Distractions are my friend. That's what I'll keep telling myself.

Okay. So I've been neglecting this blog again and I 'm going to tell myself that it's because I've been in my revisions cave. Funny how my revisions cave looks EXACTLY like my living room. And who put these cats here? Jeez.

But you know, it's hard to stay in the revisions cave. Sometimes really shiny things come up. Today I spent a good amount of time working on the playlist for the main character in MYSELF BEHIND MYSELF (formerly called HISTORY) so that I could revise when I was done. But what did I do when I was done? I IMed my friend James to tell him what I was doing and then when he said he wanted to see my awesome playlist (it is awesome) I told him I would put it up on last.fm. And when I finished putting that one up, I put all my project playlists up. And uploaded art. Fun!

Oh yes, it is super fun to procrastinate by making pretend cover art for your books. I shared some for previous projects in a past blog post, but here is my mock cover for 1999. Look! It's so colorful and cute! I used free stock art from sites like morguefile.com and deviantart.com.

I also counted all the swear words in MYSELF BEHIND MYSELF. Why? Because I can. Scrivener -- a writing program that, incidentally, changed my life -- has a text statistics option that lets you count how many times you use certain words. MYSELF BEHIND MYSELF drops 28 F bombs in it's third draft. There are 31 variations of shit and 7 instances of taking Jesus' name in vain, including 3 where Christ is included. I am sad to say, right this second, there are no douches. I will work on that.

This option also allowed me to tell my mother, upon sending her the first draft for 1999, that this book has much more swearing than my previous manuscript and that I didn't want to hear about how offensive it is. She claims she can handle it. But you'll be happy to know it has 3 creative uses of douche/douchebag. My characters, apparently, have potty mouths. Unlike ANYONE I know...

I've been watching Olympic hockey games and telling myself that I can totally watch and revise at the same time but OH NO WE ARE SLAUGHTERING RUSSIA GO TEAM USA. Right. Women's hockey rules, and instead of actually getting any work done, I'm generating ideas for new books while screaming at the television. Also, this week my buddy Kyle explained curling to me in such a comprehensive manner that I mostly understand it and can now watch the sport with interest. Crap.

And of course there's one of the best excuses in the world: my cat is sitting on my manuscript. I know, this is right up there with "my dog ate my homework." But, you know, sometimes the truth is the truth. I mean, look. Turkleton is a very needy cat. He spends a lot of time vying for my attention, always in contention with this strange laptop machine that I'm always staring at and clicking on. When he can actually, physically PWN his rival, he's going to do it. (Telemachus, for those of you wondering, doesn't care if I'm writing, as long as I give him his own pen to chew on. Much easier to deal with.) Let's also take the time to note that, in his spare time, Turkleton also likes to sit on my phone, my keys, books I have open and am trying to read, and my arms while I'm trying to type.

Naturally there's also this classic distraction, the internet. Between micro-blogging on Twitter and this long and rambling post I'm writing right now, the web is a fun distraction that sucks up a lot of time. Of course, it is useful procrastination, right? Twitter is a great resource for meeting and chatting with other authors and industry professionals. And this insight into the glamorous life of being a yet-unpublished-YA-author is sure to, uh, help someone else along, right? And sometimes I even research things like chupacabras and 1990s pop culture items that have escaped my memory.

Hey, at least I haven't turned on my TV yet today. And it's not like YOU'RE writing right this second, are you? That's what I thought.

The Possibly Annual Shark Admiration Post

The boyfriend is pretty miffed that it's Shark Week. I'd like to think it's because I'm going to be giving more attention to the boob tube than to him, but I know it's just that he'd rather watch non-shark programming on Discovery. That doesn't, however, mean that I understand his aversion.

Sharks are so amazing. Look at the size of those animals. Look at their enormous mouths, the rows and rows of teeth. The electromagnetic sensors in their snouts. These animals are truly top predators.

So I'm not saying that I want to hang out with sharks. Not without at least some chain mail armor and definitely a dive-cage. As cool as a shark-bite scar would be, with my luck any shark-related injury would lead to shark-related death. I'd be another fun statistic.

But ultimately, sharks are misunderstood. They're pretty smart creatures, and, while not dolphins, I still can't fathom eating them. Endangered sharks are illegally fished in parts of the world for shark fin soup (which I'm pretty sure I wouldn't eat even if I didn't think sharks were too cool to be food), and you know we wouldn't let this go as easily if sharks were cute and furry like a tiger.

In conclusion, here are some things you already know if you've ever watched Shark Week:

- Sharks don't think people taste good and only try to eat us when they think we're something else.
- Bull sharks can go in fresh water and salt water, making them pretty awesome.
- Playing dead is a better defense than thrashing around like an injured animal in case of shark attack.
- It is thought that the sharks that massacred the shipwreck victims of the Indianapolis were Oceanic White Tip.
- The short-finned mako is the world's fastest shark, but it's pretty impossible to see how fast since they're pretty tricky, and pretty strong.
- Sharks can be effectively hypnotized by flipping them upside down. (This is not to say, of course, we should all go out and flip sharks. That wouldn't be very nice...or smart.)

PS, here's a picture of me with shark teeth, courtesy of discovery.com. I think I could have done better with PhotoShop. But, you know, obsession and all...

The Next Movement: Death by Words

It's April, and you know what that means - it's National Poetry Month! Some of us, in the name of Masochism, I suppose, have twisted this into (Inter-)National Poetry Writing Month, or NaPoWriMo. This is much like NaNoWriMo, except instead of writing a 50k novel, the goal is to write a poem for each day of the month of April. Poets in several communities, online and off, I'm sure, are participating, cheering each other on, and cranking out verse. The idea, much like with NaNo, is not not necessarily to produce top notch writing, but simply to produce. It's an exercise in endurance, in breaking through writers' block, and, for me, in having 30 poems at the end of April that I might edit into something decent come May.

So far I'm doing well, and have penned five poems over the past five days (today's has yet to be written, but I'm sure I'll get there before I fall asleep). I started with a list of topics I might write about, with some lines and phrases and words that I'd like to work into my poetry, and have been referring back to this list for inspiration from time to time. Strangely enough, I seem to keep writing about bugs, which is weird, because I hate bugs. At the same time, it's not so weird, because I love watching Discovery Channel specials on bugs. They're fascinating.

This is the third year I've participated in NaPo, and since in the past two years I completed the task, I'm raising the bar for myself. I'd really like to write 30 pieces that are usable. Even though NaPoWriMo isn't about quality, I think as a writer I need to challenge myself. Several poems from last year, and even a few from the year before, have since been published, and I wish I had more salvageable works to draw from. This is partially because I'm hoping to take a big leap in the upcoming months - toward a chapbook or a collection.

I'm not sure of the exact benefits entailed in having a book of poetry vs. having pieces published in magazines, but I've been assured that they are many. Of course I also like the idea of having a selection of work all in one place that my amassed fans grandmother can pick up and enjoy. At this point in my career, I am a bit loathe to self-publish. I am rather confident that with time and patience I might stand a chance in the big kid's league.

So, in the very near future, I will be submitting manuscripts to the Mimesis Digital Chapbook Contest (my manuscript for this contest will include my photography as well), and to the Templar Poetry Pamphlet & Collection Competition. Wish me luck!

The Dynamic is All to Boom

Recently, my boyfriend and I watched that episode of The Simpsons where Milhouse and his mom move to Capital City and Milhouse goes all bling bling and Bart is instantaneously lonely. I've never had my best friend move away before. Until Amelia left.

I moved to Austin last month, just in time to catch some quality time with my best friend, Amelia, before she moved back to her home state of Arizona. This move occurred on Friday. Amelia, the trooper, drove all 900 miles in one day. And I rode the bus wearing my "Where the heck is Copperas Cove, TX? t-shirt that Amelia brought me from her now former town.


I found myself at some of the places Amelia and I went the first time I came to Austin, and looking for her favorite ice cream flavor (Vosges Naga - a curry flavor - weird but delicious!) at Whole Foods. I couldn't write about it. Standing at the bus stop I texted her:

"Some jerk is taking up the whole bus stop bench with his leg."
"Lame!"
"Ew now he moved and his fat hairy crack is falling out of his pants!"
"Better crack than junk!"
"Toats."

The bus was late. It was just after rush hour. A long trail of traffic stretched down Lamar from the stop light. Two old men in a pick up truck were waving and moving their lips. In New York I would have ignored them, but apparently in Texas talking to strangers on the side of the road is totally normal and almost expected. I took off my headphones.

"Take 190 from I35!"
"That's...true"

Before the traffic moved, I told the old man about Amelia and he told me that she was lucky, and gave Cove the thumbs-down. I texted her again.

"Some old dude in a truck saw me at the bus stop and gave me directions to Cove."
"Oman laffo!"
"Srs. He said you're lucky!"
"Don't I know it!"

And she is. She's going back to Arizona where her family is, and a lot of her friends. She'll have people to help her with her little girl while her husband is in Iraq.

On Thursday night, before the Great Escape from Texas, we had our last hurrahs. Mark took us to the Alamo Drafthouse to see Be Kind, Rewind - it was hilarious and sentimental, and artsy enough to quell Mark (who is just about the biggest movie snob ever). We found our friends Katy and Sarah (like little sisters to Amelia and I both) and frolicked on 6th street. I watched her almost lick the building that houses Emo's, a very scenester nightclub that Amelia never actually made it to during her time here. We shared a peach-flavored cigarette from Sarah's 75-cent pack (don't tell my gran. I don't really smoke). We laughed at the skinny sorority girls wearing their teeny tiny uniforms. We let her dogs out in my yard, where they peed on my fence. And, in the morning, she came in to wake me up, told me that I didn't have to get out of bed, and said goodbye to my cats, and then to me.

I miss her.

This is Your Blog on Drugs

That's what I was going to call this blog, anyway. It turns out the prescription painkillers I was prescribed did almost nothing for me. Oh, well.

I was brushing my teeth last week when suddenly a piece of my molar fell off. Well, it more or less peeled off. That's what you get for ignoring your cavities, kiddies. I officially feel like a southwestern hillbilly. Luckily I had two days left of insurance from my previous job in which to have a dental adventure.

I'm petrified of the dentist. Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to spend their lives inside other people's mouths is either a nut job or a sadist or both. Of course, I have to make the exception for my boyfriend's mum, a dental hygienist, who is one of the nicest people I've ever met. We called her that night at around 1am to find out what we should do, and she didn't even complain about the hour. In any case, I just don't understand the profession, and most of the tools I see in the office resemble torture devices from spy movies. (Remember that tooth-pulling torture guy from Alias? Seriously. Imagine that guy giving you a root canal and that's what I picture every time someone says "dentist.")

I've sort of known for months that I needed a root canal, actually. The molar in question has been in pain for years, following what I think was a botched filling. The dental industry has had so many opportunities to redeem itself, but is constantly failing. This particular incident was in November 2004 - I had three fillings done and, not only did 8 shots of Novocaine not numb me while drilling, the fillings hurt constantly for several months. And it wasn't just a little ache, or a sensation when eating hot or cold. It was a constant throbbing, blinding pain in my teeth.

I called the dentist and she prescribed a painkiller (it was acetaminophen-based, but I don't remember what the naughty stuff in it was. Not codeine, though, since I was too busy in college to be taking anything that would render me useless), which, as per usual, did nothing. I put myself on a regimen of Excedrin, taking two or three pills every four hours, including a dose at bedtime to avoid waking up in excruciating pain (this almost always failed). By January or February I was no longer in constant pain, but still had regular toothaches. Even years later that one molar always bothered me, but I just thought that, with my history of panic and anxiety, it could be psychosomatic.

When a brown spot appeared on the tooth — followed by a crack — I knew I was wrong. So last week when the tooth just finally broke, I wasn't so much shocked but angry that I'd let my fear of dentists get the better of me.

Seriously, though. The dentist guy from Alias. So scary.

So I've got a temporary filling in place and will be getting a crown on Tuesday. I'm not happy about it, but seeing as the only real pain I've had so far from the root canal is from chewing up my own cheek (and let me tell you, that is some serious pain), I'm feeling better about it. But, you know, if I'm going to be doing this whole dental thing on a regular basis, I'd better at least get some fun drugs out of it.

Have an Original Thought Already

For some reason, I love horror movies. I am stating the fact in this manner because horror movies, as a genre, are consistently disappointing. All the good parts are in the previews, so you think you're going to be batshit scared and then, not only is the plot shaky and dragged out, not ONLY is the acting weak and misdirected, NOT ONLY is the dialogue predictable and painful to follow, but the anticipated edge-of-your-seat queasefest is entirely nonexistent.

It's probably just the fact that it's all been done, and all there is left to do is gross out the audience. I mean, once upon a time, Jaws was terrifying. Today, that shark is fairly laughable, even if the movie is great. Even films like The Shining and The Exorcist can't scare me (side note: admittedly, Evil Dead does). I need faster, grosser, weirder monsters — or a psychological element so terrifying that I can't sleep at night.

Last night I was watching the Horrorfest 2006 movies that were being aired on Sci-Fi. I caught the end of The Hamiltons, which, while not particularly frightening, is a fairly interesting flick. It, unlike the rest of the Horrorfest films that I've seen, had its moments of innovation. It had a twist on an old favorite (vampires), a morally ambiguous cast of characters, and quite a few surprises. In addition, a lot of the shots were through the eyes of the teenage protagonist, and the lens of his hand-held video camera. Unrest, while a step up from many horror films in some of its visual stimuli (a huge chunk of the film takes place in a bleak cadaver lab, with medical students cutting and groping at body parts in a totally-not-for-Grey's-Anatomy fashion. But, naturally, the whole the dead-comes-back-to-life-to-avenge-postmortem-disrespect thing is so overdone that no element in this film can possibly make up for it, especially with its lack of subtlety, giving no credit to the intelligence of the audience. Penny Dreadful is the worst of the batch, as it could have been a great psychological thriller, but instead is the audio-visual torture of a girl trapped in a car with her dead therapist crying and having panic attacks.

I really don't know why I keep watching horror movies and expecting something out of them. The last truly scary movie I saw — a squeeze-your-date's-hand-so-hard-it-sorta-hurts movie — was 28 Weeks Later. It was fast-paced and unpredictable. I really liked it. Previous to that, only the Japanese could make me cringe. Films like Ju-On and Ringu really got my attention, but, like all trends, this one hit a rut as well. Reincarnation (Rinne, in Japanese), was a part of last year's Horrorfest, and since it was directed by Ju-On's Takashi Shimizu, I expected it to be so terrifying that I couldn't bring myself to watch the DVD for weeks. But it was as predictable as any other horror film. Come on, Horrorfest, give us something to sink our teeth into!

This year's "8 Films to Die For" look remotely promising. The blurbs on the website make the films sound more creative than last year's, and interesting enough that I'm tempted to have hope. I worry that I've become completely desensitized to gore, but at least one of these eight films must have what it takes to make me cover my eyes and scream.

Recipe Time

My room mate says I'm like Izzie from Grey's Anatomy. If you're not familiar with the show, she deals with stress by baking, to the dismay of her room mates who are then forced with the dilemma: to eat or not to eat.

I don't know what's come over me, but recently I, like Izzie, can't stop baking. Muffins, cookies, breads — it just doesn't stop. I've been modifying recipes (note: you can try, but you just can't make cumin cookies taste good) and heating up the kitchen. While it is probably stress-related, I haven't heard many complaints from coworkers, who are happy to share in the bounty of my bakathon.

Tonight I made pumpkin muffins. Sadly, I was out of walnuts. Hazelnuts are no substitute, and neither are almonds. So I was forced down a different route altogether: chocolate chips. I added both miniature semi-sweet and white chocolate to the batter. And they are delicious. So, if you would like your very own muffingasm, try this recipe. It's my very own, so, you know, if one day I'm famous and write a cookbook, you can say you were privy to this information back in the day.

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup canned pumpkin purée
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/3 teaspoon cloves
1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Whisk together the flour, salt, sugar and baking soda. In a separate bowl, with an electric mixer, blend the pumpkin, oil, eggs, water, and spices. Slowly mix in dry ingredients until just combined. Add chocolate chips. Pour into papered muffin tin. Bake 25-30 minutes (until a knife comes out clean when poked into the center of a muffin).

I cannot promise that they will be beautiful, but they will certainly be delicious.

Body of Evidence

Women are fat.

We're not chubby or plump. We're not hefty or big. We're fat.

Men can be jolly or whatever.

I've decided to be squishy.

Most of the time I'm okay with squishy. My boyfriend is okay with squishy, he's really only ever known me squishy. Of course there's the inevitable return-to-the-hometown desire: I hope everyone else is fatter than me. The truth is, I would love to be tiny for my 10-year reunion. And recently I've discovered that some pants don't fit like they did six months ago. Being happy with your body is just really bad for dieting.

And I don't believe in dieting. This whole culture of feeling in control of our lives by controlling what we eat is weird. The Atkins diet shits me - the guy DIED from cardiac arrest and put a ban on vegetables but people still want to eat steak steak steak to lose weight weight weight. And then there's Weight Watchers where you go to meetings, which, I presume is something like AA:
"Hi, I'm Judy Jones, and I'm FAT."
"Hi Judy."

"Hi, I'm Katie Clarke, and I have been thin for six months!"
(thundering applause)
And of course Nutrisystem, which, apparently, costs a damn fortune (their prices don't include a lot of parts of the "meal" they send you - like the meat).

And there is, of course, the idea of skipping food control all together and going straight to appetite control. Pills! We have a pill for everything — AND YOU NEED THEM. We have celebrities to endorse them all, too. FAT celebrities, who got skinny.

I don't think Americans — Westerners, even — will ever have a healthy relationship with food. We think of food like something naughty, an indulgence, a vice. Food is not something we eat to sustain ourselves, but to satisfy ourselves. And there's no balance. If we are satisfied, we must have had too much. My weight loss plan is this: don't think too much about it, do some pilates, walk more. I don't want to think about my snacks in terms of calories and carbs.

My friend Amelia has this theory on feeding children: kids' bodies know what they need. If you make good food available, they will, usually, get what their body requires. Her daughter seems to eat like a pigeon, but, if you watch closely over several days, you see that she gets everything she needs from several food groups. I don't see why we, as adults, can't function similarly. Eat what we want, when we want, listening to our bodies instead of the ingredients list on the backs of packages. And if I want I need I must have McNuggets, so be it. If I never lose this extra weight, I'm okay with that, too.

When I grow up

Summer time can be a veritable wasteland for cable viewers - our network favorites go into reruns and new short-season summer series are often no more than a flash in the pan. Thankfully TNT developed The Closer a few years ago providing at least one night a week with some clever crime drama. Army Wives, while airing amongst the notoriously sentimental and uninspired shows on Lifetime, is an intriguing new series that lands it a good few notches above mediocre. But every summer, without fail, the Discovery Channel alone can boast an event with both reruns AND original programming that would completely beat out a week with new episodes of House, Criminal Minds, Grey's Anatomy, and CSI - at least on my TiVo.

Shark Week makes me want to go back in time and become an ichthyologist.

These animals are brilliant and beautiful. I just finished watching Top Ten Most Dangerous Sharks, which I remember watching last year. The narrator talked about all these amazing experiences, and shows biologists and divers doing the most exciting things. I want to go swim with sharks, get bitten by one or two (nothing fatal or damaging, just enough for a cool scar and a story), experience the awe and adrenaline of sharing the ocean with them.

When I was young I was obsessed with whales, and I feel like I missed out. If I had had a poster of the various species of sharks on my wall, instead of whales, perhaps I would have stuck to my guns and become a biologist of some sort instead of crapping out in high school and giving up on the sciences. It's not likely, as the science programs, even in my school district in coastal Maine, weren't exactly deep sea expeditions.

I found myself writing a poem about shark predation on the train last week, in anticipation of the Shark Week extravaganza. I felt like a cheat. I've never seen a shark in the wild, only in aquariums (and according to the aforementioned program, it was most likely a sand tiger, as they survive best in captivity and their needly teeth make for a great spectacle). My experience on boats is limited to Portland Harbor and the Staten Island Ferry. I once went on a whale watch - I was about 14 - and wound up seasick and vomiting and not seeing more than a dorsal fin. I will take whatever drugs necessary to go on a shark watch so that I can record their majesty in earnest.

I promise not to get eaten.