crazy, but these are TRUE FACTS. I must have had 3 undercooked beans, tops...I missed 3 days of work and am still not really eating normally.<br /><br />Canned beans, however, have been cooked and cooked and cooked again. They are safe to eat right out of the can (as long as you don't get dented cans), but you can also put them in your recipes.<br /><br />In case you are wondering, the chili turned out fine (delicious, actually), and the undercooked beans currently residing in my freezer will have the hell cooked out of them before I attempt to eat them in the future.<br /><br />Don't say I never learned ya nothin'.Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-36664606346396244622010-01-08T12:40:00.005-05:002010-01-08T14:53:32.186-05:00a fragment and some musings"It's not like everyone else is having more fun than you. I mean, everyone else is probably having just as much fun as you, but there are different time zones, you know, so it's like, you're already passed out when people in California are just starting their freakin' nightcaps or are already holding some chick's hair back in the ladies' room, you know? But it's ok because when you've already had your McMuffin or some shit and you feel better, they're just waking up with cotton shoved in their ears and that film in their mouths, especially if they drank milk drinks, like Bailey's milkshakes, I love those, but that's not the point. The point is that nobody parties all the time. And you are an idiot if you think your life is boring because you don't. You dig?" As soon as she finished talking, she snapped her gum and started to pull on the ends of her hair, a habit that belied her wisdom.<br /><br />___<br /><br />I've been making a lot of music recently. My husband is assistant directing Ariel Dorfman's <em><a href="http://www.ssstage.org/Shows/2009-2010/Maiden/index.php">Death and the Maiden</a></em> at Silver Spring Stage. As a special opening night thing, I'll be playing the first two movements of the Schubert quartet with my friends Theresa, Kellie, and Kate. I know the quartet is used to great (negative) emotional effect in the play, but it's still my very favorite piece of music in the world.<br /><br />I think I like Schubert because he was squarely between periods (Classical and Romantic) and just happened to be working at a time when he had this solid Classical framework to innovate around and all this nascent Romanticism going on around him. That's a bit technical, but the upshot is that this quartet tells one of the greatest stories (ill-fated lovers--you know it's a great story because it's always retold) and really conveys the romance of youth, the passion of maturity, and the finality of death. It's amazing.<br /><br />There are lots of rehearsals on my calendar, in addition to a random recording session that Kate recruited me for on Tuesday. There are going to be some extremely talented local musicians at this session. I'm terrified, of course, but at the same time I'm excited about it. I'm a musician because I love it, but I have to work pretty hard at it. That's not a bad thing, as I've been discovering recently. It's good to pour my creative energy into things that are somewhat immediately gratifying, such as performing music.<br /><br />In other news, I'm trying to get 8-9 hours of sleep per night. Have you noticed that my blogging has been more frequent? The sleeping is why I'm coherent again. Hooray!<br /><br />Readers: are you seeing results from your New Year's Resolutions?Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-61871944778324516942010-01-07T14:06:00.004-05:002010-01-07T17:14:51.737-05:00WomenSerious posts kind of bum me out, but I've been reading a lot of things lately that are showing how our culture busts on women...maybe without even meaning to. Felicia Day posted a link yesterday to an article in Vanity Fair about the women of Twitter. Here's the article. But if you click it, promise me that you will also click the link right after it:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/02/twitter-201002">http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/02/twitter-201002</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.geekweek.com/2010/01/why-does-this-vanity-fair-article-hate-the-women-of-twitter.html">http://www.geekweek.com/2010/01/why-does-this-vanity-fair-article-hate-the-women-of-twitter.html</a><br /><br />You can read it in the url: Why does this Vanity Fair article hate the women of Twitter? The geekweek blogger summed it right up, and Ms. Day herself reposted the second link when someone sent it to her. She said that she was finding it difficult to argue with the blogger's points (although the pic was sweet). It's outright misogyny. I mean, yes, Twitter celebrity is a little bit of a fluffy topic. But the women they chose for this article are highly impressive entrepreneurs, creative powerhouses, and--at the very least--pioneers in the successful use of social media technology. If they were men, this article would be "Six Social Media Pioneers To Watch" or something with equal gravitas. But instead, we get this horrible fluffy profile that talks about these powerful women like they're the frontrunners in the race for homecoming queen.<br /><br />It reminded me of this article I'd recently read, in which a female author analyzed the new PW Top 100 books of 2009 list. Women in the top 10? Zero. Women on the total list? Twenty-nine. But women are, by and large, keeping the book publishing industry afloat--we are the largest segment of book consumers in the market.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/29/AR2009122902292.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/29/AR2009122902292.html</a><br /><br />What's going on, here? It doesn't matter, as Ms. Baggott explained, that the author of the offensive VF profile was a woman herself, or that there were women on the committees that chose the PW list. The male hegemony (oh crap, a graduate school word...now I know I'm in trouble) may be so deeply ingrained that outside the domestic sphere, the accomplishments of men are automatically given more weight than those of women. Women have to work twice as hard to be considered as equals (but are still earning, according to some reports, less than 80 cents for every dollar a man earns for equal work).<br /><br />I've never really considered myself a feminist, precisely because feminists who came before me paved the way for me to have choices in my life--opportunities that women in previous generations only dreamed about. But now I'm a person who has written a book. And maybe someday I'll sell that book. And if it's good, maybe it'll be considered for prizes or honors. But if I were to lose that prize to a man's book of equal (or possibly lesser) quality, simply because the author is a man, that would be pretty soul-crushing. Even though it hasn't happened to me yet, my soul feels a little crushed knowing that it has happened to someone else. <br /><br />What do we do about it? Is there anything we can do about it?Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-47947923263831721812010-01-06T09:34:00.003-05:002010-01-06T12:53:34.360-05:00Tying up the loose ends from 2009I left you hanging on a number of fronts, and for this, I apologize. Please have some closure, on me:<br /><br /><strong>Screenwriting Contest</strong><br />After the guy in charge claimed to have confirmed that my score had been re-sent, I continued to send him enough extremely polite e-mails to prompt him to ask me to send my entry directly to him so that he could score it himself. He did this quite promptly, and I was surprised to receive a fairly decent score and some rather positive comments. In fact, it was quite conveniently the highest score one could get without qualifying for the second round. I wonder how scoring my entry on time would have changed the outcome of the contest.<br /><br /><strong>Novel Queries</strong><br />I heard from one other agent, who is currently not taking any new clients. That's rejection #2, I suppose. I believe this means that I currently have one query (to two agents at the same firm) still floating around in the wait-space.<br /><br /><strong>Tweet Me a Story</strong><br />Those who follow me on Twitter may have seen a few plaintive tweets from me, asking for votes on my 140-character stories for this contest. That's partially what the title of the last post was referring to, but I'm not bitter. (I'm not, really. Amused sarcasm doesn't really translate to the blogosphere the way I'd like it to.) I did not move on to the second round of the contest, but I still consider it an accomplishment to have two stories that made it into the top 25 in my group.<br /><br /><strong>Economic Crisis</strong><br />Oh, sorry...I don't actually know how this one ends.<br /><br /><strong>National Novel Writing Month</strong><br />You may have noticed that I went on blogging hiatus for National Novel Writing Month. Happily, I achieved my word count (as seen in the celebratory graphic at right). The story leaves something to be desired, though. I won't be finishing it without massive revisions. I learned, in this experience, that third-person omniscient storytelling is not a strength of mine. While it may be a bit limiting to write in character in terms of being able to express what other characters are thinking and feeling, I find it much more personally satisfying. This particular story may require 3rd person narration, though...hence the massive revisions.<br /><br /><strong>Blogging</strong><br />Yes, I am doing that again.Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-10857615924915436592010-01-05T13:38:00.002-05:002010-01-05T18:07:14.047-05:00more letters = more majesty<em>people drive fast/people drink deep/people smoke weed/people skip sleep</em><br /><br />"Pimpin'. Ain't. Easy," she said. "And neither is this." The wintry air was beginning to penetrate the layers of sweaters she'd told me to wear under my wool overcoat. She plastered a bright white smile onto her face and turned toward the cameras. How did she stand there for so long, just smiling in her thin sweater and puffer vest? It was a cheerful Hollywood knockoff of a winter ensemble, the kind that looks perfect but doesn't have the wherewithal to block out the cold. A sympathy shiver shuddered down my limbs as I thought about how many more takes they might need to do before they let her go inside.<br /><br />A man wearing headphones as big as his head started waving his arms and cursing at the wind, which was whipping through the trees. "Take ten," the director said, his voice at once authoritative and defeated. "Let the wind die down." It took less than fifteen seconds to clear out the set as people bolted for the little cabin. Inside, craft services had laid out a few snacks and what seemed like one hot beverage urn per person.<br /><br />"Is it always like this?" I asked her. She smiled again, handing me a styrofoam cup of steaming brown liquid. I wasn't sure whether it was coffee, tea, or cocoa, but at least it was hot.<br /><br />"It's not always so cold," she said. "But I wouldn't trade it for any other job in the world." She smiled again, a couple of smiles in rapid succession. I think she was testing her face for thawing. After sipping in silence for a few minutes, I felt the hot drink start to work its magic, warming me from the inside. She looked at her watch and caught someone's eye across the room. Then she said, "Well, I guess I'd trade outdoor commercials in New York for outdoor commercials in California. But when I get out there again I'm going to look like I love it. All of it. And I won't even be acting."<br /><br />I thought about her while I was driving back home later that night, the window rolled all the way down to accommodate my chainsmoking. The cold slapped my bare hand until it was numb, but it was easier to mark time in cigarettes when I drove long distances. I stubbornly squeezed each filter between my fingers until the smokeable part burned itself out. Three-pack trips always went faster with the window down and my foot pressed firmly to the floor. <br /><br />We were friends from when I first knew she'd be an actress and she first knew I'd be a n'er-do-well, which was shortly after we entered the third grade. I spent a lot of that year indoors at recess, always writing about how I could work to be a better person until the teacher was satisfied that I'd "learned a valuable lesson about myself." She spent a lot of time indoors at recess too, acting like she had migraines or something so they wouldn't make her stand outside where the popular girls could taunt her.<br /><br />"They're jealous of you," I'd said once. A kid who spends a lot of recesses forced to think about how to be a better person learns some interesting things about human nature, even though all I thought I'd learned was better penmanship.<br /><br />"You're on crack," she'd said. That was a very popular thing to say at the time, despite the fact that most of those sheltered, suburban third-graders didn't actually know what crack was.<br /><br />"No," I'd said. "You're cute, like a kid in a commercial. And you always seem to get what you want."<br /><br />"I guess that's true," she'd said. "I'm inside, right? Maybe they <em>are</em> jealous." And that was how I found myself, 20 years later, speeding down I-95 once or twice a month and burning through gallons of gas and cartons of cigarettes like someone who could afford either luxury. <br /><br />I knew that my roommate (another n'er-do-well) would be passed out on the couch when I got back. He'd have spent the evening smoking a bowl and eating ramen on Doritos, which is pretty much only appealing after smoking a bowl, at which point, it's the best food on earth. He went to med school but dropped out to be a full-time bartender--"The hours are about as grueling, but you get free booze and it's rare for anyone to die during your shift," he'd said--and just spent the rest of the time going to rock shows and playing video games. He paid the lion's share of the rent, though, which allowed me to use my meager freelancing income to drive back and forth to New York. So even though he was kind of an asshole, I never told him that to his face. It was a sweet situation, most things considered.<br /><br />If I were to consider all things--like the fact that she isn't my girlfriend, and the fact that she will never be my girlfriend, and the fact that I couldn't hack it in New York as a writer, which is why I have to live in Richmond with my asshole roommate--the big picture would be a bit less sweet. Let's just say I try to think about this as little as possible.Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-19969401333877158642009-11-07T11:26:00.004-05:002009-11-07T11:30:01.053-05:00I'm procrastinating on today's wordcountSo I'm gonna make this short. I just wanted to call your attention to some links on the right hand side of my blog. I added links for the music I'm working on right now...the bands and orchestra that challenge me musically and thus (somehow) make my writing all the richer for it.<br /><br />Also, if you're in the DC-metro area, the Sinfonietta is having a concert tonight. It's my first time playing first violin, and we're doing some killer 11th-position stuff. It's gonna be SWEET. See the link at right (NEW!) for more details.Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-47391370897813285322009-10-30T13:49:00.003-04:002009-10-30T14:14:27.682-04:00The de facto writing exercise I happened to amuse myself with this morningSo, I'm sure you've all heard of FML. It's an anonymous gripe board for when your life just seems like one ridiculous (possibly ironic) mishap after another. Well. This morning, my husband sent me a link to <a href="http://mylifeisaverage.com/index.php">MLIA</a>--My Life Is Average. But as I read, I found that the stories were not average at all. Many of them, in fact, were tales of unusually humorous or strange situations. For example:<br /><br />"Today, the woman's rugby team I am on was traveling to Texas for a game. Our van stopped at McDonald's to get something to eat. As 10 girls order their food, a man approaches our male coach. The guy looks at all us girls then at our coach then asks, 'Are all of these your daughters?' My coach, without missing a beat, says, 'No. They're my wives.' The look on that man's face was priceless. MLIA"<br /><br />The complete non-averageness of this exchange disturbed me. So I took it upon myself to rewrite it to make it actually average (except for the spelling and grammar, upon which I improved). To wit:<br /><br />Today, the women's rugby team I am on was traveling to Texas for a game. Our van stopped at McDonald's to get something to eat. As 10 girls are ordering their food, a man approaches our coach. The guy looks at all of us girls, then at our coach, and asks, "Is this a field hockey team?" My coach, without missing a beat, says, "No. It's a rugby team." Then we ate our food. MLIA<br /><br />Now that's average! <br /><br />Here's another one from the site:<br /><br />"Today, I was walking across campus near the end of the day. I look out over the lawn to see two HUGE leaf piles. When I got closer to see what was going on, I see my History teacher hiding behind one of the piles with a water gun about to attack my English teacher in the other pile. They were having a war. I feel like I chose the right school. MLIA."<br /><br />What? How is a water fight between teachers average in any way? That seems downright unusual, to me. Here's how I would write it:<br /><br />Today, I was walking across campus near the end of the day. I look out over the lawn to see two huge leaf piles. When I got closer to see what was going on, I saw two groundsworkers raking the leaves. MLIA.<br /><br />Much better.<br /><br />Ok, one more...you twisted my arm. From the site:<br /><br />"Today, I was waiting at a main bus stop with a few other people. A man started to smoke and a young boy fell to the ground and crawled away on his hands and knees. His mother asked what he was doing and he pointed to the man and yelled 'Smoke is bad! Get down low and go go go!' I hope he still acts this way when he's in his late teens. MLIA"<br /><br />And my take:<br /><br />Today, I was waiting at a main bus stop with a few other people. A man started to smoke and he got a few dirty looks from the other people at the stop. He had to put the cigarette out when it was about halfway done because the bus came. Then we got on. MLIA.<br /><br />I thought I would share that with you, in case you were bored at work or something on this lovely pre-Halloween Friday. The link is above...you can make your own fun!Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-38518415841654313792009-10-13T17:59:00.004-04:002009-10-13T18:07:58.699-04:00Real Live Writer<a href="http://literaryrejectionsondisplay.blogspot.com/">http://literaryrejectionsondisplay.blogspot.com/</a><br /><br />I found this link just in time! I can enjoy it with the knowing nod of an insider, having just received my first real rejection.<br /><br />In addition to a line regarding the personal thing I wrote to the agent, here it is:<br /><br />"I regret to say that I don’t feel that I’m the most appropriate agent for your work.<br /><br />However, opinions vary considerably in this business, and I wish you the best of luck in your search for representation."<br /><br />It's not so scary or bad, and I have to say that I'm not really depressed about it at all. Every good novel gets rejected at least once. And really, the idea is to get someone who will be passionate about my work...if he's not the guy for the job, then he's not the guy for the job. I hope I find someone who is!<br /><br />I also hope I'm this sunny after rejection #18.<br /><br />In other putting-myself-out-there writing news, I did enter that screenwriting contest. I wrote my scene, sent it in, and never heard back. Yep. That's right. The score they promised never showed up. I sent an extremely polite e-mail about it to their customer service address (which apparently they never check). Then today, I got an e-mail from the competition that basically said, "mea culpa, if you never got a score, e-mail me personally at the following address." So, I sent another extremely polite e-mail (excerpted from the last one, actually) and am hoping--enfin--for a response. I'll keep you posted.Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32465905.post-92182041398145729742009-10-09T10:58:00.011-04:002009-10-12T15:10:44.061-04:00Waving GoodbyeAll right...we're closer to having a band name now!<br /><br />Anyway, have a listen to this one and let me know what you think!<br /><br /><a href="http://home.comcast.net/~tigermelp/WavingGoodbye.mp3">Waving Goodbye</a><br /><br />If anyone knows how to get a player embedded in a Blogger blog, let me know!<br /><br />Things have been suitably busy around here. Pat's play opened this weekend. He's doing The Laramie Project at Rockville Little Theater. The direction is wonderful, the cast is quite talented, and the story is beautifully told and completely raw with emotion. The information can be found here, if you'll be in the neighborhood next weekend: <a href="http://www.rlt-online.org/">http://www.rlt-online.org</a><br /><br />My rabble-rouser of a husband decided to let the good folks at the Westboro Baptist Church (I refuse to link to them) know that he's doing the play, especially because there was an equality march this weekend that they were coming to protest. But as far as I know, they didn't show up at the theater, and nobody had to tell anybody to eat a bag of dicks. I'm sorry, was that crass? It's hard for me to find love for people whose primary message is that God hates certain people (you can guess which ones, based on context, if you haven't seen these clowns before). It doesn't even make sense. I'm no religious scholar, to be sure, but why would an omniscient and omnipotent being create something that he/she hated? The thing about this world is that even the ugly things have something beautiful about them. Even the Westboro Baptists think that their hate is somehow helping people go to heaven. That's completely asinine, of course, but the thought is there, right? QED, God loves everyone.<br /><br />I didn't mean this to become a mini-treatise on religion, but it's a big theme in the play, and I've seen it twice, now. Yes, I do go to Pat's plays more than once. I'm a good wife. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the story about Pat's doing Antigone in college. I went a lot, even though it was during finals. Between finals and seeing Antigone over and over again, I just about wanted to off myself. So...uhh...The Laramie Project. Yeah.<br /><br />Anyway, I apologize if you've gotten this blog post emailed to you a number of times before it was filled with content. I kept trying to get the embedded player to work, which it didn't.<br /><br />Hope you enjoy your Columbus Day!Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12793348534669527262noreply@blogger.com1