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Next Happy So, last Friday night David and I went to see Kenny
Burrell and Ray Barretto and the New World Spirit at Yoshi's (remember, I
won free tix?). I love dressing up. We had dinner there - sushi. I
ordered a la carte, but David splurged on the Bento box. One of the items
in his box was a grilled tuna steak. I tried a bite. It tasted like
mushrooms (from the sauce) but there's no mistaking that texture. Folks,
I haven't had that texture in my mouth for ten years. I ended up eating a
third of his tuna steak. I also tried the mackerel sushi, which I almost
spit out (David: "Eat the ginger! Eat some ginger - hurry hurry! Boy, am
I proud of you for trying that." (He wouldn't even try it.)) Anyhow, I'm
going to learn to cook salmon, I think. I love the protein rush I get
. . . For the show, we sat right up next to the stage, just like we did
last time (David: "I think they see your name and say, 'that Shaw girl
sure shows a lot of cleavage; why don't you put her up front to give the
musicians something to look at?"). It was a good show, with the conguero
(conga player) Ray Barretto leading the show most of the time. At one
point, during a conga solo, a woman with a Spanish accent was cat-calling
him: "Oh, Ray, go with it baby, go with . . .you know how to play it, you
know what I like . . ." until he finally lost it, stopped playing and
laughed. "I must know that voice from somewhere." he says. "Ray, honey,
don't you remember? I can't forget - prrrrrrrr". the audience was loving
it - the interplay went back and forth (for a bit too long, but that's
ok) until Ray actually managed to start back up the beat on his congas and
the band jumped in and all was restored to
normal. A good time was had by all.
Enthusiastic They like me, they really like me! Last
Thursday's writing class was nerve-wracking. I had distributed my story
the week before, along with two others. We were to be critiqued that
night. Dave (the instructor) saved me for last. Of course, by that
point we were running out of time. During the break, two different
people came up to me to tell me that they loved my story and they were
sorry but they had no critiques to give! One of them, the woman, told me
it was "Amazing" and the man told me, "I don't usually read fantasy or SF,
but you have such a light touch and the story is such a page-turner
. . ." Ok, so that made me feel better. Really, I was afraid everyone
would think it was a very silly story - it has a goofy premise (I mean,
the working title is "The Cat Enchanter"). Anyhow, by the end of class
some of the participants had left already, and I was anxious that I
wouldn't get much time to ask questions after the critique. (And I
didn't.) They liked
it. General comments were: very inventive, engaging, a long story
that feels short because it keeps surprising and enchanting you,
creative, exciting, well-crafted. It was cool - everyone found different
neat things I'd hidden in the text. One woman was intrigued with the
little twist I'd shoved in at the end (which needs fleshing out), another
was thrilled with the overall premise . . . no one could agree on what was
at the "heart" of the story, which pleased me, actually, as there's not
really just ONE thing going on in this story. It made me reject
immediately the only big suggestion I
got from Dave - which was to switch the entire piece to one character's
PoV (Point of View). Doing that changes the story entirely and while that
would be streamlining it, you'd lose much explanation and I think I'd have
even MORE questions posed to me by my readers. Anyhow, Dave said it was
definitely a story he'd remember, which I took as a high compliment. So,
I'm pumped. I'm thinking once I get this polished up, I'll submit it to
Asimov's (what the hell, might as well aim high) and see what they say.
Melancholy I've GOT to change jobs. I realized this weekend
that being an office gopher, while not taxing on the brain, is really
depleting my ego. Melissa just got promoted to tech support (they're
training her) and I'm really pleased for her, but this is just
humiliating. I know I'm not going anywhere here at this company (the CEO
made a snap judgement over a year ago and decided he didn't like me and,
from what I hear around the office, it's not worth trying to change his
mind) and it's just boring me into slackerdom. There is so much else I
could be doing - and I should at least be making more money. Add to that
the fact that some of this company's best sales people have left recently,
and, well, I'm anxious to leave. The only problem is that I have all
these friends here, but I can make new
friends. Whiny Ok. I've been sick for over a month
now. Bad cough that brings up stuff, ear ache/muffledness, headaches,
dizziness. I'm sick of going to the doctor and hearing, "Oh, it's just a
virus." I have a temperature of 101 and no one seems to be
concerned! There's also TB going around the Bay right now, and I'm
getting worried. Yes, yes, I'm going to go to the doctor again soon, but
I'm not holding my breath that they'll say anything helpful. I've got a
full physical scheduled in August, so maybe that'll tell me more. What
really sucks is that the weight-lifting is definitely working - Carol,
Jodi and Sherman all said it looks like I've lost weight (and they can't
all be wrong, right?). I'm cutting WAY down on sugar, bumping up my
protein,
trying to eat right, rest enough . . . I should be healthy, dammit!
Bitchy Note: I love my friends dearly. Ok, I'm not sure that
I'm going to Burning Man this year. I know, I decided last week I was
going for sure, now I'm about 50/50 on the matter. Why? Well, if I go,
I'll be going with Ian, Aaron, Dan, Sherman and maybe Judy. That's a
good, solid group, and it makes me want to go. However. However, Ian has
joined up with this group that is doing something with molten metal -
something that's so dangerous that the guy who came up with it (it was a
mistake with an art project) decided it would be great to try and
reproduce at Burning Man. It involves using a steam cannon to explode
molten iron into the air. Gee, that sounds like something I'd
HATE. Now, I don't need to do what Ian's doing, but the thing is, he
wants to set up a main theme camp with these people. I was looking
forward to a nice, small, cozy, low-stress personal camp with my
friends. I participate by costume, performance art, that sort of
thing. I don't want to camp with a bunch of strangers bent on
propelling molten metal into the air. For one thing, they'll expect me to
help (because I'm camping there). For another thing, that makes
cooking/feeding everyone much more complicated. It's also annoying to be
around people who are really into something you think is, well, a really
DUMB idea. Well, I told you this was the bitchy section, didn't
I? Anyhow, it would also save me/make me lots of money to skip Burning
Man this year. Maybe even enough to go to Europe? Definitely enough to
buy a nice printer (problem with that is that a nice printer wouldn't work
with my shitty computer, but that's another bitchy rant for another
day). I think of all this, then I think of how I've been sick for over a
month this summer (enough that I skipped a free concert with my friends
yesterday, because I knew it would drain me), and I think: maybe Burning
Man doesn't need me this year. I can go show off my thinner, naked body
somewhere else. Like I said, I'm 50/50 on this right now. Maybe I'll
come around one way or another. I should probably try talking to Ian
again once he's calmed down a bit about this molten metal
thing. Well, there may be more, but this will do for now.
Worked out some new ideas for the Thirds story (to flesh it out a
bit). Why do all SF stories seem to want to be novels instead?
Slowly reading:
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Monday, July 24th -
Many Moods
I've gots lots to say, and some of it is whiny, some of it is
enthusiastic, some of it is melancholy. Perhaps I should divide it up for
you? Exercise
log:
Did my shoulders with free weights at home; also some abs. Took a walk on
Saturday, gardened on Sunday.
Writing log:
I'm currently reading:
The Infinity Box by Kate Wilhelm
Stars in
My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany
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