It's silly, but what the hell. I don't do this enough anyway.

MEME:

Reply to this message and I will tell you a reason why I like you. (Response time may vary depending on schoolwork.)

ganked from eac

Why yes, I'm not sleeping well lately. Why do you ask?

( That first-sentence-of-the-month meme )

Apparently I haven't travelled enough. Metro systems I have known:

Some days are bright and sunny and glorious and leave you thinking of possibility. Others are bright and sunny because the universe has a highly overdeveloped sense of irony. Today was the Alanis day. I can only hope tomorrow will be better.

uniquecrash5 set me these questions months ago. I'm a little slow, Crash. Sorry about that.

( Five interview questions, you know the drill )

As always, if you'd like to be interviewed, feel free to ask in comments.

Behold me as I follow, sheeplike, the latest meme:

( States I've visited )

Just for laughs, I tried the same quiz under the following rule: I must have spent at least 72 hours in the state. Drive-throughs and one-day-stops don't count.

( States I've spent time in )

wings2speak points out that we'll probably knock off Alaska in the not-too-distant future.

ETA: And hell, just for the sake of completeness, here's everywhere I've ever lived:

( Where I've Lived )

And now, off to celebrate that country we call home.

This has possibilities.

You Belong in Amsterdam

A little old fashioned, a little modern - you're the best of both worlds. And so is Amsterdam. Whether you want to be a squatter graffiti artist or a great novelist, Amsterdam has all that you want in Europe (in one small city).

I knew it was going to be an odd day when a song bird landed near my window and began chirping a Rimsky-Korsakov melody.

I listened to a conference call with my co-workers, and it was all nasal whining and gutteral moans, like a chorus of whale calls.

The sky was chiming gently, a series of tiny bells blowing in the wind.

My orange juice tasted of blue, with just a hint of purple for spice.

Somewhere, a child laughed. It might have been in my head.

---

It's the second annual rabbit hole day. Look around. See the unexpected...

By long family tradition, New Year's Day is the day you take down all the holiday decorations. So, we're having a mostly lazy day punctuated by occasional fits of industry. bubblesutonium has been more busy than I have since she's also trying to do some laundry and get started on her schoolwork.

We have a short week ahead of us, but Bubbles and I are slowly getting back into our normal lives. Both of us are heading back to work, though Bubbles gets one more week before she must plunge back into the classroom grind.

My six-week vacation is coming to a close, so I'm taking stock a bit. On the minus side, I'm even more out of shape than I was when I started, and I didn't get as much done on my book project as I'd hoped. On the plus side, I'm caught up on sleep for the first time in about five years, I'm much more relaxed, and I've figured out my career path for the next few years. I have to call it a success.

Meanwhile, courtesy of docbrite, have a meme:

( The Last Things of 2005 )

Yes, I'm planning to write a real LJ post soon. But zauditu asked good questions, so I'll do one more interview iteration before retiring the meme for awhile:

( 1) What is one of your most cherished memories? )

( 2) What do you find so compelling about the Round Robin project? )

( 3) You have to move to a city where you know no one, and where you will be disconnected from all communication from your family, friends and acquaintances for at least five years. You have sufficient funds to get yourself started, but you will have to work. Where do you go, what do you do, and would you take advantage of the chance to try to change something about yourself? What would you miss most? )

( 4) Five people for dinner(individually or as a group). Living still. Who do you invite? Why? )

( 5) A genie arises out of your coffee cup one morning and says that she will grant you the ability to become prodigiously good at one thing - what do you ask of her? )

Questions courtesy of spoomeister...

( 1. Your first piece of cyberware will be...? )

( 2. Why don't you like cops? )

( 3. A bizarre WA State initiative passes, and you're allowed to ONLY have a license for either a motorcycle OR a car, but not both. For the rest of your life. Pick one. )

( 4. What kind of music should you, by all rights, really like but just can't? )

( 5. You swap bodies with your dog for a day. Each of you retains your respective intelligence and personality. Briefly describe your day. )

I'm still having too much fun with this. Courtesy mamishka. If I can figure out how to let people anonymously submit questions, I will. Or you can just leave questions in comments. Or ask me for some questions, if you haven't already done so.

( 1. Recount for me one of your favorite or most interesting dreams. )

( 2. When did you first meet bubblesutonium, when did you fall in love, and what is one (or some) of the things about her that you most love and cherish? )

( 3. You're working on editing your ancestor's journals. If you were going to write a book of your own, what kind of book would you like to write? )

( 4. If you had to lose one of your senses (taste, touch, sight, hearing), which one would you be willing to sacrifice and why? )

( 5. What advantages, if any, do you feel that being born a man has afforded you in your life? If you could try out being a woman for a year, would you do so? If yes, what would you like/hope to get out of the experience? )

Five interesting questions courtesy of tafkar. If you want me to interview you, just ask in comments.

1. I've read some of your writing. What are the ways in which you feel your writing has transformed over the years?

In middle school, I wanted to write like Robert Heinlein or Isaac Asimov. In high school, I wanted to write like Ernest Hemingway. In college, I learned how to use adjectives from the late Andrew Salkey and how to use truth from the insufferable Michael Lesy. These days I probably write a bit like I talk, and a bit like Guy Gavriel Kay, John "Mike" Ford, Robert Penn Warren, and a bunch of people who only use two names.

I like to think I know a bit more about how people think and behave these days, which is probably the most major difference. I also find that writing for different forms shapes your style. I write dialog much differently now that I've been doing some scriptwriting.

2. Hollywood wants you to write! A sitcom. Starring Ted Danson and Tara Reid. What's your clever concept, or do you just run screaming back to Seattle?

Erg. Well, it would have to be one helluva pay check, but here are the three pitches:

a. "Trophy Wife." Ted Danson and Tara Reid play newlyweds; he's a rich Republican widower and she's a physical trainer he met at the workout club.

b. "Beverly Hillbillies" meets "90210": Ted Danson plays a Midwest divorcee, a former electrician, who's trying to reconcile with his wife, a famous actress now in late middle age (think Susan Sarandon or Goldie Hawn). Tara Reid plays their daughter.

c. Tara Reid, New York "Sex in the City" style socialite, takes over her father's 5th Avenue penthouse after his untimely demise. Her father, a drug lawyer, was killed by an unhappy client. Unfortunately his ghost is still hanging around the place, played by Ted Danson.

[edit: It suddenly occurs to me that this is a riff on an old and very bad Bill Cosby movie called Ghost Dad. Put it this way: my version would be a LOT more edgy, starting with the fact that Ted Danson's character is a bonafide asshole.]

3. You've been married for a lot longer than I have. How do you feel your marriage has changed over the years, and has it evolved in any ways you didn't foresee?

When bubblesutonium and I started dating, her main qualification for me, apart from looks and mind, was her gentle spirit: I *knew* she'd never deliberately hurt me.

We've had to find other things to like in each other, particularly as we've grown and changed. Bubbles is much more obsessive about certain things, including her legal work and pets, than she used to be. I'm much more driven to succeed at whatever I'm working on at the moment. It's a challenge to grow as people separately and together, but it keeps us from getting bored with each other.

4. You get one, and only one, superpower. What superpower would you want, and would you use it for good or evil?

I want Superman's strongest power. No, not the one you're thinking of. Superman *always* knows right from wrong, knows what to do in any situation. The world would be easier to bear if the path was always so clear.

5. You travel a lot, but I'm never sure if you like it. If you were given the opportunity to travel for a year - everything would be paid for, you could live in a high degree of luxury, you could even take your wife and pets - with the caveat that you would not be allowed to set foot in Washington State for the entire year, would you take it? And if so, where would you go? Would you stay in one city, or travel around the world?

I love to travel, with two caveats:

1. I find business travel to be exhausting and soul-destroying, and I avoid it as much as possible.

2. I love arriving places, but the actual getting-from-here-to-there part isn't always a lot of fun.

Were I offered the deal you suggest, I'd take it in a hot second. I'd probably pick a few cities to use as 'home bases' for a few months at a time - Boston, London, Sydney, maybe Rio or Santiago. And it doesn't have to be luxury accommodations, although don't get me wrong, I'll take them when I can find them.

Of course, I'm occasionally tempted by the notion of convincing someone to sponsor me to write a book about traveling the same road as the two Annas in the Round Robin. Spain, Algeria, Greece, Istanbul, Israel, Egypt, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, France, England....

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artist, and the song in your Livejournal along with your seven songs.

In no particular order:

Juno Reactor, "Masters of the Universe"
System of a Down, "Cigaro"
Caroline Lavalle, "Dream of Picasso"
Turing Machine, "Synchronicity III"
Killing Joke, "Pandemonium"
Pink Floyd, "When You're In"
Tori Amos, "Parasol"

Feel free to post your own list if the spirit so moves you.

And now, some actual work.

If anyone is interested, here's the final couple of answers to the books meme:

1. He had many names, but one nature, and this unique nature made him subject to certain laws not binding upon ordinary persons. In compensatory fashion, he was also free from certain other laws more commonly in force.

Still, there was nothing to choose as regards rigidity between his particular set of laws and those others. And one rule by which he had very strictly to abide was that at set seasons he should overlook that portion of the All which had been allotted to him as his individual responsibility.

John Brunner, The Compleat Traveller in Black. Calling it a fantasy is a bit like calling The Lord of the Rings a book about a bunch of short heroes and a guy who becomes a king. The description is true enough, but doesn't quite cover the subject.

3. "Admiral's compliments, and you're to come to his office right away," Midshipman Staley announced.

Commander Roderick Blaine looked frantically around the bridge, where his officers were directing repairs with low and urgent voices, surgeons assisting at a difficult operation.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Mote in God's Eye. One of the best first-contact novels in the history of SF.

4. The Triumph TR3 was running sweet tonight; Danny Holman had been fiddling with it for a week straight, but he'd tinkered with it near nonstop for the eight months he'd owned it without any really definite results. But now he was doing--well, nearly sixty--through the September night, all alone on I-80, a wire-wheeled golden bat out of hell.

John M. Ford, The Last Hot Time. An urban fantasy of sorts, with quite a bit going on beneath the surface. A few years after the gates to Faerie open, Danny Holman packs his stuff in his car and heads for Chicago, where he falls in with a gangster/magelord called Patrise. The novel owes something to the "Borderlands" stories but is much more subtle and complex.

From my post yesterday, there were only four first lines that people didn't recognize and identify the relevant book. To be fair, I thought I'd add some more words to each quote, just to see if anyone's memory was jogged. I'll post the answers tomorrow.


1. He had many names, but one nature, and this unique nature made him subject to certain laws not binding upon ordinary persons. In compensatory fashion, he was also free from certain other laws more commonly in force.

Still, there was nothing to choose as regards rigidity between his particular set of laws and those others. And one rule by which he had very strictly to abide was that at set seasons he should overlook that portion of the All which had been allotted to him as his individual responsibility.

2. South of base camp, a daisy-clipper skimmed through the flashwood, buffeting the undergrowth into a brilliant display of light. Its beauty was lost on swift-Kalat twis Kalakat. The dazzle was merely one more distraction that might prevent him from finding some trace of Oloitokitok, the survey team's physicist--he had been missing for two days now. (courtesy rollick: Hellspark, by Janet Kagan)

3. "Admiral's compliments, and you're to come to his office right away," Midshipman Staley announced.

Commander Roderick Blaine looked frantically around the bridge, where his officers were directing repairs with low and urgent voices, surgeons assisting at a difficult operation.

4. The Triumph TR3 was running sweet tonight; Danny Holman had been fiddling with it for a week straight, but he'd tinkered with it near nonstop for the eight months he'd owned it without any really definite results. But now he was doing--well, nearly sixty--through the September night, all alone on I-80, a wire-wheeled golden bat out of hell.

Danny saw a lighted truck stop about eighty miles into Illinois. He was pretty sure he could get to Chicago on the gas he had, but the truck stop was the first place he'd seen open since dark. No sense getting caught short. Not after what it had taken to get this far.

Meme stolen from rollick, because it's too damn fun:

Post the first sentence of ten favorite books, and see if your Friends can figure out what those books are. (If no one's guessed within 24 hours, I'll try the next sentence, which is in some cases much more revealing.)

The further rules: all books are fiction, mostly fantasy or SF, and all prose. (If you know my book collection, that means I've just eliminated about 75% of it.) Books are not listed in any particular order. J.R.R. Tolkien's works are not included, even though they qualify.

1. It is the colour of a bleached skull, his flesh; and the long hair which flows below his shoulders is milk-white. (courtesy morganminstrel: Elric of Melnibone, by Michael Moorcock)

2. I see in Lunaya Pravda that Luna City Council has passed on first reading a bill to examine, license, inspect -- and tax -- public food vendors operating inside municipal pressure. (courtesy nireena: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein)

3. Both moons were high, dimming the light of all but the brightest stars. (courtesy zauditu: Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay)

4. He had many names, but one nature, and this unique nature made him subject to certain laws not binding upon ordinary persons.

6. The big groundcar jerked to a stop centimeters from the vehicle ahead of it, and Armsman Pym, driving, swore under his breath. (courtesy bubblesutonium: A Civil Campaign, by Lois McMaster Bujold)

7. South of base camp, a daisy-clipper skimmed through the flashwood, buffeting the undergrowth into a brilliant display of light.

8. After the war was over, they bound him under the Mountain. (courtesy wrog: The Summer Tree, by Guy Gavriel Kay)

9. "Admiral's compliments, and you're to come to his office right away," Midshipman Staley announced.

10. The Triumph TR3 was running sweet tonight; Danny Holman had been fiddling with it for a week straight, but he'd tinkered with it near nonstop for the eight months he'd owned it without any really definite results.


And, like rollick, I have a couple that are just too damn easy:

Bonus #1: Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. (courtesy morganminstrel: The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle)

Bonus #2: Griffin Moss - it's good to get in touch with you at last. (courtesy zauditu and wiredhound: Griffin and Sabine, by Nick Bantock)

Bonus #3: In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul. (courtesy nireena: Dune, by Frank Herbert)

tafkar posted the "if you could say anything to anyone right now anonymously, what would it be?" meme. I'm stealing, condensing and reposting some of the responses that made me cringe in self-recognition or embarrassment. Put together, I thought these made some of the best generic advice I'd seen in a long, long time:

1. Grow up.
2. Quit whining. Do something about it.
3. Lots of people out there have your exact same problems but are living fulfilling lives anyway.
4. Decide right now whether you want to be your parents -- or not.
5. The only thing "wrong" with you is your lack of confidence about how cool you are.
6. You're not a drama queen, but you jump to conclusions and give up in despair just like one. Learn to take things slow.
7. We used to spend some fun time together, but haven't in a long time. Did I become too uncool for you?
8. You're one of the smartest people I know and still so hard on yourself. What would it take for you to feel better?
9. I wish I had a house big enough to take you in until you got your feet under you.
10. That nagging feeling and extreme unhappiness? That's your subconscious trying to get you to listen to what you've already decided to do. The longer you don't listen, the worse your life is going to get. Trust in yourself and go where the universe takes you.
11. You'd have better willpower if you exercised it once in a while.
12. It's tough to lose weight unless you exercise or work on self-control. Or both.
13. A year and a half is enough, please -- don't you think it's about time?
14. Procrastinating is just costing you money and braincells. Quit it already.
15. I'll do everything I can for you, but it's probably not enough, and I'm already more sorry than you'll ever know. Please forgive me someday?

Per the suggestion of eac, I've been goofing around with this meme about places I've lived.

The description of Washington is spot-on. Ditto Arizona and Massachusetts. Pennsylvania is a little wonky. I think they're confusing Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, which are utterly separate cultures that hate each other, and central PA, aka Pennsyltucky and Extreme Northern Alabama. Wisconsin is okay, but they missed some obvious ones, like "You think air pollution is when you can't smell the hops from the brewery."

The sad part is that I've actually lived in all of those places long enough to get the jokes.

Courtesy of several people on my friends list, from this survey:

You are an SRCL--Sober Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you an Ayn Rand ideal. Taggart? Roark? Galt? You are all of these. You were born to lead. You may not be particularly exciting, but you have a strange charisma--born of intellect and personal drive--that people begin to notice when they have been around you a while. You don't like to compromise, but you recognize when you have to.

You care absolutely nothing what other people think, and this somehow attracts people to you. Treat them well, use them wisely, and ascend to your rightful rank.

---

If I took this at home instead of work, I wonder if I'd get a completely different answer.

Back to writing specs now.