Month: January 2007

Ah, the nostaglia continues. I have to send out some appreciation for those boys (you know who you are) who hit on one in a constant, mostly non-threatening manner. Gay boys are great at this. They are sexy and appreciative and make you feel interesting and desirable, but there usually is a boundary, tacit but substantial, that keeps them from being uncomfortably creepy or allowing the flirting to stray into dangerous territory. I have noticed more of this behavior since I’ve been wearing the “chain of one link” as the Wooby likes to call it. (I guess married women are safer targets as they’re unlikely to take one up on any given proposition) It might also be because we are doing more SCA stuff and SCA guys are good at the random compliment/chivalry thing, too. It’s a fine line, I’m sure. I expect that random distribution of woo exposes some guys to unexpected and scary obsessive behavior from some women. But in my case, I have to say that the right flirty guy can really help when you are feeling ugly, lonely and unloved.
So, thanks firty guys. Keep up the good work.

I watched Mean Girls last night. It’s the kind of movie I can only watch when Tiernen is out of the house for a while (he was at a work thing last night). And I woke up thinking that I would have enjoyed high school a lot more knowing then what I know now, both academically and culturally. It’s not only the opportunity to make different decisions about who I would hang out with and what I would choose to get stressed (or not) over, but also the four years of relatively unencumbered time to read, write and do research. That’s the really appealing thing, to be completely honest. I know I’d watch a LOT less TV and I think I’d have gotten involved in SCA and some other community stuff a lot sooner. I think I also would have gone out for a sport. Our school had a swim team, and if I had participated in that and improved my swimming, I could have gotten my lifeguard certificate. That would have opened up some great employment opportunities for me in high school and college. I like to think that if I had gotten involved with a sport then, I might be more inclined to exercise now. As I hate to sweat, swimming would have been a great choice. I guess we should just chalk that up to “regrets”. So, is there anything y’all would have done differently?

It is part of my theory about life that everyone, no matter how they were raised, spends some time in their life rebelling. By “rebelling” I mean getting all surly with the family, acting irresponsibly and probably doing the opposite of what your parents raised you to do. I think a certain amount of this has to do with conquering fear. When I went through my phase during and after college, I spent a lot of time seeking out dead things and adult lifestyle stuff I found to be very scary and intimidating when I was growing up. I also believe that most people get tired of rebellion or have an epiphany and then go and put their life back together. For me, it was going to graduate school and finding a profession and a husband I love. Hopefully you work your way out of whatever trouble you got yourself into and learn something from the whole experience. I can’t condemn anyone for doing this, but I also think that people should be held responsible for the mistakes they make. Otherwise you don’t learn anything. I bring this up because a friend of mine was talking about his 40 something sisters-in-law who have moved into a new home that they bought together after the recent death of their elderly father. He says they are wining and dining themselves and hitting him up for money and basically acting like wild women. Then he explains that they had been living at home with their parents until this past year, never married and work as teachers in the local school district. And I had an “aha” moment. These women are experiencing their teenage rebellion, only 20 years later. They are tackling their fears about being alone and responsible for only themselves for the first time in their lives. I hope they get through it.

I need a new back up character idea. I’m playing in a D&D game that has gotten the PC’s up into the high teens (16-18) and the risk with playing at that level is that it becomes increasingly easier to die horribly and be unable to be raised. Right now I’m playing a human barbarian and while I really enjoy this character, I’m unlikely to make another barbarian should I die. Hence the need for a back up. Here are the caveats.

1. We are in a HUGE group. If everyone shows up there are 11 people playing. This is a lot of people for D&D, so a character that fills a vital role in the group would be better than a repeat of what someone is already doing.

2. We have a lot of spellcasters. We’re up in the levels where rangers and specialty classes get their spellcasting abilities, so we’re pretty well covered on the magic front.

3. I don’t like to do the same idea twice (at least not within a short amount of time), this means that book standard paladin, barbarian, cleric and bard are out as those have been my most recent characters.

4. We’re playing in the Forgotten Realms.

5. I’m especially looking to avoid the following ideas as these are well represented in the group already: sneaky thief type, spellcaster with a lot of skills and knowledges, monster disguised as a regular PC race, archer, agile monk type, armored melee fighter.

Any suggestions?

Well my eclectic taste and desire for audiobooks have led me to a steamy little treasure. I’ll begin this mini-review by saying that this series has elements that appeal to me (quick pacing, snappy dialogue, refreshing lack of emo-ness considering the subject matter, and steamy sex). The series is a collection of vampire romances by MaryJanice Davidson, featuring Betsy Taylor, Queen of the Vampires. The style is very post Bridget Jones with a considerable amount of sarcastic dialogue and quite blue language. Betsy is a designer shoe loving, 30 year old “super secretary” who has the worst birthday ever; she gets fired, her party is cancelled and then she dies. However, she doesn’t stay dead long and rises the next night with an unnnatural thirst. The first book is called “Undead and Unwed”, and the series all have an “Undead and…” title. There is a certain amount of “Mary Sue” here, despite the author’s avowed desire to avoid that particular aspect. But it’s mostly in the “plot support” area (ie. incredibly wealthy best friend supports our heroine, vampire rules don’t apply to Queen Betsy, vampire powers too conveniently used to resolve plot points) but the issues are at least addressed, if not completely dealt with to my satisfaction. The best features of the books are the characterizations (I like Dr. Marc, Tina the vampire, George the fiend and especially Eric Sinclair, vampire king), the dialogue and MJD’s use of the romantic formula. The series failings come in the area of plot, often too disjointed, with unsatisfactory resolutions of the action sections of the story and narrative voice, she’s perfected Betsy’s POV to the point where the other characters often wind up speaking in her idiom. This is especially jarring in the depiction of the elder vampires who start out well, sly and stately, and too often wind up chattering away like valley girls. However, these are minor points of contention.

On a personal note, I have to credit this series with re-invigorating my erotic imagination of late. (Poor Tiernen I don’t think he knows what hit him.) It’s been nice to have some enthusiasm and ideas to bring into the bedroom (and don’t worry, nobody’s biting anyone else).

TMI stuff, you can enjoy the books without reading this.

See Order of the Stick

http://www.giantitp.com

for provenance of the above.

Well, it looks like our transition at work may be finally official. I have a meeting today with the new department chief and we’re going to discuss our budget and planning for the coming fiscal year. Hooray! I have pretty much decided to focus on collection development and new initiatives for the library and to leave the status quo stuff to my territorial paraprofessional. People here aren’t using the library because they aren’t informed about what we can do for them. So, that’s my main goal. To instruct and inform people, to bring them in the door and have them use our services. As the demand for services increases, there will be more of an opportunity for me to become involved in the day-to-day stuff without overshadowing or crowding out the person currently doing it.

I like having a plan.

I will admit readily that I am a Fantasy/Sci Fi snob and a girly snob at that. I particular dislike the crunchy hard stuff with the very manly men, like Conan or Gor and the whiny misanthropic stuff, like Thomas Covenant. And to be fair I do TRY to read something before I give it a pass. I’m not opposed to Mary Sue as such. I don’t think you can read or write fantasy without having a certain amount of guilty Mary Sue-esque pleasure in it. But the majority of my taste is for funny stuff, like Discworld or really juvenile and girly things like the Dragonriders of Pern (well, the early books at least). However, I love and heartily recommend the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser books by Fritz Leiber. They are pretty standard sword and sorcery, but the characters and writing style are so much fun that you just have to enjoy them. Read these books and then go back and read any later fantasy and I’m sure at least one of Leiber’s ideas will show up in them. It’s a lot like H. P. Lovecraft (whether or not you enjoy him). I had the books sitting around and decided to re-read them and I’m really glad I did.

I didn’t realize how lost I feel when I don’t have an appointment calendar with space for the next three months or so until the 2007 one from OCLC arrived and I instantly put in all of my upcoming events. Without the calendar it’s like there’s a vague temporal blur ahead with activites swimming in and out of focus, but nothing is fixed and things could be missed completely. When they’re written down they go into the memory in some kind of formal sense and I can then start planning. Weird, I know.