Smart Kitty

Video!

2009-07-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

So that post title is misleading, in that I am not posting any video but rather am just talking about making a video.

I got a video camera and filmed a bunch of stuff I plan to edit (with help!) into a two-minute funny thing. Whether it will be funny or not remains to be seen. However, here are some thoughts I had about it.

1. You know who has enthusiasm? Young people! Everyone in this video is at least 10 years younger than me. And they had a lot of energy and life. I think I vampired some of it from them, because I had more energy and life after hanging around them. Yes, vampired is a word now.

2. When people ask you if you are doing something for college, you just say yes. Even if you aren't in college! You know why? People like when college students go around doing things and don't want to hassle them. They want to encourage learning. Learning!

3. Sound and light equipment! Why aren't there more consumer options for this? Finding a consumer video camera of decent picture quality is easy. But do you want people to be able to hear and see what you are filming? That is harder. There are almost no reasonable consumer mics to buy. I rented one that was worth over $5,000! It was really silly to see this ginormous boom mic connected to a camera the size of my hand. Lighting, well, there is more stuff out there for that but it also is a little hardcore once you get past something the size of a flashbulb.

4. Real life doesn't look very real on camera. Seeing things like normal pictures on the wall, cars driving by, people in the background ... actually makes stuff look more fake. Strategically putting up a bunch of pages from a magazine looked more like lived-in decor than actual paintings and photos. No wonder actors are confused by what a real face looks like and get crazy plastic surgery. The camera distorts reality! Some sort of philosophical point about that!

5. It is frustrating to not know how to do things!

6. Pulling around a person on rollerskates = not the same as a camera dolly.

7. Businesses are nice about letting you film them ... unless they are a non-descript parking garage. Then they warn you not to get any footage identifying where you are. It is a parking garage!!! It looks like lights and parking spaces! If you can identify a parking garage that does not have signs (which this one didn't), then you spend too much time in parking garages.

8. I laugh a lot. We filmed a lot of scenes where sound was unnecessary so you just hear whatever is going on. Nine times out of 10 what was going on was that I was laughing. You know what's funny? Everything everyone does.

I grew something!

2009-06-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

These are fresh shiitake mushrooms. I grew them from a little mushroom farm. Look, I grew something! This harvest came after a week (but excludes two big ones I already ate).

Thanks to Joy and Kyle, who gave the kit to me for my birthday and have grown many many things, including mushrooms.

I like my superheroes like I like my coffee

2009-06-07T17:12:00.000-07:00

I guess people are talking about Wonder Woman. They never did make that Wonder Woman movie. I'm sure that is partly because Hollywood just couldn't keep its pants on long enough to keep its wiener away from Joss Whedon and let him work on the ginormous creative problem Wonder Woman presents as a character. Here it is: She is boring.

There is tension between staying true to her (let's face it, corny) roots and angsting her up for the superhero-with-a-flaw generation. As it stands, Wonder Woman is supposed to be perfect. And that sounds really annoying, even for a superhero. (I know she has several versions of her origin story, but aren't they all about how she is basically the most perfect specimen of a superior race OR how she was literally sired by the gods?)

Superman sort of has the same problem, but he has an arch nemesis AND everyone from his race is dead. That's pretty emo. But the 2006 Superman movie had him floating above Earth in a Jesus pose, benevolently looking down on us and then saving us again. Annoying! I prefer actual Jesus, thank you very much. Superman can kiss it! Learn a lesson from that bomb, future Wonder Woman filmmakers.

Excluding the campy Adam West Batman, the caped crusader has always been a moody gent with sexy mental health issues and dark thoughts. The internal conflict of the series is now at its highest with the sharp-faced Welshman who now portrays the dark knight. So the Batman franchise (like many other successful superhero stories) is a Russian nesting doll. Inside the greater battle between good and evil is an emotional battle between dark and light and another battle between Bruce and Batman and another battle between peace and violence and probably some more battles I can't think of right now. (Ditto for Wolverine, although I thought the movie sucked a nut.)

So what do I think? Why, I'm glad you asked. I do not have all the answers. But questions are pretty awesome, too, right?

Do not make her an actual Amazon or spawn of Greek gods or anything where you would have a schmaltzy montage of her participating in Olympic sports while wearing one of those short, white Greek-mythology dresses that looks like a gauze diaper. She is a freakin' warrior, so war her up a little instead of making it look like she comes from the island of sexy hairbrushing and discus throwing. I don't want her coming to my planet like some kind of preachy do-gooder. Maybe she was kicked out of a camp for badass warrior chicks for doing some rogue shenanigans or opposing a messed up philosophical extreme they started to favor. It could be a matriarchy where men are not equal. Social commentary!
Giving Steve Trevor a ride back and then helping him fight Nazis made sense for World War II. Now if you make her a spy, you just know we're going to have to watch her discover something unsavory about the government and become disillusioned. Yawn. Maybe her people caused some bad stuff in our realm and she feels obligated to fix it. Maybe it was her parents! And Steve Trevor was on their special island not because he was lost, but because he was there to thwart them. And there are operatives to defeat. Operatives!
Wonder Woman has to have nemeses. She doesn't have a rogues gallery to pull from, so someone has to be creative and make them up. And we know how Hollywood feels about creativity!
Sorry, no invisible jet. But I think the bullet-proof bracelets and truth lasso can stay. I am also fine with the American-flag corset she wears.
As much as people my age might feel attached to it, TV-era Wonder Woman cannot influence this movie. It would be like letting Adam West era Batman influence the current Batman movies.

Do I know how to match? I kind of think I don't

2009-06-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

I noticed how many patterns and colors I have in my very small apartment. For some reason, this made me want to take a picture of them and put them in a collage to see if my apartment looks like it belongs to a crazy person. I didn't think I liked floral patterns (I still think I don't!), but there are like 9,000 of them in my apartment. So I guess I do? This photo doesn't even include all my wall-hangings or the cat blankets I will put out sometimes for the cats to nap on.

I do seem to go for a lot of the same colors.

Left to right:
Throw pillows on couch
Painting in the bathroom
Framed piece of an unfinished ad from the '50s, living room
Throw pillow for the chair
Lamp, weird placemat/tablecloth on top of my bar
Bedroom rug
Kitchen floor
Shower curtain
Tissue box in bathroom
Bed
Painted prints, living room
Painting, living room
Coat hook, living room
Table runner, living room
Clock, living room

The Douche Factor

2009-05-25T23:20:00.001-07:00

The Douche Factor is the name of an imaginary website where Joy and I explain why someone is a douche and then rate them on a scale of one to 10 douches, with 10 being the douchiest. For instance, John Mayer (who looks like a handsome zombie/tries to ironically distance himself from the type of music he makes) is a 10 while that sincere but well-meaning Hot Topic dude from American Idol rates a 1.5 (so that is like one whole one and then just a nozzle).

Anyway, one thing that came of this is that I started coming up with names for the scents. Here is a list. ONE OF THEM IS REAL! Can you guess which one?

1. Lilac Companion
2. Island Splash
3. Parisian Sunset
4. Cinnamon Dream
5. Seaside Serenity

In between telling people what to do, I look at animals

2009-05-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

My mom, aunt and almost-3-year-old cousin were visiting, so it was my duty to show them a good time. A big part of that was taking them to Safari West to see animals. I was expecting it to be a little cheesy. But instead I was very impressed and think they indeed deserve the title of nature preserve rather than zoo or theme park.

At first, I was a little unsure ... because it started with an area of confined animals and a fenced bird sanctuary. But as soon as we got in the jeep to drive around the 400-acre preserve, it got awesome. Only the very beginning has fences/confined areas. After that, they are all just running around.

Tons of animals, roaming free -- many of them within arm's reach. (Although you are not supposed to do that)

Rhinos! Buffalo! Ostriches! Kudus! And more!

Here are just a few ...

So you might notice I am not close to these cape buffalo. It turns out that is because they are super dangerous. They maul people just for kicks. They are mean and will stomp you to death if they feel like it. Grrrr!

So why is Spock's mom 6 years older than him exactly?

2009-05-12T12:31:00.001-07:00

I saw and thoroughly enjoyed the New Star Trek movie. But one thing about it did send me into a bit of an overly-detailed-maybe-I-should-get-back-to-work tangent.

I've watched a bit of Star Trek in my time, but I'm no Trekkie, or Trekker, or Trekadoodle, or whatever those people are called. But if you are, maybe you have a good answer to this question: Why is Spock's mother being played by Winona Ryder, who is only six years older than Zachary Quinto, the actor who played Spock? (Maybe this is a question for Hollywood casting agents or Gender Studies professors.)

Here are the possible reasons I could come up with:

THEORY: Another Star Trek movie set even earlier than this one is in the works, with Winona Ryder playing someone her own age, and they needed to do this for casting continuity.

LIKELIHOOD: Not very ~ This movie took place before the original Star Trek series, so it seems unlikely that they would go backwards in time now that they've established the core characters and their backstories. Not only would it be a waste of the buzz that the popular actors playing the main characters have generated, but also I think it would piss off a lot of die-hard nerd fans. There are other movies that cover periods after this movie, but I don't see how that would make them go back in time to create a whole new storyline when there is so much of the canon untouched. But, hey, I haven't read tons of articles and forum threads about this or anything. Maybe I'm wrong.

THEORY: Vulcans age differently than humans. So she really did give birth to Spock as an adult, but he developed at an accelerated rate so that is why it appears that they are close to the same age.

LIKELIHOOD: A teensy bit plausible ~ I don't know enough about Vulcan physiology (read that as "I don't know anything about Vulcan physiology ... is their blood green?) to know how they develop and age. But according to some calculator I found on the internet, assuming the characters are the same human age as the actors, the oldest that Spock could be if that were is mother is 15. And that doesn't take into account that he is half human and lived on Earth. So really, would he even be subject to the same extended lifespan and accellerated development? I am willing to concede that I don't understand doodly squat about such things, but on the surface it doesn't seem likely that a 30-year-old Spock would have a mother in her late 30s.

THEORY: The movie used to put more emphasis on Young Spock, but it was later edited out. That is why it was more important to find an actress who could play the mother of a pre-teen or teenager than one who could play the mother of an adult.

LIKELIHOOD: A bit possible ~ Movies are freakin' long nowadays. So even though this one clocked in at a decent time, it's possible that they did the whole origin story thing and then had to cut it. However, it just doesn't seem logical (hehe, no pun intended) that they'd spend that much more time on his childhood than they did. Maybe a scene or two more? Also, I don't think JJ Abrams knew a hell of a lot about the franchise before doing this, so maybe he got wrapped up in that part of the story at first and then later decided against it.

THEORY: Hollywood is pretty sexist and has a history of casting young women to play mothers in biologically impossible situations. For example, Ann Bancroft was only five years older than Dustin Hoffman when they filmed "The Graduate," even though she was supposed to be old enough to be his mother, even if it was a young mother. And Sally Field went from playing opposite Tom Hanks as a love interest to playing his mother (although that movie takes place over several decades, so it's more an example of the types of roles available to women who are over a certain age than of the small age gap between "mothers" and their "sons.") So Hollywood was all like, "Why get some old lady when Winona Ryder is available? She's over 35, which means she's a mom, right?"

LIKELIHOOD: Very ~ Hey, the women in this film wore miniskirts and GoGo boots as their military uniform. Somehow that thinking seems in line with casting a 37-year-old to play the role of a 50+-year-old.

THEORY: Winona Ryder really needed to be in a hit and used some Hollywood influence/black magic/mafia connections to get into this movie any way she could. Also, she really likes age makeup.

LIKELIHOOD: Probably the truth ~ I think that settles that. If you have any ideas, I'd be open to hearing them, but I think case closed.

So you want to write a feminist blog*

2009-05-02T18:52:00.000-07:00

As you might have noticed, I am a woman. Segue into me having an opinion about blogs aimed at women who consider themselves feminists.

My stance is: If you want to be a source for intelligent thought on sexism in our society, you need to get your noggin out of your bottom opening. Tough talk!

Here are some tips:

1) Rig up some kind of electric-shock mechanism that zaps your face if you use the words "offensive" and "patriarchy."

Saying something offends you is not the same as actually bothering to think critically about something, explain your opinion and back it up with evidence. And "patriarchy?" Well, that just makes you sound like a caricature. In this caricature, instead of having a big head and a little body that is rollerskating, you are normal size but no one wants to listen to you because are annoying.

Words that should require you to do like nine capchas to be sure that you really want to use them and have thought about why: "misogyny" and "sexism."

2) Have a fucking sense of humor. Now, being funny is hard. And sometimes it's not the right approach anyway. So I'm not saying that you have to make jokes and do satire. (Although Sarah Haskins of "Target Women" is doing the sharpest feminist critiques of media and pop culture I've seen, and making me laugh while she does it.) It's true that sometimes sexism is masked as a "joke." You don't have to pretend to laugh. But if all you do is scold people and tell them things aren't funny, you are actually hurting "the cause." Remember, you're not always preaching to the choir.

3) Instead of constantly scolding offensive misogynists, why don't you bring attention to the work of amazing women? I think 10 posts about kick-ass women are more powerful than 1,000 about how that ad makes women think they have to be thin. When you write about something, you are saying it is important to think about. Is it more important to think about a Versace ad than it is to think about what women are actually doing in this world? Also, ever heard of "link bait?" When you are easy to provoke, people sometimes do it on purpose. So you helped promote some jerk instead of a woman who is actually doing something worthy of attention.

4) Stop talking about shaving pubic hair/not shaving pubic hair. You'd think there was some sort of national crisis wherein women's privates are being shorn in their sleep against their will. It's just not that important of an issue, and many of you can't seem to go three days without writing about it.

This is my personal blog so I don't have any responsibility toward society. Lucky me! I can just tell you what to do and then write about cats and baby goats.

*OK, so you probably don't want to write a feminist blog. But for the purposes of this post, you totally do and you're dying to know my thoughts on the matter. The other title I was considering: "I am woman, hear me bore." My college journalism professor would have liked that one.

IMAGE CREDIT: holoubek

Kids, they say the darndest things

2009-05-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

Slate is featuring children's drawings of President Obama.

My favorite so far is this one by 7-year-old Shane.

When asked if the president is wearing a pink bikini in the drawing, Shane said:

"Oh yeah, the pink bikini. I had that idea first. If anyone else says they had the idea first, they are lying."

You can find the drawings here.

Why I don't live in the city

2009-04-25T20:52:00.000-07:00

This isn't in chronological order, y'all, because I want to show you my goat friend first. I met him at the end of the day. I named him Taco (after the 1980s one-hit wonder*, not the food).

It was sad that he was behind a fence, so I took a picture that I could look back on and pretend that at one point we were not separated by a fence. He had adult goat companions, so he was not lonely.

My original mission was to photograph some cows. Who gave me this mission? Me. Why? Because cows are neat.

Before all this photographing animals business, I went to the annual Butter and Egg Day parade with Joy and Kyle. Here is Clo, a fake cow representing Clover Stornetta, the big dairy company in town. For some reason a man is behind her with a big fake milk carton. I think that is quite festive.

Also, the parade featured men in helmets and fake mustaches. Why? I am not sure, but the announcer acted like they were famous. They had some name. Veeselbub Freakensharf? That name is easily as logical as whatever their real name was. Petaluma!

I have a car and can drive to the city whenever I want. Meanwhile, city folks, how many of you have adorable parades and baby goats in your neighborhood?

*You know, the singer of the "Puttin' on the Ritz" cover? He's Dutch Indonesian, just like my family. I once got in a serious argument -- like yelling and everything -- with a boyfriend in college who insisted that Falco sang this song. And I was like, no, it's Taco! And he thought that was just me not remembering Falco's name properly! (Can you believe that?!) I should have broken up with him right then and there. I was so mad! Really, there's like one famous Dutch Indonesian person and it's Taco. Why would I make that up? Also, it doesn't even sound like Falco ... at all. That guy thought he knew everything about music. But he didn't. Take that, Eric! I mean listen to "Rock Me, Amadeus" and then listen to "Puttin' on the Ritz." Ugh, now I am mad again.

Blame big business not blogs (or me)

2009-04-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

I am dead tired of reading about the so-called death of newspapers/magazines/old media companies and how it is the fault of those awful/wonderful/irresponsible/visionary blogs. Now I say things about that in no particular order. Irony (or hypocrisy?)!

1. Newspapers, most of you were horribly mismanaged by poor businesspeople or unethical tycoons (on the high corporate level). Publications aren't like real estate. You don't buy as many as you can cheap and then flip them for more cash. You don't pile debt on your business when you notice that your market share is shrinking. Newspapers, you were online before most "blogs," and most of you did not use that opportunity to figure out how the internet works and use it to your advantage. Newspapers never made their money from subscriptions (that barely pays for the printing); they made it from the ads. That is still true on the internet! I am not sure why you are having such a hard time with a model you originated?

Bloggers pointed people to you, saying "I don't have the skill or time to tell you this story, but go to the professionals and read their work on their site." And you reacted like they were trying to take your money. Now, after many many years, they finally are. I don't blame the internet for ruining newspapers, I blame greedy, short-sighted businesspeople.

2. On the other hand, internet, don't get too cocky. You are in for the business, I tell you what. A bunch of out-of-work writers and broadcasters are coming for you. Oh, and so are celebrities. It may take a while for it to shake out. But those of you who are sloppy with facts and can't write a decent sentence to save your life will be pushed out. Saying something first isn't going to be good enough . Do you think you are an internet celebrity and that somehow keeps you relevant? An insular group of people knowing you from Rocket Boom won't give you an edge over Oprah. Metaphor time! The internet is a series of neighborhoods, and the ones where online publications live are getting gentrified. The rich folks figured out that it's cheap to live there and the food's good. Some of you will have enough fame to afford to stay. Most of you will slowly get priced out.

3. To paraphrase a writer saying I once heard, "Exposure? People die of exposure." Huffington Post, I'm looking at you. It's not in your business model to pay your contributors? Contributors get paid in exposure? That is fine for celebrities who have projects to promote, egos to feed, or political opinions to spread. After all, they are the ones who will be prominently placed on your site and actually get the exposure of which you speak. Everyone else is doing work for free that will be buried in 30 seconds because of your poor layout and constant stream of (free) content. And what they get is a clip that is the equivalent of an unpaid internship. Not useless. But also not as valuable and prestigious as you think.

Taking advantage of people is not a part of an ethical business plan. You are making the rest of the internet look bad. Oh, and writers, the only way they are able to do this is because enough of you let them. Have you heard there's a relationship between supply and demand or scarcity and value?

4. I am waiting for new words for the different types of online publishing formats. In the print world, newspapers are different from magazines, which are different from newsletters, which are different from zines. Can we either apply some of those words online or come up with new ones? Blog is a silly-sounding word that can also be used to refer to a 12-year-old's LiveJournal. A lot of times journalists use "blog" or "blogger" to belittle real reporting done online. However, there are a lot of copy-and-pasters calling themselves journalists just because their work is "published." Plus, saying "blog" makes me feel like I am using a word that is already outdated. Douche chills! It makes me feel like grandma trying to be hip four years too late or Bill O'Reilly saying "Twitter."

5. I read a lot -- so much that reading online is the most convenient way for me to read everything except books. I'm more likely to read 20% of 100 different publications online than to read one newspaper and 2 magazines cover-to-cover. The businesspeople in charge of the publications did their writers a disservice if they couldn't figure out how to make money off a person who consumes as much of their product as I do. In theory, I could be contributing to the profit margins at 100 diferent businesses. They ignored this possibility for years and years. I want them to succeed. I am a writer, after all.

As for websites that aggregate content or have posts that tease to newspaper articles -- they point me to things I wouldn't normally read either because I couldn't find it or I didn't know about it . I'm talking about when this is done fairly and ethically, not when sites post 8 paragraphs from someone else's story, add some commentary and act like linking to the original source means they didn't do anything wrong.

Did you read all of that? It was long. Maybe some other blog can condense it to a few salient points and add some counterpoints.

Weird metaphor about the relaunch of my blog

2009-04-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

So, I'm back. I hope you still want to be my internet friend. Now I will say a thing to you. Why was I gone?

Well. I will use a graphic, not-really-apt-widely-exaggerated metaphor to explain it to you.

Let's say that you're a man who is really into having sex with women's vaginas. (Heck, maybe you are. If not, just pretend for now.) You have this type of intercourse frequently. Then you get a job as a gigolo gynecologist.

That sounds like it will be awesome. And then you do it. Every day. After a while you're all, yeah, of course I still think sex with women is awesome and fun. But, like, I have to do it all day long anyway for money, so I don't really have the energy to do it for funsies. Also, there's the whole doctor bit. Sure, some people come in for check-ups. But man, others? They have some problems down there and expect you to solve them.

So then, you're all like, well I guess I should stop being a gigalo gynecologist. You still think it's a cool job that is useful to many people. Just not the right job for you. You decide you'll be a cowboy. Technically, they both use stirrups -- just not the same kind!

Being a cowboy is fun! But it is lonely work, and you miss having sex all the time. Well, cowboys are attractive to lots of people. So every once in a while, you get some.

Does that explain it?

***

Shameless plug:
Check out my article in the April '09 issue of "Geek." It's about game designer and future forecaster Jane McGonigal and her ideas for using games to fix reality.

You can buy it from a purveyor of magazines or you can buy a print or digital copy online. Or you could not read it, I guess.

There are also other articles in it. You might like them, too.

On hiatus, may return

2008-12-15T11:02:00.000-08:00

Stating the obvious, Smart Kitty is on hiatus. It remains to be seen if posting shall resume.

My cats are friends!

2008-12-01T19:23:00.000-08:00

My cats are now best friends. And it is wonderful.

Childhood favorite turns out to be really weird

2008-11-19T14:25:00.000-08:00

"New Zoo Revue" was one of my favorite shows when I was really little. And you know what? It was kind of weird!

I found this video clip from the show about "the miracle of birth." It doesn't really explain where babies come from or much really. But a weird old hunter looking man says "sperm" to you!

Go to the California Academy of Sciences

2008-11-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

The California Academy of Sciences is cool! Joy and I went there Wednesday and saw cool things. There is so much to see there. Look!

More photos here.

Chair, glorious chair!

2008-10-30T23:04:00.001-07:00

I finally finished finishing the chair I bought at the thrift store. (Ha! I suppose I could have said I was staining the chair, but that sounds gross.) It looks really good in the apartment and is surprisingly comfortable. You should come over and sit in it (if you are a person I know and not a stalker or internet weirdo). The cats seem to like it. Well, Peja likes it and Olive is interested in following her and copying her.

Take a gander, Bessy:
This is what it looked like before:
One thing it is hard to see in the "befores" is that the wood had a weird greenish stain on it in addition to the scratches.

While I was taking chair photos, I decided to also take a photo of my dinner for some reason.

I've been eating very poorly (Or not at all. Bad Marcia!), so I was really in the mood for my go-to food hug: a noodley dish. It's Asian-style noodles topped with vegetable broth seasoned with soy sauce and star anise and cooked with chicken, shitake and white mushrooms, some stripey squash and cilantro. It's a whatever-I-had-in-the-house variation on a tasty noodley soup my mom used to make me. (She would use bok choy, bean sprouts, cabbage and cilantro.Oh and slow-cooked chicken on the bone instead of frozen chicken breasts from Trader Joe's.)

Reject

2008-10-19T22:47:00.000-07:00

I received my first rejection letter since quitting my job and spending most of my time writing. You know what? I didn't much care for it. It's part of the deal, and it doesn't crush me. But I will be honest and say that I prefer to be accepted rather than rejected. Go figure.

It only took a month for them to respond. This is quick for fiction, but not so quick as to be disconcerting. It was personalized. So I know not only that they don't want my story and thank me for sending it, but also why they don't want it. This can be useful. Or it can make one fix things that aren't broken.

In this case, I am ignoring what they said because the thing they didn't like was something I intentionally did, and in fact, one of my favorite things about the story. I could be wrong. But if I am, I am going to continue to be wrong a little while longer.

(I will be mysterious and not tell you what the publication was or what they said. This isn't because I'm embarrassed. It's because I think it would be uninteresting out of context and unwise to do publicly.)

Now three people can sit in my apartment at the same time

2008-10-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

I got this chair at a thrift store for $12. This weekend I was able to have two people show up at my house at once ... and we all had a seat. This is revolutionary!

I am terribly lazy, but what I will probably be doing is staining it to match the other wood furniture item in my living room.

I still need a side table for the living room (one that can either double as cabinet storage or a book shelf). Then, once there is a surface to set things on AND seating for three, my apartment will be partay central.

Guilty pleasures

2008-09-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

First things first. I'm playing fetch with my kitten as I write this. This means that both of my cats play fetch. That is rad. If you want to know how to teach a cat to do this, my method for both was to get annoyed that they want to play while I am trying to do something and to throw their toys as far away from me as I can.

Subject transition.

I went to an unusual amount of movies in the actual theater this month. I saw "Burn After Reading" (Had it's moments, ultimately disappointed me) and "Ghost Town" (Better than expected, still had sparkly lights indicating happy ghosts going to heaven. blech.) I saw both of these with Leona and it sparked the usual conversation about how each of us likes movies the other hates.

She wants movies to uplift and affirm her values. I want them to show me some crazy (and usually seedy) world I will never experience that opposes my values. Read into that what you will about us. Is the mafia doing something? Is there a renegade cop? Is there an antihero seeking some sort of vengeance? These are the things I want to see when I'm not watching, you know, a good movie.

All this is to say, that I am looking forward to the Max Payne movie and would probably see Death Race if I knew anyone else who would do such a thing.

So, how's it going?

2008-09-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

And for no reason at all a photo of an alpaca

Can you believe I missed celebrating the monthaversary of quitting my job and doing my own thang? It's too soon to tell how this whole writing at home thing is really going. However, I have finished/edited four short stories or essays and sent them off into the world. It will be a while before I hear back on that. Those are ones that were already written or partially written. I've also started three promising pieces. I say this mostly to remind myself that it would normally have taken me like a year to do that. I've really enjoyed being able to pursue weird ideas or editing angles that normally I'd be too tired to think about.

Sunday I read a short humor piece called "Fluffy" at the Fresh! Light reading in San Francisco. It got a very good reaction, which is so encouraging. That is the next piece going out into the world. I understand structure and timing when it comes to humor.

Of course, it's not all unicorns and rainbows. I do get scared that I will not make any money at all and have to beg to get my old job back or, more likely, take some weird job and have to go around smiling at people saying "at least I tried." But I know that once I get an actual check (which I will, since I already have several paid things lined up), I won't be frightened like that. It's pretty bratty to turn into a Betsy Wetsy doll over something when it's only been a month.

My kitten, Olive, looks kind of big in the previous post photos, but really she's teeny tiny. I could do like 90 posts about how she and Peja cuddle and chase or about how she has bad gas. But I won't. I have some self-control.

Meet the kitten

2008-09-10T11:17:00.000-07:00

Her name is Olive. She is a little spitfire.

Back home ... with kitten!

2008-09-04T22:38:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my road trip! With the exception of Nevada, everywhere we went was very pretty. Most striking was the Mono Lake area (pictured above). The lake has calcium rock formations, called tufa, that stick out all over the place and look cool. It's not too far from Yosemite, so I suggest you double team these two bad boys.

Here are some more pictures of my trip to look at! I am bad about taking pictures, so you get to see the ones that I remembered to take and felt like putting on the internet.

Laura and I at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, which had different weather at every place we stopped:

A shed in Tonopah, Nevada that summed up a lot of what we saw there outside of Vegas:
The rest of my pictures didn't turn out so hot. So you will have to take my word for it (or look up photos or go for yourself) that Zion, Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon are all beautiful. I'd go back to any of them and spend more time there.

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe was the best thing there, I thought. There were some amazing works of hers there that I'd never seen, and even the little films they had about her were inspirational. To paraphrase what she said in one of them: Being creative is like walking on the edge of a knife, and there is great danger that you will fall and get hurt. But doing what you love is worth the risk.

I needed the little pep talk from this dead artist. At times I feel a little self-indulgent going on trips and doing whatever I want.

And speaking of doing whatever I want ... I got a kitten! I saw her before my trip and decided if she were still there when I returned, I'd get her. And she was! She and Peja are already friends. More photos than anyone would care to see are on the way soon.

Hi. I'm Marcia. I forget that in the summer the desert is hot.

2008-08-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

Road trip report ... checking in with the internet from the road!

I am at a Comfort Inn in Richfield, Utah with Laura. One thing about Richfield is that it is not 100 degrees outside like it was basically everywhere else I've been so far on this trip. It's been a fun trip, but I am just shocked that I forgot that the desert (and, like, most places in U.S.) is hot in August. Oh, and also I will be on the road Labor Day weekend. Duh.

So, it took like 97 bajillion years to upload that photo of the llama from the Virgin Petting Zoo in Utah. So you will have to wait, dear internet, to see more photos from this trip. Despite the heat, it's pretty rocking to drive around with a pal and see how varied the country is even in such a small trip. Also GPS = great! Also also, Nevada is yucky. Sorry, but it's true. I speak the truth! The weird brown patches of the state that have nothing but a brothel left me torn: Do I want to avoid Nevada at all costs for the rest of my life, or do I want to go back and photograph the brothels and do interviews with the whores?

I have been the following places:

Yosemite (where I locked my keys in the car)
Mono Lake (where I backed into an RV ... I only scratched it but I put a ding in my new car!)
Las Vegas (where I *thought* I was in a classy restaurant until a giant animatronic frog sang "What a Wonderful World" to me and then later a 6'5" woman who was most likely a professional escort shook her boobs at me and wanted me to reciprocate.)
Zion (Nothing weird happened here. It was just really gorgeous.)
Bryce Canyon (Also gorgeous! Utah, you are pretty. Nevada could learn from you.)

Still to come:

Grand Junction and Boulder
Santa Fe and Albuquerque
Grand Canyon
Driving as long and fast as I can from Arizona to the Bay Area so I can avoid spending time in undesirable parts of California.

Busy, busy, busy

2008-08-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

Since I quit the job I've been doing lots of things! In fact, I am still in the process of doing them.

The whole life of freedom thing started with an elaborate fancy food and fun party of deliciousness -- Joy put up some photos and the awesome menu here. Everything was yummy, and I always like to end an evening with a rousing Rock Band session. Good way to set the tone for THE SUMMER OF MARCIA (otherwise known as the end of August wherein I take vacation before embarking on a lot of hard work I'm like totally into).

The week after, I went to a water park with Matt. I had not been to one of these since I was 11. Verdict: Fun. Recommendation: Adults, get thee to a waterslide and wave pool now.

Then! As if life weren't already seven kinds of awesome ... I went on a road trip with Joy to the Humboldt area, which is where she grew up. I had no idea she was from the forest moon of Endor. Ewok forest! We had lunch in a frilly antique store in the adorable Victorian town of Ferndale, went to Arcata (where I unfortunately had too much to drink ... chocolate martini = danger), stayed in a charming bed and breakfast in Trinidad, hiked around dramatic cliff beaches and fairy tale forests, and saw the largest redwood. It's really cute up there, and I really liked seeing how varied California is. UPDATE: Joy has posted about it and put up some good photos.

The next day, I went to Outside Lands -- a ginormous music festival in Golden Gate Park. Beck put on a good show, but looks almost exactly like a bad ex of mine and trips me out for that reason. It was fun for a while, but eventually I became traumatized by the crowds, cold and standing. So I didn't go back yesterday. Today, I'm a big girl and will go and enjoy music and fun. I will not, however, use a portable toilet. It's just gross.

Tuesday: Road trip #2 to Vegas, Utah, Boulder, Santa Fe, Grand Canyon. Woo!