Dancing with Dragons is Hard on Your Shoes.: June 2009

Monday Snippits!

Okay, to wrap up favorites month, I'd like to introduce you to some of the people who regularity show up on my Google Reader.

Agents And Editors

AgentObvious

Alice's CWIM Blog

Editorial Anonymous

Editorial Ass

Janet Reid, Literary Agent

Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent

Writers

My Mess of Motley Musings

One Word, One Rung, One Day

Rants, Raves, & Random Thoughts

ROOTS IN MYTH

Running After My Hat

Shrinking Violet Promotions

The Invisible Sister

The Longstockings

The Writing Wild Life

Whole Latte Life

Personal

A Kick Ass Moms Thoughts

Field Notes

Flight of the Valkyrie

jet setting

Kahaha Wahine’s blog

Korea Abroad

Lazy Lizard Lounge

Moose Bites

Stuff Christians Like

The Game of Life

I pretty much look for people who are entertaining, informative or both. Posting regularly is a plus, but not a requirement.

So what are you reading on the Internetz? Anyone I should know?

My favorite thing about Moscow so far.

Trees. Definitely trees.

I was raised in Eastern Washington, in and around Spokane, and my family has lived in the Coeur d'Alene area since I was sixteen. Both of those places are very green.

Boise, despite its many wonderful attributes, is not very green. Boise is surrounded by desert. In fact for the first two years I lived in Boise, I was asking. "Where are the trees? Why don't you all have any trees?"

Boise-ites hated that. And I did, eventually, get used to it. I even forgot it.

Until we got to Moscow, where there are trees and underbrush galore. That's when I realized that trees make me happy. VERY happy. In a weird way, it feels like coming home again.

Speaking of trees, we're actually a short walk from the arboretum! Unfortunately, this is the only picture of it that I could get to paste here, but I will try to post more (hopefully ones that WE take) in the coming weeks.

So for your viewing pleasure...

UPDATE: Apparently this picture was unpostable, so I had to withdraw it. Sadness...)

Hit the snooze button too many times today....

So my Saturday post will be up later this afternoon. Have a fabulous morning!!!

My favorite way to sound silly.

I call it the Lolspeak Mystery.

Apologies to my brother-in-law, and anyone else who can't stand the lolcat craze, but I am a big icanhascheezburger.com fan. So is my husband, which often leads to interesting and bizarre conversations.

ME: Are we out of milk?

HUSBAND: Yeah, I drank the last of it.

ME: I has a sad. *gives husband sad pouty face*

HUSBAND: Ahh, the cute! My head asplode!

Part of it is the pictures of course. Some of them are just plain adorable. And some of them are hilarious.

But none of that explains why we TALK like this.

We are both intelligent, creative people who delight in using words well. Especially me. And yet between ourselves, we often lapse into this Internet shorthand. We find it unspeakably funny to shorten words and mangle grammar.

Can anyone tell me why that is?

Oops, I forgot...

... to post a blog today!

It's 11:30 at night, and I'm typing this on my brother-in-law's computer. We were supposed to drive home today. (from Hayden to Moscow) We came up yesterday to celebrate Father's Day and pick up some bookcases, but today was so relaxed and low-key that we decided to veg out and stay another day.

It was really good, I'm feeling recharged and ready for some unpacking when we go home tomorrow. Some funny tidbits from the family...

~My nephew was feeding his rocking horse yesterday. Suddenly he reached down the back of his pants, and then fed the horse some more. We asked him about it.

"I'm feeding him apples" was the reply.

"You have apples in your pants?" my sister asked.

"Yes mama, lots of apples."

*laugh*

~Right now my sister and my husband are watching a cable reality TV show called Intervention. It's about addicts and interventions. (oddly enough) Because apparently our lives don't have enough drama... :-)

~Despite all the good things about visiting my family, it does play hell with my sugar intake. We have pie for Father's day yesterday. Several kinds. I would tell you how many pieces I had, but then I'd have to kill you.

Okay, it's late and I should turn in. See you all on Wednesday!

My favorite thing about writing.

Okay, first a confession. I haven't written anything, or revised anything, for the last two weeks. Moving and starting a new job has drained all of my energy.

(Literally. Yesterday I came home from work at 3:30, fell asleep at 6pm and slept for twelve hours. I'm still tired.)

Also, my needs-to-be-revised stuff is on my computer, which is not set up yet. A year or two ago, this creative lapse would have triggered a panic attack along these lines:

"I haven't written in two weeks! I'm going to lose all these great ideas and I'll never start writing again and even when I do, it's gonna suck! Forever! My writing career is doomed unless I START WRITING RIGHT NOW. AAAHHHH!!!!"

But I've discovered something over the last few years. It's all still up here. It might take a week or two to really get the juices flowing again, but they will. I might forget an idea or two, but chances are they'll come back again in new and better forms.

That's what I like best about writing. You don't ever really lose it.

I think Stephan King said it best:

I never stopped writing. Some of the stuff that came out was tentative and flat but at least it was there. I buried those unhappy, lackluster pages in the bottom drawer of my desk and got on to the next project. Little by little I found the beat again, and after that I found the joy again. I came back to my family with gratitude, and back to my work with relief- I came back to it the way folks come back to a summer cottage after a long winter, checking first to make sure nothing has been broken or stolen during the cold season. Nothing had been. It was all still there, still all whole. Once the pipes were thawed out and the electricity was turned back on, everything worked fine.

It's a comforting thought.

Also comforting is the fact that our internet is up and running, so I can steal my husband's computer and start commenting and replying again. Hoooray!

I've missed you all, as well. :-)

My favorite thing about moving...

is when it's over.

My least favorite thing about moving? Our computer isn't up yet. So I've stolen this one temporarily. I should be up and running by Saturday, but for now, all I can do is wave from the other side of the technology abyss.

*waves wildly*

So how was everyone else's week?

Monday Snippits

Some of Miriam's Favorite Books

Since I can't really pick my favorite book, I'll give you a sampling with a book meme I plucked off Amy's blog

This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.Here are mine...

1. The Giver by Lois Lowry

2. The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

3. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

4. Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan

5. The Wish Giver by Bill Brittain

6. The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

7. Walking on Water by Madeleine L'engle

8. The Pandora Principle by Caroline Clowes

9. Dark Rivers of the Heart by Dean Koontz

10. Exile's Honor by Mercedes Lackey

11. Sometimes the Magic Works by Terry Brooks

12. The House at Pooh Corner by A.A.Milne

13. Six Drinks that Changed the World by Tom Standage (Edit: This book is ACTUALLY called "The History of the World in Six Glasses" *headdesk*)

14. The Devil's Brew by Stewart Lee Allen

15. The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean

Miriam's Favorite Thing About Boise

The people.

I cannot list them all, for there are hundreds. But the people of Boise, especially Cole Community Church, have been my friends and family for over eight years. We have shared secrets and love and food and laughter and I will always remember them.

*waves and sniffles to herself*

GOODBYE BOISE. I LOVE YOU!!!!

My favorite adult food.

Those of you who have been following for a while may remember my abiding love of comfort food, specifically chicken soup and mac'n cheese. I have to say though, that my tastes are changing. I'm eating far more Asian food these days, (Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.) as well as more Mexican food. I've even developed a taste for green curry.

For this, you can blame my husband, who--very gently and sweetly--has set out to wean me from the world of mild kid-esque food. And I'm liking it more than I ever expected.

I've even found an adult comfort food!

This is Pho- pronounced 'fur'. It's a huge bowl of beef noodle soup served at most Thai and Vietnamese restaurants. And it is delicious!

(This is how delicious it is. I actually ate some a few hours before writing this post, but looking at that picture makes me want to eat it again. Yum.)

Now, I'm not a total convert. It is still soup, after all, and I don't put any extra spice in it. But it's a good step up from Campbell's chicken noodle. And my tolerance for spice is growing, so who knows?

Any foods you love now that you disliked as a kid?

My favorite birthday present.

So I did have a fabulous birthday on Monday, thanks to my wonderful husband and friends. And now I'm going to be one of those boring people who tell you what they got. :-)

I received much awesome swag, including a new dress, some pretty flowers and a nice bookcase. But the Best Present Award goes to my husband for getting me this.

I love nature shows, especially ocean ones, so to receive both Planet Earth and The Blue Planet was coolness of epic proportions. And to share the coolness, I hereby include one of my favorite parts of the Planet Earth series.

See you all on Saturday!

My favorite way to drink water...

A few weeks ago I made a resolution to drink more water. Again.

I make this resolution a lot, and yet my water consumption doesn't really increase. I like water, I know I should drink it, but it never seemed to happen.

It was one of life's mysteries. How is it that I can drink rivers of soda at restaurants, but can't finish a bottle of water?

And then I bought this:

And I learned something about myself. It's all about the straw.

My brain is wired to slurp things out of straws. Now I just take my cup, fill it with water before I go on the computer, and I drink without even thinking about it, just the way I do with soda.

In fact, I'm pretty sure my brain thinks I AM drinking soda....

There's only one problem. These cups are out of stock now, so I have to be extra careful with it. If I lose it I'll have to wait until next summer to get another one. (Also, I wish it wasn't so tall, it doesn't fit in my cup holder.) But still, it's a marvelous invention.

How do you trick yourself into doing things that are good for you?

My favorite way to be nerdly.

There are a lot of ways in our culture to be a nerd. (Or geek, or whatever.) You can be a video game nerd, a computer nerd, a science-fiction nerd, a fantasy nerd.

Terminator, Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Babylon Five, Stargate... The possibilities are endless.

But before there was Joss Whedon or George Lucas, there was a man named Gene Roddenberry.

And before any of those other wonderful nerdly things appeared, Gene created this....

Star Trek, the original series, ran for only a few seasons in the late 60s. I wasn't even born until 1980, and yet Star Trek was part of the fabric of my childhood.

A few examples...

-- When I was in elementary school, we were allowed to watch one hour of TV in the afternoon. It was always Star Trek reruns. They were fun and uncomplicated and entertaining. Plus, they were on right after school, so it gave me a good excuse not to do my homework. :-)

-- When Star Trek, the Next Generation aired, we turned it into a weekly family night. One of my clearest memories is sitting eating popcorn with my family, watching the season finale where Captain Picard is turned into a Borg. We freaked out. (And then had to wait all summer to find out what happened, of course. Argh.)

-- Sometime in high school, I discovered my dad's collection of Star Trek novels, and proceeded to steal them one by one. I can remember scenes and plot twists from those books even today. In fact, I read several Star Trek books last year and they were still pretty good.

-- We went to a lot of the newer Star Trek movies as a family, starting with The Undiscovered Country. And though we weren't as into Deep Space Nine and Voyager as much, we watched those too.

Now, I've never been to a convention. I've never met any of these actors, and if you asked me to lay out the floor plan of the Enterprise, I'll draw a blank. I can't even remember the name of the green-skinned alien race that makes an appearance in the new movie, except that they're not Andorians because Andorians are blue.

But I do know this:

Star Trek shaped my life as much as any movie or television show I've ever watched. And sitting in the movie theater, watching the new movie, was like being given back a part of my childhood completely fresh, with the opportunity to make all those memories again.

I think Gene would approve.