Category Archives: people

Rough, manly sport

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On the first day of school my eighth grade year, instead of having each of us go to our final period class at the end of the day, they had all the girls go to the library for an “assembly,” while all the football players went to the gym for a pre-practice meeting. And they told the boys not going out for football to report to the math teacher’s room.

It was a small town middle school: sixth, seventh, and eighth grade totaling a bit less than 200 kids, about half of them boys. There were only eight boys out of that 100 who were not going out for football. So the eight of us sat in the room, not sure exactly why we were there, or what we were supposed to do.

And then the principal walked in.

Continue reading Rough, manly sport →

Names, names, names

people

I think a lot about names. My parents named me after both grandfathers, which means I wound up sharing my first name with my father, paternal grandfather, paternal great-uncle, and a second cousin, all of whom lived in or very near the small town where I was born. It wasn’t until I was in my early teens that I realized I shared a first name with the cousin, since he had gone by his middle name since before I was born.

Continue reading Names, names, names →

Losing history

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I’m not ancient, but sometimes I really feel like it. Such as when I was explaining to someone recently that the legal notion that a woman’s body was the property of her husband, rather than herself, was still fully active in U.S. law only 35 years ago (and that some vestiges of that notion still survive in the law today).

I remember when I was in junior high school people were still quoting parts of the Bible (that had been previously used to justify slavery) to argue against civil rights laws to protect racial minorities. The federal civil rights act had been passed some years before, but politicians and activists were still openly arguing that some races were inferior to others — and they were using the Bible to justify it.

One such politician ran as a third-party candidate for president in 1968 on an explicitly racist platform and won several states. He softened his proclamations when he ran again in 1972, but his compaign speeches had enough racist “dog whistles” (including some biblical ones) that it was clear he was still appealing to racist voters. And he was doing very well in the democratic primaries, until a nutjob out five bullets into him in an attempt to assassinate him (and even then, he did well in the next two state primary votes while recovering in a hospital).

So it is disheartening to learn how many christian journalism students at a recent conference didn’t realize that when a speaker said the Bible had been used to justify slavery he was simply reporting a fact, and not even one from ancient history, but rather within his own lifetime.

Just because it didn’t happen on twitter doesn’t mean it is ancient history, totally inapplicable to the here and now.

Elbow room

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I was running late, then the bus was late. When it arrived it was much much much more crowded than usual, so we were packed in like sardines.

This is day four of antibiotics for me, and I’m feeling more human each morning. I wasn’t the only person in the office either working from home because of illness or taking sick days over the last two weeks, so everyone’s asking each other how they’re recovering, et cetera. All of which caused one co-worker to point out that a good method to get a little space on a crowded bus is to sneeze.

I wish I’d thought of that this morning. Continue reading Elbow room →

Oh, puhlease!

people,

A couple times a year I have an experience on the bus that, when I tell the story, it brings people out of the woodwork to talk about how horrible transit it. This morning was one of those days.

So I don’t want to tell the story. I don’t want to enable people to bash transit by choosing my anomalous experience and treating it as if it is normal.

I’d much rather talk about things like the adorable kid on the bus the day before, dressed in a Batman raincoat (complete with cape!) who was delighted when he saw a dog curled up beneath the feet of another passenger and asked, “May I please pet your doggie?”

Or another kid a few weeks ago, wearing an equally adorable tiger stocking cap, who asked her mother, “When can we go back to the library?”

Or the many times I’ve looked up from the word processor on my iPhone (yes, I have a word processor on my phone; I write scenes to stories while riding the bus to work) to see that most of the passengers sitting around me were reading. Some were reading paper books, some Kindles, some reading on iPads.

Or the time I watched a young man scribbling extremely fast in a thick, very battered looking notebook. I couldn’t see what he was writing, yet even from the distance I could see that his writing was pretty, with sweeping open loops–even though we was writing as if the pen point was in a race to the death against a rocket assisted member of the order chiroptera exiting the underworld.

Or the many conversations that have made me smile.

I don’t want to talk about the two jerks on this morning’s bus (other than this: hon, the 90s are calling, and they want their dance moves back). Maybe I’ll post a version of the tale to I, Anonymous.

Brunching

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As Michael pointed out when we were walking home from this morning’s brunch, this week has been full of a lot of going out with friends.

I met Katrina a few years ago when we were both on staff for Conifur. Since she was living in Oregon, we only got to see her when she came up for a staff meeting, or at the con itself. Though several times she also came up to attend Writers’ Night.

She moved much further away for a while, so many of us were very sad. But now she’s nearby, again, and she brought her guy, Terry, up to Seattle to see the sights, hang out, and so on. We met them, the Oxfords, and the Jared, at one of our favorite local eateries, Palermo. Where we had a fabulous brunch and a long visit.

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It was a weirdly productive weekend, by which I mean that it was productive, but not necessarily on the projects I had hoped to make progress. I certainly did not expect to come out of the work party with plots for two more stories about a character that was originally Mark & Kristin’s one-off! I was only going to write one, count it, one sequel to Chuck’s unexpected tale answering the question “what ever happened to…” but then, before I finished that one, an entire plot for an amusing Christmas Ghost story starring the character popped in my head, insisting on being written right now…

(Some plots do that. They’re not so much like a beautiful Greek muse inspiring you to artistic greatness as they are an extremely manic man leaning over you going “Write about me! Write about me! Write about me now or I will bloody well go away and you’ll go out of your mind trying to remember what I was!!!” So I wrote that story, and I guess there was something to it because it’s up for an award, now.)

Anyway, I had tried to circle back to the original idea for the one, count it, one, story I had intended to write about this character, and I had made some progress. I wasn’t trying really hard because there are other tales that I would rather be finishing. But then, at the meeting, while we were talking about other plotlines entirely, Chuck reeled off an alternative situation, and the next thing I knew, we were all talking about what sorts of things would happen to this character in this situation. And then Keith suggested a title. And suddenly, I knew what the plot really was for this new story (which takes place after the one, count it, one, story that I meant to write) and I knew I better write all of it down before I forgot it.

Then, we all walked up to Golden City for dinner, and while discussing something else entirely (again), someone said another title for yet another story for this character.

And as soon as they said it, I had a plot. And even better, it’s one that crosses over with another character, one I created and love writing stories for but haven’t had a new plot for in a while.

So I have gone from planning to write the one story about the character, to having written one different story about him, and I have three more in some sort of progress.

I’m not crazy. Just very slightly mad.

Meanwhile, I often put together playlists for either particular stories I’m working on, or for characters I write a lot. And I had mentioned this awhile back to Jared. Specifically that I was trying to put together a playlist for a character that he created, but that I have two stories in progress for. Which made him put together a playlist that he sent me (which prompted me to send him mine). I teased him that I thought his was way too emo, and asked how anyone could write while listening to all that downer music. He became resolved to create a different playlist, one that I could not describe in such derogatory terms.

He sent it earlier this week, and I’ve been listening to it. One of the songs he put on the list was “Original Sin” recorded by Taylor Dane for the Shadow motion picture soundtrack. And while I was humming along, I realized that I hadn’t heard the song in a very long time. I was surprised to discover that the soundtrack does not seem to be in my iTunes library. But I was quite certain that I had it, and that I had included at least this one song from it in some other playlists.

It took me about a minute to find the compact disc of the album hiding in the dusty shelves (I don’t touch the discs anymore, because I thought I’d put them all into my iTunes library). This makes me realize I need to go through those shelves and figure out which other music hasn’t been digitized.

It also makes me want to make a smart playlist that pulls out things that haven’t been listened to in a long, long time.

But I’ll do that later. Maybe tomorrow night after work.

That guy

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I try not to be that guy—the angry, impatient guy deeply affronted because you’re taking too long at whatever you’re doing, preventing him from getting on with his business. Ideally I wish that I could have the zen-like patience of a taoist monk. Taking what is happening in stride. Using the extra time I’m stuck waiting in line someone to think about things, or enjoy some music, or maybe play a little game on my phone.

But sometimes you are just tired, hungry, and sore. You just want to get finished with your errand and get home. So when something happens that holds you up, it’s hard to smile an wait patiently.

I came into work yesterday to some upsetting news about an oversight in a project we had just finished. An oversight that I and at least two other people ought to have caught, but didn’t. An oversight directly involved in my part of the project. We have a few days to fix things, and we quickly hammered together a plan, but it still meant that I spent the day doing something very different than I had planned, with more than a slight sense of urgency.

And I had to leave early for an end-of-the-day dentist appointment, which meant that I would be setting up my work computer after getting home from having the scary man attacking me with medieval implements drill and fill my teeth, and be productive for a few more hours. The dental appointment took longer than scheduled. An extra injection of novocaine had been required after a bit of stabbing pain happened partway through the second tooth. I just wanted to go home and collapse.

But I had the work to do. And I had two prescriptions that needed to be picked up. And a few other things that we needed at the store. Once I had picked everything up, I came to the front of the store and there were four registers open. Three had three people in line. One had only two. So I went for that one.

Big mistake.

The person in front of me was a tiny little old man with a great bush of silver hair. His shopping cart contained only one item: a 20-ish pound bag of dry cat food. The kid working the register was just handing the customer in front of Cat Food Guy her receipt and wishing her a nice night as I got in line.

The kid rung up the bag of cat food. Cat Food Guy handed the kid a couple coupons and his Store Card. The kid scanned those, then told the man price of four dollars and change. Cat Food Guy nodded, then searched his pockets until he produced a rumpled check book. Not a checkbook in a nice leather or plastic cover, just the bound bundle of checks. He had to search his pockets some more until he found a little rectangle of cardboard to slip under the carbon copy. Then he started writing the check.

Cat Food Guy muttered something about what day it was. The kid told him the date. Cat Food Guy stopped writing, looked up, and asked (well, really more of a bark than a simple question), “What did you say?” The kid repeated the date. Cat Food Guy said, “I know what day it is!” The kid apologized.

Cat Food Guy bent and started writing again for a millisecond. He stopped, looked up and said. “I’m just a little hard of hearing. Not angry or anything. People always assume I’m angry or having a bad day. I’m not. Just couldn’t hear you.”

The kid says he understands and apologizes again.

Cat Food Guy bends down again, but this time he doesn’t even get his pen back on the paper. He looks back up and says, “People don’t even ask anyone how their day is, any more, you know? They just assume!”

The kid says. “I’m sorry. How has your week been?”

Cat Food Guy, who had just started writing again, stops, looks up, and barks, “What did you say?”

“Just asking how you’ve been. Sorry, I’ll stop interrupting.”

Cat Food Guy shrugs, then goes back to writing. He tears off the check and hands it to the kid.

While the kid is typing on the register, Cat Food Guy babbles some about getting old, not being able to hear, and so on.

The kid nods while he’s working. He puts the check in the part of the register that is supposed to print on it, and pushes a button. The register spits the check back out. The kid says, “I must have done something wrong.” He pushes some more buttons, puts the check in, and this time the machine takes it. “There we go… oh, wait, now it wants me to check your ID.”

“What?”

Eventually the kid gets Cat Food Guy’s driver’s license, and tries to type in the license number, while squinting and apparently having a very hard time reading the license. Cat Food Guy is babbling something about a problem he had on the bus or something. I couldn’t really follow the gist of it.

The kid hands the license back and says, “That should do it.” And he presses another button. The register makes some noises. The kid frown. “Uh oh.”

“What?” Cat Food Guy asks.

“I may have spoken too soon,” the kid says. “I haven’t seen that message before…”

He looks up to see if the assistant manager in the next register is free. He’s not. There has been a steady stream of customers through all the registers except ours while I’ve been waiting.

“I’ll just have to ask the man—” the kid begins.

“You know what,” Cat Food Guy says. “Never mind. Just give me back my check. I don’t need this that badly.”

The kid is stunned. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. I’m sure it’s just something I did wrong.”

“Not your fault,” Cat Food Guy says. “Not at all! It’s just the damn machines, all trying to take over our lives.”

He snatches the check and stomps away leaving his big shopping cart and giant bag of cat food smack in my way.

The kid looks at me and says, “I’m so sorry. Just a minute.” He gets the bagging gal to take the cart away while he takes the bag of cat food and scans it again to void the sale. He gets the assistant manager’s attention. “I’ll need you to verify the voided sale.”

Without even looking away from his own scanning, he tosses the kid a ring of keys with several laminated cards. The kid hits some buttons and scans one of the cards.

Cat Food Guy comes stomping back from nowhere. “You know what?” he declares loudly. “You can tell them to take this back and shove it! I don’t need to shop here ever again!” He slaps his store card on the counter.

The kid looks hurt. “I’m really, sorry, sir!”

“Not your fault,” Cat Food Guy says, suddenly all smiles. “It’s just those machines and the damn company!” And he storms off again.

The kid gets the manager’s attention again. “I don’t think I did it right.”

Manager steps over, looks at the register, and says. “Sure you did. Just hit enter again. See?” Then he notices the store card sitting on the counter. “What’s this? Did someone forget their card?”

The kid shakes his head. “The customer got very frustrated because it was taking so long, so now he says he doesn’t want to shop here any more. I don’t know what I should do.”

Manager rolls his eyes and expertly throws the little plastic card past the kid and into the wastebasket. “Not our problem.” And he goes back to his register.

The kid keeps apologizing while he quickly scans and bags my stuff.

I tried extra hard to be pleasant and assure him he has nothing to apologize for. Because he didn’t. I kept hoping that I wasn’t scowling or something earlier, because I had been getting pretty cranky.

I don’t blame the kid. He seemed a bit tentative at some tasks on the register with Cat Food Guy, but only at some tasks that I assume aren’t very common. For my stuff he was very fast and efficient.

I probably shouldn’t blame Cat Food Guy as much as I do. What he contributed to the delay was at least partly due to his hearing problem. I have a hard enough time trying to talk to Michael in the store, the noise from the overhead music and other customers talking can be quite overwhelming. And checks are the way we paid for everything for decades. The fact that almost none of us do anymore, that the procedures for processing them are longer and more involved that cash or swiping a debit card isn’t his fault.

Goddess knows I’ve been angry and said things to people who weren’t to blame for what I was angry about. I’m sure I’ve stomped angrily out of a place of business more times than I’d like to admit.

I think the most disconcerting thing was how Cat Food Guy kept switching demeanor. He would bark a sentence in a tone that I think any reasonable person would describe as angry or annoyed. Then turn all smiles the next sentence. I think most telling was how he said, “People always assume I’m angry or having a bad day.” If this is how he normally acts, I can see why people assume that.

I eventually got home. Michael cooked dinner while I got my workstations set up. I worked for a few hours. Sent chapters off for people to review. I goofed off a bit before going to bed. Had a really good night’s sleep.

I hope whatever poor kitty was waiting for food isn’t starving because her hard-of-hearing and cranky owner has stomped out of more stores empty-handed.

Rahirah comes to Seattle

I’ve known Barb for, like, ever [/Julie Brown Voice]. We began corresponding sometime in the dark ages because of our mutual involvement in ElfQuest fandom. We collaborated on some tales over the years, corresponded through various mediums, and found out we had a lot of other interests in common. I met her in person at San Diego ComiCon… back in the mid-80s. I’ve also become quite good friends with her wife, though I don’t believe that I’ve ever actually met Kathy in the flesh.

Barb, who is one of the very few people on the planet that I will admit is smarter than myself (seriously), is an extremely talented writer, artist, and essayist. I was glad we were able to at least get together for dinner when she came to town for a work conference.

I’ve known Fen for a much shorter time, having met through a mutual appreciation of Barb’s fanfic, only to discover that we were neighbors whose lives have almost intertwined several times, as we have a rather lot of mutual friends. I manage to see Fen slightly more often than Barb, but only slightly, which is really sad, seeing how we only live a few miles apart.

Fen, Barb, and Fen’s husband, Mitch, joined us for dinner at the ever-fun Chinook’s Monday night. Where I think Michael,Mitch, Fen, and I did most of the talking geeking about about computers and other gadgets.

But it was nice to see Barb in the flesh after such a long time.

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