Tired, but happy after seeing Melissa Etheridge.

Some Greyhound bus drivers are bananas, yo.

More tomorrow. But am alive. See you at Readercon!

Wow.

Well, it seems that the copies of Handless Maiden are now in Utah, and as of this morning 10 of them are being overnighted to me.

If they make it, we will have books on hand for the KGB reading after all.

Feeling: hot

Hey NY friends! I'm in the city now and just have returned to my friend's place after a morning readng poetry, talking about Westerns and drinking green tea over on Hour of the Wolf (hourwolf.com). I'm exhausted from my flight and from basically 36+ hours of non-stop rushing, so I think I need to sleep today. But I'm thinking of heading down to the bead shops in lower manhattan on Monday. Anyone up for the trip?

Or heck, anyone up for anything? My schedule's open at the moment, save of course for July 15 on.

Email me if you are: upstart (.) crow @ gmail (.) com

And thanks to everyone who heard the show today, and to everyone who called in. ... Everyone, that is, except the guy looking for "Debbie the Dominatrix." Dude, seriously. New hobby. You need it. Might I recommend bead work and/or automechanics?

Feeling: omg so tired

*sigh* Yeah. I just don't have the money for a flight to and a hotel in Calgary. Thanks, shitty US economy and weak dollar! Seriously, it's the plane fair that is sticking in my craw right now.

Anyway, I got the membership early so it's $125 USD, $25 less than the current going rate. Let me know here or via email if you would like it. I'd prefer payment via paypal, but a check or money order works, too.

Bleh. Next year, Jo. Next year. You can go to San Diego in 2009.

Feeling: money can bite me

Put on Trigun. Western-inspired anime about guns, desert planets, redemption, human resiliency, donuts and portable confessionals are my panacea.

Now if only I could hunt down all 2 billion volumes of the manga.

There are two fun ways to get it, aside from ordering over at Genre Mall or buying one from me at my NYC reading on the 11th. One is a chance at a free copy, and the other goes to benefit a good cause. Both also contain accessories: handwritten copies of a poem in the book or jewelry based on a poem in the book.

First, the contest. My blog at The Red Room has the information. Note: If you don't want to make an account to post there, you can also play by leaving a comment on my LJ.

Second, the auction at livelongnmarry, which contains a boatload of accessories for the book and which starts at a mere $10 USD!

Check them out, won't you? I'm going to feel really stupid if no one responds to either.

Feeling: thankful

So, it looks like I'm something of a real writer now. At least, real enough to share bandwidth with the likes of Amy Tan and possibly our next president.

http://www.redroom.com/author/joselle-vanderhooft

Just so everyone knows, I'm not leaving LJ any time soon. But I will also maintain my blog at Red Room. (sensaes since you asked, I think I'm gonna go this rout for my "proper" blog instead of somewhere else)

Check out my page, won't you? Right now I'm sitting at almost the bottom of blogs on the site as far as visits go, and the poor ickle pagey is feeling rather lonesome.

ETA: :O Thanks to the good Professor sensaes himself, it seems I now have an rss feed, for everyone who prefers to read my Red Room Blog that way.

:O
ETA 2: Holy crap! Forget Obama, I'm sharing bandwidth with Daniel Handler! He's the closest thing to a hero I have!
http://www.redroom.com/blog/joselle-vanderhooft/feed

Mhh. Yeah. I don't really wear sulking very well, even when depressed. Besides, I sat down yesterday afternoon and made a list of the things that were bothering me and which probably lead to my mini-melt down. The list was very long, indeed, but I think that I found ways that I can address nearly every thing on it. The thousands of dollars I've spent on therapy at work, kids. Thank god for CBT and interventions <3!

Anyway, as ye olde subjeckt boxxe dicit, there is an a ballot measure to clobber in California that, if not clobbered, could fuck up the state constitution by defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. So as a queer person (hah! like my icon didn't tell you that), I've done my part and auctioned off this pretty li'l necklace over on livelongnmarry. Go and bid, won't you? All the proceeds go to making sure that gay couples who marry in the state stay married, and those who wish to wed in the future will be able to do so.

Feeling: cautiously better

I'm not really someone who believes in hope. Still, I don't think despair is really helpful either when it comes to being objective about life. Listening to either is, to me, a bit like tangling with a raging lion or a smiling devil: usually a very bad idea.

That said, tell me something good that is happening on a global scale. It doesn't have to be big, or well-known, or even all that effective. I don't really see anything anymore but greed, irrational selfishness, destruction, waste, violence, inconsideration, cruelty, faithlessness, dishonesty, prejudice, and every other brand of wickedness. I'm pretty unconvinced I'll find anything, but it would be nice to be wrong.

When I'm tolerating a Barbara Streisand musical (and Hello, Dolly! at that), you know I'm in a big, bad funk.

Feeling: pretty damn close to the nadir
Hearing: have I said lately how much I hate musicals?

Yay Gem Faire today! Oodles of supplies for future projects, one of which will be a necklace inspired by Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. I am just now reading it for the first time.

I admit that I was a little... well, unenthusiastic about picking this one up. After all, Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea couldn't go more than a few paragraphs without digressions on the latest real (or imagined) submarine equipment. Not to say I didn't like the book (Captain Nemo is one of my favorite characters of all time, after all), just that it dragged like a dragging thing. Plus, I wanted to smack Conseil a few times. You know, just because.

But I am very, very impressed with Journey. It may not have dated as well as Verne's other books (an ocean underground? Wuck the Fhat?), but it's a damn good adventure. And as someone who appreciates geology and who works with it frequently - albeit on a minimal and purely non-scientific scale - the digressions into geology are fascinating - even when they're inaccurate or just plain fantastical. Plus, you know, I'm just a sucker for anything that involves wandering through caverns. A pity claustrophobia keeps me from being a spelunker.

And, you know. The 1959 movie version was just the awesomest thing evar for me as a kid, slurpasaurs and all.

I think I will attempt Around the World in 80 Days next. If only because the horrible Jackie Chan movie I caught on cable a few months ago (which I just had to watch because bad movies are sort of a Thing for me) made me curious.

Verne may just become my next literary crush yet. Even if his books have no women at all.

Feeling: depressed
Hearing: Dr. Who on TV - wtf?