Sunday, April 15, 2001

BlogTime!

Wanna read a possibly Portugese page by a StarWars fan? Well, now you can.

And here's another JPop-obsessed girl...

"You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive." I think that's probably very true. Or maybe it should be 'you never learn to swear -reflexively-'... Ego Inc features wedding tips and DC punk-band reviews.

Posted by: Shannon M.: 11:19 PM |

Deep Thought Of The Day:

I was thinking... The internet is really one incredible fountain of knowledge. The resources I have at my figertips, just sitting here in front of my computer? I have so much more info available to me than I would if I had a set of encyclopedias... Not that I'd -object- to a set of encyclopedias, 'cause God knows they'd have saved me a trip or two to the library, but... Wow. Anything, _anything_ I want to know, I can find _some_thing online. It's merely a matter of knowing how to ask the right questions.

Something I can't seem to do at the library, when searching through the online card-catalog. *Grumple*

Posted by: Shannon M.: 11:20 PM |

LotPW!

Ev's girlfriend, Katy, gave me a lavender wand... Wrapped with pink ribbons! When I saw it on my bed, I thought, "That's weird, did Scrubby send me that? Who else knows I'm subbed to the Bowerlist?"

Speaking of The Scrubster... *Grin* *Bouncebounce* I -liked- the pomegranate (sp? geh.) candy! Haven't tried the peanut or the lemon, yet, and _now_ I'm kind of dreading getting to watch my second tape... Of course, I have to finish the first one, first. *Hug* Thanks so much, sweetie... *Snerk* My brother called me up and told me I had a package from 'M...creh-well?', and I was up the hill to my house you'd have thought something caught fire.

Posted by: Shannon M.: 11:37 PM |

Muh. My finances are in complete disarray. I was assuming my ISP would deduct a normal, six-month chunk of money (117.00) from my checking account. WRONG. They took 39.00. -Thirty-nine- dollars. Thirty-nine times six is 234 dollars. That's -twice- what I normally pay them for a six-month span. I need to call them up and ask just what the hell is going on...

I got paid for housesitting and have already spent about half of it... I need to go deposit the rest into my account.

I haven't yet been paid for the last few weeks of Mme. Jean-ferrying, which is okay. I will, and all I have to do is ask...

I need to buy some new bras, but the ones I've picked out from Lady Grace will run me about 115 dollars plus shipping. Almost everything I picked out was on sale. This is so fucking retarded... I have to have these things, much like I have to have certain medications so I can have a stupid, messy, irritating bodily function, yet no one thinks it's outrageous to charge anything less than about 20 bucks.

I. Hate. The. Human. Body. I also hate bra manufacturers, designers, engineers, and marketers. I Hate Them All. Can we just go back to being a primitive culture, at least on the clothing front?

I've got books waiting to be shipped from Amazon, which is no big deal -- I'd already subtracted them from the amount I was working from when I was birthday-shopping for my dad last week. So that money is already guaranteed.

The worst part of all of this is that it's all my fault, I could have prevented it, and I _should_ have prevented it. I should have far more money in my account than I do.

I don't, and I probably will never ever be financially comfortable. I'm horrible with goals, I suck at long-term planning, and it's really a lost cause to give me money and tell me not to spend it.

Like everything else in my life, I simply won't do what is required of me until something dire happens -- and this isn't dire enough. It probably won't be dire enough until I'm trying to figure out how to feed myself, buy gas, and still make rent.

Do you have any idea how unexcited I am by the idea of getting my own place? If my mother moves to Fairbanks (which is beginning to look more and more like a reality), she's probably going to sell the house.

She's promised to split the money three ways, so Ev and I can have a little nest-egg so we can either get our own places or get one together... But I SO do NOT want an apartment, or a duplex... It sucks enough, having to rent. I don't wanna have to put up with having to worry about someone else that I don't know (or necessarily like) being bothered by my presence.

On the other hand, I guess I don't have to stay in Anchorage, Land Of The High Cost Of Living.

Of course, I also know that my skills are marketable to about three or four people on this planet, so I'm kinda screwed that way.

I suppose there's always retail.

I hate people, though, so that'll be a real fun job.

Yeah, I'm bitter. So?

I'm also tired of thinking about money. It's a fucking nuisance, when you don't have enough. I define 'enough' as 'never having to wonder how you're going to pay for -anything- you need in day-to-day living', that is, food, shelter, transportation, and 'net access.

Living where I do, individual transportation (a car) is vital. You simply can't -walk- anywhere, around here, especially not in the winter. When do I usually work? Winter!

Food and shelter are a given.

Net access is... Well, for me, vital. I don't watch TV for my information, mostly because it all comes wrapped in a coating of slime and smarm and sheer crap. I suck at making friends outside of my freakish social strata (freakish in the sense that most twenty-somethings don't spend most of their waking hours in the company of Jr. High students). I like to write, and there's no -way- I'm just going to hand my notebooks to some stranger and say, "Do you like it?"

Having net access lets me talk to people without having to worry about their reactions to my outward appearances (although I then have the new worry about their reaction to what I have to -say-... And somehow, what I have to say is more _me_ than my corporeality is. *Blinkblink* I think it's because what I have to say is all based in what I believe in my heart and soul, and in so sharing, I let people see inside.

So... That's why it bothers me so much more deeply when no one listens to me than when they make jokes at my expense... *Blinkle* That's probably -not- it for Introspection Theater, but it's all for IT for now).

Having net access lets me learn about so much more than I would otherwise...

Having net access keeps me out of the bars and malls, and from taunting people with a lower IQ. Okay, so it keeps me from doing it to their faces...

*Siiiiiiiiiiiigh* Okay, I think I'm done. This rant has appearantly been building for a while, I just hadn't figured out how I wanted to/needed to/would eventually voice it...

Posted by: Shannon M.: 11:39 PM |

I want to write. That's the -only- money-making venture that I feel any real urge or spark about. I mean, ECA is okay, and I really -would- miss the kids and the silliness and the rhythms of the schoolyear, if I quit.

I don't know that I'd -want- to do my job anywhere else. I try to imagine myself in another school, and I just can't see it...

But I want to write. I don't know what I want to write about, and I have no idea what the -hell- you'd _call_ what I -do- write. I recently saw the term 'slipstream' in reference to writing that was Sci-Fi, but wasn't easily categorized any other way. And it wasn't exactly SF, either.

That (as usual, when thinking about my writing) got me to trying to categorizing my own stuff. I -can't-. It's not SF, not -strictly-, though I guess it _does_ fit. Kinda. Marc and Vic and Tikka, et al, are... I have no freaking clue! Just... Fiction? I guess. But it's not -really- plain fiction, 'cause I guess you could qualify it as 'sports fiction'. If I ever wrote about them playing hockey in any way other than obliquely mentioning equipment and playoffs.

Max and Deuce are kind of a cross-genre Mystery-SF thing. So is Stealing The Spire, which is about my only piece of writing to date that's in anything resembling a 'finished' format.

Finch and Herbert are heading that way, though God only know what the hell is going on with them... *Pokes them* Freaks.

I wrote a voiceover thing for a movie trailer, if my Marc/Vic stuff ever gets optioned to be a movie (ha!), which I thought was pretty funny. I managed to boil down the essence of Marc In Love, Victor Oblivious into about thirty seconds of spoken words. (Well, not counting the pauses in between to let the clips-with-dialogue play.) It turned out well, I thought, and even gave me a title -- Krushed. The only problem is that the Krushers aren't _mine_, and I have no clue as to whether Megan would appreciate me using her idea(s)/character(s) to make money.

I thiiiiiiink I read about using the movie-trailer format to find the salient points of your writing, before putting them into a query/cover letter. I can't remember -where- I read it, though...

If nothing else, it's kind of fun to figure out how to convert writing into a movie -- and I discovered _why_ some things get altered in the process. I wanted to have the plot point (pretty much the ONLY plot point) of Marc being in love with Vic to be suggested in the trailer, but I didn't want to use up my few trump cards by giving away the key line in that scene. (And if you're -not- confused by now... Congrats.)

Um... I can't remember what my point was. I'm tired and I should go to bed -- Jason's coming by in the morning to give me a paper he needs typed up, and he's going to pay me for it. Hey, money's money and I -was- just bellyaching about not having any.

Oyasumi nasai, min-na!

Posted by: Shannon M.: 11:40 PM |