Bad-Ass Pumpkin-Carving

Bernie was kind enough to link me from one of the nicest collections of artistically carved pumpkins I've ever seen. Seriously good shit.

John Kerry's Meltdown

I'm glad Karl Rove was able to get that brain implant working in time for the elections; the remote appears to be functioning as well. All systems go.

Life in the Closet

My lefty/liberal friends are just wonderful, though of course they sort of "put up" with my libertarianism as if it were an endearing eccentricity.

But colleagues in entertainment, fiction-writing and the media? Ye gods; it's awful out there. And Eric is right: the lefties always bring this stuff up, either because they assume everyone shares their passions, or because they want to screen out those who aren't leftist enough for them. Some look around to see who isn't agreeing, and some simply assume that silence is agreement.

There Are So Many Things

. . . that aren't bad in and of themselves—only that they open the door to more of the same. That was always my argument against goofing off at work (or, at least, without making up the time that evening, or that weekend): once you get into a habit like that, it's hard to stop. Then you feel guilty, and the pendulum swings back the other way.

One is against compulsive drivenness, but also against sloth. And all these things, not to put too much of a Protestant point on it, are insidious.

And so—back to work.

I Have a Friend

. . . who fell for this.

Dear Abby: what shall I do with her?

UPDATE: Fixed, though it was funnier with the wrong link.

Extreme Pumpkin-Carving

. . . brought to you by Popular Mechanics.

More on the Religion of Rape Peace.

Nothing against the moderate Muslims—either one of you.

But you do have your work cut out for you, no?

Something Had to Give.

It turned out to be sleep—at least, attempting to sleep on any kind of a schedule. I got most of the way through cleaning out my side of the garage yesterday. Enough so that the gutter-hanging people can come by at 7:30 a.m. and hang gutters. Meanwhile, the VVA will be picking up a bunch of our junk, and I shall schlep the rest of it to storage. Then we hand out candy.

The painters are coming on Friday, so there's plenty to be done before then. And we have a bunch of work to do on finances. I'm down with all this, but I've told Attila the Hub he may not see my manuscript until Thursday; that's the way it goes.

A Parkinson's Patient

. . . defends Llimbaugh.

Congratulations, America!

300 million, huh? That's just da bomb, (and I don't mean the population bomb).

Did the Civil Rights Movement Begin in Wichita?

It looks like it.

Thanks, Glenn.

Thanks, Evan.

Good to see you and Ms. Weiss last night. That's why I went to Linguist Guy's digs in the first place: to talk to you two, and to She Who Will Not Practice Law.

But Mr. Linguistics was in fine form.

I'm not sure what the point is of cannabis vodka without any THC in it, but I did discover that if one has enough of it, this deficiency can be counteracted.

Halloween is always such a magical time—even when one celebrates it the previous weekend.

Pax et lux, my friend.

"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Discuss.

Please note that the word "spirit" here is lower-cased; the Lord* wasn't discussing the Holy Spirit.

Is there irony in the word "spirits" for booze?

* Oh, how I hate it when my relatives throw that phrase around. But it's different when I do it.

So My Private Detectives Are Interviewing Suspects.

But whenever they leave one of these interviews, the protagonist decides the killer couldn't possibly have been him, "because he's so cute." I think her horniness is messing with her objectivity: I'll have to speak to her about this.

More Fun at Writer's Group.

The usual spirited discussion about whether I should have a character use the word "cunt." I thought it worked, but a lot of people find that word offensive beyond anything else. So, there's that.

And, of course, there was the usual praise for my dialogue, with the standard cautions about how I have too much of it. And the expected admonition that at certain points my characters' voices sound indistinguishible from one another, "as if they'd been written by the same person."

"Yes," I replied. "There's a reason for that."

So. 177 Pages.

If I could just crank out several pages a day consistently, I'd be fine. But I have no attention span. I flit around from chapter to chapter. I rearrange the order of things.

And I forgot to introduce that important whatchamacallit into the first chapter.

I'm a freaking mess right now.

I Don't Want To Eat.

I just want to work on the book. I'm supposed to have it finished on Tuesday, but that seems hopeless.

I'd like to at least print out some of the earlier chapters, but they keep changing: as I tweak the solution to the puzzle, I have to insert correlating clues in the first few chapters.

Meanwhile, as usual, I'm neglecting the middle of the book. And that stupid mob connection thingie; WTF was I thinking with that?

Down at the Church

I'm looking into becoming a Eucharistic Minister at my church.

1) This ministry is now under the direction of the most conservative (legalistic, I want to say) priest there.
2) There is a dress code, and I shall have to scrounge up non-tight dress slacks, and/or skirts that fall below my knees.
3) It is hyper-Catholic, and involves all kinds of arcane terminology.
4) I'll have to learn to genuflect properly.

In short, I'm scared shitless. I'm very likely doing the right thing.

Great (Primarily) Instrumentals from the 1970s.

Off the top of my head, I'd say "Frankenstein," "Cut the Cake," and "Pick Up the Pieces."

What am I forgetting?

Have You Ever Said To Yourself,

"you know, I'm not going to be an asshole any longer," and then discovered that turning over a new leaf has merely transformed you into an entirely different sort of asshole?

I wonder if this is part of my Protestant heritage—a hangover from the traditional delusion that humans are somehow perfectable.

Don't Just Sit There, Maggots!

Figure out how I'm going to wrap up that subplot about the potential mobsters. Chop chop!

When Passive-Aggressives Collide . . .

I decided I was sort-of mad at my husband today, so I played Elvis Costello really loud and puttered around the house and almost-ignored Attila the Hub. I did everything, in short, that I could do to be hostile without sacrificing my plausible deniability. He just shut the door to his office, and ignored me right back.
Finally he came upstairs. I was cool as a cucumber. He made a funny joke.
"I see what you're trying to do," I told him. "And it isn't going to work."
"No?" he asked.
I kissed him really hard right then.
"Boy," he remarked. "Have I learned my lesson."

So, I'm Talking with an Attorney Friend,

one Ghetto Fabulous J. Wicked.

"What's pro bono work?" I ask him. "I mean, is that when you do stuff for free, or is it when you spend your billable hours listening to U2?"

"Pro bono" he responds, "is when lawyers spend time doing something even more socially corrosive than what they do for money."

I Hate To Be a Bigot,

but I am one.

E.g.,

what lies behind the inability of the average human male to wipe down kitchen counters? Is it related to the inability of the average human male to stock a refrigerator adequately?

Still Reading Mark.

It's so different to read the gospels as an adult—and to take them seriously as biographies. I know I have friends who think Jesus was an unbalanced rabbi with charisma, but when I look at his maturity, and his willingness to die with dignity at the age of 33, it's difficult to look at the man's life and not be convinced that he was exactly what he said he was.

Jesus Christ the man was a major stud. A total badass. If he was not—is not—God, he was also completely insane, of course.

David Zucker Strikes Again.

It isn't as funny as the Madeleine Albright ad, but it's pretty good.

Very few people discuss how disproportionately high taxes penalize creative people, who often have very high earnings one year, and very low earnings the next.

Why Are You Guys Obsessed with My Book?

I'm at 172 pages right now. The battery in my Mac is threatening to overheat. (What do I do if that happens? Add water?)

It's looking like the first draft will weigh in at close to 200 pages. Hard to predict how long the finished product will be. I figure shorter is always better; it isn't like I can't buff out the areas that need it. I could see it going to 250 pages, but who knows? Certainly no longer than 300. It's just a little mystery.

The idea is that I "park" the manuscript during November. I can still do research, but I can't mess with the text; I need to see it with fresh eyes.

House-Sitter Available

Beginning November 6th in the Los Angeles area. A friend of mine is available from that time onward. She has references, and loves to take care of cats. She specializes in long-term assignments (e.g., a month or more).

Let me know if you know someone who needs this service.

Yesterday

. . . I went to the second Catholic wedding of my life.

The first one, of course, was my own. I hadn't converted yet, so among the four of us kneeling at the front of the church there was one Catholic: my husband.

Mass took a while, since two-thirds of those attending went for blessings rather than the Eucharist.

So, Tell the Truth.

As you get older, are you getting smarter—or just more stupid?

On the one hand, I feel like I've tumbled to a few of life's tricks over the years. Despite my best efforts, I've acquired some wisdom. But at the same time I catch my mind falling into pattern after pattern, and I know I'm setting up barriers for myself. Everything I see is filtered through my own experience, and my confidence in my rightness may in fact make me more and more blind.

Is this inevitable as we age? Do we really get more hip and more idiotic simultaneously as time goes on? Discuss.

"Send the Chauffeur to the Barricades!"

Mrs. Norman Lear is frightened. She and Gore Vidal would like the servants to riot, should the GOP hold the House next month.

Via everyone, but I saw it at Glenn's digs first.

Four More Pivotal Scenes.

And then this rough beast will be ready to be printed out for review by my husband.

I'm exhausted, though: we spent all afternoon/evening at a wedding, and I'm making omelets tomorrow for my mother and for Attila the Hub. (Or am I making omelettes? Editorial types may want to weigh in, here.)

Does someone else want to add that stupid interview with the guy who killed the model? Or that stupid clue about the bookmark? This whole thing isn't going to work: I should just admit it. What was I thinking?

Hog Beatty Sends This Along.

He tells me it's one of "dozens"—

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJT5Sqd1lQQ

At least this way a person can figure out which one is Pink . . .

Hell Week Is Almost Over.

So today is the end of it: the newsletter is out, and the office is running almost-smoothly. The Board Meeting is at 9:00 a.m. on the Westside, and then we have a general meeting at 11:00 that goes on until 12:30. I plan to escape at 1:00 sharp, when the office closes, and that will be that. Off to a wedding I go, and the nonprofit can survive for a few days without me.

R.L. Hymers' History of Violence

This includes: ransacking the surface of a church elder's desk with the swipe of an arm; throwing chairs; slapping female parishioners; knocking over a rack that held religious booklets, sending hundreds of tiny Chick tracts fluttering onto the floor; stalking behavior ("staking out" the homes of people who left his church); breaking pulpits; striking male parishioners; shattering the glass in a framed document during a sermon, so the shards of glass landed in the first few rows of the assembly; abusive language; spitting water from the pulpit.

Good work, Bob.

Blogging vs. Video Games

Which addiction is worse? On the one hand, at least blogging forces some interaction with the world at large.

On the other hand, serious gamers aren't foisting the results of their vices onto unsuspecting web surfers.

I think all those people should get help. Like, now.

No, Really.

Let's take a vote: double-edged, or single-edged? I was going to go double, but I may stick with single. I wish the different types of wounds weren't so distinct from one another.

Fucking forensic scientists. They've ruined everything.

So, I'm at Hog Beatty's Place.

Val is there, too. He and Hog are sharing a joint and I'm reading a magazine in the corner. Eventually I take a blanket off of Hog's bed and curl up in it while I finish the article. They laugh at me.

"I can't help it," I tell them. "It's freezing."

Val looks at me. "Do you know what the freezing point is? he asks.

I look up at him over the tops of my glasses. "As a matter of fact, I do."

What's wrong with everyone's fucking irony meter?

So, What Do You Guys Know About Edged Weapons?

I need to research knives: kitchen knives, daggers, and the use of knives in magic tricks.

I also need to disconnect the phone system in an office building—preferably only on one floor.

This is my first big crime, and I need it to be . . . well, perfect.

"Instead of Going to a Writer's Group,"

he asks, "why don't you spend that same amount of time reading the classics in your genre?"

Because I don't want to read the classics. I want to be a classic. And the only way to do that is to face the truth about my shortcomings; the sooner, the better. Emulating the "greats" works slowly, and I have a finite amount of time.

Sure, some of what gets said is silly, and I disregard that. I only listen to what works for me.

My Experiments

. . . with pumpkin pie for breakfast make me loathe to recommend it as a weight loss regimen.

However, my body is just singing with beta carotene, so I've got that going for me.

Rusty Calls for a Boycott

It's an extreme measure, but it sounds like the situation for Christians in Indonesia is perilous right now, and boycotting the country may save some lives.

Rush Is . . . Well, Wrong.

What do you call a blogwar that erupts onto the public airwaves? A multimedia police action?

Glenn stated that the GOP deserved the drubbing they may well get in the midterms; he didn't say that the American people deserved the policy consequences if it happened. Fact: the party leadership—including The Mediocre Communicator in the White House—haven't earned much trust. They'd be in hot water if they weren't up against the Democrats.

I'm with Insty on This.

Reynolds:

Let me stress that it will take several successful test explosions to convince me that North Korea really has workable nukes. Say six or eight. Anything less could be a fluke.

Absolutely. There are no nukes in North Korea unless there have been at least half a dozen tests of nuclear devices.

Cards on the table, Mr. Bad Hair.

For One Blessed Hour Yesteday

. . . I realized that a tiny shard of ice in my heart had finally melted, after years. It was a little sliver that I never even admitted to; I didn't have to.

After all, I have words for everything. And the words mean this: I am right, I am right, I am right. Why I write, why I write, why I write.

American Mourning

. . . continues to rise in the Amazon rankings. This book contrasts Cindy Sheehan's response to her son's death to that of another couple that lost its son Justin (incidentally, Casey Sheehan's best friend) a week after Casey's death.

Insted of becoming peace activists, Justin's family supported our efforts in the War on Terror all the more. His father went so far as to re-enlist in the Army at the age of 43, going off to Iraq to kill the Islamic extremists responsible for his son's death.

Glenn on the GOP

. . . and all the issues party leaders should contemplate, whether they hold onto the House or not.

The Gospel of Mark

What a gallop through the life of Christ.

This is rather a weird thought, because despite being fully man, Jesus was also fully God. However, He was fully man, and I find myself thinking, "hey, this guy was one mature dude. I mean, his act was tight. He had it together."

Or as Frederick Buechner once put it: "when we say that people are 'with it,' the 'it' they are with is God."*

* From memory, so it might be a slight paraphrase.

You Know . . .

I'm pretty damned happy right now. This despite the fact that I only have two weeks to finish the manuscript in: I've told my husband I'll be printing out my rough draft for his review on November first. (He gets the "dirty" version—the one that has all my notes to myself in each chapter file about things I'd like to check on, transitions I intend to tweak, and the like.)

What one cannot do: let the whiny voice win. That's the one in the back of one's brain that says, "awww, I don't want to work on that scene." Of course I want to. I just may not want my writing teacher to read it quite yet.

I Lost My Virginity in the Bob Hymers Cult

I was fourteen years old, and I was tiny. My boyfriend was a tall guy who had no problem forcing himself on me. I never used the word "rape" when I described the event. Rather, I called it "forced sex."

R.L. Hymers and the cult elders called it "sexual sin." I received no counseling. After that incident I lived my life in that "church" under a cloud. On the other hand, I wasn't murdered for dishonoring the "church," so there is a distinction to be drawn between the Hymerites and radical Islamists.

At Writer's Group

The Knitting Mafia is there, which isn't unusual. So the subject of yarn crafts comes up, as it does every now and then.

I point out that I could knit fine as a child, but my stitches were very uneven; they varied with my mood.

"Don't knit when you're angry," one woman tells me.

"And don't knit when you've had wine," another one adds.

When, then, can one knit? I'm angry 90% of the time; the other 10%, I've had wine.

Wow. Proud Moment for a Small-Time Blogger.

Just got my first real threat related to this blog, through the U.S. Mail.

It was sent anonymously. There are basically three candidates for this: two long shots, and the person I suspect is behind it.

Naturally, once I realized what it was I stopped handling it, to preserve any fingerprints.

Dear Coward: You are a coward. How do you feel about that?

Happy Friday the 13th!

It's going to be a beautiful October night.

It's Finally Here!

My NET Bible arrived yesterday; it's a modern translation, a la NASB, with more notes in it than any other Bible out there. I splurged and got leather, and even got my name engraved on the front (I intend to use this volume for the rest of my life).

This is the most amazing ministry, and I'm glad to support it by purchasing a physical Bible from these people. They essentially are committed to making scriptures available all over the world, truly harnessing the power of the internet in promoting reading/study of the Word.

The Infamous David Zucker Ad

Drudge has it here.

Better yet, check it out at Darleen's digs; she's the first one to point it out to me.

Too bad the GOP pulled it from the airwaves; as Glenn points out, now no one will ever see it.

I Just Re-Counted.

I had a few duplicate chapters in the "Draft One" folder. But I still have 160 pages in there, which isn't too bad. I'm probably 60-80 pages away from the finish line. First mysteries tend to be slender, after all. Twenty-two days left until I pronounce the first draft complete and set this puppy aside for a month or so while my "beta-testers" mark it up. That's 2.7 pages a day, if my calculations are correct about the finished length of Draft One. And I'm writing every day.

The rule is: some of it should suck—hard. Or I'm overediting as I go. That would really suck.

Just a Ronery Guy

Glenn has a roundup on the North Korean nuclear detonation, and reminds us to keep an eye on the mullahs during the latest round of Il Antics.

The Reverend Mac Dazzle

brags that he's reading his computer screen from halfway across the room.

"You know," he tells me, "you can do that when you've had Lasik surgery."

"Yes," I tell him. "But then you don't get to wear glasses."

He laughs. "Don't accentuate the negative that way. Try to stay positive."

In My Twelve-Step Group

. . . we have speakers in to talk about how they got their businesses to grow (I'm in the money fellowship, so it's not as crazy as it sounds). Afterward, there's a question-and-answer session for ten minutes. During this time someone invariably asks the speaker "what are your daily spiritual practices?"

Standard answers: prayer, meditation, spiritual readings.

Next time I speak at that meeting I'm going to answer, "every day I read the Bible, and Ellery Queen."

You Know What's Terrific About Middle Age?

I will tell you: never knowing, when you use an extremity—an arm, say, or a foot—when you will strain some muscle or tendon and be in pain for a week for seemingly no reason.

I ought to find a yoga studio, while I still have a teensy bit of flexibility left.

It's not so much the level of suckage now, but rather fear of how bad it could get, given that I'm planning on living until I'm 105. (Now that I come to think about it, I may want to revise that number downward.) I just hope the painkillers will be plentiful and plenty butch by that point.

Finding Your Audience

In our household, the catchphrase is in honor of my 11-year-old fan, who heard me read at a party once and now wants to see all my work. Fortunately, she doesn't yet know about this blog, so I don't have to clean up my act here. But her taste for my autobiographical writing leaves me with a continual question as to how intense things can get—not so much with respect to sex, but in matters of violence and emotional sturm und drang.

If her name is Carol, the household conversation goes something like this: "don't worry, Honey; you'll find your Carol." We say that to each other over and over again.

You Tell Me:

What makes Harry Potter so special?

"Why Don't Republicans Need Bookmarks?" He Asks.

"I have no idea."
"They just bend over the page."
"Cute," I tell him. "Are you done?"
"Not quite. What did the GOP leadership say when it got everyone together to talk about the '06 elections?"
I cross my arms and raise my eyebrows.
He continues: "We've got to get everyone on the same page."
"It's not fair," I scold. "The word 'page' makes it too easy. From now on, we should only send salacious emails to . . . I dunno. Hunky young armadillos or something."

Hey, I've Been Out for Years

But all the cool kids are doing it, so I'll reiterate: I'm a right-wing sex fiend myself. And within my rather amazing middle-aged female body reside both a gay woman and a gay man.

Gay! I tell you. Gay, gay, gay!

And sex-loving! Yes!

Confess, right-wingers. ConFESS!

So, I Wrote That Scene I'd Been Putting Off.

Then I went back in and embedded some more allusions in the text—including a luscious quote from W.B. Yeats. At some point some asshole editor is going to take it out, but not for a while yet.

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, ya know.

I Need a Thumb Drive.

I at least need to create a backup backup of my murder mystery files (say, 250 pages in 30 different documents [including character studies, outlines and the like]).

If I add my other fiction/essays/fiddle faddle to it, that could well be another 250 pages, in a similar number of files.

So how small can the jump drive be? Can someone convert that amount of text into a ballpark number of megs for me? You know how I hate dealing with figures . . .

"Where Are You Going?"

I ask Attila the Hub.

"To the gym."

I look up from my laptop. "You're doing that to show me up, aren't you? Just trying to annoy me?"

"Oh, no," he reassures me. "I'm doing it because I want to. If it bothers you, that's just a value-added kind of thing."

Twenty-Five Days

. . . until my Vomit Draft is finished. I want an unbroken narrative of the mystery done by Halloween. If I need to expand things after that, or change them around in the second draft, that's just freaking fine.

Some of this stuff does strike me as awfully vomity. Of course, there are those passages that I want to embroider on my clothing, and wear around town.

Would people look at me funny if I did that?

"No, She Doesn't Want Help,"

explains the lady who's setting out literature in my Twelve-Step meeting. "She wants to handle the refreshments all by herself—even though it isn't her job—so she can get mad because she's doing too much for this meeting."

She looks at me again, and immediately apologizes. "I'm sorry," she tells me. "That was harsh."

"Why apologize?" I ask. "It's completely true, and everyone knows it." I keep setting up the food.

Is It Me . . .

Or are the Democratic and Republican leaderships basically involved in a contest to see how far they can get their respective heads up their oversized asses?

Just askin'. In the most tactful way I know how.

The Foley Follies

I'm not going to defend the GOP leadership, but it looks like ABC should be under the microscope along with Hastert.

Freaking Rethuglican Bigots.

They make me sick.

Oh. Wait . . .

Hm.

I'm with Brendan Loy and Glenn Reynolds: the "prank" interpretation of the Foley scandal doesn't really explain everything. And if it were pure prank—that is, Foley was in on it, and just screwing around—would he have resigned?

Unless, of course, the whole thing is part of the egregious habit Democratic bigots have of outing gay Republicans.

Green Hypocrisy

Environmentalist jet-setters and the "greenhouse effect."

Via Glenn.

What's Going On?

There is a draft coming in. I had to put socks on, and I'm considering closing the window.

Next thing you know, I'll have to put a jacket in the back seat of my car every fucking time I leave the house. I'm getting pretty sick of these goddamned weather extremes.

Fuck; it's just out of fucking control.

Iowahawk Rox

And he's getting funnier as he gets weirder. There's this, for example, on the most recent Bill Clinton meltdown:

Had He witnessed the selfless magnificence of the former president’s honesty, Christ Himself would have been inspired to rip His very hands free of their crucifixial spikes, switch the channel to ESPN-Palestine, and punch Himself in His nards out of unworthiness.

Beautiful.

I Haven't Said

. . . anything about the Amish school shooting. I know I've had the same moment of sheer homicidal rage most decent people have experienced when hearing the story, but I also know that I don't pretend to have an antidote to human evil: my mission as a political animal is to keep it from becoming widespread, as it is in North Korea and as it is in the nations/areas that employ Sharia law.

But Kat has a solid Christian take on that heart-wrenching event.

It's No Secret

. . . that Condi didn't move with enough alacrity in the summer of '01. But it's a bit rich for the Democrats to claim that the Bush Administration should have done, in eight months, what the Clinton Administration failed to accomplish in eight years.

Via Glenn.

"You Leave Him Alone,"

B admonishes.
"I haven't done anything," I squeal.
"But you've thought about it."
"I don't think about things. I barely noticed he was a cute young redhead."
B. looks at me. "Joy, he's like 12 years old."
"More like 22. But who's keeping track?"
"Anyway, I just don't see the attraction. The kid talks too much."
"Verbal is good. Verbal rox. But you know, I think I could get him to shut up for a while."
"I'll bet you could, you dirty old lady."

The "Blue Dress" of Terrorism

Don Surber points out that we know when Clinton is lying, because that's when he wags his finger at whomever he's talking to.

I'm not sure it'll ever be clear which individual gave the order to spare Bin Laden's life during the Clinton Administration. But it's clear that no one thought he/she had the political cover to do it, because no one felt that Clinton would fully back them up if it went awry.

Via Glenn.