Wednesday, May 29, 2002
You know what?
I don't like nickels.
Now dimes, I like. They're so little and thin and unassuming, and I guess it kind of works on the same part of my brain that likes collectible knickknacks, the part of my brain that sees something itsy-bitsy and mostly useless and goes ooh! how cute! and next thing you know I own it. And then it sits on my bookshelves and gathers dust until I give it to the Goodwill, or in this case, my piggy bank. Plus you can hold a whole whopping lot of dimes in one hand, and it feels kind of neat to do that, and if you hit someone it'll really hurt and dimes will go spilling everywhere and that makes a neat noise. Unless you do it on carpet and I don't recommend that.
And I like quarters. God, I love quarters. They're just the right size and weight to feel like real money and they thunk into your palm with a nice heft; plus I remember when arcade games used to cost a quarter, so having a quarter reminds me of that, and then I reminisce to the kids around me about how video games only used to cost a quarter to play and they look at me all wide-eyed and says 'wow, you mean you could buy a game CD for a quarter?' and then I say 'no, not a console, at the arcade!' and they look at me all wide-eyed again and say 'arcade? what... oh! where we play DDR!' and then I have to beat them for disrespecting my middle-class whitebread mid-80s upbringing like that. So, uh, you know, gratuitous child-beating for the price of a quarter, and who doesn't want that?
Now, I can take or leave pennies. The really shiny ones are nice; sometimes I get a penny from a year I haven't seen a penny from before, and I like that. And sometimes I get a wheat penny, which I will then scrupulously save in a pile with my other four thousand wheat pennies, because look! different money! that's so cool! But old non-shiny pennies kind of bore me. Although I'll still pick them up if I see them on the ground and they're lying face-up, because I'm just that kind of superstitious hobag I figure why bother to test the ancient superstitions to see if they're false, especially when succumbing means I'll have a penny? Mmm, a penny. Okay, so maybe I like pennies.
I don't ever want to spend my shiny gold Sacajawea dollars. I just want to curl up on the couch with them and gaze at their shininess and marvel at the fact that they're worth a whole dollar. Or they would be, if I ever spent them.
But nickels? No. Too fat, with that obnoxious shiny rim to remind you how fat they are. At least the penny's shiny rim is thin. But no, nickels have to flaunt their width, and I'm not down with that. Plus they're far too big for their worth. Why couldn't they be dime-sized but, I don't know, square? Or polygonal! I'd like that.
Nickels just don't sit right with me. I'm sorry. But I found a buffalo-head nickel in my change once, and I like that one. Because look! different money! that's so cool! even if it is a nickel!
So, here's the deal. If you're ever hanging around with me in person -- and you might be doing so right now, I mean, you don't know what I look like, really -- you can come up to me and ask if I have a nickel, and if I do, you can give me a penny and I'll give you my nickel.
Really.
Luv,
Mooncalf
P.S. I also have about a dollar in Canadian change. It has queens and animals on it. I like this. Because look! different money! that's so cool! moosey moosey moosey beeeeeeaver!
P.P.S. I didn't mean 'moosey beaver' like that, you sicko. Give me back my nickel.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 06:33 AM EST
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Friday, May 24, 2002
Okay, I think it's time to be very, very, very self-centered again, and blog at some length about one of my own fanfics and my own reaction to it. Belatedly. The fic in question is the Vagrant Story AU Prequel Shounen Ai Screenplay That Ate My Brain, Go Wyverns. I do not think I'll be spoiling Vagrant Story in here, although I might spoil Go Wyverns. Warnings.
This fanfic frightens me badly. It always did.
It's also one of the two best things I've ever written. Possibly the best, although the other contender for the title is so different that there's no real way to compare the two things. (Said other contender would have to be 'Power Is'. Fuckin' hell, that fic scares me too.)
Let me tell you how it happened. When I started the fic, I thought -- I really thought -- that it was going to be just another of those five-to-ten-page parody fics that I used to do all the time (and have sadly not been inspired to do lately. Have not, in fact, really been inspired to do since Go Wyverns!). I mean, come on. The Vagrant Story characters in a 1980s-era Texas high school. How stupid is that? Surely nothing serious could come of such an idea!
So I sat down and wrote the first page. The first page is just a bunch of stuff in parentheses, putting all the characters in place and describing what they looked like and what they were wearing. Big nostalgia trip. Half of them are wearing things that I personally wore in high school.
And I found myself going back and putting in little extra fangirlish touches to each description. It was no big deal to envision them in their classroom, sitting in their various places, like little icons in my mind; I could see the jewelry, I could see the clothing, I could see the little touches. That's no big deal. I can do that with most of my fic; most of my writing consists of describing the little pictures in my head.
And I got to the end of the descriptions, to the end of that one single page. And I sat there for a moment, re-reading them, and thinking, yeah, I like that. That's good. Now, I have very powerful memories of high school, good and bad alike. Some things you cannot forget. And a lot of them were there, sitting in that classroom: I had a theater geek (big memories) and a new kid (older memories) and some real assholes (oh, the memories) and some fakey Texas 'popular kids' (oh god the memories) and now let's make them interact.
And just like that, right then and there, the rest of the 120-some-odd-page plot fell out of the sky and exploded into my head, complete and entire.
It felt like a silent explosion inside my head. It sounded like me choking on Dr Pepper. I know my vision went black and swimmy for a moment. Every single detail was in place, every location was visible in my mind. I knew everything that was going to happen, I knew how it was going to end, I knew... I knew it all. At once. It was the single most frightening thing that's ever happened to me, and god I hope it happens again.
Boy. Whoever said 'write what you know' wasn't such a dumbass after all, I guess.
'Autobiographical' is not a good word to describe the fic, because I am female, and furthermore never had a same-sex relationship in that suburban Texas high school, and further yet am not a Vagrant Story character; but so much about the fic was personal and angry and... well... true, somehow. So much of that stuff sort of happened to me (or is, at least, set in surroundings so eerily evilly familiar to my memories) that I'm still half-convinced that the damn fic really happened. Go Wyverns is my own personal fugue state, a clearly remembered nightmare, and that's all it is: dream turned nightmare. Nightmares seem so real when you're in the middle of having them, don't they?
But we all know I'm evil and insane, right? Right.
The next two weeks consisted almost entirely of getting the idea out of my head and into my word processor before any of that screaming reverberating idea could fade and vanish. It'd been a long time since I worked that flat-out hard. Seldom have I written so fast.
Every day I would read back over what I had written so far and, amazed, say to myself, look. Look. You're getting it down. You're doing it. You're taking what's in your mind and putting it to paper and it's working. It's working.
And, you know, all that aside, some of it really doesn't work. I thoroughly neglected some of my favorite characters (that would be Tieger and Neesa), I radically reinvented the personalities of a couple of others in order to mash them into the fic (that would be poor Duane and Grissom), all of the adult characters were cardboard, more or less.
But, at the same time, somehow in the back of my mind they do work, if you consider Go Wyverns to be a prequel to Vagrant Story. Ten years earlier, or something. Look at the ending. Look who's standing with who around that bonfire. Now fast-forward all those kids ten years... it works for me, anyway. ... evil and insane. Keep reminding yourself of that. Evil and insane.
The fic all makes sense if you're me, and makes less sense the farther away you get from me and from 1980s-era Texas high schools. I guess that in the grand scheme of things, that's the best you can hope for from a piece of writing, that it all work for you and continue to work as best it can for as long as it can, spreading out and losing potency like ripples in a pond the farther it goes.
... well, that was pretentious as hell, wasn't it? Ugh. Sorry. Too much caffeine.
And the parts with the main players, god, those... are all so real, at least to me. I swear I know those people. I swear that's how we talked, back then. I like writing dialogue; I have a knack for it, I guess. That's why I think Go Wyverns works better as a screenplay than as anything else. Anyway.
I'm starting to lose my point here. Just one more note: I have many favorite scenes from Go Wyverns, but the one that stands out, in my mind, is Callo dropping in on Duane and Grissom in Part Four and asking for a favor. That vicious little self-serving scene, right there, sums up my experiences with the popular crowd in high school more aptly than anything else I could say.
It still scares me, Go Wyverns does. But at the same time, I'm very proud of it. Maybe because it scares me so very badly.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 01:17 AM EST
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Wednesday, May 22, 2002
ALMOST COMPLETELY SPOILER-FREE ASSESSMENT OF EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES
1. Seen that done before -- and better -- in The Fifth Element.
Seen that done before -- and much better -- in Romeo and Juliet.
Seen that done before -- and better -- in Episode Freaking I.
2. Despite the fact that we are all Americans here, George, more does not necessarily equal better.
3. ... well! That was unnecessarily pastoral.
4. ... was that supposed to be dialogue?
5. Someone's been watching too many of those Warner Brothers cartoons that involve sleepwalkers or babies being set loose on construction sites.
6. Mmm, pretty.
7. Mmm, stupid.
8. It's about time you picked up a lightsaber.
9. You, too.
10. Mmm, Christopher Lee.
11. Mmm, unnecessary special effects.
12. The Imperial March still taps directly into my nervous system and makes me sit up straight. Mmmmmmmmm.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 10:10 PM EST
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Sunday, May 19, 2002
Oh, this is just not fair.
So Boyfriend and I were in line to get into the theater for Episode II. There were about... fifteen people in front of us. The theater is a big one. And you know, man, Ep. II, opening weekend.
And about thirty minutes before the movie starts, my guts suddenly get my attention by knotting up in the worst way and say, "Look, honey, you've got maybe fifteen minutes to get home before I do something we'll both regret an awful lot. And then you'll have to spend the next six hours within thirty seconds' run of the toilet. Okay? Okay."
I made Boyfriend stay and see the movie. I mean, we'd already bought our tickets and everything. And I managed to drive myself home, cramps and all, without doing anything horrible to the car.
So, anyway, half an hour later. I'm feeling a little better now, but I'm still grouchily sick and getting occasionally pummeled by internal fists. Goddammit, I'm missing Ep. II for this?
(Oh, and Anime North isn't happening for me. Post-9/11 they've tightened the borders a lot and neither of us have easy access to our passports.)
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 06:34 PM EST
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Saturday, May 18, 2002
1. So we were in a local pet store (I got bitten by a hamster, ow) and they had a large open tank full of bunnies. So I happily went over and picked one bunny up -- it was a really neat bunny, all white with pretty black markings around its eyes that looked like kohl eyeliner, and big black eyes.
And I was petting this bunny (it was really quite friendly) when my attention was caught by a very friendly little boy, about nine years old, who was goggling at the bunnies and talking to anyone who would listen about how neat they are. And then he noticed the bunny I was holding.
Well! His eyes got all wide and round and he squeaked about how cool the bunny was and how neat it was that it didn't have red eyes like your normal albino bunny, and then he looked at me all wide-eyed and earnestly told me, "It's a NIGHTMARE MUTANT ZOMBIE BUNNY!"
... you know, when the kid's right, the kid's right...
2. And on the way home, we have to drive past a big ugly billboard advertising a strip club, with a really huge sultry picture of an overly-made-up big-haired woman on it. And one of the local troublemakers had gone out and peppered the billboard with what I can only assume were water balloons filled with white paint; the poor woman was splattered with splashes and long runnels of white liquid.
How suggestive! How... appropriate!
Everyone! Sing ZZ Top with me! "Pearl necklace! She wants... a pearl necklace!"
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 09:28 PM EST
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Well! Here in central Ohio, I live about five-six hours' drive from Toronto. And so I'd always had the idea in the back of my mind that, given time, money, and inclination, I might just drive up to Toronto on the spur of the moment to attend a day or so of Anime North.
And, you know, last night I suddenly jerked my head up and said, "Oh! Shit! Anime North is next weekend!"
So it was time to bring the idea forward from the back of my mind.
When I brought the subject up with Boyfriend, we sat down and decided that... we could maybe do it, depending on how we felt next weekend.
So!
The upshot of all this is that there is currently about a fifty-percent chance that I will suddenly and without warning show up at Anime North. What we'll probably do, if we end up going, is drive in on Saturday (arriving late in the afternoon) and actually attend the con only on Sunday.
More bulletins as events warrant. If we do end up driving in, we'll be at loose ends on Saturday night; suggestions/get-togethers would probably be welcome. Blah. We'll see.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 02:39 AM EST
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Friday, May 17, 2002
You know, I was sitting here in front of my computer pondering whether I should blog something, and you know what? If I can summarize every fanfic ever written, and I can do the same to smut, I can by god write Generic Mooncalf Noises Entries, too! How meta can she go, ladies and gents?!
Today, the first kind: The Blogrant!
BLOGRANT:
WARNING: amusing warning of some sort.
Statement statement statement. Snide aside, pun, light dusting of sarcasm.
Statement statement, qualifying statement, another qualifying statement, mealy-mouthed attempt to go middle-of-the-road. Reminder that the following is my own personal opinion. Reminder that what I think shouldn't mean anything to you. Statement. Rhetorical question?
Answer to rhetorical question. Statement of personal position. Personal anecdote with some bearing on the situation. Complete obliteration of middle-of-the-road stance. First use of exclamation point! Another exclamation point and italics! More italics! Run-on sentence, with lots of commas, and occasional italics, much snideness, more commas, a long-winded statement meant to suggest the physical act of ranting, and it all ends in an exclamation point! Exclamation point! Exclamation point and italics!
Screamed insult, complete with italics and fucking curse word!
Some sort of statement about trying to calm down. Qualifying statement, qualifying statement, qualifying statement. Slight levity to lighten the mood. Groaningly bad pun. Statement, statement, statement, some sort of conclusion or the conclusion that no conclusion is possible.
Short and punchy closing line, sometimes in the form of a question.
Only possible answer to above line.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 05:19 AM EST
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Monday, May 13, 2002
A Very Brief Ode To eBay, On The Occasion Of Winning A Hotly Contested Auction
If time and tide and struggle
Can't get us what we deserve
Well, then, we'll just hit eBay
And we'll try to meet reserve.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 01:03 AM EST
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Thursday, May 9, 2002
What time and sleeplessness with the D has wrought:
Metaphorical Ohio: Things have a definite tendency to happen at home when you're in Ohio and therefore less able to deal with them directly.
In other words: any time that something happens and you are neither physically nor mentally nor emotionally in the correct place to deal with these things, you can be said to be in metaphorical Ohio. A metaphor that I'm sure the Chamber of Commerce will not thank me for.
Ex. 'She waited until I was at work for the day to move all her things out of the apartment. And of course that had to be the day I got fired. Man, I was so in metaphorical Ohio when it all went down.'
Loverbutt: Generic name for any statement which contains the basic phrasing 'Don't get me wrong, I love [X] dearly, but...' Basically a slurring of the phrase 'love her, but...'
Ex. 'Don't get me wrong, I love Mooncalf dearly, but she really is an obnoxious little bitch sometimes.'
Gai-zen: Very few Westerners actually understand true Zen. Instead, what they call 'Zen' is something else entirely: Zen for the white man, or gai-zen.
Obviously, very few white Midwesterners have any shame about mixing Zen and Japanese words, either.
The mating call of the TiBook: When a TiBook (Macintosh titanium Powerbook G4 laptop) is in heat, it signifies this by turning on its internal fan. Every other TiBook in the room must then signify its willingness to mate by turning on its fan in response. TiBooks, of course, mate by means of Ethernet cable; nine months later, one TiBook will give birth to an iPod.
iTunes has been crying: On a related note, a capella is how an mp3 player cries. If your mp3 player pulls an a capella tune, it's crying, and you need to comfort it, or it will either continue to cry or start pulling the worst possible songs, one right after the other, in a fit of pique.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 12:34 PM EST
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Wednesday, May 8, 2002
So, I have a houseguest.
You know, when I was a little kid and my mother would take us out to dinner with another adult, at the end of the meal the adults would always get into a polite 'let me pay!' 'no, no, absolutely not, I'm paying!' 'Are you sure?' battle. And being the greedy child that I was, I always thought my mother should let the other person pay, since they offered. No sense in spending money when you didn't have to, right?
Now I have a houseguest. And we've been doing the 'I'm paying!' 'Fuck you, I'm paying!' 'You touch that check and I'll cut your hands off!' battle for the entire time she's been here.
I guess this must be maturity, or an unreasonable facsimile thereof.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 02:40 AM EST
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Saturday, May 4, 2002
SIGNS YOU MIGHT, POSSIBLY, BE A BAD HOUSEKEEPER, PT. 1:
You go upstairs to clean the bathtub (because you're expecting guests soon and they might want to, you know, shower). You turn on the lights and pull aside the shower curtain, revealing an overgrowth of mildew, mold, and soap scum so thick and healthy that you contemplate running downstairs and getting the ice scraper out of the car to deal with it.
SIGNS YOU MIGHT, POSSIBLY, BE A BAD HOUSEKEEPER, PT. 2:
You decide that that isn't such a far-fetched idea after all; you actually do go get the ice scraper from the car and use it on the bathtub. And it works like a charm, peeling huge disgusting sheets of soap scum and mildew off the walls. Which you, of course, sweep up with a broom and dustpan before actually settling down to scrub.
... eheh. Guess who just scrubbed her ice scraper clean and put it in the dishwasher?
(Arielle? D? By the time you get here I guarantee that less than ten percent of my household appliances will be carnivorous.)
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 08:13 PM EST
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Friday, May 3, 2002
Quickly, for those of you who haven't seen:
Go to Google. In the text box, enter 'pit of voles'. Put it in double quotes if you want, or just type it in; either works.
Or, if you're feeling lazy, just click here to see the search.
And laugh aloud with me, ladies and gentlemen. Point and laugh.
Is there anything more sweet, more fulfilling, than tangible proof of your power-such-as-it-is as a weblogger? Pit of voles. Pit of voles! Fanfiction.net is a pit of voles!
Boom shanka,
grinning widely and plotting mayhem,
Mooncalf
P.S. Also, note that the fourth entry for 'pit of voles' is for a product called VoleBloc, which is a powder that discourages voles. Gods above, ladies and gentlemen, we've found the answer!
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 02:41 AM EST
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I have a shameful confession to make.
I... like eighties music. Very very much.
I hang my head in shame.
Well, okay, no I don't. You see, by being born in 1972, I was perfectly positioned to be a child of the MTV Generation (eight going in, eighteen coming out). So, when I first started to get interested in music at age nine, well, it was 1981.
I'll be the first to admit that most eighties music is shamelessly stupid. The lyrics are bubble-headed, the music itself is simplistic and far too dependent on synthesizers, the bands are more concerned with image than sound... but, you know, fuck it, I like it anyway. In the immortal words of American Bandstand, 'it's got a good beat and I can dance to it'.
It's... escapist, I guess. Depth and meaning is all very well and good, but sometimes I just want to sit in front of my computer and bop around and sing stupid lyrics and enjoy myself, and eighties music is good for that.
In other words, fuck your deep meaningful angsty music. I'm hot for teacher. Yowza.
Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 12:22 AM EST
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