Sian

I spent two years in a real city, when I was younger, and it spoiled me.  I still have a stupid, unending faith that if I walk out my front door, I should be able to find something to do.  Even if it happens to be after midnight, or a national holiday.  I walked out the door yesterday and went downtown, and... nothing.  absolutely nothing.  There were a few dusty little bars open, two porno shops, a coffee house--at least it was my coffee house--and the Chess Club.  I don't know what "Chess" is a euphemism for where you live, but here in our mid-sized, moderately moral, northern Bible Belt berg, it's a euphemism for Chess.  Yeah.  The kind with 32 peices and a timer.  I do actually play chess--fairly well--but I have a thing about it being a choice, and I didn't really want to go in, meet new people, and all that, so I didn't. 
It was the kind of day when you make MacGyver like efforts to entertain yourself with whatever happens to be at the bottom of your purse.  I was carrying a book, a notebook, and a sketch pad, and it still wasn't enough.  So, I called a friend.  In another state.  I have an excellent long-distance plan.  What can I say.  So, I called just about the only friend I still have from gradeschool.  She was in Job's Daughters with me... And Kappa Phi... and and and...  And she invited herself over for a week at the end of the summer. Also an INTP. 
Then I went to the coffee house, and ordered a regular mocha with razzberry, just to make people wonder.  Poor boy had my white mocha all made, and had to start all over again.  Spent an hour or so there, reading and waitng for the rain to stop.  Would have had them make me a sandwich, if I had known by then that it was really, truly the only place to eat, if you wanted anything other than buffalo wings.
But that was it.  Really absolutely, it .  There wasn't so much as a cheezy memorial day ceremony.  Nothing! 

posted by: SianNorah at 20:28 | link | comments

 

Look at me! I'm celebrating my Welsh Heritage.  Okay, so maybe I'm celebrating the Welsh Heritage I would have gotten, if meiosis had gone a little differently.  I have no musical talent, whatsoever.  Most of my old music teachers are still in therapy.  Spent about three years learning to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the piano, and about the same reducing the Junior High Choir master to rocking back and forth in a corner, and muttering about the birds.  But I did finally find a musical instrument that suits me--the CD player.  It requires very practice, and no talent, whatsoever.  Here is a picture of actual Welsh people(not me) singing actual Welsh music:

 

 

 

 

Let's get things straight here.  There are Northern Welsh People, and Southern Welsh People.  Northern Welsh people are all things beautiful and good, and Southern Welsh people are pretty much just English people moved farther west.  We must, in no way mistake people from Swansea or Glamorgan for being real Welsh people.  I was dragged to Wales as a small child, and the thing I remember most about it was the Wimpy's where I got a cheeseburger with some funky, Brit-substitute for Ketchup.  Nothing in Welsh will be spelled in any way phonetically:  instead of "TH" we will spell this phonem "dd"  for v, we will substitute f, and for f, we will substitute ff.  You should practice with smaller words like Neadd, and Efans and work your way up to really hard words like Eisteddfod.     Here is a picture of a Welsh sheep.  I already showed you a picture of Welsh people singing

 

Eisteddfod means sit&sing, which is more or less what Welsh people do for entertainment.  Seriously.  It's the national pass time, and there are several competitions.  Guess what they're all called.  They really do write incredibly beautiful music with exquisite minor chords.  Then, they sing over the top of it, which woudn't be such a bad thing, except that Welsh sounds like Klingon.  (Incidentally, Minor music is something that my music teacher tried to teach me about... but basically, when the Beaver gets into trouble on "Leave it to Beaver" that's Minor music.  It's also used in most horror movies when someone is about to to get chopped into little bitty peices. )  I can't show you a picture of people being chopped into peices, so here is a picture of Lake Vyrnwy--your guess is as good as mine. 

 

Not bad, I must say.

They also tend to be very poetic.  (They admit to this one.)  I asked a Welsh cousin for directions, once...  And I really think he described, in graphic detail, every house, tree, rock, and pebble between me and himself.  This was in English, of course...  "And you come to a beautiful apple tree, which forks in three ways at the crux, and is ever so beautiful a sunset blush pink, with absolutely perfect leaves, and just a little tiny wooden lady bug by it's foot.  And a robin's nest about 2/3rds of the way up, with exactly 4 eggs in the nest and a little fluff of a feather off the right hand side... and you go right on past that.... and you come to a beautiful, gun-metal grey pebble, which is just slightly off oval, and perfectly smooth, except for the tiniest pit at the wide end, and you keep on going past that."  A little hard to remember which land marks you were supposed to actually turn at, but all in all, the best description of any six blocks I've ever heard in my entire life.  Here is a picture of an ex-abbey in ex-Neadd before it got over-run by Englishmen and had to change its name to Neath.

 

 

They use the word "English" as a verb.  It's derogatory.  Things may be "Englished" which is to say, completely fucked up, or "dis-Englished" which means "perfectly clear and sensible" but somehow, the above paragraph manages to fall into the "dis-Englished" category.  (I'll talk about the way meiosis actually did go, later.)  Here is a picture of a coal miner being very grateful that he is not English:

Oh, yes... and they have some very fascinating archaeolgoical sites, with the general tendency for these to be laid out along absolutely straight lines, accross miles and miles of Welsh country side.  Spring, burial, temple...  sacred site after sacred sight, and all arranged on ley lines.  Here is a map of that: ________________________________________

The link that I added goes to the largest collection of Welsh-language materials in North America.  Books which have been shipped from all over the world, on all sorts of topics.  I'm not entirely sure about the lending policy, but I'm sure that you can make arrangements, if you feel the need to have something shipped to you.  There's an index in both Englished and dis-Englished formats (yes, Welsh language index.) They also have recordings of the old settlers singing and speaking Welsh and a vast assortment of other artifacts.  So, that would be my quirky, almost entirely solipsistic little library for the day. 

posted by: SianNorah at 05:47 | link | comments

I took a bunch of personality tests on line, just for you, and here are the results:

If I were A computer Operating System, I'd be Palm OS

If I were A pre-1985 videogame character  I'd be A Break-out Bat

If I were a High School Stereotype I'd be A geek

If I were a Country I'd be Texas(yes, I know this isn't a country, but that was my result)

If I were a Care Bear I'd be Cheer Bear

If I were a MPAA rating  I'd be PG... although, if I were...

a Betty Page I'd be whip Betty, so somebody's program needs a little tweaking.

If I were a villain I'd be an evil genius (Like Moriarty.)

If I were a horrible affliction I'd be Bubonic Plague. 

If I were an historical lunatic I would be Nicola Tesla...

If I were a Famous homosexual...  I'd be Eleanor Rosevelt.

If I were an Evil Criminal  I'd be Jack the Ripper

If I were  a Movie Villain   I'd be Hannibal Lecter.  (I took a "which" Hannibal Lecter test, nearby,and discovered that I'm "fine dining" Hannibal Lecter)

If I were a Classic Book I'd be Machiavelli's The Prince  hmmm... that must explain why my friends  keep calling me "Machiavellian"

If I were a Finger  I'd be A thumb...  it's not really a finger, but that's opposition, I guess.

If I were a Simpsons Character  I'd be Lisa Simpson.  Hope that isn't a crack about my hair.

 

Okay, so there they are, and now I'm bored.  One caveat, however:  all of these tests (with the exception of which finger I am) provided code with which to post results.  This may tend to imply one of two biases: A) patronage by people who have places to post said code, among whom INTP personalities would be disproportionately represented or B.) a desire of the websites to make money, which would be representative of a slant in the people who programmed these tests, resulting in not entirely objective results.  In either case, I'm bored, now, and am going to go drink my coffee.

posted by: SianNorah at 18:44 | link | comments
intp personality

I bought a new Scarlatti--Domenico--CD and got a haircut, yesterday.  I actually let the woman chop a bunch of layers into my hair, mostly because I try to believe that someone I'm paying that much money for actually knows what they're doing.  It was her suggestion, not mine.  I believe the excuse was split ends.  Well, go figure. 

 I've managed to make it almost a year without setting foot in a beauty parlor.  There are only four things I hate about beauty parlors--the sight, sound, smell, and feel of them.  If they had a taste, I'm sure that I would hate that, too. The woman managed to go an entire seventeen minutes without saying anything too stupid, and without making me feel too guilty about not wanting to chat, so I'll probably go back to her, in a year or so.  (Our resident fashionista insists that she will force me to go back on a regular basis.)

The woman did, however make a comment about using a relaxer on my head, and informed me that I have "some crazy waves going on."  Well, let's face it; I just don't care $80 bucks every two weeks worth.  Besides, the rest of me is really intense, so why should my hair be relaxed?  "We" decided to cut my hair to about a quarter of an inch above my chin.  "We" also applied some sort of very wrong conditioner to my hair, so I spent the rest of the evening wandering around looking as though I had one hand on a van de graaff generator.  The woman said she was going to put gel on it, but what she meant was, "I am going to spray something virtually indistinguishable from water on your head." 

So, now, I have remarkably curly hair.  I'm now running around looking like some perverse cross between Gwen Stephanni and Alice in Wonderland.  Probably not all that bad, and I know that there are girls who would kill to have my hair... (hence, the kevlar) but it's one of those things that is gonna take some getting used to.  Definitely not appropriate hair for a mousey little scholar like me. 

posted by: SianNorah at 03:20 | link | comments (1)
beauty parlors suck

If everybody else jumped off a cliff, would you?  Yeah.  Me, neither.  I'm living through the horror of seeing my otherwise rational friends get married and settle down into excruciatingly boring lifestyles.  The guy my mother wanted me to date got married about two years ago.  Converted to Catholicism in the process.  The guy I used to beat at chess on a semi-regular basis got married, gave up his career, and settled down about a mile and a half from his parents in the same small town that he had been trying to escape for his entire life.  Fat lot of good a degree in Marine Biology is going to do him in the middle of Nebraska.  My cousin (the one who pushed me over a cliff on a big-wheel) is actually getting divorced, and in about two months, another one bites the dust.

Meanwhile, my roommate and I, utterly unattached and free as birds, are planning a trip to Florence.  Probably not until next summer, but it's definitely in the works.  We were talking about where to go, talking over the top of eachother, at a hundred miles per hour, and really not paying attention, until suddenly, and in perfect synchronicity, we said "We should go to..."  I finished the sentence with "Florence", and she finished the sentence with "Italy."  And she was perfectly willing to compromise.  She really can be very diplomatic, sometimes.

I really probably am the marrying type.  Would probably be quite good at the whole fidelity thing.  Like I said, I'm a creature of habit.  Certainly could never have an affair, because if I ever took my rings off, I would never find them again.  Then again, I would have to find a man who would be willing to be treated like furniture for long periods of time.  Is "Uhgh" an appropriate greeting, when your spouse comes home from work?  And he would have to leave my books alone, even if the piles got to waist level.  (he is, however, allowed to buttress, reinforce, or otherwise maintain structurally unsound piles.)  Should try not to make a nuisance of himself.  Expect to serve as sommelier at my dinner parties, as I have never, ever, been able to uncork a bottle properly.  I want to feel like I'm a better person because of him.  That's not to say "feel free to preach at me" but I want to like who I am when I'm with him.  The vegetarian thing?  Well, that started because it made someone happy to see me not cannibalizing my fellow creatures.  And, it kinda stuck.  And, if that's not bad enough, I would like him to be a better person because of me.  That pretty much means he has to be a total bastard without me, of course.  And I'd like to meet him at least 5 years from now.

Heck, I'm enjoying myself.  So, if this applies to you in any way, please feel free to send me your address.  I'll contact you in 50 or 60 years, and we can do the his and hers matching denture glasses thing.

 

posted by: SianNorah at 18:03 | link | comments

I have a new pet!  He's the two-legged kind who works the evening shift at the local coffee shop.  That's a good kind of pet for me to have, because he only takes a few minutes of my time, and he doesn't die, if I don't feed him.

There's actually a great deal of difference between the kind of man I actually get involved with, and the kind of man I'm intrigued by, when I see him on a regular basis.  I'm intrigued by coffee-shop boy--or, as we like to call him, Puh-Chah! (Jazz hands) but I'm never going to date him.  There are reasons. (Not the least of which is that my roommate says that we could produce the spazziest children in the whole world) But still, I'm intrigued.

I'm always intrigued by people like that--he's energetic, and laid back, and frankly, a lilttle goofy.  I usually wind up in the coffee shop ordering my mocha at about five thirty.  I'm very predictable--a creature of habit to the core.  About a week ago, I happened to stop by a little early--about eleven a.m.  There's a why, but it's irrelevant.  For some reason, coffee shop boy was already there.  He looked up at me, the way he always does--a little dazed, as if he were somehow surprised to find himself in a coffee shop, blinked twice, and said, "oh, hello."

Well, like I said, he's kinda goofy.  It's not his fault, but he is.  So, you're intrigued, and you watch, sort of absentmindedly, while you drink your coffee.  He's a little phrenetic, and bounces around the place like a distracted humming bird (or, if you prefer, something more masculine than a humming bird.) In a weird kind of way, he really is beautiful. 

That's my type, plain and simple--skinny, goofy, energetic guys with absolutely no purpose in life.  It took my roommate a couple of weeks to decide that he was cute.  Not me.  I just knew.  Now, if I could just find a skinny, goofy, energetic guy with a purpose, I'd be in love.  Unfortunately, I'm still waiting, on that one.  There's a great plenty of goofy guys in dead-end jobs.  There have been goofy coffee shop guys and goofy Pepsi delivery guys, and the occassional goofy artist. (Okay... so, I broke the rule, and actually dated a goofy artist.)   And I'm intrigued and fascinated by all of them.

A slight update, though.  Today, when I went in for my coffee, Puh-Chah! (Jazz hands) actually addressed me by name.  So, maybe he does, infact, have an attention span longer than a gnat.  Not that I introduced myself--he got it off my credit card slip, so... Hmmm....

posted by: SianNorah at 02:43 | link | comments
puh-chah jazz hands

Help!!!  I'm surrounded by aging gifted children, and I can't get out!  I think the worst part of it it that I'm finally beginning to realize how dumb average can be.  I'm also beginning to realize how egotistic parents of gifted children can be.  One of the little girls from the church I went to, when I was a kid just graduated from college (at a ridiculously young age) and I really want to smack her parents firmly around the ears.  This was the wrong choice.  I know this, because at some point, her parents declared me to be a role model (Gd help them) and she became more or less my puppy.  I remember her as being a bubbly four year old, who probably would've been prom-queen if she had been allowed to have a normal childhood.  I'm probably a little biased, here, because when my parents made "the choice," they asked me.  If I hadn't agreed to it, I would have been left alone.  They also set a limit on it--one class in school, and I would remain with my own age group, everywhere else--so it wasn't quite as detrimental to my "social well-being," as it would be in the case of a child graduating from college at 16.  Socially, though, I think that even the low end of my peer group was always substantially above average.

I always seem to find odd little corners of genius in which to shelter myself, and I'm probably more objective talking about my friends than about myself, so, I'm going to talk about them.  Parents who push their kids through high school prematurely always seem to me to be engaged in some massive pissing contest in which it always seems to be the child who winds up getting splashed.  I know what I'm talking about here; I've seen it over and over and from every possible angle.  I've seen the little girl, I've seen the 14 year old, and I've seen the 60 year old professor.  To a lesser extent, I've been there(or at least, thanked Gd that I was not there.)

First of all, let's be honest.  Gifted children who are dramatically separated from their peer groups cannot and do not catch up socially or emotionally.  Look around, and you can find examples.  Try the college professor population--when I was in school, I had no less than 4 instructors whom I knew to have been in college by the age of 14.  There were certainly others whom I suspected of this.  More than that, I can name specific departments.  Think about what majors you would have chosen, at 14, and that's where they are.  Forget about not being able to go to the clubs: a child in college can't even go to an R rated movie.  Will never have a date.  One of the girls I went to school with (who most certainly was intellectually able to keep up) used to have to tell men who asked her out "You should know that I'm 14 years old."  Hello, rock.  Meet hard place.  Hard place, Rock.

Pushing a child to finish high school early is a little like encouraging a convict to get a degree in law--yes, they'll have the degree, but they won't ever be allowed to practice.  They won't have a college experience equivalent to an 18 year old's, and they won't have the highschool experience, either.  In college, the child will be sheltered--if his ideas are questioned, it will not be with the same enthusiasm with which people question their peers' ideas.  I remember reducing a 25 year old man to a puffing, stammering, idiot in class.  Would we have done the same, if he had been a child?  Of course not.  I sat in my first university lectures (a conference on populist history) at the age of ten or eleven, and there was no debate--either positive or negative-- on any topic I raised.  It was the same atmosphere in which one could see Barney the wonder horse do sums, except, of course, that I was Barney.  For me, this was an "experience" a one-day event for me to stretch my muscles, but for a child who has been advanced, it would be a lifestyle--just not the college lifestyle.  For a girl, who would be able to pass for 18 or 19, this would be less of a problem; for a boy, he could expect to be coddled throughout his education.

I was reading at a college level before I got to kindergarten.  That's pretty decent.  I was in a rural school house (one teacher per grade, if there were enough students to make it worth it.) and the so-called "gifted program" consisted of sending me to the library durning any time the rest of the class was being taught something I already knew(math, science, reading, history...).  After I had been advanced, they would send me up to the grade above me for an hour or two, where I would still be at the top of the class, but I would be someone else's problem for a while.  The point, here, is that there are exceptions, that in certain very specific instances, it improves the child's intellectual and social lives.  But I would still point out that I have never had a birthday party (avoiding "rubbing it in") and until I was in a place where no one knew, I was always a little bit of an outsider.  I still joke that my first language was written English, and that people should be patient with me as spoken English is my second language.

Being "GT" is a dirty little secret that we tend to learn to keep to ourselves as much as possible.  Here I am, in my twenties, and a friend of mine only just very tentatively admitted to me that she had been advanced.  It's a fact of childhood that is both incredibly relevant, and incredibly anti-social.  A confession which has the tendency to alienate the very person in whom you are trying to confide.  How many people have I actually told?  Not many, and most of them are people who figured it out, on their own, by doing the math... 

It's definitely something to think about, if you're making a decision.  At the very least, you're yanking your kid out of the group of children he knows and is comfortable with.  You'd think long and hard, if you were holding him back.  This has more impact.  The switch between peer-groups is the same, of course, but you're adding a flashing, neon sign "this person is better than you.  He's smarter, and that's why he's been moved up to your level."  Then you stand back and hope the new class accepts him, and maybe that he's able to maintain the old friendships.  Big gamble. 

My IQ, when tested, places me in the "I'd have to walk by thousands and thousands of people in order to walk by someone who's as smart as I am" category.  On a practical level, however, it takes far less to interest and challenge me.  Competence and knowledge are just fine.

posted by: SianNorah at 18:51 | link | comments (2)

I have been told that four letters couldn't possibly sum me up, but the sad fact is, they do!  I've read the anti-Myers-Briggs material, and heard Myers described as a psychological horoscope, but the truth is, I think there's something to it.  First of all, I'm not borderline: every time I take the assessment, I wind up with exactly the same results.  Secondly, it's just so much more flattering to say "I am an INTP" than to say " I am a borderline sociopath with little awareness of other people's emotional needs... and a little bit of a geek."  Besides, if you're worried about sociopathy, you cannot possibly be affected by it, so I MUST be an INTP.

The truth is that the assessment is more or less rational.  To whatever extent you are not an introvert, you must be an extrovert.  To whatever extent you aren't rational, you must be irrationa.  The only questions are 1.) Can it be quantified 2.) is the measurement Constant and 3.)  Is this nature or nurture?

The answers are: 1.) Don't know.  2) Don't care and 3) obviously, it's nature: by the time I was six, I was already spending 8 hours a day locked in my elementary school library with nothing but a Commodore to keep me company... AND I WAS PERFECTLY HAPPY.

posted by: SianNorah at 15:40 | link | comments (3)
intp personality

So...  Roommie #1 and I were talking, and walking.  (Someone talked me into picking my camera up, again, and was therefore obligated to get her butt out in the sunlight and stand infront of my lens.)  She is beginning to get semi-serious about her boyfriend, but....   He's older by fifteen years and three kids.  She's closer to the age of his eight-year-old than she is to him.  She is thinking rationally about the situation, has thought about issues like having kids of her own, and retirement, if married to someone that much older.  Good for her.  Concern of the day?  She doesn't want to look like a "Trophy Bride" or be mistaken for his daughter.  I told her that she shouldn't worry about it.

I know what you're thinking.  "But she is."  That thought actually did occur to me, too.  She's fifteen years younger, and gorgeous, and that's what people are going to see, when she walks down the street with this man. 

I was brought up with the idea of  the "Trophy Bride."  I watched the First Wives' Club, too.  I'm not going to say there's no such thing.  There probably is.  But mostly, I think the concept is just fueled by bitterness.  It is an ad hominem that attacks both the man, and his younger wife.

The younger woman 1.) Couldn't possibly be intelligent enough to be intellectually stimulating.  2.) is a carreer wife (she's out of touch with all those bra-burning, arm-pit hair flapping in the wind ideals our mothers so loved.) moving the whole feminist movement back centuries.  3.) She's using him for money, tantamount to being a whore.

The older man: 1.) Is shallow/stupid enough to marry purely for sex  2.) Is using her--eventually, he'll dump her, too, and move on to a newer model.  3.) Dumped his first wife, breaking every obligation

So, let's see.  To all the divorced women out there, let's address these issues.  Starting with all those cheap bastards you used to be in love with.  1.  Why on earth would you marry someone who was that shallow/ stupid.  2.  Why would you marry someone who's more or less a leech?  and 3.) Next time, choose a better divorce lawyer.

As far as the younger woman goes; 1.) when was the first time you had an intelligent conversation with your father, mother, or some older adult?  Do you think that your parents enjoy spending time with you, or are they just condescending?  Are they genuinely glad to see you, or do they spend time with you only for the same reasons you watch Teletubbies with your kid? Have they ever asked for your opinion on something, and really wanted it?  Okay... So, why would a romantic relationship with an older man be any different?  2.)  Maybe, maybe not.  Probably not.  Most women do work outside the home.  And, even if she were, true feminism would allow her that choice.  It's all those little hypocracies that make us the "POST-feminist" generation.  3.)  Number three is marriage as prostitution, again.  We've heard that ad nauseum.  A younger woman who marries an older man, whom she may truly admire and respect, can expect to take care of him in his old age, possibly loosing her own healthy retirement years in the process.  True, she can also expect sex, at least in the early years, but that no more makes her a prostitute than expecting to do health care makes her a nurse.  Age is not just a number.  It is a life-expectency.  To marry an older man is to choose not only to be alone for many years, but also to recognise that those years will be the ones when you, yourself are aged and infirm.  I'm not sure that any amount of money is worth that.

posted by: SianNorah at 02:52 | link | comments

Today, in the coffee shop, I turned to my roommate (Roommate #1) and said something about being an INTP Myers Briggs.  She nodded, and said, "so, that explains it."  We're one of those friendships that just clicks--offbeat sense of humor, and all.  (We had just gotten done shopping for vomit-flavored jellybeans for her boyfriend).  In any event, the fact that we are a rare personality type came up, which of course mandates research on the exact percentage of the population... and then tangents off from there.  So, I get to what personality types are appropriate mates (poor Anita already being more or less doomed.)  First we have the ESFJ personality... I read as far as "Guardians of birthdays, holidays and celebrations,Guardians of birthdays, holidays and celebrations," and thought "Oh, good lord, I'm supposed to be married to a scrapbooker. Just kill me, now."  So I moved on to ENFJ, who are a lot more palatable.  Managed to get through the first sentence there without actually vowing lifelong celibacy.   They tend to be charismatic and nurturing with only a few minor delusions of grandiose, so I may be able to live with one.  If I had one, he might even be able to keep me from going off on tangents... might be able to keep my academic foci broad enough that I can discuss them with more than 3 other people on the planet.  Moving right along, we get to how to get along with an INTP, which--although it seems improbable--it appears that roommate #3 used as a checklist of things NOT to do.  Short story short, on multiple occasions, she has stacked my books.  YES, It really is that bad.

So, now I'm deeply engrossed in very INTP behavior, and no, this Blog is no exception, having been taken up when I noticed that I had logged significantly fewer than average hours in interactions with members of my own species.  I have the stereo in the livingroom at maximum volume (playing Italian Baroque, by the way) while I am typing this several rooms away.  When I am finished, I will likely go directly back out on my tangent for the day. 

posted by: SianNorah at 00:52 | link | comments (2)
intp personality

Why do I insist on reading fan fiction?  Or, more to the point, why do I insist on reading new fan fiction?  This stuff really should come with a disclaimer--bad grammer, bad writing, will drop you off in the middle of nowhere, may never be finished, buyer beware.  I just got off one of the websites that deals in this stuff, and all three of the stories I read were... unfinished.  Actually, some of it can be good... and intentionally, or unintentionally, some of it will have you rolling on the floor laughing.  Really, though, the reason to read fan-fic is because some very naughty writer made you fall in love with his character(s) and then ran off to sip margaritas while you come to terms with the idea that the next book could be coming out ten years from now, or never.  I won't name names here, but the writer in question has only been coming up with--on the average--one book every ten years.  That's a hell of a long time to wait for five hours worth of brain-candy.  Meanwhile, the ficsters--read, obsessive-compulsive, liberally neurotic, have no life to speak of live, breathe and sleep-it types--come out with thousands upon thousands of pages of work.  Now, most of it is pure shit.  However, find one of these loons with an iota of talent, and a little bit of brains, and you would actually believe you're getting the real deal.

That's life.  If you come up with a character that somehow worms his way into the collective conscience, write, and keep writing, or other people will.  Might as well be the people who love your books most, instead of the people your estate pays.  Face it.  John Gardner took over for Ian Flemming; there have been a god-awful number of Nancy Drew writers; some idiot wrote a sequel to "Gone With the Wind" and even Ann Landers isn't exempt.  If you're doing it right, your characters will outlive both you, and their copyrights. 

I write fan-fic, from time to time, but I never, ever, ever, publish it.  Why?  Because it's a writing exercise like anything else.  If it produces good results, it winds up getting edited into non-derivative fiction, with your characters, etc. cut out, and if it doesn't, I don't really want anyone to see it anyway.  I'm not going to publish anything with "borrowed" characters because the "owner" of those characters may be able to pre-empt the whole dang thing.  How's that for cynical?

posted by: SianNorah at 01:08 | link | comments

I quit working at the neighborhood grocery store about three months ago.  Now, it seems that I know literally everyone, in the whole neighborhood--at least, they seem to think that they know me.  I don't remember most of these people, don't really care, and never really had any interest in talking to them, before, when I was paid to do so.  (I'm still doing the poor student thing, so there have been lots of really horrible jobs.)  I went into an auto parts store near my house yesterday, and was greeted by two or three different people who "knew" me from ex-job.  Not people whose names I know.  Not people I even recognize on sight.  People who think they know me, and are usually upset if I don't remember them, or don't want to talk to them.  Do you have any idea how many people used to talk to, on my shift? 

It's bizzare.  They couldn't tell you my major in college, or why I was working at the grocery store, or even my name, for the most part, but they still want to talk to me when they see me on the street.  It's almost a form of celebrity.  It's annoying.

posted by: SianNorah at 20:59 | link | comments (1)

I just started reading The Brothers Karamazov for the third time.  Please don't misunderstand; I don't mean to imply that I've actually read the book, only that I started reading it twice before.  I have a very fat purple paperback copy--which is well battered for the first hundred fifty pages or so, and pristine for the other 800.   I'm just not really a good enough person to read Dostoevsky.  Morally speaking, that is.  At the end of Crime and Punishment, where Raskolnikov turns himself into the authorities, I would have hopped a plane to Brazil.  And where the girlfriend goes merrily trotting off to Siberia with him-- yes, I know that it's emblematic of collective responsibility for sin, and therefore, also of collective salvation-- I would have hopped a plane to Brazil, and not stopped chuckling for a week.  Go to the Gulag with you?  Hmmm...  well, I have to wash my hair.

I love Russian novels.  They're like French novels without all that annoying optimism.  French hero--stole a loaf of bread to feed his family.  Russian hero--axed to death a money lender and her sister.  French hero--noticed and pursued relentlessly by the relatively competant police.  Russian hero--completely overlooked by any kind of authority, despite having hacked 2 little old ladies to peices.  French hero--somehow manages to improve the lives of everyone around him.  Russian hero--sucks the love of his life into some horrid prison camp.  French hero--dies, goes to heaven, and is forgiven.  Russian hero--suffers pangs of conscience, turns himself in, and after ten or fifteen years of hard labor, may be able to atone for his sins.   You get the general idea.

In Raskolnikov's defense, however, I always did maintain that the money lender and her sister were actually metaphors for the two sides of a single individual, so in reality, he only hacked one little old lady to death.

Oh, well.  I am now brewing lots and lots of coffee.  Maybe with enough caffeine in my system, I'll finally make it.

posted by: SianNorah at 15:21 | link | comments (2)

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