stillsostrange

So, last night Steven and I went to a deathrock night in San Antonio. We had a fabulous time. We also ended up leaving just as storm was blowing down from Austin. We hit about fifteen minutes of bad hail, which we spent sheltered under a gas station awning. Hail passed, and we went on. I eventually fell asleep in the passenger seat, as is my wont at 2:00 am.

I woke up to the sensation of the tires losing contact with the road. Steven cursing. The car spinning. My eyes never opened for this. I doubt it lasted more than a few heartbeats. Next came an impact. I shouted at this point--whether it was articulate or not I'm not sure. What I was thinking was mostly What the fuck?! Immediately after the first impact came a second. This one hurt. I yelled something again. A short time of confusion and annoyance followed, and then the car finally stopped moving and my eyes opened to rain and a wet divider and the remains of the passenger side airbag and the headlights of oncoming traffic. Luckily we had spun into a wide grassy median ditch, safely out of the way of any other cars. My right arm hurt like hell. ETA: I forgot a telling detail: the burning chemical smell of airbag propellant.

We sat there for a short span of time. Steven asked if I was okay; I said my arm hurt. At this point I thought to test the arm, and determined that it wasn't broken. I suspect I'd had a leg propped on the dashboard, so I was extra lucky that wasn't broken either. Northbound traffic kept moving.

Steven tried moving the car, but it was firmly wedged in the ditch. At this point I called our babysitter with what was probably a shocky warning that we would be late. This was, thanks to DST, at 3:30 am. After that... Reader, I updated Facebook. Yeah. Sorry. But then I thought to call roadside assistance! Steven talked to roadside assistance, and they eventually transferred him to 911. Several minutes and many cars has passed at this point, and finally one person stopped to ask if we were all right. By then sirens were inbound.

Cops and a fire truck showed up to determine that we were neither dead nor drunk nor on fire. I hadn't moved from the passenger seat at all, being a bit shocky, in pain, wedged in a ditch, and having foolishly decided that I didn't need my jacket that night. I got to sign waivers declining a trip to the hospital. The cops seemed a bit bemused by my torn fishnet and shiny glam goth pants. Eventually I crawled out of the car, and some nice officers put us in the back of their cruiser. They took us to the nearest sheltered spot, asked more questions, consulted about tow trucks. It was now 4:00 am and we were on the southernmost edge of Austin, so I decided not to wake up any of my friends. The cops called us a cab. The cab dispatcher said something that translated to "It's 4:00 am on the first Saturday of SXSW. Good fucking luck." And because of those conditions, the cops were getting a lot of calls at this point. So eventually they dropped us off at the nearest 24-hour fast food place and left us waiting for the cab.

We sat there drinking bad coffee listening to the absolute worst canned music selection ever for another hour. The cab was not coming. Steven called them again. Finally I broke down and called my parents, because someone had to relieve our poor babysitter. My parents returned the babysitter and stayed with the kids. At some point I finally checked a mirror and determined that my arm was friction-burned as well as bruised, and that my artfully torn fishnet top now had authentic battle damage.

6:00 am came. The cab did not. So finally my parents came to retrieve us. My father returned us to our house at 7:30 am. I wandered around in a daze, taking pictures of the fishnet pattern burned into my arm. I finally went to bed around 8:00, very gingerly.

Four hours later I got up to go with Steven to check on the car. It had been towed--to where, we're not entirely certain. Hopefully this will be sorted out quickly. Right now I'm upright only by the power of caffeine, and the fact that it hurts like hell to lie down. I did make one sensible attempt to go to an urgent care clinic, but the one that was open was out of network, so I'll call my doctor tomorrow. I did not go to work today.

I am very lucky, not only to not be hurt and to have not injured anyone else, but to have had people to call, people asking if I was okay, and people to email at 4:30 in the morning from the back of a police car.

I didn't meme yesterday, as I ended up having no time between cleaning and getting ready for the show. So here we are.

Via curgoth: Just had an idea for a content generator to fill the voids of livejournal; Music in Time. Take a period of time (say, the 90s) and *either* post some of the music that was your favourite during that time OR music you like now that was released during that time.

curgoth gave me the late 90s as a time period, which is a fun one. I graduated from high school in 1996. Until then, my musical tastes were mostly formed by either what my friends listened to or what I watched on MTV/VH1 and heard on the radio. So it was a lot of pop and R&B in grade school, and grunge and metal in high school. Movies provided little windows into what would later become my music--TKK in The Crow, "Face to Face" in Batman Returns--but there were no other goths in my high school, and all I knew about the word came from reading PZB & co.

In 96/97 I started college (I was 17). I joined a VLARP group. I started wearing a lot of crushed velvet. I spent a Christmas holiday working at a CD shop. I learned a deeper appreciation of the Cure from a boyfriend, and went to a Marilyn Manson concert with some of my CD shop coworkers. I stopped listening to the radio, and even if I'd had cable, it's not as if MTV played much music at that point. The late 90s are where my knowledge of pop music drop off sharply.

In the summer of 1997 I was finally old enough to go clubbing*, and so began my long tenure at the Church. A few of the songs I would spend the rest of the decade dancing to include:















And of course, a song that lived up to its name in short order:




* I had tried before that, but the college ID trick that let me buy cigarettes did not work on club bouncers.

Despite having slacked off on weightlifting for the past two weeks, I don't seem to have lost too much muscle. Tonight I sent a 5.10 that eluded me last week, and much it involved hauling myself up on crimpers. I was pretty surprised to have done so well.* This is the second 5.10 I've sent in recent history, which is a good sign. I also did more pushups during Powerhouse last week than I may ever have done before.

And despite a lot of holiday sloth, I went dancing twice this weekend. Ego Likeness played on Friday, which was a great delight. They played "Aviary" (aka Phaedra's song from Bone Palace), which made me very happy. Last night was a Peter Murphy tribute at a venue I'd never been to before, which was a pleasant diversion. As a Peter Murphy tribute, the set was pretty lackluster, but I still danced plenty. In doing so, I discovered what may be an unexpected side effect of recent weight loss: high heels have become more comfortable. They're still not pleasant, but I danced or stood for nearly four hours without misery or blisters. Or even fishnet chafing. Either thirty pounds makes quite a difference on one's feet, or I've leveled up in femme.

Now I just have to maintain my muscle gain till after Run For Your Lives, when I can start weight training again. And maintain my improved running stamina.

* I dogged the rope like woah, though, so take that with a little salt.

So, a) over the past month I've become completely smitten with Avatar: The Last Airbender*, and b) I turned over the TV to the childer tonight with two-thirds of the series finale left to watch. This virtue pains me, and makes it hard to concentrate on the chapter I'm rewriting. I keep getting distracted by googling pictures of June and Mai. Not June/Mai yet, but this virtue can't last forever.

Think I could Kickstarter enough money to hire the animation team to make an adaptation of The Bone Palace? If not, I'll be reduced to begging for fanart of Mai, June, and Isyllt kicking ass in barfights and drinking tea**.



* It may come as no surprise that Uncle Iroh is my one true love. And yeah, I totally cried at the Mako tribute episode.

** THAT IS A HINT, people.

A special two-for-one meme day!

I write to music, and all my projects grow soundtracks. Usually songs get picked by theme, or imagery, or because they remind me of characters, or out of some vague sense of this feels like a song for X. Sometimes I pick up bits of plot from the songs. Since my normal habit is to put a project's playlist on repeat while I'm working, the longer it is the better.

Today I worked on Dreams, when I wasn't taking St. Gretchen to the vet or waiting for the AC repair people. (Only the climax and denouement left to revise! Two more chapters!) So here is its soundtrack, all five and a half hours of it.

( Read more... )

And if you read all that, you can probably guess what the book is about.

Because a) I've been writing this book for nine years and b) picking music is easier for contemporary characters, I also have (shorter) playlists for the three main characters. Although after nine years and updating the chronology a bit, what was once the music of their adolescence has become the music of their childhood, or before.

That's right, people. There are now teenagers in this world to whom Marilyn Manson is their parents' music. I will be in the corner keening and rocking.

March 1 - 7

March 1 - I have completely forgotten what I did last Thursday. Either I did something, or it was a rest day.
March 2 - Yard work, 2 hours.
March 3 - Day job, 5 hours.
March 4 - Day job, 7 hours.
March 5 - Day job, 5 hours; bouldering; core class, 1 hour.
March 6 - House cleaning, ~ 1 hour.
March 7 - Day job, 5 hours; top-roping; yoga, 1 hour; dancing, ~3 hours. State of the badass art.

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Every time I see the video for "Lucretia, My Reflection" I think of a line from Traveling With The Dead: ...Because it was white, a color no sane woman, dead or Undead, would wear on a train. This makes me want to work on my Spies With Fabulous Hats book so very badly.

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Day 15 of no sugar. These molasses muffins are my salvation.

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I am typing this boring post on Jadis! The blue fire worked! We upgraded my OS and she came back to life. We're guessing maybe a file had been corrupted that was replaced in the upgrade. I hope that is in fact the case, because my Apple Care expires next month, and I don't really want to spend a huge chunk of my publication check for Kingdoms on a new computer.

Steven and I spent last night in San Antonio with friends, cocktails, Rock Band, and $100 a pound ham*. A pleasant evening all around. Today there will be housecleaning and maybe a little writing--rolling out of bed at noon-thirty tends to put a dent in my productivity.

One thing that made me happy in 2011 was finding new music. New-to-me mostly, but some newer bands. This helps slow my progression into a cane-shaking, trouser-rolling eldergoth who bitches about "that noise those kids listen to." Some of this music even gets mainstream radio play.









I already knew about Ego Likeness and Android Lust, but I finally got whole albums last year. And, thanks to Elysium and their new dance floor video screens, I discovered Aesthetic Perfection. I wish the adorable tooth fairy song had a video.



(I highly approve of videos in clubs, and not just because Daniel Graves is pretty. But that helps.)

* It was good ham, but not the life-changing even I would expect for a hundred bucks a pound.

Yesterday was nearly a disaster. I was working on costume stuff from the moment I enpanted to the time we left the house, and through a series of design failures and last minute fixes, we left very late. We didn't get into the car until the time we were supposed to be at the staging ground for the parade, and there was no way we'd make it there before launch time, let alone find parking. My wings were underfeathered, I forgot my tail, and I didn't have time to put in my contacts before we left the house. I was in a truly vile mood at this time.

We decided to park in our usual downtown spot, which happens to be at the end of the parade route. My plan was to walk the route backwards and hook up with the parade midway, trying to salvage something. Luckily, I managed to get my contacts in when we parked, so my plan to see the parade came to fruition.*

We walked down 6th Street and over to the river. At this point I began to wonder where the parade was. It was half an hour after launch time, and the route isn't that long. And you can't exactly miss a drumline, a brass band, and a large spider-eyed elephant puppet. We passed another couple of people also wondering where the parade was. Then we heard drums across the water. Eventually we walked all the way to the staging ground, and lo and behold--the whole thing was running late. I felt a lot better at this point.

So I got to march in the whole parade and got double the exercise. My wings were nowhere as cool as they should have been--less a griffin** and more a molting metallic chicken--but they were still shiny. (And I managed to dance in them.) I have to try this costume again another year, because I have a lot of leftover feathers and copper, and I still want to be an actual griffin, dammit.

Some grainy iPhone pics.

* I got contacts for the first time ever last week. They're the size of hubcaps and getting them in and out is an ordeal far too reminiscent of Un Chien Andalou. But I have peripheral vision with them, and that is pretty damn amazing.

** If a griffin wears leggings*** from Old Navy, does that make them a hipstergriff?

*** The true Halloween miracle was that I looked okay in the leggings. Climbing: it works.

Please enjoy Steve Naghavi's cheekbones.

I failed at seeing Deathly Hallows, but I celebrated Black Friday by buying new gothware and concert tickets. I was going to come home and write, but...

Blood Maidens came in the mail today.

It sat in the mailbox long enough that it's currently sucking the warmth out of me, which is appropriate. I'm almost scared to open it. I've been waiting for this book for nearly fourteen years. Traveling With The Dead is my favorite book ever.

I don't think I'll be getting much else done tonight.