Nobody Knows Anything

I’m definitely not the most crazed Battlestar Galactica fan out there. No no. So far whoever made this site gets those honors. (Via the Battlestar Blog.)

Last night I did have a fairly scary dream involving Cylons (the toaster kind) though.

I had oral surgery this morning: a graft taken from the roof of my mouth and sewn onto my gum line. It was less fun than it sounds, although I did get a prescription for Vicodin out of it. (What can I say? I hear about the cool Hollywood drugs and want to try them, at least when it’s medically necessary.)

Between not wanting to touch my palate with my tongue, and not moving my left cheek (to avoid moving the sutures), I can barely move my mouth. I sound like Lili von Shtupp, from Blazing Saddles. Needless to say, my kids are paying me no mind, except to say, “Mom, why do you sound so funny?”

When fads collide: Snakes on a Sudoku (by the authors of the Sudoku Code).

(Via Defamer.)

I didn’t exercise for a week and a half because first the kids were sick, then I was sick, and then I had to recover from being sick. I felt weak, I slept a lot, I had zero interest in food. I didn’t even make coffee for days.

Then last Thursday Rob, Nina, and I got together at 6:30am for a 3 mile run. Nina hadn’t exercised much in the past month, because she had a court case for three weeks, followed by an upper body infection. Three miles: easy as pie.

Or not.

It was much harder than I expected. Trying to exercise after a layoff always feels like I’ve never exercised before. And I’ve started feeling tired in the afternoons again — maybe exercise really does give you more energy. Moving my body beyond walking to the car and back felt good, though, really good. And this morning, when the alarm went off to get me out of my morning doze, I popped out of bed and thought, Whoo hoo! I’m going running!

Today we decided to go nuts and do 5 miles. Before the layoff, 6 miles would be our “short” run. But right now 5 miles feels like quite the hike. Rob had us run a few speed intervals in the middle, going at a slightly faster pace than normal for 2 or 3 minutes. We took a short break at the 2.5 mile turnaround, then headed back.

We did 5 miles in 49 minutes, which is actually fabulous news: despite the layoff, we really are getting faster. A 10 minute mile is quite an improvement. When we started running as a group, we were doing something like 13 minute miles (or…possibly…14 minute miles). Rob, since he’s lost so much weight, can go a lot faster, but he’d rather have people to run with, and he gets a fairly good workout with us. Nina, when she’s stronger, can probably do somewhat faster. I am the slowpoke, but I’m working on it.

I just wish it didn’t feel so much like I’m starting over. Rob assures me that it will all come back fast enough (pun intended, because, after all, he’s Rob).

I don’t often have a visceral reaction to a movie. Usually I laugh, I’m bored, I’m intrigued. It’s not often, however, that I feel the need to flee a theater because of what’s on the screen. Darin grabbed my hand and whispered, “It’ll be okay, really.”

Tsotsi was a difficult movie for me to take, because a lot of the movie is about a baby in danger. I’m going to go ahead and spoil something for anyone who might go see this movie and might have the same reaction I did:

The baby turns out okay.

Tsotsi is a South African movie about the titular character, a baby-faced criminal who doesn’t even have a real name (”Tsotsi” means “Thug”). He and his band of cronies go out and night and do crimes in the glittering modern city of Johannesburg, with Tsotsi picking their victims, and then they escape to the run-down ghetto of the township on the outskirts of town, where everyone lives in concrete buildings topped with tin roofs. One night his compatriot Butcher kills their victim, primarily for the fun of it, and in the ensuing blame game Tsotsi beats up another member of their gang, Teacher Boy. Upset about what he’s done, Tsotsi runs out into the night, across the field, ending up at a posh upscale community. A woman in a BMW gets out of her car to fiddle with the automatic gate opener and Tsotsi jumps into her car. When she yells at him to stop, he shoots her, then drives off.

Only when he’s miles away does he discover that there’s an infant in the back seat.

What happens as a result — to Tsotsi, to the infant, to the woman he’s shot, to her husband, to his friends — is not “big” in the way it would be in a Hollywood movie. Tsotsi does not automatically morph into a nice guy — he has no idea how to be a nice guy. He doesn’t even automatically become a good caregiver, having had no care himself, raising himself from an early age. But things do change for him: his perceptions of himself, of other people, his relationships to his friends.

One of the most interesting things about Tsotsi is how there are so many factors in the story that are simply there: never called out, never given as excuses. Several times during the story we see giant billboards (they must be all over Johannesburg) alerting people to the dangers of HIV/AIDS. The destruction AIDS has wreaked on South Africa looms over both Tsotsi personally and larger segments of the society — the scene at the children’s camp is devastating. The divide between the poverty of Tsotsi’s township and the upscale elegance of the people he robs is gigantic — they might as well be on different planets. The BMW Tsotsi abandons is stripped bare by the time the cops find it. The only hope Tsotsi finds is this little baby. What it gives him the hope to do is strange.

Darin really liked this movie. I had a much more difficult time watching it. It’s definitely a welcome change from standard Hollywood fare, though — so many times we’ve walked out of movies and within seconds we can barely remember a damn thing about it (one reason I didn’t write up anything about The Matador, amongst other movies that I’ve completely forgotten). I can see why Tsotsi won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film — it’s not an easy story, by any means. But if you’re looking for something a little stronger and more resonant, this is probably a good choice.

I learned something new this week: when you’re violently ill for 24 hours, it’s not a “24 hour thing,” it’s the “stomach flu.” I haven’t gotten the flu very often, okay?

Anyhow. Whatever this thing was, it has completely kicked my ass for the past week. I’ve been lethargic and my stomach has felt queasy for days. I’ve been home a lot.

During this week, I’ve discovered that one way I like to pass the time is by baking. In fact, several times I was itching to get started baking something and felt stymied that I had to do something like, I don’t know, laundry. Or napping.

On Friday I made the Cook’s Illustrated recipe for shortbread. I burned the first batch. So I dumped the entire thing and got to making a second batch. Not that I particularly felt like eating any, and Darin certainly wasn’t in the mood for a cookie. (I’m a little disappointed, because while the CI recipe is good, it’s still not the kind of shortbread I want to make, which is the kind I get at a local coffee house: softish, flaky, very buttery. Maybe I can’t make it at home, but I keep trying.)

I picked up Chocolatier magazine (personally entranced by the “perfect chocolate chip cookie” recipe, just as Ivonne at Paper Palate was, but the deciding factor was the Chocolate Cherry Bread recipe, which I want to make for Darin) and 125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson. Yes, I’m currently into the whole cupcake craze.

I made the honeycomb recipe from Chocolatier, mainly because I had some honey on hand and because I love Violet Crumbles so much. It was fun to make — the part where the sugar-honey goo bubbles up with the baking soda is cool — but the end result screamed, “Extreme dental work will be required if you eat more than one crumb of this!” So I tossed it.

Yesterday, however, was the sine qua non of baking mania: I made a loaf of sandwich bread, I made biscuits for dinner (the best I’ve ever made! and the kids didn’t eat them! what’s up with that?), I made banana chocolate chip cake after dinner.

While I am enjoying some of the fruits of my labors (I am as fond of banana chocolate chip cake as the next person (the next person who likes banana chocolate chip cake, that is)), I’m not especially crazed to eat these things I’m making. I’m just finding that baking is very relaxing for me. The idea of mixing a whole bunch of stuff together and having a new food at the end is just deeply appealing. And very odd. Would never have thought it was possible, but there it is.

If When we remodel the kitchen, I am so asking for a baking area.

Gotta admit, as a dyed-in-the-wool Irishman, I don’t get the whole St. Patrick’s Day thing.

I didn’t even hear about the pinch-if-not-wearing-green thing until I was in high school. I stared at the girl who pinched me and said, “What?” When she explained, I said, “I’m Irish the other 364 days too. I don’t have to wear green.” I’ve stocked up on my corned beef and potatoes and shepherd’s pie rations for the rest of my life. I don’t need to prove to anyone I’m Irish.

As I drove around today — yes! I can operate heavy machinery again! — I saw lots of people wearing something green. One street was blocked off so that the Irish pub could put on a big shindig. I don’t get it. Why are Americans so into this holiday? Is it just an excuse to drink?

I know I was sick while I was pregnant with Simon, throwing up nearly every day for those 38 weeks. Like, almost immediately I was sick when pregnant. I took a class with Michele when I was 2 or 3 weeks along and I was already drinking fizzy water and eating crackers. But I don’t think I’ve been sick since. There’s something about having kids: you’re not allowed to be sick.

Until today.

Sophia got sick first this week. Early Tuesday morning. Her room got so messed up she had to move to the guest room, Simon came to bed with me, and Darin started working at 4:30am because he couldn’t get back to sleep. I stayed home with her all day. She ate crackers and drank water and slept.

Wednesday she stayed home too, but she was much better. She was so much perkier I suggested we go out, to do some errands. She said, “Great! I’ll ride my bike downtown.” Clearly she was feeling much better. She rode and I walked along side.

Then, last night, Simon got sick in bed. Repeatedly. We changed his sheets three times. He finally settled down around 1am.

At 4am, I woke up, realized my stomach felt like hell, and then felt my mouth fill with saliva. And I ran. I did this about five times in the next three hours. Dozing, waking, running. Darin stayed home as long as he could — of course, today would be a day he absolutely couldn’t be here all day. I called the moms of Sophia’s friends to see if anyone could take her for a playdate in the afternoon.

Simon and I dozed in the mid-morning, and when he woke up he was Mr. Energy. No appetite, but running around and asking Daddy to play with him.

“He’s feeling better,” Darin said.

“You think?” I croaked from my bier on the couch.

Darin went to work at 1, and Simon almost immediately said, “I want to nap.” He has never uttered these words before, but far be it from me not to take advantage: up to his room he went and up to my room I went. We both passed out for two hours. I felt better when I woke up, mostly suffering from a raging headache. After that nap, Simon does not appear sick in any way now, except for his lack of an appetite. (Which, for Simon, is…unusual.)

I feel a little better. Haven’t had any high pressure explosions from either pole for a couple of hours. But I’m definitely not going to operate any heavy machinery for a while. The highlight of my day: an hour ago, I ate some Jello (peach flavored), and apparently that will be my caloric intake for Thursday.

Please let this be cleared up by morning.

I’m a little worried, though. After Darin picked up Sophia from her playdate and got home, he immediately sacked out on the couch. He doesn’t feel good. He feels weak and run-down. Which is not good, because on Friday Darin absolutely positively has to be at work all day. Let’s hope he’s not sick. Because I know him: he’ll be at that meeting and then all of them are gonna get sick.

Update: Oh thank goodness, it is just a 24-hour thing (although I’m going to keep Simon home today, because he doesn’t seem fully recovered).

And Darin isn’t sick, which means only one thing: he’s saving until this weekend and he doesn’t have any important meetings. Because he always saves being sick for the weekend or a vacation. I don’t know how he does that.

Update 2: Hee hee hee. Darin’s boss just called to find out if he was coming to the meeting or whether he’d gotten sick. Darin’s boss reads my blog to keep up on what’s happening with Darin. Hee hee.

Darin and I can’t decide: is Simon confused or being very, very funny?

He insists on referring to his forehead as his “three-head.”

Of course, he may simply have noticed it cracks us up each and every time.

A friend of mine recently had a book published and received, in addition to the glowing reviews, a very harsh review. A group of us commiserated and one joked, “We’ll form a strike squad and send harsh responses to anyone who dares criticize our friend!”

My response was: “I know we’re all kidding around, but seriously: NEVER DO THIS.”

Not responding to people who say nasty things is good advice for real life too — leave Ye Olde Jerks alone, don’t descend to their level — but specifically in regards to criticism about books and writing it’s really crucial. Because the authors I know of who’ve responded to critics or harsh reviews really come off as peevish, petty, and self-obsessed.

And now I’m going to share these ridiculous responses with you so that you too can revel in their foolishness.

First up we have Anne Rice’s rant (pop-up window with the complete and unedited rant in it — note to Anne: dudette, carriage returns are your friend!). You have to read the whole thing to realize what a terrible idea responding to criticism was. You’ll probably only be able to read a few sentences of it, because it’s a look inside her psyche, and what you find inside is an arrogant, self-impressed author who slights any and all critics as morons. “You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren’t even reading it…I’m justifiably proud of being read by intellectual giants and waitresses in trailer parks,in fact, I love it, but who in the world are you?” Good move, Anne: the millionaire author talking about waitresses in trailer parks.

Her rather proud boast that she doesn’t use editors for her work — “And no, I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited, and organized and polished myself. I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status.” — speaks volumes about how her books have come to the sad state they’re at. It speaks volumes about this rant.

I can’t be completely objective about Rice’s insane move here, because I took classes from Floyd Salas, who was friends with her and her husband while they were all students at San Francisco State. Floyd knows lots of stuff about Rice and isn’t shy about telling it. And there’s her continual motif in her work of young children willingly and lovingly engaging in sex — once is a plot element; multiple times is a fixation. Or worse.

I gave up reading her when I took The Tale of the Body Thief out of the library and felt I’d paid too much. I handed it to Darin and said, “She took a trip on the QEII and wrote this book as a way of writing the trip off.” I found out later that yes, she had in fact taken a trip on the QEII.

Neil Gaiman said it best of course, in his own blog:

I think that unless a reviewer gets their facts completely wrong, the author should shut up (and even then, the author should probably let it go — although I’m a big fan of a letter that James Branch Cabell wrote to the New York Times pointing out that their review of FIGURES OF EARTH was bollocks). As Kingsley Amis said, a bad review may spoil your breakfast, but you shouldn’t let it spoil your lunch.

I suspect that most authors don’t really want criticism, not even constructive criticism. They want straight-out, unabashed, unashamed, fulsome, informed, naked praise, arriving by the shipload every fifteen minutes or so. Unfortunately an Amazon.com reviews page for one of the author’s books is the wrong place to go looking for this. Probably best just not to look.

Then there’s Laurell K. Hamilton. I’ve never particularly cared for her stuff, but she’s had rabid fans. Her fanbase has split over the last few of her books, which have degenerated into a non-stop sex fest (a poorly edited, poorly spellchecked sex fest at that). As I’ve said to some friends, I am all for plotless porn, but when it’s boring, mechanical plotless porn, I’m annoyed. Evidently the part of her fanbase unhappy with her changing Anita Blake from a Vampire Hunter into a Vampire Humper inspired this response from Laurell.

My favorite line from this is We’d like to see Anita do her job more. (Me, too.) Honey, I don’t care what writers say about “channeling their characters.” The writer is the one in charge. You’re the one who decides what the book is about. If you didn’t want it to be a non-stop banging session, you can change it.

In one paragraph she says her subconscious will always be “contrary” so she’s going to do the exact opposite of what the critiquers want, followed by claiming that, like JK Rowling, she’ll never change a word of her work based on what people want. The disconnect there is hilarious.

Her whining about people talking about her personal life is hilarious too. Not only does she write these incredibly pornographic books, but she gives interviews in which she says stuff like, “I have experienced everything Anita has,” or something like that (which would lead one to the inescapable conclusion that…well…). And on her blog she’s continually mentioning “alone time” with her husband. She should probably stop talking about her sex life if she wants other people to.

She wants to do what she wants, and she wants everyone to love her, and she’s going to lash out at people who don’t love her. Great. Do it at home, babe, because otherwise you’re just a whiny mess.

And lastly Pooks (who’s planning her own response to this) pointed me to this article by Annie Proulx on Brokeback Mountain losing the Oscar for Best Picture to Crash (here’s the popup).

DVD copies of Trash - excuse me - Crash? Very classy, Ms. Proulx. The level of wit I expect from, say, anonymous commenters on Amazon. And then there’s If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices. “See? They loved the movie. So they’re smart.”

There could be lots and lots of reasons why the Academy voters chose Crash over Brokeback Mountain. I don’t know, I didn’t see either one. But calling them (not once, but twice) heffalumps? Ye Gods, woman. You should read David Ehrenstein’s vicious lambasting of this year’s Oscars, and his rant about how Brokeback Mountain is the gay movie for straight people. I’m not always sure what I think of Ehrenstein’s rants, but a heffalump he ain’t.

Then there’s her ire at the Brokeback actors being shut out in favor of actors playing real-life people:

But which takes more skill, acting a person who strolled the boulevard a few decades ago and who left behind tapes, film, photographs, voice recordings and friends with strong memories, or the construction of characters from imagination and a few cold words on the page? I don’t know. The subject never comes up. Cheers to David Strathairn, Joaquin Phoenix and Hoffman, but what about actors who start in the dark?

Seriously, this woman has been in publishing for how long? I’d hate to hear how she’d deal with losing out on an award.

Unfortunately, the only three examples I can think of off the top of my head of authors calling the public idiots for not appreciating their genius are women. Is this somehow a female thing?

The only name calling/feuding/pissing contest I know of involving male authors is one that pits Tom Wolfe against Norman Mailer, John Irving, and John Updike. (Do a Google search on “Tom Wolfe Norman Mailer feud” and see how many mainstream articles there are about these authors going at one another.) And, of course, Gore Vidal and (Insert author here). I don’t know of any male authors who have lashed out at their fans or the public for being stupid. If anyone knows of one, please let me know so I can add it here.