Another Tuesday

A few years ago, my friend Scott and I were in the habit of eating Mexican food and walking at the beach on Tuesdays. Now that the weather's getting cold and I just found myself wondering if they'd shrink-wrapped the palm trees at the beach yet, I remember a Tuesday when those went from being one of my least favorite things in existence, to one of my most favorite. I was complaining that they were so tacky I didn't understand why the city even bothered with them since they're not even native to the climate here.

"Yeah, well, neither are coffee and white people, and I don't see you complaining about either of those, so quit bitching," Scott replied.  Shut me up.

Perspective: Pass it on.

More Difficult than Pretty Woman but Not as Hard as Return of the Jedi

My good friend the Music Fascist is like my own personal Joel McHale. He watches tv and reads stuff on the Internet, then either saves them on DVR or e-mails them to me. This saves me the hassle of getting cable and leaves me free to fritter away my online time watching YouTube videos and reading blogs.

The other day, he sent me this, from the Onion's AV Club's advice column, certain that I would enjoy it and likely blog about it:

Big fan of the advice column on your site.My question concerns online dating.I've been at this for a week, and am surprised at how many obvious "form letters" I have gotten from dudes.How can dudes possibly not have figured out that we dames will be on to them and not respond? —Jenn

P.S. Will I ever find true love?

Dear Jenn,

Dudes are fools. However, you need to give proactive feedback instead of not responding. Guys share—they meet up all the time near abandoned churches to try and figure out what they're doing wrong. You should respond to each form letter with, "Your form letter just lost you an after-coffee-date-blowjob, buddy." Strike men where it hurts most—in the idea that they could have had simple, anonymous afternoon sex and messed it up.

P.S. Yes, you will find true love. It will be a little more difficult than it was in Pretty Woman, but not nearly as hard as it was in Return Of The Jedi.

He was right; I am intrigued by this, but probably not for the reasons he sent it to me. Most likely, this wound up in my inbox because of the Star Wars reference. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy that immensely, but really, what catches my eye is the part where the columnist says, "you need to give proactive feedback instead of not responding."

One of my biggest pet peeves in life is when someone - a friend, coworker, family member, anyone - exacerbates (that's such a fun, not-dirty word, isn't it?) a little problem by keeping quiet about it, letting it fester until it becomes a Big Problem. I know it isn't always easy to tell someone we're not happy with them. Maybe we're concerned about their self-esteem. Maybe we don't want them to become upset with us. Maybe we're living with the delusion that ignoring the problem will make it go away or that if enough time is given, the person will somehow intuit the problem and correct it without ever "forcing" us to bite the bullet and speak up.

I. Hate. That.

I get it; I'm an odd duck. To those in my life, I have an open-door policy. I do my best to let everyone know that they can and should come to me and tell me if something I've said or done, or am saying or am doing is causing a problem between us. I'd much rather just be aware of the issue, discuss it if need be, and have us get on with our lives. If you come to me, however and say, "you do this EVERY TIME and it drives me batshit so I can't talk to you anymore," or if you're my boss and you fire me for always making the same mistake, then I'm going to be really confused and hurt. My first reaction is, "why didn't you just say something?" I'm flattered that you think I'm psychic, but really? I'm not.

I fully understand that this is a difficult thing I ask of the people in my life. I have a hard time doing it myself, but I do make the effort. I will tell you if I have a problem with something you say, and if it's a small matter, I'll try to do it with a minimum of fuss. If we're friends, then I take it for granted that you like me (otherwise, why do you stick around?), and if you say something that seems amiss, I may ask you if you meant it the way it sounded and give you a chance to clarify. Why on earth would I assume that you were deliberately trying to be mean or hurtful? You like me, remember?

With all of that said, I've realized that not everyone thinks as I do. Sometimes, I read too much into elongated silences. I wonder if you're over there, just wishing I'd shut up about a topic I've been going on about. I hear words come out of my mouth or I hit send on an e-mail and think over the words again, wondering if I've just said it all wrong and put a relationship in jeopardy.
But then, we're friends, right? I'm often pleased and amazed to find that the victim of my anxiety will simply reply with, "I know what you meant" or, "no really, it's okay. Let it all out."

Sci-Fi and Eggplant

What do the two have in common? People who have never tried it tend to turn their noses up at it. I have a theory: it's all in the name. If I call it "speculative fiction," then the instant mental image isn't of aliens and spaceships, just like if I call it an "aubergine," that sounds exotic and French and yummy, right?

A lot of my work falls into that weird slipstream category where it isn't quite Sci-Fi, but it isn't just non-genre contemporary fiction either. Oh, and I like eggplant. They have this great baked eggplant with sundried tomatoes on sourdough thing over at 2nd City and... wait, I'm talking about books now. Lunch was just really good, and it was definitely hearty, stick-to-your-ribs eggplant, not fancy, frilly aubergine.

Anyway, I'm guilty of speculative-fictioning my own work because I feel like a giant dork when I call it Urban Fantasy, even though that's what it is. My biggest fiction project, which will commence at midnight as I've saved it for NaNoWriMo, is definitely a fantastical story taking place in a real-world setting. By definition, that's Urban Fantasy and yet, when people outside my circle of geeks friends ask what kind of book I'm working on, I suddenly become acutely aware that I am the nerd who says things like "these aren't the droids you're looking for" without first checking to see if I'm among people who have even seen Star Wars, and so I say "Speculative Fiction."

One of Bill Maher's New Rules is, "call things what they are." So, in the spirit of that rule and in honor of NaNoWriMo-eve, I will hold my chin up high and announce that my novel, titled On the Wings of the Night, is Urban Fantasy.

Now, you can go about your business. Move along. Have the eggplant.

Where the sparkles came from

I wrote a little fairy story for my favorite little curly-haired girl's birthday last year. In the story, a little fairy finds a giant pile of magical, musical sparkles in an otherwise barren tundra.

I sent the story to a guy I know whose rock star mind loves all things musical and his response got me to thinking. He said he really enjoyed the story, but just had one question, "where did the sparkles come from?" I felt a little bad for laughing, but I had to answer with the truth: I have no idea where the sparkles came from, in the narrative at least. They're just there. I was able to tell him that the inspiration for them came from Curly, because when I imagine what the inside of her mind must look like, it's all very sparkly and cotton candy and bouncy.

The point of all this is, only the adults ask where the sparkles came from! Once she's old enough to read it on her own, I have to try to remember to ask Curly if she ever wondered. I'd be willing to bet though, that she doesn't. What I hope, and what partly made me want to even write a fairy story in the first place, is that there's just something we're born with that lets us accept wonderous things without looking for the catch.

Unfortunately, it looks like we grow out of it. I know I did. I can admit it; sometimes, I'm pretty jaded. But then again, maybe this is the greatest lesson I'll learn from Curly and her sister as I'm lucky enough to observe and participate in their lives as they grow and interact with their world. When I watch them dance and laugh at shiny things and sprinklers and Bugs Bunny and radioactive-hued sweet & sour sauce, I think I grow back into the wonderment.

I don't ask why they dance. I just delight in the fact that they do, and so I write fairy stories.
That, Mr. Rock Star, is where the sparkles came from.