Kira Disapproves

Isn’t it cool when someone tells you that you look like a celebrity? I mean, you’re just walking down the street being your usual, not-famous but not-so-bad self, and someone goes “hey, it’s [insert winning celebrity here]!” And then of course they realize it isn’t that famous person, but still, celebrities are, as a rule, attractive, so it still must be pretty nice.

I don’t know. Is it? It’s never happened to me.

Well. Not exactly.

It turns out that I don’t exactly look like a celebrity. Instead I have a peculiar talent for looking like LOTS of celebrities. It’s not always as desirable a comparison as you may think. But it is pretty funny. And so I present to you my top three  mistaken-for-a-celebrity moments:

Beakerface

(Also known as “Kira Dissaproves.” Thanks to Flickr used Scurzuzu for sharing this photo with a CC license. I’ve cropped it for my purpose.)

 Then there’s…

Weekend at Bernie’s

(I couldn’t find a good comparison photo for this one. Plus I’ve never seen the movie.)

And finally…Kira as Javier Bardem in….

No Kira for Old Men (Thanks, Kyle!)

I thought about throwing in a picture of me as a Disney princess to make myself feel better. But some of those were taken so embarrassingly recently (think high school chorus concert more than four-year-old birthday party) that it might not really help.

“It’s mine,” said Cassie, flipping her hair over one shoulder. “I have excellent taste.”

“Yeah,” said Penelope. “Except in men.” Penelope giggled so hard at this that she slipped off Alex’s lap and dipped under the water. Alex promptly fished her out.

Cassie looked less than pleased at Penelope’s comment, but she ignored it, instead swimming to the edge of the hot tub and lifting herself part-way out of the water to look over the edge. “Oh!” she said. “Good. There’s Liz and Church.”

Liz and Church being together didn’t strike me as so “good.” What was I really doing here? If I had really needed to talk to Church about everything that was going on, I would have done it and left. Instead, I had somehow ended up pretending I belonged at some kind of exclusive party. Maybe I could just sneak back into the guest room, put my clothes on, and go home.

Ever since Clarion West, I’ve been a lot better about writing regularly, setting writing goals, and completing stories. One of the kind of side effects (benefits?) of this has been that I’m starting to notice patterns in what I write and get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. For example, I really do believe what Mary Rosenblum told us about how what you write on what feels like a “bad” writing day tends to be just as good as what you write on a good day. A good or bad day also isn’t an indicator of whether I’ll end up throwing a lot of words out, which I’m also getting better at.

One weird quirk I have noticed over the past almost-year is that I tend to start writing about clothing, appearances, and accessories whenever I’m about to hit a writing wall. There my characters will be just wandering along, doing what they’re supposed to do (discovering magical powers, rescuing their best friends from dragons, discussing their teenage angst) and all the sudden someone will suggest a fashion show. Or everyone will realize that they need to wear different shoes if they’re all going to go hiking. Or people will break out the swimsuits. Usually, these scenes and details appear to have a purpose at the time. But then they’ll start going on for pages and pages and pages…

Tonight it was bathing suits, as you can see. I realize that the above excerpt is probably very confusing. It contains about sixteen names, something that is probably a problem. Just remember, it came about after a six hour writing day. And that it will probably be cut. As it is an excerpt from the third of four pages about, well, mostly bathing suits.

An avocado from the photo archives. I think this little guy ended up on a tostada.

I had a cautiously good writing day today. This evening, I drove to Reston Town Center to have dinner with my Godmother. It’s about thirty minutes from my house, and I found myself dwelling on how crappy I have felt about my novel lately while I was driving. I had been kind of playing around with an idea that would be a big change, and during the drive I got more and more excited about the possibilities that a new direction would provide. The biggest thing is that this change kind of turns the novel from a non-speculative one to one with fantastic elements. However, in this case I kind of realized that the story was perfect for some magic because I could really use it in a way that highlighted the real stuff I was concerned about, in this case mostly friendship and feeling un-special issues for the main character. So far, writing with the new plot ideas in mind has been really fun.

Of course, by tomorrow I’ll be in crisis again.

Another thing that kind of started working better just tonight was the use of objects in the story. For example, I had one character who I wanted to call the main character by a nickname. The nickname needed to indicate that the character wasn’t taking MC seriously, but I couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t make the other character sound stupid, too. I finally hit open a way to use a song that comes up in the story as a ring tone and as a whistle. Now the nickname connects to the song and I have a kind of object that can come back in to the story. Doesn’t sound very exciting, but this hardly ever happens in a way that feels suitably deliberate.

As I said, tomorrow could be a whole different story. I am once again cautiously pessimistic.

A while ago, I tried making bread for about the fourth or fifth time. Every other time it had gone pretty well, and I had this new flour that Cyd suggested from the Dekalb Farmer’s Market with extra gluten. What Cyd neglected to tell me (not that I would EVER blame anyone else for my mistakes or anything) was that this particular flour rises much faster than the regular stuff. So I let it rise the usual four hours and it got huge a scary looking. Harold wouldn’t even go in the kitchen after he saw it. Nikki laughed at me.

Well, I decided to try to bake it anyways, and when I went to check on it about fifteen minutes in, this is what I found:

It had grown so large, it actually got stuck in the oven. If you look closely, you can see that the shelves above and below are actually bending with the weight of the ridiculous bread.

At the time, I was kind of discoragued because it was the end of the semester and I just wanted some fresh bread. But now I’m totally over it and I didn’t feel like I could move on without sharing this picture.

So, I’ll let you know how it goes the next time. Which probably won’t be until I have my new kitchen. With my new, tough oven that will be hard to bend (I hope!)

This is Eden.

This is Kyle.

(This is my first try at a photo essay. How’s it going?)

This is Jimmy Carter. Not the former president. The former feral (but not really) cat. Jimmy Carter, or “Jimmers” as he is often known, was rescued from a feral cat colony by the humane society, but it turned out he was someone’s former pet that was just hanging out there. In this picture, Jimmy sits by my suitcases casually. As if I just might accidentally take him with me when I go.

This is the couch. I slept here. While Theresa was visiting, I got relegated to an air mattress on the floor. Eric was in my guest room. Good thing I like Eric and Theresa.

This is the awesome balcony. It’s perfect for sitting and people-watching. One night, we were all sitting out on the balcony when a group of people walked by below us talking about aliens and zombies or some such thing. It was a strangely out of body experience. Maybe it was really just us in a future dimension. It was dark. Anything is possible.

This is the awesome built in bookshelves and fireplace in the living room. The whole apartment is really long (I think it’s called railway style or something) and has lots of built in units. This one is probably my favorite. The cabinets hold Kyle’s movie collection, alphabetized. He ran out of room for all his movies when we purchased “Role Models” during my visit. I suggested that he should now take up a new hobby. Please feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments.

Let’s just get a close up of that picture on the mantle, shall we?

Why, it’s Eden and Kyle at Homecoming! Awwwww. History. Meant to be. Other sappy sentiments.

This is one of the frogs from Magnolia. Seriously! A celebrity frog! He just came from eBay and is totally getting his own display case. In time for the next tour, I suspect.

Front hall, complete with awesome retro desk. This tour was taken the day I left when I was getting all sappy and sad and I wanted to have pictures to remember the apartment by. So this shot of the front hall is the last one because then I left.

This may be navel-gazing blogging at it’s finest, but I’m happy with my first attempt at a photo essay. This is one of the places I feel at home, or at least feel like myself, which is pretty much the same thing. Thanks for letting me come visit! I’ll see you in Atlanta SOON!

I know I haven’t posted in forever. I’m going to try to be better. First, I was recovering from the end of the semester. And then I was in Chicago to visit Eden and Kyle and then in Madison for Wiscon (which I failed to actually attend.)

The recovery from the semester started with Sunday dinner where we had homemade ravioli and homemade chocolate covered oreos. Mmmmmmm. I ate so much pasta and dessert, I couldn’t even eat any of the chocolates Alex brought from London (but I took a few home with me.)

The pink ones are strawberry. The green ones are mint. There were some regular ones, too, in case any one is concerned. (Why do most of the pictures I take of food also have Nikki’s hand in them?)

After the fabulous dinner,  we played Celebrity, which is way better than Mafia. It involves choosing names (we did five each) and putting them in a basket. Round one, you can say anything but the name to get your team to guess it. Roung two, you can only say two words. Round three is charades. Some of the people in this group have a bit of trouble with charades. Like how whispering is still talking. (*coff* HAROLD *coff*) This night’s round went pretty well.

Were these two acting out the same word in these pictures?

One of these three pictures is NOT of someone playing charades…

Actually, really well. My team won!! By three points, so nice try other team! We’ll call you the “Losers.”

Winners

Losers

Timekeeper

After Sunday dinner, I bid Atlanta goodbye for a month of so and went to my parents in Virginia. My Mom was nice enough to agree to Lila-sit so I could take my trip to Chicago and then Wiscon. More posts to come on that, starting with tomorrow’s special edition: “On Location: Kyle and Eden’s Apartment.” For now, here’s a few pictures of the group.

Kyle, Mike, and Eric being Hounded by Paparazzi

Sitting by the River in the Park with Theresa!

Hanging out by the water in Madison with Shane, Eden, and Pam. More to come!!

I feel lucky to have two great groups of friends to post about. With that warm fuzzy, goodnight!

When I was Gertrude McFuzz in Seussical: The Musical (yes, such a thing exists. No, I will not show you pictures of me in feathers.) I had to sing a song about how “My eyes are too small. I have very large feet. And I’m not very proud of my pitiful ‘tweet!’”

That’s the only tweet-ing I’ve ever done. (Yes, this was the best segue I could think of.) But I know lots of you Twitter. My friend and grad school classmate Elizabeth Daley has an article about Twitter in USA Today. It’s about celebrity “Tweeters” and the crazy things they share. I think she makes a really nice point about the ways in which celebrities who tweet seem to be acting out some weird stuff. Also, this definitely falls into the category of writing that doesn’t jump to the “gee, whiz, technology” position that lots of writers take on things like Twitter and Facebook.

Read it!

My links are still wonky, but you can just do some old fashioned cut and paste and get it here: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/05/tech2-celebrity-tweeters-expose-themselves-for-what-they-are.html#more

Come on. You can spare the time to cut and paste. Especially if I’ve ever made you anything out of construction paper.

Bean man finished his papers!

See the beer mug in has hand?

See the pleased, but still slightly wild and overbright look in his eye?

Yup.

I survived, but I’m not ready for toooo much celebration. It was really rough writing papers this semster, especially this last one. I realized that part of the problem was that the first paper I had due was on a very emotionally draining topic. I didn’t do as much as I could have on my last papers because I didn’t have the energy to completely immerse myself. But whatever, it’s done now. Revisions are for the summer.

Oh, and I still have to finish editing my course syllabus for when I teach next spring. I’ll be getting right on that.

Thanks for all the encouragement and congratulations to those of you who are now DONE yourselves.

Lila and I are going to go pass out now.

I just sneezed sitting at my computer in the library. I’m pretty sure I don’t have swine flu (I checked www.doihaveswinefluyet.com, for example) but I betcha no one will mess with my computer the next time I go to get a drink of water.

Silver linings, people.

And, my father’s advice for paper writing:

1. Write a word.

2. Follow with more words with a sprinkling of nouns, verbs, and adjectives

3. Let it sit

4. Rewrite

I hope these instructions help.

Dad

Well, people, now that we all know how it’s done, let’s get typing!

From BoingBoing, a desk that mechanically presents the reader with the book they should be studying, for exactly the amount of time they should spend studying it. I have a feeling that this desk, rather than forcing me to work, would force me to find new, time-limited methods of procrastination, before I had to break the damn thing apart and retrieve the books to actually write a paper.

I invented a desk in which the books I had to study were arranged in order at the beginning of each term. I also made a bed which set me on my feet every morning at the hour determined on, and in dark winter mornings just as the bed set me on the floor it lighted a lamp. Then, after the minutes allowed for dressing had elapsed, a click was heard and the first book to be studied was pushed up from a rack below the top of the desk, thrown open, and allowed to remain there the number of minutes required. Then the machinery closed the book and allowed it to drop back into its stall, then moved the rack forward and threw up the next in order, and so on, all the day being divided according to the times of recitation, and time required and allotted to each study. 

- Naturalist John Muir

Links still aren’t working, but you can see a picture of it here: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/01/john-muirs-clockwork.html.