Sphynx Kitties.

i'm missing Sagira today. 

found this note i wrote about her a couple months before she died:

2/29/12. sagira is a snookerpoo pushing her weight so hard into me and little huffle puffy grumbles and snarks and snookerpooger puggle buggering into my belly. Pushing her mean little hate-love.

i guess all Sphynx cats huff like dramatic teenagers, because Lieven does the huffy sighs too.

i have a new story idea that is percolating. with a Sphynx. 

thinking up ideas is fun, committing them to paper is work.

it's hard to coax myself into working. because it feels very depressing to write something that then never goes anywhere. stories are meant to be read. if i can't get anyone to read them, and if i can't figure out how to write an amazing query letter that makes someone take notice and want to be my agent, and if i can't figure out how to improve and flawlessly edit my work by myself, which i can't, i need help, then... blah and depression and everything feels stupid and everything sucks.

huffy sigh.

stuck. stuck. stuck. 

i don't want to abandon Alienated. but there isn't anything else i can do with it.

i make up a lot of stories i never write down. like romances for example. (yes, i read all kinds of books, even silly romance novels.) anyway, there are a bunch that are set in supposedly Victorian times or whatever-- when girls had debuts and coming out balls and lots of people to do their hair and stuff. and there's always a "rake" and everything is always super hilariously predictable and corny. and you always read them and think- um, i'm pretty sure it was NOT like that at all. So anyway, i thought up this ridiculous character who writes romance novels and then she figures out how to go back in time, except instead of doing all of the millions of interesting things you could do with such a cool power, she just goes back in time to do research for her romance novels. she's actually pretty unlikable to begin with. but her comeuppance improves her. because of course there are not lovable rakes around every corner and nothing works out like it's supposed to. 

i have a lot of ideas that entertain me for a few hours but i don't love them enough to actually put time and effort into them.

my new sphynx kitty idea might hold my interest though... it's an end of the world scenario. and there's a teenage girl. and the rest of her family dies. and so it's just her and the cat. i'm not going to say she has asperger's but she'll have a couple of aspie-ish traits. luckily, one of her special interests from age 9-12 was fear of a zombie apocalypse. so she has some survival skill knowledge. her whole focus in life becomes keeping the cat alive. she's terrified other people might try to kill and eat the cat out of hunger. she decides she needs more people to help her. so she starts collecting children. younger children that she can easily overpower. she teaches them what plants are safe to eat. and they help her catch lizards to feed the cat. (the cat's front paws are declawed, so it can't fend for itself. plus she's afraid to let it run around free. plus it keeps getting sunburned.) she wears the cat like a baby. so then the girl and her knife wielding child army have to try and survive and rebuild civilization, which is pretty hard for her since she was never a people-person before. but she has to learn social skills or die. and then of course at some point there will be a boy and he will be older. and a threat. and also cute. and she'll have to figure out what to do about him.

i need names for the girl and the cat. i can't write people until they have the right name. 

Where are the (Edward) Snowdens of yesteryear?

I don't watch the news very often for two main reasons:
1. it depresses me
2. the media lies so much it's hard to know what is and isn't true

I mean, once you believe that ____ is a horrible evil ____ committing atrocities against ____, it's just depressing to keep watching the news day after day and being told that everything is the same as the day before. The American people never seem to care very much, no matter how you fill in those blanks.

So anyway, of course I've heard about the NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden, even though I'm not following the story.

But I hadn't noticed his name was SNOWDEN until just now.

The Catch-22 fan in me is quite delighted about this. This just keeps on proving my theory that PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS NAMED CORRECTLY!!!!

when Snowden spilled his secret... where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

There are so many fun parallels between Heller's fictional Snowden and this real live Snowden.

I'll tell you where the Snowdens of yesteryear are-- casually murdered by government and circumstance.

The Snowdens of today and tomorrow should totally avoid airplanes. And flak. Spilling one's guts is often hazardous to one's health.

Second pseudo-news thing that I noticed today--

Saw an article on my facebook feed about this 5 year old kid who was kicked out of a play because she was laughing and humming and squealing. An autistic person shared the article, and was all up in arms about how horrible a thing this was, because the kid has a DISABILITY, so how DARE they kick her out of the theater, etc, etc. She can't help it that she's being an obnoxious brat! It's a disability!

Are you freaking kidding me?

NO. Just, no.

I do not care who you are. I do not care how old or young or able or disabled you are. If you are going to scream during a play or a movie, you should not be there. Period.

If you do think Auties should be allowed to scream during a play, then you are a wack-job.

I do think it would be a good idea for movies/plays to have special showings for people who cannot be quiet. That way, they can see the show too.

Like, if I CHOOSE to go see a matinee movie that is marketed towards kids, then I can't complain. If kids are being noisy during the performance, I should expect that. But if someone won't take out their stupid crying toddler during a night showing of a rated R movie, that's different.

Maybe obnoxious babies can somehow be utilized to thwart government surveillance.... Things I want to hear... things I don't want the government to hear... instead of making me miss out on movie lines, I'm sure those deafening screams could be put to better use somehow.

Alienated. Platforms and buzzword nonsense. Mr. Ex.

I finished my YA novel Alienated this month. Last week, actually. It's about 68,000 words.

So, that was good. But now I'm at a point where I would need HELP to actually do anything with it. I'm not a one man band. I need help to get it to the next level.

Yes, I could put it up on Kindle- like I tried doing with a few poems I wrote. But poems are different. Poems can't be WRONG. A novel is different. It needs to have grammar that makes sense and be polished to a certain degree. Yes, there is a ton of crap on kindle that ISN'T polished, but I do not want to try and sell crap to people. I want Alienated to be something I feel good about.

So ideally, the next step would be that I send query letters out to agents and hope that one of them likes Alienated and wants to be my agent. They give me some notes, I make some edits, and then they try and find someone to publish it.

The books that I like and that I read, this is what the authors did.

So, this is hard for me. I have a lot of self doubt. Maybe Alienated isn't any good. Maybe it's completely stupid and no one will ever want to read it. Etc.

And sending Alienated out to agents and knowing that they reject most things that are sent to them is not an encouraging thought. So I need to psych myself up to do it. Mentally prepare for the rejection and try not to let it stop me from trying. Etc.

But. Instead of psyching myself up to try... I went another route. Because I'm an idiot.

In facebook chat/email with someone, I mentioned that I want to find an agent.

Is this a person who is supportive of me? No.
Is this a person who is going to say- oh, cool, good luck with that? No.

Ugh. So why did I even bring it up?? I don't know.

It's like with my mom. I know my mom does not like a lot of my writing. Like Alethia As Pie. She is not a fan. She says things like- um, well honey, maybe that's just something you should write for YOU and not for anyone else... And so I KNOW she's probably just going to depress me if I show her something I've written, but I can't seem to help stupidly doing it anyway sometimes, because I would really LIKE her to be supportive.

Anyway. This facebook person is actually in book publishing. And he got all miffed that I was not asking him for advice because he is an EXPERT!

Now, he does have a claim to the title of "expert," but I already knew what his brand of advice was going to be and I knew it wasn't going to work for me at all.

Here's a sample of what Mr. Expert advised: 

A) kindle publish yoru books B) build out a blog C) build out your social media audience

I would systematically release 1 new ebook per quarter, split the book up into daily blog posts, then use social media to help build you a tribe audience

then when you ahve several ebooks selling even 10-20 copies per month and have a following you'll be able to utilize your collective work to get an agent

If I was a completely different person, that might work great. But I do not know how to go out and campaign for followers. Even if I did know how, I could not do it. That is not who I am. I'm an aspie girl. I'm not that kind of outgoing. It is hard for me to build relationships. Not just hard as in difficult for me to figure out, but hard like I have a LIMIT. There is only so much social hype and buzz and interaction I can physically handle.

So I got pretty mad because Mr. Expert told me that it's not hard to build a platform, it's just time consuming.

Do not tell me what is and isn't hard.

Jerk.

I hate arrogant people who act like I'm lazy and accuse me of wanting "instant gratification" because I work differently than they do.

F-- you, dude.

I went to this writer's conference last month. I got some advice from David Hale Smith about how to write a good query letter and what agents are looking for. David Hale Smith is a literary agent. Google him. He's legit.

People brought up all this platform crap and having followers in class. And David Hale Smith was like- it's perfectly ok to send queries to agents even if you do not have a twitter account yet. Don't freak out about it. If you have a big following, then, sure, you can mention that in your query letter as a selling point.

Mr. Expert thought I was stupid for listening to "some random hack" and obviously I should be listening to him and not some "yahoo".

WTF? He wasn't a hack.

And I should be listening to people who want to HELP me.

Mr. Ex does not seem to understand that giving me advice that I cannot do is not at all helpful.

I want an agent. I want someone in my corner. I want someone on my side, helping me navigate the whole of the red-taped system. I want someone who gets me, who gets my writing, who likes Alienated and who can help me make it even better.

What I do not want, or need, is someone telling me I'm not ready for that, I'm not good enough yet for that, I shouldn't even try yet.

I HAVE ENOUGH OF THE I SHOULD NOT TRY YET VOICE ALREADY IN MY HEAD!

I do not need any more.

Ground control to lost souls... do you copy?

I just read through all my blog posts.

My memory fails me. I remember writing things that are not here...

I might have deleted some posts in one of my many deleting fits.

Feeling very-- is anyone out there? is anyone out there? 

mice, MRIs, and maddening sisters.

ugh. tried to edit this to take out a part. but then it posted it NOW instead of back where it was in the line... original post was between 3.22.09 and 4.20.09. Sigh.

i hate my blog format. grrr.

unless i want to delete it completely, this has to go here now...


March/April 2009:
i had to wake up early this morning.

apparently, i have some kind of lovely birth defect, and my uterus is abnormal. (Uterine septum or didelphys.) and since it's not formed right, the Dr ordered an MRI of my pelvis to make sure i have two kidneys.

so, i'm thinking- no biggie. i'm old hat at all this MRI stuff. i've had to get them for my teensy little brain tumor thingy.

but. this MRI place is a different one.

and Leif, the very gay receptionist, tells me that i cannot wear my street clothes. this is rather deflating, after i was oh-so-careful to wear a bra with no underwire and pants with no zipper or metal. and so, i am cranky about having to change into a stupid hospital gown, and annoyed i have to carry a big stupid locker key around. i'd rather just carry around my pants.

Leif also seems a bit too cheerful.

then some chick takes me back to the MRI machine, and i ask for earplugs. (because MRIs are VERY loud, and i can see a nice big jar of earplugs, and I WANT THEM.) but she says, we'll get to that...


so, she goes out of the room. which is appreciated. but i don't know why they always leave you alone SO LONG. every doctors office, they tell you to change clothes or whatever and then never come back. i am always dressed or undressed in less than 30 seconds.

so i sit there and wait, and look longingly at the earplugs.

also, i sneeze.

finally, some guy comes back in the room. and i say, "hi. can i have earplugs now?"

and he says that instead, i can wear earmuffs/earphones and listen to music, and what kind of music do i like?

this is the part where i should have been firm, and said, no! i want earplugs. but i was not prepared for his response. and it was new, un-thought about information.

so i end up strapped in with headphones. plus, this machine does not have the friendly mirror that lets you see out into the room. so it is a little more claustrophobicky, but that is still ok, because i like tight places. but what IS very annoying is the air blowing on my face. it is not blowing symmetrically. it's blowing more on my right eyeball. i close my eyes. but it doesn't really help.

DA DA DA DA DA DA DIH. DIH DIH DIH DIH DI DI DA.

and the machine starts and i have to be still.

i am not excellent at staying still. i am twitchy. fidgety. bouncy. tick-y. when the music finally starts, i realize what a bad idea music is. i try to keep the music in my face and not in my feet. i can feel it in my blood, in my bones. and i worry that my kidneys are dancing around on my insides. i can't relax, because then i'd twitch, so i have to be vigilantly still. which is hard. and takes up a lot of thought-space.

plus, the music is too loud.

1 minute down, 48ish to go.

i said i don't mind being snugged in a tight space, but, i don't like to be snuggy when i'm HOT. and this MRI was very hot.

there was some camera thingy across my hips, and it started to really heat up. and it was hot from the other side too, on my back.

i started to get panicky because it made me feel like i was in an oven.

DA DA DA DA DA DA DIH. DIH DIH DIH DIH DI DI DA. and linkin park is screaming in my ears. DA DA DA DA DA DA DIH. DIH DIH. and my right eye is numb with cold. DI DI DI DI DIDIDIDI. and the rest of me is sweating. DA DA DA DA DA DA DIH. DIH DIH DIH DIH DI DI DA. and my insides are baking. i'm trapped! i'm trapped! hot! hot! oven! i'm dying oh my gosh they're killing me they're killing me oh no i should NOT have sneezed and now my guts are going to burn up and i'm going to die and SHUT UP linkin park, and my ears hurt my ears hurt i want to shake this off my head it's TOO LOUD and i DON'T LIKE HEADPHONES, and WHY DIDN'T I GRAB THOSE EARPLUGS IN THE PRETTY SHINY JAR AND WHAT THE HELL KIND OF NAME IS LEIF ANYWAY!!!!???? DA DA DA DA DA DA DIH. DIH DIH DIH DIH DI DI DA!!!!!!!!!!!!

when i got home, i took a nap.

later in the afternoon, i had recuperated. i was dancing around in my room to you-tube videos. i've got a pocket got a pocket full of sunshine.... and then i went out into the living room.

there. was. a. MOUSE.

it was not moving. i thought it must be dead. two cats were in the room, looking unconcerned.

but. it was NOT dead.

i poked it.

and it slowly, oh-so-slowly, turned it's sad little head away from me.

this squicked me out and made me cry.

because i felt like a mean ogre, and the sad little mouse was feebly trying to escape me, but it was dying and could only move it's head and could not muster a proper attempt.

so i felt HORRIBLE. and i cried. and i wanted to put it outside, but i didn't want to touch it when it was still not-dead.

i ran and hid in my room. and cried. and then a friend was on Skype, and she was properly sympathetic and told me to go get a dustpan. i did not think of that. i was all stressing, and forgot that i could get the mouse outside without touching it.

so i went back in the living room. and the mouse was limping a bit, and the cats were batting it around. i scooped the mouse away. (but i patted them and told them they were good kitties.)

i put it on some grass in the sun.

it took a long time to die. i kept checking on it. it was really windy and cold outside. but i hope the grass was a little nicer than with a cat.

when garret finally got home, it was dead. and he scooped it up with the shovel and was going to dump it in the trash, but i said- no!! bury it!

so he did. and i watched through the window. and then he stood for a second over it... which was so cute it made me laugh. and he came back in and i was laughing, and i gasped- did you just pray over that mouse?

and he grinned like i was cute and he said yes, he thought i would like that. (and i did.)

so, that was good.

what was NOT good, was my maddening sister. i was on the phone with her. and i had just gotten over the mouse, and she decides to tell me a horrible story about a baby turtle that she KILLED and crushed with her car in her excitement to reach it.

WHY WOULD YOU TELL ME THAT HORRIBLE STORY!!!???

she was all- i dunno. i was letting you know that i know how you feel.

!!!???

she coulda just said- i know how you feel.

i hung up the phone after that story and cried about the stupid turtle. the poor turtle that had it's eyes squished out of it's head. (yeah, she felt the need for details like that.)

sigh.

but now, garret is making brownies, so things are looking up.

Raw food. Insomnia. Midgets.

Went to bed between 10-11pm. Woke up at 2am, mid-dream. Not a nightmare. (Dream had arguably scary things, but was just unpleasant, not heart racing terror-nightmare-y.) I was a guy. And I was running from these undead? semi dead? Not sure. Not really goblins. But bits of creatures, like an hand scrabbling toward you on it's own, a flash of shadow from the corner of an eye. Vague and creepy. Not goblins, but they were gobble-y and short. Hungry. They wanted to bite me and crawl inside my flesh and then my brain. I was trying to run away from them, and, conveniently, there was a guy next to me who was trying to run away too. And he was a midget, nice and short and not too far off the ground, but, far enough. So, this made it possible for me to leap up onto his shoulders as we were running away. The bite-y, not-quite-goblins got him in the ankle and were crunching away, but I was out of reach in this sea of shortness.

Also, recall wisps of dream about ex-mother in law and ex-family. Sad face. I'm still dreaming about Mike's family a lot. I have less nightmares, less HIM being mean and around, but not less dreams. I still dream all the sad part of the dreams with his family and missing them.

Anyway. I just started a "hey, let's eat 100% raw food" experiment a couple of days ago.

And when I woke up after only a couple of hours of sleep, I thought, "This is exactly why I do not eat healthy..."

Fasting or not eating much makes my brain race. It's not RACING racing now, but it's skirting the edges.

I don't know... eating crap makes me feel tired and depressed, etc, but I know how to handle being moderately depressed- I just keep sleeping it off. Sleep, sleep, sleep.

I don't know how to handle being more awake, energized, etc. Because it's always fun the first couple of days, but then, it is just a lot of time with no one to play with. And my brain keeps getting more racey, and then I have to make up imaginary friends or something to entertain myself, which doesn't work, because I can't actually delude myself into thinking they are real.

So...

Yeah.

I don't know how to be that kind of sick, it's easier to be the too-tired kind of sick.