I got sucked into a television program tonight. It was Charlie Rose interviewing Sandra D. O'Conner. But I didn't realize who she was at first. I just flipped over to see who Charlie was interviewing tonight (he's my favorite broadcast journalist, I must say) and it was this nice woman with white hair talking about growing up on a ranch. And the thing that caught my attention about the whole thing, really, was that she looked and spoke and had mannerisms just like my mother.

Now, I don't know if my mother will appreciate the comparison or not. But I definitely saw a resemblance tonight. Sandra looks exactly how my mother will in about twenty years, and she responds to tough questions in the same enigmatic-yet-practical kind of way. My mother, my grandmother and many of my mother's sisters are just like her. I guess growing up on a ranch in the west tends to mold women a certain way.

I don't know a whole lot about Justice Sandra Day O'Conner's politics. I've always sort of rebelled against her. Mostly because I felt like the media was shoving her down my throat most of my life. She didn't need to be hyped. She was a role model. The hype cheapened her. I see that now. (That's why I like Charlie Rose interviews. He can get me to change my mind about a person.)

Once upon a time when I was younger I considered law as a possible career. I didn't particularly want to be a judge, but I did think I'd like to be a Supreme Court Justice. Actually, I've thought that ever since I learned about the Supreme Court in elementary school. Who cares about being president? I want to be writing opinions on important cases and telling the congress where they can shove their stupid laws. And upholding the smart ones, of course.

Anyway, I considered law very carefully as a career choice as it got time to be going to college. I knew it was something I could switch over and do later if I wanted to, but I really wanted to have a goal to aim at. So I thought about it a great deal. I didn't really know any lawyers personally. In the little town I grew up in, there was only one magistrate. He was a nice guy, but distant. Now that I'm all grown up and know a few more lawyers, I think I would have pursued law if I had known them when I was young. I mean, there's no better feeling than needing a lawyer and calling one up (a good one) and knowing they will be absolutely positively entirely on your side. (For a fee, of course)

So why did I decide not to go into law and shoot for the highest court in the land? Well, I loved how lawyers used words as weapons, but I also saw how ruthless some of them could be. And I knew if I went into the training they go through.... well, let's just say I don't need to be any more ruthless than I already am. I considered what law school would do to my personality, and I just didn't like it. It just wouldn't be a good combination with my particular strengths and weaknesses etc.

If I'd gone into law, I probably would have been an absolutely brutal environmental lawyer (that's pro-environment for those of you trying to decide where I'd stand) but I probably would have ended my days in jail, having assaulted and/or killed someone from the opposition.

Sometimes, words just aren't enough.

So I keep myself out of that kind of front-line battle. I still hear cases and write arguments. But I try both sides myself, and the opinion gets written in science fiction form. You might have to dig for it, but it's always in there somewhere.

Welcome to the world, my new niece Mia. Three and a half weeks early, five pounds, fourteen ounces, pink and perfect. My sister says she wasn't feeling well this morning, but didn't think she'd be having a baby today. By about four thirty, she'd decided maybe she was wrong. When she arrived at the hospital, no one thought it was really going to happen today - until they did a few tests and realized there was no stopping this kid. She was being born.

I guess she really wanted a February birthday.

Funny how the petty things in life pile up around us, obscuring the important things until they leap up and grab our attention. There's a new person in the world today. And I think it's a better place for it.

I'm piecing together chapter 10 tonight. It's taking a while because I realized that the only version of chapter 9 that I have is really really old. It needs a lot of work, and the worst part is that it's work I already did once. Here I am doing it again. Or rather, not doing it. Hello writer's block.

Sarah wrote a lovely rant about left turn arrows in her blog. Go read it, if you're interested in why I drive the way I do now. My only response to it is this. If you're sitting in the middle of the intersection and someone (like me) blows through the yellow (because I'm timing the stop lights) -- wait for the red and then go. Really. Even if you're driving a geo, nobody's going to run over you. The people staring at you through the driver's side window will wait.

At least now I know how she's feeling when she's sitting in the passenger's seat and I'm driving around the city making left turns.

Oh, she did leave out how insanely frustrating it is to get caught behind someone trying to make a left turn on a street with no green arrows. There's a section of North Sharidan (wow, is that anywhere near how it's really spelled?) that turns into a parking lot just because someone wants to turn left. If they turn right, they'll run into the lake, so I'm not sure why there are no green arrows along there. There are streets. It's legal to turn left. I bet if a nice policeman stood out there in the parking lot at 5:30 and asked for donations, the drivers would stop pulling their hair out for just a minute to donate a few dimes towards a green arrow light. You'd have enough money after just one rush hour, I'm sure. So really - there are no more excuses.

Books: I'm trying to get through the rewrite of a particularly difficult chapter. A lot happens in it, and it's even important to the story. But it's not exactly... a key turning point.. so I don't want to spend forever making sure you understand all the nuances, because they just won't matter all that much a hundred pages down the road. Their consequences matter, but the events themselves aren't really a big deal.

But I digress. I should go work on the chapter instead of whining about it.

I really have nothing to say today. How weird is that?

I feel like I'm fighting a bug of some kind. Generally just a little ill. Bleagh. Running slow and not thinking any deep thoughts. I'm afraid it does happen. Some days are just not that interesting.

In theory, I need to get up in the morning and go to an 8:30am meeting. We'll see if I make it.

Wait - I do have something to say. The lamp in my living room is inexplicably brighter than it has been in months. I didn't change the lightbulb or anything. It's just sponteniously much brighter. How weird is that?

Books: Short story rewrite done. Yay! Now I have to force a few people to read it and get some feedback. Then I send it out again to see if it will generate another rejection letter. Wee.

So I upgraded to blogger pro. I'll let you know if it's worth the $35/year.

Spent the day reading a book called The Screenwriter's Survival Guide: Or, Guerrilla Meeting Tactics and Other Acts of War. I should have spent the day doing life maintenance like grocery shopping and washing socks. But I didn't. Maybe I'll get to it tonight.

Anyway, in spite of the cheesy name, this is actually a fairly good book. I bought it about a year ago and haven't really picked it up because I didn't want to read about how to ambush people with your script. That always seemed so rude... and rather dumb if you wanted to have it taken seriously. Now that I've finished the book, I think someone in the publishing company added the subtitle. Max's advice is actually to never ambush people with your script. It's rude and dumb if you want to have it taken seriously.

The book actually does a pretty good job of illustrating what the (feature, movie) screenwriting life is like. And a good job of talking you out of it. For instance, she does the math breakdown to show that when you see in the trade magazines that someone sold a movie script for $500,000 - what that really means is that the writer got to take home $17,500 after taxes and commissions to the people who helped you get the deal. You might get a little more later, but only much much later. And only if you're lucky. That's usually for about two years of work. How's that for depressing?

Oh - there really are guerilla meeting tactics, but that mostly involves how not to schedule yourself into insanity (aparently you should never plan a meeting in Burbank and the other is in Santa Monica on the same day). Also, what to keep in the car when you're doing meetings - dollar bills, quarters, chapstick, beverage of your choice, aspirin, sunglasses, a change of clothes (especially socks), business cards, two cans of Fix-a-Flat, breath stuff, deodorant, safety pins, maps, masking tape, post-its, pens, toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, lozenges, hairspray, lipstick.

So anyway, I'll stop copying from the book. If that looks interesting, go buy it. Well, I will tell you what she says to do if all the depressing news doesn't turn you away: Write like God.

I read the book to give myself a little more information as I'm pondering career directions. I can't say it's completely talked me out of the screenwriting direction. And I think that may be a sign in itself. I'm not running screaming. But I'm still not really sure where to go.

I do think I need to write some scripts next. Won't that be fun?

Ok, so Sarah's friend Rich who I have never met, is also giving me a hard time about not posting frequently enough. How can you expect me to work with all this pressure? He's a writer of some kind too, I think, but last I checked, I still have more rejection letters than him. So there.

By the way, my little sister looks just like the female half of the Canadian figure skaters who got a gold medal today. My brother-in-law pointed it out to me. It's true. Especially when she smiles.

So I'm in love with a book. (Hey, it happens.) It's called Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud. I hear he's written a new book, too. I'm going to be buying both very very soon. Uh, yeah, I'm just borrowing the copy I'm in love with at the moment. I promise to give it back undamaged.

It has me really wanting to learn how to do comics - not just writing them, even the art. That's something I've been intimidated by for a long, long time. Art, that is. I avoided classes on it in high school. Now I'm wondering if it's too late to learn. My recent studies about movies and now comics has me realizing how important the skill of storyboarding really is. Time to break out the pencils and have the courage to create some really lousy drawings.

Ok, I take back everything I said about figure skating yesterday. I watched the mens' free skate tonight. Wow. It was a little weird to see all these guys retiring. I've watched them for years. Of course, the weirdest part is that they did, indeed, look old and stiff compared to those who came after. Especially -- oh my gosh, Timothy Geobel! (I'm not sure I spelled his name right) he's this kid who can do quads like they're nothing. All the other guys worked really hard for their quads and this kid just kept throwing them out like they were nothing.

The commentary was good, too. Not too much. Not too little. It's such a delicate balance, and this Olympics has been way off sometimes. I mean, Bob Costas is just terrible. I wince every time I hear him talk. I couldn't stand to watch the opening ceremonies all the way through because there was so much inane chatter, especially the parts that came from him.

And the snowboarding commentary was hillarious. Must have been hard to find people who knew what they were talking about. The guys they had used so much slang I needed a translater. I wonder if the Canadian commentators were any better.

Day job: Someone offered me a different job today. I gave them a counter-proposal, of course. I'm really not feeling well enough to make any big decisions like this. We'll see how it plays out though. Getting more information.

Books: Well, I've got three new possible beginnings. I'm trying to decide if I should let Sarah read it with a new beginning or with the old one. I think just getting another set of eyes on it would be good.

Right, I got this link from Sarah's blog, which is kind of cheating, but I laughed till I cried, so I have to share. I haven't done that in about two years. This is the link - all about a cat's bad breath. There are many clues in there to why I have decided not to keep cats as pets in my house.

But anyway, I'm watching the Olympics. At lunch with coworkers the other day, we were talking about which events we like to watch the most. The usual events were mentioned - the figure skating, the snowboarding, the downhill skiing. I had to mention the speed skating. Everyone thought I was a little weird. But tonight I saw a perfect example of why it's so fun to watch. They were all skating in a pack, as the final laps were coming up you started to get a sense of just how fast these ladies were really moving as they tipped nearly horizontal going around the turns. And then one of the skaters went down. When people drop in speed skating, they don't just sit down on the ice and look sad, like in figure skating. They spit out of the middle of the pack and slam into the padded walls of the track. None of the others even blink. They just tighten up the gap and keep going faster until finally they fly over the finish line. Speed skaters are masters of suspense.

Figure skating.... there's a lot of controversy about the judging. I hope they get to the bottom of it all quick. I like to watch the figure skating and ice dancing, but it seems a little weird to combine something so artistic with all these pure sporting events.

Oh, and speaking of art. There've been quite a few live concerts at the Olympics. And I've noticed something. Ever since the world watched U2 actually sing at a performance at the superbowl (as opposed to just lip synching) all these other, lesser, artists have decided they should turn off their sound tracks and take a deep breath now and then. There have been some really lousy performances as a result. Some really great ones, too. For instance, the band "Bare Naked Ladies" were awsome tonight. Whoever it was last night was just terrible. So far, BNL gets the gold medal for singing in the cold. Maybe it's because they're Canadian.

Ok, a little explanation. I've been having a really hard time getting a connection with my new mac. Like one out of every 40 dial attempts would work. That was driving me nuts, so I wasn't having a very good blogging record. I did write a little bit offline to be posted when I was connected again. So here it is, several posts I've saved up from the last few days.

Mon, Feb 11, 10:40 PM

So here's the plan. The plan to pick myself up, dust myself off, and get this story published. I'm going to re-work the beginning to make sure it does a better job of "grabbing" the reader. Then I'll send it off to a different magazine. I am lucky that there are three magazines that publish science fiction short stories. At least there's a market out there for this stuff. I just have to write things so that they want to publish it.

In that vein, here's a list of potential new first lines for my story. Maybe one of them will catch the attention of an editor.

• Henna's ample breasts heaved as she tried to catch her breath.
  
• The spaceship hung in space, silouetted against the stars. Empty space was all around.
  
• The really cool aliens ran faster and faster, trying to chase down the buxom blonde.
  
• Henna adjusted her skin-tight leather jumpsuit and pulled a huge gun from the holster on her thigh.
  
• Time travel's really cool. There's paradoxes and stuff.
  
• Henna had emptied three clips into the bastard, and he still wasn't dead. (hey waitaminute. that one's not bad)
  

---

Sat, Feb 9, 8:41 PM

So I went to see the movie The Count of Monte Cristo it was enjoyable. I was really hoping for a little more swashbuckeling. I'm a total push-over for sword fights. Quarter-staff sparring too. Way, way cool. Pardon me while my mind wanders.

So anyway, there wasn't as much sword fighting in the movie as I'd hoped. Also, the previews showed an awesome move that never really happened in the movie. Well, it did, but it wasn't edited nearly as well as it had been in the trailer. That was disapointing. (It's always a little weird when my new-found knowledge of how film and TV really work intrudes on my enjoyment of the experience. Anyway, back to the movie itself.) It had some really funny lines and situations. I haven't read the book, so I don't know if they came from the novel or the screenplay writer.

At any rate, I identified with the guy running and jumping down the beach, celebrating his freedom from prison after like 13 years.... only to realize that he's not alone on this gorgeous stretch of beach. There's a bunch of people sitting around just watching him. That I can relate to - figuratively at least.

---

Fri, Feb 8, 11:00 PM

Ah, rejection letters. The things that keep writers in booze.

Yeah, that's the secret. That's why writers have such a reputation for being drunks. Rejection letters suck. Especially the form-letter kind. Which, of course, is the usual method.

No, mynovel didn't get rejected. And no, I haven't taken up drink (though, as I said at work today, I understand the sentiment).

My short story was rejected by a magazine. The form letter gives several reasons why it might not have been accepted for publication:

A) It's been done. The idea just isn't original.
B) It's not professional. Learn how to spell, fan-boy.
C) It was boring. Just didn't impress us more than the other 800 submissions this month.

I was talking with Sarah the other day and we were agreeing. Writing is like an addiction. Rejection letters are like a bad trip.

And no, I haven't taken up drugs either. It's a metaphor, ok? I mean, look at me. They say my writing sucks, and what do I do? I go write about it. The sign of a sick mind, I tell you.

So I followed this link from Sarah's blog to find out Which Greek Goddess I am most like. Apparently there was a three-way tie between Artemis, Athena and Hestia. I think that qualifies as just not being like any particular greek Goddess.

Sarah's giving me a hard time about not posting frequently enough. So tonight you get a truly thrilling post.

So it's superbowl sunday. My brothers have always looked forward to it like girls look forward to the prom. I get the impression this is pretty common among boys.

One of the boys at church tried to make conversation with me (poor boy) and the following interchange ensued.

boy: So, who are you rooting for in the Super Bowl?
me: Uh..... the underdogs
boy: (calling my bluff) And who would that be?
me: Uh.... the rams?
boy: (laughing) I don't think so.
me: Ok, then the other guys.
boy: (laughing) And the name of that team would be what?
me: Um.... the Patriots?
boy: And where would they be from?
me: New England? (good thing he didn't ask me that one about the rams)
boy: (laughing) Yeah. I guess you didn't check the odds in Vegas before you came to church today?
me: Right, my bookie doesn't work on Sunday.

So now I'm sitting here watching the superbowl and thinking maybe I really should have bet on this game. The thing is - I just always root for the underdogs. That way I don't have to keep track or follow a particular team.