Quickie cause I haven't updated in a while:

Packing is stalled, but I've got very little left to go. I'll get the last boxes done this week, probably.

Moving is about to commence. But first, painting! I'm going a little design crazy, but meh, I never leave the house, so it better look damn good.

Writing is meh. Sleeping is overrated. Body is sick but still refuses to sleep. Same old story, I guess.

That's all. Can it be Friday please?

Wow, LJ has private messages n stuff. Weird.

Watched Virtuality tonight. Now I'm hating on Fox network even more. That show might have been awesome. A science fiction show where the science actually makes reasonable sense (virtual reality doesn't kill you, the spaceship design pays more than lipservice to what we theorize about long term space travel designs, stuff like that). Sucks ass that they decided to air the pilot without picking up the show. Grr.

Watched Knocked Up again too. That movie was just as funny the second time around. Also, makes me glad I don't have a totally dysfunctional relationship (he still loves me even after we spent like two freakin hours playing hall tetris with the treadmill... seriously, at one point I thought we'd recreated the Dirk Gently couch problem).

In the sadness news, I'm trying not to be depressed that I'm not at Clarion West. Trying really hard. I sort of stumbled across some clarion blogs (stupid writers posting comments who I then totally click the blog links from etc... they made me do it!). Damn but it sounds awesome. Meh. I'm going to hold my own mini clarion of... me. Alone in my room rolling dice in the dark. Well, writing science fiction in the dark. I don't know. It's really hard sometimes to push back the constant drone of my inner critic who never stops muttering that I'll never be good enough. Maybe I won't. You can't ever be sure, right? Next year. Next year I'm going to apply to both Clarions and Odyssey. Hedge my bets. And maybe I'll get to meet E. Bear at Worldcon. If I'm not hiding in a corner too shy to speak to anyone because hey, at this point I'm just another non-selling wannabe groupie fangirl. Somehow I doubt that whining "but I'm getting really *nice* rejection letters" is going to cut it.

All right. It's time for my every other night of sleep.

So you know, life as usual. I seem to be sleeping every other day. Not entirely sure how my body decided on this schedule, but whatever. I'll work on it.

I have packed up 8 boxes of books, three boxes of random stuff, and posted a bunch of things for sale. If I sell everything I've listed at close to listing price I should make enough that we can start car shopping in September, but knock on wood. So far I've had a few bites on the lower-priced items. Of course, the highest priced item is my harp, which I'm only testing the waters on selling. I'm completely unwilling to budge on the price of it since I'm emotionally attached even if I barely play it. But it alone is worth half the price of a hybrid car, so seeing if I can sell it for that (since I don't play much anyway) could make it worth it. I'm not holding my breath. Everything else HAS to get sold though because there's no room for them. I also plan to list the older shelves once I've got them cleared off, plus possibly the futon and queen bed provided we get confirmation of abandonment from our ex-roomate on those items (since technically he owns the bed and futon frame).
(so yeah, if anyone needs (or knows someone who needs) a nice treadmill, a washer/dryer, some older bookshelves, a huge dining room table w/6 chairs, a futon couch, or a queen size bed... let me know!)

I think I have the paint colors for the apartment more or less picked out. I'll get paint samples on the day before we get our keys so we can paint some swatches and see how it looks in reality. Two weeks! Our plan to spend the first weekend painting and then move the second weekend. I'm super excited. I want to throw a house-warming party, but that won't be until Aug (probably late Aug) since we're pretty much moving and then leaving the state for the next 3 weeks (I'll be gone more or less all of that, anyway.)

We were approved for the apartment, so now I just have to pack a billion books, sell some shelves and a table and a bed and a couch, and we're good!

Now, to pick paint colors... to go with my 7'7 round red rug of doom...

It's finally done!

If you have love for me, either buy one here: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fStoreID=2311972 (downloadable even!)
or see me in person, I have about 25 copies for sale and then I can sign it for you.

And if you truly love me, review it! In about 8 weeks it will be on amazon.com as well, I'll post the link then.

Downtown Pdx?
pros: it's hip, mattchu could walk to work and walk home for lunch, easy distance to everything I could ever want to buy or need (ie Powell's)
cons: it's damned expensive, apartments are tiny, would have to cut down to 1 car for sure sooner than later, and it means no one would ever visit us due to parking issues.

Wilsonville?
pros: it's cheap for a 2 bedroom (save for hybrid car and awesome travel), walking/biking distance to best friends, I can stand on Fox and Elfie's lawn playing sad songs until I get game, I can potentially have all the horse-back riding action I want.
cons: 30-60 min commute to work for Mattchu each way. Outside of the area of pdx we both love so much.

So where to move?

Haven't been able to sleep very well for nearly a week now. Grr. Argh.

Term is nearly over and then I'll be free of grad school and it will be time to crack down on the novels.

I'm also going to start rock climbing again as soon as school's out, which will be... painful and probably really embarrassing. However, if I wait until I think I'm thin enough to do it, I'll be waiting a very long time. I want arm muscle again, damnit. So screw it, I'll just go humiliate myself.

The eat less crap diet is working more or less, though I got a bit derailed last weekend. I've been eating 4-6 small meals a day for the last few days and that seems to work really well since if I get hungry I just eat another snack basically. I'll have to modify that plan for social situations, but I think I can stick with it for a while.

I've decided too that once my arms look nice again I'm going to get my sleeve tattoo on the right arm as a reward. It'll likely be a few months at the least, but it's something to look forward to.

We've decided we're moving in August, so that gives us time to save up, sell crap we don't need, and shop around for the stuff we do need (ok, want... a flatscreen tv is hardly a need..., though I think a couch or giant pillows are kinda a need since we won't have any living room furniture after I sell the loveseat). I'm trying to reduce our stuff down to the bare essentials since the house always feels super cluttered to me and I'm sick of it. I already cleaned out one closet. One more to tackle and then I can make a run to the good will donation place and get rid of the random clothing and junk I keep finding. Hopefully by the time we move I can also throw out some more clothes since my smaller stuff should start fitting by then (it had better, damnit. So tired of living in this body the way it is...).

Oh, and I dyed my hair copper.

That's all I got.

Mattchu and I have decided that I'll drop out for now and look around for other programs that might benefit me better. And of course keep writing and probably attend more workshops and conventions in the future.

Now comes the hard part, actually dropping out and telling the GLO people that I can't do it next year (I hate to make them sad, but I won't fulfill the requirements to retain the position, so I have no choice).

Then I just have to survive the last two weeks of this term, and the fun will start. Fun being finishing the two novels I'm working on so that I can get rolling on the steampunk alchemist/detective series. I hope to be querying agents by Christmas on the other two novels, which I think is a fair goal.

Once again, I'm considering dropping out of graduate school. I'm staring at the grad level class offerings for fall and nothing looks remotely interesting. I'm not sure I can survive through another 'workshop' either without wanting to die of schadenfreude or something. I don't know. It's going to be a huge stretch to even afford it in the first place, but it seems such a why bother sort of thing when I'm really not enjoying my classes at all and I don't really need the bit of paper at the end (or can get it from somewhere else, somewhere maybe more to my needs like the Stonecoast MFA if I decide to apply in the future).

So. Pros and Cons.

Pros for dropping out:
1) Money saved. Not having to come up with 14k in the next year plus we'll be able to afford to put me on Mattchu's health plan through his work.
2) Sanity, since I'm not enjoying this anyway. I've liked 1 class out of 5 so far. Not a great record.
3) Will give me time to finish the two novels I'm working on and think about applying for a more suitable program. (or you know, ditching the whole MFA idea and just plugging along until I can get an agent, which is probably what I should have been doing all along...)

Cons for dropping out:
1) Status. Let's be realistic. Saying "I'm a grad student" is way more socially acceptable than saying "I'm an aspiring author". (or you know, my old standby "trophy wife").
2) Not getting to be a GLO coordinator. The job just sounds awesome (though maybe more work than they're really paying for, but that's the way of this kind of position). However, if I'm not taking grad classes, I can't do it. It's all or nothing, alas.
3) No piece of paper at the end, so no potential teaching job for me until/unless I get massively published.

So yeah. There it stands. I don't know what I'm going to do. Talk to Mattchu some more about it, I guess. I know he'll support whatever decision I make, but it does help to talk things out. If I am going to drop though, I really need to let the GLO people know, because they need to find someone to replace me. Oh the guilt. But I'm not sure fear of guilt is worth doing something I don't want to do for another year and a half or so...

To sum up:
So do I stay? Or do I go now?

I managed last night to get an entire mouthful of cranberries up my nose (laughing while eating is bad, mkay?) I think I got the last one out my nose this morning. My nose still hurts. Grr.

Mattchu has gotten his fill of my family for the time being, I think. He talked to me last night and wanted to know why my family treats me like a child. I don't have an answer for him. I notice it too, at odd times. Apparently it's starting to bug him. He was very sweet though and pointed out that even though it seems to him that my family thinks he's a saint for 'tolerating' my eccentricities, that he doesn't tolerate them. He loves them and wouldn't want me any other way. That made me feel pretty good. (And, frankly, it's nice to know that my issues with how my family talks to me/treats me aren't all in my head...)

My family does grate on me sometimes. We all have weird ways of treating each other, as do most families I guess. But I always feel like the outsider. I don't see things the way they see them, or do things that they really understand. I also don't think or act the way they do. What's really started to bug me is the unequal treatment I get (probably harking back to the 'treated like a child' thing that Matt has noticed). If I bring up a topic that might border on weird or inappropriate, it gets quashed generally. (Like, for instance, the kinda cool biological fact that some men can breast feed, which I guess is totally not okay to talk about after dinner or something... (even with a breastfeeding mother sitting at our table? huh?). But hey, if one of the "adults" (ie someone not me) brings up a topic like say, poop or eating sandwiches while holding a catheter, that's totally cool. I don't get it.

And my little sister gets to say hurtful things like calling me a skinhead or telling me I should never be a mother or telling a table full of people that all I did when I was a kid was throw tantrums to get my way (actually, all these things were said in front of people I care about) but god forbid I try to correct her when she says I was the baby who cried a lot (Mom had always told me I was a quiet baby, but correcting my sister I suppose counts as picking on her cause yeah, I'm the mean one...).

Yeah, and they all wonder why I don't return their phone calls or make plans with them? It's hardly a mystery to me...

In happier news the whole "don't eat crap all the time" diet is working. So far it isn't too hard to stick to either. I did have to make a foray for some new pants because I'm between the totally random sizes I own again, sigh. 20lbs and I'll have about five more pairs of pants that fit. Hopefully I can accomplish this before we move so I can ditch the fat clothes. We'll see.

Cavity in my tooth for three years? no pain.
Dentist fills cavity in my tooth? constant pain now.
Dental fail.

I self-published a chapbook of poetry. Because I'm lame like that. I'll have the amazon link soon (as soon as I get the ISBN all sorted, it will take a few days). Then you all (like all 6 of you) can have your own poetry by Izanobu! Aren't you excited yet? If anyone wants to buy a paper copy from me directly, I'll have a few in a week or two also (save on shipping...!) It's actually a pretty nice looking chapbook, I kept things simple. And hey, support a grad student. /end shameless plug

After two weeks of birthday related eating, I'm beyond fat again. Way to undo all the good work of the month before, sigh. So now I'm getting serious about the whole diet + exercise thing, also known now as Operation Nobu Wants to Wear Pants (I'm down to 1 pair that fit. Not cool. I own like 20 pairs of pants too. Double not cool). This means that basically I'll be cranky for the next couple weeks due to sugar addiction withdrawal, so sorry in advance if I try to eat your delicious brains. I mean... bite your head off. Yeah.

Going to restart the 100 pushup challenge. I can do 3! Which is 2 more than I could do last time I started it, so somehow I'm better already. w00t?

I'm a day older. Only this day, I'm a year older. It's like magic.

28.

But I has a cane.

Holy Fuck Toast.

It rocks.

Must go pass out now (too many hours of grout)

5 fillings and two hours later, I have teeth again. Meh. Meh on a stick.

Another writing rejection too. Yay. Oh wait, not yay.

I'm never getting published. I'll just keep getting nice rejections that ask me to send something else or whatever. Bleh.

This is my first Renn Fayre that I'm not working there! Yay! No, seriously, being able to leave whenever I want to? Bonus.

Sadly the rains are cutting down desire to be on campus, but oh well. Mattchu and I ran around evicting idiots from campus for 3 hours in the rain last night. It was nice to be able to just do border patrol things without having to worry about who might be drinking or smoking stuff or having to be on the clock or any of the stuff.

It has also been something of a relief to realize that I truly don't miss that job. Not even a little. It's been nice to catch up with my former coworkers, but gah, things haven't changed much (they still work crazy hours, they're still short staffed...) and it's good to know I've really moved on. (Of course it helps that my life is generally going awesome right now, I suppose).

And on the WTF side of things, saw my former roomate when he came up to our table today to drop off skittles and a seriously creepy smile. Skittles. Yeah. WTF? It was nice to feel bafflement and pity instead of ire. Hopefully he'll consider that his 'gesture' for the time being and stay away. I think Mattchu's reaction will probably help that mentality along (my husband can be a bit of an ass when he wants to be, hehe).

Hopefully the rain stops long enough for fireworks and maybe more patrol later tonight. Meanwhile I'm going to camp inside and watch Fallout 3. Mattchu's char is a ninja, it's sweet.

Now, to fall into meat coma. night.

Class got canceled. Which I didn't even know until I freakin showed up. Grr. Grr. Grr. At least it was a nice sunny walk to the bus, from bus to school (about 14 blocks) and then... return!

Now I'm gonna clean out my damned closet and put my laundry away. I did laundry like months ago and just left it in the basket. But now I can't tell which I washed and what I've used (clean is likely towards the bottom of the pile, mostly...). Time to put it away.

I'm resuming climbing tonight. I've been a pussy about it for long enough. I've lost enough muscle in my shoulders that my back is starting to hurt from my breasts again (it's ok to laugh. yes, I'm top heavy.)

Time to clean! weeee

I hate my teeth. Also, what kind of evil dentist has appointments at 7:30 am? Diabolical. Truly. I'm going in for more torture next week. Grr. Grr. At least they are front teeth. My dentist was like "oh, it's not so bad. You only have about 6 cavities." Heh.

Updated my 'have read' list for 2009. So far 54 books. Kinda. I counted the years worth of Asimov's, Analog, and F&SF that I chewed through last month as one entry each, because I am not going to list the 36 or so separately. I also have to figure out where my Weird Tales are, I think I have 6 of them, and I know I've read at least 4, but not sure where I put them, so they aren't on the list yet. But I'm over a quarter of the way to my goal of 200 books read this year, so I guess it's progress.


Now, to maybe walk a few miles and return those Holmes dvds.

I seem to have contracted a cold, likely from the con. Meh. On the plus side, I've had nothing but hours and hours of Sherlock Holmes BBC dvds to keep me company. It's research, really!

I'm not sure what hairbrained notion made me think I was capable of writing a novel in a genre I know little about, in a setting I know little about, with characters who are going be a pain in the ass. Oh well. If I can pull it off, it will be awesome, possibly the most awesome thing I've ever come up with. If I fail, well, I'll still get a thesis out of it. So either way, I win.

I went to Seattle this weekend for Norwescon.

This was the first con I've been to that wasn't Penny Arcade Expo. It was definitely different. I liked that Norwescon was small. No huge lines for panels and I usually had seat (some were standing room only, but I think that was due to the rooms being freaking tiny more than anything).

I arrived Friday morning and my first panel was Writing: Problems with Submissions. I didn't really learn anything I didn't already know (yes, guidelines apply to everyone etc...) but it was nice to hear people's questions and to have what I thought was right confirmed.
Next was Rejectomancy, which was hilarious and humbling. I mean, objectively I know that it can take a damn long time and a lot of rejections to get things published. But hearing it from multiple successful people still makes me wonder if I have the fortitude to say, shop a story around for 14 years.
Then I went to You've Finished: Now make it better. This panel was somewhat informative (yes, revision is hard work, yes, everyone does it differently) but could have used a moderator (apparently the moderator was sick?). Some questions derailed the panel into discussing first drafts which was interesting but not to the point of the panel. Still, there was good stuff said.
I also went to the Writer Beware panel and the Breaking In panel which both cross covered some of the dangers of the industry and pointed out many times that money should always flow to the writer.
Finally I went to the panel What I Wish Someone Had Told Me, which again was informative if depressing about the odds and time/effort it takes to get anywhere in the industry.

Saturday began with my first workshop session. I was workshopping "Bladebearer" which is now titled "The Spacer's Blade" thanks to suggestions I change the title to be less generic fantasy. The four people workshopping me were extremely helpful and about five minutes into the thing I was no longer in immediate danger of throwing up out of nervousness. I just spent the last five hours going over the notes they gave me on that story and editing it and pretty much couldn't find a suggestion I didn't think was relevant or useful, which is pretty damn good since usually I find only about 2/3rds of workshop suggestions useful generally. I'm not sure I worked in everything they told me, but I tried to at least think about how the ideas presented applied and where I could use them to clarify the story I wanted to tell.

After the workshop I went to A Day in the Life of an Editor, which was entertaining. It was neat to hear about how they plan issues, how personal preferences and styles can totally effect how a magazine feels and what it prints, and other stuff I hadn't given a ton of thought to before.

Then (after lunch with bread pudding!!!!!1111!!!!) I had my second workshop. It didn't go quite as smoothly as the earlier one, due in part to one workshopper forgetting my manuscript (though she still found things to say that were helpful, which was nice) and the moderator being out sick. But one of the pros went through those first three chapters line by fricken line and let me tell you, it's going to be damn useful when revising. It's also going to be useful when writing the rest of the rewrite because they all gave me good worldbuilding questions to think about as well as the writing level stuff.

Next was a panel on Delivering on Your Story's Promise, which talked about endings. I should have gone to the panel on first lines, maybe, because endings aren't generally an issue for me. It was pretty interesting anyway, especially the advice to know where you're going when you're writing if you want a good ending that will satisfy a reader and related advice.
Then there was the E-Stuff panel, which almost got derailed into format questions/debate and pretty much failed to convince me that when it comes to longer works like novels that e-readers will be king anytime soon. Sorry, maybe I'm a purist, but I don't see people giving up tactile books. Even the people I know with e-readers still buy and read paper books.
Then Urs and I went to Artist's Jam, which had five pro artists drawing with marker on giant pads while the audience suggested things. It was awesome in a sort of schizophrenic way. I mean, who doesn't want a picture of a dryad in a city with a pond full of ducks, a graveyard, and saturn? They switched drawings every 5ish minutes, each adding their style to each picture. The drawings turned out pretty cool.
Finally we went to (or really stayed in the same room for) the panel on The Age of the Fighting Sail, which was supposed to be about space opera and moving that age from the sea to space, but got derailed by questions a lot (at one point Urs pulled out her 'back on track' stick and made good use of it by making the current topic take a hard turn back towards the panel topic). I was amused though and I always like hearing people talk about space opera, so it wasn't a total loss.

And that was the con.

I'm looking forward to World Con.

Went to Norwescon. Went to panels. Ate food. Got workshopped (short version: I can kinda write, need to edit, easy fixes).

Came home. Got job.