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Friday, 31 December 2010 (primarily ancillary) 7:44am No Bootcamp this morning, so instead Yvette and I got together and she lead me in a mini-Bootcamp. I sweating as much by the end as I would have been at the real thing, for sure. I'm staying in tonight. I think I have a pretty good excuse, what with the deadline tomorrow and all, plus I'm just not up for dealing with the City's usual New Year's Eve madness. Ilene invited me to go to a party with her in Berkeley, and it's tempting, except for having to cross the Bay on New Year's Eve (and the neighborhood looks gnarlier than I care for, truth be told). So, I'm staying in and being productive. 10:28am Oh, hell. I have a lot of work to do today, but damnit, Red Letter Media's Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith review just dropped. That's not going to help at all. Okay, I'll finish working on this draft of the story, then I'll watch the first part of the review. Then I'll get back to work. Yeah. 11:12pm Time for bed. I don't need to be awake when 2011 hits. Besides, the anthology editor is in England (again!), so I need to get up early to make sure I get the story presentable while it's still January 1 over there. | ||
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Thursday, 30 December 2010 (generic house) 7:12am Back to the Tuesday/Thursday 6am cardio thing with the regulars. Yep, I'm happy to be back on this particular horse. 10:28am The marketing company guy just wrote, saying that things are "heating up quickly" and he'd like me to start sooner rather than later, most likely by the beginning of next week. I assured him that I am indeed interested, and I can start early next week, no problem. Various parts of the internet assure me that he and the company are perfectly legit, and that this isn't a scam—a scam for my precious, precious words! Speaking of words, until then I'm continuing to work on the anthology story, what with the deadling being this Saturday. I'm becoming less and less convinced that it'll be accepted into the book, but even if it isn't, I'm happy with how that story's turning out. Granted, I've written myself into a creative corner which requires me to raid the Diamanda Galás ouvre for chapter titles, but that's not a bad problem to have. And I'm glad the Black Mass page is still up, since it's been invaluable for reference and inspiration. 12:11pm Marta just got a job as a math teacher. Aside from the fact that her being a teacher increases her sexiness by tenfold, it looks like both of us are going into 2011 considerably more employed than we were before. 1:33pm Time for a second cup of coffee. I'm out of control, I am. 8:59pm Watching Blade Runner: The Final Cut. I haven't done the Pris look in a long time. Time to revive it, and getting a proper airbrush is on my "When I Have Disposable Income Again" list. Not necessarily at the top, but it's on there. | ||
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Wednesday, 29 December 2010 (all the more daunting) 8:11am It was brutal, as it always is, but I'm fairly certain I didn't fall out of shape too much over this past week. And my scale says that my weight has remained the same. Not that I care about the numbers or anything, since people who are more enlightened than me tell I shouldn't, and I'm not about to question cultural authority. And as for everyone else, they're welcome to whatever goals they want, and I'm welcome to mine. 10:13am Just applied for a work-at-home copywriting job with a marketing company, one which Marta forwarded to me yesterday. It's not from anyone she knows, just a listing from a mailing list she's on, but it's worth a shot. As the kids like to say, shit's getting real. 11:22am Well, that was quick. I got a response from my application within half an hour, saying said that my "background is very interesting" (according to my tracker, they've bounced around my website a bit) and would like to follow up with me next week about big new project that's gearing up. I'm keeping my hopes firmly tamped into the ground where they belong, of course. 7:27pm Oh, thank you internet (and BitTorrent and private BitTorrent trackers): I have acquired a copy of Ron Ormond's The Grim Reaper. While John R. Rice did not work with him on it—according to the Grindhouse Database, that one was called The Land Where Jesus Walked—this movie has an on-screen dedication to Rice, and that itself is no small amount of awesome. I'll be uploading the film to YouTube sooner or later. | ||
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Tuesday, 28 December 2010 (the purloined shelf) 1:19pm Heading home. I survived in Fresno for a whole week! Actually, that's not fair. It was quite nice, and it was great to get to spend so much non-pressurey time with my Mom and Cal, even/especially since they pretty much just went on about their business. Not ignoring me, not in the least, and I sat down and had dinner with them every night, but it was good not to feel like I was putting them out with my presence. And the really weird thing is that even though Phoebe's been right out in the driveway this whole time, I haven't actually driven anywhere since Thursday. That right there, that's a vacation. 2:02pm And once again, after about a half hour of complaining, Perdita has now curled right and gone to sleep. That's my girl. 7:42pm I dropped off Marta (who had a plane to Chicago to catch in a few hours) before I left town last Tuesday, and I picked her up when I got back into town (a few hours after she'd returned from Chicago). Symmetry! And rain. Lots of rain. We returned to the Black Light District to drop off Perdita and my stuff, went to dinner at Old Mandarin Islamic, then returned to find the power out. Practically the entire route between the restaurant and my apartment was dark. Whee. Got back into town just in time. Back to Bootcamp tomorrow morning. | ||
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Monday, 27 December 2010 (nowhere close to such things) 12:11pm I've downloaded a 24bit FLAC rip of the vinyl edition of Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals to listen to as I work on this story. The right tool for the right job, don'tchaknow. 6:14pm So I have been getting some exercise while I've been here, mostly in the form of longish walks with my Mom and her dog Spooky. They aren't at all the powerwalks that she brought me up on (and which I think are responsible for why I tend to be a fast walker now), but it's better than nothing. And none of my clothes are getting tighter. Granted, I've behaved myself foodwise—the fact that I'm allowed to fend for myself certainly helps, and I don't get any grief for the kind of thing I do eat. Like most mothers, mine is just happy that I'm eating at all. I care about these things, the shape of my body and all, because it's who I am. Gotta be true to myself, whatever anyone else's politics. 9:42pm As I figured would be the case, it took Perdita until our final night here to finally be brave enough to join me in the living room. Poor thing's going to get her little head messed with yet again tomorrow. | ||
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Sunday, 26 December 2010 (faulting the logic) 8:32am I was really hoping that the fucking roboscammers who've been calling me at least once a day for the last couple months, and who the last two days off, wouldn't start back up. Yeah, no such luck. 12:33pm Bad Movie Night's going to happen without me. Not for the first time, but still, it always feels weird. 4:11pm I've been corresponding with an editor about whether or not one of my stories (a thread from Bottomfeeder, kinda like "The Last Dog and Pony Show") would fit in her upcoming anthology. Her reponse is essentially um, maybe? give it a shot and see what happens. by the way, the deadline is in a week. Challenge accepted! Especially since I've been spending way too much of this past week not writing, but instead reading through the archives of DVD Late Show. It's great stuff, but not exactly productive, though, I have also been workin on Bad Movie Night stuff. Which is going to happen tonight without me there. Not for the first time and not for the last, but it still always feels weird. 9:32pm The other thing I'm missing tonight besides Bad Movie Night—which I at least have an excuse for, what with it being in San Francisco and me being in Fresno—is a reunion show by Barefoot's favorite Fresno band. He was always their biggest fan, and after their indie-label career never quite took off, the broke up in the mid-nineties, right around the time that everything in our scene in Fresno was breaking up. My mom and I thought about going, but we've decided against it. That band was never really my scene, not the way Sedan Delivery or Similar Animals was, and as my mom points out, it costs ten bucks to get in. Ten bucks! As far as I'm concerned, that money's earmarked for going to see Tron: Legacy at the Castro with Marta and KrOB sometime next week. | ||
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Saturday, 25 December 2010 (an expected ultimatum) 8:15am Considering that I just said it without thinking, it seems that hells yeah is now officially part my vernacular. It's my Christmas Gift to the world! 3:21pm My brothers and spouses (no children or other entourage, yay) came over around eleven, hung for a while as we gifted, and now they've all left. That went quite nicely. So, I've learned that in the 1920s, my maternal grandmother's first cousin Lloys married John R. Rice, who would eventually become a major evangelical fundamentalist. In 1934 he founded a newspaper slash publishing company called The Sword of the Lord. It has Facebook page now, because it's 2010 and that's what you do. (I also love that in both places, they still claim to believe in the "Premillennial Return of Christ." I suppose nobody's bothered to tell them what "premillennial" means.) Rice was an early supporter of Billy Graham, but they fell out over Graham's comparative liberalism, and since Graham was so incredibly popular, it hurt Rice's career. It also would appear, based on certain websites which have no particular reaston to lie about this sort of thing, that he may have made a film with Ron Ormond, director of If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? starring Estus Pirkle. That makes more excited than I can properly express. It's like a real connection to cult film history. In any event, more research into this fellow is clearly required. And there's gotta be a story in there somewheres. Another fascinating bit of family history I've uncovered is that my maternal grandfather was a waist gunner on the 332nd Squadron, 94th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force. I mean, I knew he was in World War II and that it involved planes, but not in quite so much detail. Seems he even flew missions over Germany, and this was their emblem. I'm not sure exactly what it's supposed to be, but, take that, Fritz! My mother also mentioned that a lot of her family comes from Groffdale, Pennsylvania. (Her family name being Groff and all.) So when I put it into Google Maps, it pretty much lands me right in Intercourse, Pennsylvania. Which, being an eternal twelve year-old, I find beyond hilarious. 7:11pm What was originally going to be just a solo drive around to see if the Chinese restaurants in Fresno get as packed on Christmas as the ones in San Francisco (not a phenomenon I've witnessed myself, but one which Mike Spiegelman assures me is true) turned into the three of us going out Japanese food at Edo-ya. It was quite lovely, and as far as I'm concerned, as worthy a tradition as the Christmas Eve (or Christmas Eve-Eve) Italian dinner. | ||
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Friday, 24 December 2010 (the occasional allnighter) 8:25am I am making oatmeal, I am. (I'll bet that looks badass in Latin.) 7:23pm Walking the neighborhood to see the Luminaries and other bits of local Christmas decorative madness. Including, but not limited to, lighted crosses. Takes all kinds, I suppose. 8:51pm Reflections on this holy night: If I were born elsewhere (a non-Christian country, say) this night might not be holy, and that the entire "holy" concept is arbitrary. Religious holidays are make-believe, just like religion itself. I'm glad that my parents had sex in September and not March, thus sparing me the ignominy of being a Christmas Baby. Marta is over two thousand miles away. Which makes this a pretty sucky night, actually. To hell with this dumb stupid night. 9:56pm Nah, that's not fair. This is pretty much what Christmas Eve should be: no teevee, no radio (or music of any kind), just the light of the tree and mellowness. And Perdita's here, too. My mom and I are watching Santa make his rounds via Google Earth. It's strangely addictie. sometime after midnight Since it hasn't yet, I can only conclude that it never will cease to amaze me how people think that my feelings and neuroses about myself have anything to with anybody but myself. Seriously, my demons are way too busy with me to give a flying fuck about anyone else. But I guess the fire of righteous moral outrage ain't gonna feed itself, huh? | ||
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Thursday, 23 December 2010 (claiming complete and total innocence at the time) 9:11am Good news and bad news from my landlord. The good news is that I will in fact be getting a heating vent installed sometime in the next few weeks. The bad news is that my rent is going up. Not a whole lot—and, according to Marta's Mad Math Skillz, it's well below what they're legally allowed to raise it to—and it's the first time it's gone up since January 2001, so I really cannot complain. Still, though. Frak. I gotta find a job. (Not that I haven't been trying.) 3:07pm Though I'd originally planned to give it a miss, I made it out to Amvets this morning, and scored a decent top and coat. (While I was there, I heard NewSong's "Christmas Shoes." I'd kinda wanted to believe that Patton Oswalt made it up, but no, horror is real.) The coat will fit better when I've lost a few more inches from my waist, but of course everything does. I've also stocked up on veggies and hummus and generally healthy stuff. Ain't gonna go downhill this week. 11:12pm Dinner at DiCicco's tonight with Jonco, my mom and her boyfriend. Frutta di mare, nom. Afterward, Jonco and I did the Huntington Blvd drive. Normally we do all this on Christmas Eve, but various schedules required it to be done tonight, which is fine by me. I'm happy to keep Christmas Eve comparatively low-key. | ||
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Wednesday, 22 December 2010 (the remnants of civility) 10:51am Some YouTuber was kind enough to upload one of my favorite documentaries of all time, From the Journals of Jean Seberg. It's never been released on DVD, and I haven't been able to find it online elsewhere, so I'm quite happy about this. | ||
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Tuesday, 21 December 2010 (when not diluted) 11:36am Cat is my co-pilot. 4:01pm The drive to Fresno was largely uneventful, and I managed to avoid the majority of the rain. Perdita complained for the first half hour or so, then settled in slept the rest of the way. I envied her that. My intention is to lay low while I'm in town. There's people I should go see, but I'm just not feeling up for it. Hiding at my mom's sounds more like what I need, and there'll be enough of dealing with the past on Sunday night. If I go. Either way, I'm not holding my breath on the whole "getting exercise" thing. | ||
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