Blind Dating, Roommate Style

There’s always this fear when you get that email labelled “Roommate Details.” I’ve been through it a few times before of course. But when all you’ve got is a name and an email, all kinds of possibilities run through your head. I had a friend whose roommate walked in the first day and announced, “I live my life by the Bible” and another one whose roommate never even contacted her before move-in day.

I myself haven’t had any truly terrible roommates before. The worst was just more of an antisocial weirdo (at dinner with a guest speaker, she played with her Gameboy under the table the entire time) who I don’t think I ever had an entire conversation with. I don’t think that there are so many truly terrible people in the world that there’s any sort of odds that I’ll end up with one of them.

This has got to be what blind dating is like. First, there’s the seize of anticipation. Then there’s the hope that this person will be awesome and just like you and that you’ll be singing kumbaya by the end of Move-In Day. Next comes the fear that it’ll be one of those psycho preppy girls who peppers every line with a backhanded compliment, or a arsehole brainiac with no social skills.

I’m not the best person at making a good first impression. I’ve never been the one to send that first email (mostly, I have a fear of looking like I’m the crazy one) so I just wait, watching for that first communication. Then when the email comes (as it always does) I spend a good two hours crafting a response that makes me sound funny, but not annoyingly so; intelligent, but not arrogantly so; and overall a sane, generally good roommate.

It seems to me that this is a sadistic little game on the part of academic institutions. SURELY they could give out more than a name and an email. I know there are privacy laws and all…but maybe let people choose a picture to send? Even dating sites do that. You can tell a lot about a person from their picture. Are they kind of pale and sticky-looking and avoid eye contact with the camera? Then they’re probably the nerdy type–look out for a lack of interpersonal communication. Are they bottle-blond with matching pink skirt and shoes? Ick.

Actually, college roommate matching could learn a lot from dating services.

“Hi! I’m majoring in Anthropology and TOTALLY loved Debate in high school and I sooo want to sleep with a hot professor!”

No, I’m serious. When you sign up for on-campus housing you should have to fill out a short list of interests, your intended major, and what time you go to sleep/wake up (definitely those last two, at the very least), as well as you have ever had anyone call you a hypochondriac, because those are no fun to live with. It would work out perfectly. Everyone would have both conversation starters, and know if they’ll hate each other before the year even begins.

Goodness. Maybe I’m the crazy roommate. Or maybe I just ought to never, ever try blind dating.

(My roommate turned out to be pretty cool actually. Another bullet dodged!)

Writing Crutches

I was looking at my current projects today and I noticed a disturbing trend. A few years ago I had a third-person crime noir novel, a first-person YA novel, and a third-person adult scifi thriller. Now I feel like I’m relying a lot on chatty protagonists.

My big project, the LIT YA Novel, is first-person from a chatty female POV. My short story is from a slightly less chatty female POV. One of the projects I’m editing is from three third-person female POVs. The Horrible Short Story is from a third-person female POV.

I tend to think of my writing “career” in three stages: the beginning stage, when I was still just trying stuff out; the middle stage, when I became more ambitious and tried for longer projects; and then this stage when I’m actively trying to be professional about this thing. What’s getting to me is that in the first two stages I wrote a lot from male POV’s, from older adults, and more traditional hard sci-fi. I fear that I’ve fallen into the trap of writing people like me–middle-class females with a sarcastic streak–and I don’t want to be that person.

Let’s face it–writing a chatty female for me is easy. I love writing dialogue and writing first-person is like writing dialogue all the time. It’s fun. It’s like candy. But I worry that I’m not stretching, I’m just doing what’s comfortable. Sure, before this past year I had never written any YA at all. Now I feel like everything I write has a touch of that young adult-flavor to it. And I used to write almost everything from a guy’s point of view; not because I was trying but because that was the ways the stories worked. I don’t want to be using this young female POV as a crutch. I want to be trying when I write because otherwise all my stories will be is pages of slightly snarky inner monologue with a plot thrown in.

Now, I do have a couple ideas floating around in my head. The big one is a novel idea–kind of a serial killer thriller, with some familial drama and a little romantic intrigue thrown in. Of course I’m not going to start it until I’m done with the first draft of my current novel, but that’ll take until the fall at least. These little thoughts are a good sign, though–it shows that I’m far enough along in my current novel to be a bit annoyed by it Hopefully this next novel will marinate while I finish the YA piece and then I can try something new (and edit. Of course). Maybe I’m just going through a phase–one where I turn out good stuff, I hope–before moving into some different styles.

Please tell me some of you have writing crutches you lean on as well?

An Evil Person Gave Me a Journal

For Christmas. And a very nice one, too. Since that was six months ago, I’m feeling a little guilty that its still on my bookshelf.

I’ve tried keeping a journal ever since middle school (somehow, it felt like something tweens are obligated to do) and succeeded for about six weeks. The act of journaling just feels somehow narcissistic and self-involved to me. Maybe I just have an exceptionally boring life.

I know people use journals for other things, too. But I already keep an idea book in a binder because I find it more modular that way. And I have a ten-cent notebook for any handwriting or scribbles or warm-ups that I do. After all, no one feels bad about scrapping up a notebook that costs less than a candy bar, or crossing out pages of story middles. But a nice leather one? That’s not something you can just vandalize willy-nilly.

I’ve tossed around the idea of keeping a writing journal. I read about doing this in a Writer or Writer’s Digest some years ago. The basic idea is that you keep a log of wordcount, what project you’re working on, and how it went, as well as what you’re going to try to do the next day. In theory, I think its a great idea, but in practice I don’t actually know anyone who does it. But I have been trying to somehow list the things that are coming up in my projects, because I keep feeling what I want to do slipping away between writing sessions.

On the other hand, I could try writing a journal again.I suppose its better to splat my pseudo-philosophicality and random musings across a journal page rather than a blog. And I would like to think that I have a slightly more interesting life now than when I was twelve. So I suppose I could try taking that up again.

*Sigh* This thing is going to haunt me.

 

Jeans: Objects of Female Subjugation

You know how petticoats were woman-hobbling devices? And then things like “factories” and “feminism” happened, and so girls got to wear trousers?

Well I have a theory. Whatever misogynists made up things like corsets and bustles are now sitting at the headquarters of clothing stores, drawing up plans for jeans. But they’re sneaky, see? Because jeans are comfortable and no woman in her right mind doesn’t own any. But buying them is damned near impossible.

Men’s jeans are easy. There’s a waist and an inseam measurement, and though the styles vary you usually have a pretty good idea about whether or not they’ll fit.

Women’s jeans, on the other hand, are possibly the most annoying, difficult, rage-inducing piece of clothing to buy. They may or may not come in sizes. If they do, the sizes could be even numbers (women) or odd (juniors, or maybe plus-size, depending on where you shop), not that it means much. I’m a size 4 at Ann Taylor Loft (but a 6 in shorts), a 6 at Old Navy, an 8(!) at JC Penny, and at Aeropostale…well, I haven’t bought jeans at Aeropostale since I ditched the training bra.

Then, if you somehow manage to figure out which size you are, and what KIND of size (petite, regular, women’s) there are the styles. Usually, I buy jeans from one particular store because I like how the fit, and when you find jeans that fit you never ever abandon that store. But I went in last week and they decided to switch up their jean line. So it kinda went down like this:

ME: Um, where did the petite boot cut jeans go?

SALESLADY: Oh, we don’t have “boot cut” anymore. What are you looking for? The modern slims* are very popular. So are the curvy** straight leg ones.

ME: I just want…jeans…without much flair? Are slims like skinny jeans or something?

SALESLADY: No, not at all. We have skinny jeans too. The modern slims are just a tighter fit.

ME (resisting the urge to ask what the hell “modern” means): Okay. Do you have something sort of like the boot cuts you used to carry?

How are these even comfortable to sit in?

SALESLADY: How about a petite curvy straight leg or a curvy tailored?

I gave up. I found ones that fit well at a different store, but unfortunately they had a rhinestone shooting star across the butt. Being that I’m two inches of hair away from a shaved head, you can see that I may not be the type of person to favor rhinestones on my behind. When I asked that saleslady if there were plain ones, she showed me a pair with a bejeweled cross instead.

Lovely. Its harder than ordering at Starbucks.***

**************

*I kid you not

**curvy is another problematic adjective. At some stores it means “Wow, you finally hit puberty!” and at other stores it means “fatass, get a forklift.”

***Seriously. Can we start a petition to regulate US women’s jean sizes? And style names? Please?

Summer Resolutions 2.1

I finally got around to deciding what, exactly, I want my summer resolutions to be (and putting them in a pretty little list form). Mostly, I like what I ended up with, and I think it’s doable without being a cop out. But I still have this odd sensation that I’m procrastinating. Last summer, I had stuff like “Learn Russian!” and “Lose 10 Pounds!” on my list, and while I failed miserably at both of those things and others, I keep thinking it showed amore determination and ambition than this summer’s. But maybe part of being a mature person is knowing what you are capable of accomplishing and aiming for that rather than aiming to memorize the Cyrillic alphabet from a library tape. Or maybe my secret laziness is showing again.

Summer Resolutions, Year Two:

• Write 400 (yeah, I decided to up it) words per day, beginning June 18th. Have a 1-week trial period to see if I can actually accomplish this without resorting to fanfic or headdesking.
• Edit the Horrible Short Story to something approaching coherence.
• Finish at least one of the two short stories I’m playing around with right now.
• Submit at least 5 times. I have a finished short story I really believe in and I keep dragging my heels on putting it out there because it is my little baby after all. Also, the market where I would like to see it go wants a cover letter, and writing a cover letter is difficult when your only publishing credits are a crappy poem from 10th grade and a tiny blog (which doesn’t even count, I know).
• Get my new multi-chapter fanfic into order. I’d really like to finish this one (handwritten at least–I’m a quick typist) before I post it, because I want it to be just right. This will be the first of this sub-genre that I’m writing and while I know fanfic isn’t “real” writing, it is important to me. And in some aspects, fanfic is very different to write than regular fiction. It stretches different muscles.
• *sigh* Lose ten pounds. I know that I keep trying to do this (it’s not that I’m heavy. I just have zero muscle mass) and I remember posting it as a New Year’s Resolution (?). So my goal is to do it by the 365 Days of Writing mark.

The only other thing I didn’t do was set a reading goal. I did that last summer, but I think I read enough to where I don’t really need to do that.

So I Ditched the Kindle

I returned the Kindle. I think everybody knew it was coming.

The web browsing was just horribly slow. And on some websites (like WordPress, actually) it said the page wasn’t available, even though it was perfectly fine if I checked it on the laptop. Now, I looked at the Amazon reviews, and most people said the internet was fast. The one thing I can think of is that I do have the more encrypted type of wifi (there are two different types of wifi. If I were a computer type I would tell you what they were called. I have the less-used kind because the Mac OS plays better with it) and perhaps the Kindle doesn’t like it.

Also, even though it can supposedly be used to edit word docs, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to do it, which was frustrating. I had the same problem with the email client when I couldn’t figure out how to log out. Now, I’m sure this information is there somewhere, but it wasn’t readily available. And I’m pretty young–I can’t remember not using a computer and the fact that the Fire did not work in a way that was at least somewhat intuitive was an issue.

My last problem was the ordering. When I buy a book on Amazon, its all right because I can see all the info. But the Amazon Kindle 1-Click thing is confusing if you’re using a gift card, because it says that its charging the book to your credit card. What really happens is that the website says $25 Gift Card – $10 = 0.00 charged. But it still lists it as being paid out of Mastercard. Super annoying.

I do think that its a good device, though. It just wasn’t what I needed, but what I needed wasn’t what it was aimed at. The graphics are lovely. Once you buy a book, the reading experience is great. The screen isn’t as easy on the eyes as the regular Kindles, but its nice. If you’re just looking to use apps and games (I totally got addicted to Temple Run) and any other Amazon-delievered content, it is very slick. It’s just a consumption device, and mostly just for Amazon consumption. Maybe I was expecting too much.

At least the Staples guy was nice about it. These things need one of those infomercial-30 Day trials.

 

Ugh, I Bought a Kindle

So I broke down and bought a Kindle Fire today. My grandmother sent me some money, and I was hoping to not lug around a Macbook and a stack of paperbacks when I’m traveling around this summer. I got a deal on it at Staples and it does look pretty slick. Plus, I found out it has a version of Office, so it could conceivably be used for writing.

Unfortunately, I kind of hate it so far.

I mean, its pretty. And the apps work great (especially Pulse–its awesome). But the internet is painfully slow and the purchasing mechanism is awkward. I was trying to pay for a book with a gift card and it somehow charged it to my credit card instead. Worst of all, I feel like I would rather be using my laptop. Its a little redundant.

I’m going to give it a few more days. Maybe part of it is that I’m new to it. I do really, really like Words With Friends after all But if it doesn’t start to make itself feel useful I’m going to go back to books and a laptop. I don’t need a $200 extraneous device.

 

Summer Resolutions 2.0

This is where I want to be right now.

Wow.

I started this blog mainly as a way to track my progress on my summer resolutions, and now its been a whole year. I’ve gone from not being able to pull 1,000 words a week to doing 2,100  every week. I’m still not up to the (overly optimistic) 750 that I wanted to be doing back then, but I know that isn’t realistic this year either because of all the traveling I’ll be doing. And I’m giving up on Russian, for good this time. I checked out the book again from the library, but I didn’t even crack it. Now is not a good time for me to be learning a whole bother language.

Which leads me to the topic of this post–what will this year’s Summer Resolutions look like?

Part of me (the small child on crack part) wants to shriek I will write 750 words per day without fail! I pinky swear! Then the logical part of me says “Yes, I realize that you won’t have school. But you’ll still be traveling for at least 3-4 weeks of your 12 week summer. Do I need to remind you exactly how productive you are in a small hotel room with other people? And how much you procrastinate over 300 measly words a day?”

My logical part makes my inner crack-addict-child throw temper tantrums.

There are some more tangible projects that I would like to finish this summer. I have two short stories going right now; I’d like to get at least one of them done. I also have the infamous Horribly Bad Short Story that I want to finally sit down and edit. And I’m working on a rather lengthy fanfic project (I know, I know, not real writing) that I want to finish and then start posting.

Ideally, I’d get done the first draft of my novel, but I’m aiming more for November with that. What needs to happen is at least a rough outline, so I can start being more productive during my writing time and less head-banging-on-keyboard-y.

I do want to up my wordcount. I was thinking 500, but I know I probably can’t do that while traveling. Maybe I’ll do a week at 400,and drop it down to 350 (50 words, objectively, is not a lot. But for me that last 50 is always the hardest) if its not working out. But the point of this is to push myself, not to be comfortable, and I need to remember that.

If I’m staying up till the wee hours typing because I didn’t start until 11:30 then I need to restructure my day, not cop out. The problem, I think, is that I am pretty lazy. But that’s why I have a blog to keep me honest, right?

150 Days

Just sayin’

My wordcount, days 100-150

I Love Wal-Mart

Yes, I know that its an evil corporation that kills Chinese sweatshop child workers and exploits the ecosystem and is run by lizard people intent on controlling the globe through an alliance with Russia and the Illuminati. But sometimes, Wal-Mart can also make a young girl’s dream come true.

Namely, because this was on the clearance shelf:

And I am a comics nerd

Now, you have to understand something here. This toy has been on the clearance shelf of my Wal-Mart for two freaking years. And I have known that it was on the clearance shelf. But I stopped myself from buying it because it was still $25 and I could care less about Monsier Mallah and The Brain.* So every time I go to Wal-Mart I pick it off the shelf and go price-check it at Customer Service, in the hopes it goes down.

I’ve been doing this since 2010 (my parents taught me persistence a mite too well). Yesterday, I was at Wal-MArt, so I repeated the ritual, and this time it went like this:

Me (after walking up to the customer service lady who was old enough to be my grandmother’s grandmother): “Can you tell me how much this is? It doesn’t have a price tag.”

So she scanned it, and the computer made an angry beeping noise. It was actually slightly alarming.

Elderly Wal-Mart Employee: “The system doesn’t seem to recognize it anymore. Let me ask the manager.”

She walked up to the manager, who looked at the bottom of the box and then started laughing hysterically (probably because these action figures were made in 2008).

Elderly Wal-Mart Employee: “He says you can have it for five bucks.”

FIVE BUCKS! FIVE BUCKS! I got a set of action figures that usually costs $35 for five bucks and all I had to do was wait two years and have interests that apparently no one else that shops at that Wal-Mart has!** I almost did my happy dance right there, but luckily I have assimilated some social skills.

Needless to say, I purchased the set and have been playing with it all night. Secretly, I am a ten-year-old boy.

*Seriously, you make a Teen Titans pack and you don’t include, say, Deathstroke and Jonah, or at least Trigon? You include The Brain?

**I could write a whole post on the reasons why DC Comics can’t sell a toy line. To say it shortly and with much less venom than I would like: Marvel makes better movies, Marvel’s toys have stuff like weapons and vehicles and playsets, and Marvel’s toys BEND AT THE KNEES FOR THE SAME DAMN PRICE. DC has forgotten that toys are to be played with.