| Twenty-first day of writing |
[21st.Nov.2009|11:22 pm] |
xposted to IJ and LJ
Word count: 137. |
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| Daily Happiness |
[21st.Nov.2009|02:02 am] |
1. Carla got her new computer today! My old laptop (which she's currently using) is really starting to die (looks like it needs a new hard drive), so instead of saving the new computer til Christmas, we decided she'd just start using it now.
2. Had a nice walk tonight. Four miles, which is longer than we've done in a while. She's been busy with school, I've been busy with work, there's yoga two nights a week interfering with our schedule, and then for the past couple weeks she's been sick. But tonight Alexander wanted something from the Apple Store, so we walked down to the Promenade and back. Stopped at El Pollo Loco on the way, yum.
3. Speaking of chicken, I was boiling a whole chicken earlier today for use in enchiladas and I kind of forgot about it on the stove and so it got cooked way longer than I meant it to...but that ended up being a good thing! The chicken was just falling off the bones! |
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| Twentieth day of writing |
[20th.Nov.2009|11:13 pm] |
xposted to IJ and LJ
Word count: 1,024. Yay! No end in sight, though. |
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| Television Without Pity--But Racism is Dandy! |
[20th.Nov.2009|06:49 pm] |
Okay, I should have known better. But I was enjoying the SGU thread on TWoP, with all of the lovely snark. And I appreciated the fact that most of the posters seemed to get why having sex in someone else's body was skeevy, and why it's problematic that the black guy in SGU is yet another Angry Black Man.
( Seriously--I should have known better. ) |
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| Supernatural 5x10, Modern Family 1x08 |
[20th.Nov.2009|01:19 pm] |
( Supernatural 5x10 )
I also watched Modern Family, but I don't really have anything to say there. There wasn't anything wrong with it, per se, but it was the weakest episode so far and I just wasn't finding much to get excited about. (Probably because the main storyline was about Phil and Claire and I just don't care about them.) |
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| Daily Happiness |
[20th.Nov.2009|02:59 am] |
1. Thanks to the people who recommended Sally's, I have hair dye! We walked down there last night and it turned out they had quite a large selection of non-natural colors by four or five different makers. I ended up gettin Manic Panic, so we'll see how that goes. Last night I did the bleaching (here's a pic of me all bleached) and later today I'll do the toner and then the dye itself.
2. We got our Walmart order in the mail today with this nice lined sweatshirt. It's so cozy! I really wish there was a Walmart near us because it's so nice to find clothes in large sizes that aren't horribly expensive. But if it's something we're pretty sure is going to fit okay, the website is a good option (I love the 97 cent shipping). |
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| Book 66: Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet by Sherri L. Smith |
[20th.Nov.2009|12:05 am] |
Title: Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet
Author: Sherri L. Smith
Number of Pages: 167 pages
Book Number/Goal: 66/75 for 2009
My Rating: 3/5
When a pipe bursts during Ana Shen's middle school graduation, flooding the field and cutting the ceremony short, it doesn't seem like things could get any worse. Then comes the announcement that the gym is flooded, too, and the graduation dance is cancelled. The dance was going to be Ana's big chance to tell Jamie Tabata she likes him before they go their separate ways for high school, but when her best friend Chelsea ends up inviting Jamie and his family over to Ana's for a graduation dinner, it looks like there might be hope after all. Assuming Ana can keep her grandmothers' rivalry from ruining everything.
I'd seen several reviews for this on ![[info - livejournal.com]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif) 50books_poc and wasn't really that interested, but after reading and loving Flygirl, I decided to give some of Smith's other books a try. This...is definitely no Flygirl. It's cute enough, and it's nice to see a biracial main character (or any character!) who isn't half white, but I wasn't wowed or anything.
I really think the book could have used a lot more editing. Most of it is fine, but it starts to fall apart at the ending, which seems really rushed, plus has a couple of chapters that don't really fit. At one point her grandfather starts telling a story and instead of just making it quick or summarising, we actually get a random flashback chapter in his POV about the event he's relating. We also get a few paragraphs in one of the grandmothers' POV towards the end, in a story that has otherwise been very tight third person with only one POV. It just seemed sloppy.
Also I was really excited about the story being set in LA at first, but it ended up being more frustrating than anything because the author gave all sorts of conflicting details. The kids have gone to school together since kindergarten, yet for some reason they all go to an elementary school in a totally different zone than where they live. (One person going to a far away public school might have some excuse, but not a whole class.) Then the high school mentioned is not the high school that middle school feeds into. Neither is it the high school she would actually be going to for where she's supposed to live. Which being less than a mile from the beach would be Santa Monica and she'd go to SaMoHi, not Uni (also everyone keeps saying University High and I'm sorry but I have never heard anyone call it that; it's Uni). Plus the author gives a freeway exit that they're supposed to live near, which is not less than a mile from the beach, either.
I really don't know what she was thinking. The jacket flap says she lives in LA, so it's not just that she didn't know what she was talking about. It's like she wanted to use real names of stuff, but didn't want to be specific, so she ended up taking bits from all over. If you don't want to be specific, then either be vague or make up names of school and stuff. But if you're going to be specific then you have to get your facts right!
Of course most of the people reading aren't going to know or care, but it really took a lot of fun out of it for me. |
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| Nineteenth day of writing |
[19th.Nov.2009|09:26 pm] |
xposted to IJ and LJ
- Word count: 673!
- I just finished reading My Life in France, by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme, and I loved it. Who doesn't love Julia? I grew up watching her on PBS, and to this day my mother does a terrific imitation of her dropping the turkey, picking it up, and continuing to cook it. She was a fascinating woman and oh my, what a life she led.
I also fell in love with her husband, Paul -- he reminded me a lot of my husband Webster, though Paul was in better health. The book is full of pictures that Paul took, and a few of them both; here is my favorite:
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| Daily Happiness |
[19th.Nov.2009|07:39 am] |
1. I got all my Jump translations done yesterday, instead of just One Piece (which usually shows up late Wednesday nights, but was already up when I woke up at noon). So today I can just relax, no set schedule. Woohoo!
2. I got more writing done!
3. I got Super Mario Wii in the mail. So hard to wait til Christmas!
4. Speaking of things I ordered from Amazon, last month or so my mom was talking about wanting some books she used to borrow from my aunt, but now my aunt lives in Oregon, so that's not so doable. Anyway, I told her about BookMooch and said I had a ton of points if she wanted me to mooch her something. So I got her a couple books and then she remembered another author she wanted to reread and said if I found anything I could just give them to her for Christmas. I found one, then decided to look on Amazon for the others and I finally remembered to do that last night and found four of the five I needed being sold used through Amazon fulfillment, which means just like any other Amazon purchase, if you order over $25, you get free shipping. The books were like $3.50-4 each, compared to the ones from other sellers that were just a few cents, but shipping for a book is $3.99 now, so since I got enough stuff (we had one other thing to order that we'd been saving until we had enough to get free shipping) and got free shipping, they ended up being cheaper (plus I get them altogether from one place rather than a bunch of different sellers). |
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| Eighteenth day of writing |
[18th.Nov.2009|08:28 pm] |
xposted to IJ and LJ
- Word count: 286. Plus I printed out what I have (17 pages) and am proofreading, and trying to figure out what's a story and what isn't. Poor Teyla.
- Stop being a wuss: How to make pie crusts the easy way. HAHAHAHA! Read the comments, too. I actually make a very good pie crust, and my recipe is not much different from this, though I don't use as much butter. Now I'm hungry for pie.
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| Ick. And also, Ow. |
[18th.Nov.2009|06:24 pm] |
So, ever since the gall bladder mess* I've had pretty serious acid reflux issues. Normally this isn't a problem since I'm on medication for it. However, even with the medication, if I eat too much before sleeping, I end up with this thing where acid backs up into my throat and since I'm asleep and not exactly noticing, I keep breathing. You know how sometimes, if you breathe at just the wrong moment while drinking a glass of water, you get water in your airway, which then freaks out because, oh hey, turns out you're not supposed to breathe liquid? Yeah, it's like that, only a) it's acid and b) you're sound asleep when it happens.
Obviously the answer is not to eat right before sleeping, but last night, I'd been up for over 24 hours and hadn't had food for something like 10 hours and I was getting shaky and weird. I woke up after breathing in acid three different times because, while I wanted to stay awake after the first time, I simply couldn't thanks to exhaustion and medication.
I feel like death warmed over and I have a massive migraine.
*short version: it wasn't stones so it took six weeks, during which I had three ER visits, to diagnose. On the plus side, the time between the diagnosis being made and my surgery was something like 10 hours. Also, Medicare doesn't suck. |
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| Book 65: Push by Sapphire |
[18th.Nov.2009|04:03 pm] |
Title: Push
Author: Sapphire
Number of Pages: 192 pages
Book Number/Goal: 65/75 for 2009
My Rating: 4.5/5
Precious is sixteen, illiterate, and pregnant with her second child by her own father. But when she gets kicked out of junior high and starts attending an alternative school, her life finally starts to turn around.
This is written in an experimental style, very stream-of-consciousness, with lots of dialect to mimic the way precious talks. Some parts are even written as if Precious had written them herself, complete with spelling errors, which gradually improve over the course of the book. I didn't find that a barrier at all, though. It was really easy to read (I zipped through it in two sittings). The last fifty pages or so of the book are essays and poems written by Precious and the other girls in her class.
Pretty much everything bad you could imagine happening has happened to Precious and it sometimes seems like overkill, but overall I really enjoyed the book. And I'm glad the ending was optimistic but realistic and not all magically wonderful.
I'm definitely interested in seeing the movie, though probably not til it's out on DVD. I was looking at the cast, though, and um...wtf? The teacher is described as dark with dreads, yet somehow in the movie she is really lightskinned and has wavy hair. It's like they made her as close to a Nice White Lady as possible without actually casting a white actress. D:
(This is something else I would totally have nominated for yuletide! Damn it! I'd especially love fic about Jermaine.) |
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| plain yogurt |
[18th.Nov.2009|12:58 pm] |
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with honey and banana. |
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| Daily Happiness |
[18th.Nov.2009|07:13 am] |
1. I was really good yesterday about doing a little bit of each thing on my to-do list when it came to large projects that couldn't be done in one sitting. I so often feel like I have to do a huge chunk and then I stress out about not having time for it and it makes me avoidant and then I don't get anything done on it. I'm trying to train myself to do smaller chunks. A page each day will get done eventually, but if I never have the time to do the whole thing, it will never get done and then I'll hit a deadline or be super behind and argh. More stress.
2. Speaking of which, I got some writing done! I find it really hard to get anything written when there's no deadline these days, because it always seems to be lowest priority on my to-do list, but I actually made myself write and got about 300 words done. It's not much, especially compared to NaNo folks who are writing like 3000 words a day or something, but for me it's a lot, and it's progress.
3. I finally got like six hours sleep yesterday evening. For some reason when I have insomnia, evening seems to be the best time for me to sleep. Unfortunately it's my least favorite time to sleep, and I don't like to get on that schedule, especially now with yoga on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6.30-8, because that means I'm tired during class or have to be woken up for class. I'm feeling tired right now, though, so I'm hoping I can get some sleep this morning.
4. Yesterday I told my mom I had some cash for her for the rent and when she came over she asked if I needed anything at Costco first, so I was able to have her get toilet paper and laundry detergent and bread, yay. I wish I had known earlier, though, as I went to the little market nearby and got a gallon of milk for $5, when I could have gotten two for the same price at Costco. :-/
5. I got an email from Amazon saying because I ordered Super Mario, I now had a $10 credit for any video game! So I'll see what I get for Christmas in terms of Lego games and whichever one I don't get, I'll buy that from Amazon. (The credit is good til the end of January.) |
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| Seventeeth day of writing |
[17th.Nov.2009|09:14 pm] |
xposted to IJ and LJ
Word count: 202. |
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| take a good hard look! |
[17th.Nov.2009|09:01 pm] |
And then maybe, open your wallets?
NSFW or other places where "motherfucking" is inappropriate.
Thanks to Salixbabylon for the link! |
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| I know...I know... |
[17th.Nov.2009|02:33 pm] |
I'm spammy today, but sometimes I just need to mention how much I love the junior Senator from the great state of California.
Hint: A lot. |
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| I know it's an old one.... |
[17th.Nov.2009|12:57 pm] |
But it was linked from one of today's pics and I think it's hilarious. I also haven't slept all night so I think a lot of things are hilarious.
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| Daily Happiness |
[17th.Nov.2009|07:38 am] |
1. I think I'm pretty much over my cold, and I have to say, that's got to be the "best" cold I've ever had. I never did get more than a little congested.
2. We went ahead and bought Carla's new computer yesterday. Still going to save it for Christmas, but I wanted to make sure Amazon didn't suddenly run out or take forever shipping. We ordered from Amazon instead of the Apple Store because it was $20 cheaper, plus no tax (and tax on an $800 computer is around $80 so that's a big savings!).
3. We might be going karaoke this weekend! I hope they have the new Lady Gaga song. |
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| Book 64: Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner |
[17th.Nov.2009|05:57 am] |
Title: Bones of Faerie
Author: Janni Lee Simner
Number of Pages: 247 pages
Book Number/Goal: 64/75 for 2009
My Rating: 5/5
Before Liza was born there was a war, and humans were attacked by the faerie, magical creatures no one had known existed. Now the faerie are gone, but the world is changed. Animals and plants have been infected with magic and now hunt humans. Children are being born with magic powers, including Liza's little sister. When her father leaves the baby out in the night for wild animals to devour, it sets in motion a chain of events that will cause Liza to question everything she's been told about magic and the faerie.
This was really awesome. I picked it up a while ago because it sounded interesting, but by the time I read it, all I remembered was the bit about the baby being left out to die, so I had no idea this was a post-apocalyptic Earth and not just a random fantasy world. I love the idea of a magic apocalypse and this is really well done. It's a fast read and really hard to put down.
I wish we'd learned more of the backstory about the war, but maybe she'll write about that in future books. There's apparently a sequel planned for 2011. There's also a short story set in the same universe, though it kind of retreads a lot of the same ground as the novel, just with different characters in a different setting. (I wonder if perhaps it was the basis for the novel.)
Anyway, like so much fantasy, this book is thoughtlessly white. Apparently no people of color survived the apocalypse. :p But that's pretty much my only complaint. This was very cool.
I wish I'd read this before yuletide nominations. And that, you know, I'd known I could participate so I could actually nominate stuff, because this has so much room to explore. She's created such a neat world, but we only get hints about the war and what happened in the years since, both of which are things that interest me more than Liza's story itself. |
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irritated
