Puppies.

Today's post goes out to my lady friend, who I think really needs to see some puppies this week. There's just something about puppies. I think they're one of the true forces of good in the world. I mean, only a complete Evil Overlord could look at a puppy and say it wasn't cute. People abuse them sometimes, and people give them to shelters sometimes, but even THOSE people can't say puppies aren't cute.

Here's a Labrador puppy, 'cause those are my favorite.



Behold.










Here's a French bulldog puppy.




Some of you may wonder why there's no diversity in my puppy pictures -- why I only post pictures of puppies that will grow up to be large dogs.

That's because I don't care about small dogs.

It's fall.

I LIVE in Little House On The Prairie. (Minus the blackface, the racist comments about Native people, and the bonnets.) You know how in "The Long Winter", there's this huge blizzard and they spend all their time in one room of the house because that's the only place they have heat?

Well, I'm doing that now.

I reference Little House On The Prairie way too much.

Anyway, my favorite housemate and I (that's a lie, they're all my favorites for different reasons) are sitting in the living room. We live in an old urban style rowhouse -- if you've ever been in a house in DC you'll know what I'm talking about -- and we have those glass doors in the living room that can close if off from the rest of the house.

We're sitting here having a grand old time with Aunt Nellie's Afghan, laptops, a guitar, and tea with Special Herbs in it. A space heater is working overtime in the center of the room. I'm wearing leggings, two skirts, my Underarmour (best Christmas present ever, Ma), a sweatshirt, and rainbow-themed toe socks. Aunt Nellie's Afghan (which is a collection of granny sqaures so garish that it looks cool) is wrapped around my feet, which are still cold.

What I'm trying to say: my house is freezing. It's only November. By February -- I don't even want to think about February.

But I like living in a place with four seasons. And fall means it's time for potato soup, sweet potato excess, pumpkin pie, chai, and apple cider.

Awwww yeah!

In other words, here is a list of things I've been doing to procrastinate on writing my novel:

1. Eat.
2. Talk to housemates.
3. Talk to my lady friend.
4. Clean. This is actually a good procrastination method because you NEED to clean, so you don't feel bad while you're doing it. I even washed the windows.
5. Work on stuff for work.
6. Go to happy hours.
7. Read.
8. Research things that are vaguely, but not really related to my book.
9. Blog.

I reached thirteen thousand words yesterday.

Still 37,000 more to go.

In Which I Become A Famed Novel Writer

So I've had the same problem with all the epic novels I've ever written: I haven't written them. I get really excited about writing them, and sometimes I'll write the first five chapters, or that scene where the captain of the guard finally hooks up with the queen, but I've never actually finished a novel.

So this month I'm doing NaNoWriMo for the first time.

By the way, my Halloween party was epic. At one point I peered through the weed smoke at all the drinking and dancing and making out, and I was like, I can’t believe I’m at a party this awesome. Then I was like, I can’t believe I THREW a party this awesome. Nobody threw up, but one dude fell down the stairs. My personal party philosophy is that the more injuries people sustain, the awesomer the party was.

Anyway, for the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It's an informal challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It's always in November, which is a great month to just sit under blankets in your pajamas and fool around with your laptop. NaNoWriMo has grown hugely in the ten or so years since it started -- last year more than 160,000 people did it.

The problem for me is that I'm one of those people who likes to spend a week on 500 words. So I'm going to have to get over it and write my novel. I'm counting on my competitive spirit to help me beat other writers. See, you sign up on the NaNoWriMo site, and then you can friend other people who are doing it and see their word count. I populated my writing buddies page with people I know from a fantasy writers' website I've been a member of for four or five years. I know some of them pretty well. At the end of the first day yesterday, I was vastly pleased to see that my word count exceeded theirs.

We'll see what it looks like next week.

And to answer the question everybody's asking, my novel is gonna be about this really cool boi princess who's kind of a fuck-up but very likeable, and she lives on an island where they have these really cool flying machines that operate with pedals, and then her father's evil twin murders both her parents and exiles the princess. But the princess' best friend grows up seeking revenge, and when she's old enough she goes on a quest to find the princess. She finds her and they have sex and then they come back and overthrow the evil aunt and live happily ever after.

The end. Except it has to be 50,000 words.

My current word count is 4,055. Not bad for two days. Apparently you're supposed to write 5,000 words every three days, or 1,667 words a day. And you can't write at work. (I made that rule up.)

Halloween Plans

Tell me why I just spent twenty dollars at the dollar store. That's a little excessive, I think. And I don't even have twenty things!

I didn't know it was even possible to spend twenty dollars at the dollar store when you're only picking a few things up.

Most of the stuff was for my house's crazy Halloween party. We want to hold one of those parties where everyone gets so wasted that they crawl around on the floor in other people's vomit. I've never been to one of those parties, so I thought it might be fun to take it to the next level and throw one in my house.

Unfortunately, though, the people I know aren't really the sort to vomit. Or crawl around in other people's vomit when they see it.

But, I did get one of those black lightbulbs. Maybe that will induce people to vomit, if I can figure out a way to strobe it.

Holiday Weekend Issues

I just wrote this letter to Barnes and Noble's website, after they sent me an email with this subject line: Columbus Discovered America. You'll Discover Great Savings.

Dear Barnes And Noble Customer Service:

Your last promotional email to Barnes and Noble subscribers had the subject line, "Columbus Discovers America". I want you to know that that is a huge FAIL in the customer relations department. Besides the fact that Columbus didn't discover America (I won't insult your intelligence by going into those details), the IDEA of Columbus leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many people whose cultures were negatively impacted by Columbus and the rise of colonialism.

In fact, it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I just unsubscribed from your list. You clearly weren't thinking about your Native American customers, or any of your customers who don't like celebrating a man who allowed his men to rape young girls, cut off people's hands, and set off the genocide of an entire people.

I know you didn't make up Columbus Day. But you don't have to jump on board with it like you think it's a legitimate holiday. If you're going to talk about Columbus, you need to talk about him in a serious and analytical way. Don't trivialize it into a freaking sales pitch.

I'm just saying. I work in web stuff too, so I know it's a pain in the ass to find the right angle. But playing up Columbus Day like it's just a harmless holiday is absolutely the WRONG angle. I think you just lost any cultural competence points you may have had.

I am unsubscribed from your list.

Have a nice three-day weekend.

I think that about sums up my problem with the upcoming day off work.

The obstacles between me and my dream band are diminishing every day.

Nobody’s blogging. Not even me. And I’m not apologizing. I hate logging onto somebody’s blog and reading some drivel like, “I know I should be blogging more….I’m such a bad blogger….sorry guys.”

I’m not sorry. I didn’t feel like blogging and that’s that. Also, I’ve been writing for other publications. Some are super secret because they have to do with activism that might endanger my lady friend in the place where you don’t ask and she doesn’t tell. Others are less secret, like National Public Radio. If you want to read blog posts by me that are under a month old, go to their new blog, Deceptive Cadence. You will see my name on posts if you scroll far enough.

So that’s my job. I’m living it up in DC, becoming an official writer and producer person and of course living the Bohemian lifestyle with five hippies.They would probably be pissed if I called them hippies, though. For some reason, people who are part of a counterculture hate admitting that they are conforming to anything, even though my house clearly works daily to cultivate its indie-vegan-feminist cred.

I do my part by painting pictures that look like vaginas.

I’m also becoming a Guitar Expert. One of my housemates is a classical cellist, and we both have guitars. We’ve become complete experts. ALSO, she just got an old accordion that came from the 1930’s. It’s in ridiculously good shape, too. So as soon as we write a song of our own, we’ll be starting the most insane band known to humankind. These are the instruments the house (mostly me and the other musician) possesses:
-Three guitars
-A harmonica
-Soprano and alto recorders
-Two didgeridoos
-an accordion
-a tiny drum
-a cello
-a piano, which isn’t actually in the house right now. I’m still waiting to see if I should ship it out here.

I mean, you can make any NUMBER of band combinations with those instruments. I really wish we had an electric bass, but I’ve got my eye on craigslist. One will come. Or even a string bass. It wouldn’t be hard to learn that. I mean, there’s only one melodic line, for goodness’ sake. When you’re a pianist used to playing four and five lines at a time (I’m looking at you, Bach), the bass looks ridiculously easy to learn.

But maybe I’m speaking too soon.

They Tricked Me.

So basically, if you work in an office, it's just like school. There are differences in the details, but basically, it's just like school.

I was in the Real World this whole time and I didn't even know it. It's the same thing -- you have to get up at a certain time in the morning, and go and be polite, and be extra polite to the people who might write you a recommendation letter. You bring your lunch in a little bag and when lunchtime comes you go to the little refrigerator and warm it up. There are cliques and feuds. There are even field trips (like the cookout the office is supposed to be having).

You have someone who tells you what homework to do, and then you do it. In a job, less of that homework is done at home, but they make up for that with the eight-hour work day.

My lady friend was saying that in the place you don't ask about and I don't tell about, they have direct orders, where people tell you to do stuff, and then implied orders. Like, if you're supposed to be somewhere at eight o'clock, it's implied that you'll have to wake up sometime before eight to get there.

There are a lot of implied orders in the work world that I don't think I would pick up on if I didn't come from a segment of the ubiquitous "middle class" that is used to going to school and working in offices. For instance, if you have a math class, it goes without saying that you skim the chapter they're lecturing on the day before so you can take better notes. If you have an all-staff meeting, it goes without saying that you check up on what everybody's working on at the moment so you can sound informed if they call on you to talk. I might not have known that if I hadn't listened to my parents talk about their days. I might have thought they were going to tell ME what was going on.

Anyway, it's interesting to think I'm entering a new game only to find out that it's the same one.

An Interesting Encounter

Possibly mature content ahead. So I met an interesting person last night. She came wobbling up onto our porch, completely strung out. She told us she used to buy weed at the house (before we lived there) and wanted to get some more. She had on ridiculously high heels and wasn’t sure who we were, but she looked exhausted.

So of course I invited her in. We sat down and I gave her the things she needed. She was so happy to have met us. It was hard to get her story out of her because she was completely out of her mind, but basically she grew up in McLean, VA (that’s like the Bellevue of DC, for my Seattle readers) in “a good family” (she said this several times) and left for DC at fourteen. Since then she’s turned tricks and stripped and taken online college classes.

I told her that was great (the classes, not the tricks) and that I had confidence in her ability to get a degree.

Then she grabbed my skirts and offered to blow me.

“I’m actually good,” I said.

She came out on the porch with the rest of the housemates and was like, “You don’t know how glad I am to have met some white, middle-class----“

My expression stopped that sentence in its tracks. After that I decided she had to go. So a house friend and I walked her to 14th St, where we hailed her a taxi and sent her home.

Taxi driver, I’m sorry.

But you wanna know what the weirdest thing about this encounter is?

I think I’ve met her before!

I wrote about it here, at the end of the post. Three winters ago, I was waiting in a restaurant for some Indian takeout. This woman came in and after rudely ascertaining that I liked the ladies, started grabbing at my scarf like she wanted to make out with me. She made all kinds of ruckus until the manager came and kicked her out, upon which we discovered that she had been there for a job interview.

Oops.

If it was her, she’s actually improved a lot since then.

I saw something cool.

I saw something totally awesome on my way to work. Arnold Widowmaker and I usually leave around 9:30, and that’s at the tail end of the peak morning bicycle rush. The route I take to work is almost never gridlocked, so I do the two-and-a-half miles in about fifteen minutes. That’s pretty good for rush hour.

One thing that gets my time down is the giant hill in northwest DC. (Well, giant for DC. Seattle and San Francisco bikers would probably bike up it as a cool-down.) On 14th St, it’s epic. It’s like a roller coaster. I come right off my relatively quiet block onto 14th, right, and I’m looking back and forth gauging space between the cars and trying to get my speed up to keep up with the traffic. The road begins to slant and my center of gravity starts shifting as Arnold picks up momentum. Just as the hill gets steep, I reach over and pull my big gear shifter, the one I almost never use. After several rotations it falls into place with a satisfying clunk, and I take OFF.

So that in itself is probably one of the most legitimate ways in the universe to commute to work. But today I saw something even cooler. I was on the hill, right, and I had just shifted gears and bent low over my saddle, when I saw another biker go past me like I was standing still. Which shouldn’t have happened, because I was going very fast. Even Lance shouldn’t have passed me that fast.

So I look, and this dude has one hand out and is holding onto a TRUCK! He’s not even pedaling!

I've never seen anyone do that outside of a professional bike race. He held onto the truck until the bottom of the hill and then let go and shot off into the distance. I had gone into a sprint so I could catch him at the next light and tell him how legit he was, and ask how he did it, but there was no way I could catch up with him.
Tomorrow I’m adjusting my helmet and waiting for a truck!

A Beast On The Bike

Also, I’m becoming a bike nerd. (Do they have bike nerds? It’s kind of borderline.) I’ve had bikes since I was old enough to crash them, but until I came to DC I only used them for fun, not transportation. For the past four years, though, my bike has been like a trusty steed of fire that bears me across all manner of terrain.

My current bike is named Arnold Widowmaker. I call him Arnold for short. I got him from my piano teacher at Howard, and I’ve had him about a year and a half. This is me on him. I looked a little skanky in the photo, so I changed it to black and white. Even the skankiest things look classy in black and white.

But it’s only been in the past month or so that I’ve decided to become a bike expert. I always wanted to be one, but that’s easier to do when there are resources around me (there weren’t at Howard). Once I graduated, I got two things that set me on a path to cycling greatness. First, I moved into a house full of bikers, one of whom is pretty serious – more serious than I, anyway. Between her and me and the other two bikers in the house, we’ve transformed our dining room into a bike parking garage/repair and maintenance shop. She also hooked me up with people she knows who love to go touring, which is a fancy way of saying they like to go on long-ass bike rides.

The other thing was that before she left to be all that she could be, my lady friend got me one of those omnitools that you can use to fix just about anything on your bike. And she got me some tire levers and a pump. Once I had those rudiments, I was ready to do just about anything. I decided to embark upon a season-long project: I would slowly make Arnold Widowmaker into the pimpingest bike ever to touch pavement.

These are the things I’ve done to him:

1. Singlehandedly changed his tires and tubes.

6. Installed a mirror and a taillight.

2. Singlehandedly changed front tube again when it went flat on a day-long bike adventure two weeks later. It got punctured on this crappy trail. I was pretty mad – but I had everything I needed to do the job in my little bag. Dudes on the ride came over and gallantly offered help, but I shrugged them off.

3. Cleaned and relubricated his chain. It was insane how much quieter he ran once I did this. It made me feel ashamed that I hadn’t done it before.

4. Taken apart and cleaned the pedals. That’s a lot harder than it sounds because, as I found out, each pedal has two sets of thirteen miniscule ball bearings, which are basically just tiny-ass balls that roll everywhere.

5. Taken apart and cleaned the rear hub and axle. This was also harder than it sounds, for the same reason. Who knew a bike had so many ball bearings? Counting both hubs and the pedals (and wherever else there might be bearings that I haven’t discovered yet), that’s almost a hundred ball bearings.

When I was fixing the hub I had to go to the bike store to get some heavy grease and some quarter-inch ball bearings. The dude at the store looked at me skeptically and said, “If you’re doing something to your bike and you need to buy ball bearings, you’re probably in over your head.”

Really? I think what he meant was, “If you’re doing something to your bike and you have a vagina, you’re probably in over your head.”

Fool. Arnold is running like a dream as I type. (Well, actually he’s parked downstairs. Unless he’s up to something with my housemate’s bike Cecilia again.)

I know the more expert I get, the more I’ll have to deal with dudes trying to do shit for me. I hate it when dudes try to do shit for me. The author and historian Liz Stanley (whose book and research I might talk about in my next Book List post), has this to say about dudes doing shit for you:

“Chivalry depends upon and derives from inequalities in power, privilege, and material possessions and resulting images of the social groups involved. It is an important way of oppressing people, because it denies the existence of oppression under the appearance of service to the oppressed group.”

It’s one thing when a dude opens a door for me. That’s just being polite. I could do without it, but I’m not gonna give him a dirty look. But when a dude asks if he can fix your bike for you, that just shows that he doesn’t think you can do it.

Anyway. My next mission in the pursuit of expertise will be to go to this bike coop in DC and learn everything by doing things for other people’s bikes for free.

I’m pretty much ready to enter The Tour (which is what cool people who know about bikes call the Tour De France). Except yesterday I found out that I can’t enter it as a rider because people with vaginas are barred from it permanently. I’m not making this up!