Victoria

Dear Discovery Institute/ Ben Stein:

If (a) there is some sort of Designer out there; and (b) said Designer is so intelligent, how come s/he didn't document this #$@% better?

Love always,

Carapace_ "Been-reading-about-bladder-inflammation-for-days-and-days-now-for-the-greater-glory-of-SCIENCE!" Green

P.S.-- Assuming you did Design this, Mr. Designer woman-man-lady-man, I do have to thank you for putting black-and-white pictures in that urogential surgery textbook, and not color ones. But did you have to make the line-drawings of the massage therapy so, um, precise? 'Cause I have to show that to my professor, and it will probably be sort of awkward.

Hey gang,

Long time, eh?

I've decided to revive this clunky old thing. I've missed you guys, and I want to stay on top of the goings-on in your lives. I'm not going to do the whole "here's what I'm eating, here's what I think about Barack Obama," thing, however (not that there's aught wrong with that.)

Instead, every weekend, I'm going to write up a concept from the week's science classes. This quarter, I've got chemistry and developmental bio, so you can expect to learn about sperm biochemistry, organogenisis, molecular shapes, and the like. We'll have that until March or so, at which point, we'll switch to genetics, at which time, I'll be bringing you even more chemistry, plus genetics, plus maybe physiology, depending.

Cheers, everyone. I hope you dig.

Since some people have asked, here's the unbelievably long but true story of ( Why I want to get a B.S. in Biology )

So that's it.

It's worth breaking LJ silence to say,

RIP Octavia Butler.

There's nothing I can say that others haven't already said better. I didn't know her very well. I remember a gentle genius, and a graceful teller of solid truths.

The last time I heard her speak, this is what she said:

"Choose your leaders with wisdom & forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be lead by a fool is to be lead by the opportunists who control the fool. To be lead by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be lead by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be lead by a tyrant is to sell yourself & those you love into slavery."

If you've never read her books, read 'em.

If you're a writer or an artist of any kind, it's time to knuckle down. We've lost one of our very best today, and we have an awful lot of fierceness and heart to make up.

Recently:

(1) Went to Garden City Hot Pot in Richmond, BC. We had never been to a real hot pot restaurant before, which soon became obvious to the patient, long-suffering wait staff. (They gave us a 10% discount and lots of help.) Among the things we could have ordered but didn't were: ginger snake broth, duck feet, goose intestines (medium), and chicken testicle. If we'd had chef_chopper with us, maybe we'd have had the nerve.

(2) Finished the text of a story about Midge and a Japanese Bobtail (a friend's pet) doing battle with an evil vegetarian babysitter. It may be too long and/or leveled higher than my illustrator wants, so there's some work ahead.

(3) Finished my last TESOL class.

(4) Fell in love with the mellow sounds of noted perve-about-town Serge Gainsbourg. Fell even more deeply in love with Mick Harvey's covers of Serge Gainsbourg.

(5) Saw a Candadian immigration lawer.

(6) Started looking for work in earnest. Bleah.

Thank God. Thank heavenly God.




ms_anthropy, I just know you've got something to do with this.

There's an interesting discussion going on over at chez the_monkey_king about the best way to critique writers with relatively low skill levels.

( Writing pedagogy-- not for the faint of heart or the easily bored )

Next month, I'm going to a retreat with writers of a wide range of skill levels. I'm going to try this there, and see how it goes.

(Ganked from webcowgirl)

This just about made me choke from laughing so hard.

You scored as River Tam. The Fugitive. You are clever and dangerous, which is a nasty combination. The fact you are crazy too just adds to your charm. They did bad things to you, but you know their secrets. They will regret how they made you. </td> River Tam 81% Hoban 'Wash' Washburne 75% The Operative 63% Capt. Mal Reynolds 56% Simon Tam 56% Zoe Alleyne Washburne 56% Inara Serra 50% Kaylee Frye 38% Jayne Cobb 31% Shepherd Derrial Book 25% Which Serenity character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Damn you, fundies. Those are my goddamn dinosaurs.

Of course, I remember little cafe attached to the Cabazon dinosaur park having a "laser art" clock with the face of Elvis ghosting protectively through the sky above a shiny black semi truck, so maybe this isn't as much of a travesty as it might, at first blush, seem to be.

No, I take that back. It is -exactly- as much of a travesty as it appears to be at first blush. Damn you, fundies.

Mom, if you're reading this, please don't click on this link.

Update:

I'm sitting at an outside table at The Top Pot right now, At the table next to me, a woman is sharing her iced tea with what looks like a snow white budgeriar.

That is all.

Hey all,

Since the Pepto Apocalypse is immenent, I think I'm going to have to swear off LJ (and Metafilter, and everything else on the Internets that's fun) until the 20th or so. (But save the 20th! writersweekend and I have plans!)

See youse guys in a week and half or so!

I am:

Old, and
Prickly, and
Mean as a starving Chihuaha

And I am not going to finish the new Weetzie Bat Book.

Wondering what to do tonight? Come out to the carnival!

'Zo and I will be volunteering our asses off (he is the assistant stage manager, I am a runner) but we'd love to see your smiling faces there! Come listen to The Bad Things! Come meet Nerd Rock's Revered Bubba Levi Greenacres! Come see aerialists, contortionists, and the biggest mess of crazy, drunken rollick Neumo's has hosted all year. Ever lain on a bed of nails? Golden ones? Now's your chance!

Love,

Me.


In other news, I am still wildly hopeful that I will finish draft two of Ghosts of Something Else before The Pepto Ultimatum comes into effect. Save the date (August 20). There will be a party of some sort-- whether it's the kind of party that's fun for me, or only fun for you remains to be seen.

You'd think you could trust Galway Kinnell to translate Rilke, wouldn't you?

But here's Galway Kinnell's translation of "Autum Summer:"

Lord it is time. The summer was so immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials,
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to tipeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore
whoever is alone now will remain so for a long time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down
restlessly, while teh leaves are blowing.


-So- immense? -Another- two -more- southerly days?
Does this thing sound just wretched to anyone else?

Galway Kinnell is far smarter than I am. I'm sure that he and his collaborator Hannah Liebmann did this for a darned good reason-- maybe they're trying to emphasize something about what Rilke did in German-- but jeeziz, I've read better-sounding things in Freep threads.

Those of you who have poetry and/or German skillz, help me out here.

Very cool article about Sarah Winchester's housebuilding as a critique of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.

To date, this is the best Sarah Winchester-related thing I've found on the web.

This is just too good.

In ITunes, my Gogol Bordello album has the genre "Balkano-Gypsy-Dubwise-Pizdetz," which is a pretty good description of the sound I'm always looking for.

WHEREAS, the party of the first part, (carapace_green) is sick to death of her #$() novel;

WHEREAS, The Party of the First Part has been banging away on said novel for OVER A YEAR, and has not yet finished;

WHEREAS, the Party of the First Part actually seems further from finishing than she was back in December; and

WHEREAS, the Party of the First Part really wants to write short stories, knock-knock jokes, or, fergodsakes, ANYTHING except her *#$( novel;

The Party of the First Part hereby pledges that if, at 11:59 p.m. on August 20, 2005, if she has not completed a decent SECOND DRAFT of her novel, suitable for showing to strangers, non-writing friends, and/or Big Mr. Agentpants, the Party of the First Part will print out the ENTIRE draft of the novel on paper the color of Pepto Bismol, and will, while carrying a portable music device playing R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serendaders' "Fine Artiste Blues," dance madly up Denny Way toward Broadway, handing out said sickly pink fiction-leaves to passers-by, tucking them under windshield wipers,stuffing them in mailboxes, etc. A special limiited selection of pages with quarters attached will be made for distribution to the local Homeless and/or meth-head population. Once relieved of all pages, the Party of the First Part will return to her home, where she will DELETE said novel from her computer, thus consigning the unfortunate conceit to complete non-being. She will then GET ON WITH HER FARKAKTE LIFE, unencumbered.

The Party of the First Part hopes that capn_jil will come up to Seattle for this blessed event, to document it, and to make sure that The Party of the First Part does not weenie out on any provision of this (admittedly rather dorky) contract. Though the Party of the First Part is tentatively appointing capn_jil her "second" in this inane duel with herself, all, absolutely all, are more than welcome to come to Capitol Hill on the appointed night to witness this revolting spectacle. Costumes are encouraged. Booze will be served.

In the event that The Party of the First Part DOES finish in time, there will be no revolting spectacle, but there will still be booze, and lots of it.

Love always,

VEG