The Literary Assassin

so close, yet so far

2012-01-26T21:45:00.000-06:00

Yesterday evening I spotted this headline on Yahoo:

Fried foods not direct cause of heart risk, new study finds.

And I'm like, HA! SUCK IT, low-fat proponents, because I've been saying that for years.

But then the article goes on to say,

"We currently recommend swapping saturated fats like butter, lard or palm oil for unsaturated fats as a way of keeping your cholesterol down and this study gives further cause to make that switch...Regardless of the cooking methods used, consuming foods with high fat content means a high calorie intake. This can lead to weight gain and obesity, which is a risk factor for heart disease."

And then I'm like, Sigh, alas alack, they still ain't getting the big picture.

In the first place I don't know of ANYBODY, aside from myself and a few other crackpots in the Primal lifestyle crowd (and I can't be sure those are real people, anyway), who cook with butter, lard, or palm oil. It's corn and soy oil 'round these parts. I was raised on Crisco, which I haven't eaten since I left my mother's kitchen, and which was giving me heartburn at age 25.

Calories do count, but much less than the soundbites would have you believe. The important thing is to make sure the calories you ingest are nutritionally dense, and helpful, rather than detrimental, to the body. Animal fats--butter, lard, tallow--are fats we evolved to eat. They're about as natural as you can get. Olive oil is natural--it's pressed out and unadulterated. Corn and soybean oil are frankenfoods. They're not good for your digestion and they're not good for your liver.

I have a great interest in the insulin theory, but it tends to be rather complex and difficult to explain to people, so I just think of it this way: if you eat calories that your body can't use, then it shuffles them aside and demands something else with some actual vitamins in it. That's why you can have a huge meal of processed foods and still feed unsatisfied.

The other problem with American fried foods is they are often breaded, and heavy batters of wheat flour are not good for you. I've used almond flour, parmesan, oat flour, gluten-free baking mix, and coconut flour for breading; they are all decent alternatives.

But sauteeing in butter or olive oil, the way they do it in France/Italy/Spain, is about as healthy as you can get, plus it tastes good. See? That's the real reason French women don't get fat.

there are days

2012-01-23T21:01:00.000-06:00

.... When I hate the Internet and everybody on it.

moreau's daughter

2012-01-16T09:42:00.003-06:00

“—how will you find him? Will you recognize him if you see him? The police believe the killer may be using disguises.”

“I don’t have to recognize him,” Lily said, with grim pleasure. “He’ll recognize me. ”

=======

I wrote a bit of a story over the weekend; more of a character study, really.

As alluded to previously, I wanted to transplant my assassin character into a steampunk setting and let her run free, to see how she'd talk, move, think, and operate under the constraints of Victorian society and clothing.

Also, I've always kind of wanted to write a story in which Jack the Ripper gets taken out by a vigilante chick.

It ain't great literature, but it was a fun exercise.

Read the entire vignette here.

cosplaying a different race from your own

2012-01-15T18:40:00.001-06:00

Here's a doozy.

I've been researching a new character for a story. She's the offspring of Chinese prostitute and a British sailor, born in Shanghai in 1870 or so. One of the theoretical themes of said story is of ostracism and finding a place of your own.

Partly out of interest in researching the story and partly because I'm a big geek who likes to dress as my characters, I've been considering ways to make my very white-girl face look more Asian, or at least Eurasian. Looking at photos on the internet of mixed-race actresses and models demonstrates the incredibly wide variety of genetic recombinations you can get from an East-West hybrid. I'm especially interested in Maggie Q and a model/activist named Celeste Thorson, because they have longish faces and prominent jawlines, like myself.

Predictably enough, it's a big hot-point with people in the fashion and cosmetic industries, when Asian girls tape their eyelids to create folds where they weren't before, or European models tape their brows to make them look straighter or more elongated, because we're all supposed to be satisfied with what we have and not bow to the pressures of western beauty standards, or seek to satirize Eastern appearances... or whatever. Frankly I tend to think that if enough women on either side of the International Date Line are doing it, it should all balance out and everybody could quit hollerin', but I've always been crazy that way.

So what do you guys think? It's kind of trendy these days to put skinny people in fat suits to teach them sensitivity, or dress people as the opposite sex to get a different viewpoint--if you could change your features and/or skin tone *temporarily* to spend a day with the shoe on the other foot, would you? What kind of reaction do you think you'd get?

The cosplay community I interact with is generally pretty tolerant of crossplay, e.g. dressing as the opposite sex, or re-gendering a character to suit the cosplayer's own sex, so I'd think cosplayers would be accepting of cross-ethnic-play, at least more so than the public at large.

Thoughts?

a character does not exist until you give her a name

2012-01-13T12:15:00.000-06:00

So I spent all week jerking this rewrite out of my guts with various implements of destruction--believe me when I say, it's much easier to just write the damn thing correctly the first time, than to go back and try to take it apart and fix it later.

I actually hacked through to the end yesterday. Finished around 8:30 p.m. As I'm getting ready for bed it finally dawned on me that my face was breaking out and my gums were sore and the muscles in my neck hurt because I am COMING DOWN WITH A COLD, DUMBASS.

This morning I have a touch of headache, touch of swollen throat, touch of malaise, but I'll survive. None of that is really important, the important thing is that all the time I was writing yesterday, I had this concept chugging along in the back of my brain, a new concept, new character, new situation.

I've been thinking about my Eurasian steampunk assassin for several weeks now, and she has gradually been taking shape. Wednesday night I hounded my sifu for name options in Cantonese and he gave me one that worked. Personally, I can't work with a character until s/he has a name. I can think in general terms––what kind of character has the best personal motivation to be the right "fit" for this conflict––but I can't really find a voice until I have a name. I mentioned that to Sit t'other night and he was very pleased, for obscure Chinese reasons. "Ah, she follow Confucius," he said. (I swear I'm not making this up, so don't accuse me of perpetuating stereotypes.) "Confucius said nothing is real until you give it a name."

So on Wednesday, Lily Quinn became a real person to me. Her Chinese name is Shiao Yin, which means 'little swallow.' She needs an assassin name but we're still working on that.

And over the course of yesterday, while I was forcing myself through the wastelands of Wyoming, the story-building machinery was slowly coming to boil in the back of my brain. Character motivation A meshed with Historical Event B and layered neatly into literary reference C, thus throwing narrative Point of View D into neat focus.

There's a reason why we refer to plots as 'formulaic'. That's exactly what they are: alchemy. Cold fusion, even.

skinny models and yellow journalism

2012-01-12T11:14:00.003-06:00

Saw this link today with the sensationalist headline: "Most runway models meet the BMI criteria for anorexia." Of course I knew it was just yellow journalism, successfully designed to drive up click-thru traffic. And of course I clicked on it.

I have several thoughts about the article, and probably none of them are going to win me any friends.

First, the article in question is in a magazine aimed at plus-size female readers, so of course they want to make their readers feel good, but they do it by denigrating the models as freakish. Tearing down anybody to make someone else feel better is not okay in my book.

Second, there's the quote, "Twenty years ago the average fashion model weighed 8% less than the average woman. Today, she weighs 23% less." That is probably true, but without knowing where they got their numbers I'm willing to bet that the difference comes less from the models getting skinnier and more from the "average woman" getting fatter. This should not be news to anybody; we all have eyes.

Third, humans––I'm going to say Americans because this is basically a first-world problem––have this constant demand for bigger better faster more––it's in our cars, our movies, our music, our social mores, and our perceptions of what is sexy. Ergo, it's inevitable that those perceptions will become more and more polarized to accommodate personal bent. So of COURSE the models are going to get skinnier, as the gulf between the haves and the have-nots widens, because the universe requires balance, and the everyday is a good deal fatter than it used to be.

We are saturated with input and numb to everything but the next shock, or the next bite of sweet/salty/sour/bitter. We are all overfed--literally--to the point of stupor. Here we sit in front of our computers sucking down Diet Coke or designer coffee, bitching about how some magazine doesn't feature women who look like me. Duh! Advertising isn't there to make you feel good about yourself! Advertising is there to make you feel wanting, so you go out and buy yet another thing to fill the hole.

Here's an idea: put down the magazine, step away from the internet, close the refrigerator. Go outside for a walk. Breathe deeply. Stop thinking about things that only serve to get people riled up. Strife is not healthy.

secrets of apple pie from scratch

2012-01-08T11:07:00.002-06:00

This is awkward for me to admit, but my standard for good apple pie is a vague memory of the fried apple pies McDonald's had when I was a child. The ones they sell now aren't nearly the same. I'm pretty sure the old ones were fried in lard, because this was pre 1984/animal-farms-are-bad/it's-a-brave-new-world of-corn-oil days.

Anyhoo, in my mind apple pie filling should have a perfect balance of sweet/tart/spicy; it should be juicy, but not runny or gummy, and the crust should have a flaky top and a cooky-chewy underside.

Keeping in mind that pie-baking is more art than science, your mileage may vary––and I may've gotten lucky because the cooking times are approximate, and depend on things like how big and how fresh your apples are.

Filling:

4 granny smith apples

2 large braeburn apples

juice of 1 lemon

2/3 cups brown sugar

3/4 tsp Penzey's Cake Spice*

pinch salt

dab butter

Peel & core apples, and cut into 1/4 inch slices. Mix together all filling ingredients in a heavy saucepan or dutch oven. Cover and cook on LOW heat, stirring frequently, about 15-20 minutes, or until the apples are soft enough to pierce with a fork. Immediately remove from heat and transfer to a large bowl or pan to cool. Stir occasionally while cooling. There will be a lot of run-off juices but don't worry; you need those.

Pie crust:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour. (see measuring note)

1/3 c unsalted butter, cold, cut in small pieces

1/3 c lard, cold (or use all butter)**

1 tsp salt

3 Tbs sugar

1/3 cup ice water

(optional) egg white

Preheat oven to 400º F.

Note on measuring flour. Like many know-it-all cooks, I ignored the advice to fluff up my flour and spoon it into the measuring cup. This is good advice and should not be ignored. If you scoop with the measuring cup, the flour gets compacted and you end up with more than is actually needed. Then your baked goods come out dry and don't rise as well.

So, lightly scoop flour into measuring cups, level with knife, and add to mixing bowl. Add other dry ingredients and mix a few times with fingers. Add fats in small pieces. Put both hands in the bowl and mash the fats and flour together with your fingers, squeezing and rubbing the mixture between your palms until it is semi-homogenized. Lard is softer than butter and will combine faster. It's ok if you still have a few smallish chunks of butter in the mix, as long as all the flour is incorporated and the mixture is crumbly.

Next, drizzle in approx. 1/3 cup very cold water (Add in small amounts; I usually need less than the full 1/3 cup). Work it in with your fingers. The dough will wad together and get sticky. When it all holds together, put a generous dusting of flour on your work surface and turn the dough out onto it.

Lightly pat the dough into a thick disc, lightly pat some flour on top and fold it over a couple of times. Pat more flour over the dough and the board if necessary. Fold over a couple more times, but don't squash it and don't knead it. Just gently pat out and fold. Use your hands to roll the dough into a loose fat cylinder and twist to divide in half.

Have your pie plate handy, and line a dinner plate with a piece of parchment paper. Make room in your fridge for these items (they can be stacked if necessary). Chilling is a big deal with pie crust but I never saw the point in chilling a wad of dough that just got re-warmed by the time I was done rolling it out and fiddling with it. So now I roll it and THEN chill. Goes much faster. (Note: make sure your pie plate can handle the transition from fridge to oven!)

Roll out half the dough until very thin and/or big enough to fill the pie plate bottom. Lay the bottom crust in the pie plate and stick in the fridge to chill. Roll out the top crust and lay it out on the parchment paper. Sling that in the fridge for 5-10 minutes.

When your crust is chilled and your apple filling is room-temperature, pour the filling (and juices!) in the pie plate and lay the top crust on. Trim off any excess and pinch the crusts together all around the edge. This crust will shrink a bit, so the pie will hold together better and look prettier if the edges are crimped.

If you want, brush the top crust with a little egg white & water beat together, then sprinkle with sugar. This makes a lovely, brown sugary crispy top.

Place pie in center of oven and put a drip pan or foil-covered cookie sheet on the rack below, because this WILL boil over. Bake for 35-45 minutes. I know that's quite a spread but I suspect my oven is less hot than many peoples'. The top should be a nice dark brown. The sugar will brown a lot so don't be alarmed if it looks a little dark.

Enjoy!

*Penzey's Cake Spice is a blend of cinnamon, star anise, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and cloves. I know, I don't like cloves either, but in tiny amounts they add an aromatic bitterness that balances the other flavors. You can order it here.

**I am rather smug that I can get freshly rendered lard from the butcher near me. It's awesome for frying, and it really makes a difference in the lightness and flakiness of biscuits and pie crusts. It can be difficult to find but I recommend trying it if you get the chance. The partially-hydrogenated stuff in the grocery store (assuming you can even find THAT) has a similar texture but the taste tends to be slightly metallic.

goals for 2012

2011-12-31T14:42:00.002-06:00

I don't do Resolutions, but last year I set myself three goals: to finish The Curse of Jacob Tracy, to find a literary agent, and to leave my day job. I'm a bit gobsmacked to realize that all three of those came to pass.

So, as prompted by my friend Mary Ann, I'm writing down my goals for 2012, to make them more concrete and keep them in focus.

Publish Trace and get a nice fat advance on it.
Finish writing the sequel to Trace, Curious Weather.
Start teaching kung fu.
Pay off the home equity line.

Bring it on, 2012!

new ebook publisher: Eggplant Literary Productions

2011-12-15T10:29:00.002-06:00

Long-time readers will remember that waaaay back when I was still writing as if I enjoyed it, a nice lady named Raechel Henderson offered to publish End of the Line as an ebook. Despite our best intensions, that was not to be; Eggplant Literary Productions went on hiatus for a few years.

Now it's starting up again. Eggplant's startup page is here (God love Wordpress!) and their guidelines page is here. They are looking for novella-length ebooks, and short-shorts for a literary magazine. The focus for both lines is fantasy/science fiction.

I always respected Raechel's professionalism and taste as an editor. (Easy to do when somebody wants to publish your stuff, eh?) So if you got a story that's a wee bit too long for any of the other markets, and aren't up to self-publishing your e-book, pass it by Eggplant.

motley Christmas

2011-12-14T16:53:00.002-06:00

Five years married and we just bought our first Christmas tree together. In past years I used a little miniature three-tree grove which I believe came from my parents' old business office. Last year we didn't even decorate. I think we were too tired and cranky, probably too reluctant to spend money. Somewhere along the way I'd bought some lights and plain glass ornaments that were never opened, but other than that and a half-decorated wreath, we had nothing. It's a measure of how hard and fast I fled from my old life, that I didn't even take any ornaments of my own, either from my parents' house or from my ex-husband.

We bought a Black Hills Spruce from the Optimists in the grocery store parking lot. It's been too warm this week for the trees to be properly chilled, so they're looking a bit desiccated. We borrowed a few boxes of crap from his mom's basement (she had 60-odd years' worth collected, including some scary looking string lights), put a bunch of tacky tinsel garland on the boughs, and the Sparring partner hung old satin-thread ornaments and faded wooden toys all over, while I worked on finishing the wreath. I put on gold cord and red braid, and black-gold net. Then I added a gold bow, blue oversized jingle bells, and a few miniature toy ornaments in red and white.

"That looks like Christmas exploded," the SP remarked when we were done. And it does. No Nieman-Marcus designer-themed tree for us. But then again, we aren't people who live in a decorator-showplace house, with three-color schemes and accent pillows. All our stuff is patchwork--furniture, curtains, artwork--things we've found, liked, collected. And really I suspect most people's Christmas decorations collections are the same way--things that were given to them by, or chosen for, someone they loved. The mangled pipe-cleaner ornament made by a child. The falling-apart foil angel that belonged to someone's great-grandmother.

As we were sorting through boxes of musty tissue paper and limp tinsel, we remarked on what we'd keep and what we'd return to the basement, what we'd quietly get rid of and what we might acquire in future to accent the good stuff.

It's fashionable these days to disparage Christianity. It's fashionable to talk about the pagan influences of Christmas trappings, as if those factoids are supposed to make hypocrites of those who still celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. Since my divorce I've been conflicted about Christmas. I lost the will or the desire to worship or pursue God; I am firmly in the agnostic camp--not so much "I don't know" as "wait and see." But since I was raised by Christian parents, and schooled in a liberal arts college, and hang out with a decidedly Zen crowd, and am an Existentialist by nature, I got to a point where I couldn't hardly act or believe in anything without feeling I was reacting to something else. It's hard on a writer to feel as if every available option is a cliche.

But I think we need festivity in our lives--me, especially. Holidays--holy days--were days of worship, but in the pagan and Christian faiths (pretty much any religious group that doesn't indulge in human sacrifice, really) they were also days of rest and community.

Routine and even-keel are good things. But so are renewal and celebration. There's a difference between cliche and convention; in fiction, the conventional tropes let you know whether you're reading a romance or hard sci-fi. So you might say I've decided to embrace the formulaic this year.

where everybody knows your name

2011-12-11T20:06:00.000-06:00

I love my writer's group.

Met with them Saturday for our monthly enclave. We critted. We chatted. We laughed. I whined. They sympathized. It's good to go hang with like-minded people, sharing an activity you all enjoy, where they listen to what you say and act like you know what you're talking about. Even if they don't agree with you. Everybody should have a place like that.

It's also very cool when they say matter-of-factly that I need to get used to editing screenplays because my book will get made into one in the not-too-distant future... and then someone else counters with, no, they'll take my book and process it into blockbuster pulp--but at least I'll get the rights check.

And then there was the part when I mentioned I had an idea for "Steampunk Quinn" and their faces all lit up and they went "ah!" That was extremely gratifying. They never were particularly fans of Quinn Taylor, in the old manuscripts, but they have more faith in me now. In some ways, I think what crippled the Quinn Taylor stories was my tendency toward Victorian restraint and archaic morality--things I no longer suffer from, so the anachronistic transfer is going to be interesting.

I took my own advice this weekend and printed out a fresh new hardcopy of Trace. Everybody took a section and skimmed as fast as they could, reading the bits where I had flagged the updated Boz sequences. The consensus was that I had done good things updating the emotional arcs. And now that I have a hard copy I'm better able to sit down and SEE the damn thing, as a whole. I just can't read on the screen the way I used to.

I have bits of Horseflesh yet to finish. I am resolved. I shall continue to work every day, away from my sewing room whenever possible, away from the house if I can manage it. I will jot down notes, outlines, and scenes longhand before I go to bed at night, so I have something to work on the next morning. I will stop second-guessing myself. I will accept that even when the words don't flow like wine, even when the muse isn't singing in my ear, what comes out on the page is generally pretty readable. I will put down words even when I don't feel like it. I will finish this thing.

custom Batwoman costume

2011-12-07T11:05:00.000-06:00

I love this. Black and red, how can you go wrong? This is Kristin in the Batwoman costume I made for her. She was really open to using the matte black PVC, which I love.

The cape is two layers of lightweight synthetic fabric. The bodysuit is black matte stretch PVC, with red PVC accents. The gloves are matte red spandex and the accessories are sculpted leather. You can order custom items like this one through my Etsy shop.

Kristin is a repeat customer of mine. She's a careful and dedicated cosplayer, she really puts thought and time into the characters she wants to portray. She's also an artist and cartoonist. You can see her work on her DeviantArt page.

things I hate about fabric stores

2011-11-29T10:04:00.000-06:00

1. Polyester. With the exception of some very high-tech, high-priced and fairly rare microfibers, it's nasty fabric. It's rough, slick, ravels, sticks to your skin, fights you when you try to sew it. And it occupies about 75% of the fashion fabric shelf space.

2. Polyester fleece. Occupies 75% of the floor space that could be utilized for--I don't know--real fabric? Silks, cotton twill, wool? For people who actually sew? Comes in an assortment of tacky colors and prints.

3. People who buy polyester fleece. They always buy 15 different cuts at the same time. For Christmas gifts. Disregarding the likelihood that the people who received a polyester fleece blanket LAST year have not worn it out, indeed probably have not used it, and do not need another. There is no excuse for blanketing your entire social circle with poly fleece. Pare down your Christmas list and make something meaningful for the people you actually like.

4. People who buy poly fleece who put their screaming children on the cutting counter, where the kid kicks, grabs, and drools on everything in sight, including other people's fabric. I was very mean about this when I worked at the fabric store. People were not permitted on my cutting counter.

5. People buying 15 yards of 15 different bolts of poly fleece who insist on finding something inadequate with each bolt of fleece, thereby requiring the cutting clerk to unroll the entire bolt to cut from the end without the glitter on it. (Seriously, lady? You're not going to wash the thing before you use it? Do you live in a world without germs, too?)

6. People trying to buy upholstery fabric for their interior designer/upholsterer, although they have never before bought fabric and are unprepared for questions about whether the design will be railroaded, or whether those 12 yards can be in two pieces, and hold up the line talking loudly on their cell phone for 10 minutes. THIS IS WHY YOU LET THE PROFESSIONAL DO THE BUYING. YOU ARE NOT SAVING MONEY BY DOING IT YOURSELF.

7. There is apparently only one home decorating fabric distributor left in middle America. Joann's and Hancock's have virtually the same stock these days. Competition? What competition?

8. Similarly, Joann's and Hancock's are on automatic stock reordering systems--when I was at Wal-Mart they called it "continual inventory system," which is a lie because they still took a physical inventory every year--so they only get in 3 or 4 cards of each button type at a time. So they generally only have in 1 or 2 cards of a given button type at any given time. Which means, if I need 14 buttons for a project I have to drive to at least 3 different stores, and/or wait 3 weeks until they get their stock replenished, because God forbid the store manager should be allowed to order anything for a customer who needs it.

planet comicon 2011 video!

2011-11-21T19:46:00.000-06:00

Obviously I haven't Googled myself enough this year. I just found this two-minute video interview the nice people at Costume Hub did when they stopped by my table at Planet Comicon back in March. I remember them being there, but at the end of the weekend I never thought to look online for the video.

Check it out! I manage not to sound stupid, but I need to learn to smile more before I have to go and do book interviews!

And then there's this nice little blurb by a sexy Dr. Quinzel cosplayer I found on Tumbler:

"Awkward moment.

This is my “Holy-shit-did-Holly-Messinger-just-ask-for-my-picture” face. I was lookin’ at comics and all of a sudden I hear “DOCTOR QUINZEL!” I whip around, eager to find the beautiful soul who recognized me. (TWO Jokers passed by that day and didn’t even say ‘Hi!’ back to me… they acted like they didn’t know who I was! ..No, as in really didn’t know who I was. Hmph. Damn Dark Knight.)

All of a sudden, I see an angel in a steampunk Poison Ivy dress. HOLLY MESSINGER! AHH! I recognized her work from Elise Archer’s cosplay!

I was paralyzed ‘cause I was so starstruck and failed to strike a pose.. so sad.. haha.

My friend found this somewhere on the internet and sent it to me. Pic by Holly Messinger!"

Just for the record, I LOVE cosplays that can pass for street-clothes. It's like a secret identity of your very own. I like to go out in public in almost-costume and watch the looks on peoples' faces as they try to figure me out.

Now I'm eager for another convention. You guys are the best!

never be ashamed of your success

2011-11-16T13:07:00.000-06:00

From the SFWA blog: Having a saleable novel doesn’t make you a sell out.

"Turn your nose up at Dan Brown all you want. Besides selling a zillion copies, the man’s storytelling was so believable, other authors wrote NON-FICTION to DISPROVE his MADE UP STORY."

I needed this right about now.

review: the twelfth enchantment

2011-11-16T10:17:00.001-06:00

I know it mostly seems I only review books to grouse about 'em, but this is one I really really enjoyed: The Twelfth Enchantment by David Liss. It's a seamless fusion of historical regency and gothic fantasy--I'd say Georgette Heyer and someone gothic, except I can't think of anyone appropriate in the fantasy genre of the time--Charles Dickens, maybe?

Anyway, it's about a poor relation named Lucy, who lost her father, sister and comfortable home, who now lives on the charity of her uncle who wants to marry her off as quickly as possible to the local industrialist. Pretty standard regency fodder--but then Lord Byron wanders into the picture, under the influence of a curse and mumbling mysterious messages for Lucy. While trying to lift his curse, Lucy meets a Woman of Independent Means who becomes a good friend and benefactor--and shows Lucy she has a talent for magic.

Stolen inheritances, sinister suitors, malicious faeries and Luddites all are braided together in an intriguing romp, with a dash of romance that is never cloying and a steadily-accelerating plot that comes to a satisfying conclusion. There's even a touch of women's lib, although it is never anachronistic.

I highly recommend this. It is a fine and masterful balance of plot, character, history, magic, and theme. Fans of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell will probably enjoy this, although to my mind it is far superior to that constipated opus.

review--the house of lost souls

2011-11-14T20:33:00.001-06:00

Picked up The House of Lost Souls by F.G. Cottam at the library. It's a gothic ghost story that could, if you were ashamed to be caught reading a gothic ghost story, be loosely interpreted as a broad allegory for a man fighting his way back from suicidal depression. The ending is so lame from a fantasy/horror point of view, it tends to validate the psychological stance, but the middle parts of the book are a decent ghost story, if you don't mind the flashback-within-a-flashback narrative structure, the abrupt changes in viewpoint, the convenient insertion of epistolary clues at crucial moments, and the endless wanking over 80's London new wave/art culture. We get it, dude--you were there, you don't have to prove it to us.

The gist of it is this: in 1927, a group of Satanists including Aleister Crowley raised a demon to gain themselves fame and fortune; they imprisoned it in the manor house on a northern isle belonging to one of the members. Periodically, over the next 60-odd years, people go into the house--art students, construction workers, researchers--come out crazy, and commit suicide. Apparently the demon enjoys suicides. One guy, Paul Seaton, who is Irish, and you know he's Irish because everyone he meets makes note of the fact he's Irish*, visited the manor house in 1985, while trying to research a photographer who was a reluctant member of the coven. Paul escapes with his life but has a mental breakdown and his life and health promptly go down the crapper.

Now it's 1997 and another group of students has foolishly breached the manor's gates; one of them is dead and the rest are heavily drugged to keep them from offing themselves. The brother of one of the girls, Nick Mason, wants Paul to come and help save his sister. The two men are brought together by a mysterious benefactor who appears to be, variously, a psychiatrist, a paranormal researcher, and possibly the son and/or reincarnation of the original coven leader. All of that would be fine and intriguing except Cottam's idea of concealing clues is to cut away from a scene during important conversations, leaving blank spots in the narrative and thereby drawing attention to the question any normal person would ask. To a savvy reader, that can only mean the answer is exactly what you suppose it to be, and the characters are idiots for not noticing.

It's a complex story, as you may have noticed. To me the most enjoyable parts were the diaries of the photographer from the 1920's; the action is more succinct, the atmosphere of opulence and dread is quite effective. I suspect also that Cottam did some good research on Crowley and his cronies; the description of the banquets and parties had a ring of authenticity.

The writing in the modern scenes is much more weird to my palate; there are several odd sentence constructions that tripped me up while reading and I don't know if they are British/Irishisms, or just pretentious writing. The description in the 80's flashbacks is also heavy-handed and pretentious, in my opinion, since all the visual dissection of Paul's college chums and their local watering holes is largely irrelevant to the story and doesn't contribute much to Paul's character, either.

The action scenes are not badly handled, on the whole. The account of Paul's first visit to the demon's lair is so tense it will stand your hair on end. Unfortunately most of the climactic moments--human sacrifice, demon attacks, the death of a major character--are all handled off-stage, and so much of the air is let out. And as I mentioned, the ending is brief, pat, and completely unearned, in large part to that habit of breaking away from the scene at crucial moments. "And so Paul realized he'd had the power in him all along."

I'm really not paraphrasing, there.

Anyway. It wasn't all bad. I have the feeling the author was making deliberate choices about pacing and scene breaks, and just barely missing the mark.

*One thing that always amuses me about reading British-authored novels is how very class-conscious they still are. William Gibson comments on that quirk of British culture in his excellent novel Pattern Recognition.

this is why freakshows went out of style

2011-11-13T19:18:00.002-06:00

I've been soldiering through HBO's "Carnivale" on DVD this week. I got it from the public library, so at least I can say I didn't spend any money on it.

Wit fails me. Really. It's just that dull. Dust and dark and mystery and long poignant silences and cryptic utterances. There's some kind of good vs. evil thing, and some kind of inheritance thing, and a lot of sex and blood--this is HBO, after all. You'd think it would be more entertaining.

But no. It's tedious. And feels deliberately obfusticating. I'm up to episode 11 now. I should at least be able to tell where they're headed by now. What the themes are. Who the good/bad guys are. But no. There's a vague meandering fate vs. free will thing, and some vague commentary on the nature of faith, and some vaguely sinister characters who are supposed to create suspense by not knowing who to trust, but mostly it's just making me tired, because in 10 episodes nothing has really changed or been revealed.

So the plot's going nowhere, and the characters are uninteresting because there's no one to sympathize with, and the actors clearly have no better clue than the audience what's going on because they are all delivering repetitive one-note performances, episode after episode.

I read somewhere that the creator had enough material for one season and the producers made him stretch it to two. It sure feels that way. On top of that, the art direction and music are obviously the B-game of the same crew that did Deadwood, so there's no inspiration there.

I'm watching it because it was recommended to me and because it's the nearest thing I've seen in popular culture to what I've done with Trace. Superficially there are a lot of similar tropes; the old world vs. new world conflict, the holy man with powers he can't control, the young man running from his destiny, the mysterious patron manipulating from behind the curtain. Of course I've got about 10% as many characters and 10x as much plot.

At this point I'm just holding out to see if Brother Justin and his sister Iris actually consummate their creepy relationship. Though I must admit, it's amusing to watch The Kurgan in a priest's collar.

big announcement

2011-11-05T15:51:00.003-05:00

Y'know, it's weird.... I always thought when I got an agent or made some other big motion forward in selling my fiction I'd be shouting it from the rooftops.

Instead I have this niggling inclination to reticence whose source I don't understand.... perhaps a fear that by talking about the deal I will be committing a publishing faux pas, thereby causing said agent to change her mind? Or the echoes of my dad's voice, telling me I shouldn't flaunt my success? The old self-defeatist impulse that now I might actually have to work? The fear that even if I try my best it still won't be good enough (and then I'll kick myself because I know it wasn't really my best)?

Enough, already. Enough.

Last week I signed a contract for representation with Amy Boggs, the "baby agent," as she calls herself, at Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York. I spoke to her on the phone; she was warm, amiable, and very excited about Trace. She had some very helpful suggestions about how to tighten the last third of the book. She complimented my historical research. We agreed there was nothing else like it out there (at least not in the mainstream), and she said when she pitched it to her boss, his eyes lit up with interest. That's a good compliment.

So I'm doing a fairly light edit and tightening up of The Curse of Jacob Tracy, so that Amy can start shopping it around to editors. She asked a bit about my future plans for the series, so I will probably slap together an outline of what will happen in the next book. Someone will want to know about that, eventually.

I also have been cleaning up my website and blog to be more professional and more writerly-oriented. I've been out of the publishing loop for so long--I'm gathering new links, reading the blogs again. I even joined Twitter, for pete's sake, since that's where all the writer kids seem to hang out. And Amy Twitted about me already, including a link to my website, so I've noticed all this unusual traffic to my poor old boring website.

So, hey, Amy? It was great talking to you. This is gonna be awesome.

the week in brief

2011-10-23T16:01:00.000-05:00

Friday: Taichi/kung fu performance. Your average stereotypical Chinese fire-drill. Nevertheless it went ok and we stayed to watch the Beijing Acrobats afterwards. Pretty cool. Seeing the stuff on YouTube just doesn't have the same impact as watching it live.

Saturday: Class. Exhausted. Knees hurt.

Sunday: Tuck-pointing the brick on the house, trying to prep for winter. Also, slapping down a few pages of freelance writing.

Monday (tomorrow): Finish the last Halloween costume and get it in the mail, express. Get haircut. Call the butcher so they can process our yearly hunk of cow.

Tuesday: Turn in freelance writing. Cut out & baste together nephew's Halloween costume. Cram for Chinese class. Go to Chinese class.

Wednesday: Slap together Silk Spectre costume for client. Wait for agent to call from New York. Obsess over changes to manuscript.

Thursday: Sister & nephew coming over for fitting/finishing costume.

Friday: Buy insulation. Winterize house.

NaNoWriMo reality check

2011-10-19T10:24:00.005-05:00

I find the concept of NaNoWriMo slightly delusional, and more than a little masochistic.

I know, I have writing friends who have done it, and when I first heard about it I thought, Cool– it's like boot camp; set aside a time, throw everything else to the wind and go for it. But upon reflection it kind of encapsulates everything I hate about amateur writers (and I don't mean unpublished writers. I mean writers with an amateur mindset. Hobbyists. Dilettantes.).

Firstly, NaNoWriMo promotes the idea that everyone has a novel in them. This is false. People may have words in them, just like they have earwax, saliva, snot and other unpleasant substances in them. But generally people have the sense not to preserve their sebaceous secretions with the expectation of praise and reward. I've seen too many people who think that just because they slapped down 100 thousand words they have a novel, and they think that running spellcheck, maybe moving a few commas around, will render it publishable. No. I'm sorry, but no. Quit clogging up the slushpiles for the rest of us. I am firmly convinced that NaNoWriMo is the reason many agents and editors close to submissions during December. There really ought to be a cooling-off period for manuscripts.

Second, NaNoWriMo pushes the self-punishing idea that you can really accomplish something if you let everything else slide. This is classic defeatist/perfectionist thinking. Trust me, I know. I have three vocations that constantly vie for my attention, plus a husband I like and the occasional need to earn a living. Whenever I focus exclusively on one thing, even for a week, everything else suffers and I get real unhappy. Then the thing I'm focused on starts to suffer as well, because I'm not taking care of myself or my environment. Routine is a good thing. Routine is what feeds our brains and allows us to create. We'd be far better served by eliminating some complications from our lives than adding the stress of trying to create something meaningful in an unrealistic time span.

Third, NaNoWriMo embraces the uniquely American idea that something large and difficult can be accomplished in a short time and without any real experience or practice––just a sudden burst of frenetic optimism. This is just plain bullshit. If you're not already writing daily, what makes you think you'll do it in November? If you don't already have a story to tell, what makes you think you'll come up with one? If you don't already have the plot in mind, what happens when you get stuck and don't know what comes next? I'll tell you what happens––you fall back on stock characters and lame plot devices that have been beaten to death in every TV serial ever aired. Because you don't have time to think of anything else.

The only person who might benefit from NaNoWriMo is that odd unicorn whose writing muscles are already strong and limber from daily exercise; who has a story idea firmly in mind and has done all the research and a fair amount of outlining beforehand; who has sent the kids and pets away, or secluded herself in a nice vacation condo somewhere (I should mention, she's independently wealthy)... that writer might be able to turn out a workable product in 30 days. But if she's that well prepared and that determined to get it done, she doesn't need a designated month to make it happen.

Friends, if you want to participate in NaNoWriMo, then abandon the word-count flog and just use that month to develop the habit of writing every day. It will take at least four weeks to train your family to leave you in peace during your designated writing time. Get a digital timer and set it outside your door. Don't let anyone interrupt you. Then, set a timer for yourself. Spend an hour on research and pre-writing––character development or plotting. There is no sin in outlining, or at least brainstorming the arc of the plot. Then spend two hours actually putting words down.

Writing a novel is a marathon, not a sprint. Writers can find enough reasons to beat themselves up without the sword of NaNoWriMo hanging over their heads.

crockpot beef ragout

2011-10-03T18:17:00.000-05:00

Melt 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter in heavy skillet. (not non-stick)

Chop 1/2 of a sweet onion (or more) and saute in the butter over medium heat.

Take about 1 pound skirt steak, or other long-grained beef with minimal fat. Cube small. When onions are wilted and beginning to brown, add steak and increase heat to medium-high. Brown all over, stirring as necessary, until the liquids are gone and the sugars start to caramelize and stick.

Meanwhile, peel and chop small: 1 parsnip, 2 carrots, 2 medium red potatoes, 2 stalks celery and 1 smallish shallot. Put in slow-cooker on high heat with enough water to let vegs swim freely.

When the beef and onions are well-browned, add them to the slow cooker. Return skillet to heat and add about 1 cup water to deglaze, scraping up all the brown bits. Add to crockpot. Add about 1/2 cup red wine, or cooking sherry and a dash of balsamic vinegar.

Season with 2-3 beef bouillon cubes (take care not to make it too salty), salt and pepper (I like Lowry’s seasoned salt and seasoned pepper), 1/2 tsp rosemary, 1/2 tsp thyme, and a pinch cayenne. If you don’t use the Lowry’s, add also a dash of sugar and 1 teaspoon of paprika.

Melt the other 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter in the skillet and add 1/4 cup flour. Cook and stir over med-high heat until it turns a nutty brown color. Add to pot.

Leave in the slow cooker on High for about 3.5-4 hours.

nihao!

2011-10-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

The Sparring Partner and I are taking Mandarin Chinese language classes. We'd talked about doing it for a long time, and I had a little extra cash and a lot of spare time, so talley-ho.

It's a strange experience. Oh, the language is alien, to be sure--the whole pictograph thing has the potential for major bewilderment, and it's an evening class half-full of college-age students who are rapidly being left in the dirt by the grown-ups, who know why they're there and what it takes to teach oneself. And then of course there's the 12-year-old who's making us all look bad.

But I digress. The weird part is what's going on in my brain. I have all this language-learning architecture from my high-school French days, and it is getting dusted off and put to use. This causes a bit of confusion at times, when the pinyun looks like a word I know from French (luckily not many of them do), but on the whole I can see why people say it's easier, once you've learnt a second language, to add a third or fourth.

As far as the pictographs go, there's nothing for it but sheer repetition, baby. Flash cards and technology. Writing the characters repeatedly is best, of course--getting the motor synapses involved doubles the reinforcement. But I also bought a couple of 99¢ apps for my iPod, to learn basic drawing conventions and the radicals involved in making the characters. Those two concepts haven't been part of our lessons, yet, but I'm what's called a "deep learner"--I'm not happy memorizing things by rote, I have to know how and why they work. That's made me appear slow and stubborn in some classrooms, but on the other hand I tend to understand better once I've got it, and remember longer than my peers.

So I've learned to teach myself what I want to know. And I've already seen some similarities between the radicals and in the characters we're learning in class. It's like learning a code, which have always fascinated me (I taught myself Morse Code when I was thirteen, just for the hell of it). And God Bless Apple and the makers of apps for creating little talking programs that reinforce pronunciation. I am actually starting to understand the tonal thing, which confused me for years whenever I tried to learn kung-fu jargon from Sit.

But the best part of it all is how learning something new and challenging makes your brain feel more awake, more alert, just more smart. I always said if I had enough time and money I'd study more languages. Granted, I assumed I'd be richer when that day came, but I guess 'just enough' is the zen lesson, huh?

brainstorming

2011-09-19T13:49:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about new and old stories, in a daydreamy kind of way. I used to write to amuse myself. I'd like to get back to that mindset, and part of doing that is thinking up ideas that sound fun to play with.

This idea I had, for instance, about taking Quinn Taylor and Escaping Ariston and reframing that as a steampunk adventure. Black/Ladron and the crew in an airship? Ariston City as, say, Singapore circa 1890? Quinn fleeing to Japan or Okinawa instead of Natoshi? Hell, I could still call it Natoshi. I don't even have to make it alternate-history so much as alternate-universe that vaguely resembles Earth.

Part of me cringes from the idea. Especially the airships. I'd rather put them in a submarine (with a tip o'the pen to Jules Verne). But the pirates part still works. And the assassin-thing; Quinn could still study Shadow Boxing with an old Chinese guy. And hell, George Sand wore pants around Paris. I could put Quinn in a qipao and be perfectly appropriate.

One idea that I do like from this exercise is Dr. Flenning becoming a Dr. Moreau-type visionary. Short step, that. And still no magic; just "science" taken in a different direction. And aether.

========

There's also the next Trace book to think about. I was stymied on Printer's Devil for so long that I stopped allowing myself to look ahead. There's still Mereck to deal with, and Sabine's nasty little secrets. "Curious Weather," the first segment of the 2nd book (which will probably have the same name), is all about Sabine's backstory, and it is a humdinger. I got a bit bored with Trace wandering around the house by his lonesome, but I've been away from that story long enough now, I could probably sit down and write it afresh without too much trouble.

Then there's the story after "Weather," which in my notes is titled "Sideshow," and draws heavily from "Something Wicked This Way Comes," at least the Disney adaptation, which scared the piss out of me as a child. Lions and Tigers and Boz, oh my.

Next, Trace heads down to N'Awleans to save his friend, after engaging in a little kinky Blood magic with Sabine (wouldn't YOU like to know). I'd been wanting to play with voodoo in this saga somewhere, and this seemed a likely place. We may even get some zombies, necessary as they are to the genre. Trace might even get made into a zombie himself, but there will definitely be some heart-to-heart with Mereck in this story, and Trace may even get his heart's desire.

After that, it's out to New Mexico, and Trace has a chance to get laid. At least until Miss Fairweather and Boz track him down. And Mereck's minions track them down.

Finally, our three heros will follow Mereck up north, into one of the worst winters in American history (the winter of 1880-1881 was the one Mrs. Ingalls wrote about in The Long Winter.) I'm thinking a town snowed in, full of children-of-the-corn circus-geek Mereck-worshippers. Probably cannibalism.

It all sounds so easy, doesn't it? Just somewhere along the way I lost that ability to fall into the page, that selfish desire to just get down there and wallow in the ambience of my own brain.

It would help greatly, I suspect, if someone were to pay me a nice fat advance for CJT. Then I could feel validated and more leisurely.

Alas, now I must go and sew.

why yes, I am a writer

2011-09-16T21:14:00.002-05:00

I had an agent ask to see my manuscript this week. (The Curse of Jacob Tracy, from which Sikeston and End of the Line are taken.) That was pretty cool.

I had an agent ask to see a space opera novel I wrote back in college, but I put off sending it to him, for some reason I can no longer remember, and by the time I sent it to him months later, the poor man had become sick with leukemia and died. I got a letter back from the woman who had taken over his client list, saying they weren't taking any new clients.

I stopped looking for an agent, for a while.

I actually had an offer to publish that space opera novel, though. It was a fly-by-night small press, and I had my doubts about them from the beginning. They were not paying any advances or royalties, by the way; this was strictly e-publishing in the days when e-publishing was still highly suspicious. When the editor and I had a difference of opinion he called me immature and unprofessional, and I told him I was pulling my manuscript.

I still have that space-opera trilogy. I quit trying to publish it after that; I knew it wasn't ready, and I was sick of looking at it. I still like the characters and most of the story, but being space opera it was crippled by outdated Star-Trek-type conventions about artificial gravity and FTL travel that editors and readers today just won't let an author get away with.

Lately, I've been toying with the idea of taking the basic premises of that space opera and transplanting them to a steampunk setting. Too au courant? Maybe. If this agent takes my new book and sells it, it will be a moot point anyway; I'll have Trace to revise and a couple of sequels to write.

But that will be ok. I was starting to be ashamed of myself for having this resource sitting here in the form of a manuscript, and not even trying to make money from it.

procrastination at its finest

2011-09-01T20:42:00.002-05:00

Man, I am good when it comes to avoiding writing. This is a new personal best for me. Are you ready for this?

I actually took a part-time retail job, 40 minutes away, that paid about $20 per shift, after taxes and gas money. In my own defense, the job had been advertised to me as much better pay, but the actual commission rates were terrible, even if I were able to muster the cocaine-fed-puppy enthusiasm it would take to be an effective salesperson in such an environment. It only took me two shifts to figure out I was suffering from temporary insanity, but wow.

I worked 3 days and resigned. Told them I'd had another offer elsewhere, which was not strictly untrue; I have at least three other projects that I should be concentrating on, plus my Halloween sewing season is in full swing.

But wow.

Daddies, let your daughters grow up to be paratroopers

2011-08-24T11:10:00.001-05:00

Today, I saw a quote by some actress who shall remain nameless, who said she loved to wear black military boots as a teenager. Her father, she said, would have preferred that she wear heels.

I had the same dilemma as a teen. I was into G.I. Joe when I was 12-14, and I kept up with the boots/jeans/camp shirts well into my junior year of highschool. I remember my dad once saying to me in exasperation, "You're my little girl, not my little paratrooper!"

Now, I can't claim to know why he was so exasperated with me for the way I dressed. I was certainly not slovenly or particularly butch (I don't think they ever worried I was a lesbian, anyway), although many years later I learned they were afraid I was into drugs, because of my solitary and secretive ways.

But I will say this. The jeans and boots were a kind of armor. I knew it even at the time, although I couldn't have articulated it. I still wear them regularly, although these days I am more urban-cowgirl than military surplus. And you know what? I have a nice collection of high heels, too. I even wear skirts regularly these days, because I like my legs. And so does my husband.

If I had been able to talk to my dad back then, instead of retreating into adolescent sullenness, I would have said, "Listen, Dad, this is an uncomfortable time for me. My body is betraying me, and I'm getting attention from boys and men that I don't know how to handle just yet. I don't mind dressing up for special occasions, but right now these clothes are a kind of cocoon. They make me feel I can protect myself. I don't feel I have to compete with other girls my age, for male attention I don't really want anyway. Just be patient with me; you'll have more to worry about when I meet a boy I like and start dressing up to get his attention."

Of course a few years later he was grousing at me for wearing these "mod" styles of clothes.

(Mod?)

Dads. You can't hardly dress any way that will please them.

Love ya, Dad.

shut up and practice

2011-08-17T18:17:00.003-05:00

I hate people who give me unsolicited advice. I hate it. I'm sure I was a terrible know-it-all as a child, but I sure as hell try not to be now, because 90% of the people who try to give me "advice" actually have no idea what they're talking about, and the other 10% are telling me something I already know as if I was too stupid to think of it on my own.

I used to think it was a purely male trait, because pretty much every guy who has ever come through my kung-fu class has tried to "correct" me on something, regardless of the fact that he's been there one year and I've been there ten, regardless of whether he can do it himself or not, regardless of whether he knows what he's talking about, or not. My stock reply to such importunate assholes is fixed eye contact and a pointed, "Noo-oo!" as if I'm talking to a dog who knows he's not supposed to be on the sofa.

But women do it, too. They're just more passive-aggressive about it. They will parrot a more knowledgeable speaker, repeating phrases, nodding along and saying "Right!" at key points so they appear to be contributing. Or there's the doomsayer who will admire your new creative project and tell you all about the exhausting and emotionally crippling time she had when she attempted a similar project.... and she just hopes you're up to the challenge. Or better still, the been-there/done-that type who, when she hears about the parameters of your venture, suggests you are ignorant/bigoted/lazy because you're not doing it the way she thinks you should.

I was bitching to my husband about this stuff––I've got a lot of new projects going on right now, so I've encountered a lot of it lately––and he reminded me that it was yet another case of people talking the talk instead of getting off their asses and doing some work.

Everybody's good at something, but unfortunately 90% of the world has these romantic ideas about what they ought to be or want to be, which are in no way compatible with their capabilities. So they become "appreciators" or "aficionados" or god forbid, critics, which enables them to wank endlessly with other "appreciators" over their chosen fetish without ever having to do any real work.

Which is kind of a pity, because probably some of the "appreciators" could acquire some skill in their chosen passion, if they actually worked at it. But when it comes to any complex art––say, writing or tai chi––it's far far easier to attend workshops and join online newsgroups and organize foundations to promote the thing than to actually work at it.

Don't get the idea that I'm knocking foundations for the arts, because I'm not. Artists need those guys, but the worthwhile foundations are run by people who know that their strengths lie in organization rather than in art. (Here's a hint: if you find yourself creating "venues" for your work and that of your friends because "we're too weird/shocking/daring/liberal for the mainstream"--take this hard truth to heart: the mainstream has seen it all before. The mainstream finds you boring. Go back into the studio until you've got something fresh.)

For the others, the folks who wish they were good at something but don't want it badly enough to work at it, it's far easier to cultivate that nasty little seed of resentment against people who are actually working to improve, to chop them off at the root before they can flourish, to buffer one's ego with the reasons why I didn't succeed and she can't possibly, either.

Gah. And people wonder why I'm not more of a joiner. Talking is for those who don't do.

adventures in breakfast

2011-07-28T16:32:00.001-05:00

We're going on a road trip, leaving very early in the morning, and neither of us is big on fast-food breakfasts. So I tried to come up with some high-fat, high-protein, low-carb, room-temperature stable, hand-held food type items to take on the trip. These are still higher in carbs than I consider acceptable for everyday far, but for a cheap quick takealong they aren't bad. And of course all the fats are wholesome.

Flourless chewy granola bars

This was kind of a pantry clean-out. I will probably experiment with this. I would like to create a baklava-flavored nut bar at some point, but walnuts are expensive.

combine in large bowl:
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup Pamela's gluten-free baking mix
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup pecans (measure, then chop small)
1/3 cup coconut flakes, unsweetened (measure, then process small)

stir in (at room temperature):
1/2 cup peanut butter, unsweetened
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
2 eggs

melt in saucepan, let cool slightly then add to dry mixture:
1 cup butter
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
(optional) 2 Tbs corn syrup (helps it stick together better)

stir in:

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Press firmly into a greased sheetcake pan. I used 2 6x12-inch tin pans and the bars came out about 1/2 inch thick. Bake at 350ºF for about 18 minutes, or until the bars look dry and slightly browned around the edges. Allow to cool completely in the pan or they will crumble all to dust. Cut into bars and refrigerate for longer life.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Ham and onion pot pies
These looked gorgeous when they came out of the oven. The egg mixture puffed up and browned on top. Can't wait to try them.

Dough:
1 1/3 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
dash salt
1 large/jumbo egg
1/2 cup butter and/or lard, any proportion you like
2-3 Tbs milk

Combine the dry ingredients. Mix in egg with a fork. Crumble in fats by hand. Dribble milk just until dough sticks together. Chill.

Filling:
Bacon--fry & crumble
onion--mince and saute in grease
ham--chop small
cheddar cheese--about 1/3 cup
gruyere cheese--ditto
heavy cream & flour--make gravy base with bacon drippings
chicken bouillon granules
black pepper
parsley
dijon mustard
2 eggs
dash of milk if needed to stretch amount. Don't add too much liquid.

Roll out dough into six 6-inch circles and press into shallow muffin tins. Fill with ham & egg mixture. Fold up edges of dough over the filling (they don't need to meet or look tidy). Bake at 400º for about 25 minutes or until nicely browned.

I actually forgot to add the dijon on this maiden voyage, but I think it would be a nice addition. Some vegetables, i.e. red bell pepper, asparagus, broccoli, peas would also probably be nice with this, although the bacon should probably be left out in such a case.

resolving issues

2011-07-18T15:40:00.000-05:00

Last night I had an interesting dream.

Since I was laid off in February, I've had several dreams about being back in my cubicle, not knowing how I got there, but thinking, knowing, somehow I was not *supposed* to be there. It was a similar thing when I got remarried; I dreamt of being in the old apartment with my ex, and knowing somehow that that was NOT my life, I was supposed to be with a better man in a better place.

But in this latest dream, I was visiting the place of my own free will. I had my toys around me--white leather tote, laptop, sewing tools--and I was NOT in my old cubicle, I was in a vacant one further up the row. I was there to visit. I shook the hand of my old supervisor, told him he was a good guy. I told my coworkers I was glad to see them. I met the new girl. She had blue-green hair.

Then there was an interruption. At the other end of the room, some unpleasant coworkers from another department were having a loud party, complete with boom box and mirrorball lightshow.

"How can you stand that?" I said to Adriane.

"I know," she replied with a grimace. "They do that constantly."

"I'll take care of it," I said, and I marched over there and yanked the plug on the stereo.

The rude coworkers started yelling in protest, and when I told them they were being inconsiderate, some slunk away looking guilty, but a tall, red-haired guy, a bit younger than me (who did not, in fact, resemble anyone I know in real life) got up and started taunting me.

He told me it was none of my business. He told me to get lost or I'd be sorry. I told him he was an immature boor. He threatened my job. I said I didn't work there. He said his father was very powerful and could take away my parents' house. I laughed and said, "There's nothing you can threaten me with."

So he threw a couple of punches at my head. I evaded them easily. He threw a roundhouse kick at my head. I caught his leg, ducked under it, and was debating whether to punch him in the groin or kick out his knee when I woke up.

Maybe all this stepped-up kung fu training is starting to sink in, because this is the first dream in which I remember actually being confident of my abilities.

But it was five a.m., and the cat wanted breakfast. I got up, fed him, went into the bathroom, and the thought surfaced as I was washing my face: I think I just defeated all my lingering fears.

I went out this morning and got a haircut and a light auburn gloss put on. I look pretty darn cute.

shoe therapy

2011-07-02T22:27:00.000-05:00

Three weeks ago I damaged my knee in kung fu class.

This is problematic because I'm supposed to go compete in tai chi at the end of July. I've already booked the (non-refundable) hotel room and registered for 7 (non-refundable) events at the tournament.

I didn't think I'd done any major damage; it didn't really hurt. I could walk just fine, and there was no bruising or popping, but I had some swelling behind the knee, a feeling of weakness/stiffness. I iced it a bit, sat around with it elevated some. I figured a bit of gentle stretching and movement--no extreme up/down movements--would make it better in a few days.

It didn't. After a week or so the stiffness went away but I still had a lump behind my knee and I couldn't do deep knee bends without feeling like there was a knife in my kneecap.

I should mention, I've had no health insurance since I lost my job, and since this injury wasn't impeding my day-to-day activities I didn't think it prudent to see a doctor and spend the money only to be told I needed to ice it and stay off it.

After two weeks of little/no improvement, I decided to not do any training for a week. I hate this--I sit down too much as it is, since I sew or work on the computer all day. I start sleeping badly if I don't get some exercise. And the "week off" for the knee didn't seem to be doing much good anyway. It would be fine during the day, then stiffen up overnight. Or get achy while I was sitting in a chair during the day, then fine when I got up the next morning. And that damn swelling behind the knee would not go down. I knew that was what caused the pain because I could feel it pushing the joint out of alignment when I squatted.

Friday morning it hurt when I got out of bed. Maybe I slept with it twisted, I don't know. I had to squat during my morning housekeeping, and it hurt a lot. I was starting to get really annoyed and worried.

Given that, it may seem strange that I decided to wear my wedge mules to run out and do some errands. They have about a 2-inch heel. But I had noticed that the ache in my knee was most pronounced during walking, when I pushed off on that foot and the knee was fully extended. Walking in the mules seemed to thwart that mechanic. My knee didn't hurt the whole time I was out walking or in the evening after I got home.

This morning, Saturday, I got up and the swelling had all gone down. No more pain. I did three cautious hours of class this morning, no pain, although I was careful not to do any deep-knee bends. The muscles did get tired and I do feel some minor pressure behind the joint, but I'd say it's about 90% recovered.

All I can figure is that wearing the heels somehow realigned things to where the joint could drain. Who'd have thought?

I just hope it holds. I'm going to be really annoyed if I can't do my down posture in the fan form because of this knee.

queen of spades corset

2011-06-09T12:56:00.001-05:00

My latest creation, black and white checkered corset with ribbon rose trim. Very Tim-Burtonesque. Would look smashing with a tulle skirt and tattered stockings.

Now available in my Etsy shop.

southwestern tuna steaks with avocado salad

2011-05-27T19:08:00.000-05:00

I made this up, based on a fish tacos recipe for the marinade. This is one of our favorite quickie dinners lately; we've been having it once a week. Takes about 10 minutes and serves 2. All amounts are estimated--I never measure. :-)

Fish
2 servings tuna steak (or swordfish, or mahi mahi--any firm-textured fish you like, really)
3 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs honey
1 Tbs chopped fresh cilantro
juice of 1/2 lime
2 tsp taco seasoning
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
dash of cayenne
salt & pepper

Fish should be thawed and at room temperature. Mix together honey, oil, lime juice & seasonings. Salt & pepper fish, place in a shallow dish and pour oil mixture over. Let sit while you chop up the salad.

Avocado salad
1 ripe avocado, peeled and chopped
1/2 medium tomato, chopped small
2-3 Tbs minced sweet onion
juice of 1/2 lime or to taste
1 Tbs minced fresh cilantro
salt & pepper to taste

Mix and let stand while the fish cooks.

Heat nonstick skillet over medium heat; add a generous drizzle of olive oil and put the fish in. Add any leftover marinade. Cook the fish about 3-4 minutes on each side or to desired doneness. Remove to 2 plates, divide the avocado salad between them, and add a dab of Greek yogurt or sour cream to each.

don't call it luck

2011-05-09T15:47:00.080-05:00

I know this is disingenuous, but what is it about people that they can't live and let live? Why does everyone have to tear someone else down to protect their own ego?

There's a lot of noise out there now about discrimination against overweight Americans. Well what about those of us who are actually NORMAL weight? I am rapidly becoming the minority among American women--a slim, athletic female. Does that mean I discriminate against the obese? Hell, no. My best friends in both high school and college were overweight. My ex-husband was obese. So is my sister, who is one of my favorite people in the world. Most of my friends nowadays are far bigger than me. But do I give them a hard time? Do I sabotage their diets, or tell them they need to diet, or give diet books for Christmas gifts? Of course not. That would be fabulously tacky.

So why then, do I find myself increasingly on the defensive against people--casual acquaintances, generally--who seem to feel it's fine to pick on ME for being thin?

"You just have the right genes." "When I was your age I was that skinny, too." "Wait until you have kids." "You must STARVE yourself." "Just wait til you blow out a knee and can't do kung fu anymore."

All of which are jealous, snarky ways of saying, "Just you wait--you'll get yours."

It's rude. It's insecure. And it's fallacious.

The way I look is not an accident. It's also not merely age, or genes, or kung fu--perhaps 5% of each, if I'm being generous. My physique is the result of a planned, deliberate lifestyle I embrace daily because it's a helluva lot easier to maintain than to lose. I want to be able to hike, climb stairs, do a 360-degree jump kick, fit into my clothes, enjoy good sex, stay out of the hospital, and avoid insulin dependence.

I do not starve myself. I do not work out like a demon. I hate working out. I do not weigh portions or count calories.

My age has little to do with it. I'm 37, and I'm leaner now than I was 15 years ago. When I was 23 I was drinking 3-4 Pepsis every day and going out to dinner at Chili's three times a week. One day I hopped on the scale, saw the number 143, and said, "Nope. Not gonna do that."

I did not join a gym. I did not starve myself. I thought about empty calories I was consuming. I cut out soda, and French fries, and I lost eight pounds in two months.

My genes have little to do with it. My sister unfortunately got the bad thyroid from my dad's side, but she is probably correct in suspecting that a couple of years of very poor diet triggered it. The rest of my family is not obese, although they've thickened a lot in the last decade. We were all pretty slim when we were living in the same house, eating food we cooked ourselves every night. It was only after they got married and had kids that my siblings and their spouses started to swell. My parents, too, since they were eating out more.

I'd say 90% of the meals I eat are prepared at home. We eat lunch out on Saturdays, usually, because we're away from home. The people at Blanc Burgers probably think I'm crazy because I take the bun off my Inside-Out burger.

=========

I am a carnivore. I eat meat, eggs, dairy and cheese. I eat plenty of animal fat, butter, and olive oil, which I believe are essential to the health of my body. I eat lots of salads, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, green beans and peas, not to mention onions and root vegetables. I try to have a vegetable with every meal.

I buy these foods as natural/organic/grass fed/local as my budget and resources will allow. I sincerely believe in sustainable farming and the part that animals play in a healthy ecosystem. Sadly, I am not a farmer and my yard is too shaded to allow me to grow produce at this time. However I buy all our meat from local farmers, our beef, chicken and eggs from free-range animals, and I'm constantly looking into new sources for dairy and vegetables.

I don't eat food that comes out of boxes or bags, even if they do say "organic" on the label. There are no crackers, chips, or prepared meals in my pantry or freezer.

The only food I buy in cans are tomatoes, beans, tuna, and salmon. I keep a couple cans of tomato soup on hand in case one of us is too sick or lazy to cook. They usually sit there for months. We don't get sick often.

I eat very little wheat or corn. I'll usually have one or two servings of either during a week--a sandwich or a taco, for instance, when we're out on the weekends. I will sometimes have a piece of sprouted-grain toast for breakfast.

I don't eat vegetable fats, except for olive oil. I won't touch anything that says "hydrogenated" on the label.

I don't drink alcohol, generally. I never drank ANY until I was in my thirties. My parents were strict teetotalers and so I never developed the taste. Occasionally I'll have an aperitif of sweet wine after dinner, or half a margarita if we go out for Mexican.

I don't eat fast food. About once a year I'll get a craving for a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, or some Long John Silvers' batter-dipped fish. Then it takes me another year to forget the unpleasant slickness in my mouth and the uneasiness of my liver and gut while they deal with the starch and soy oil.

I don't drink soda. I haven't had a soda in probably 13 years. I drink water, milk, or green tea. Occasionally a little orange juice, but I prefer it in a smoothie cut with full-fat Greek yogurt, banana, and raw egg.

I eat potatoes maybe once or twice a month. I eat pasta maybe three times a year. I eat rice if my kung fu teacher invites us to dinner.

I eat very little sugar--probably more than the hard-core Paleo people would approve, but far less than the average American. I was totally sugar-free for a couple of years, I did the Splenda thing, and I decided, as little sugar as I ate anyway, I might as well use the real stuff and make it taste good. Laura Ingalls Wilder's family ate homemade pies and cakes and it didn't kill them. So if I want dessert, I have to make it myself--not a tough choice when you consider how I hate the taste of grocery-store baked goods. At our house we go through a pound of evaporated cane sugar every three months or so, depending on whether it's a birthday month and I do any baking for others. Otherwise, I make a home-baked treat--pie, single-layer cake, or a batch of cookies--about once a month. Half the time I end up throwing away the stale leftovers.

Most of my breakfasts are protein and fat, lunches are salads with protein and fat, and dinners are meat and vegetables with a side of fat. Do you see a pattern here? Do you see any of that fat on me? Do you think maybe the whole low-fat concept is a lie?

==========

Don't say I burn it off doing all those martial arts.

I do three kung fu/tai chi classes a week, and only one of them could be considered aerobic. There is no doubt that kung fu/tai chi has made me stronger, lighter on my feet, helped me maintain my flexibility and sculpted my muscles. Kung-fu kicks are especially good for toning a woman's butt and belly.

But I don't believe the kung fu is the sole reason I "stay skinny." There are plenty of fat dojo masters and tai chi masters out there. My sifu, who is a very fit looking 60 (and does all his own cooking), theorizes it's because they don't lift their legs enough or bend at the waist enough. I'm willing to agree that's a part of it. But I really think 75% of one's body shape is determined by what one eats.

Look at any movie or TV series made prior to 1980. Look how slim all those people are--even the ones who are supposed to be "fat." Look at Jackie Gleason in the Honeymooners. He was a well-padded guy but he had none of the sloppy gelatinous look people have today. Look at Mr. Carlson on WKRP in Cincinnati. Thick around the middle, sure, but his arms and legs weren't fat. And the thin people didn't have that bony, strained look that skinny actors have today.

Do you know what happened right around 1980? The FDA and the AMA started telling people to cut out animal fat. And restaurants and food producers started relying on vegetable oils, particularly corn and soy, to replace the animal fats in their products. There are plenty of people out there debating the science and politics behind this switcheroo, so I won't go into it here, but I wholeheartedly believe that those vegetable oils are the cause of American obesity and chronic disease, including cancer. So I avoid them.

==========

In all fairness, there are some other issues that have helped me stay lean.

I have no children. I have never been pregnant. That was by choice. I didn't want the responsibility and I didn't want the effect on my body. I know some people think it's a selfish choice, and I say... darn right. My body. My time. My choice.

I have never taken hormonal birth control. That was a choice, too. Even though I had terrible cramps as a teenager, and trouble with acne (allergy related) in recent years, I feared the impact of artificial hormones on my body. I've had too many women tell me they quit the pill and dropped 20 pounds. The only time I tried BCP's, I took them for 3 weeks and gained eight pounds. My sister had to have her gall bladder removed due to side effects of the Pill. Thank you, no.

I am not into menopause yet. That may very well change the game for me, but I doubt it. There is a lot of new evidence coming out about hormone interplay, how sugar affects insulin and insulin affects sex hormones. I'm keeping a close eye on that stuff.

I still know a few women who are peri- or post-menopausal who managed to avoid extreme weight gain. We'll see where my life is at when that time comes, and what choices I want to make about my body and lifestyle. I don't intend to quit the tai chi, so I don't expect a lot of drastic obstacles.

For the last ten years I've hovered between 125 and 128. When I start creeping up toward 130, I cut back on sugar and eat more vegetables.

I'm not obsessive about my weight. I'm obsessive about my health--mental and physical. So I have brownies when I really feel like baking them. I enjoy the baking process and the eating--preferably when shared with friends. Then the other 29 days of the month I eat meat and vegetables and do my kung fu.

There is nothing--NOTHING--"lucky" about it.

chicken and dumpling soup with vegetables

2011-04-26T18:50:00.005-05:00

For most of my adult life I've been on a quest for chicken soup that tastes like Campbell's Chunky Chicken Noodle, which they made back in the 80's and has, alas, gone the way of the dodo.

This is not that soup. However, it's built on some of the more interesting previous attempts.

The 'dumplings' referred to here are sort of a feather-light steamed biscuit. They are very fluffy, and full of butter and chicken flavor. This is serious comfort food.

======

Take a smallish stewing chicken (about 2 lbs.) and put in a stockpot. Add enough water to submerge the bottom third, a generous dollop of olive oil, and the juice of one orange. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, about 90 minutes. You can do this early in the day, then turn it off and leave covered on the stove until dinner-prep time.

Remove chicken from broth. Strain broth if desired and return to pot.

Peel and chop 3 carrots, 3 stalks of celery, 1/2 yellow onion and 1/2 sweet red bell pepper. Add to broth. Throw in about 2 tsps salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, and 1 or 2 teaspoons each: parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, adjusting the herb quantities to your own taste. Add about a tablespoon of chicken bouillon granules (or 2 cubes).

Strip the chicken meat, chop and return to pot. Cover and let the vegetables simmer about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the dumplings: Cut 4 tablespoons butter into 1.5 cups Bisquick* mix. It doesn't have to be perfectly blended. It's like making biscuits or pie crust; you want it incorporated but still lumpy. Dribble in milk a tablespoon at a time, stirring after each addition, until you have a shaggy dry dough, like Play-Doh that is nearing the end of its usefulness. (See note at the end.)

Make sure your soup is at a low boil, and there is enough liquid to let the solids swim freely. The dumplings will soak up a lot of liquid and you don't want to run dry. Add water if necessary.

Stir about 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with 1/4 cup of cool water to make a thin gruel. Beat in 1 egg yolk. Beat in about 1/3 cup of heavy cream. Whisk into the hot soup and immediately reduce heat to a low simmer.

Drop golfball-sized forkfulls of dough into the hot broth. (They will float, and expand as they cook.) Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, then cover tightly and cook for 10 more.

Serve hot in soup plates. Getting the liquid quantities right can be tricky, but the end result should be a thick stew or ragout. This is extremely comforting food, but not too filling if you can manage to control your intake.

=====

*Note: I use Bisquick because it's fast and easy. Any basic biscuit recipe will do, but you'll leave out the acid (lemon juice, vinegar, buttermilk, whatever) and add less milk. Boiled dumplings are perverse: the dryer they go into the pot, the lighter they will cook up. Too much liquid in the batter makes them gluey and heavy.

writing lessons from mediocre TV

2011-04-18T15:13:00.003-05:00

I've been watching BBC's Merlin on Hulu this week. It's shallow, simplistic, and juvenile. The actors and the characters they play are rather likable, but the storylines are generally transparent, and in a whole season and a half no one has transitioned from A to B, they've just become more emphatic about their one-dimensionality. Arthur is arrogant. Morgana is defiant. Merlin is the good-hearted naif. Uther is vindictive. The result is that, episode after episode, the characters keep repeating the same lines again and again.

It's not all wasted time, however. When shows are this shallow I tend to watch them with the storytelling machinery running in the back of my brain, working over the dialogue, braiding in complexity and plotting how I could do it differently and make it work better.

More than that, I've codified a few simple rules that describe why shows like this are shallow and lame.

1. Paper-tiger plots will only get you so far. People usually have complex reasons for doing things, and giving lip-service to the counterarguments is not really enough when we all know the hero is going to do the right thing and there won't really be any consequences.

2. Don't ignore common sense (or internal logic, or historical accuracy) for the sake of a plot device. I think it was Roger Ebert used the phrase "moron plot" or somesuch --the kind of story that moves forward only because the characters are all idiots.

3. Don't sacrifice characterization for the sake of plot devices. Before I quit watching TV I had seen probably five or six David E. Kelly-produced series, and every single one of them at some point, featured one of the female characters doing something completely out of character in order to facilitate a major story line. Thomas Harris' "Hannibal" is another good example of this, although I'm more inclined to forgive that one because he at least made the effort to earn it.

4. Don't tread over the same patch of character growth more than twice. Your characters have to grow and change and develop or they start to seem really stupid. Genre television series seem to be particularly bad about this. The characters are expected to be iconic so they are never allowed to grow and/or change. I'm not sure if this is genuine audience expectation or the poor opinion of the show's producers about the expectations of their audience. Either way, it's pandering.

5. Don't give your characters stupid dialog just so they have lines. This is where having subplots helps; everyone has something to do so they're not reduced to wacky hijinks just to fill screen time. After a certain point, stupid isn't funny. It's just stupid.

I'm sure I could elaborate on this more, and maybe I will. With some good examples someone might find it useful.

Planet Comicon 2011 wrap-up

2011-03-28T13:07:00.008-05:00

It's Monday, and I survived another Comicon.

My buddy Rick Stasi is always telling me I should attend Wizard World in Chicago, but I've been there and I seriously don't think I could do it. A Saturday at Kansas City's Planet Comicon is about all I can take. Sunday I tend to dress down, sit down, and have less patience with people.

Still, I came out of this one in much better physical, emotional, and financial shape than I have the previous two. I made back my table and then some. I gave away all my business cards, talked to some nice people, posed for a lot of pictures, shot a lot of pictures, and generally had a real good time.

I also got my Steampunk Poison Ivy costume done, FINALLY:

From Planet Comicon 2011 Kansas City

I was very happy with it. I don't think it screamed "Poison Ivy" at anyone. Some red hair might've helped, but I don't mind. A couple people got it right off; some others understood once they asked. My husband told me I looked hot, and that's what's important.

My husband, by the way, is the most wonderful, helpful, supportive person I've ever had in my life. I can't say it enough. I am in awe of his unending belief in me. I used to think I only needed someone who wouldn't get in my way, and maybe that could've been enough under other circumstances, but having someone who anticipates your needs and exceeds them at every turn... Well. I'll stop bragging.

There are plenty more photos in my Picasa Album. Enjoy!

Planet Comicon 2011 Kansas City

ETA: Note to self: the newspaper photographers show up on Sunday!

I've always been ahead of my time

2011-02-21T13:28:00.004-06:00

From the Jeremy Scott 2011 Fall Collection:

I guess this is supposed to be some kind of commentary on American iconography, but somebody needs to tell this guy that post-modern meta-irony is over.

fighting the tide

2011-02-07T10:14:00.001-06:00

My friend Shirley sent me a link about Kindle singles last night. This is the IM conversation that followed.

Me: I've been wondering lately if ebook use was going to shape fiction into smaller pieces. maybe publishers will even go back to publishing serials
Shirley: Did I show you my Kindle?
Me: I've seen them
Shirley: *waxes ecstatic about the features of her Kindle*
Me: but I'm trying to spend LESS time on the computer
Shirley: Does an e-reader count?
Me: I'm afraid so
Shirley: I'm thinking so, too.
Shirley: Just the *idea* that you can carry as many as 3,500 books at one time!
Shirley: Staggering.
Me: let me put it this way.... we cleaned out the basement this weekend
Shirley: Oh, dear.
Me: we threw out a portable CD player apiece, a box of VHS tapes, a box of cassette tapes each, a couple of microcassette recorders, a 5-CD changer, and a whole lot of RCA cables.
Me: Oh, and a 35mm SLR film camera that I paid $350 for in 2002
Me: I, for one, refuse to buy any more tech that will become obsolete in my own lifetime
Shirley: I wish you luck, truly.

ETA: Actually, I didn't throw out the camera. I took it to a camera store at lunch time. They gave me $20 for it. I went across the street to Half Price Books, bought a cup of coffee and a couple of hardbacks. So nyah.

old fashioned, huh?

2010-12-21T09:47:00.003-06:00

I know I'm a food snob, but this cracks me up.

"Old fashioned" beef pot pie featuring canned soup, frozen vegables, refrigerated biscuits and a can of French fried onions.

Mmm-boy. Gimme some of that.

I've been mentally toying with my beef pot pie recipe lately. The one I've made in the past is very good, but it's very similar to my chicken pot pie recipe–potatoes and carrots with a cream sauce.

I want to do something brown and rich, with onions and a brown sauce. I've recently discovered that parsnips and turnips are quite delightful with beef. Celery, too. Must meditate on this. And acquire some root vegetables.

Santa Harley has been naughty and nice

2010-12-20T08:46:00.003-06:00

This is my lovely client Elise Archer, looking cute as a cherry bomb in the latest costume I made for her (copied from a design worn by Harley Quinn in "Batgirl Adventures #1", with a few modifications of Elise's own design). This costume was spread all over my workroom for a year and a half; I got sick of looking at it. So it's a real treat for me to see it whole, complete, and so beautifully modelled; it's like a jewel in a perfect setting, in a velvet-lined box. Perfect.

Cross-posted from deviantArt.com. Go give E some love, she works hard for her art.

you know it's time to move on when

2010-12-01T11:31:00.005-06:00

I'm having flashbacks to junior high gym class. And my job at the title company. And ex-boyfriends. Times when I felt stifled and angry.

I'm sniping at the Sparring Partner, too. Not cool.

In related news (trust me, it is), I acquired two new sewing machines in November, a Singer and another Bernina.

Funny story about the Singer: Tony already had it. He bought it years before we were together, maybe before we even met, because it was an antique in a cool old cabinet, and he liked the cabinet and the machinery. So he's been using it as a nightstand, the whole time we've been married, and I ignored it because I thought it was an antique and too fragile/old/unreliable to do what I wanted, which was leather. Wrong!

Turns out, those old Singer 15 models are tanks. Leatherworkers and upholsterers covet them for their neat stitching and ability to sew through sheet metal. (Ok I'm exaggerating. But not much.) My friendly neighborhood leather guy had one, and as I stood there looking at it, I realized, Hey, that looks familiar...

So I came home and told Tony, and we opened up the nightstand, lifted up that gleaming black-and-gold hunk of metal, and I just laughed and laughed at the serendipity. (Serendipity--a word I've loved ever since it was the title of a sixth-grade reading textbook.) He even had the direct-gear model, which is rarer and tougher than the belt-driven model.

I said, "You are SO my husband!" We looked up the serial number and found it had been made in 1934, and the manuals were available to download. Is it any wonder why I love old machines/technology/companies? I haven't tried sewing on it yet--partly because I'm on "vacation," which means I'm trying to finish up all the oddball stuff I didn't get done the other 10 months of the year. But I can't wait to try it.

The other new machine I bought off Ebay. Same model as Vera Bernina, so all the feet & parts are interchangeable. I had no inkling of this when we bought Vera, since that was another piece of serendipity--picked up cheap, second-hand in a Pfaff store--but the Bernina 930 is another machine that people fight over, hand down, hang onto. The Bernina dealer near me has a waiting list of people who want to buy one secondhand. I overpaid for this new one, but between the two of them, they average out to a bit under market value, so I don't mind. Now I can set up one machine with red, and one with black, and just slide my chair back and forth between them.

I think I'll call this one Ingrid.

The Singer needs a name, too--maybe "Trixie." She reminds me of one of the women from Deadwood.

transcending the literal

2010-11-11T13:10:00.008-06:00

I had a creative writing prof in college who was always talking about "transcending the literal" and after 15 years I think I can finally articulate what he meant.

The literal is the "text" or plot of the story: what happens to move the characters from point A to point B. A story can function on merely the literal. But it will be shallow and forgettable.

The "transcendence," you see, is that elusive thing, the "point" or "moral" of the story. We might call this the "subtext," which is rather ironic, since "sub" means "below," and to "transcend" has connotations of rising above. One definition of "transcend" means "to surpass; to exist above and independent of."

You might say, the plot or text is the bones and muscles of your story; the subtext is its soul. Granted, some stories, like some people, have rather thin and weak souls.

In the last week I've seen "RED," starring Bruce Willis, and "Predators," with Adrian Brody. They were very similar types of movies--both big retro action flicks, although the former was funny and a bit spoofy, and the latter was grim and a bit maudlin. But they both basically worked.

"RED" had a couple of minor romantic subplots that were dotted in like gold beads on an embroidery sampler, plus some allusions to honor and self-sacrifice, and Doing The Right Thing instead of Every Man For Himself. None of it was laid on heavily, but those little dabs of subtext fed our expectations of what Good Guys and Bad Guys were supposed to do in these kinds of movies, so we went away happy. In fact, the light touch with which these "morals" were applied, actually added to the success of the story; anything more would have seemed like artificial attempts at "depth."

"Predators" took the opposite tactic--all of its viewpoint characters were bad people, anti-heroes, and the viewer can really only identify with them via their being humans, fighting for survival against monsters. No one was alloted more than a line or two of backstory, but you knew what kind of people they were by the way they behaved and spoke to each other. That's a combination of skillful writing, directing, and acting, when you can convey character in such a small space, and without dragging down the pace. (Although, in an action flick, the director uses those moments of character development to allow some downtime; without them, the pace is too frenetic and becomes numbing.) The subtexts of "Predators" had to do with humans being shades of gray, not all good or bad, and sometimes they hide their true natures. Again, these themes were not the main focus of the story. They just made it go down easier.

There are, of course, instances where the pendulum swings the other way: where the subtext outweighs the text and drags it down. We often say such a story is "preachy."

Recently I read two short stories that were basically just arguments about religion. One was a rather scornful depiction of believers and quasi-believers and how they react to mysterious events. The other was a "dialogue" between God and a reporter that ended with the affirmation: "there is no one true faith." (Wow. Thanks for that, guy.)

Neither story worked because the subtext was all there was. Neither of them had sympathetic characters or a plot to build suspense. The characters were just mouthpieces for the writer's viewpoint, staged in a situation where they could talk about it.

I think it's safe to say a story needs a balance of text and subtext to be satisfying; the two exist on a spectrum and you may need more of one or the other for a given type of story. I think the best stories tend to have a balance of the two, in hefty amounts.

Right now I'm watching the Swedish movie adaptation of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," and wow is it intense. I haven't read the book yet; when I picked it up last year it seemed dense and hard to get into (and frankly I haven't had the time or brainspace lately to spare), but based on the strength of the movie I shall take another stab at it. I do know, based on critical reviews, that Stieg Larsson had a definite point to make in that book, and the rocketship plot is in complete and total service to that point. Text and subtext, in perfect synergy.

chaps my hide

2010-10-29T12:15:00.006-05:00

Gratuitous steampunk-western by Mike Resnick, who happened to be one of the editors at Baen's Universe when they bought "End of the Line."

Is that indicative of anything? Probably not. But this title appears to be everything I hate about steampunk and everything I hate about alternate-history, rolled into one. I mean really, you take a bunch of historical figures and rub a brass finish over them. Yawn.

ETA 11/11/10: Seems the reviewers at Publisher's Weekly agreed with my initial assessment:

From Publishers Weekly
In this lusterless steampunk western, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday are outfitted with superhard brass body armor and Gatling-style handguns; Thomas Edison is a cyborg working with Ned Buntline on motorized stagecoaches and other wonders; lawman Bat Masterson has vampiric tendencies; gunslinger Johnny Ringo is a zombie bent on besting Holliday in a gunfight; and Geronimo is a successful shaman and general making sure the United States stops at the Mississippi. Five-time Hugo winner Resnick brings a sparse, dialogue-centric writing style to the classic story of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, twisting it ever so slightly to blend magic and mechanism into its narrative weave. The larger story of the feud is untouched, making Resnick's rendition feel like a copycat of Tombstone with gears glued on. (Dec.)

PVC Batgirl costume

2010-10-19T08:55:00.004-05:00

This is a test drive of the costume I made for a client. I tried it on me, because she and I are the same height and vertical proportions (I'm a couple sizes smaller, though, so this is pinned at the back). Also I like to make sure I get pictures before I release my creations into the wild.

All PVC except for the mask, which is leather. All my own patterns. Strongly based off the Bruce Timm illustrations. I ought to Photoshop some red hair in there.

R.I.P. steampunk

2010-10-11T15:05:00.006-05:00

Seriously. You know the trend is dead when Halloween Express has a line of Steampunk-themed costumes and accessories.

This has got to be my favorite.

Let's see... You're Steampunk Spock dressed as Dracula at a goth rave! Right?

I know it's not any more ridiculous that the generic-Goth wigs they sell in those places, or all the slut-bunny costumes that get pushed on women. But it kind of highlights the problem with "Steampunk" as a subculture, namely: you can't extrapolate from steam-age technology or aesthetics if you don't start there in the first place. (We won't even talk about Victorian ethics!)

Frankly, a pair of Steampunk goggles mass-produced in plastic may be the definition of irony. If you want a pair of goggles, go buy a repurposed vintage pair from some artist on Etsy.

Better yet, hit the antique malls and make 'em yourself.

Sabine's spirit board

2010-10-01T19:25:00.007-05:00

"You asked once whether I had your psychic abilities," Miss Fairweather said. "You stopped short of asking how, in lieu of them, I communicate with the spirits. I am going to show you one method."

She picked up a feather, as black as the rest of the bird, and dipped it into a small silver bowl of oil. With it she drew a circle around the cage. Then she took a piece of crumbly yellow chalk and drew a few symbols at four compass points outside the glistening circle. At last she lit the feather in the candle. A horrid smell filled the air. She quickly blew across the smoldering feather, directing the smoke toward the bird in the cage.

It hopped up and down on its perch a few times, then began to bow rapidly and caw, with strangled urgency. Abruptly it dropped a load of birdshit onto the floor of the cage and fell like it had been shot.

"Nice," Trace said. "That work with humans, too?"

"Be quiet," she murmured. "Have you not seen this done before?"

"Not with a bird. I saw a hoodoo woman put a charm on a pig, once, and send it to find a murderer." The raven lay twitching on the spirit board, its eyes rolling.

"Did it work?" Miss Fairweather asked.

"The voudouenne said it did. I hope the pig was right, because they hanged the man it ran to."

The raven abruptly rattled its feathers and hopped to its feet. It bowed to them twice, tapping its beak on the floor. It cocked its head, waiting for acknowledgement, then tapped twice more.

"Be welcome," Miss Fairweather said to it, and a chill ran through Trace. The bird’s eyes were brighter than they had been a moment ago, he would swear to it, and the light in them was not the gold of candlelight, but the cold silver of spirit-light. "Name yourself," she commanded.

"Crick-et," the bird croaked, and Trace felt the hair on his arms and neck stand up.

Miss Fairweather nodded in satisfaction. "It is always best to make them name themselves," she said to him. "If they will not give you a name, it is probably not an entity you will want to transact with."

"I should think not," Trace said, leaning away from the cage. "That’s a demon."

------------------------

So I had this itch to make a spirit/talking/ouija board.

No, I do not believe in them or any of the hype attached to them. I don't think I've ever actually played with one. I don't intend to play with this one. I find it equally amusing and appalling that people are so afraid of something that was invented to exploit the enduring hoax that is/was Spiritualism.

I just wanted one because my character had one, and I am that big of a geek.

Also, I think they're pretty.

So I made one. On leather. I did the lettering by hand, with a woodburning pen. And because I was making the kind of board Sabine Fairweather would find useful, in addition to the standard letters I threw in some alchemical symbols and the five Chinese elements (wu xing). The Chinese calligraphy was especially fun to do.

It can be rolled up, for storage. Or travel, if one were so inclined. Miss Fairweather has a tidy mind.

Hey, I also make dresses I never wear anywhere.

I may hang this on my wall. I need something to put me in the writing mood. Heck, maybe I can use it as a plot generator.

critiquing: it's not about you

2010-09-21T09:19:00.006-05:00

I finished a story last week. The first new Trace story I've completed in five years, and one of only two stories I've written in that time.

I finished "Scapegoat" just in time to take to my writer's meeting last weekend. I love my writer's group. I've been in several, and this group is by far the most knowledgeable, the most comfortable with themselves as readers and critiquers, and the least likely to take anything personally.

They're all fans of the Trace stories, so I was getting a little complacent about taking them things. Before last weekend, I was starting to wonder if they'd accept anything Trace-related and call it good (after all, they'd been waiting five years!). Happily, I was wrong. There were pacing problems with the end of the story, and they let me know it. They all agreed, however, that the thing wrapped up well enough, and with some structural tweaking it would be fine.

And I trust 'em. They've certainly let me know before when I've put my foot in it.

We have a new member in the group. I've known her peripherally for a few years, and finally invited her to join the group, since I thought she was in the right mindset, and an advanced enough level, to benefit from the kind of critiquing we do.

I don't think my initial assessment was wrong, but there was another factor I hadn't counted upon. In fact, I'd come to take it for granted in the group--the ability to separate one's personal beliefs from the story at hand.

In college, I was trained as a formalist. I look at the text. When it comes to fiction, I don't give a hang about the author's biography or the political climate influencing the book: if it ain't in the text, it doesn't count. I'd even argue that formalism is the only legitimate way to approach speculative fiction, since SFF/H writers are always talking about "world-building." Yes, you can write contemporary political allegories into your novel, but somebody who's not hip to the politics of the 2010's had still better be able to read it and get meaning out of it.

My writer's group, at least what I consider the core of it, has the same attitude. I doubt they have a name for it, much less any formal training (they all learnt their writing chops on the street, as it were), but they adhere to it.

New Member had a problem with "Scapegoat." And she had a hard time saying what her problem was. She objected to use of the word "witch" to describe the villianness, despite the superstitious 19th century setting of the story.

She objected to the objectivism of Good and Evil... in a horror story. She protested that she'd seen 3000 years of that attitude and she wanted something more... What, she couldn't quite articulate.

She said that in badly written stories she could ignore it, but in a "good" story, like mine, she expected better. But she couldn't quite say what "it" was.

I tried to help. I did. I have learned that people often make up reasons to justify things they feel with their gut, and understanding those unspoken values helps me accommodate a wider range of readers. I asked if she would be happier with an X-Files type ending, i.e. 'It could be spooks, but here's a rational explanation'. No, that wasn't it. Every suggestion I made, every effort to repeat back what she was saying, to interpret, was shot down and another layer of finely-minced equivocation sprinkled on top.

"But you never explain why," she whined. "Was [the villain] abused as a child?"

I was rolling my eyes at this point (seriously--traumatic childhood is the most overused literary device of our age), but I pointed out the places in the text where it stated the girl had been taught badly by her mother, and had done Bad Things in the past. She was greedy, lazy, manipulative and deceitful--all traits supported by the text. Other members pointed out that the girl was not bad because she was a witch; she just happened to use her powers for evil.

But New Member was not happy.

After a couple days' thought I've deduced she wanted me to retcon my story (and coincidentally, nineteenth century history and morals) to accommodate modern attitudes toward witchcraft. And she didn't want to say so, because it would reveal her prejudices, and invite speculation about whether she is a pagan/wiccan/witch/whatever.

Y'know, I don't care a hill of beans what she believes in. All I care about is how fairly she can critique. And in a writer's group, you're not there to tell the writer what kind of story you want to see. You're there to evaluate what's on the page.

It's interesting to note, as well, that "Scapegoat" takes place in a "black town" in Kansas, c. 1880. Racist themes permeate the story. I knew, writing it, that SOMEBODY was going to be offended, however lightly I strove to tread. And I was sweating the reaction of another Newer Member of our group, a young woman of mixed race, who would've had a lot more legitimate cause to complain about the historically-accurate use of ethnic slurs in the story. But she's apparently more formalist--or maybe more sophisticated--than Old New Member, because her feedback was unequivocally approving.

I'm not saying everyone has to like or agree with every story submitted by every member. It's entirely appropriate to say, "I'm not the right audience for this story, but here's what I got out of it that you may find helpful..." In some cases it's even appropriate to say, "this offends me," because that can help the writer determine his audience better, whether that includes you or not. But say it and move on. Don't condemn the story for living in a different world than you do.

Jesca Hoop: The Kingdom

2010-08-14T19:57:00.008-05:00

This is quite the most gorgeous video I have seen in years.

In fact the video is so mesmerizing it's hard at first to hear how beautifully the poetry is constructed:

In the morning you are called, she said
you must go to the battlefield
and follow the cries of the men rampaging
and gather the ones who won't heal...

But In the high desert, you are dying
for your God, and his ghost, and the son.
Do not hold to the earth on which you are lying
for the Kingdom can never be won

I've been listening to this obsessively for two days. The album was $7.99, but the inspiration is priceless.

instant-karma pizza

2010-08-13T09:47:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted a recipe in a long long time (or much of anything else, either) but I felt compelled to brag/bemoan the pizza we had for dinner last night.

It started with some basil. I adore basil. I hit the farmer's market on Wednesday to get some tomatoes, and this woman had a pile of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes in every color of the rainbow, plus a bouquet of basil that I could smell from six feet away.

I bought a bundle, which looks pretty and summery in a straight glass vase on my kitchen counter, and announced I was going to make pesto with it.

"Ooo," said my husband, the enabler. "Pesto flatbreads. Pesto flatbreads!"

And because I can't say no, either to him or to the craving for pizza I'd had the last couple weeks, I said, "Okay, what else do you want for toppings?"

"Carmelized onions," he said without hesitation. "Pork. Brie."

"Brie??" I said incredulously.

"Brie. And maybe some crumbled feta."

It sounded like a strange combination to me, but I set out to make it work. Clearly this was not a pizza that would need or want tomato sauce. The pesto would serve for the oil and the salty flavor, plus I was already looking at 3 cheeses (given the parmesan in the pesto) so I could skip the mozz, too.

I got some pork sausage at Steve's Meat Market in DeSoto. It's mild, breakfasty, and full of good pig fat. I browned it in a little olive oil, with balsamic vinegar, rosemary, pepper, parsely and bay leaf.

For the pesto I used a recipe that Sifu Sit provided. He'd made some the night before, and claimed it was superior to many recipes because it had a dab of butter added. Y'know, he was right?

For the crust, I used this recipe, which truly is perfect in my mind. I mixed it up Wednesday night, let it sit in the fridge all day Thursday, and it was ready to go when I got home. I like a tad more salt and sugar in the dough than they call for here, but YMMV. If you spread the dough quite thin, it makes a 10 or 12 inch, crackerlike crust with a bit of chew. I made two balls of dough, each one mixed separately (which takes, like, 5 minutes) and then put in the same bowl to rise.

So: onions sliced thin and gently sauteed in the pig fat. Sun-dried tomatoes from the pantry, diced and warmed with the onions. Tony wilted some spinach to go on his flatbread. I found a shrivelling red pepper in the fridge and elevated it to divine roasted status. Thin slices of brie, sprinkling of feta, dashes of fresh pesto.

I'm embarrassed to admit I ate the whole thing. A whole 10-inch flatbread, by myself. Tony managed to hold back a slice of his, which he had for breakfast.

My fingers were so swollen this morning I could hardly get my ring on. It'll probably take me the rest of the weekend to undo the damage of all that wheat and salt.

But hey, if you're gonna sin.... at least make it worth the while.

qi = oxygen

2010-07-13T15:41:00.003-05:00

Required reading for martial arts students and enthusiasts of "alternative" medicine.

the commonly accepted idea in the west that Chinese medicine is an energetic, metaphysical medicine was singlehandedly created by a French bank clerk with no training in medicine or ancient Chinese language. It is neither historically accurate nor consistent with modern scientific understanding of the body.

Now shut up and practice.

so NYAH

2010-07-01T14:52:00.002-05:00

As far as I'm concerned, Wonder Woman's new Costume is made of WIN.

And yes, I shall be making one as soon as is practical.

no really--you shouldn't have

2010-06-11T12:01:00.014-05:00

Guys (and gals)--take note of this: approaching someone you know casually, with declarations of undying love and the details of how you've f*cked up your own life in hopes of winning them -- not the turn-on you might imagine.

The last couple weeks I've had some thoughts about the dynamics of friends, fans, stalkers. As a public service, I'm going to share them here.

Friends bond over shared interests. Initial interaction is shallow and polite, and the mutual interest is outside of themselves. Over time, they may share personal information and develop an emotional bond. That's a normal, natural progression.

Fans find something in the work or the creator that feeds some basic unconscious or semi-conscious need in the fan. It's an isolated facet of the whole, usually, and highly subjective, which is why fans spend all their time bickering over details. They twist their observations to fit their own needs, which makes any disagreement potentially threatening. Now, that's not to suggest that all fans of everything are demented or divorced from reality. Fantasy is a healthy thing if it's kept in proportion with reality. But in my costuming business I've had people objectify me as the provider of their fix--they assume I'm their friend because I helped feed their habit. Or they assume that I'm into new-age spiritual crap because I practice tai chi. Or whatever.

Stalkers, at least the type I've dealt with, are an extreme type of fan. They latch onto the person, and then cultivate, or feign, interest in subjects that interest the object of affection. This is not the basis for a healthy relationship of ANY kind.

It's also the reason so many love affairs and marriages fail. If you meet someone, and crush on them, and try to get close to them by being something you aren't, it may work in the short term--because who, after all, wouldn't be flattered by someone praising and supporting the work that is most important to her?--but eventually the facade will wear down.

This is also how those "How to get women" books work. And it sounds good in theory, but it's not a good long-term game plan.

The difficult thing is that people who become fans and/or stalkers often don't have enough real-life experience, or options, to see the fallacy in the their fantasy (assuming there isn't some underlying drug use or more severe disorder). That's why they sometimes turn violent--the bubble will eventually burst, and they lash out in frustration, trying to regain control.

It's a sad but true fact: until the stalker has something else, something worthy and rewarding to focus his energy on, he will not abandon the obsession.

Happily, I've never had to deal with a violent stalker, or one that was more than mildly annoying. I think that's partly because I'm not the kind of person who'd get caught in an abusive relationship in the first place. I don't empathize, I don't negotiate, and I don't care if the other person feels like shit, (or hates my guts!) so there's no way for a potential abuser/stalker to manipulate me.

But there's another kind of stalker, who happens to be attracted to women like me--as the Eurythmics put it, "Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused." Submissives, you might call them. My type of stalker is invariably awkward, weak, and attracted to my capability and confidence.

When I was in my early 20's I had a guy follow me around for about eight months. He sent me letters describing how he could love unconditionally--even if I were disfigured by burn scars or dying of cancer--and bits of fiction containing scrotum-crushing scenes.

I believe now that it was classic erotomania--the guy was being treated for various anxiety disorders and may have had delusions as well. It didn't matter that he was 20 years older than me, and from a completely different social, educational and economic background. In fact, I recently read that erotomaniacs tend to fixate on people who are "out of their league." I suspect, given the general ineptitude of these stalkers in all aspects of life, that this fixation expresses a desire to be rescued and "taken care of."

Anyway, I eventually got rid of the guy by ignoring him. I told him no, sent back his letters unopened, and hung up the phone when he called. I guess I'm lucky that he quit, although I will take some credit for never letting it get past the first stage. I later found out he pursued another girl with similar, but more escalated results.

There's another fan I half-seriously refer to as my stalker. He's been hanging around for several years. He's bought my fiction, sent me letters and birthday cards, and when we meet at Cons, he tries to strike up conversations as if we were just talking on the phone the other day. I just say hello politely and then move on, but the guy won't get it--his latest innovation is to approach my husband in the same overly-familiar manner. Luckily he's an old, slow guy and I can simply avoid him.

That's really the only thing you can do with a stalker, or an admirer who's approaching creepy territory. Ignore them. Pointedly. Sometimes this means acknowledgement of their presence or behaviors without reaction. You have to say "no" without giving them an emotional response, which is what they want. You have to be a cold calm bitch, and tell them unequivocally that the behavior is inappropriate and unwanted.

I don't know yet about this new potential stalker--he crossed a major line, but it's the first such incident, and so doesn't yet qualify as "stalking" per se. I think he may be having a breakdown of some kind. The fixation on me is only partly about me, but more about my status in the social circle we share. The rest of the circle is drawing in around me, so I don't feel particularly nervous or threatened--just annoyed. I refuse to carry the weight of somebody else's problems.

steampunk convention report, ConQuest 41, 2010

2010-05-30T15:23:00.019-05:00

Tony & I took a mini-vacation for Memorial Day weekend, and went to ConQuest in Kansas City. Saw some friends, ate some overpriced food, wore our pseudo-Victorian finest, and generally had a good hedonistic time.

I hadn't been to ConQuest in a few years. Too busy, too broke, not writing anymore, generally put-off by the fandom scene. But the Steampunk theme lured me back, and gave me an excuse to make up the red ballgown I'd been promising myself for the last 5 years.

Of course, I gave myself 2 weeks to get it done, which probably would have been ample time if I had a) started with a strong plan of what I was going to do, and b) not volunteered to make Tony a vest and alter 2 or 3 other garments for him as well. (Not that I regret it; he was unbearably handsome in that vest.)

Naturally, I was tacking down linings an hour before we left for the hotel. But all turned out well:

It's red/black shot dupioni silk for the underskirt, and black/red iridescent velvet in silk/rayon. Slinky, soft, decadently rich and heavy. Black nylon fringe at the skirt hem and sleeves; black beaded trim at the bodice hem. Silver and garnet necklace from my lover.

I had a heckuva time finding garnet earrings to go with this ensemble; in the end I found some "butter-colored" amber stones in a silver setting. There was an amber-jewelry dealer at the con who had some lovely cherry-red pieces, so I bought a ring set in filigree and a pair of drop earrings.

There were a lot of other costumes to see, which was part of the fun of going. Steampunk is so funky and creative, and quite wearable. Tony & I wore our tweed ensembles all day Saturday and were quite comfortable.

I made my skirt and vest a few years back; Tony's vest I made last week, out of some old wool stash I had. He found his pants and shirt in consignment stores, and we accessorized via antique malls and ebay. I think his ankle-gaiters are particularly cool.

Then there were were the lovely folks we encountered in the hotel halls (sorry if there's a slight blur on some of these--convention hall lighting is never optimal for photos):

Susan Satterfield, doyenne of the Con.

A dancing Sultana...

A couple of waifs...

A fun-loving lady...

a pair of steamy street urchins...

A couple of proper ladies, and a lad who took the "punk" to heart and said, "[bleep] this Victorian [bleep]."

Klignons, of course, make their own fashion:

Nice use of cogs and striped stockings:

This young lady was quite charming. She looked to me like she'd just popped over from a dig in Cairo. She did a skit in the Masquerade on Saturday night, as well--something about Miss Pomeroy searching for golden bells to save her world? The reference was lost on me, but the costume was adorable.

This dapper gentleman had a booth in the dealer's room, selling leather pouches, belts, top hats and accessories. He also had some serious weaponry. His website is www.boarsheadleather.com.

A genial trio of airship time-travellers.

This guy was one of my favorites. From his boots to his waxed mustache, to his slightly reticent and blustery air, he was perfect. His weapon was a marvel, too. See those glowing cartridges on his bandolier? They had LED lights inside to make them glow, and they detached from the bandolier to plug into his gun, for back-up ammunition.

He had probably the most detailed accessories belt, too. A gentleman should never go into the wild without his tobacco and tea cup.

And here he is with a hunting companion, set for adventure. I figure they'll be taking down pterodactyls with those guns.

Ta!

poised and dangerous

2010-04-27T19:38:00.005-05:00

It's kind of a pity I don't do cosplay much anymore.

I'm awfully good at it.

Harley Quinn, in the costume from the Arkham Asylum video game. Sold on Etsy April 26th.

More pics here.

open letter to Whole Foods Market

2010-03-29T13:36:00.003-05:00

Dear Management and Employees of Whole Foods,

There are many things I love about Whole Foods. However, the recent pushing of vegetarian propaganda is not one of them.

Since your Overland Park store opened I have been a regular visitor to your prepared foods/food bar for lunch and/or breakfast. I eat there at least 3 times a week, every week.

For the past month, I have been increasingly frustrated with the lack of meat on the salad bar. You have added the whole grains selection to the end of the salad bar, and virtually eliminated the salmon, tuna salads and chicken salads that were previously available.

Over the past three weeks, I have counted six separate occasions in which I went to get a salad and the rotisserie chicken was either depleted or never there. Twice I have heard other customers request more chicken from prepared foods. Twice I have done it myself. EACH TIME I have waited around for 20 minutes and the chicken never appeared.

Now, I appreciate you may be short-handed in the kitchen, but this is not good customer service, particularly since today, there was one staff member serving pre-made sandwiches at one end of the salad bar, and another offering me fat-free "healthy" salad dressings at the other.

Since I don't eat wheat and I happen to believe that low-fat dieting is a good way to make yourself vitamin-deficient, I set my salad down and left without buying anything.

I know it is good business practice, not to mention goodwill, to provide for the vegetarian/vegan demographic of your customers. You have done so in the past by providing sprouts, tofu, whole grain salads, and vegetarian entrees. Since the beginning of the year, the selection of vegetarian items has doubled, but the meats have nearly vanished.

I suspect these changes have less to do with a desire to please your customers and more with the desire to please your stockholders. Due to grain subsidies in this country, I'm sure the unpurchased grains you throw away every day still cost less than the chicken and fish you were selling off the salad bar. Meanwhile, the price of your food bar has not gone down, even though vegetarian proponents argue that eating vegetarian is cheaper, and many people profess a desire to eat less meat because "meat is so expensive." Ergo, the benefit is to Whole Foods, not the customer.

I, for one, do not subscribe to the theory that vegetarian eating is good for our bodies or for the environment. There are plenty of other educated, informed people who feel the same.

Today I noticed a large display of books near the customer service counter under the sign, "Healthy Eating Resources." Every book in the display was about vegetarian, vegan, or raw foods eating. While these books undoubtedly contain some valuable information, I would like to see the opposite side of the argument represented. There are two books coming out in May that I think should be added to your shelves: "The Vegetarian Myth" by Lierre Keith, and "The Primal Blueprint" by Mark Sisson. While no one book should be taken as absolute truth, presenting both sides of the argument is fair AND "healthy."

Let me be clear: I fully support local and organic food production/consumption. My husband and I buy all of our meat from local ranchers. Our beef is grass-fed; our chickens and eggs are free-range. I don't mind paying more for quality and sustainability. Having Whole Foods so close to my workplace was a tremendous convenience for me.

However, given the recent changes I doubt I will be spending much more time or money at Whole Foods. While I appreciate the quality of your goods, I simply can't find what I want there anymore, and I resent being told, implicitly and explicitly, that what I want is the wrong thing.

Sincerely,
Holly Messinger

community banks do a vastly disproportionate share of small business lending

2010-02-08T14:20:00.006-06:00

Shocking, I know.

I opened an account at UMB (used to be United Missouri Bank until they expanded out-of-state) in Liberty, Missouri--in, oh, probably 1993 or thereabouts. I still use that account for my sewing business. There's a branch maybe five miles from my work, but generally I pay all my bills online so I rarely need to go there.

Today, I found out UMB was named the 2nd-strongest bank in America by Forbes. Although I don't have any particular praise to heap upon UMB, when I consider the grousing I've heard from friends and family about Bank of America (and considering what BOA did to my Visa account after they bought out MBNA), it may be praise enough to say I've never had a problem with UMB.

After the Sparring Partner and I got married, I opened a new account in my married name with the local college-town credit union. I got a super car loan with a second credit union, at about half the interest rate that everyone else was offering, given that my credit was looking shaky after the divorce.

I still have all those accounts open and they cost me not a thing. I'm on the verge of paying off my car loan, and looking at ways to transfer part of our debt load to one of the credit unions, to make it easier to pay off. I'm still hoping to have all my personal debts paid off by my 40th birthday.

Anyway, the take-away lesson here is, Bank of America is evil. They may seem convenient because they have ATM's everywhere, but trust me--you're gonna pay for that convenience, one way or another. Put your money in a local bank.

FAQ: prices and ordering info for custom Harley Quinn costumes

2010-02-01T09:31:00.020-06:00

If you want to know about non-Harley Quinn custom work, click here.

DO YOU STILL MAKE HARLEY QUINN COSTUMES?

Yes. You can order through my Etsy shop.

HOW MUCH DO THEY COST?

The spandex suit is $350(+shipping). This includes the suit, hood with attached collar, gloves, ruffles, booties, and a mask if you like. I am no longer offering the PVC suit because the quality of fabric I can get is too unpredictable.

CAN I BUY THE COSTUME A PIECE AT A TIME?

You can, but please understand if you do, your colors may not match exactly. I order fabric in small batches from different suppliers, and the textures and dye lots will vary, especially in the reds.

Individual pieces are priced as follows:
HOOD: $110
BODYSUIT: $130
GLOVES: $30
BOOTIES: $80
WRIST RUFFLES: $30

Note also, I give a slight discount when you order the whole costume (basically you get the wrist ruffles for free), so it is actually more expensive to buy it a piece at a time. (Plus you pay more in shipping.)

CAN I GET JUST THE PATTERN FOR THE HOOD?

I do not sell the hood pattern separately.

CAN I RENT/BORROW ONE? CAN I GET ONE THAT'S NOT CUSTOM-MADE?

I do not keep any in stock. Everything I make is custom-order only.

I LIKE A DIFFERENT VERSION OF HARLEY'S COSTUME. WILL YOU COPY THE DESIGN FROM MAD LOVE/TANGO WITH EVIL/ADAM HUGHES, ETC?

If you send me a picture you like, I will do my best to duplicate it. HOWEVER--I may refuse to recreate designs stolen from DeviantArt or personal websites. There's a difference between fans playing tribute with a costume, and ripping off someone's unique take on a character. Also see below about requesting custom work.

THAT'S A LOT OF MONEY. CAN I PAY YOU HALF NOW AND HALF LATER? WILL YOU MAKE ME A COSTUME AND HOLD IT UNTIL I CAN PAY YOU? WILL YOU MAKE ME A CHEAPER VERSION OF THE COSTUME?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: It *is* a lot of money, and I encourage you to make sure you have it before you try to spend it. I do not give refunds because I order fabrics as soon as the order comes in; therefore your money is spent within hours of my receiving it.

Also, because I am a one-woman operation, I have to be efficient with my working time. That means I can't waste time working on a project that I may or may not get paid for. Therefore all orders must be paid in full in advance. And I'm sorry but I CANNOT offer to "hold" sales/places in line for customers unless you have prepaid. It messes up my schedule and it's not fair to other buyers.

I take pride in providing my clients with well-made, well-fitted garments that will last for years and inspire envy in others. Please don't ask me to dilute the quality of my work.

IT SEEMS TO ME THE SAMPLES OF YOUR WORK ARE TOO LOOSE/TOO TIGHT. CAN YOU MAKE MINE TO FIT LOOSER/TIGHTER?

Yes--within limits.

What I do is made-to-measure work. This is not as precise as bespoke clothing, in which the tailor makes a pattern specifically for you, and may go through several rounds of test garments before the pattern is finalized. (Bespoke work also costs 3 or 4 times more than what I charge.) What I do is make adjustments to a standardized pattern, according to the measurements you give me. Understand, however, that no body is really "standard" in terms of pattern-making, and everybody has different ideas about what good fit *is*. Some folks like their spandex to look like paint, some don't. Tell me what you prefer and I'll try to deliver.

Also, please understand, I can't get a perfect fit on a body that I don't actually have in front of me. I offer one-time free alterations (we split the shipping costs) if you inform me of any fitting issues within a week of receiving your finished costume. However, to get the absolute best possible fit for your body, you may want to take your finished costume to a professional tailor/alterations expert near you, and have them fine-tune the fit. This is standard operating procedure for most bridal & formal shops, by the way.

HOW DO I TAKE MY MEASUREMENTS?

The general instructions page is here:

From Etsy

I may, if you are very small or very large, ask for additional measurements. Specialty costumes also require additional measurements.

DO YOU MAKE OTHER KINDS OF COSTUMES? IF I SEND YOU A PICTURE CAN YOU COPY IT? HOW MUCH WILL THAT COST? HOW DOES IT WORK?

I charge $20/hour for custom sewing. This includes the time needed to draw up a pattern, which can be considerable. I am happy to draw up custom patterns and/or work from a sketch, but please be aware that some characters--particularly Anime characters from video games--are so complex that they are not practical in terms of my time and your money.

I try to be ethical in using the designs of other seamstresses. I am pretty familiar with the work of other stitchers on the web and I will not steal designs from them. Please don't try to pass off someone else's work as your own because you will get caught.

Once we agree to do business together, I will send you an email contract and a Paypal Invoice for your deposit. You will have a set amount of time (usually 10-14 days) to pay the invoice and get me your measurements and payment. The expiration date will be stated in the invoice. Setting this time limit allows me to stay on schedule and use my time efficiently.

If for some reason you are unable to go ahead with a sale or you want to delay your order, please let me know right away. I understand that things happen and I am happy to be flexible.

However, if we agree on all the details and I make a listing for you in my Etsy shop, or send you an invoice, and you never answer me.... don't bother to write four months later and tell me how your dog/car/grandmother died and now you really really want to go ahead with the sale, because I will not let you waste my time twice.

Good communication is the key to a mutually rewarding relationship.

For more information about shipping and return policies, visit my Etsy Shop Policies Page.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you have any questions I haven't covered here, please don't hestiate to contact me.

weary outrage

2010-01-19T21:50:00.004-06:00

I had a girl email me tonight and tell me how much she loved my work because it was better than anyone else's, but she was really poor and could I pretty please make her a costume for about half the price of what I was asking? She wouldn't mind if it was made out of cheaper materials or it took a really long time, kthnxbai.

&^%*&^

*%@($!?!?

Sigh.

Seriously. Where do I start? With the devaluation of what used to be considered skilled labor? Or the devaluation of what is seen as only 'women's work'? How about the disposable culture we live in? The constant reward of instant gratification? And don't forget the artificial scale of value based on cheap labor from third-world countries.

When I think about it, I am offering a fairly rare commodity--not only something that is hard to find, but also something that is well-crafted, expensive, and you have to wait, in most cases, two or three months to get it. Very few people are ever in a position to order anything custom-made, so they have nothing to compare to.

I mustered all the patience I could and explained to the girl that my costs were primarily labor-related. But I'm not entirely sure it will make a dent. People are frakking cheap. And self-centered. And flighty as magpies--they want it until they've got it and then they don't want it anymore. For every lovely client I've worked with, who appreciates their costumes and treats them with care and doesn't mind paying more to get what they want, I get at least ten letters from asshats who seem to believe I'm going to cut them a break just because they really really like my work.

My husband is a carpenter who mostly does fine remodeling on old houses. He's confirmed my observation that the rich tend to be the tightest with their money, and the least willing to pay their contractors. People are always asking for quotes on kitchen remodels or the like, and then trying to cut corners somehow--usually in ways that make more work for the contractor. Folks, believe what your contractor tells you. He can do it more cheaply than you can, at least if you want a good result.

It's perfectly all right to ask for an estimate, and to ask what your options are on materials. But know that your contractor will not, should not, give you a break on labor, and in most cases your labor is going to be the bulk of your costs. If it wasn't, you would do it yourself. So if you know you can't do it yourself, respect the work that the pros do, huh? And if you can't afford it, do less, or wait awhile. Just don't expect the contractor to take it in the neck for your convenience!

I know that most of y'all reading are already converted--if not in the business yourselves--and I'm preaching to the choir. I just felt the need to spew this into the ether.

leather Harley Quinn mask experiment

2010-01-18T10:20:00.005-06:00

I love finding artists who've made it big doing what they love to do. My latest idol is this lady, Andrea, who makes and sells masks under the moniker Merimask.

She's a self-taught artist who loved the masks in the movie Labyrinth and decided to try making her own. She has been so very successful at it, she has done special commissions for Cirque du Soleil and other elite international performance groups.

Last year she was featured on an episode of Martha Stewart where she demonstrated her technique. Talk about simple! Just goes to show that fancy equipment is not what it takes to make art.

I was actually interested in the process for making an epaulette for my Power Girl costume, but I figured, what the hey--let's try it out and see if I get a nice Harley Quinn mask.

I'd say the effort was successful. In fact I look so cute I may start wearing this on the street. I wonder if that would get me arrested.

You can see and purchase Andrea's work at her Etsy shop.

manliest mustaches of all time

2010-01-12T12:38:00.002-06:00

Those of you who read The Art of Manliness have already seen this. Those who don't.... well, you should!

The 35 Manliest Mustaches of All Time

Tom Selleck is at the top of the list, naturally.

movies in brief: Holmes, Zombieland, and "Karate Kid" trailer

2009-12-28T11:07:00.008-06:00

I started writing this massive review of Sherlock Holmes last week, woven through with a rant about movie critics, but it got too long and depressing and I quit.

However, the comments section of my last post yielded some interesting fodder, and I do still have a thing or two to say about Holmes, so here goes:

Shirley wrote: "I heard very good things about Avatar from my friend in Seattle, slight political message aside. So I might actually go see that one in theater, since 3-D won't be as good, IMHO on a home screen.:

I agree, if you're going to see a movie renounced for its visuals, 3-D on a movie screen is definitely the way to go. I admit I wanted to see Holmes in the theater, in part because of its sets. But I think I'll give Avatar a pass; I've never been able to overlook story flaws in favor of whirligig visuals, and a couple sources I trust have told me things that suggest Avatar would annoy me.

SG wrote: "I am wondering what your take on "Zombieland" is, if you went to see it."

I did not "go" to see it, but I did watch it. I'm glad after all I did not "go" to see it. It was wearyingly lazy. There were a few chuckles, but the whole thing had an amateurish feel; characters and plot were stock. The trailer was definitely the best part of the movie.

Speaking of great trailers, did you know they've made a "Karate Kid" remake? This one is set in China, stars Jackie Chan and Will Smith's kid, Jaden, and presumably will involve Jackie teaching the kid kung-fu instead of karate. Internet chatter implies it will be called "The Kung-Fu Kid" instead, which is awkward but a relief to hear.

Nevertheless, the trailer makes all of this look fresh and exciting. I'm sure there is some kind of industry-given award for Making This Sow's Ear Resemble a Silk Purse, and the guy who pasted together this trailer probably deserves it.

Now, about Sherlock Holmes.

We were snowed in the day before Christmas. As a result, we had one of the nicest holidays ever: we spent four days in the house: reading, watching movies, and eating ourselves silly. In tandem with the gorging and soaking up heat from the wood stove, I read most of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (nine stories and part of a tenth), and then about half of A Study in Scarlet.

By Sunday, the roads were somewhat clearer and I felt suitably briefed for the movie, so we got into our tweeds, vests, and bowler hats and went to see Sherlock Holmes. (Side note: Going out in public in semi-costume is vastly entertaining. I wore my brown tweed vest and skirt with an ivory silk blouse that gives me a distinct 1890's air. Little girls love that outfit. Kids just stare and stare; their parents pretend not to see.)

In comments to my last post, Freyalyn said about the movie: "Very impressed, unexpectedly so. Looked fabulous, clothes and rooms and streets and big vistas. Women in far too much makeup though. Jude Law actually managed to act! And Tower Bridge was constructed correctly."

I have to agree with all of that, especially the part about the makeup on Rachel McAdams. Very weird to see her in all that eyeliner. Also didn't like the pink satin gown they had her in for a major sequence--hideous color. But when Holmes first spies her, she is in a red velvet suit that I would happily sacrifice small children for.

I enjoyed the movie quite a bit and will definitely add it to my collection in future. The characters are fun, the action is exciting, and the overall look of the film--the sets, costumes, and mood--are simply awesome. The story is tolerable: it all holds together in the end, but the SP and I agreed that the movie was lacking a sense of urgency: there was never a real sense of danger to our heroes or the world in general.

Now, having seen the movie and read a fair amount of the source material, I am more disgusted than ever by the vast majority of critics who don't seem to know what they are talking about.

"Moriarty" over at Ain't it Cool News is even more right than I imagined about the movie's adherence to canon, right down to Holmes shooting "VR" ("Victoria Regina") in the wall, which is lifted verbatim from "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual," which, moreover, begins with an account of Holmes' slovenly housekeeping habits.

The one thing in the movie which may not be canon--at least I have not yet found reference to it--was the implication that Watson had a weakness for gambling. But at this point I am not about to say that tid-bit is wrong.

So: I am disgusted with critics who cry foul without doing their homework. I should be used to that, it happens to me all the time when "peer" critters report on my work.

Then there are the critics who cannot separate their own biases from what is actually on the screen. Because they prefer the Basil Rathbone version of Holmes, they cannot judge anything new on its own terms. This, in my experience, also stems from willful ignorance (I know what I like ergo I shan't allow for other points of view, ergo everything else is wrong). This crew gripes about the martial arts in the movie (which, for the record, I thought were very well done), and Robert Downey Jr.'s slovenly appearance and manic tendencies. I will concede that Downey's casting was a bit questionable; Holmes is described many times in the stories as tall, thin, and hawk-nosed, whereas Downey looks rather like a dissolute leprechaun.

Thirdly, I am exhausted with critics who can't see past fashionable tropes to what is actually on the screen. I am specifically thinking of the repeated assertions that Holmes and Watson are gay.

Folks, men (and women) can be fast friends for their entire lives, and may even love one another, but that does not mean they are homosexuals. There is brotherly love, and there is the love for comrades-in-arms, and there is the intimacy that two roommates will have that is as close as any found between a husband and wife--and none of that need be sexual in nature.

On the other hand, same-sex friends may have a sexual relationship with one another and still not be "gay" in the sense that they want to share a life with that person. They still see themselves pair-bonding with someone of the opposite sex. It's impossible to categorize all the possible permutations of intimacy--both physical and emotional--between two people, and it's probably impossible for a 21st-century American to understand the bonds between two men of the Victorian Era, a time when close friendships with women was virtually impossible.

Furthermore, at several times in my life, I have been the sole female in a circle of male friends, and we all got along fine until I started dating one of them, at which point all the other males fell away in jealousy and resentment. Some of them wanted me for themselves; some of them merely resented the fact that two members of the former "gang" were splitting off without the others. People get jealous when their friends abandon them for new pursuits, and sex need have nothing to do with it.

All of which leads me to wonder if the finger-pointed and labelling of "gay" by certain critics is a reflection of our current times, when people like to have everyone categorized in neat little boxes, or a projection of the critics' own prejudices or proclivities. Mr. Critic, does it make you nervous when two men live together? Are you privately offended by the increasing acceptance of gay lifestyles and portayals in fiction? Or are you, yourself gay, and you are eager to find yourself role models in classical fiction?

Whatever. The supposed "double entendres and sidelong glances" were invisible to me. Roger Ebert even asserted that Jude Law was wearing lipstick when he promoted the movie on Letterman--what does that have to do with the price of tea? I guarantee Law and Letterman were both wearing makeup for the camera, but that is unrelated to the movie and certainly unrelated to the sexual orientation of the fictitious character played by Law in said movie.

Gah. This is getting long and depressing again. The movie was cool. It was a tad too long and too Hollywood-formulaic in structure; some of the fight scenes were pointless and should've been tossed. But I still would like to own it. Also, the Holmes stories are pretty good reading and I'll keep consuming them.

What I need to stay away from are critical reviews.

ok, ok! I'll go see it....

2009-12-22T08:38:00.003-06:00

Stellar review of Guy Richie's Sherlock Holmes by "Moriarty" from Ain't it Cool News. And by that I mean the review is stellar--descriptive, analytical, and informed. He makes his case convincingly.

Oh, yes... the action scenes. This is probably the most controversial choice made with this new run at the character, and it shouldn't be. After all, Conan Doyle himself wrote the ultimate confrontation between the genius of Holmes and the genius of his arch-enemy Moriarty as a fistfight above a waterfall. Doyle has always been clear about the fact that Holmes was trained in Brazilian martial arts and the rules of boxing, both Queensbury and street, which makes sense. Why wouldn't a genius who frequently puts himself in harm's way learn how to handle himself physically? And in particular, why wouldn't he learn martial arts, where how you think is as important as how strong you are?

Well said, my good man. Now I'm actually eager and hopeful about seeing this. And I may well pick up a Doyle book before I go. I'm ashamed to say, although I've always lived in a house that contained a Holmes adventure or two, I've never read one.

And for the record, I will humbly admit that my gorge-heaving reaction to the trailer was based on ignorance. Ah well--now I have more enticing research to look forward to!

it wasn't his child

2009-12-21T10:25:00.002-06:00

By this time of year, most of us are full to the back teeth with Christmas music. We get treated to the same twenty songs over and over again, and every year the renditions get shriller, faster, and more mutilated. The smooth croons of Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole have given way to back-beats and distorted warbling.

But this song still gets me. As with every other Christmas ditty, there are many, many covers of this song, but the one by Sawyer Brown was the first I ever heard, and the one I prefer.

I can't call myself a believer in anything these days. At best I can say I have an open mind. But the family dynamics of the Mary and Joseph story, the pure dirty bloody humanism of it, gets to me.

The little, uncelebrated ways in which people do good by each other: that's what I still believe in.

this is probably what Miss Fairweather had to play with as a child

2009-12-18T10:11:00.002-06:00

Or what she would have made herself if she had been forced to learn knitting.

Knitted lab rat in a dissection tray.

sex and the kung fu girl

2009-12-02T15:13:00.007-06:00

Despite the title this post is more theoretical and contemplative than sexy. If you are prudish or smarmy please go read something else.

For some years now I've been contemplating the relationship between Chinese martial arts and women's reproductive health. Even done a little research from time to time, although I came up with nothing conclusive. If you Google "women's kung fu" you get articles about how to become multi-orgasmic and my interest is a little less prurient and a bit more practical than that. So I've decided to simply write about my own experiences and cast them out into the aether, and see what kind of answering pings come back.

As my long-time readers know, my husband and I have been studying kung fu and tai chi with the same teacher for a number of years. I can confidently say that martial arts does good things for my health overall. I've been doing tai chi for 10 years now, and I still wear the same size clothes as I did in college. My blood pressure, cholesterol, and overall health are exceptionally good and look to stay that way for the next 10 years. I am usually strong, fit, and flexible for a woman in my culture.

The one health problem I've always had is with my menstrual cycle. I had terrible cramps when I was a teenager, to the point where I was basically immobilized for the first 6 or 8 hours of my period. This continued up until I was 25 or so--which also happened to be the year I started tai chi.

I don't think anyone will doubt that being physically fit is going to make your body run more smoothly. But I had been a daily runner for a couple of years at that point and it never seemed to make a dent in my cramps. The tai chi did. I can't say for sure how long it took, but after a year or so I realized that there was a definite pattern. I still got weak and crampy, but I was no longer incapacitated.

Also, it deserves to be said, about this same time I learned I could dose myself heavily with ibuprofen when I started bleeding and that would lessen a lot of the pain. Furthermore, that same summer I quit drinking soda. I was a Pepsi addict before that, downing at least 3 a day. They made my bladder burn. So I quit drinking them, and quit eating french fries, and lost 8 pounds in 3 months. I don't think I was exercising any more than previously. I probably was not running as much, because I always hated running and the tai chi was much nicer to practice in the evenings.

Furthermore, I discovered that when I *had* cramps, I could stand in a horse stance, do my qigong (chi kung) breathing, and the pain would lessen. So it wasn't merely an accumulative process, it was an active treatment.

After about three years in tai chi, I progressed to Chun Man Sit's class and started kung fu. This was more physically demanding than the tai chi. It involved a lot more kicks, lower stances, a faster pace. I began to notice my thighs and butt firming up, and my belly flattening. Billy Blanks had it right--martial-arts kicks are the best exercise a woman can do.

And the cramps lessened still more. Enough so, in fact, that I could and would still go to class when I had cramps. As long as I kept moving, I didn't feel too bad.

I'm sure it helped that around this time I started reading about low-carb diets, and took steps to reduce the amount of wheat and simple starches I ate. I have noticed a definite connection between what I'm eating and my PMS symptoms.

Eventually, karma being what it is, my classmate Tony and I started dating and then married. Since neither of us was the other's first sexual partner, and we were both in the best shape of our lives at that point, we were pleasantly surprised to discover each other's--shall we say--resilience and stamina.

Traditional Chinese medicine holds that the seat of health is in the kidneys, and one measure of health is a strong, fulfilling sex life. A number of the qi gong exercises I have been taught are intended to strengthen the kidneys. Whether they do or not, they certainly strengthen the auxilliary plumbing.

The horse stance is a particularly good example. It's common to virtually every martial arts style, and there are plenty of demonstrations of the horse stance on the web, so I won't rehash it here. But I will point out, when it's done correctly, the tailbone is tucked under, the lower back (lumbar region) is stretched and rolled outward, the hips are open, the belly is relaxed, and the perineum is taut. How can the pelvic muscles not be involved?

In other exercises, such as Six Healing Sounds Qigong, the anus is contracted as the breath is expelled. Sounds like an old-style Kegel to me!

Once I was discussing this subject with my mom. She confirmed that the horse stance felt very much like the Kegel exercises her doctor showed her. My mom is post-menopausal and she said the Kegels helped stop occasional urine leakage. When she told me that, I remembered that I, too, had had minor leaks when I was younger (during my too-much-Pepsi days!). I understand this is fairly common in women, but I haven't experienced it at all for many many years.

Another post-menopausal woman, a long-time tai chi teacher, repeated these observations--lessened menstrual problems, no "dribbling" and better sex--in connection with her practice. I even know of one woman who managed to conceive a baby--after years of disappointment--after several months of focused qi gong practice.

I wish I could create a wide-scale study of women to measure how their sexual and menstrual health might improve as a result of kung fu or tai chi practice. I suppose I should start with myself: my practice habits have been abysmal this year and, predictably, my PMS symptoms have worsened, I've put on a couple pounds and my libido has dozed off.

For now, I'll just release this post into the wild and invite other kung-fu babes to share their stories. Got an anecdote to share? Got questions? You can post anonymously, just know that I moderate everything before it goes up.

Related articles [added as I find them]: Adrenal Fatigue and Chinese Medicine

autumnal

2009-11-13T11:18:00.008-06:00

The bruises from the Halloween wreckage are fading and I'm feeling the need to inject some theatricality into my own life.

Exhibit A:
John Steed and Emma Peel, our own Halloween tribute to The Avengers....

I made my jumpsuit. I must admit I kick butt when it comes to patterning these days, although that pleather was ultra-cheap and probably wouldn't survive a second wearing. But it was $10, so who cares? Oh, and those white booties? Actual vintage 60's footwear, made in France. Took me two months of hunting online to find them.

My honey looks amazing. All the women we met kept commenting how how yummy he was. All the guys who have seen this pic comment on what a shame it is that no one dresses up for day-to-day anymore...

... Which brings me to Exhibit B:

This Just In From the 1890's, an article in the NY Times about the influx of late-Victorian influences in fashion and interior decorating. Wow--where have you guys been? You know what they say, when the mainstream takes notice, the trend is over. Nevertheless, after I read this I ran straight to my fabric stash and pulled out a couple of the wonderful woolens I've been hoarding for the past two years. I think a new skirt is in order. Sherlock Holmes is coming out in December and I want something appropriate to wear.

Exhibit C:
Emilie Autumn. I know I'm coming late to her party, but I don't think I'm exactly mainstream, and I hope this chick isn't Over--she's only, like, 30. I've been peripherally interested in Emilie for a while, but you know how sometimes you're not ready to process a sound or a flavor (like the first time I ate Indian food) because it's too unfamiliar, but the unfamiliar is also interesting, and stays with you until one day you say, "Hey, let's try that again," and it turns out to be exactly what you were in the mood for?

I'm especially digging on "Swallow." Not that it's indicative of my general mood, but I've been there. Periodically.

This song intrigues me because it seems to be talking about her bipolar disorder (I'm assuming that it's literal and not just a metaphor) and how she wishes she were a little more normal--to the point she's willing to medicate herself. Myself, I sometimes wish I were a little bit crazier, which is why I'm drawn to artists like Emilie and Amanda Palmer--and Alanis and Tori, back in college.

Sometimes I consider dying my hair pink. But never long enough to go through with it. It amuses me to let people think I'm normal.... I can observe them at closer range that way. That's why the Avengers appeal to me: Steed and Emma Peel look like a couple of posh mainstream folks, but beneath the tweed and leather they are subversives who can destroy you.

superheroines meta

2009-11-10T14:57:00.004-06:00

Excellent short story by Cat Rambo in Strange Horizons ezine: Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut. Both celebrating and dissecting the superhero(ine) mystique, and the fanboys/girls who power it. A touch of Michael Bendis' "Powers," perhaps by accident. If this were a monthly serial, I might even buy the TPB.

Go. Read.

define irony

2009-11-02T11:22:00.008-06:00

It never ceases to amaze me how many pop songs come out that lyrically crucify either the music industry machine or the pop stars who power it.

The latest example I've found is OneRepublic's "All the Right Moves." I dig the video, for reasons that should be obvious to you regular visitors, but the lyrics are positively vicious.

See, the lead singer/songwriter, Ryan Tedder, has written for some of the biggest pop stars out there. In fact, earlier this year there was a flap in which Kelly Clarkson accused him of providing the same backbeat track to both her and Beyonce.

She may be right. If he did, it was unprofessional. And Clarkson has a point that the fans are going to accuse her of ripping off Beyonce. Fans are stupid that way; it doesn't dawn on most of them that the artists they love are patched-together composites: puppets assembled to represent the talents of many different people.

My sympathy is with Tedder. I'd think if you had an ounce of self-esteem, making art for other people and watching them get the credit would tend to eat at your soul. And if one of them came back and spat in your face because you didn't make her famous enough, or not famous in the way she wanted... well, let's just say I find this embittered rant of a song tremendously satisfying.

Ame-Comi Harley Quinn costume

2009-10-21T10:39:00.006-05:00

Yes, I have been very quiet around here for the past couple months. That's because I've been working on the Ame-Comi Harley Quinn costume for my client. She's a very sweet, helpful and patient girl, which is about the only good thing I can say about this commission. Seriously: I hate this thing. I know I say that a lot; I always hate jobs that are harder or take longer than I had planned for, doubly so if I am pressed for time.

I had planned to take four days to finish this thing. It took me at least sixteen. I kinda stopped counting after a while.

I will probably have pics of the costume on the girl sometime after Halloween, but for now I'm just glad to have this done and out of my hair. Just looking at it gives me a headache.

chimps trade meat for sex

2009-09-30T10:25:00.004-05:00

There's no reason to mention this article, except after I read it, I had the burning desire to say to someone, anyone, "Duh! Why do you think 90% percent of dates involve men taking women out to dinner? The man is proving he can provide for a mate and offspring!"

I don't care what anybody says: we're all animals at our core. Being human means you have evolved a superego to make up lies to disguise the fact that you're driven by your id.

And that's exactly the reason I always insisted on going dutch, during the early phases of dating someone. Although in retrospect that may have backfired, since I tended to end up with guys who wanted to be taken care of.

It's a delicate and difficult thing, balance of power.

grumpy old men/fried green tomatoes

2009-09-25T21:35:00.005-05:00

I have a tomato cage in my back yard. Tony built it. It's a raised bed with chicken wire all around, to keep out the squirrels and neighborhood cats. I don't really have enough sunlight in my yard to raise produce; the plants grow just fine but they bear little fruit.

This year the tomatoes I planted were indeterminate heirloom varieties. That means they grow and grow and grow until they stick out the top of the tomato cage. Once there, they were actually tall enough to grab a little sun, and one of them threw out some late fruit--two large green tomatoes the size of softballs, just beginning to turn pink. I hoped there would be enough sunny hours left in the fall to let them ripen.

I came home last night to find two of my herb pots had been knocked off the fence-rail next to the tomato cage. The biggest terracotta pot was cracked, but still intact. That was annoying, but it could've been a cat, could've been a squirrel.

Then I noticed my two big green tomatoes were gone. I thought that was weird--squirrels don't usually go for tomatoes until they are ripe. And it was weird that the stems looked splintered, instead of chewed. I looked around for the tomatoes on the ground.

I found them inside the cage.

Somebody had climbed up on my fence, knocked my pots off, picked my tomatoes, and apparently felt bad about it and put the tomatoes back in the cage, on the soil, at the base of the plant.

Grr.

I suspect one of the neighbor children. I'd seen her in our yard previously, last week when I was home sewing. I went over and knocked on their door, showed her and her mother the fruit and asked if she knew anything about it. The kid denied it, of course. Her mom was sympathetic but said she had seen an unfamiliar child's bike in our yard the day before.

I have no problem with the kids playing hide-and-seek in our yard, but when they start tearing up my stuff.... I may have to put down bear traps, tripwires with tranquilizer dart guns, attack bunnies....

Anyway.

I decided to make the best of it. I've tried to make fried green tomatoes several times before and failed miserably. Tomatoes are bitter when they're green, they turn to mush when you cook them, and they're so wet the breading doesn't want to stick.

But this time it worked. The tomatoes were very green and still hard, just blushed on the inside when I sliced them. I salted them twice, once with sea salt and once with Pensey's Seasoning Salt, which has a bit of sugar and herb flavoring. I also dusted on Herbs de Provence and some black pepper and let them sit on the cutting board for a bit while the oil heated. I used a 12-inch nonstick skillet and about 1/2 inch or less of Pomace olive oil.

When the oil was quite hot, I double-breaded the slices: first in masa harina (corn flour), then in egg/milk wash, then in a mix of masa and whole-wheat bread crumbs. They fried up quick and crispy and were startlingly good--light, mealy, and tomato-flavored without being bitter. EXACTLY what I'd wanted in a fried tomato--which is weird because I'd never eaten any but the lousy ones I'd made myself, years ago. We had them with ham steak and sauteed spinach.

I didn't offer any to the neighbors.

"Screw you, Jar Jar. Screw. You."

2009-09-15T14:39:00.007-05:00

Linking to this cuz I've reached a point where I have to get my snark on vicariously.

Great White Snark WonderCon 2009 Costumes

Part 1

... and Part 2

Also because it's LMAO funny.

Bonus snarky goodness: Comicon 2009 Roundup!

listen to the cookie

2009-09-14T15:19:00.004-05:00

Last week I ran into an acquaintance I hadn't seen for a while, and in the course of conversation he asked me why I wasn't writing anymore.

I thought of all the baggage of the last three years, and I said, "Well, I got divorced, and then I got remarried... and now I'm not angry anymore." And then we both kind of laughed, because although it is funny, it's also peculiarly true.

I had been blaming my lack of writing fire on being busy, but the simple fact of it is, in past years I had refused to take on other jobs, other projects, because they would get in the way of my writing.

I know, too, that if I sit down and concentrate for a couple of days, I can reboot the writing muscle.

But I have no real desire to do so. Partly because the writing never made me as much money as the sewing has. But also because I look at my old stories, and I look at the fiction books I used to enjoy, and I find them cloying. Such melodrama. Such pandering. So formulaic--even well-done books rely on certain assumptions about the way people behave--which are, for the most part, inaccurate, or at least inconsistent.

A fortnight ago I had a real bad week. Everybody on my periphery seemed to be conspiring to piss me off. All of it was petty shit, which in some ways is the most aggravating of all, because there's nothing you can do to fix it, you just have to simmer at the injustice. I spent the whole of Labor Day weekend stewing about it all, and somewhere in the midst of my dark thoughts I got a jolt--clean as a lightning strike and heady as lust--I wanted to write something.

I even had a couple of fresh ideas leap into my mind--that Quinn Taylor thing on the collapsing space station, and a couple of Trace/Fairweather scenes that I've been composting for a while. For the next hour or so I had the fire burning in my brain and heart--the machinery roared to life and began cranking out plots, situations, mood, sensory images--but of course I wasn't in a place where I could do anything about it, and besides I had a whole pile of sewing waiting for me at home.

I have mused over that flash of inspiration for days--that straight-line connection between the need to bash somebody's head in, and the drive to channel that aggression through the keyboard. I'd made jokes about it, the past couple years--about not needing to hide in my fantasies anymore. Apparently it was more true than I knew.

I feel sad about it. I feel as if I've lost something.

I got a fortune cookie last night that said, "Some more art in your life at this time could make you feel better."

I think maybe I should listen to the cookie. But it's hard--when I look ahead at the next three months, I only see the weekends on which I could be sewing for money.

September 11, 1968

2009-09-11T17:27:00.001-05:00

The day my honey came into the world.

Happy Birthday to my sweet husband!

pincushion, dammit

2009-08-24T13:13:00.005-05:00

I hate those tomato pincushions that come from the fabric store. You know what I'm talking about, right? If you sew you probably have one, or you remember your mom or grandma having one. In fact the first one I had was handed down from my great-grandmother. I hated it, but I used it until the cotton cover started to disintegrate from sheer age.

I was very poor at the time, but one must have a pincushion, so I scraped together some change and bought a new crappy tomato at Joann's. Probably used a coupon for it, too--that's how poor I was. The crappy thing developed a hole within weeks of my buying it, but it was all I had, so I put up with it.

The last couple years I could certainly afford a new one, but I've either been reluctant to buy another crappy one, or unable to find a good one that I liked or was willing to spend money upon. There are a LOT of pincushions for sale on Etsy.com, but most of them are decorative rather than functional. The best functional one I have seen was filled with glass beads for weight, and cost $45.

That kind of inspired me to make my own.

The black-and-white fabric is a rather thick, tightly-woven cotton. I bought it to make a handbag, which is not likely to happen any time soon, but anyway I had enough to sliver 4 inches off the end for a pincushion.

The back is a scrap of fine black suede I've been hoarding for years.

This sucker is about the size of three crappy tomatoes, about 4x8 inches and a couple inches tall in the middle. It's filled with polyester stuffing beads and a bit of craft polyfill. It's heavy, and slightly grippy on the bottom so it doesn't slide around when you grab or stab at it.

This should last me a while. The only funny thing is, my eye hasn't yet learned to identify it as "pincushion." I keep overlooking it, in search of the crappy red tomato.

G.I. Joe Fashion Followup

2009-08-20T09:47:00.006-05:00

Turns out I wasn't the only one who dug Scarlett's leather jacket in the movie. I've had a couple hits by people shopping for it. So here's what I could dig up:

Bagatelle Scuba Jacket, $268 at Nordstrom's. (Scuba jacket? Who goes scuba diving in a leather jacket?)

Hinge leather biker Jacket, $298 at Nordie's.

Tan leather motorbike Jacket, also by Hinge: $298. Based on my fuzzy memory, this is probably the closest of those I found to what Rachel Nichols wore in the movie.

For something more upscale: Forzieri Brown Italian Leather Motorcycle Jacket, $648 at Amazon.

I'm feeling rather smug, because I already have a tan jacket very much along these lines, which the SP bought me at Gap about two years ago. I think we paid $80 for it on clearance. But then I've often been ahead of the curve.

What if you'd rather dress as a bad girl? Depends on how bad you wanna be (and I'd rather not know, thanks):

El cheapo jumpsuit from questionable source: $149. (Privately? Ick.)

Custom-sized fetish gear from a slightly-less questionable source: $189. (Now with Triple-zipper Action!)

Nicer construction but still fetish-oriented, also via Ebay: $255.

Bespoke leather jumpsuit suitable for a Baroness: about $1600 U.S. Which is plumb reasonable for custom-fit leather, if you ask me.

Someday when I'm bored and rich enough I may make myself a leather jumpsuit (or more likely, a two-piece suit, which is more comfortable) just to say I've done it. Don't know where I'd wear it, though. My international spy career has been less appealing since I married the SP.

costume review: G.I. Joe The Rise of Cobra

2009-08-17T10:01:00.013-05:00

I had no interest in seeing this movie. My husband bribed me with popcorn, an action he probably regretted, since I spent the movie spewing it at the screen.

I'll be up-front: I was a Joe fanatic in my pre-teen days. But I got off that train a long time ago, and I could tell by the trailer that the movie was a loud, frantic, emotionally immature, sloppily-scripted, overly-CGI'ed wankfest. I wasn't wrong.

The casting was fairly highbrow for a movie of this caliber, and the actors did the best they could with the material. Channing Tatum has taken critical flack for being wooden, but he didn't bother me. Damon Wayons also failed to annoy me for the first time in his career. The banter between the two of them was relaxed and natural, if not terribly original.

Arnold Vosloo, who I have only ever known as "The Mummy," was a dead-on Zartan--intense, gleeful, and slightly twitchy--and I sure wish there had been more of him on the screen. His "Mummy" costar, Brendan Fraser, gave me the biggest (and only) fangirl thrill of the movie when he appeared in an uncredited cameo as Flint (on IMDB.com the character is called "Sergeant Stone" but I know better). And Sienna Miller was a perfect Baronness, insomuch as the writers allowed her to resemble the Baronness of old.

Dennis Quaid, on the other hand, was just BAD. I had expected him to be a worthy General Hawk. But he approached the role as if doing a mid-afternoon stage performance for a group of kindergarteners--blustering, growling and over-the-top. Every word that came out his mouth made me wince.

The costumes were a real mixed bag in this movie. On a set where everything is over-the-top, the costumers were under real pressure to make the characters stand out visually. And they succeeded, but not always in a good way.

First, the bad:

Scarlett: Hair too red. Makeup too bright. Curls too tumbling and artful. Where did she find time to apply the curling iron? No woman with long hair knowingly goes into battle without some ponytail holders. And what was with the molded breasts and thong on her black body armor? Weren't these people present for Batman Forever a/k/a Nipplegate?

Snake Eyes: Ridiculous molded lips on his mask. Visor protruding from his face like the prow of a battleship. Appalling polysterene body armor with fake muscles which I'm quite sure are not as impressive as Ray Park's own physique. Hey guys--let's take one of the most physically impressive guys in Hollywood and swaddle him in black rubber. Awesome.

The Doctor/Rex/Cobra Commander: Joseph Gordon-Levitt spends the whole movie buried under latex scarring, breathing mask and plastic neck-corset. To compensate for the loss of any means of physical expression, he gasps and groans and chuckles menacingly. Gordon-Levitt is supposed to be this renouned actor, but I kept thinking that David Bowie wouldn't have needed all the aparatus to pull off a crippled madman--nor would he have allowed it to get in his way.

Storm Shadow: Rendering his white ninja suit in leather was a bad idea. It was bulky and weird. The coattails were stupid--remember Edna Mode's diatribe against capes? Plus he looked kind of like an Imperial Storm Trooper on Hoth.

The Good:

Storm Shadow's white three-piece suit: Delicious. Sleek, leonine, classic. Byung-hun Lee was so stunning in white with his dark hair and catlike features I immediately wanted to see him playing an amoral but conflicted Tong crimelord who'd decided to go straight. Heck, maybe he's already done that role. Be right back....

The BARONESS. A fairy-gothmother collection of decadent leather catsuits with assorted details and texturing. I particularly liked the one with the black crocodile V-inset at the bust and the low-slung leather belt. Her constant costume changes made sense for the character--she was essentially a Bond villianess--wealthy, plush, and hedonistic. The only time she failed to look stunning was in the hospital scrubs at the very end. Sienna Miller should seriously consider keeping her hair black.

Destro/McCullen: Impeccably tailored wool/silk suits. Pinstripes. Silk ties. Slurp. His acting wasn't bad, either. I could've been quite happy with him remaining as the lead bad guy and Cobra Commander blowing himself up.

Scarlett's civilian garb whilst in Paris: Perfect. Can we have more of this, please? Rachel Nichols is a gorgeous woman and probably not a bad actor. When she was in a sleek tan leather jacket and jeans she looked fabulous. There was no reason to tart her up.

haiku, with sequins

2009-08-11T15:11:00.012-05:00

Hollywood Harley Quinn
has left for Australia.
Ah! She left sparkles everywhere.

Wonderful woodworking husband!
At last,
the drawers are complete!

Hot and sour soup
is the delight of my tongue.
Spicy ginger always chokes me up.

fanart!

2009-08-05T15:35:00.007-05:00

So, y'all remember the Harley Quinn-inspired cocktail dress I made, right?

Well, Elise Archer, mistress of Harley's Haven and other domains, commissioned one from me earlier in the year, and she wore it out to a Do last month and shared the pictures on DeviantArt, which led to fellow fan and artist making up this piece of fan art with Elise as Harley in the dress I designed!

And the Web goes Wild!

Seriously, though--I've had several fans approach me with pieces of fan art they swiped from Deviant Art, and asked me to reproduce a costume for them, but this is the first time a design of mine has been featured in somebody ELSE's fan art on DeviantArt.com.

Of course, that dress was also the first original design I did. And the chick inside it didn't hurt, either. Hmm. Must contemplate future career as stylist for Big Name Fans.

Harley Quinn's negligee from Mad Love

2009-07-26T19:56:00.005-05:00

Made this for Elise--my client in Australia, who's the most dedicated Harley Quinn fan I've ever heard of. It's from a section of the comic Mad Love--probably the definitive Harley Quinn/Joker text.

It's silk double georgette. And it was pretty simple, as these things go. At least the lines are simple--anything that involves silk and ruffles is never as brief as you might think. But it was relatively stress-free, mostly due to a little investment I made last spring.

What's the word of the day, kids?

The word is SERGER.

And what does a serger DO?

It makes FRENCH ROLLED freakin' HEMS.

now THAT's niche

2009-06-25T09:55:00.001-05:00

Call for gay erotic steampunk fiction. Joy, are you paying attention?

(I guess I could rewrite some Trace/Boz stuff as slash.)

Bernina geekery II: the addiction

2009-06-23T12:35:00.006-05:00

I just went to my friendly local Bernina dealer and spent over $350 on sewing machine feet.

That's the cost of one PVC Harley Quinn costume. And none of the stuff I bought, ironically, is to help with the construction of those costumes.

Bear with me for a minute, I'm still experiencing vertigo.

Okay. Better.

Y'all may remember last September, when I detailed all my recent sewing accessory acquisitions?

Now I have more.

The one I originally went looking for was a "lap seam" foot, for making flat-felled seams. I'd been planning to do those on my upcoming Power Girl costume, to build some structure and visual interest into the front of the bodysuit (note the irony of anyone noticing how Power Girl's costume is constructed). I've been so pleased with the results of the narrow-hem foot, I figured this would be a good timesaver, too. Not too pricey: $28.99.
Another thing I've wanted for a while: a sliding buttonhole foot. This has a little gauge on it so you can set it to the desired buttonhole length, and grippy rubbery stuff on the bottom of the sliders so the fabric can't slip. Of course, I don't have an automatic-buttonhole-making machine, so I can use all the fabric-guiding assistance I can get. I have a vague memory of using one of these on my grandmother's old machine and it was awesome. I didn't intend to buy this today, but the shop had one out of the box so the clerk sold it to me for about half price: $25.
Something I ran across while doing research on the lap seam foot: The "wide ruffler" foot. Simple. Elegant. Efficient. Relatively cheap: $21.99.
This is where it gets painful. Have you ever bound the edges of anything in bias tape? I have a bias-tape maker, one of those metal things you pull the fabric through and iron as you go, but that still means I have to cut, press, and stitch twice to bind an edge. This little doodad does the folding and stitching in a single pass. I don't remember what I was stitching, a couple weeks ago, but I distinctly remember thinking there must've been an easier way. And Lo and Behold, Bernina comes out with this new gadget for home sewers. And boy, are they proud of it: to the tune of $246.14. $264.13, if you count the foot number #94 that it must have to ride piggyback on. And I suppose I must count it, since I paid for it.

Still, I'm not complaining. I look at these little hunks of metal and I see time saved. Money for time: it's a fair trade. Plus, the girl in the sewing shop was really impressed with my business cards.

it ain't done until the pompoms are on

2009-06-08T21:31:00.010-05:00

So. Adam Hughes. Babes of DC Poster. All the women in white evening dresses.

Harley Quinn on the far right, there.

Elise, of Harley's Haven and other Harley-oriented fan-sites, commissioned a copy from me.

Thank God that's over with.

More pics at Picasa.

wheat vs. rice

2009-06-05T07:59:00.003-05:00

An ongoing question I have had about low-carb diets is why the traditional-eating Chinese don't seem to get fat off rice.

Whole Health Source has a post from a year ago that points to a study I hadn't heard about, and he draws some fascinating conclusions from it.

It's one of these epidemiological studies where they try to divide subjects into different categories of eating patterns and see how health problems associate with each one. They identified four patterns: the 'macho' diet high in meat and alcohol; the 'traditional' diet high in rice and vegetables; the 'sweet tooth' pattern high in cake, dairy and various drinks; and the 'vegetable rich' diet high in wheat, vegetables, fruit and tofu. The only pattern that associated with obesity was the vegetable-rich diet. The 25% of people eating closest to the vegetable-rich pattern were more than twice as likely to be obese as the 25% adhering the least.

[...]In other words, wheat flour had replaced rice as their single largest source of calories.

[...]Wheat seems to destroy the metabolism of cultures wherever it goes. [...] Only in a culture transitioning to a more Western diet can you find a robust association like this.

Go there for more details.

*Sigh.* There's no getting around it. I'm gonna have to start baking my own bread. I don't know what the hell I'm going to bread my fried chicken with, though.

twenty years

2009-05-30T21:35:00.003-05:00

When I was fourteen or fifteen, a freshman in high school, there was a girl in my English class named Elisha. Pretty, in that easily-bruised way girls have when they grow up too fast. She wore a lot of black--acid washed jeans, suede fringe jacket, slouch ankle boots, oversized hobo bag of the type that is in style again. Lots of fake, flashy silver conchos. Feathered, frosted ash-blonde hair. For some reason I can see her face plain as day, when I've forgotten a lot of other people from that time. She and I were not close, but we got along well enough. We were on different tracks in life. I was a goody-two-shoes, headed for a Baptist college. She was a model, the rumor was. Maybe a groupie. I don't know. She started skipping class around the time that I'm thinking of. Being a goody-two-shoes, I was assigned to take roll for the class. She was gone a lot.

She died not long after that. At fifteen. Drug overdose, was the rumor. At a party, took too much. Stomach pumped. Too late.

Kids have an alarming tendency to kill themselves at that age, before they learn the limits of their own bodies.

I don't know why I think of her sometimes. We weren't really friends. I guess her death was the first proof I had that kids really did die--kids in my world, not just in movies or pop songs or public service announcements.

Twenty years ago. When I was fifteen I kind of unconsciously expected that time would just stop at 1992--the year I graduated high school. It didn't, of course. I'm still here.

Elisha is gone--or mostly. I find myself wondering how airtight modern caskets are; what kind of shape a body would be in after twenty years. For some reason the thought of her sweet, melancholy face rotting away in the ground makes me sad for her lost time. I think of what *she* might've done with twenty more years. I probably would have never seen her again after graduation, but still--it's as if one person being robbed of time leaves less for the rest of the world. I don't even know if that makes sense. I'm just sitting here writing ghost stories and having morbid thoughts about a dead girl I barely knew.

anime-kimono

2009-05-25T19:19:00.005-05:00

Sewn by me, for Melissa at Evil Pawn Jewelry:

One Kimono~

Two Kimono~

Three Kimono!

Am highly curious to see the photo shoot for this one!

throw it at the wall, see what sticks

2009-04-23T15:48:00.003-05:00

I have deliberately avoided reading about the publishing industry for about three years now. I can't take it. I can't go into bookstores without degenerating to sputtering incoherency about the dreck cluttering the shelves.

Now, here, is Jonathan Karp at Publisher's Weekly addressing this very issue:

For all of the uncertainty surrounding the future of the publishing industry—from the poor economy to the painful layoffs and restructurings in the wake of the digital transformation—to understand what's really hurting us, all you have to do is visit your neighborhood bookstore.
[...]
On sale now: A History of Cannibalism. Illustrated! A gift book! The subtitle is stupendously, kaleidoscopically all-encompassing: From Ancient Cultures to Survival Stories and Modern Psychopaths.
[...]
The best-packaged sex book portrayed a scantily clad woman perched on a saddle—Ride 'Em Cowgirl: Sex Position Secrets for Better Bucking. The most unusual was Vibrators, featuring 100 of the best devices in the world, all artily photographed. I had assumed this was published by some outré left coast indie house, but when I looked on the spine, I found the HarperCollins logo. My wish for this book is that Oprah will name it one of her favorite things, and NewsCorp will be compelled to print illustrations of vibrators in its next annual report.
[...]
We are acquiring and publishing too many books. We buy them opportunistically, and at times thoughtlessly. We edit and launch them too quickly. We market them carelessly and ephemerally. Too often, we abdicate our responsibility to be filters, guides, guardians and gatekeepers. And now, as in many other industries, we are suffering the effects.

Ay-men, brother.

This is precisely why I can't bring myself to write, much less submit and publish, any more. I cannot submit myself to the dumbing-down of the publishing industry in the hopes of catching the next wave, the next quirk, the next Tweet. (BTW--I read about #agentfail on Twitter. I hate Twitter. I will have nothing to do with Twitter. Don't ask. I won't. It seems to me Twitter is a microcosm [wordplay intended] of everything that is wrong with American culture.)

I won't play. And I'm not coming around where the other kids are playing, either. It makes me hostile.

finally! wonder woman accessories

2009-04-22T23:12:00.004-05:00

I've had these done for more than a week, now, I just keep forgetting to post the pics.

From wonder woman accessories take 1

Tooling brass lined with gold-painted leather. Click thru to see more images.

a moment of silence

2009-04-01T14:04:00.002-05:00

Oh man, this is so sad... Lorny-tunes is dead.

Andy Hallett, who made his mark playing green-skinned, good-guy demon Lorne on the TV series "Angel," has died of congestive heart disease. Hallett was 33.

Hallett was taken by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after having problems breathing and died there Sunday, following a five-year battle with the heart condition, his agent Pat Brady said Tuesday.

I had wondered why a guy with such obvious talent and charisma hadn't been showing up in other shows, or at least on the Con circuit. I feel for his family.

planet comicon 09 photos

2009-03-31T22:28:00.001-05:00

A few of the pics I got... you can see the whole photo album here.

Planet Comicon 09 and the aftermath

2009-03-31T09:08:00.006-05:00

My husband said to me last night, "So when are you going to post about the Comicon?" and I stuck out my tongue and made immature noises.

I am very tired. The comicon was soo, soooo much fun, but it is physically and mentally draining. Plus I think I picked up a bit of a bug around the office that got its hooks into me via my fatigue, so I've had a come-and-go sinus headache for the last four days.

Whine, whine, whine, you are saying to yourself. So where are the pictures?

Well, here's me in my Catwoman vinyl (several people guessed I was Trinity when I didn't have my hood on, but who cares, I have cute hair):

Note: As of August 25th, this one-of-a-kind item is available for sale in my Etsy shop. Limited time!

And here's a promo shot of the Wonder Woman costume, a little more finished. I actually sold this to a guy on Sunday (for his girlfriend, he claims)--I'm going to deliver it as soon as the gauntlets and tiara are finished.

It's not bad for a first try. The brass turned out better than I'd feared, but to really be satisfied I'll have to get some serious brass sheeting and some serious metalworking tools.

I posed for about 8 million pictures, with stormtroopers and guys in snarky tee-shirts. Everyone was super-nice, and not in a sleazy way. All of my business cards got snatched up. I sold about a half-dozen copies of "Sikeston" and a couple of patterns. I got some firm leads on some costuming to do later in the year--one woman wants to be Zatana, which is a design I like so much I may do one for myself, just for practice. Also a very nice, tall, lean young man asked if I could make him a Flash costume. I hope he gets in touch because that would be awesome.

More later, including con floor photos as I get them loaded!

ETA: Before I forget, I gotta send a shout-out to Chris Jackson, who organized this crapshoot--he gets the thumbs-up for running one of the best conventions I've been to in any niche market. From where I stood, at least, it seemed very smooth and organized. Heck, he even found me some ibuprofen when I had a headache. And he talked up my work very graciously in this podcast at Radio Free Fan Con (mp3 link will open in Windows Media Player). It's a 30-minute podcast in which they read all the names of the guests in alphabetical order--I am somewhere in the middle, natch.

mmrroww...?

2009-03-25T18:47:00.008-05:00

Meh. There's work to be done. It's amazing how hard it is to find goggles in the right size and shape. And I have some ideas about redoing the ears and adding a belt. But I'm out of time for now. And I hate doing half-assed costuming so I'll probably just wear the pants and jacket to the Comicon.

ETA: SG asked whether a cat would be wearing heels. The answer is no, not if she wanted to stay alive. But this is fanboy logic we're dealing with. Logically, she should not be wearing PVC. It's noisy, it's reflective (not useful for stealth), it doesn't breathe or insulate, so it's not good for any kind of weather or sweaty activity, and although the goggles have some practical use, she should not have her ears covered.

I much prefered the costume that preceded this one in the comic continuum--the one that looked like leather or neoprene, with the knee pads and the utility belt.

where do the diamonds go on Harley Quinn's costume?

2009-03-25T10:18:00.004-05:00

I get asked this a lot. Back in the day, when I first made my costume, there were a lot fewer Harley images around, so I went to the material that attracted me in the first place: the art of Terry Dodson in the first 13 issues of the Harley Quinn title.

But in the spirit of karma, I decided to post my reference diagram for free:

Other artists, of course, have made slight variations in placing the diamonds. This is just the one that I was first familiar with and I like the balance of it.

wedding dress wizard

2009-03-20T09:05:00.002-05:00

This story makes me happy. It's about an old guy in the dry-cleaning business who specializes in cleaning and restoring wedding gowns.

He began his dry-cleaning career in Canada sweeping floors at a dry-cleaners, back when brides spent $50 to rent their gowns and rarely bought them. He taught himself how to press, and later how to remove stains, by practising on leftover scraps of material, and eventually with museum curators, who he met through grateful clients.

He loves nothing more than to rescue damsels on their wedding day. Once, he closed his shop on a Saturday to rush to the home of a bride who got black oil down the front of her gown after hanging it against a door hinge. Another time, he dried out a wedding party that walked into his store after getting caught in a downpour.

I could see myself doing that for a living. I'd be a really good museum restorer.

it's only money

2009-03-12T08:56:00.003-05:00

It's amazing how the mind can contort itself to justify satisfaction of the inner child.

Yesterday I found myself drooling over a $200 piece of leather that would be perfect for a particular costume I have planned. (I'm not saying what, just yet--we'll see how it plays out.) Do I have $200? Yes, but I'm supposed to be saving for tournament. And I don't dare bank on any money I might make at the Comicon, to which I would wear said costume. I'm already betting against making back the registration fees.

Yes, by the way, I will be attending Planet Comicon on March 28-29th. Come as you aren't.

But back to my mental contortions: $200 is not the most I've spend on a costume. The original Harley Quinn was about that much, when you factor in the retail costs of spandex, the fact that I wasted a lot of fabric on developmental mistakes, and buying the makeup and foundation garments.

The most I ever spent on a costume was about $600. That was the green velveteen Darla costume. Everything about that was new and expensive to make, in part because I demanded the best and most authentic materials: corset, petticoats, bloomers, stockings, fabric, trims, boots, wig and makeup. I spread out the costs over about six months, but it was still a chunk of change. I still wear the boots, of course, and the Victorian underthings have seen use with other outfits. So it was something of an investment, but after that I vowed never again to fork out so much money.

Most of my other stuff has been super-cheap. I tend to buy fabric at a discount anyway. I think my silver-blue Victorian dinner dress was maybe $70, but it took forever to make--all that pleating on the skirt.

The Gold Gown cost maybe $30 in additional corset parts, since I made it over from my first wedding gown and its leftover fabric. (That wedding dress itself cost less than $300.)

My "Armand" costume was so cheap I don't even remember. I bought that red velvet off the clearance rack at Wal-Mart while I worked there, the shirt and shoes I already had; the vest fabric was a cheap nasty seasonal acetate I got a Sew-Fro back when Sew-Fro still existed--altogether? Maybe $35. I'm not sure why I still have this thing. Maybe I'll sell it.

Wonder Woman has been a little pricey, mostly because of the trial-and-error. I always overbuy on new projects; I try a lot of different things and discard half of them. I've bought five pieces of blue and/or star-spangled spandex, trying to find a shade and pattern I like. One, maybe two of them will actually get used. The first red pleather I bought for the bustier was not pleasing at all, so that was wasted making boot patterns. The red satin I actually used was very cheap, I got it as a remnant at Hancock Fabrics. Altogether I'd guess I've spent about $70 on it, so that's not bad, although it has been taking a long time and feels very wasteful. It will probably run another $30-$50, depending on how I handle the boots and metal parts.

The Black Cat costume I started and did not finish has been VERY wasteful. I just can't bring myself to wear PVC. I hate it. I got the suit put together, I put it on, and I hate it. I can't even make myself finish it. $30, down the drain. I'll probably cut it up and make gloves out of it, because PVC gloves are actually kind of cool and I can sell them for small profits, recoup the loss. ETA: I did take this apart, and reassembled in into a Catwoman costume. Beginnings of one, anyway.

Huh. Looking back over this list, now I'm thinking I should mark down some of the stuff in my Etsy shop.

get your porn on

2009-03-08T11:50:00.003-05:00

I once read an anecdote about Jack London, how he would periodically go down to the warfs and the seafarer's bars and find some crusty old drunk sitting alone in a bar and ply him with booze while he listened to the old seadog tell stories. It didn't matter what the stories were, London didn't need the material, what he needed was the environment, the rhythm of the words, the mindset of a man who fought the sea for a living. He needed inspiration.

Last week, on a whim, I went to Half Price Books and bought a copy of Trace Adkin's book A Personal Stand. It's a pastiche of biographical episodes and ideological rants. I wanted to read the part about how his ex-wife shot him. I hadn't counted upon the style of the book, which is written in Adkin's sing-songy good-ole-boy drawl, complete with the occasional dropped 'g,' i.e. "tryin'".

I'm having to read the book with my eyes slitted partly closed, the way you do at a horror movie, because you know you're going to see something you don't really want to. It's just so intense. Adkins is known, in part, for being a proud, redneck, Confederate flag-flying, NRA-supporting, Reagan-loving, die-hard conservative. And he won't mince words telling you so. But he's also the kind of guy--and I've watched many interviews with him--who is naturally polite and retiring, who doesn't find glibness easy (or admirable), and who would rather leave you to your opinion so long as you'll give him the same courtesy.

Am I projecting? Yes, a little. But in reading this book I'm startled at how close I have come with my fictitious Jacob Tracy to this guy who inspired him. Not because I was trying to: simply because I knew what kind of character I needed to do the job required, and this country singer happened to fit the bill. I don't know if that makes me a good judge of character or a good builder of characters or what. All I know is that I'm skimming the content of the book to lift out its flavor. It puts the taste of Trace, my Trace, in my mouth, his texture in my head. It reminds me of how I've missed him and why I wanted to hang out with him in the first place.

I have been writing again, by the way. I've written about 3300 words of new text on "Curious Weather" in the last three weeks. I'd like to finish the story by the end of March, if I don't get too distracted by other obligations. I'm incredibly busy these days, mostly with projects of my own making. But I've been reading this Adkins book off and on, and I've been researching medical colleges in St. Louis in 1880, as well as weird things about the city itself, such as when and where did they put up gas streetlights, and what were the streets paved with, and to what extent?

Inspiration, I have discovered, is like porn. You need a constant supply of fresh material or it ceases to excite you.

mind/muscle

2009-03-04T10:17:00.005-06:00

I've been watching Whedon's Dollhouse for the past three weeks. Enjoying it. It's a little slippery to get a grasp on a bunch of characters who are only tangentially related to each other, and whose common link is a girl who changes personality from one episode to the next. By the end of the third episode I realized that Echo is actually not on-screen that much; there are at least three concurrent plotlines developing, aside from the mission-of-the-week, and although they all revolve around Echo and the Dollhouse, the girl herself is more of a McGuffin than a character. There are hints that she will become a character, in time, but for now she's just a Magic Mitten that everybody wants to possess for their own assorted reasons.

Anyway, the SP and I were talking about Echo's fighting skills on the show, and although she is a small woman, not possessed of any superpowers, they program her brain with all these practical fighting skills, and they generally make them look feasible.

The SP said he didn't believe that imprinting somebody's brain with fighting skills would make them automatically able to fight--he says the body has to be trained, too.

I said first that I thought it was possible--the mind, after all, controls the body, and I know from experience that once I figure out a move in my head--i.e. juggling--I can do it with my hands.

But then I started thinking about how a trained athlete's muscles will develop additional nerve pathways to better react to the brain's signals. And I thought about the fine-tuning of small muscles I have seen in my own body. For instance, although I still know how to juggle, I am out of practice and clumsy. And although I still know how to sing--to position my throat and support from the diaphragm--my range will be rusty until I've practiced for a couple of weeks and recovered my old muscle tone.

Calligraphy, too--I've been thinking about it a lot lately, because the frustration I feel with my tai chi skills now is very like the old frustration I used to feel with a pen in my hand--why was it so hard to make my fingers do what my brain wanted them to do? And why wouldn't my brain stay with my fingers as they moved?

What do you think? If the brain had the knowledge, and knew it had the knowledge, would the body then follow? Or do the two have to be conditioned in tandem?

a glimpse of the future

2009-02-26T09:03:00.003-06:00

Y'all might've noticed I'm not posting so much any more. That's because I'm BUSY. I am trying to write a book, sew samples for an upcoming comicon, practice for the tournament in July, work a full-time job, and prepare for the coming collapse of society and government as we know them (which is clearly where the Press and Wall Street, not to mention all the up-and-coming third-world dictators in the know, believe we are headed). So when I'm on the internet, I'm usually searching for survival gear, multiple methods of purifying water and starting fire, and insulating, water-resistent, cut-proof clothing.

But one site I still check out regularly, when I need a dose of (un)reality is Go Fug Yourself, and its accompanying column at The Cut/NYMag.com. Which is where, today, I found this:

I want to know where I can get one of those. And will it fit into a Grab-and-Go backpack?

the ache of perfection

2009-02-15T11:36:00.005-06:00

I read so much bad fiction online that I'm always a little surprised to find something good: a contemporary fairy tale, with more than a hint of Margaret Atwood.

This is "The Red Shoes," by Genevieve Valentine, via The Journal of Mythic Arts.

Good stuff, this Journal: fiction and analysis both. And of course I find it after it's gone.

It's not a perfect story; I thought the ending was a little weak. Although the pace and style were consistent throughout, I would have preferred a more definite ending. Nevertheless, the writing is clean and efficient, the story predictable but satisfying--there's a hint of doom that makes the plot inevitable, rather than pat.

And the story resonated with me--that strife for mastery, to integrate the body and the spirit in skill and artistic expression. The frustration of seeing the long road ahead; the torture of fearing you'll never get back to where you once were.