over the cliff

I think I mentioned this a while back, but I’ll say it again. Last year sometime I made this random prophecy that my Great Great Aunt and the Pope would die within a month of each other. She died in late January. So apparently my timing is off.

Anyway, when I clicked on CNN.com and saw that he’d been read his last rites, it reminded me of a story.

One afternoon in Research and Women’s Studies we were discussing the book The Abortion Myth. The topic turned to our Professor’s time spent growing up in Catholic school and how all of the Catholic school children knew more about sex and how to get an abortion than anyone else. Because that’s what happens when Nuns tell you exactly what not to do, in explicit detail.

Then she told us this story she’d been told by a nurse about a Catholic woman who was dying. Apparently she wasn’t a very nice woman, but this nurse asked her if she would like to see someone from her church. The old woman burst into tears. The nurse asked what was wrong, and the woman said that she’d been excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

It’s a pretty big deal to get excommunicated and so the nurse asked what had happened. So this old woman told this story about how when she was a teenager she’d gotten pregnant out of wedlock. She carried the baby to term and then put it up for adoption, but her Priest excommunicated her.

That sounded a bit odd to the Nurse so she called up a friend of hers who was a Catholic Priest to ask if Priests had the authority to do that.

“Uhhh… no,” he said.

So the nurse told this to the woman who is naturally ecstatic and then the nurse asked Priest friend to come give this woman her Last Rites. They got a bunch of other nurses to help and since this was the first religious ceremony in which this woman had been able to participate in 60 years, they wanted to make it special. They oiled her up and the Priest started throwing in every random Latin phrase he could think of. As the Nurse told our Professor, “No one knew what the hell he was saying, not even him… and she was sitting there smiling, looking like a greased pig.”

At least she died happy.

Well I tend to post in spurts… and since I’ve posted once a day for the past couple of days, better keep up with tradition.

Today is the 31st. Last day of the First Quarter for WotF. If I’m going to send in “Snow Wood Blooming”, I have to make all my revisions before… 4 PM today. Fuck… that’s like in 12 hours. It’s not that I really think the story has a chance… but if I can make it to the Quarterfinals I will dance for joy for at least 5 minutes. Well.. not dance since I never dance while sober… but I’ll be doing a jig on the inside I swear.

Today in Black Lit I started writing a poem about Deux ex machina. Most people know the term as simply a device by which there is some miraculous turn of events that makes the plot turn out okay. Like in Dodgeball… which had so many of them it’s not even funny. But the term comes from Greek plays where the gods would literally be lowered down to the stage by some sort of machinery in order to save the hero from certain death.

The poem is basically exploring the idea of how cool it’d be to have your own personal Deus ex machina perched on your shoulder. To keep you from spending $200 on a hideous pair of shoes that will murder your feet the first night you wear them. To wake you up when you’re about to sleep through an exam. To magically erase the pictures that a certain someone took of you and your friends while you were really really drunk in Vienna…

Stuff like that. Also pulling you out of the jaws of the Chimera or Hydra or something along those lines would be useful too.

The Reader’s Choice Awards are up on Strange Horizons. NONE of the poems I voted for won. I don’t know if I’m amused or annoyed. However, the Tim Pratt poem that won first place was one I hadn’t read. Oh wait, I did vote for Tam Lin…. so nevermind. And I liked Mike Allen’s poem, “Strange Cargo”.

Anyway, the past Reader’s Choice polls have led me to some of the better poems on SH. One day I think I’ll make a master list on Cuimhne.net of all the ones that I really enjoy. Not the ones I think are the best, mind you… but the ones that tend to stick with me over the next couple of days.

And I’m sorry if yall are getting annoyed with how much I talk about SH and Spec poetry in this blog. Actually, I’m not that sorry… but you can pretend I am if that makes you feel better.

Slowly Downward

My personal favorites: A Happy Story; Game; Trouble with Neighbors

Through Robert’s LJ I found out that Sarah has finally announced her engagement to her parents and thus I am free to say how UNBELIEVABLY happy I am for her. I only met Pyran (which I hope is spelled correctly) once but I liked him. And she wrote this cuuute short story about him in Intro to Creative Writing. Anyway…

Now that that’s done.

I pulled out my hiking boots from Europe. The same shoes that destroyed my feet. The shoes that turned them into shreds of skin and other stuff and thus had to be covered heel to toe in ducktape.

The same shoes that I now have to wear again. They’re actually not that bad. In fact, I dare say they’re comfortable. That is, over short distances. The problem with Europe was we walked everywhere. We were on our feet from 7 AM to 9 or 10 PM except on nights that we went out drinking. Then we wouldn’t get in until early in the morning… and we’d STILL get up at 7 AM. Despite the bleeding toes, it was a fun trip. But I digress.

In South Africa we’ll also be doing a lot of walking, so I need good durable shoes. These boots have the added advantage that they’re brown and will blend in with the whole Beige look we’ll be going for. Right now I’m trying to wear them a little bit every day so I can break them back in. Or my feet. Or something along those lines… I predict a lot of band-aids over the next few weeks.

Oh, there’s been some really great stuff published on SH recently. First is a poem in sestina form by Joanne Merriam entitled “The Rainy Season”. Second is a short story by Daniel Kaysen called “The Jenna Set”. As Eugie Foster wrote on Tangent, “The Jenna set” is “a lighthearted romp that touches on the themes of interpersonal relationships in this modern age of automated phone answering machines and dating services. ” I WOULD tell you what Tangent said about “The Rainy Season” but they don’t review poetry. *sadness* I was throwing around the idea of forming a site devoted to reviewing spec poetry and Oliver encouraged it… but it’d be an awful lot of work and I don’t think I’d be any good at it. Also, who the hell would care about what I had to say? Anyway.

Still haven’t heard from SH regarding “Empty Nest” or Asimov’s regarding “Molly and John”. I did get a rejection back from David KM for “Why I Learned to Cave Dive” and after some revisions, I’ve sent it off to Star*Line. Yay for more angst inducing waits.

Okay I know it’s totally lame for me to talk about the same thing two blog entries in a row but shut up and leave me alone.

Anyway, I was talking to Oliver on IM and I brought up the super nice message the guy on the SFPA yahoo group wrote and the following bit of conversation took place.

Oliver: And yes, that was a cool message.
Oliver: Anyone cool?
Me: no one i recognized but i was going through older posts and it looks like he has something to do with HP Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror or whatever it’s called
Oliver: Ahh, another DNA mag.
Me: did a search for his name: http://www.locusmag.com/2004/Features/03Wallace_PODEssay.html
Oliver: Sean WAllace?!
Me: …yeah?
Oliver: *facedesk*
Me: …oh dear… is it another person i should know?
Oliver: He’s the managing editor of three DNA publications, including Weird Tales and HPL horror mag.
Me: well… i told you he had something to do with HPL…

See I’m really bad at names. I mean truly, truly horrible. There was an RoF issue a couple of months back that had a bunch of stories that I just loved. But I can’t remember the name of a single author. Suddenly I get the feeling that I’ve talked about this before… In fact I know I have. So I won’t bore you all again. Moving on.

I have a tendency to repeat things. Especially anecdotes. Because I’m aware of the problem what sometimes happens is I’ll tell someone one story 5 times and then casually mention another story that I think I’ve told him, and discover that he has no idea what I’m talking about. Like today.

I updated the Bio on my main website since the old one was short and rather dull… and then I made everyone read my new one even though it’s hella long. Turns out I had never told Oliver about William drowning. I found this rather odd since the car accident and Will’s drowning are two of my favorite stories. Partly because they both involve my old CD burner that was possessed by demons and partly because I’m morbid and like stories that involve near death experiences.

Random Story About the Drowning: When William was on the stretcher about to be placed in the ambulance, he looked up and said to one of the Paramedics, “By the way, the part for your spear gun came in the other day. You can come by the store tomorrow to pick it up.”

I can’t remember exactly what the item was. Either had to do with spear guns or corrective lenses for a mask, but he did completely ignore the fact that he’d almost died in order to let one of our customers/Paramedic know that it had come in. That’s dedication.

Another Random William/Divestore Story: The one thing William is really good at, is spear guns. We carry three types of spear guns in the store: JBL (the cheapest), AB Biller (mid-line) and Riffe (the Jaguar of spear guns, with the price tag to prove it). So this guy comes in to buy a replacement band for his AB Biller ($20 or $30 part), and William talks into buying a brand new Riffe. Not only did he talk him into buying a new gun from the most expensive manufactuer, but he also talked him into the most expensive type of Riffe (teak) and the largest size.

In the two or three years we’ve sold spear guns, William has sold more than half a dozen Riffes (an obscene number considering the small size of our store) and not a single JBL (which again, are the cheapest).

Funny thing is, William doesn’t even own a Riffe.

Another Cute Story Concerning William and Spear Guns: For Christmas one year, before we even bought the dive store, my parents gave William an AB Biller spear gun. He was ecstatic; being a boy he was obsessed with killing things. Oh fine, being an Eastern Carolinian boy he was obsessed with killing things. Anyway, from December to June he could not wait to try it out. Hell, I think he slept with the gun in his bed.

First dive of the summer, William goes down with his brand new spear gun to kill a big ole fish. He sees a grouper, aims, leads a little to allow for movement, and shoots. He connects. The fish swims under a rock. William pulls his spear gun up to grab hold of the line that connects the spear to his gun… and it’s not there.

He’d forgotten to tie the line to his spear. It was still wrapped neatly around his gun while his fish, and his spear, was swimming happily around the deep blue sea.

I don’t remember how long I laughed at him, but I’m sure it was a while. My parents laughed too when he surfaced.

For the next dive William took my mother’s spear gun (whose spear was attached) and went looking for another fish. But lo and behold, William looked under a rock and found his fish, with his spear. He shot it a second time and was able to retrieve both of them. Yay for William.

Random Story about my Father, Spear Fishing, and Barracuda: My mother loves to spear fish, but she doesn’t like dealing with getting the fish off the spear and onto the stringer so she always hands it to my father to do it for her. Well my mother speared a nice size grouper and handed it to my father. He managed to get it off the spear and onto the stringer when he noticed a huge barracuda swimming towards him. Generally barracuda don’t bother divers. They look mean (really mean) but they just kindof sit there and don’t do anything. Well this barracuda swam past my father, close to the stringer, and my father jerked the stringer (with my mother’s prized fish) away from him. The barracuda took another pass and my father realized that he’d rather still have his hand at the end of this encounter so he started to take the fish off the stringer. Well before he got to that part, the barracuda swam up in between his legs and snapped the grouper in half leaving only a twitching head… which my father then took off the stringer and dropped to the ocean floor.

And I just realized that if I ever wanted to convince Oliver to dive, I probably just ruined my chance. Whoops?

Speaking of Spear Guns and Fish with Big Teeth: CBS advertised this made for TV movie called “Spring Break: Shark Attack” and for some strange reason, my mother decided to watch it. Not only was it a completely inaccurate portrayal of shark habits, near the end of the film the lead boy gets shot in the shoulder with a spear gun. Here’s how: The shark knocks against the side of the boat, some equipment falls, including the spear gun, and it goes off.

…

Spear guns aren’t real guns. They aren’t “loaded”. In order to prepare a spear gun to shoot, you have to pull the bands back, which are so tight that you can really only do it underwater because that’s the only way to get the necessary leverage. Anyone who knows ANYTHING about diving would know that a spear gun just accidentally going off on land is completely ludicrous.

You know what the best job in the world would be? Hollywood’s Diving Expert. I could keep them from making those kinds of mistakes… or hell.. convince them not to make those stupid movies. Although then I wouldn’t have a job. But the world would be a better place. Everything’s a trade off I guess.

The other night I received over 80 spam bot messages on this blog which I then had to delete manually one by one. This did not make for a happy Hel.

Today it decided to pour down rain as I walked from my car to class. I spent 50 minutes sitting in completely drenched scrubs only to leave the class and find blue skies and bright sun. Though I appreciated not having to walk through the rain again, why couldn’t it have been sunny an hour earlier too? This did not make for a happy Hel.

It has been 40 days since I subbed to SH. This does not make for a happy Hel.

Anyway, some good things. We read this play in Black Lit called “The Dutchman” by Leroi Jones (now called two words I can’t spell Baraka). Hilarious. Seriously. There’s this character called Lula who is completely bonkers. In class we talked about all the modern myths that the play touches on, my favorite was the story of Lilith. For those of you who don’t know, Lilith was Adam’s first wife who refused to submit so she got her ass cast out of Eden. Now she’s a demon figure. [Insert feminist rant about patriarchial societes here].

Good play. Moving on.

I watched the movie ‘Vanity Fair’ today and to be honest… I’m disappointed. It had the makings of a fantastic story. But it failed. Horribly. There was one scene of a British officer stepping off a boat and onto some Island in India. Next scene was in Germany, 12 years later with a different character. What… the… frick. Also the character motivations never made sense. Since this movie was based on a novel by William Thackery, I know that the character motivations there made sense… well… it was a Victorian novel so maybe not… but still.

Bad film. Moving on.

I joined the yahoo group for the SFPA. I was clicking through old messages and found something titled “RE: Poem on Strange Horizons, Feb 28″. For those of you who don’t know, that’s my poem. I clicked back a few more pages and found the original message. Basically it was just ‘I liked this poem’. That. made. my. night.

Happy Hel. Moving on.

Leeny posted more of the Second Act of the DM Easter special. Hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. One day when Cel becomes the world’s greatest cartoon artist, she should animate them all.

Anyway, tis late and I should be getting to bed. Goodnight, all.

I’m taking this English class… something about teaching composition in the high school… and we were supposed to write a narrative/descriptive essay. I got it back last night from my teacher and at the end he wrote “Terrific Essay. You are a real writer.” And for some reason, that just made me laugh. This is the same class I complained about in the entry “To Sate Leeny’s Nosiness”. So yeah… I’m taking compliments from this guy with a tablespoon of salt.

I do like the teacher though. He has a brilliant mind, and he’s OCD… what’s not to admire? Anyway, moving on.

Rejection for “Why I Learned to Cave Dive” from Dreams and Nightmares came in last week. I made some minor revisions and sent it out to Flesh & Blood. Not that I really thought it was right for that market, but he’s just so damn fast. So I got that rejection two hours later.

I’m still waiting on Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, and Pedestal Magazine (The New Yorker is a lost cause at this point). Against my better judgement, I may send ‘Cave Dive’ out to SH later today. My hope is that the Poetry editors took some sort of unannounced vacation and thus will go back to their regular ‘in less than a month’ responses soon. I hope. Although there’s also “The Magazine of Speculative Poetry” and “Full Unit Hookup”. However, each of those magazines is edited by one of the SH Poetry editors so I’d feel weird sending it to SH first, and then one of them. Argh. People should stick to one magazine.

Star*Line is also an option… but I’d like to see an issue first.

Oh and apparently the F&SF is also considered a poetry market. It wasn’t listed on the SFPA website, but it was in the 2004 Poet’s Market. Personally I don’t think publishing one or two poems a year in a monthly magazine qualifies should count. And I’m betting that he only really publishes poems by big name authors. Twit.

Anyway, I should run off to class. I’ll add more later if I’m not feeling too lazy.

Last night I had a dream about Wheel of Fortune in which the contestants were so dumb, they couldn’t figure out the puzzle ‘S-A-E FURNI-URE’. No I have no idea what the hell “State Furniture” is… but when only the ‘T’ is missing… I don’t think I’d guess the letter ‘C’ which is what they did. So I started yelling at them for being idiots, and all of the sudden they were in my living room.

Not really sure what that one means. Unless it was somehow me getting out my angst for having to listen to the most god awful narrative/descriptive essay in the history of the written word. I don’t mean to sound like an elitist snob, but it really scares me to see America’s next batch of English teachers. Really, really scares me.

As if hearing this assault on language was not enough, I then sat dumbfounded as people actually praised it. What the hell! He kept referring to these two questions and answers without giving the reader any friggin clue as to what the hell he was talking about, he was way overstated in the sensory details, and gah. Oh the worst, the worst… my professor says “I think you could find a career as a story teller.”

*cries*

Second worst… student (who at one point I regarded as one of the more intelligent of my classmates) says, “Don’t say you’re not a writer. Because you are.”

GAH! Look, I’m a bad writer. And I’m not saying that because I want everyone who reads this (with the noticable exception of Oliver because he actually tells me the truth) to say ‘No, no you’re a fabulous writer!’ but because I know what good writing is. And I’m not it. I’m getting there… slowly. But I’m not delusional. But this guy… this…

I think what made it worse in my mind was the fact that the girl who read her essay before him, actually was decent. It wasn’t a fabulous narrative, but she had some shining moments of humor and it never made me cringe. Well her accent did but that was unavoidable.

Anyway, next year I will be surrounded by ridiculously talented poets and I can go back to relaxing in my obvious inadequacy. My biggest fear is having them say, “Uhhh… maybe we shouldn’t have admitted you… because you really suck.” Poetry is hard. I keep forgetting how hard it is until I sit down and try to write something. Maybe that’s why I seethed so much when Oliver said that poetry was easy; I feel like it should be easy if you’re good at it. I feel like once you find your voice, that’s all there is to it. The words just flow right out of you. But more and more I sit there and look at what I’ve written thinking, “This sounds like prose.” I worry constantly about the language not being interesting and that’s just the first hurdle. Then there are the questions of “What are you trying to say” and the worst, “So what?”

Spring semester Junior year I wrote some really awful poems. Fall semester Senior year all of the sudden I was writing “good” poems. My Poetry professor said (and this is a direct quote), “That car accident was the best thing that ever happened to your poetry”. But why. What about smashing my head through a window suddenly made me a better poet? What changed? What was my process before the accident, and after. The problem is the answer I keep coming up with is “Damned if I know.” I think I’m worried that it was some kind of fluke.

Sometimes I feel like my life is just an act. I know I’m not any good at the things I pretend to be good at, and my life is devoted to tricking people to believe my self-delusions. Then I wonder if I can trick myself into really believing the delusions, and in doing that the delusions will be real. Because I’ve already seen some really crappy writing and hear it praised, why should I be any different?

When I was a little girl I used to go to Audobon Zoo and climb the oak trees. I never climbed anywhere that I couldn’t see a way down; always had to have an escape route. Some people barge ahead without thought to what happens if they get stuck. The act of doing is enough for them, and if they do get stuck… they just find a way to get unstuck. My mother once told me that as a baby I once sat looking at an Ottomon for the longest time… then all of the sudden I climbed up on top of it, and climbed back down. I didn’t want to get on top without first figuring out a way off. She said “Oh you were so conscientious, you could concentrate on a task until you found a solution.” Bullshit. I just refused to go anywhere without knowing I could back out. Just because I was patient (a virtue I seem to have lost), doesn’t make me any less a coward.

I’ve known this about myself for a while. It might be why sometimes I like to perpetually screw myself into a corner and laugh. I don’t know if it’s a conscious decision or an unconscious one, but I’ve done it too many times to deny that I’m doing it to myself. I don’t feel balanced if my life isn’t completely fucked over somehow. I like removing all my options, refusing all help, and wallowing in self pity. I like fresh starts just because I know I get to shoot myself in the foot all over again. Of course that’s not what I say at the time. In the moment it’s all about, “Oh now you’ll get a second chance!”

I do like writing. I did like climbing trees. I’ve been barreling ahead without really looking back for so long, that I don’t know if this is what I really want to do… or if I’ll get to the point where looking back, I don’t know how to scramble down. And when I finally run out of branches, will it be because I don’t need them anymore? Or because I want to laugh at myself as I fall into the abyss.

The Destroyer of Worlds

I like to write stories with sad endings because I want to save the happy endings for real life.

I like to read stories with happy endings because I think the point of fantasy is to take real life and fix it.