Nattering

Whoever designed the room service menus at the Dolphin is a new breed of visionary–I expect Oprah might be calling this person up at any time, asking them to provide a certain signature brand of uplift. Excerpts from said menu are below; the titles are what the various time-of-day menus are called, the rest is self-explanatory.

Found poem # 1:

Revitalizing Experiences

tater tots

mac & cheese

baked potato

bok choy

asparagus

(Please feel free to snap your fingers along with these.)

Found poem # 2:

Inspiring Meals

cheeseburger

chicken fingers

triple decker grilled cheese

mac & cheese

spaghetti, meat sauce

The drink menus are Private Moments (wine) and Refreshing Retreats (men, er, I mean beer).

p.s. Am having a blast, talkingtalkingtalking, and hopefully didn't embarrass myself when accepting my lovely Veritas plaque. Tonight, parties.

So, I'm headed RWA in Orlando next week–and am also dragging along Mr. Rowe–to accept the Veritas Award and hopefully meet/see some nice people. Anyway, if you're going to be there (or if you live nearby and I've forgotten this fact) and would like to meet up and say hello, drop me an email or comment below. It's been SO long–possibly forever–since I've been to a conference where I know almost no one*. But curing social anxiety is what the hotel bar is for, right? Right.

(We might hit a theme park, even. But that remains to be decided.)

*At least, I believe this to be true. It's possible I'll be proved wrong, which would be awesome.

I didn't mean to do a disappearing act here this week, but it's been a bit insanity-filled. So, a random Friday 5 it is. Reasons for my absence:

1. Birthday! It was nice. And C got me a shiny new iPod so I can listen to podcasts in the car again. Plus, it's wayyyy fancier than the one that exploded awhile back and I can shoot citizen video of any crimes that happen in my vicinity with it.

2. A little summer sickness. Yes, I know. Boo. (Although I did finish reading all the Nalini Singh books in the world… And now I've just started Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad (pass me the gold flakes), which I'm loving so far, and Marcy Dermansky's Bad Marie is up next. My love for her first novel Twins is mighty, so I'm aflutter in anticipation. Speaking of which, Ms. Dermansky was in the NYT this week.)

3. I had an article to write! Actually, one big feature for PW comprised of an article and several sidebars. Given the aforementioned sick, this was pretty all-consuming of my free hours. Decidedly un-free this week. But it's been turned in and will run soon, and I'll link it up then because I think/hope it turned out well.

4. There is this new stuff from N*ture M*de (I don't want their bots showing up) called SLEEP sold in the form of blue gelcaps of danger. Great for the occasional bout of insomnia, but the pixie dust ingredient encases you in a dreamlike fog for the entire next day. (Don't believe the packaging. Which, btw, doesn't disclose the amount of melatonin in these babies. I'm betting LOTS.)

5. Random television numeral not related to the above. This season's So You Think You Can Dance format clearly has an indisputably HUGE flaw (and Kristin Cashore cites another)–making the newbies dance with the stars is like demolition derby. Please, show, stop with the injuries already. It's making people tearful. And there's enough tendency toward melodrama As It Is. (Favorite Mia Michaels moments this season: the She-Ra headband she rocked last week and "dance is a heart form." Oh, wacky choreographers, how I love you. I actually do miss the rotating cast of guest judges.)

I don't usually do the Friday five thing, but I didn't want to leave this week with just a couple of posts (given my recent return to regular blogging) and needed an organizing principle for the swirling random that surrounds me. So, five things, ahoy, with plenty of parentheticals in sight.

1. Captain Caprice! While Christopher has been out of town this week (leaving me to DIE of scurvy and other malnutrition-related maladies), I've been borrowing my grandmother's car in an attempt to be frugal and because it makes her happy. (He has our lovely little Honda up on the mountain.) Said car is a Caprice, and it's a sweet ride–need I say more? Fourth generation, baby. Also, let's leave the planet out of this, shall we? I'm sure this is not the, shall we say, greenest option on the road… but, hey, it hardly ever leaves the driveway. Anyway, driving this thing has actually been a blast because it's the closest I'll ever get to being a ship's captain. I can yell "Starboard!", "Avast!", and "Going about!" at the appropriate moments, and, when parking for the evening, "Splice the mainbrace!" (That may be one of my favorite Wikipedia pages ever, by the way–who knew that another name for a personal flotation device was a Mae West after THE Mae West? Not I, and I'm a captain, ye landlubbing scum! Also, the origin of son of a gun.) All was well until the ship went down for the count in our vet's parking lot, meaning I had to lug a bag of groceries and another of 10 lb. dog food to a nearby Starbucks to await a cab. I think my mistake was skipping the official christening ceremony. And I'm sure the people of Starbucks were confused by my cries of, "My ship! My ship!" But it's all better now, after having a new alternator installed, and shall be returned to safe harbor soonest.

2. Team Backbone! The inconvenience of a forced day off to deal with the car issue, however, allowed me to take the lovely and hilarious Karen Meisner up on her suggested shameful indulgence of seeing Eclipse on opening day. We synchronized our Swatches and "met up" for a long distance viewing of the movie, which led to a flurry of texts and tweets afterward. The next day, I felt I had a Twilight hangover, as did Karen, due to the text and subtext of it all. We talked about putting up our convos in memoriam, but I think that Annalee has said all that need be said over at i09, following off the tweet flurry. Go read her post about why Team Jacob will always lose. (WHY is there a Team Edward? He has old lady lipstick and horrible Dynasty-esque taste in jewels. As Karen texted me, "Lady Gaga looked at that thing, raised her eyebrows, and said, "My dear, it's too much.") Still, Karen's a great date.

3. Geeks & Freaks! One of the books I read this week was Andrew Auseon's Freak Magnet and I love it so much I can barely stand not to talk about it right now. Instead, I'll give it a proper review next week and I'll have an interview with Andy. Seriously, seriously, do not miss this book, guys. It immediately became one of my favorite love stories ever. EVER.

4. I can't cook. I may have scurvy.

5. Happy Real Independence Day.

Actually, that'd be a good name for an autobiography (or perhaps a band). Miscellanea does often tend to be of the glorious variety, but don't get your hopes up.

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So maybe you've noticed I've been dropping more short little posts around here. I finally realized that this is the only way I know how to run this blog. If I don't put up small posts when I have time, I'm far less inclined to do lengthier posts now and then, or even conversational ones like this (nattering is secretly my favorite category of posts). When we were in Madison, actually while leaving the fabulous Strange Horizons Tea Party to go see one of the best readings I've ever been to–Karen Joy Fowler, Carol Emshwiller, Eileen Gunn, Pat Murphy and Terry Bisson–Dave Schwartz and I were talking on the elevator about blogging and I said I don't post much these days because I feel like an impostor. And he said, "Oh, did you just come from the panel on impostor syndrome?" and I said, "No, but I have it!" And apparently this is common enough that it needed a panel.

Anyway, what I meant was that I don't feel comfortable doing weightier posts or even just longer ones when I'm only poking my head up rarely. They start to feel like work then, as if they loom too large and will sit at the top of the site for ages. I always said I'd keep doing this as long as it was fun. Thus, the return of little posts in addition to hangover links. Doing those, it feels far more in balance to drop in for something like this.

This is actually not the meta-blogging post, bizarrely, which is saved as a draft and will probably stay that way. Too much meta isn't nearly as fun as too much miscellanea. But, suffice to say, I'm thrilled that Lizzie's back blogging, and Carolyn's been posting quite a bit too, and Sarah had some interesting things to say about awards the other day, and so maybe we're having a little old-school litblog renaissance. I like it, and I'll be here more often. The more voices in the conversation, the more fun it is to be a part of it.

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These thoughts are also tied up for me with the semi-hilarious furor recently caused by Laura Miller–one of the smartest readers and critics on the planet–doing something crazy, aka Putting Links At The End Instead Of In The Main Text Of The Post. Her follow-up post asserts that not leaning on links in text can make for better writing.

I'm not going to start griping about the internet and what it does to our brains here. I believe these machines and the stuff we do with them online is wonderful and magically connective and, overall, a force for good. BUT I did begin to notice that while I read lots of stuff online, much of it seems to be teaching me about the same things. Rather than encountering completely left-field stuff, or learning about new things in depth, the things I absorb most seem to be the whipped cream on the top of the coffee. This is undoubtedly more about my own browsing style than anything else, but I decided I wanted to issue a bit of a corrective.

So we subscribed to a bunch of magazines that were heavier on nonfiction than our usual wont. Smithsonian, Harper's, The Oxford American, Bust (the closest thing left to Sassy, but also it's own thing), National Geographic, and Cabinet. New Scientist is next. (Feel free to recommend your favorites.) I had nearly forgotten how much I love magazines on a purely tactile level. They are perfect for so many things, including a different kind of browsing than the internet is. They are also a good source of story ideas, which there's been discussion about lately, following on Kelly's post. And, of course, not just the big ideas which fuel an entire story, but the dozens of little ones that can help fuel any one page of said story. There is a great deal of raw fictional power in any good nonfiction.

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Apropos of nothing: TV.

I watch almost no TV while it's actually airing. As a Certified Old Person, 9 p.m. is the latest I'll stay up to watch something, and usually, it's more like 8. After that, it officially gets shifted to whenever's convenient. (I have to read books sometimes, and that's usually at night.)

True Blood is one of the only shows I watch live–and, in fact, gave in to weakness and renewed our HBO subscription just to watch it. And I don't think it's a perfect show, but it's a nearly perfect hour of the television viewing experience. Anyone who wants to study cliffhangers and how they work, this is the show–I never watched 24, which is the only show I can think of where this would also make sense, but I love the commitment to never interrupting the time span of the narrative. Each episode picks up *exactly* where the previous one left off. None of that handwavery and three months later, which is an interesting constraint.

I'm convinced True Blood's the modern answer to the serial novel. I'm just glad I only have to run to my couch, and not down to the smelly docks. 

We've also been watching the first season of Fringe, which is way more enjoyable than I expected. The thing I'm loving about it so far is that it's completely illogical but makes sure that each episode's internal logic–while laughable–is so consistent it carries you along anyway. This is how science works when it's magic instead. Speaking of which, we have invented a Fringe drinking game. You drink anytime someone on the show offers up a definition of the singularity without actually saying the word.

It happens at least once an ep, but rarely more. Perhaps as a drinking game this needs work, then. We could add: for each shot of the cow, each outburst from Walter, each time someone has wires stuck up their nose in service to a ridiculous machine? Maybe I'll revive the old TV posts for new episodes this fall.

Also, SYTYCD is back! I can't bring myself to vote, because I like all the dancers so far. The SYTYCD drinking game would definitely involve drinking whenever Nigel says something pervy and everyone laughs in that "Oh, granddad, you rascal–in your day!" way. Actually, that might be *too* successful a drinking game, especially considering how often the show airs.

Related links:

Strange Horizons tea party/send them some loot

Lizzie announces she's reopening Old Hag (a must read and adore), and smackdowns the mefi crew

A for instance Carolyn's blogging more post

Ditto with Sarah on awards

Laura Miller on the hyperlink war

Kelly on generating story ideas

So, earlier today on twitter I posed the following query:

Dream question: Do you guys all have imaginary locations that recur in your dreams? What are they?

The answers have been really excellent and interesting, though I wasn't sure anyone would chime in and so didn't create a hash tag (I will try to capture them though–and you can find most of them here). But for the non-tweeting blog readers or people who just want more than 140 characters, what about you?

For the record, the two I mentioned on twitter are my surreal airport and first class section that's both spaceship-like and has polar bears, and a house I described as a "labyrinth house like a rundown Winchester Mystery House, which I dreamed again last night, prompting this question." But it's definitely not a mansion, way too ramshackle for that–and yet it always yields new rooms to accomodate dreamtime houseguests. It's also in major need of interior decoration and often feels as if someone else has been living there in the interim between times it shows up in my dreams. The imaginary house is apparently a common recurring dream locale, but it's been really interesting to see the variations in how that manifests for different people. Mine is in the middle of nowhere, in a giant field (although there is a strange subway station at the bottom of the hill you have to climb to get there), and frequently features not just houseguests but intruders and strange fauna. When I woke up this morning, I said to Christopher, "I really like our dream country house, but I do not approve of tiny alligator snakes infesting my clothes."