This Is Not My Day Job

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (spoiler-free)

2012-01-15T10:46:00.001-05:00

I'm always fascinated by book to movie adaptations. They so often feel wrong, of course, to the reader. But they're so much fun, too. And I usually feel like half the fun is analyzing where the movie altered the story (the other half of the fun for me is popcorn, Cherry Coke and Sno-Caps). MJ and I recently went with friends to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Now, I loved that book, even

Away We Go

2011-11-19T19:10:00.000-05:00

My world just changed again. For the better. (and for those of you who followed my whole miscarriage saga... we saw (and heard!) the heartbeat at the ultrasound. Which, besides making me cry in relief, means that my chance of miscarriage is now down to 1%. I'm leaning on the statistics for my peace of mind). Hang in there, sweetheart. We can't wait to meet you.

My current sweetheart

2011-11-05T19:17:00.000-04:00

My current foster cat looks like a bit of a tough tomcat (but it's a lie -- he's a playful, purring sweetheart). He survived on the streets of D.C. for a long time. He used to beg at back doors to come inside where he belonged. Now he's inside. Waiting on his forever home. Looking handsome while he waits.. He was a little bit wild at first. But not anymore.

What Can't Be Red-Penned

2011-10-05T09:25:00.000-04:00

One of my stories was recently published in Daily Science Fiction (a fantastic sci-fi flash fiction magazine delivered to your e-mail inbox each morning -- I highly recommend subscribing if you like sci-fi). There's a funny phenomenon that I have realized occurs for me, at least, when your story is delivered to its public forum. Suddenly any flaw in the writing stands in stark relief, to an

New blog design!

2011-09-21T19:16:00.000-04:00

Like everything else in my life, my blog is a work in progress. I'm in the middle of a redesign. So please forgive my blog for being monumentally ugly and frequently illogical while we transition. :)

Wine and reminiscing for the win

2011-09-21T10:49:00.000-04:00

My best friend visited me this past weekend. We've been friends since college, and she's one of the few people I feel totally comfortable with. I know I can share any random thought with her, without being judged (she's like a cat that way, but a much more satisfying conversationalist). We watched trashy TV, drank lots of lattes and raspberry wine, and talked about our lives. The ways our

What's okay for us to say, as writers?

2011-09-15T10:14:00.000-04:00

This question's for all of us who are trying to make it as writers. What's okay for us to say on our blogs and Twitters? I'm not talking about bashing other writers, or publishers, or even the ZOMG-Let's-Not-Go-There-Again book review debacle that washed over blogs & Twitter a while ago. I've been pretty open about my recent life issues on this blog, though I haven't posted half the posts I've

Remembering 9-11

2011-09-11T14:39:00.001-04:00

Ten years ago, something terrible happened that changed the world we live in forever. Today, I think we're all hurting for the families that lost loved ones. Our country was changed, and with it the course of many of our lives. But people also came together, on that day. There was some beauty amidst all the horror, selflessness and concern for others and love for our fellow Americans. In the

A Thought on Fostering

2011-08-26T18:39:00.001-04:00

These guys. They're not mine. They think they're mine. Pepper - the little white one on the right - follows me around the house and cries most piteously when he loses me. Most of the time, he's on my lap or laying draped over my shoulders like the most alarming fur stole. Nacho, the handsome boy on the left, likes to grab my hand with his paws when I pet his head and will show no signs of

Carry Your Heart

2011-08-09T13:08:00.001-04:00

I spent this past weekend at the funeral of one of my best friends. Cam was incredibly smart. There was nothing he couldn't figure out how to fix. He had a dry, wicked sense of humor. We teased him about looking like a young Wesley Snipes (or maybe Welsey Snipes looks like HIM). When I went to Iraq, he sent me a Blade DVD because he knew I'd miss him. And now I always will. We trained for

A... finished project? And other miracles.

2011-07-20T11:02:00.000-04:00

I can't believe what a slacker I've been on this blog. Sorry! Truth be told, I felt a bit antisocial after the miscarriage (and exhausted - a natural miscarriage is not a quick or easy process). But. I'm now back to normal (my version of normal, anyway). I'm done with the revisions of The Goddess of Vengeance Wore Pink Galoshes, which is now absolutely the best book I can make it. I know in two

Salve

2011-06-28T12:12:00.000-04:00

I self-medicate with cute and furry. Meet Nacho. Nacho is a four-month old kitten rescued by the SPCA, waiting with us for his forever home. And, in case you couldn't tell, Nacho is adorable. We picked him up last night and he's super friendly, the only cat I've ever seen go immediately to sleep in his carrier. Which is the only time I've seen him sleep. He is a go-go-go cat, and with all the

Gone

2011-06-27T11:33:00.000-04:00

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If you're not a pantser...

2011-06-17T16:22:00.000-04:00

I still think 'pantser' sounds like a dirty word. But for writers it means someone who writes by the seat-of-their-pants. I'm a reformed pantser; not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's not the best method for me personally. Like most of us, I learned that from trial and error. But. If you're an outliner, there's so much more to figure out after that. So far I've found a combination

WSJ controvery awesomeness

2011-06-08T08:37:00.001-04:00

So I'm sure you guys didn't miss the hoopla about YA; the WSJ posted yet another ill-advised and under-reserched piece about young adult novels this past weekend. To summarize: books for teenagers are too dark nowdays! Also, there was an appropriate reading list divided into "boy books" and "girl books", which I have to admit I was stuck on myself... Anyway, there was an appropriately irritated

Reason #93 I think the whole world is crazy.

2011-05-30T19:58:00.000-04:00

Having a baby is making me feel rebellious. Let me just say up front, a healthy baby is the most important thing to me. I'll do whatever I have to do for that. But some of the things pregnant women are supposed to abstain from aren't backed up by scientific research - there's a lot of fear-mongering. So here's a list of things you are not allowed if you are a Good Mother, which may or may not

Every ending's a beginning...

2011-05-16T20:14:00.001-04:00

This weekend was grad school commencement. I gave some of my Starbucks frappucino to the University of Maryland College Park turtle. I'm so grateful the whole thing is over. No more late nights doing stats & spreadsheets. No more trying to read a textbook as I bounce around in turbulence on yet another airplane for yet another work trip. No more excruciating Sunday night group meetings. And,

The best cause is your cause.

2011-05-02T20:39:00.000-04:00

Now that grad school is over, my life is so much more... orderly. I ran this morning. I shaved my legs. I packed a healthy lunch to work. I wrote today. I talked to my husband. My house is (relatively) clean. We made dinner together instead of running to the gyro place around the corner. Maybe for you guys that's just another day as a real grown-up, but for me, it's a gold-sticker sort of day.

L is for Losing the A to Z challenge

2011-04-22T21:32:00.000-04:00

Well. I've disappeared for a while, which obviously hasn't been good for the daily blogging and the A to Z challenge. On the plus side, my (current) time period of biting off more than I can chew has come to an end. I finished my last grad school class on WEDNESDAY! So no more of this: Which is how I've felt lately. Like I just can't get my arms around things (though I have to say, grad school

J is for the joke on me

2011-04-14T21:07:00.000-04:00

I posted last month about how bad things tend to come in threes, and that was true for us (Recap here). First our car died, and it was going to cost as much to (maybe) fix it as it was worth. Our dishwasher died (in the middle of a big home reno project, too, which was a nice touch). And then, the third thing that I didn't want to post about, was that MJ lost his job. But he got a new job! Yay!

H is for the homeless, I is for idealism

2011-04-10T20:11:00.000-04:00

Once, when a friend and I were planning a trip into D.C., she said, "But seriously, I'm only going in without you if you promise not to talk to the homeless people." I don't remember what I'd done before to bring that on. I have an admittedly low capacity for resistance to people asking me for food, though, which may make me a sucker. I've volunteered with homeless teenagers before, so I know

G is for Guinevere

2011-04-09T08:37:00.002-04:00

When my parents were choosing names, they debated between Cassiopia (for the space-prostitute-turned-nurse from Battlestar Galactica) and Guinevere, of Arthurian legend. Neither of these are popular baby names in the U.S. Mythologically speaking, Cassiopia was the braggart queen that claimed to be prettier than Posiedon's sea nymphs. Because Poseidon was, apparently, a psycho, this resulted in

F is for... F is for...

2011-04-06T21:28:00.025-04:00

When I was trying to come up with a topic for E, I brainstormed words that start with E and I just kept coming up with eels. Why yes, Brain, eels starts with no one but TWO E's, but that alone doesn't make eels a great blog post topic. Today with F I'm stuck on fish. There's a whole under-the-sea theme going on in my subconscious. But let's move on to F for forensic pathology. As a kid, I

E is for Escalators and other scary things

2011-04-05T23:16:00.009-04:00

As a kid, I watched a lot of R-rated films and TV shows without any apparent harm. I loved "Silence of the Lambs" and "Pippi Longstocking" equally. What did mess me up, though, was the evening news. I particularly remember being very little - three or four - and playing in our living room while my dad watched the news. They ran a news story about a woman involved in an escalator accident when

C is for Cars, D is for Debt

2011-04-04T19:10:00.000-04:00

This weekend MJ and I went car shopping. We test drove a few cars, poked around the used cars, and were having a pretty good experience until that terrible moment at the end of visiting a car dealership where they bring out the big guns. Do they do this everywhere or just in Virginia? You look at some cars, you talk to a salesperson, you take a test drive, and then they're like "Oh, real quick,