Checking In

I've been mainly keeping to tumblr and twitter since my last post because I've spent the last two weeks in complete moving frenzy. My new assignment is still in Germany, but closing up your house and getting prepared to move is still exhausting and I was knee-deep in work stuff up until last week. I haven't been able to focus on anything serious. That's why I haven't really commented on the Batgirl of San Diego (though really, what is there so say now but "Thumbs up, Batgirl"?) or Womanthology's funding frenzy (though I got my script in and have even seen some character sketches! Yee!) or anything but Green Lantern on Tumblr.

Green Lantern requires very little energy to ramble on about right now, because I am back in full-on Green Lantern obsession mode. Rambling about Kyle Rayner on Tumblr and Twitter is actually a form a relaxation right now.

I wasn't quite up to a serious blogpost here on the subject, though.

In the meantime, I and my illustrious companions have been keeping up with Dispatches From the Fridge, so if you missed the commentary on the Batgirl of San Diego, Womanthology, or the loss of the Supermarriage I have lots of links from the past couple weekends there.

In the meantime, I did the Fangirl Friday interview over at Fantastic Fangirls. It has a short (for me) rundown of my recommendations for new fans just getting into Green Lantern.

I've finally gotten out of the apartment, out of the base, and have mailed/shipped everything but a few books that'll fit in my trunk. Now it's a few weeks experiencing the horror of family togetherness and then it's back to Germany. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to get back to serious blogging again during the trip. I've got some thoughts on Aida I need to share.

Petition to get the Wild Hunt on the Daily Show

I'm late to this because it broke last week, but over at Patheos they're fed up with the current media take on religion:

When the Washington Times thinks it’s appropriate to publish a column stating the Air Force Academy is “pandering” to my “fringe” religion, despite the fact that Pagans have fought and died for this country, I get angry.

Around the 1950s, fringe leftists enamored by the concept of worshiping the Earth adopted the ancient labels and pretended to follow the old ways.

When David Barton can advocate for a Christian government and actively work against my religious rights only to get away with lying about these activities on television, I get angry.

The true historic meaning of “religion” excludes paganism and witchcraft, and thus, does not compel a conclusion that McCollum has state taxpayer standing … paganism and witchcraft were never intended to receive the protections of the Religion Clauses.

When I have to deal with people who feel it’s appropriate to tell me I will burn in hell because they are the “keepers of the truth”, I get angry.

So do I. Star Foster has a more productive idea than ranting, and that's to petition to get some more pagan voices into the mainstream.

Specifically, Jason Pitzl-Waters on the Daily Show.

Instead I’m going to ask you to write The Daily Show and suggest they invite The Wild Hunt author and Washington Post columnist Jason Pitzl-Waters on the show to discuss David Barton and the real challenges religious minorities face in this country.

As a journalist he is familiar with the legal battle facing Patrick McCollum, the discrimination against Santeria, the triumphs of and challenges before the Lady Liberty League, the AFA earth-centered spirituality space, the Witch-Children of Africa and India, and many more stories important to our communities. He’s the journalist at the nexus of all of these stories, and he’s an excellent public speaker.

I'm going to take a moment to whine personally here. I do not represent pagans or the military or even pagans in the military. I certainly am not telling anyone US Air Force policy. I just want to tell you a little about my experience.

I'm scheduled to go a less intense unit soon, but in the midst of preparing for that, training my replacements for my multiple additional duties, and taking care of my personal stuff I was in the all-consuming field exercise this month. I just spent weeks working my ass off to help train and prepare folks so they can go to the middle of nowhere and do their job even when there are no amenities and a bunch of people are trying to kill them. That's not political, that's what we fucking do no matter who's in charge. (Whether it's for good or bad is all based on who you vote into office if you're in the US, so if you're an American citizen who sits out the primaries because "only the jerks ever win" I personally hate your guts.)

While I was in Afghanistan last fall, I saw no information about pagan services or a pagan rep at the chapel, but regular Christian services were scheduled. We had one Muslim dude in our unit, and he had to personally contact the Chapel to get a waiver for some Ramadan practices. They were nice about it, he didn't get any trouble over it, he just needed a special letter for some uniform thing. I never got any trouble over my solitary practices and I didn't feel a need to keep my religion under wraps on site, but I wasn't comfortable going to the Chaplain about Wiccan stuff and there was no contact information available for pagans there. I accept There were posted hours for Christian services, though.

At the field ex last week, Sunday was tear-down day. Work for everyone taking down equipment and tents. I got a good laugh when my boss (who knows that I am a witch) interrupted me to ask me if I wanted to go to Church. Our Group's Chaplain came down from base and they were busing anyone who wanted to attend Christian services to the nearby German Chapel. My boss was required to ask everyone in the office if they wanted to attend, to make sure no one who wanted to go missed it.

This is not against the rules, or oppressive. I haven't seen anything personally to file a complaint about (I've heard stories, but I've been lucky) or been treated bad by anyone in my chain of command. I've just seen some examples of the consideration Christians get that I will never see extended to pagans. It's like how Christmas is a federal holiday but I have to ASK for a special consideration if I want Beltane off. It's just an extra step I have to take (though I haven't ever actually gotten Beltane off...). These conveniences are all over the place, and I can actually see the necessity because it would suck if someone missed the bus for Sunday services while they were pulling up grounds like I was...

...

Anyway, I understand completely that I'm the rare religion here. I don't want to end Christian services or anything like that, and I'm not mad at anyone who goes to Church. I understand that if I want a group service for my religion, I have to contact the Chaplain personally (and cross my fingers that he's not a dick, because some of them are about this) and if we don't have a POC already ask around the unit to find the pagans and get a group together. I've known this at every base, it's more difficult some places and less others. And really, this unit is not bad in the regard.

I understand that there are a bazillion Christians, so everything is already nicely set up for Christians. There will always be networking at Churches. They don't have to worry about whether or not there's a volunteer POC for all of monotheism at their new base. They don't have to explain what they're reading when someone sees their bible. Good for them. That actually doesn't make me angry.

What makes me angry is when someone tries to make it seem like I want special treatment when I want the same consideration the Christians get.

What makes me angry is that we can't get a Pagan Chaplain attached to any of the four branches.

What makes me angry is that if I want the symbol of my religion on my tombstone to protect my remains and soothe my soul after death, the VA Administration is going to pale and stammer and give my relatives the runaround.

What makes me angry is that a ridiculous extremist can be elected if they're a Christian, but pagans and Atheists are scared risk political doom if they just mention their beliefs.

What makes me angry is when I log onto my computer to see someone who likely wouldn't even think of joining the National Guard in an admin position talk about how my religion isn't a real religion, it doesn't matter, and that we are being PAMPERED and PANDERED to when someone dares to set a place of worship aside for us.

This is old in social networking time, but it's still necessary. Do me a personal favor and do this, even if you're an atheist or a Christian reader. I want to see an intelligent Pagan speaking on these subjects in the mainstream for once.

My evening.

Today I got a couple backlogged shipments of comics, which brings me actually up to this week's order. Yay!

This will combine with the last month's backlog and another greatly anticipated reading acquisition for one glorious binge-reading session...



...on some other night. I have responsibilities.



It's all so deeply depressing.

So far this year is a bit surreal

I returned from escorting the locksmith to find someone had left a NATO medal on my desk with a certificate. (My name is on the certificate, and it appears to be in French.)


I discovered that after seven years I could still explain the difference between Pulse Amplitude Modulation, Pulse Duration Modulation and Pulse Code Modulation. (I need a whiteboard and a flashlight, though.)

I put this thought out there, and am confident it will seep into someone's fanfiction and/or fanart soon.

I became one of those nerds who answers college assignments with nerdy stuff, despite having promised myself I wouldn't. Not only that, it was discussing the meaning of the term "canon", a word that makes me cringe.

I learned that the car that shares my last name has this slogan:


I learned that I am genuinely more radical than the sexual assault response coordinator on base. Also, I'm told by a coworker who attended an Army-sponsored women's rights meeting while deployed that I am WAY more radical than they were. (Among bloggers I'm pretty moderate, but in the military looks like I'm as far left as will enter a recruiter's office.)

I saw an officer give a briefing...

That last one was the same day I explained the modulation differences to a room with three Airmen and a smartass new NCO. I was constantly worrying that my communication skills would fail me and I'd be unable to properly answer the question, I'd look like an idiot, and they would conclude that I (and, by extension, all other women) knew nothing about the actual job and that that was why I was always filing stuff. I'm not great at getting my point across with my voice, I prefer writing it out. I actually managed it, though, and helped them out.

A few hours later, we all went to a mandatory briefing where they put on a video on drunk driving. We all shrugged, because driving drunk is widely considered to be the stupidest thing you can do while in the military. It causes the whole base to get in trouble, basically, and it is easy to avoid with the support network we've set up. Then he stressed that the next speaker was entire voluntary, and had suggested this himself. And I watched an officer, a man in leadership position walk to the front of his unit, in front of all of his subordinates, and calmly, smoothly tell everyone he'd done the stupidest thing you can do while in the military.

And I'd been nervous about forgetting modulation techniques I hadn't discussed in half a decade.

For those of you who were also unaware of this.

On the occasion of my birthday I cleaned rifles, packed tents, and participated in the following IM exchange:

Chris: Is there really MRE birthday cake?

Chris: Because that sounds like the Saddest Thing.

Ragnell: It IS

Ragnell: The pound cake, and then you mix the hot cocoa mix with only a little bit of cold water to make icing

Chris: Does it say something horribly depressing on the package?

Chris: CAKE (BIRTHDAY)

Ragnell: And you get a pack of matches, so you can stick one in the top for a candle but it's advised against because fire gives the enemy your position.

Chris: oh my god.

Ragnell: Umm.. it says either "Lemon poppyseed pound cake" or "marble pound cake"

Ragnell: And the cocoa says "Chocolate Beverage Base"

Ragnell: You have to trade for the cocoa sometimes, or the cake, but most people are cool enough to do so for your birthday

Chris: oh god i'm going to cry

He was not cheered up when I told him you could warm it up with the little heater baggie thing.

I double-checked, though, and the cocoa actually says COCOA BEVERAGE POWDER.

And for the record, the cocoa is armyproof:

DIRECTIONS FOR USE: ALLOW WATER JUST CHEMICALLY PURIFIED TO STAND 30 MINUTES BEFORE ADDING TO BEVERAGE POWDER. TEAR POUCH AT NOTCHES. OPEN ZIPPER, ADD 6 OZ WATER (1/4 CANTEEN CUP) TO FILL LINE. CLOSE ZIPPER. SHAKE TO MIX. SINGLE USE ONLY.

(Those exact words are on the DAIRYSHAKE POWDER, VANILLA package, except with CONSUME PROMPTLY (WITHIN 1 HOUR) added.)

All joking aside, MREs are an incredibly social food. Most contain an entree, a sidedish, a dessert, a snack, and a drink. Only one or two of these things will be edible to you (or you've gotten the only meal that anyone seems to feel is entirely good: The Chilimac. This is an anomaly, also no good for me because I don't like the entree--everything else on the menu rocks, though), the rest will either be disgusting or something you personally hate. You can, if you're hungry enough and alone, give up on your pickiness and just eat what you get. But I believe part of the point of the MRE (or an important side effect, since the main point was probably to make a meal that you could quickly eat a little bit of, work or get into a firefight, and then eat a little more of when the action dies down without it spoiling or spilling) is to build unit cohesion by forcing you to sit with the rest of your flight and trade food pouches to build an edible MRE (unless you got the cheese omelet, then you're shit out of luck. Though you probably will attract a crowd as it is such a legendarily disgusting entree that people will want to see your face when you eat it.)

I'm not exactly a people person, but I am a master at trading to mix and match the perfect field meal. The trick is in the candy. Everybody wants candy, so they're willing to trade the best beverages and the best snacks for a package of M&Ms or Reese's. This enables me to stock up on the beverage base mixes (they're basically Gatorade, which is a big deal for me when I'm worried about dehydration but so sick of drinking nothing but water) the WHEAT SNACK BREAD, which isn't sweet or interesting tasting, but is fortified with a ton of nutrients, is convenient to carry around and eat piece by piece over an hour of so, doesn't crumble as easily as the crackers, and mysteriously cures helmet headache.

My point is I don't care what the Captain says, I'm actually pretty smart. I figured out how to make a bacon cheeseburger this exercise.

Strange Mental Phenomenon

There's this Conservative Christian Dude at work. We're more apt to run into conservative Christian dudes where I work than if I worked in a comic book store in Boston, it's true, but this guy stands out a bit even in the military community. When he first got to the shop and we all went out to lunch together, he changed seats when I sat down. This preyed on my childhood lunchroom anxieties, so I tried to joke it off.

"What? Do I smell or something?"

"Oh, it's not you. I just don't sit next to women."

"What's wrong with women?"

"Nothing. It's just a thing to avoid temptation."

"You find ME a temptation?" This incredulity was not an indication of low self-esteem. I was wearing the baggy camouflage work uniform, not a touch of makeup, and my hair is a dull brown color with flyaway strands in every direction. I do not really present an attractive appearance at work, nor do I bother with it. I do confess enjoying how nervous the question made him.

"Well, it's not like a thing with you. Just all women who aren't my wife."

"Or your daughter."

"Yeah, I'll sit next to my daughter too. It's a perception thing. I don't sit next to women who aren't my wife, so that no one perceives wrongdoing."

The rest of the shop thought it was a strange habit, but we shrugged it off as Conservative Christian Dude's personal weirdness. We're a fairly tolerant and accepting shop, led by an ex-recruiter with impressive social skills. (Our boss has the playful humor of Guy Gardner, including the willingness and ability to escalate or defuse any conflict at will.) Fortunately, Conservative Christian Dude was not the sort to shake a Bible in your face and tell you you're going to Hell even if you have just told him you can't attend that Church potluck he invited you to because it's the night of the Full Moon Ritual and you promised to bring the cake. As he tolerated our strangeness, we got used to the occasional oddity like not saying cursewords and a shockingly puritan attitude towards sex.

Today was notable, though.

Two seconds after I walked in the door for my shift Conservative Christian Dude turns to me and asks if I see anything wrong with the image on his computer. He's been doing a computerized lesson and there's an image of a woman in a pink blouse leaning forward to point at her monitor. The two men on either side are in suits and ties. I examine the image for any indication she's using the computer wrong. I look at the expressions. I look for obvious photoshoppery.

After about 3 minutes of intense inspection while Conservative Christian Dude stood smugly behind me, I realize what he thought constituted a problem.

"Is this because you can see cleavage?"

The pink blouse is unbuttoned and the woman is wearing a tank top underneath. There is a sliver of view of her breast. (I wish I had a copy of the image to show you how innocuous it is.)

"Yeah? Do you think that's appropriate?"

The ensuing discussion in the office was about whether the tank top is a tank top, a bra, or a tank top with a piece of bra showing. I've considering buying these outfits, so I'm absolutely certain it was just a normal tank top or a low v-cut shirt. Nothing a woman wouldn't wear normally. And I have the entire history of this blog analyzing comic book artwork to support me when I say I don't believe for a second the photographer or the model intended anything sexual about the image.

"She probably didn't see it at all when she dressed, and they told her to act natural for the pictures so she leaned forward and her top slipped down and molded to her chest. It's barely noticeable. Hell, it took me three minutes LOOKING for something to see it so you'd have to be a pervert to notice in the first place."

The whole office burst out laughing. Conservative Christian Dude paled a bit.

What was most amusing is how many time he'll think I'll side with him on stuff like this, because I go after the rest of the office over casual sexism. Sometimes I get the impression he thinks that because he follows so many rules about how men should treat women that he actually treats women better than the rest of the office. He doesn't realize that those old-fashioned attitudes are in many ways worse than the usual macho maintenance mindset.

See, out of that entire office of juvenile military manly men that get into discussions about actresses and download dirty movies and curse and joke about cheating on their wives, only one person saw cleavage on that slide when they took that lesson.

It was the guy who refuses to sit next to a woman, use swear words, or even discuss dirty movies. The old-fashioned gentleman white knight.

Not only that, as the discussion about proper workplace attire went on (kept smooth and casual by Guy Gardner-Type Boss--who at one point rolled up his sleeve to expose the upper arm, took a handful of armflab and told Conservative Christian Dude "This is basically what you're offended by here"), there was only one person in the office who didn't understand the concept of being responsible for your own thoughts and eyes. Only one guy who had trouble understanding that women don't dress for the sole purpose of provocation, and that it is not their responsibility to dress like nuns in order to avoid causing impure thoughts in the guy.

He also didn't know the word "misogynist" (which surprises me, because I could swear I use it several times a week) and understand why it applied when he suggested that women in offices only wear long skirts and tights. We didn't so much get this point across as simply give up on Conservative Christian Dude and start listening to Guy Gardner-Type Boss's old recruiter stories.

Now Conservative Christian Dude has never given me any indication in how he treats me that he thinks women are inferior in any way. I've never felt the slightest bit threatened by him (but that may be because he is approximately half my size). I'd say I actually get along with him better than many of the men in office do. But there's the occasional weirdness like this. Weirdness that passes the point where with anyone else in the office, I know they're just messing with me. He's serious the whole way through, and caught off guard when successfully challenged on it. It strikes me more as naivete than malice. A bit like those people who mistake chivalry for respect. Just another person out there following his step-by-step directions to the letter without realizing that they lead him away from where everyone needs to be.

If I'm not careful I might end up someone who never blogs.

I'm trying to keep from falling into month-long periods without writing a word, but life gets in the way.  I have fun ideas for blog posts and stories that keep getting put off.  This job is much meatier than my last, or I'm just listless right now.  My week's been interesting to live through at least.

This morning I woke up and noticed missed messages on my phone.  I'd been waiting on a coworker to call and tell me he didn't need me to drive out of my way to pick him up, so I figured that was the message.  My conscience wouldn't let me leave his travel to chance, so I called back the number to doublecheck.

A deep voice answered with the name of the Maintenance Chief. I rolled my eyes and told my coworker that was very funny.  After the third insistence I realized this was indeed the chief of maintenance who'd tried to call me the other night.  He'd wanted me to let him into the building, since I was the building manager.  When I hung up and hurried because I actually had to pick up the coworker now, I comforted myself that I wasn't as bad off as that Congresswoman who hung up twice on the President.  And I avoided a very embarrassing conversation, because on Sunday I'd closed the car door on my dropped set of keys, bending the master key to the building (and my house key, and my apartment key--which led to waiting in the snow for the landlord to drive up with a new set on a day all of the locksmiths are closed--GOOD TIMES!) and I hadn't gotten around to replacing/bending it back.

In the afternoon I drove two hours and got lost in a hospital only to find that the doctor who referred me to this new office hadn't actually written out any diagnosis notes for the lady I needed to see.  My real first session was postponed so that she could track down my doctor, and in the interim I can try yawning.

Prior to that I found myself being sharply reminded by the flight chief that my job title is "technician" and not "file clerk" even though I am responsible for all of the files in the office.  I swore I'd never be that woman in the office who does all the clerical work, and here I am doing all the clerical work.  Why am I doing all the clerical work?  Because the boss needed someone to organize the papers and those idiots I work with wouldn't know organized if they tripped over a sorted and labeled pile of it in the lovecraftian pit of disrepair that we laughingly call a workshop.  (To be fair it may indeed be a workshop, but I've yet to see the tables cleared so I have my doubts.)  Also, I was the "New Guy" at the time the additional duty involving filing opened up.

This is all a typical day for me right now.

So I've been a bit too tired to write substantially.  Instead I've been amusing myself with Twitter.  Last night I suggested to Canton that Black Widow--who is in her 70s but still looks to be in her 20s due to funky Russian supersoldier experiments--isn't using epic birth control, but rather is post-menopausal.  From there we pounded out a premise for what is either the most awful or most awesome miniseries on the Internet--BLACK WIDOW: HOT FLASH.

We're bad people, yes.

(The title was Canton's idea.)

Tales from the Office...

All blog jokes aside, I don't consider myself a confrontational person.  Certainly not in real life, at least.  I've always considered myself meek to a fault, and especially shy in person.  I've even kicked myself for being far too much of a pushover.  A wallflower, meek and mild.  I worry I suck up too much to the boss and I let too many things slide from my coworkers.  I've always considered myself in person to be very much the opposite of my online persona.

Last week at work, though, I got a surprise.

I understand completely why I have a reputation for tactlessness at work.  I've seen the memos these guys write.  Full of extra wording and platitudes around the point and--to quote my coworker who told me my memos were tactless--"buttering up" the other party to get what we want even after the matter has been agreed to over the telephone and the memorandum is merely a formality.  "Sir/Ma'am, Due to events entirely beyond our control we no longer have running water in the bathrooms.  According to regulations, we need to be able to wash our hands before we eat in order to prevent dying from some horrible disease.  If you could find it in your heart to send a plumber, we would be greatful.  Help us, Civil Engineering, you're our only hope."

I find that to be an utter waste of time.  I also think something like "Please repair the bathroom plumbling at your earliest convenience" is far more polite than necessary and should be sufficient for asking someone to do their fucking job anyway.  It also saves ink.

So it was no surprise to me that--after I asked Blunt Boss to brief the office on how to fill out a certain form and had been told by him to brief them myself because they'll listen to me because "women are scary" (I'd responded that my coworkers aren't afraid of me, they just assume I'll burst into tears if they push me too far and he'd insisted that was good enough so there was no getting out of it)--I was gently chided by Diplomatic Boss because "you get more flies with honey than you can with vinegar."

Now anyone who knows how much I fucking hate that turn of phrase will appreciate how nice I was when I disagreed with him.  I said I had been nice but promised not to use any profanity next time.  He told me i shouldn't start a lesson with "You've been doing it wrong" which made no sense to me, because the whole point of the briefing was they'd all been doing it wrong.

This conversation took place at the end of shift in the middle of the office and led to my statement that I wasn't confrontational.  This statement was greeted with laughter.

Naturally, there was a bit more arguing and Diplomatic Boss declared no progress would be made on either side once I'd narrowed my eyes and repeated "...female logic..." in response to a description ("Here is male logic, here is female logic, and WAY over here--") by a coworker.  This coworker was the next person to talk to Diplomatic Boss about effective communication.

And for the record, earlier that day that coworker--who had indeed read comics in his life--had been insisting that neither Steve Rogers nor Bruce Wayne would return from the dead so his opinion is suspect.

I did get Diplomatic Boss to concede that I was a pushover about "some things."

All in all, I ended up thrown into a minor identity crisis by the entire incident before the weekend was even underway.  I understand that humans have these internal views of ourselves, and its naturally disconcerting to find out just how different others see us than we see ourselves.  But that wasn't it entirely.  See, I've been keeping this blog for some time as an outlet and I suspect its led to a personality change.  But exactly what sort of change, I'm not sure.  I chose the nickname Ragnell the Foul on a whim, after a funny description I'd read of Gawain's wife in some Arthurian encyclopedia or another.  I wanted to indulge my monstrous side a bit, I wanted to have a chance to be the sort of person who doesn't let shit get flung on her and the name seemed to exemplify that.

And there's an idea in the Wiccan community--a small shadow of an idea that doesn't always surface but its definitely something to be kept in mind when chosing a name (Wiccans often take a "Craft Name" for their religious life)--that we conform to our names.  That if you pick the name of a story character you end up living out that story.  (Think twice about naming yourself for that tragic hero who lacked self-awareness.)  That if you take a description, you end up living up to it.  (Be wary of using modifiers such as "sometimes" or "not exactly" in front of virtuous descriptors.)  I've noticed it borne out enough online, some people just fit their handles.  I've wondered at times if this is putting the cart before the horse--if we just unconsciously choose a good description of ourselves when we choose a name--or if human beings really are such pattern-seeking monsters that we unconsciously mold ourselves to fit the front we put forth.  And that little incident at work, and the realization of how much I've changed over the last decade as well as the realization of how differently I see myself compared to how I act has me mulling it over.  Did I become Ragnell the Foul somehow, or is it just the real me leaking into my professional life?

And why are the guys I work with so damned sensitive?

So it's come to this... blogging about writing.

For the sake of believable narration I've spent the past four days fiddling with wording in a story. I've got the normal problems, how to reveal the setting and the setup without seeming forced. On top of that, I've settled on first-person narration as the ideal point-of-view and the main character is a fourteen-year-old girl.

And to be perfectly honest, even back when I was a fourteen-year-old girl I had a great deal of trouble getting the impression of a fourteen-year-old girl across in my writing. It's my reading history. I started out with the antiquated children's fairy tales we all did, Alice in Wonderland, the Chronicles of Narnia but rather than make my way into more modern and realistic fair I cherished the dreamy atmosphere brought about by a slightly old-fashioned narrator. When I floundered around for older reading material I found myself hunting down Sherlock Holmes stories. I went the way of the goth otherwise, devouring Edgar Allen Poe and other Victorianized literature. Kept to the same fairy tales, though the interpretations I read continued to grow up. I burrowed into the depths of the nonfiction section of the library to consume acres and acres of classical mythology and world folklore, almost all of which is recorded in the antiquated style. When finally I broke free of that library to explore the deeper realms of horror I gravitated towards HP Lovecraft rather than Stephen King.

And somewhere through all of this I developed that sort of voice. That antiquated, slightly dusty voice to my writing (and yes, even my speaking at points) that is just tough to shake.

I know that old and creepy are all acceptably mainstream geekeries, and I'm not saying for one second that I'm the only one suffering from this affliction. (There's certainly enough of us to make it a geek stereotype.) It's just disconcerting to realize that this style of writing and speaking comes so naturally that it's your natural voice, particularly when placed against the voices you hear every day at work, the normal rythm and cadence of human conversation that suits the modern mainstream era and that capturing that is what's necessary to capture the character you're trying to write. It just feeds this paradox where if you write what comes naturally to you it sounds off when you read it back, but you can't seem to naturally write what sounds right when you read it back and I needed to stop and vent a bit about that.

This is ultimately why nonfiction comes more easily. The voice sounds somewhat academic and authoritative and sounds very natural when analyzing art and literature. As part of a work of fiction? Well, this voice was developed in the reading realms of fantasy and horror from narratives specifically aimed towards creating an atmosphere of fantasy and horror. It is not a character voice, at least not for fourteen-year-old girls who aren't already little goths.

Sticking to nonfiction won't do me any good if I want to be anything more than a one-story wonder, though...

Maybe I should go with third-person limited in the future. The normal, natural voice is easier to get across in small snippets of dialogue.

Merry Christmas

And to prove to my inquisitive mother that yes, I do have a tree (a Yule tree) this year, I am enclosing a picture.



Okay, so maybe decorating isn't really my thing. But I can be proud for finding a use for all those pins they give out at conventions.

(And I much prefer my Green Lantern fighting a snake splash to your standard nativity scene.)

If you're not here to read me talking about me, move along please.

I've pruned the social media tree enough to have the energy to post on WFA again. I ended up deleting several weeks worth of bloglines posts, and my livejournal. I had starting using my livejournal friendslist as a quick linkfarm rather than add everything to bloglines. While I was doing that I discovered that the friendslock feature gave me a convenient place to gripe about things I didn't want to bicker with trolls over, and gripe about politics or work. I've long avoided blogging politics and work on this blog, but livejournal's friendslock gives a false sense of privacy that I slipped into. It was quick, it was easy, and it wouldn't get back to anyone I didn't want it to.

Well, as long as I didn't gripe about family it wouldn't get back to anyone I didn't want it to. I discovered a leak in this area early on when I tried to vent healthily and it resulted in a member of my family dropping me from the "on speaking terms" list for a short time. Never zeroed in on who the leak exactly was, but the incident itself was not worth digging too deeply into it. That incident was, however, a good reminder that the sense of privacy was a false one. Not only did everyone on your filter have to be trustworthy, you also had to go through a few coding hoops to keep your locked entries from manifesting on feed aggregators and search engines. Plus there's the whole matter of livejournal's changes recently, which let advertisers scan your locked stuff to decide what ads to put there. And--to use a completely random example--if I don't want my sister to discover that I was actually really fucking upset about the matter of the daffodils last Thanksgiving, for example, and that I was lying when I told her it was no big deal then it might be awkward if she sees the ads on my page are for florists and turkey farms lately.

Really, you may as well just blog without locking. And if I'm blogging without locking, what's the fucking point of livejournal? I like the Blogger and Wordpress interfaces better. I have Bloglines--in which I can divide the feeds into manageable folders rather than one stupid feedlist and which allows me to pin and mark read or unread. I like reading some people's locked posts, but not so much that I really need to stick around.

And there was one other result of the under-friendslock writing. I was becoming more reluctant to write about the little things in public. Because it was less of a hassle to just lock them and gripe within my little group than to go out with sword in hand and hack my way through hordes of trolls. Which had two effects, the first being I became a more cowardly writer, the second being I became a less adept reasoner. When you don't fight trolls, your reason and with dull. When your reason and wit are dull, you become reluctant to fight trolls. It's not so much a circle as an ever-lowering spiral staircase to the depths of stupidity and isolation.

And who the hell needs that?

So I dumped the livejournal, made a cute little "This is where you can find me elsewhere" and meant to never return.  I kept the account open for comments, but figured since it was already something I'd let lapse I wouldn't be tempted to return.

But I neglected one thing: Newsarama.

In the past, when I saw a particularly annoying comment on that site that I wanted to gripe about but not engage (because engagement would lead to a quick release of temper in many cases, and I'd been kindly asked to keep it under control on that site) I would gripe on livejournal and not have to engage the person.

And in the past, when a poster that I wanted to support or at least give a fair chance to said something that encouraged the introduction of the heel of my palm to the top of my forehead I would go under livejournal, vent, and keep a pleasant face.

This seemed to be a necessity as I was doing When Fangirls Attack and needed an outlet but didn't want to jump the gun. As things tend to spiral, I grew to rely more on livejournal and less on the main blog as that outlet, until things that desperately needed to be said in public were only said in private, and of course that private was not as private as it seemed at the time. This spiral also led to stupidity and isolation.

So, on the whole, closing the livejournal seemed to be the best thing to do. And as I had neglected the journal during my residency in the Gray Realm I figured I could keep the account without being tempted to write on it.

But again, Newsarama. In my distress this weekend at my apparent replacement, I asked the head of the blog if he was planning to bring in a feminist blogger. He responded that he had two. My relief was tempered only by the realization that I very probably should have heard of Sarah Jaffe before this, but hadn't. I don't like that sort of thing. I may not be the best blogger in the community, I may not have the widest audience but I always took a pride in knowing my way around the place. This was a new person, but one who had been writing about women in comics that I hadn't seen before.  I do not like this strange feeling of being the second or third person to notice new people.

So I tracked down the posts from both bloggers and found several WFAble items had already been posted.

And yes, this new person has already caused me to shift uncomfortably in my seat. (Smart, strong, sexy women as badass as the men? Nothing else you'd want to add to that, perhaps? Even a little "despite the difficulties" or "despite the criticisms"?) And perhaps shift uncomfortably over email. Still, the criticism was unfair. Plenty of perfectly rational women enjoy Frank Miller. I really liked Frank Miller's comics until I realized he was using the same creepy older-macho-man-gets-together-with-young-female-sex-worker plot over and over and over again. After that, his work lost of its charm.  The movie is visually fascinating. Lots of violence, that's fun. And this was just a happy nostalgic post on a site that encouraged positivity.   I wouldn't have blinked twice seeing it on a familiar writer's blog.   Well, I might've blinked twice if one of the major Girl-wonder.org columnists had said it, not because I would feel she just lost feminist cred but because because the mood on that site is so consistantly anti-Miller that I'd have to believe anything positive was sarcasm or mind control.

Now before I go on you need to know that the point of this post was never to criticize the new blogger on Newsarama. This post is entirely about me and my problems. That's what you're here for, I'm just including a free side of Newsarama-nitpickin' with the main meal of my introspection. (And enjoy this meal, because my tortured writerly soul is a seasonal item on the menu, available for limited time only.)

As unfair as it was, I had this little twitch when I read it.  And then when I read this post from her co-blogger (another person I haven't heard of.  This bothers me.  How far out of the loop am I?), and the resulting comment nitpicking. And then I read this post, referring to the previous post, and the resulting comment discussion. And then I introduced Mr. Palm to Mr. Face again.

THAT is when the urge to complain about the whole lot of them--bloggers and commenters--on my livejournal, in private, set in. And then I thought to myself-- well, why? What am I afraid of? Looking bitter? Everyone knows I'm bitter. It's one of the defining characteristics of my writing.

I narrowed my eyes at my livejournal profile, stewed in irritation for a few moments and realized something.   Livejournal and Blogger both support OpenID.  Perhaps I could free myself from the shackles of self-absorption in the living hell of eternal navelgazing. Perhaps I could climb that spiral staircase out of stupidity and isolation. Perhaps I could just delete the freaking livejournal account.

So I did. And I have thirty days to avoid using it, and then it can never come back. And then maybe I'll get my sharpness back.

And then maybe--just maybe--I'll be able to read a post by an unfamiliar blogger that irks me just slightly without turning the whole matter into a personal journey of self-discovery that leads to a fourteen hundred word essay on the true meaning of Blogging.

A bit cranky lately.

I've been having a dry streak writingwise, as evidenced by the nearly dead state of this blog.  But there are moments, moments when I cheer up.  Moments when I lift my head to peer out from my subterranean lair.  Moments when I feel the world is worth living in, that it doesn't deserve to be destroyed in a hellish clash of fire and ice.  Moments when figure that yes, humanity is a species worth continuing.   Moments when I feel that there's a spark of nobility buried deep within the soul of every person on the planet no matter how small and petty they may seem.  Moments when I feel like setting my pen to paper in praise of all creation!

And in these moments I need only check my bloglines for those thoughts to clear right up.

More on the endless irritation of my existence later.

Had a good day today

My god, what an amazing day.

Myt schedule was tight because I got enrolled in some weird class for work that doens't really have much to do with my day to day job. I was a bit late, but I (unlike the poor guy next to me) ended up with a working computer. And despite the class being about equipment and protocols I haven't seen for six years, I didn't have any problems with the material. It's been a really good refresher, actually.

In addition to the class that left very little flexibility for the day's schedule, I had a shitload of errands to do. I got each one that I set my mind to done. My new car passed the safety inspection, which enabled me to get it registered. I am now fully mobile without worries.

I managed to get this done and have a chance to stop for lunch.

In the post office I had mail waiting for me. All good stuff. My JSA Presents: Green Lantern. My absentee ballot. The latest issue of Weird Tales.

I took a wrong turn on the way back to the village and ended up finding a route that is actually going to be really useful in the future.

I made it to my landlady's office after work with two minutes to spare before her assistant left, and so was able to pay my rent by the due date.

I swung by the department store in the walkplatz to see if they still had that decorative metal table and chairs I wanted for my balcony, and they did. And I had cash leftover from the rent for it.

And it folded enough to fit nicely in my hatchback. (Yeah, my new car is a hatchback. And last week I managed to snag an automatic at a reasonable price -- so I own it.)

The bakery had a chocolate and cherry layer cake that I took a chance on and absolutely loved. That I got to eat while sitting outside on my balcony in my new chair.

I took another wrong turn, and found another potentially useful route for when I'm running errands. I also found a flower shop.

After a full day in high heels, my feet didn't hurt. My ankle should be good enough to run for real on. (I sprained it at the beginning of the month.)

I got home with plenty of time for my reading assignment and a relaxing bath.

I took a picture of my with my filled out ballot on a whim, and it turned out to be a pretty kickass Evil Red Riding Hood image. (Original and mood-altered.)

It was the perfect temperature all day, not too cold for my outfit and not too hot.

And while I heard the usual ravens cawing throughout the day (ravens are more common than pigeons here), I also heard something I hadn't noticed in this part of Germany before. Songbirds. I hadn't heard songbirds here yet.

And more amazingly than anything else, today Republicans and Democrats got together and in a rare show of sensibility went "You want us to give HOW MUCH to WHOM?!?!"

Elected officials actually looked at each other and agreed that yes, yes things were bad. Yes we had some rough times ahead. But no, we weren't going to panic and make things worse by giving money to a bunch of guys who are being investigated for fraud.  No, we're going to ride it until we come up with a plan that has a snowball's chance of working.

They presented a unified front in favor of common sense and against fear tactics.

That's fucking amazing.

That's seriously something you write home about.

And they listened to the voters, who even more amazingly went "Wait a minute... these guys piddled away the few hundred billion dollars they had on their OWN. Are sure this is a wise investment for OUR money?"

The infamous mob was the voice of reason.

That's fucking astounding.

Now Wall Street is panicking and plummeting.

That's not so surprising.

Don't get me wrong, I know there's bad stuff coming. I firmly believe there's already a depression (it's only now that the rich people noticed it), and it's going to get worse. It could be worse than 1929. Hell, in a few years I might even be camped out in DC with a sign demanding back pay. (Hopefully no one'll release a modern-day MacArthur on us.)

But today? I'm happy. I had good day personally. I had a good day professionally. Congress didn't panic. They didn't go for the quick fix that was guaranteed to backfire and screw us over. There was genuine bipartisan action to stop, collect their thoughts, and try to come up with a sane way to fix things rather than make the dollar worse less than the paper it's printed on.

We--as a people--can officially face a guaranteed period of hardship and still keep our heads.

That--more than any campaign speech or promise--that actually restores a lot of my faith in the government. That restores much of my faith in my fellow countrymen.

My Day

Before I begin this anecdote I have two requests.

1)  I'd like for my father to stop reading for long enough to set up a webcam.  I want him to record his reaction to this post for me.

2)  I want the first person (and that includes you, Dad) to make a woman driver joke to be on the next flight to Europe so that I can personally beat him/her over the head repeatedly with a German cuckoo clock.

Why the special requests?  Because today I learned to drive a car with a manual transmission.

It started with my leaving my cellphone at work.  Being that my cellphone is my major way of anyone getting ahold of me, I needed to get it.  Unfortunately, I only noticed it was missing from my purse on Saturday morning when most of the people I know in this country are hung over.  Also, I was tired of scamming, begging and bumming rides from eveyrone at work.  The lack of transportation was getting to me, and it even went so far as to make getting regular transportation even more difficult to obtain.  The problem was compounded by my antisocial nature.  I wanted to see some of Germany--Hel, I just wanted to see a movie--but not if it meant I had to talk to people.

So I got out my little book, borrowed a neighbors telephone and called the rental place.  I'd have a week of independance if nothing else.  They set me up that afternoon with some temporary transportation, that could get me to work, to the store, to the movie theater, and most importantly, to the used car lot.  The day would have all worked out perfectly but for one slight problem.  That being the manual transmission.  But I was prepared for that, sort of.

I'd read about it on the internet.

And I got a... briefing from the car rental guy.

Nevertheless, when I got into the car and tested it out, I found I couldn't move in reverse to get out of the parking spot.  I did everything as I'd been told, I didn't panic when the car started moving when I released the clutch.  I shifted the gearshift towards the R, but it wouldn't go backwards.  So I glanced around the partking lot, and accosted some random guy as he was exiting his car.

"Hey, you drive manual?"

"Yeah."

"Umm.. help?"

He nodded and came over, said he knew exactly the problem.  "European gearshift.  You have to shove it all the way over until it clicks, then up."

I did so.  The car still stubbornly insisted on moving forward.  This wouldn't have been a problem, if not for the other car parked in front of it.  The car I was getting just a bit closer to each time I tried to move.  So I had the random stranger sit in the car and try it himself.

(Dad, you had better be filming your reaction to this story.)

And what do you know, it wasn't my fault.  He couldn't get it go backwards either.  We had no choice but to go forward past the other car (we had enough room between the bumpers to slip a few pieces of paper by) and sure enough, as soon as we cleared the other car and switched drivers again the damned reverse started working.

No, I didn't back into anything.  But I swear, I put it in the exact same position each fucking time.

Still, I was doing fairly well.  Within a half hour, I got it moving around the parking lot smoothly--after stalling a few dozen times in the first 20 minutes--and felt comfortable enough to go to the street to get to work and look for my phone.  The street was an uphill street.  And of course, the damnable thing stalled at the top.  And of course, the next car--an ugly boxy yellow thing--pulls right up behind me.

So here I am, still adjusting to the clutch and the slight rocking backwards because the parking lot didn't have enough hills to get used to that, and a line forms.  The woman in the yellow car behind me couldn't back up due to the black car that was right behind her, and I couldn't get any further up the hill.  She was fortunately very amused by the situation.  She and her entire line of cars eventually passed me.  Then another line formed, this one smart enough to back away.

After providing a total of 20 minutes entertainment to the base population, a pedestrian stopped to help me figure out the right combination of accelerator and clutch motion (he advised thinking of it as a teetertotter).  I didn't have another problem until work, where I discovered that my phone was not left at the office.

But don't worry, I think I know where it is.

I focused on my next errand, because by heaven's frosty gate I was going to get something accomplished this day.  The building for the next errand happened to be up a large hill.  But I wasn't worried, I'd discovered the secret to hills.  I wasn't quite sure about the speed limit, but I'd discovered the secret to hills.

Well, I thought I had.  I was still getting used to the clutch, though, so I stalled when I got up the hill and tried to turn into the parking lot.  So I restarted the engine, and stalled again.  I got a bit frustrated with it, particularly the car's desire to slip backwards on the hill as I tried to get it to start forward.  Took maybe ten minutes to park because of that.  But after that I ran smoothly around base, from the store to the other store, to the first store when the other store told me they didn't have what I wanted.  I obtained some potentially valuable advice about diesel engines at the last stop.  Sure, I overshot the movie time, I'm afraid.  But I remembered the way home.

The shine on remembering the way home was dulled when I stalled twice on the way home.  Both times entering traffic circles, which just sucks because there is someone moving in a little circle in front of you and invariably there is someone behind you.  That just makes recovering from the stall worse because there's suddenly this sense of urgency.

To top off the day, I stalled entering my freaking driveway, because guess who lives on the side of an uphill road! (And some jackass blasted his horn at me, which is illegal withing city limits, and startled me into releasing the clutch too soon as stalling a second time while I was trying to recovering from the first stall!)

But all in all it was a fairly productive day.  I'm now confident I can get to work and back (though I'm not touching the autobahn yet, I don't care what stupid souvenirs people want from other parts of Germany), and I've expanded my options for permanent transportation.  (There aren't many automatics for sale where I'm at, so this is a big thing.)  For this I'd like to thank my AWOL cellphone, my three impromptu teachers, the road-gods of Germany, and the cops who pointed and laughed as I banged my head against the steering wheel in frustration.

(And Dad?  Upload the video to Youtube, so I can watch it at my leisure.)

This is going to take some adjustment.

It's been about a week since my last update, so let me fill you in on the move.  Germany looks remarkably like Lackawanna County in Pennsylvania.  There are a lot of trees and gentle mountains and the little living areas are very spaced out.  Lots of farmland and wilderness too.  My coworker told me this area is known as the "Black Forest."  Yes, of Frau Totenkinder fame.  I like the climate, it's cold and rainy.  Haven't dealt with too many Germans yet--potential landladies excluded--but I can see my work's cut out with me in the new office with all the other transplanted Americans.

I am the only woman in the shop, which isn't too surprising.  Depressingly few women go for my career field, I'm only accidentally in it myself.   I'm actually one of four women in the building, which is a tad bit disconcerting.  That my shop hasn't had a female technician assigned to it for almost three years prior to my arrival is downright infuriating.  Something needs to be done about the lack of women in technical career fields.

In the meantime, a shop that is very set in its ways tries to adjust to mixed company.   The ground rules about profanity have been laid, but two incidents display the difficulty that still exists here. Last week I found myself without anything to do and so I tried to sort a particularly annoying pile of junk.  The boss was quickly disturbed by this and insisted that disorder and chaos were the proper way of the world.  For my part I fell into the stereotypical role of the only woman in a small group and continued to arrange things as I saw fit.  The rest of the shop was very amused, and started taking bets on what week I'd lose my sanity.

Today in the office they were rearranging the notices and bulletin boards on the wall to accommodate a very large whiteboard.  The men were asking each other if it might fit the spot on the wall they'd cleared for it.  Now, everyone in this shop carries personal tools attached to their belt depending on what they need the most so this was a perfectly logical thought on my part.  I asked if any of them were carrying a tape measure so that we could see before they lifted the heavy thing up.

My boss turned to me and said--and don't get me wrong here, he said it with good humor--"We're GUYS!"  because to him maleness implies a lack of logic, organizational skill and good sense.  Personally, I think they're using sexism as a excuse not to do their jobs correctly.  This was a problem in my last office, but getting put in charge of the shift let me teach some of them not to give in to antimasculine stereotypes and just do the fucking job.  I don't have that luxury here, it's the boss who needs the training.

On top of that, they insulted my technical abilities.  The rest of the shop joked that I'd be telling them to read the directions next.    How on earth did they get the idea that using the proper tool to make their job easier was on the same level as consulting the idiot manual?

That aside, I do like the people there.  Very relaxed and full of joking, like a good maintenance shop should be.

And I may have found a place to live.  It has a balcony, a landlady who can't pronounce my name, and the option of DSL so the comics community won't be rid of me just because I'm in German Appalachia now.

That Furry Bastard.

So much for tonight's plans.

To: Me, From: Me

They got it in where I shop a few weeks ago, but I just noticed it was there for the first time the other day.



I was going to wait until my tax return came in or my birthday (which is on a Wednesday later this month), but on Thursday I'd gotten a lot of errands done. And I only had one book come out.

And the clerk told em other people had been looking at her. I knew if I waited, she would disappear. So I went ahead and bought the Dodson Wonder Woman statue.

Because I'm worth it, dammit.

Note to all relatives: Send money in lieu of birthday gifts. Don't worry, there's no danger of it being used responsibly.

A Sign This Blogging Thing is Not Working

Had a conversation at work today about gamers telling random strangers about details that happened in their games. I contributed a story about my encounter with a Werewolf: The Apocalypse player at a comic book store, which made another technician, McElroy, scratch his chin awkwardly.

"Uhh.. To be fair, whenever someone mentions superheroes or comics, they get a 20 minute rant from you."

The little rat had a point, but I wasn't about to let it stick.

"Well, here's the thing," I argued, "You all know me. You know mentioning Superman or Wonder Woman will get a three hour explanation of what's pissing me off this month in the world of comics. I'm actually surprised you haven't sent the unsuspecting new guys into that trap."

"Oh yeah," he answers, "that's why I brought up Captain America that one day. I've been trying to get the new guys to do it, but no one will take the bait."

It all reminded me of Spanish class, when we tried to get the teacher to talk about sociology to distract from the actual learning. (It was amazing how often her tangents tied back to Nazis.) We were remarkably successful, as evidenced by my utter lack of any Spanish language skills.

This blog, however, has been a failure. At least in one of its original objectives, which was to give me a place to rant and rave about comics without driving my co-workers completely insane. I now rant and rave here and at work (and on dates), and my coworkers are driven quite up the wall. (And if I'm not talking comics, I'm talking religion or politics and nobody wants to discuss those here, at work, or on a date.)

In my defense, there's really no time to blog at work and things can't always wait until I get home. Especially when the Wonder Woman writer pisses me off.

Making Assumptions

Store owners and clerks take note, because nothing cheeses me off more than this.

I walked into a store in Georgia. I got a few of what I call "It's a stranger" stares, and no one said a word.

Behind me are the two men who rode with me to the store, Joe and Max. The man behind the counter greets them as they walk in together. After we left the store, I asked Joe if he'd ever been in the store before. It was possible, though I sincerely doubted it because a) he'd driven us to two other now closed stores before this one, b) Joe reads very little that isn't Manga and there wasn't any Manga or Anime there, and c) the comics Joe does read are the ones I buy, think are cool, and send him for his birthday or Christmas.

"Not for a few months," he replies. So I ask him why I wasn't greeted and he verifies my suspicions about the clerk. I actually felt better, because I'd almost walked right out.

Because it's the only store in the town and I insisted on visiting here in my neverending search for back issues, I actually did bother to take a look at the boxes, though. I find a few from the seventies but almost put them down because I'm pissed off that he greeted Joe and not me. Then I see them.

Quarter bins.

There aren't many quarter bins in Oklahoma City, you understand.

There are even fewer I haven't already picked through on Saturday afternoons.

I couldn't just pass them by. I was in town for a single day to visit Joe. We had to be back the next day to get ready for class. There were six quarter bins.

I looked through the first one. Volume 2 Starmans, written by James Robinson, in good condition, for a quarter. Five for a dollar! They cost two-fifty back in Oklahoma! Clearly the owner was insane and I needed to take advantage of this. When I walked back to the register, with nearly sixteen dollars worth of project, I found Joe and Max sitting by the door, looking very bored. They hadn't bought a thing and had found nothing to chat with the clerk about. While the clerk, who was actually a fairly nice person who I hope will know better than to make assumptions next time around, rang up my purchases, Max made the joke.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"I said, some women shop for shoes, some women shop for clothes..."

I look at my watch and rolled my eyes. Forty minutes for picking through six full long-boxes. That was not bad at all and I don't know a male comic book fan who wouldn't do it either. I said so.

They bitched about the time. I politely reminded them that they had spent longer in the video game store, which I had no interest in, the night before. They pointed out that I had spent my time looking for Lovecraft games and making fun of the Tomb Raider intro (it's actually pretty funny, she seems to realize that guys are staring at her breasts and fidgets nervously) they were showing.

Like they couldn't have made the most of being in the comic book store. But no, they only like Manga!

That's when I made the decision. Back in Mississippi there was a comic book store that was a close walk to our hotel, twenty minutes, thirty at Max's horrificly slow shuffle. There was another store ten minutes (fifteen by Max's pacing) beyond that that I hadn't felt a need to visit. Well, suddenly I did. My passive-aggressive vindictive energy was now focused on marching his sexist ass to that store and back. Sure, he could have said no, but that would have meant he had to stay home alone all night and study. He was going to have to do that after I left Friday. So on Wednesday, Max agreed to go.

He whined the whole damned way there, and dragged his feet.

Then he humiliated me by reading the product off the shelves.

But it was worth it. There were no quarter bins, but there were dollar back-issues. From the seventies. I loaded up, and headed home with whiny guy in tow.

I did get more than vengeance out of the walk, though. One of the dollar-issues I found contained the three most awesome Power Girl Panels I have ever seen. You see, I'm a King Arthur buff. I think medieval clothes look cool. Swordfighting is fun to watch, and horseback-riding has a charm cars just can't replace. I'd never live in Arthurian times, though. Because I'm not just a casual movie-goer, or a TH White (short for White-wash) reader. I'm an obsessive researcher of Arthurian Lore -- particularly the grim and gritty pre-Malory legends. I have had periods where I've thrown all of the intense fervor currently directed into Green Lantern fandom into King Arthur Stories (especially the ones about Gawain, my favorite knight) or Sherlock Holmes pastiches. As such, I'm well-acquainted with the odious rules of chivalry, particularly the ones about ladies left alone. Much as I love these legends, there are days when I really wished Morgan Le Fey would just up and kick all of their asses for their rampant stupidity regarding women.

Which brings me to Power Girl.





Anyway, my point is that I really, really love Power Girl.

Oh, and that you should greet both genders of customers when they walk into the store, whether you think they'll buy or not because stereotypes are utter bullshit.

Recovering from Mom

It's been an interesting few days. Mom and Aunt Marilee were in town, and they are perfect stereotypical Middle-Aged American Tourists. They insisted upon running all over the city looking for sites to see and they just had to eat at Toby Keith's restauraunt. I still have three styrofoam containers full of food leftover from lunch yesterday. It could have been worse. Last time she was in town, Mom made me drive down to his ranch to take pictures of the gates. I wouldn't let her out of the car, for fear she'd jump the fence! I think I'm seeing the beginnings of a Elvis-level obsession here. Twenty years after his death, Mom will call me from Shady Pines to tell me how she saw him at the park with Bigfoot and Ghandi. *Shudder*
Anyway, they both left early this morning, and I had to wake up to see them off. So, I've had the entire day to waste as I see fit.

So, why am I only now posting on my Blog, at 11:30 this evening? I was extraordinarily busy today -- reading comics, reading blogs, reading message boards, etc...

Anyway, I had some time to wander, and peruse the archives, and I have some lovely new links for everyone.

Firstly, James Meeley of The Comics Asylum has a review of Flash #227 up that mirrors my own feelings fairly well. He's also a self-professed Kyle Rayner fan, and looking through his archives I can see he likes space-Kyle and laid out DC's coverage plan for Green Lantern as far back as February, which is pretty impressive, actually.

Then we have Bully, the little stuffed bull of Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun! I can't help but imagine a squeaky, child voice when I read his writing, but he's still worth checking out simply because of this post.

Somebody linked me to "Dr. Doom's Top Ten Euphemisms for Sex" (Posted October 9th, if you're willing to search the archives) on Progressive Ruin and it was hilarious, but I can't remember who or find the link again. Whoever it was, thank you.

And, because such a thing is a rare find: Snark Free Waters Yes, a non-snarky blog. Wow. They're doing a fun clone game right now.

On the message baords, I found a worthwhile interview -- Dave Gibbons gives a few behind-the-scenes hints about Rann-Thanagar War and a bit of teasing about the Green Lantern Corps ongoing.

Same site also has a very fun imaginary dialogue for anyone who has read the JLA: Tower of Babel storyline.

I also took some of the online quizzes everyone links to, but the answer codes won't instantly work, and I don't feel up to manipulating them so that they do.