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The little girl with the boats isn't telling me her story anymore, so I think my first TwitFic experiment is concluded. I'd like to try another soon, though. There's an appealing poetic quality to writing in such tiny installments. Here's how it came out, reassembled into chronological order: The first boat she made was of paper. She was 5, old enough to fold and shape and to work out why it sank after a few minutes in the stream. The 2nd boat she made of twigs and bits of yarn. The resulting craft resembled a bird's nest with a tiny mast. It floated, but in circles. The third boat was a plastic tray from a TV dinner, with Lego sailors. It floated perfectly but she couldn't love what she hadn't built. By the 17th boat (birch bark, Juicy Fruit gum and paperclips), her parents became a little concerned. "Amelia, don't you want to play with your other toys? Look, here's your nice Teddy." "He sinks," said Amelia, and reached for the glue. Her evening bath, once dreaded and resisted, became a laboratory for materials testing: What floated best? What held up the most weight? The child psychologist reassured her parents. "The mania will pass. Many children have obsessions." A pause. "You might teach her to swim." The Lego sailors perished in the capsizing of boat #94 (victim of an off-leash golden retriever). A lesson in the perils of a nautical life. Amelia built a tiny cairn on the beach in memory of her lost mariners. With dignity beyond her years she placed a sand dollar at the top. Amelia's uncle, a Navy man, found himself confronted on Christmas leave by his furious sister. "Are you responsible for this?" "For what?" Enlightened, Uncle Davis threw back his head and laughed. "It's only boats, Sue! The child's not stealing sweets or setting fire to cats." As her uncle helped build boat #103 (balsa wood and styrofoam), the girl suddenly said, "It's going to rain. It's going to rain a LOT." |
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As my husband continues to consider the Army option--and as I talk more openly about his deliberations with friends and family--I'm encountering two common reactions. One spoken, the other implied. 1. "But he could get killed!" This is the one people say aloud. Variations include "Aren't you afraid he'll get killed?" and "Isn't that awfully dangerous?" and the ever-popular "He's going to get his ass shot off." Trust me, we're well aware that war is in the Army's job description. Thinking long and hard about that, from every angle--physical, moral, ethical, psychological--is part of the decision process. However, blurting out "You could die!" is not the most constructive way to help someone weigh the pros and cons of military service. He's not underplaying the risks, believe me. However, he's not overplaying them either. He's nearly 40, college educated, with valuable skills with computer hardware, software, and networks. A desk job seems a much likelier outcome than busting down insurgents' doors in Fallujah. So the bigger question is whether he can enlist feeling that he believes in the Army's purpose and mission, or can at least make enough peace with it (oh, the irony of that phrase!) to volunteer for military employment.
Look. Having a friend or family member consider the Army is a sobering prospect. (Boy do I know that firsthand.) It's hard not to just blurt things out, especially when the prospect scares you. But I do wish people would stop and think before they imply that only ignorant or unskilled people enlist, or that any civilian drudge job--from dunking fries to scrubbing toilets--is better than military service. Is that really the message we want to send about those who choose to serve in our nation's armed forces? Is it a productive thing to say to someone seriously considering military service? Or is it just going to make him clam up and no longer confide about his decision process? I'll be honest: I wouldn't describe myself as enthusiastic about this plan. At his age, it is a drastic decision. And I remain convinced that he's got unexplored avenues to employment here at home. But ultimately it is his job search and his self-respect on the line, not mine. I can't decide this for him. I only know that he needs to do something, and if the Army is what he chooses, I'll stand behind that choice, hold down the home front, and support him as best I can from afar. Still find myself looking for the doorway that led me into this alternate universe, though. |
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Now that my husband has talked to his family about his potential Army enlistment, I've unlocked my previous posts on the subject. He hasn't signed anything, but continues to seriously explore the possibility while digging into an ASVAB study guide and going on daily jogs. I still feel like I've blundered through a secret door into an alternate universe. |
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TwitFic is turning out to be a fun little warmup exercise for writing. I don't find Twitter all that compelling otherwise, and I've never grokked their business model...but there's something so endearingly petite and unthreatening about that 140-character box. Nobody can claim they don't have time to write if the only requirement is to fill that tiny box. The TwitFic So Far... The first boat she made was of paper. She was 5, old enough to fold and shape and to work out why it sank after a few minutes in the stream. The 2nd boat she made of twigs and bits of yarn. The resulting craft resembled a bird's nest with a tiny mast. It floated, but in circles. The third boat was a plastic tray from a TV dinner, with Lego sailors. It floated perfectly but she couldn't love what she hadn't built. By the 17th boat (birch bark, Juicy Fruit gum and paperclips), her parents became a little concerned. "Amelia, don't you want to play with your other toys? Look, here's your nice Teddy." "He sinks," said Amelia, and reached for the glue. Her evening bath, once dreaded and resisted, became a laboratory for materials testing: What floated best? What held up the most weight? The child psychologist reassured her parents. "The mania will pass. Many children have obsessions." A pause. "You might teach her to swim." |
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I am both saddened by the murders at Fort Hood and fearful of backlash against innocent Muslim Americans for the crimes of one madman. On news sites that allow unmoderated user comments, the hatred and bigotry being spewed is ugly beyond belief. Nobody went around saying "That's a white Christian name, it must be a conspiracy" when George Hennard took out 23 people at a restaurant in the nearby town of Killeen TX back in 1991. Nobody lashed out at all white men with WASP names when the Oklahoma City bombers murdered 186 (and that was a conspiracy). I pray for peace and sanity in a world short on both. More, I pray for the victims and families at Fort Hood. |
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I should clarify, after my previous post, that although I would never choose it for myself I am not opposed in principle to military service. Many of my extended family have served in some branch of the military and I respect their decision to do so. I would never disparage anyone for choosing military service as a career. I believe in the value of an all-volunteer army. I also believe that those who serve are, by and large, good and honorable men and women (or at least as much so as their civilian counterparts). The wars we get into aren't always so honorable, but the blame for that lies with politicians, not the people in uniform. But it is a serious decision at the best of times, and these are not the best of times. Setting aside the risks (which I can't think too hard about right now), what troubles me most is not that my husband is considering enlisting--shock though it was--but that he's feeling driven to do so at the age of 39 because of recession and joblessness. Military service should be a choice made freely, not under economic coercion. Something is very wrong with this country when a man with a college degree and a lengthy list of computer and technical skills sees his choices reduced to joining the Army in wartime or flipping burgers at McDonald's. |
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After 15 months of unemployment, a grand total of 3 interviews, and no callbacks, my husband is seriously considering enlistment in the Army National Guard. |
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What've you read lately that you loved, O friend list? I need some good vacation reading. |
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Eldest Daughter has begun packing for college. Her first (and so far only) packed box contains 50 pounds of manga. I think it's her version of a teddy bear. Her new home away from home:
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I never quite managed to love this book, even as a horse-crazy child. To my young mind there were too many scenes with Velvet's working-class butchershop family, too few with the horse. But something about it stuck with me, and National Velvet survived all the purges of my bookshelves over the years. Re-reading it now is a revelation. Not only does it contain one of the most memorable mothers in fiction--Araminty Brown, a huge, fleshy, silent, enduring bulk of a woman who in her youth swam the English Channel--but it has remarkably prescient things to say about the way that a media frenzy can eat youthful stars alive. Here, a character who's just helped Velvet escape a mob of press advises her: "You've been blown up like a pink pig in the air fit to burst, and maybe now they'll let you die away with a squeak like a pink pig does. Don't let me find you one day with a hard face an' a dirty bit of cigarette and nerves all gone to blazes, looking for this hot air again! Mi--what's yer name, look after her! ... That child's been written across the sky like somebody's pills. You see she gets over it!" The Velvet of the book couldn't bear less resemblance to the 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor who played her in the movie. No raven-haired, violet-eyed beauty, this; young Velvet is plain, pale, fair-haired, thin as a stick and flat as a board, with a bad overbite and a tendency to vomit when she's overwrought. But the reader never doubts that Mrs. Brown's indomitable spirit also flows through scrawny, nervous Velvet, a child whose passion for horses is so fierce that it borders on a religious fervor. The characters are masterfully written. I'm sure Taylor was luminous in the film role, but the real Velvet remains between the covers of the book. |
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I'm in the market for some serenity, but I'd settle for a good night's sleep. No clue whether this is midlife hormones plaguing me or if I'm just struggling too hard in this web of worries, but damn...I would pay money that I don't even have for one decent full night of sleep this week. |
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Eldest Daughter is now blogging over on Wordpress. Check out her Kawaii Robots blog here. "Kawaii" means "cute" in Japanese, so it's the Cute Robots blog. She also designed the title banner on the blog, which is darn cute also. I should ask her to make me some LJ icons. Less than 7 weeks before I take her to college. She's signed up for a pre-orientation excursion, so we'll be heading there early, on August 25. Then she'll disappear for 3 days of Los Angeles arts & culture while I...well, play solo tourist, I guess. Practically speaking, I could just go home at that point--she'll have moved into her dorm room early, seen the campus, and connected with far better guides to L.A. than me. But this is my first child's first time at college, so I'm going to stay for the parent portion of the regular orientation. If she comes back from the pre-orientation so bonded with new friends that she doesn't want to hang out with Mom, I will consider that a great success and go find myself a beach. It's all coming up so fast. Not for her, mind you; anticipation is making the summer crawl for her. But for me. Younger Daughter turns 17 the day before we leave, so it'll be a week of many milestones. |
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Whew! Thanks to a generous offer from my husband to hand-deliver my entry, I will get a story in for the Tamarack Award competition this year. Today's the deadline. Talk about squeaking in under the wire. Am I confident in the story's chances? Not especially. It's as close to a first draft as I've ever submitted, and part of me wants to yank it back and spend the next year polishing and improving it for the 2010 competition instead. But I swore I'd enter this year, and I want to hit at least one of my summer writing goals. So good luck and godspeed, little story. Write if you find work. |
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Those Winter Sundays Robert Hayden Sundays too my father got up early |
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Just in time for my birthday, a happy bit of news: PodCastle is buying nonexclusive podcast rights to my story "Kissing Frogs". Yay! I'm very excited to hear it read by a professional. PodCastle, along with sister publications Escape Pod and PseudoPod, is doing wonderful things with podcasting of speculative fiction by new and established authors. I'm not clear on their revenue model, since they are paying their authors but not charging their listeners--but I see a "Donate" button, so if you love what you hear, send a little cash their way in appreciation. |
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I know it's because there was a tragic explosion at the plant, but I still can't keep Soylent Green out of my brain when I see this headline: |
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I got sucked into the latest Facebook meme, and thought I'd repost my reply over here. 15 Books in 15 Minutes "The rules: 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." |
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I'll bet today's XKCD cartoon wins the prize for the most Wikipedia searches ever inspired by a webcomic. I must've spent 15 minutes reading all the theories of the origins of the manuscript...and then 15 more getting sidetracked by linguistic terms...and another 15 musing on the possible plot of a science fiction novel that would explain it all. Da Vinci Code meets the Rosetta Stone! In unrelated news, Younger Daughter will have oral surgery today to remove four wisdom teeth, all heading in the wrong direction. I'm not sure who will be in more pain afterwards: the kid with the mouth full of gauze and stitches, or the parents who have to pay the bill. Dental coverage sure doesn't pay for much. "Ouch!" all around. |
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