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Wednesday, 10 August 2011 (the work of art in the age of cultural overproduction) 12:42pm Breaking Bad with the Goldies last night, so no bootcamp this morning, of course. After breakfast, Marta and I ventured deep into the heart of Parkmerced to help load a U-Haul, our volunteer duties for the Leather-Levi Weekend. It was nice to get it over with, and start meeting people, too. As always, that's the scary part for us, especially since we never feel like we fit in anywhere. From there we got sammiches at Deli Board, then went to NakedSword to eat said sammiches and pick up our latest deliveries, new pillows for Marta and a new bit for me. Marta's now at her old apartment waiting for an inspection, and I'm at The Dark Room, since Bad Movie Night flyers were in desperate need of refreshing. Nobody else does it, not even just stapling them up. Hey, it's my show, so it's only reasonable that it's my responsibility. I also had an unexpected phone conversation with the editor of the weekly's blog about the pitches I sent her earlier this week. It seems that one of her other new writers has staked a claim on a similar subject matter, and the editor is worried that her bosses, the people who decide who lives and who dies, will think our columns are too similar. The implication was that if that turns out to be the case, then mine will be the one to get the axe. She wasn't, like, firing me or anything, but suggesting that I should maybe write about something else entirely. Which is a little annoying, especially since at no point when we were originally talking did she imply that this sort of thing might be an issue. That's the cutthroat blogging world for ya, I guess. Anyway, we've decided to just go forward as originally planned and see what happens. I know enough about what the other person is going to be doing that I can shift my focus accordingly, to where there'll only be a superficial similarity. It also means I'm going to have to dig deeper (among other things, my new rule is that I'm not going to write about any movies or teevee shows available from Netflix), and ultimately, I think that's going to be a good thing. Lilah once called me the Queen of Arcane Media, so that may as well pay off. Not that it pays much, but it's a start. The editor said she'd be happy to get at least one entry a week, and when I mentioned that I might be able to pump out two, she was thrilled. Considering that my work-work boss just said that he's not going to have any new article topics for me until maybe next week, thus damming my revenue stream, I might as well do three blog posts a week for the time being. Along with my college work and Landing on Water and my next PrettyQueer story (though the last one I wrote and submitted is now a week overdue to be published) and my Topside Press submission. And other things. 7:13pm Just finished an Elluminate Live! online orientation thing for school. It's a brave new world. | ||
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Tuesday, 9 August 2011 (scaling the radio tower) 2:25pm There are nine sections in the one-unit class I'm currently working on, and I've finished seven. I should have the other two done by the time the semester actually begins for real in a couple weeks. So far, so good. I'm still glad that I'll only be taking a single, three-unit course during the semester proper. Maybe next semester I'll be confident enough to attempt to classes simultaneously, but not yet. Now heading into Marta's new neighborhood to get in some cafe-writing time before she gets off work. I don't know for sure which cafe yet (though Dash is looking likely) or where I'm going to park, but figuring out all that stuff is part of the adventure. 3:29pm Yep. Dash it is. It's not quite feeling like home to me yet the way that Boderlands does, and their soy latte is kinda enh, but there's ample seating, it's laptop-friendly, and (most importantly) it's within a few blocks of Marta's, so it'll do. 7:13pm Another plus to Marta now living in the Inner Sunset: proximity to Kiki Sushi. And she likes it too, which helps. | ||
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Monday, 8 August 2011 (ascending and descending sequences) 12:23pm Okay, cool. The weekly editor liked my first post. We're off and running, then. I have no idea when it's actually going live, but that's so not my problem. I've also received a W-9 and a their standard Freelancer Contributor Agreement. It's all so real! 1:13pm Also real: I heard back from the editor of the no-longer-called-Hospital anthology, which I'd kinda figured had died since I made my submission back in October, and heaven knows it wouldn't be the first vaporware anthology I've submitted to. But, nope, it's still alive, and they're "very interested" in the abstract, and would like to read the entire essay. Neat! Good thing I've actually written it. | ||
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Sunday, 7 August 2011 (handstapleforehead) 3:56pm The new purchase from Good Vibrations works quite nicely, and will come in handy later this week, I'm sure. After lunch at the Sea Biscuit, I dropped Marta off her at old place, went to OfficeMax to get a new printer cartridge and a USB headset, both of which are school-related expenses, as is the copy of Microsoft Word 2010 I bought earlier this week with my student discount, making it what may be the first actually licensed version of Word I've ever had on a laptop. It's a whole new world. At Borderlands now. What had been just a scan for adverbs has become the necessary line-by-line rewrite of Landing on Water. The story is pretty much locked now, and even though My Agent feels it's ready to submit, it still needs a polish. A tightening, more like. I want to be sure that what gets submitted is a version I'm proud of. 10:52pm Another great turnout at Bad Movie Night, a nearly packed house for Season of the Witch, and my cut of the door covered the majority of my OfficeMax trip this afternoon. Just goes to show how unpredictable these things are, since I was expected a small audience at best. It's nice to be wrong in a good way for a change. | ||
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Saturday, 6 August 2011 (all the myriad ways) 11:14pm Wrote my first column for the weekly newspaper's blog, picked up Marta from her new place, took her to her old place to do some cleaning and final packing, Old Jerusalem for dinner, Good Vibrations for other things, back to her new place to drop off the stuff, and then to the Black Light District to start on Wonders of the Universe, the host of whom bears an eerie resemblence to my office archnemesis from NakedSword, though the host actually has a personality, which my archnemesis did not. Now, bed. | ||
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Friday, 5 August 2011 (a concise history of the machine and the skull) 1:17pm I was starting to get nervous about the fact that there hadn't been a response to my pitch on Monday, but it was just because they're busy. The editor liked it, and likes the general direction it suggests. So, cool. There's also a three hundred word limit, and though she'd like to do a weekly entry, she made me promise to not spend too much time working on it. Sounds like a plan to me. 3:56pm Joan Didion is appearing at City Arts & Lectures in November. It's sold out already, of course. | ||
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Thursday, 4 August 2011 (the haunted radio) 8:12pm Took Perdita to the vet. She has fleas, and worse, she's allergic to them—flea-reactive, it's called—which is why her skin around her neck has been getting bumpy and she's practically licked all the fur off and around her tail. She's on Advantage now, and she may need to be on it for a very long time. Funny, though, how fleas weren't a problem until the Alaskan Furbeast moved in. On the plus side (I guess), it's unrelated to the new food and litter I started her on last month, even though it started around the same time. So I don't feel quite as guilty about it. | ||
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Wednesday, 3 August 2011 (made of stars) 5:53pm I churned out a work-work article this morning, and then Marta and I went erranding, including Keetsa to pick up her new mattress and lunch at Sunrise (not to be confused with Sun Rise, of course). Saw her new apartment. The area parking is not so great, but otherwise, it's really nice. Looks like a flock of parrot either lives or vacations in a tree near her living room window. Neat. | ||
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Tuesday, 2 August 2011 (til the light kills the day) 4:31pm Doing schoolwork for the first time since 1997. So. Weird. It's very simple-to-me so far, but I expect the curve will get steep once the real classes begin. I've created a school-specific blog and have been posting in the discussion forums. It's basically all just about getting accustomed to online classes, and demonstrating aptitude for computers and stuff. I got positive feedback from the instructor on the first actual bit of work that I did. And, thus far, nobody has said what? you're in the wrong program! when I've said I want to go into film archiving and preservation. So that's a good sign. Also a good sign: My Agent says that aside from a few edits here and there, mostly typos, Landing on Water is ready to submit to publishers. That's exciting, but I'm going to give it at least one last draft before she starts submitting it. If nothing else, it really, really needs to be pruned of adverbs. 8:31pm The Goldies had to cancel, so Marta and I are watching Breaking Bad at my place, meaning getting to bed early enough for bootcamp tomorrow morning shouldn't be a problem. sometime after midnight Unless we stay up past midnight having sex. Yeah, no bootcamp tomorrow. | ||
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Monday, 1 August 2011 (the silver shines so hard) 2:06am The purple and blue in my bangs have been redone. I've also pitched my first article for the weekly newspaper's blog, and I now have access to my college course stuff. Actual work will begin tomorrow. And squidtightening happens tonight. 7:52pm The squid has been tightened, and a two inch-wide strip down the back of my head is shaved. It feels weird, but good. | ||
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